Springer Nature retraction; Rose Ayling-Ellis describes angry hearing man’s rant
Publication retracts offensive statements about deaf people
Here are two Deaf News briefs.
Springer Nature, an academic research and publishing company, has retracted a book chapter from a September 2022 publication due to offensive language about deaf people and sign language.
Retractionwatch.com explained that the chapter had statements such as “The deaf and dumb community uses sign language to communicate,” “Sign languages have a very limited set of words,” “The grammar is difficult to understand,” and “It is difficult for signers to understand a spoken language.”
The authors are five researchers at the Cummins College of Engineering for Women in Pune, India. They were writing about work on sign language translation using artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Springer Nature said it retracted the article after “concerns were raised regarding the use of inappropriate language and incorrect statements regarding the deaf community and sign language users. There was a lack of collaboration between the authors and the community described in the article…”
Two deaf researchers, Rain Bosworth and Kate Rowley, told Retractionwatch.com that if the authors collaborated with members of the deaf community, they could have avoided making flawed assertions.
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Rose Ayling-Ellis says angry hearing man interrupted BSL performance
Rose Ayling-Ellis, a British deaf actor, posted on Instagram yesterday that while she and her fellow cast members were giving a British Sign Language (BSL) performance show, an “angry man in the audience interrupted the show with an entitled rant screaming that we were ‘discriminating against hearing people!’”
The performance is a stage production of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.” It has signing on stage with captions shown. It appears that the hearing audience member didn’t like that he had to read the captions.
British Deaf news outlet “The Limping Chicken” explained that the individual was booed and was told by another audience member to “f—— off.”
Rose said the man was “kicked off.” She showed a video clip of people in the audience giving a standing ovation to the cast as they resumed their performance. Rose said the incident was “shocking” but she was inspired by seeing deaf members enjoying the performance and that other hearing members enjoyed it as well.
Rose is well known for winning U.K.'s “Strictly Come Dancing,” which is similar to “Dancing with the Stars,” in December 2021.
That’s the two Deaf News briefs for today.