Speakers sometimes say things that can be misunderstood, especially if a deaf/hard of hearing person does not see the speaker or have access to their tone. For example, a teacher may say, “the whole class failed that test!,” but then smiles or gives a thumbs-up sign. A deaf student looking at the text display may take this seriously if she or he did not look up at the teacher at the right moment to see the smile or hand gesture. Accurately convey a speaker’s meaning using text or emoticons. In the scenario previously mentioned, you could add the emoticon ;-), or the text (just kidding!). Emoticons are great tools and commonly used in text messaging and other social networking. For more information, do a web search for ‘emoticons’.
Contributed by:
Rachel James