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From: Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E]
Date: Tue, Mar 08 2016 12:10PM
Subject: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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What if the speaker makes a grammatical error? Should we caption based on the speaker or based on incorrect grammar?
When captioning for a speaker who's not a native speaker of the language, do you correct the English or leave the English as 'second language', which may not be grammatically-correct but is understandable and maybe even conveys a sense of the speaker's culture through accent and predicable second-language errors? Should the captions be verbatim UNLESS there are grammar errors and so correct them or do you leave the errors there (and do you add anything parenthetically?)?
Under Section 508/WCAG 2.0, and simply for good accessibility (which equivalent and meaningful facilitation recognize includes context and culture) and when we strive for verbatim, should we strive for accuracy without speech noise (uh, um, ya know, etc.)? (that last sentence isn't has fluent as I wanted but I think my point or question is clear :)) Should we edit for incorrect or bad English (or whatever the language of the multimedia) is or leave it as is?
Would love to hear pros and cons on this topic!

Gary M. Morin, Program Analyst
NIH Office of the Chief Information Officer

6555 Rock Spring Drive, Suite 300, Room 3NE-28
Bethesda, MD. 20817, Mail Stop: 4801

(301) 402-3924 Voice, (301) 451-9326 TTY/NTS
(240) 200 5030 Videophone; (301) 402-4464 Fax

NIH Section 508: http://508.nih.gov, NIH Section 508 Coordinators list: https://ocio.nih.gov/ITGovPolicy/NIH508/Pages/Section508Coordinators.aspx

NIH Section 508 Team: mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ?subject=Section 508 Help or, for Section 508 Guidance, http://www.hhs.gov/web/508/index.html

Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.

WHAT IF THE FIRST QUESTION WE ASKED WAS, "WHAT IS SO UNIQUE ABOUT THIS SITUATION THAT IT JUSTIFIES EXCLUSION? INSTEAD OF, "HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO MAKE IT ACCESSIBLE?

From: L Snider
Date: Tue, Mar 08 2016 6:28PM
Subject: Re: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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Hi Gary,

Great questions!

There are many ways to do transcriptions and captioning. Some people will
use things like (sic) to indicate something that wasn't correct, others
will just leave it in, and still others will correct but put in brackets to
show they have made changes.

For me, working with oral histories, I keep everything in as is...even the
ums and ahs. Even then some transcribers will take those out to make a
smoother text transcript-but then the captioning doesn't match the
video/audio..so that is why I keep everything as is, as much as I can.
However, many interviewees are not thrilled when they see the ums and ahs
in the text transcript/captions (funny how the video/audio doesn't bother
people as much as seeing this in writing), or their particular go to words,
so I have seen things happen both ways.

In my view, and this is just my personal opinion, we should keep to what is
in the video/audio-as then everyone gets the same experience-good, bad or
ugly!

Cheers

Lisa

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 1:10 PM, Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E] <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> What if the speaker makes a grammatical error? Should we caption based on
> the speaker or based on incorrect grammar?
> When captioning for a speaker who's not a native speaker of the language,
> do you correct the English or leave the English as 'second language', which
> may not be grammatically-correct but is understandable and maybe even
> conveys a sense of the speaker's culture through accent and predicable
> second-language errors? Should the captions be verbatim UNLESS there are
> grammar errors and so correct them or do you leave the errors there (and do
> you add anything parenthetically?)?
> Under Section 508/WCAG 2.0, and simply for good accessibility (which
> equivalent and meaningful facilitation recognize includes context and
> culture) and when we strive for verbatim, should we strive for accuracy
> without speech noise (uh, um, ya know, etc.)? (that last sentence isn't has
> fluent as I wanted but I think my point or question is clear :)) Should we
> edit for incorrect or bad English (or whatever the language of the
> multimedia) is or leave it as is?
> Would love to hear pros and cons on this topic!
>
> Gary M. Morin, Program Analyst
> NIH Office of the Chief Information Officer
>
> 6555 Rock Spring Drive, Suite 300, Room 3NE-28
> Bethesda, MD. 20817, Mail Stop: 4801
>
> (301) 402-3924 Voice, (301) 451-9326 TTY/NTS
> (240) 200 5030 Videophone; (301) 402-4464 Fax
>
> NIH Section 508: http://508.nih.gov, NIH Section 508 Coordinators list:
> https://ocio.nih.gov/ITGovPolicy/NIH508/Pages/Section508Coordinators.aspx
>
> NIH Section 508 Team: mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ?subject=Section
> 508 Help or, for Section 508 Guidance,
> http://www.hhs.gov/web/508/index.html
>
> Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really
> need to.
>
> WHAT IF THE FIRST QUESTION WE ASKED WAS, "WHAT IS SO UNIQUE ABOUT THIS
> SITUATION THAT IT JUSTIFIES EXCLUSION? INSTEAD OF, "HOW MUCH DOES IT COST
> TO MAKE IT ACCESSIBLE?
>
>
>
>

From: _mallory
Date: Wed, Mar 09 2016 3:54AM
Subject: Re: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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On Tue, Mar 08, 2016 at 07:10:44PM +0000, Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E] wrote:
> Under Section 508/WCAG 2.0, and simply for good accessibility (which equivalent and meaningful facilitation recognize includes context and culture) and when we strive for verbatim, should we strive for accuracy without speech noise (uh, um, ya know, etc.)? (that last sentence isn't has fluent as I wanted but I think my point or question is clear :)) Should we edit for incorrect or bad English (or whatever the language of the multimedia) is or leave it as is?

When I watch captioned videos, which are usually instructional
videos, the ums and ahs are removed, which is good. Gives me
less to read while keeping up with the speaker's point.

Watching a DVD series, they're usually left in and there it seems
fine. Sometimes when these are translated, the ums and ahs are
also kept in.

_mallory

From: Guy Hickling
Date: Wed, Mar 09 2016 1:09PM
Subject: Re: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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My thinking on the matter of umms and errs in video recordings is that
this is an analogous situation to putting alt text on images for the
benefit of blind people. The WCAG distinguishes between images giving
useful infformation and images purely for decorative purposes, and
says not to add alt text to the latter. The reason is because blind
users don't want to hear all that unnecessary stuff about lines and
shapes that don't provide any useful information.

So I believe umms and errs should be treated in the same way, and not
be repeated in the captions. They certainly annoy me when I am
watching captions (as I often do when there is a lot of noise from the
family in the background when I'm watching TV.)

Or, to put it another way, I think deaf people have enough difficulty
watching videos (trying to keep up with the captions at the same time
as trying to watch the action on screen is much more difficult than
for us hearing people) that we should take out the umms and errs just
to make things easier for them!

Perhaps, also, another way of looking at it is that if hearing people
are watching a poor speaker in a video, our attention is half on what
we are seeing, which takes our mind off the unpleasent umms and errs.
But the deaf person has to concentrate much more on the captions, so
is likely to be more annoyed by umms. But as to the original question,
about whether to correct incorrect grammar, I am less certain about
what to do for that so I'll continue to watch this thread with
interest!

Regards,
Guy Hickling

From: L Snider
Date: Wed, Mar 09 2016 1:38PM
Subject: Re: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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I have enjoyed reading all the emails on this one, thanks everyone!

I agree that ums and ahs can be distracting for everyone-no doubt at all.
However, for me I want to give the same experience to everyone-so I guess
everyone has to suffer with weird throat things, ums and ahs!

Seriously though, when I do captions and text transcriptions, for me (and
again this is my view only) I want a person who is blind to have the same
experience as a person who is deaf, etc. This is why I try to make the
experience similar for everyone by keeping those in the transcriptions and
captioning. Again, not everyone does and that is cool. For me, having
captions is an important thing, so even without the weird throat sounds or
phrasing, everyone wins because at least we have captioning.

Cheers

Lisa

On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 2:09 PM, Guy Hickling < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> My thinking on the matter of umms and errs in video recordings is that
> this is an analogous situation to putting alt text on images for the
> benefit of blind people. The WCAG distinguishes between images giving
> useful infformation and images purely for decorative purposes, and
> says not to add alt text to the latter. The reason is because blind
> users don't want to hear all that unnecessary stuff about lines and
> shapes that don't provide any useful information.
>
> So I believe umms and errs should be treated in the same way, and not
> be repeated in the captions. They certainly annoy me when I am
> watching captions (as I often do when there is a lot of noise from the
> family in the background when I'm watching TV.)
>
> Or, to put it another way, I think deaf people have enough difficulty
> watching videos (trying to keep up with the captions at the same time
> as trying to watch the action on screen is much more difficult than
> for us hearing people) that we should take out the umms and errs just
> to make things easier for them!
>
> Perhaps, also, another way of looking at it is that if hearing people
> are watching a poor speaker in a video, our attention is half on what
> we are seeing, which takes our mind off the unpleasent umms and errs.
> But the deaf person has to concentrate much more on the captions, so
> is likely to be more annoyed by umms. But as to the original question,
> about whether to correct incorrect grammar, I am less certain about
> what to do for that so I'll continue to watch this thread with
> interest!
>
> Regards,
> Guy Hickling
> > > > >

From: Joy Relton
Date: Wed, Mar 09 2016 1:48PM
Subject: Re: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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Hi Guy,

This is an interesting question. On the one hand, it is distracting to have the bad grammar. On the other, editing it out may change the tone of the event/discussion and give an impression that would not otherwise have been given. It's a fine line. The measure, I think, is imparting the information, not deciding what's harder or easier to understand. All has to be done with the utmost care to ensure that the "important information" is provided. I.e. "an old faded brick house stands on a street with tall old trees which are not well trimmed and unmown yards" is important in a description of a neighborhood in a movie, but not necessarily in a conference discussing the proceedings which occurred inside that house. My concern and caution, is that the measure isn't what will be easier for the recipient of the information, but what will import the most pertinent information. To me, bad grammar and stumbling over words is an indication of either a lack of education, or a lack of care and attention to one's speech. Both can speak volumes about a person in the right setting.


JMO .

From: David Sloan
Date: Wed, Mar 09 2016 1:53PM
Subject: Re: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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Hi all

It's helpful to look at what the BBC has to say on this, as one of the most significant providers of captioned media in the world, and as an organisation with a legal responsibility to deliver accessible broadcast materials.

They provide a detailed and useful document providing editorial guidelines on captioning, in this PDF document (published 2009):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/futuremedia/accessibility/subtitling_guides/online_sub_editorial_guidelines_vs1_1.pdf

It provides guidance on what to do in the case of hesitation and interruption (on p25), which starts with the following advice:

"1. If a speaker hesitates, do not edit out the"ums" and "ers" if they are important for characterisation or plot. However, if the hesitation is merely incidental and the "ums" actually slow up the reading process, then edit them out. (This is most likely to be the case in factual content, and too many "ums" can make the speaker appear ridiculous.)"

In the same section, there's lots of helpful additional context-specific advice on different scenarios relating to hesitation and interruption, and many other common scenarios.

Dave

David Sloan

UX Research Lead
The Paciello Group
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From: Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC)
Date: Thu, Mar 10 2016 8:10AM
Subject: Re: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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The BBC guidelines for subtitles, not captions. Subtitles provide a translation of the audio from one spoken language to another written language. The purpose of subtitles is to provide access to the video for people who do not speak the language that is spoken in the video.

Captions provide a written, synchronized presentation of what is being said as well as descriptions of audio that is important for understanding the presentation. This is presented in the same language as the video. The purpose of captions is to provide access to the video for people who cannot hear the audio track of video.

The original question posted in this thread was about whether or not grammatical errors should be corrected in the captions. I would say that in most cases this would not provide equivalent access for people who cannot hear the video.

For example, if I were to say "I ain't got no money" and the caption read "I don't have any money" this does not accurately represent what I actually said. Also for deaf or hard of hearing people who sight read, what I appear to say and what the captions say is definitely different.

The actual words that people use are an important part of understanding what is being said. Mood, formality, culture are often at least partially demonstrated through the language that the speaker chooses to use. Thus correcting grammar and syntax removes an important part of the information that is being presented.

As for removing ah's and um's that would probably make the captions easier to read and understand.

Mike Moore
Accessibility Coordinator
Texas Health and Human Services Commission
Civil Rights Office
(512) 438-3431 (Office)

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Thu, Mar 10 2016 8:15AM
Subject: Re: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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> The BBC guidelines for subtitles, not captions.

Michael, from what I understand in Europe captions used by people who are Deaf or hard of hearing are commonly referred to as subtitles. Thus, BBC documents on this subject should generally be relevant.

Jonathan

From: Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC)
Date: Thu, Mar 10 2016 8:24AM
Subject: Re: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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WGBH offers this short guide for captions that does not blend translated material with material which matches the language of the video. http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/pages/mag/services/captioning/faq/sugg-styles-conv-faq.html

The section on editing covers what has been discussed in this thread.

Mike Moore
Accessibility Coordinator
Texas Health and Human Services Commission
Civil Rights Office
(512) 438-3431 (Office)

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Thu, Mar 10 2016 8:27AM
Subject: Re: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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FWIW A 2016 version of the BBC Subtitle Guidelines can be found at the link below.

http://bbc.github.io/subtitle-guidelines/

Jonathan

From: David Sloan
Date: Thu, Mar 10 2016 8:52AM
Subject: Re: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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Jonathan's correct. The difference in terminology use here is unfortunate, but the BBC document is definitely relevant to a discussion on captioning best practice, even though it refers to "subtitles".

Thanks also, Jonathan, for linking to the updated version of the BBC guidance!

Dave

> On 10 Mar 2016, at 15:27, Jonathan Avila < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> FWIW A 2016 version of the BBC Subtitle Guidelines can be found at the link below.
>
> http://bbc.github.io/subtitle-guidelines/
>
> Jonathan
>
>

From: Alastair Campbell
Date: Thu, Mar 10 2016 10:31AM
Subject: Re: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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The BBC guidelines are definitely relevant, I'm always reminded of Joe
Clark's remarks for this:
http://joeclark.org/access/resources/understanding.html#british

We (British) got rather mixed up with the terminology, and call everything
'subtitles'. I'm a sporadic user at the moment due to noisy babies, and
with the BBC/Netflix/Amazon streaming services it's rare for me to find
video lacking subtitles, and they include sound effects and the other
aspects you'd consider captions. Of course I could be missing large swathes
of un-captioned video (e.g. live), I'm not claiming more than my anecdotal
observation.

The only thing I've noticed is for films which are dubbed, and the English
dubbing and English captions don't always match, which is rather confusing!

-Alastair

From: Aaron Cannon
Date: Thu, Mar 10 2016 11:12AM
Subject: Re: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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A linguist might argue that "ain't got no" is perfectly good usage for
particular groups of speakers, so would not qualify as bad grammar.
However, if I were giving a speech, and said "Most of them haves been
discontinued," I would expect that a captioner would correct "haves"
to "have", because, based on the rest of my speech, it's an obvious
grammar error, and not the way I usually talk--probably just a slip of
the tongue. Heard in the middle of a lecture, it would likely garner
little notice. But seen in text, it would definitely interrupt the
flow.

In short, like much of what we do, I think there are few absolutes,
and a lot of judgement calls, with the underlying principle being to
convey as much meaning as possible without becoming distracting.

Aaron

On 3/10/16, Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC)
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> The original question posted in this thread was about whether or not
> grammatical errors should be corrected in the captions. I would say that in
> most cases this would not provide equivalent access for people who cannot
> hear the video.
>
> For example, if I were to say "I ain't got no money" and the caption read "I
> don't have any money" this does not accurately represent what I actually
> said. Also for deaf or hard of hearing people who sight read, what I appear
> to say and what the captions say is definitely different.
>
> The actual words that people use are an important part of understanding what
> is being said. Mood, formality, culture are often at least partially
> demonstrated through the language that the speaker chooses to use. Thus
> correcting grammar and syntax removes an important part of the information
> that is being presented.
>
> As for removing ah's and um's that would probably make the captions easier
> to read and understand.
>
> Mike Moore
> Accessibility Coordinator
> Texas Health and Human Services Commission
> Civil Rights Office
> (512) 438-3431 (Office)
>
>

From: Guy Hickling
Date: Fri, Mar 11 2016 7:59AM
Subject: Re: Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English
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Since we've mentioned the BBC I thought I would just take a look at
their captioning guidelines to see what they have to say about
correcting grammatical errors. It is illuminating. Interestingly they
confirm what Aaron has just said in the last post before this one
about keeping coloquialisms etc, but correcting mistakes in lectures
and factual stuff.

It is in their document "Online Subtitling Editorial Guidelines V1.1"
- yes, I know it's called subtitling, but that's the word we use in
the UK for captioning (and we manage just fine since we usually know
the context the word is being used in!) Their document and rules are
based on considerable research by and for deaf groups.

The quote is (I'm incuding the whole section here):

"DIFFICULT SPEECH
1. Unscripted speakers often ramble on, in sloppily constructed
sentences or sentences that never end. Remember that what might make
sense when it is heard might make little or no sense when it is read.
So, if you think the viewer will have difficulty following the text,
you should make it read clearly. This does not mean that you should
always sub-edit incoherent speech into beautiful prose. You should aim
to tamper with the original as little as possible - just give it the
odd tweak to make it intelligible. (Also see ACCENTS, p22)

2. However, this is more applicable to factual content, e.g. News and
documentaries. Do not tidy up incoherent speech in drama when the
incoherence is the desired effect.

3. If a piece of speech is impossible to make out, you will have to
put up a label saying why:
e.g. DRUNKEN SPEECH
or: SLURRED SPEECH
Avoid subjective labels such as "UNINTELLIGIBLE" or "INCOMPREHENSIBLE"
or "HE BABBLES INCOHERENTLY"."

And David has already quoted from the same document earlier in this
thread, on what it says about umms, but I'll include it again to place
both quotes together:

"HESITATION AND INTERRUPTION
1. If a speaker hesitates, do not edit out the "ums" and "ers" if they
are important for characterisation or plot. However, if the hesitation
is merely incidental and the "ums" actually slow up the reading
process, then edit them out. (This is most likely to be the case in
factual content, and too many "ums" can make the speaker appear
ridiculous.)"

I hope this is of interest in this discussion.

Regards,
Guy Hickling