Why do government broadcasts have sign interpreters instead of just subtitles?
In: Technology
Because American Sign Language is it’s own language that has it’s own unique grammar and syntax. Also there is a large number of deaf people who don’t read english well because of educational barriers for deaf people (particularly deaf children born to hearing parents). So as far as accessibilitiy goes having an interpetor is more effective.
Broadcasts like those are usually live, and subtitles take time to put in. If they’re available, they’re autogenerated by a computer, and are handled by whoever is handling the broadcast. The government has no power to just make subtitles appear. Additionally, subtitles don’t exist for people who are attending in person, although Google is working on that, probably. So yeah the government can’t guarantee that subtitles will be available for whatever they put out. No reason not to have an interpreter.
Better accuracy for the message, better accessibility for people whose first language is not English, closer to real-time information.
Plus, lots of information is conveyed by the position, movement, & expression of the interpreter. That’s either lost or minimized, or takes longer to type, when put into text.
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