When distributing video content, ASL and BSL Accessibility services is important because it ensures you’re your film reaches the widest possible audience. Closed captions are often the first port of call when it comes to accessibility for video content, but for Deaf and Hard of Hearing viewers, sign language can be crucial. But what’s the real difference between interpreting and captioning, and should you choose one or the other as an accessibility service, or both?
Captioning, ASL and BSL Services – What’s the Purpose?
The intention of adding sign language interpreting to videos for accessibility purposes is to ensure that Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals can fully understand and engage with video content. By providing interpretation in American Sign Language (ASL), British Sign Language (BSL), or other sign languages alongside captioning, videos become inclusive and accessible to a wider audience. Similar to closed captioning, sign language interpreting on videos helps to remove communication barriers and supports equal access to information and entertainment for people who rely on sign language.
The intention of closed captioning for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community is to provide a written representation of spoken dialogue and other important audio elements, such as sound effects, musical tone and lyrics, and speaker identifications, within video content. Closed captioning ensures that individuals who have difficulty hearing can access and understand a video.
Benefits to Closed Captioning over ASL and BSL Interpreting
- Closed captions allow viewers to read at their own pace, making it easier to follow complex information or unfamiliar terminology. Sign language (American and English) involve complex hand movements and gestures where during fast paced speech, the pace of interpreting can start to lag behind the natural pace of the video.
- Reading closed captions can be viewed as less visually intrusive when compared to sign language interpreting, as the text is simply overlaid onto the video. Video BSL or ASL interpreting involves shrinking the video size and overlaying onto a background. Sign language interpreting can be seen as dividing a viewer’s attention more than closed captions do.
- Closed captions can be turned on and off by viewers as and when required.
Benefits to ASL and BSL Interpreting over Closed Captioning
- Sign language interpreters are able to convey the emotion and tone of dialogue much more effectively than closed captions do. This is because much of sign language involves facial expression to enhance meaning.
- British sign language and American sign languages follow their own structure, which can be very different to standard spoken and written English. For this reason, users of BSL and ASL may find it more easy to follow along with sign language than reading captions, which follow the conventions and grammatical structures of spoken English.
- Sign language interpreted videos are created and edited completely separate to the original video. In the case of online video content, two versions of a video will need to be created and uploaded – one with BSL/ASL and the other without.
So there you have it, a quick guide to ASL and BSL accessibility services to ensure inclusion and how they would help your audiences. If you have a project that you would like captioned, dubbed or translated for accessibility purposes, then why not contact us today to see what we can offer you. Just click the quote button below.
