Rebecca A Withey: Do I lipread? An honest answer (BSL)

Yes.

Yes, I do lipread.

I mean, that’s the short answer. The one people are usually looking for. The little “yes” that makes the questioner exhale in relief. “She lipreads! Phew! We may continue as usual!”

But if I’m completely honest, the accuracy of my lipreading skills relies on a pretty long list of variables.

So firstly, I can lipread – but not if you have an accent I’m not used to, because accents don’t just live in your voice, they live on your lips too.

And not if you have a particularly creative way of forming words. You know what I mean. The over-enunciators. The under-enunciators. The cool, Sylvester Stallone style slanted jaws or the tightly pursed lips of Benedict Cumberbatch.

Oh! And not if you have an impressive moustache that completely covers your top lip. Or a beard that could house a small ecosystem.

And not if you turn your head halfway through a sentence or start talking while already walking away. Or if you mumble into your coffee cup.

Not if you speak at the speed of an auctioneer. Or mouth words like you’re in a slow-motion dramatic film.

Oh, and definitely not if you suddenly drop a completely random word into the conversation with zero context.

And not if you’re eating. Or if the lighting is doing something mysterious.

Too dark? Gone. Blinding sunlight behind you? Congratulations, you are now a silhouette with vibes.

Absolutely not if I’m tired.

Not if I’m grumpy.

Not if I’ve reached my daily limit of concentrating on faces and would quite like to just exist for a moment without decoding every syllable like it’s a puzzle.

Not if there are five people talking at once. Not if you cover your mouth.

Definitely not if you say, “It doesn’t matter,” immediately after I’ve misunderstood.

Because now it absolutely does matter. And I will think about it for the rest of the day.

And definitely not if you assume my lipreading skills are 100% accurate. This is not Netflix. I do not have perfectly synced subtitles in my brain.

The thing is, lipreading is part skill, part guesswork, part context, and part sheer optimism.

Sometimes I get every word. Sometimes I get the general idea. Sometimes I get something completely different and just go with it, because honestly, it’s too late to turn back.

So yes. To answer your question, I can lipread.

Just… not all the time, not in all conditions, and not with magical, mind-reading precision.

But apart from all of that—
yes, I do lipread.

By Rebecca A Withey

Rebecca A Withey is the Assistant Editor for The Limping Chicken. She is also a script writer, BSL consultant and creative artist based in the Midlands. Rebecca is a Deaf, bilingual BSL user.