"Tokyo station trials sound visualization for deaf and hard of hearing"

Photo from Japan Today, June 16, 2022.

Text from The Japan Times, June 16, 2022.

A train station in Tokyo on Wednesday started reproducing platform announcements and the sounds of train arrivals and departures onto a screen in the form of text and sign language to help deaf and hard-of-hearing travelers.

In the trial project that began at Ueno Station and will run through Dec. 14, East Japan Railway aims to provide such travelers with a safer and more convenient travel experience.

In the service developed in conjunction with Fujitsu, station announcements and train sounds collected by microphones are converted into text and onomatopoeic descriptions in real-time using artificial intelligence.

They are then displayed on a screen positioned above a vending machine, with the roar of trains represented by cartoonish fonts and with different sizes to add to the detail provided, with the text changing to represent volume levels, for example. The screen will also show station staff signing commonly used announcements.

On Wednesday morning, the whooshing sound of an approaching Yamanote Line train was expressed with Japanese onomatopoeia. A sign language video was shown to inform passengers that the doors were closing ahead of the train’s departure.

Called Ekimatopeia, a portmanteau of the Japanese word for “station” and the English word “onomatopoeia,” the service is based on ideas that came out of a workshop conducted at a school for deaf and hard-of-hearing students last summer in Kawasaki.

“We thought it would be helpful if we could understand what was going on around us through written words. It feels amazing that our idea became a reality. I want it to be displayed in more stations,” said Sora Konno, 18, a student at the school.

Source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/06/15/national/station-sounds-visualized/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1655286685

Short video of the Ekimatopeia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz_LgzSuqYs&t=4s

"American Anthropological Association - Weekend Reads. How Anthropology Can Learn from 'Asia as Method'"

Asian Ethnology Podcast 2021. Interview with Steven Fedorowicz: Deaf Communities in Japan. Nanzan University. By Mark Bookman. Transcript: https://asianethnology.org/storage/pagefile/Steven%20Fedorowicz%20Interview%20Transcript.pdf

Representations of Deaf People in Japan: Inspiration, Outrage and Real Life

Abstract: This presentation examines representations of deaf people in Japan as related to so-called "inspiration porn" -- the idealization of disabled people doing everyday tasks (e.g. riding a train, having a job) or for achievements having nothing to do with their particular disability (e.g. deaf athletes). Cross-cultural examples, academic models, observations and perspectives will be discussed to explore how disabled and deaf people are portrayed in various media. Japanese deaf people are often critical of the representations of deaf protagonists and characters in popular television dramas and movies. Such representations create strong but inaccurate images of deafness and sign language that ultimately serve to perpetuate deficit models of disability. On the other hand, representations of disabled/deaf people themselves challenge and add to a social welfare discourse, leading to (re)evaluations of societal norms and attitudes towards disability.

In English, with real-time captioning (CART)

Friday, May 14, 2021, 10:00 AM (Japan time)

Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_vAeF7_WxQlKdgXnOL2IVfQ

Inquiries (e-mail): nirc-ai-jimu@nanzan-u.ac.jp

Asian Ethnology Podcast 2021. Interview with Steven Fedorowicz: Deaf Communities in Japan. Nanzan University. By Mark Bookman.
Transcript: https://asianethnology.org/storage/pagefile/Steven%20Fedorowicz%20Interview%20Transcript.pdf

H-ASIA Announcement 「Webinar: Representations of Deaf People in Japan」

Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_vAeF7_WxQlKdgXnOL2IVfQ

Inquiries (e-mail): nirc-ai-jimu@nanzan-u.ac.jp

Asian Ethnology Podcast 2021. Interview with Steven Fedorowicz: Deaf Communities in Japan. Nanzan University. By Mark Bookman.
Transcript: https://asianethnology.org/storage/pagefile/Steven%20Fedorowicz%20Interview%20Transcript.pdf

Announcement source: https://networks.h-net.org/node/22055/discussions/7632905/webinar-representations-deaf-people-japan

Vintage Japanese Sign Language Photos (circa 2011 & 2012)

I have been preparing for two presentations about my research with Japanese deaf communities I will be giving in March and May (stay tuned for upcoming details). I came across a couple of collages I crafted for photo exhibitions several years ago featuring facial expression use in JSL. 懐かしい!

手話の顔 日本映像人類学 写真展 (Sign Language Faces: A Visual Anthropology of Japan Photo Exhibition) (2011)

Link: http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2011/02/sign-language-faces-visual-anthropology.html

Visual Anthropology of Japan Photo Exhibition: NPO Deaf Support Osaka GALAXY (2012)

Link: http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2012/11/visual-anthropology-of-japan-photo.html

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Society for East Asian Anthropology

More recent stuff that indicates my article is current and relevant...

Illustration borrowed from National Geographic.com.

Soya Mori recently posted about a National Geographic article published a few days ago about the so-called origins of sign language.

"How monks helped invent sign language. (subtitled) Vows of silence and humanist beliefs led European clerics to create new communication methods for the deaf 500 years ago." BY INÉS ANTÓN DAYAS. National Geographic.com. May 28, 2019.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2019/05-06/creation-of-sign-language/?fbclid=IwAR3pJg5dpANNRpRTZfaTj0t3wlFia5cz8T9411N1AtVIl-C-60tSxc2mV5M

The article, simply put, is strangely biased and greatly uninformed.

On the one hand: Bonet criticized some of the brutal methods that had been used to get deaf people to speak: “Sometimes they are put into casks in which the voice booms and reverberates. These violent measures are by no means to the purpose.”

And then in conclusion: Thanks to the development of formal sign languages, people with hearing impairment can access spoken language in all its variety.

The author confuses sign language with manual alphabets (fingerspelling) and signing system for educating the hearing impaired. Thank goodness there were early Europeans to invent these systems for the benefit of the deaf. There is no discussion about natural sign language or Deaf communities.

I hope more people read my article.

Fedorowicz, Steven C. 2019. "Performance, Sign Language, and Deaf Identity in Japan." Anthropology News website, June 5, 2019. DOI: 10.1111/AN.1182

http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/06/05/performance-sign-language-and-deaf-identity-in-japan/

Perfect Timing? It would seem my article is current and relevant...

On the day my article went live, members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan went to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to present a proposal to help support deaf children (as reported in the following source):

難聴児のシームレスな支援を 自民党議連が文科相に提言 [The Liberal Democratic Party Parliamentarians propose to the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology the seamless support of deaf children] in 教育新聞 [Education Newspaper], June 6, 2019.

URL (article in Japanese): https://www.kyobun.co.jp/news/20190606_04/?fbclid=IwAR3eKSaqvaqXH-dZxOT3v6bqrBszCw-AwIbUAREU6gNqffHULlCG3gPYPIg

Thanks to Soya Mori via Facebook for the heads-up on this. https://www.facebook.com/1Language2Disability/

These LDP members make up a group which can be translated in English as the "National Federation for the Prevention of Deafness." Their proposal included improving neonatal and early childhood hearing testing for all children (early screening). And for deaf children the proposal promotes better medical treatment, early implantation of cochlear implants, better support and training for speech therapists, better placement at special needs schools and the like.

As Mori noted in his comments there was nothing about promoting Japanese Sign Language and the focus was on medical aspects. There seemed to be no Deaf participation in this proposal.

Here it is again (still?). Hearing people are making decisions for the deaf, what I refer to "small-d deaf" orientations in the article. In the article I did not have the time to get into the academic and social welfare models of disability and deafness, namely the deficit/medical model ("small-d deaf") and the cultural/social model ("capital-D Deaf"). For an excellent discussion of these models, especially in the Japanese context I suggest Carolyn Steven's Disability in Japan (2013, Routledge).

So why I am disappointed (although not surprised) by this political development, I am happy with the timing. It would seem my research is current and relevant. I hope more people read my article.

Fedorowicz, Steven C. 2019. "Performance, Sign Language, and Deaf Identity in Japan." Anthropology News website, June 5, 2019. DOI: 10.1111/AN.1182

http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/06/05/performance-sign-language-and-deaf-identity-in-japan/

"Performance, Sign Language, and Deaf Identity in Japan" has gone live on Anthropology News!

My photo collage from the article. 

Caption: Members of Japanese Sign Language Atelier practice to 

improve their performance of JSL and create greater Deaf identity.

My new article is now live and available on the Anthropology News website. It appears as part of a Society of East Asian Anthropology series called Cultural Consumption and Performance in Asia. The article is a little different from my usual style but I hope it will serve as an overview and introduction to deaf/sign language issues in Japan.

I would like to thank the SEAA column editors, Shuang Frost and Heidi Lam, for their patience and incredible editing endeavors. I would also like to to thank Elizabeth Kenney, my sensei and colleague, for her support throughout my career as well as her suggestions/editing of an early draft of the article. A shout out to my colleagues in the Asian Studies Program at KGU for their advising and encouragement. Lest I forget my wonderful students from Spring 2019 Deaf World Japan class who allowed me to read this paper as a part of their "midterm review" and gave me helpful constructive criticism comments. I couldn't have done the research without the assistance of Fumie Fedorowicz. And finally, my thanks and appreciation to the members of Atelier in Hirakata-shi as well as my deaf friends throughout Japan.

I benefitted from so much mulitmodal collaborations... However, any errors of interpretation in the article are mine alone.

Please check it out!

Fedorowicz, Steven C. 2019. “Performance, Sign Language, and Deaf Identity in Japan.” Anthropology News website, June 5, 2019. DOI: 10.1111/AN.1182

http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/06/05/performance-sign-language-and-deaf-identity-in-japan/