Website Translates into Good News for Tayside’s Deaf Community
Deaf people looking for a translator in Tayside have been given a helping hand by two new websites which stream their content into sign language. Freelance translators Morag Doig and Jennifer Ramsay have launched websites which advertise their services in both English text and British Sign Language (BSL) video clips. With BSL the first language of many of Scotland’s 57,000 people with severe hearing problems, it is hoped the new websites will help make finding a translator less of a challenge.
It is thought Mrs Doig and Mrs Ramsay, who are both based in Angus, are the first freelance translators in Scotland to have fully signed sites, with every page featuring a video of its content translated into BSL.
The videos are signed by Glasgow-based translator Lillias Duffy and Richard MacQueen, a deaf man from Dundee who studied multimedia and web development at university and helped put the webpages together.
Mrs Doig, who has been a full-time registered translator for about four years, said the video clips would make the websites more easily accessible to profoundly deaf people.
The Dundee-born woman has translated in a diverse range of locations, including courtrooms, doctors’ surgeries and theatres.
She said: “BSL is the first language for many deaf people and it’s important they can get access to registered, qualified interpreters. We both felt very strongly that BSL had to be included from the moment the websites went ‘live’ and we are absolutely delighted with the results.
“There is a shortage of qualified translators in Scotland, with only about half working full-time, and with there being so few, a lot of people don’t know how to get to us.
“Even nationally, there are not many sites with signing on them, so we said we would not create our own websites without putting BSL on there.”
She said the signed videos were particularly useful on webpages with a lot of written content, which deaf people would otherwise have to spend time translating.
A spokesman for the Royal National Institute of Deaf People (RNID) welcomed the efforts.
The charity has streamed videos translating some of the content on its own website but the spokesman said the technology was underused throughout the world wide web.
He said: “It’s excellent to see websites, whatever services they offer, which are offering relevant information in BSL.
“At the same time, the provision of information in BSL can pose some practical problems. English text is easy to create online but because BSL is a visual language, video is needed and it’s more costly. The RNID is working with other organisations to increase the amount of websites which use BSL.”
Mrs Doig and Mrs Ramsay can be contacted by logging on to www.moragdoig.co.uk and www.jenniferramsay.co.uk
