BSL Translation

What is British Sign Language (BSL)...

It is the first or preferred language of over 250,000 adults in England alone (DWP statistics, 2010). It is a visual language with its own structure, grammar and syntax. It is not based on English and has very different rules based on a visual language completely different to all spoken languages in the world.

Why you should translate into BSL....

Lots of clients believe that putting text into plain English means that BSL users can access their information.  In reality this is not so - the average reading age of adult BSL users is that of an 8-year-old child.

Deaf people actually think visually, they do not think in phonetic based thoughts (ie. thinking in spoken words). Recent ground-breaking research shows that deaf brains actually process languages in a completely different part of the brain to hearing people.  This is one of the reasons deaf people struggle with English.

Providing BSL translation not only allows a vast number of people to access your information and services it also shows your commitment to the Deaf community.  Plus there are statutory obligations to consider. If you really want the BSL community to access and, more importantly understand, your information it needs to be delivered in BSL.