User:Plloren/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Bimodal bilingualism

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this topic because out of the different aspects of the Deaf community, education, upbringing, stats, and everything, I think it is a good topic to choose as a hearing person. It is close enough to the Deaf community but far enough to not step on people's toes. I will let my deaf peers choose topics that are more connected on inherently more important to them. In addition, I am a bilingual person and slowly approaching to be a bimodal trilingual. Thus, I thought it was a fitting topic to choose. Moreover, as an educator, I believe it is important to get involved in this kind of discussion, as it will be part of my daily life in the near future. My preliminary impression of the article was that it was well done. The information at first seems accurate, relevant, and well written. However, as I kept reading I could sense certain audist tone in some of the information.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

The Lead section is pretty good. The only changes that I would make are:

- from: "Deaf people as a group have their own sign language and culture, but invariably live within a larger hearing culture with its own oral language"

- to: "Deaf people as a group have their own sign language and culture, but invariably live within a larger hearing culture with its/their own oral language(s)."

Suggesting that not all hearing communities are monolingual.

I would also change a link that it's linked to the wrong word: the words hearing people are linked to another wiki page that describes Deaf culture

The Content section could have more changes. I saw the word non-hearing impaired which I would change. In other parts I sensed an audist tone, for example:

- "Regardless of English competency in other areas, no Deaf individual is likely to comprehend English in the same way as a hearing person when others are speaking it because only a small percentage of English phonemes are clearly visible through lip reading"

- "Additionally, many Deaf bilinguals who have fluency in written English choose not to speak it because of the general social unacceptability of their voices, or because they are unable to monitor factors like pitch and volume." For this one I would have to check the reference first to see why the wiki author wrote what they wrote. If that is in fact correct, I would word it differently.

On the topic "Denial of their own bilingualism, I would also change the wording. However, it seems like it comes from a good source.

Moreover, on the topic: "Unequal Social Status of the Language Involved" I would add more information regarding the legitimacy of ASL as a language.

Next, on the topic "Bilingual language mode: Contact signing" I would change some of the wording. rather than saying, "Because almost all members of the American Deaf community are to some extent bilingual in ASL and English" I would change it to something more inclusive. For example I would point out that bilingualism is a large spectrum. On that same topic I would change pronouns into a more updated version such as he, she, they, rather than just saying he, she.

Further, on the topic "Unlikelihood of large-scale language shift" I would change some words such as competency in the sentence: "However, due to the physical fact of deafness or hearing loss, deaf people generally cannot acquire and speak the majority language in the same way or with the same competency that the hearing population does." It isn't because they can't be competent but their are levels or a spectrum on language intelligibly. For example, foreigners might have different language intelligibly as well, but that does not make them incompetent. I would also change the word "does" on the same sentence to something like "expect" or "are used to."

Finally, for the topics "Using phonological information" and "Pedagogical challenges for sign-print bilinguals" I would update the information with more recent research. The latter was last updated in 2014, and it is past due for some updated research.

Sources:

Although I haven't check every single source, the ones that I have checked are good. The links seem to work well, as well.

Talk:

There isn't much of a conversation lately. The last posts were in 2012 and 2015. I was surprised to see some questions, that perhaps for me are basic to know, if someone is taking the time to add to a wiki article they at least should have some basic knowledge.

I already added a question to the Talk section to clarify something in the article.