Publication
Title
News 'with' or 'in' sign language? Case study on the comprehensibility of sign language in new broadcasts
Author
Abstract
This paper explores the issue of comprehensibility in TV news WITH sign language. It starts by discussing academic research showing that Deaf viewers often struggle to understand the simultaneous interpretation of newscasts in sign language. Based on this literature review, we investigate the Flemish case, where public broadcaster VRT offers the evening news with Flemish Sign Language (VGT) by a hearing interpreter, in three empirical research stages. First, we conducted twenty interviews with Deaf viewers who confirmed that comprehension is a key problem, for reasons mostly related to the signing of the interpreters and some technical issues. Second, we analysed three international alternative approaches, focusing in particular on the use of Deaf interpreters and presenters. Third, based on the interviews and the international examples, we developed an alternative, summarized format and produced a test broadcast, which was shown to and discussed individually with the twenty interviewees of the first research stage. Overall, they preferred the summarized format and understood the newscast tailored to their language and information needs much better, among other things because of the Deaf presenter who they thought was more fluent in sign language. More fundamentally, they also identified more strongly with the Deaf news anchor presenting TV news IN sign language.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Perspectives : studies in translatology. - Copenhagen, 1993, currens
Publication
Copenhagen : 2022
ISSN
0907-676X [Print]
1747-6623 [Online]
DOI
10.1080/0907676X.2021.1936088
Volume/pages
30 :4 (2022) , p. 627-642
ISI
000664897200001
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
BOF Sabbatical 2020-2021 - Alexander Dhoest.
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 23.06.2021
Last edited 30.10.2024
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