Telecommunication relay services as a tool for deaf political participation and citizenship

ABSTRACT

It has long been recognised that deaf people experience barriers to political participation and that notions of citizenship do not take into account the needs of deaf sign language users. In light of an effort at the European level to increase the potential for deaf sign language users to participate in political processes through technology, this paper provides results from a survey study of deaf sign language users across Europe as to their preferences in using Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS), whether they would like to see the establishment of a pan-European multilingual TRS and if they would make use of such a service for the purposes of political participation. Responses from 74 deaf people across 14 European member states confirm that deaf people want to see such a service, and would be willing to use it in order to make contact with European institutions. Therefore, the establishment of such a service has the potential to contribute to improved access to, and increased willingness to engage in, democracy through telecommunications and thus enhance the citizenship status of deaf Europeans, and therefore enhance their political participation and access to information and communication in society.

KEYWORDS:

• ICTs
• e-Democracy
• deaf
• sign language
• telecommunication relay services
• political participation

Acknowledgements

This study would not have been possible without the support of our consortium partners and their networks. We would also like to acknowledge the input of all the survey and interview participants. We cannot name you but we are grateful for your time and significant contribution.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Professor Graham H. Turner is the Chair of Translation & Interpreting Studies at Heriot-Watt University. An active researcher in the field of Sign Language Studies since 1988, he has been the Director of the Centre for Translation & Interpreting Studies in Scotland since 2005 [email: [email protected]].

Jemina Napier is Professor and Chair of Intercultural Communication in the Department of Languages & Intercultural Studies at Heriot-Watt University where she teaches signed language and spoken language interpreting students at undergraduate and postgraduate level. She is an interpreter researcher, educator and practitioner and has practiced as a signed language interpreter since 1988 [email: [email protected]].

Robert Skinner is a British Sign Language (BSL) and English interpreter practitioner with more than 16 years of experience. Robert’s area of specialism as an interpreter include video remote interpreting. Robert is currently a Ph.D. student at the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies at Heriot-Watt University and was the Research Associate for the project this paper reports [email: [email protected]].

Mark Wheatley has lived and worked in Brussels since 2007 as the Director of the European Union of the Deaf [email: [email protected]].

Notes

1 See http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/en/ALL/?uri=CELEX:52010DC0636 for further information about the EU’s Disability2020 strategy

2 For example, European Parliament, European Commission, European Courts of Human Rights.

3 The Insign project was thus funded by the European Commission Directorate-General Justice (JUST/2013/RTSL/PR/0015/A4).

4 The authors’ role in this project was to provide underpinning research and dispassionate evaluation of outcomes: we therefore in no sense write here as product developers or service providers.

5 See http://cad.ca/issues-positions/political-participation-and-activity/).

6 See http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/)

7 ITU definition of Total Conversation:

an audiovisual conversation service providing bidirectional symmetric real-time transfer of motion video, text and voice between users in two or more locations. This real time text differs from instant messaging systems because it is the transmission bi-directionally of one character at a time. This gives the user the feel of real-time communication. (www.itu.int/en/ITUT/studygroups/com16/accessibility/Pages/conversation.aspx)

8 International Sign is a form of ad hoc communication between sign language users with divergent linguistic backgrounds who do not necessarily have a common sign language. One form of International Sign is partially conventionalized and functions as a lingua franca in the international Deaf community, in particular in the context of meetings and conferences of international deaf organisations (Rosenstock, 2015). International Sign is increasingly used to convey information to the international Deaf community through websites and as part of research projects (Rosenstock & Napier, 2015). The pictorial icons were taken from a shared vocabulary of visual language: The Noun Project, http://thenounproject.com/about/