Speech Reading > Lip Reading

So we're off. School has begun, textbooks are in the mail, commuting is a bitch. I still plan on writing about orientation, and I realize that every day that passes is a day away from a good memory. We'll see how long it takes me.

Today I want to write about speech reading. This was my first time being exposed to that phrase- in Clinical Procedures for Communication Disorders (with a strong emphasis on aural rehabilitation). For those of you who don't know, lip reading is a common (do I really know that?) method among deaf individuals to gather what they can regarding what you are saying to them. They will "read" your lips, trying to decipher the words you are saying. I've been told that only about 30% of the spoken American English can be seen (i.e. "m", "p", and the shape of vowels- to some extent). If you want to try it for yourself, mute your television (without captions!) and do your best to focus on the lips of the characters. How much of what they are saying do you think you would be able to understand? If you want to give yourself some help, try to just have the volume EXTREMELY low -- to simulate SOME residual hearing. You got anything?

There are people in this world who do wonders and can actually make out a LOT of what people are saying just by reading their lips. How do they do it?! (practice is some part of it, but there is more...)

So in class the phrase speech reading comes up, and of course this is different than lip reading. Speech reading will take in lip reading, true, but also much more than that. Other visual elements include facial expression, gestures, body language; cognitive elements like linguistic competence in the target language and situational cues; and of course any residual hearing. With that extra information, you can see how it might make more sense that the angry driver that passed you screamed "Fuck you!" and not "Vacuum!" And in the same sense, that your mom wants you to clean your room, not insult you...

So all this is well and good, but I have a few issues with this. First of all, what makes that "speech" reading any more than "lip" reading? I suppose you could argue that speech includes body language and situational clues, but really? Also, if deaf people only looked at lips, there is no way they would understand what the fuck was going on. OF COURSE they use all of these clues to help understand the world around them -- they're not dumb, that's an outdated idea :-) .

In any event, I thought I would enlighted those who are unaware of all the shit that deaf people take in when they are lip reading... or speech reading. Or whatever the difference is. To me, they are the same concept. Arguing semantics seems to be an inescapable future. Kill me.