Why doesn't boris and co have some one signing?

[Samcro]

Watching the news and welsh and Scottish have some one signing. But boris and othe English politicians don't.

A question showing my ignorance, rather than trying to be goady: what is the benefit of signing over subtitles?

Signing is instantaneous and as accurate as you can get. Subtitles - especially auto generated - can be riddled with mistakes.

I think the better AIBU question is "Why doesn't Boris and co make the deaf community more aware of the several different ways they can access the broadcast".

But I guess maybe people only want to see problems and not solutions.

@Rollercoaster1920

A question showing my ignorance, rather than trying to be goady: what is the benefit of signing over subtitles? We use subtitles a lot due to age related hearing loss in my family, but cannot understand BSL. Is it worth learning?

The announcements are subtitled live on the BBC coverage so used them.

The live subtitles run at a delay and often aren’t complete sentences or have errors in them. They are often corrected by the time it ends up on iPlayer but if I want to receive the news at the same time as everyone else it is difficult to follow.

A question showing my ignorance, rather than trying to be goady: what is the benefit of signing over subtitles?

No, it’s a good question.

BSL is a different language to English. It has its own grammar structure and word order. English is the second language of many deaf people and subtitles are difficult to understand. Subtitles for many first language BSL users are a very poor substitute for a properly qualified BSL/English interpreter.

BSL is fantastic language to learn and I’d thoroughly recommend finding a class.

Worth mentioning that the official government petition for this only got 176 signatures, so presumably the rest of the deaf community realised how to access the BBC signing.

Don't forget that the Government subsidises the BBC - they're a national broadcaster, so it's reasonable for them to ask the BBC to provide the service on their behalf.

According to the BBC, a spokesman for the Cabinet Office said:

"We are committed to supporting disabled people through every stage of this pandemic and have established BSL interpretation at the No 10 press conference via the BBC News channel and iPlayer, available on all TV packages as part of Freeview. The BBC has also made their video feed for the BSL interpreter available to all other broadcasters and for use on No 10 social channels."

Purpledaisies I had signed up for a BSL course at my local college, but then the first lockdown happened.😕 There are online courses, but I think I would learn better in a class.

@blage that wasn’t the petition being used by the deaf community. That one got over 26,000 signatures.

@FatimaMunchy

Purpledaisies I had signed up for a BSL course at my local college, but then the first lockdown happened.😕 There are online courses, but I think I would learn better in a class.

BSL is bloody hard work over zoom. I’d definitely go for a physical class.

It's because Scotland has legislation in place (BSL Scotland Act, 2015) that states public bodies must have a BSL plan to promote use of the language.

Wales doesn’t though @Nonameyetmeow

They think it’s important enough to provide a BSL/English interpreter when Mark Drakeford addresses the nation.

Oh that's interesting @PurpleDaisies. I had wrongly assumed they had similar legislation.

Because they are Tories and therefore don't give a damn about the needs of anyone who might have a disability/long term health condition of any kind.

Cos the Tories gives zero fucks to any disability? Just look at PIP and welfare reform for any disability and it will tell you all you need to know about the Tories.

Oh. Interesting. I recognise that style.

Hello blage. Shifted a couple of letters up and down, did we?

[quote PurpleDaisies]@blage that wasn’t the petition being used by the deaf community. That one got over 26,000 signatures.[/quote]
The 38degrees petition won't get an official response from government. It's an effective way to share false or one-sided information with a large number of people on social media, but it's not useful for petitioning government. The authors of the petituon would do a greater service to the deaf community if they updated their intro text to provide information on how to access the signed versions of the broadcasts on BBC News, iPlayer and YouTube.

It already got an official response.
The official response was rubbish.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/301461

I often use subtitles although I am not deaf and they are terrible on anything live. So delayed and the mistakes are laughable if you can hear and know they are mistakes. If you can't then they're just crap. Someone I know who is deaf didn't learn to read or write. She knows BSL however but if things aren't signed she misses it.

[quote PurpleDaisies]It already got an official response.
The official response was rubbish.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/301461[/quote]
It looks pretty comprehensive to me.

The current interpreter is provided by the bbc and is out of their ‘BSL budget’ so now less access to the news bulletins.

Downing Street refuses to have someone in the room. This started while they still had press there so not because of distancing rules.
They also didn’t provide an interpreter for the first 10(?) announcements (People contacting their MPs and a massive twitter campaign got that sorted). But this was including the first lockdown announcement. Initially any delays meant that the interpreter would not be there for the full announcement as the BBCtech people finished at 6pm. Bbc have had to extend their hours to accommodate the fact the government doesn’t want an interpreter in the room.

There is legal action against the government over this.

Subtitles aren’t adequate because many Deaf people have not got a good enough level of English to decode the complex language and dodgy automatic captions. This is because they haven’t always had a good education because they have had no language as a small child and missed the critical period for language development , because they missed a lot of lessons for speech therapy or because they’ve just not had appropriate teaching.

Deaf people have had a lot of oppression over language and they are still fighting it now. Research shows Deaf people have lower health outcomes and this is only due to language differences not due to Deafness impacting on physical health.

Search out Signhealth and #WhereIsTheInterpreter. Also Limping Chicken has some stories which may interest people too.