Wikipedia:Peer review/American Sign Language/archive1

American Sign Language

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like input before nominating it for Good Article status.

Thanks, Mo-Al (talk) 20:00, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
 Doing... Daniel Case (talk) 17:16, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

OK. Sorry for taking eleven days to get back here on this; it would have been a week, but Christmas got in the way.

I am doing a quick copy edit before my in-depth critique. Daniel Case (talk) 18:30, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, the copy edit managed to shave off about 400 bytes. Most of it was redundant wording—when we raise the possibility that two related languages may in fact be dialects, we don't need to say "of each other", because that's implicit in the word "dialect". That, however, was the only significant prose issue, and I congratulate you: it is not often one finds an article nominated for some sort of review or recognition that is so free of serious spelling, grammar or punctuation issues, especially where there is so much technical detail. Daniel Case (talk) 19:47, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Now to the broader issues. It's a good thing the prose is so nailed down, because the article as a whole does have some issues we need to address before GA is considered:

• Intro: First, fix the lede. "American Sign Language is a sign language ..." well, imagine that. It reminds me of too many of our bot-generated articles over at WP:NRHP: "The John Doe House is a house ..." The lede does not need to repeat a descriptive term used in the title of the article subject itself.

  Nor does it need to then explain to us what a sign language is. I realize that, since linking in the boldfaced title is discouraged, there may be the temptation. But you can get that link in there in a later sentence. I think the lede should skip right to "... is the predominant sign language of deaf communities in ...".

  As a whole the intro also reads as if it were once the entire article. It should be rewritten with an eye towards summarizing what comes further down the page/screen, per WP:INTRO. As it currently stands we have a lede graf that should be a little shorter, and a second graf that seems to be trying to defend ASL's status as an actual language. While that does come into play in greater detail, the intro tells us nothing about the rich history or demographics the article goes into. I think we could have four grafs here.

 Done Mo-Al (talk) 18:01, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

• Structure: I think you might want to look at Swedish language, one of only two FAs we have about a particular language, as a model for how this one should look (Forget the other one (Turkish language); the people responsible for getting it to FA have all left the project, and it's showing such serious signs of neglect that I think I will have to nominate it for review). You'll see that instead of starting off by telling us about the speaker community, it briefly discusses the classification of the language then gets to the history (I bet at some point we could have a separate History of American Sign Language, as well—it seems like there's enough in the sources to support one).

 Done Mo-Al (talk) 03:05, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

It also seems like the grammar section should, following the Swedish article, summarize what's in the main American Sign Language grammar article. More later. Daniel Case (talk) 20:13, 28 December 2012 (UTC) OK.

• Consistency of referencing method: Per our page on Harvard referencing: "If you choose to use this style, however, it should be used for all citations in the article, not merely a selected subset. It's a little confusing to have both Harvard referencing and inline footnotes. So pick one and stick with it.

 Done Mo-Al (talk) 06:29, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Still more to come. Daniel Case (talk) 02:20, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

• Illustration: I was glad to see some video in the article. We need it because sign language, like spoken language, depends on the "ineluctable modality of the audible" (as James Joyce famously put it), i.e., time, to separate signifiers despite being purely visual with no sonic component (which is of course the point). So ... where we need signing illustrated, we should do so with video as much as possible. Wouldn't it be great if we had a short video of someone signing "American Sign Language" in the infobox instead of that image which non-signers won't understand until they read down in the article? Likewise for the pictures of the guys doing ASL on stage ... as still images they could be anyone standing on a stage with their hands in some unusual position, for any reason. With video we'll get it.

  I know there's not a lot to work with in the commons category right now, but that doesn't mean we can't make more videos.

  Also, those three videos illustrating the dialect differences could probably be better managed from a layout perspective by putting them in the one big box that could be created with {{multiple image}}.

multiple image  Done Mo-Al (talk) 22:11, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

• Consistency in capitalization of "deaf": I get the feeling that when "Deaf" is capitalized, some sort of cultural identity is being asserted. It would be nice if there was some sort of note explaining this. Especially because we have sentences where "deaf" and "Deaf" are used practically side-by-side, like "There is also a distinct variety of ASL used by the Black Deaf community. Black ASL evolved as a result of racially segregated schools in some states, which included the residential schools for the deaf." I don't see the logic whereby one is capitalized and the other not. If there is a reason this needs to be explained.

 Done Mo-Al (talk) 03:12, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

A few more things after another word from our sponsors. Daniel Case (talk) 15:24, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

• "See also" and "External links" sections: Both of those are rather large by our standards, and I daresay places where fat could be cut. I'd read WP:SEEALSO and WP:EL and review whether the listings that are there, particularly in the latter section, really need to be there.

 Done Mo-Al (talk) 03:05, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Now, a few single-bullet observations:

• "There is also evidence that ASL is structurally quite different from FSL, and thus should not be taken as its genetic descendant." This is interesting ... perhaps you might give us some of the details of that evidence?

 Done Mo-Al (talk) 19:35, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

• "ASL is sometimes written using English orthography" Some examples (other than the one already given (I think) for "hearing child of deaf parents") and an explanation of how that system works? It might even be worth a separate section.

 Done Mo-Al (talk) 03:04, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• For the example under "Allophony", of how the sign for "tomato" has changed over time, a video illustration would be great.

effectively  Done Mo-Al (talk) 22:12, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I also have some ideas for things that could be included in the article provided reliable sources can be found:

• The use of ASL for special education of groups other than the deaf: My son is high-functioning autistic, and he has had in several of his classes over the years fellow students who were speech dyspraxic. They are often taught to sign when they cannot speak clearly, and my son has picked up some signs from them (and thus, without trying, taught them to me ... "thank you" and "more" most notably, so far). I don't know if this is true just in the ASL-native area, but it would be interesting to have something on it. Which would lead into the broader subject of ...

• Influence on/use of ASL by hearing community generally: Some schools, including those I've substituted at, allow students to take ASL for their foreign-language credit. Some information about this might be nice to have. One also thinks of the Occupy movement hand signals, supposedly derived from ASL (and quite useful in gauging consensus response at a meeting composed primarily of speaking/hearing people).

Well, I am now finished with this peer review. Hope this helped! Daniel Case (talk) 05:10, 30 December 2012 (UTC)