Pointing, telling and showing: multimodal deitic enrichment during in-vision news sign language translation

Abstract

The Broadcasting Act 1996, chapter 55, section 20, placed a legal obliged on broadcaster in the UK to include British Sign Language (BSL) in their programmes either have, presentation in, or translation into, sign language. This has included the translation into BSL of current affairs programmes, popular programmes and soaps with a variety of Deaf and hearing T/Is being employed to undertake this work. This in-vision translation is not new, and has preceded 1996 (Ladd, 200?), but little attention has been paid to the multimodal nature of the translation and the pragmatics of delivering a seen translation, with the translator viewed by the audience, presenting a translation that interacts with other elements on the television screen. This involves the representation of the news and other current affairs to ensure that sign language using deaf people have access to the news in their first or preferred language.