Signed language interpreting

Another form of translation or interpreting is from speech to signed language. Signed language is a form of communication that has been specially developed for people with hearing disability, and consists of signs made using the hands. One sign represents a word of the language that it is representing. In a way, signed language can also be considered the language of translation as it is ‘translating’ a word of a language like English into a form of visual language. Contrary to popular perception, there is no universal signed language. There are many signed languages and even those that are based on the same language are not the same. For example, American Signed Language (ASL) is different from British Sign Language (BSL), although both countries have English as the first language. The practitioners of these languages will not be able to understand each other. As is the case with languages like Hindi or English, these signed languages also have definite grammatical structure and semantic rules.

However, English and a signed language like BSL do not have the same grammatical rules. Signed languages are completely different from languages like English. The situation becomes more complicated when there are people with hearing disabilities whose native language is not ASL or BSL. William Isham notes: “Instead, they have learned one variation of a class of signed systems generically known as ‘signed English’. Vocabulary adopted and adapted from ASL is used to convey English words and delivered in English word order” (232-33). These people with signed English as their native language will need interpreters who are basically transliterators. They are so called because what they basically do is but encode English words or “transliterate English to and from a spoken and signed form” (233). Isham observes that the term interpreter can be given to those who, for example, work between ASL and English in the American context.

Signed language interpreters or transliterators are in demand wherever the hearing-impaired people need  them. Our national television channel Doordarshan has a special news bulletin for the hearing-impaired where a news reader first reads the news, and an interpreter uses signed language to translate that. What takes place here is consecutive interpreting. This news bulletin first highlighted the cause of the hearing-impaired in India and the profession of signed language interpreters.