CITS Participates in International SL Event

On January 26, MA students and trainers of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation attended conference Accessibility through Sign Language Interpretation, organized by the Directorate General for Interpretation of the European Commission. Since the sign languages were officially recognized in 2016, creating a team of professional sign language interpreters and introducing sign language interpretation into EU institutions’ events has become a priority task for DG SCIC. The challenge was not only to find competent professionals and control the quality of their interpretation, but also to provide respective technological infrastructure. As the conference participants could see, the format of this event was different from the traditional one. Along with the speakers, delivering their reports in English and French, there was a broadcast from the interpretation booths with the SL interpreters working. Sometimes there was a broadcast from two booths simultaneously, with the interpreters working from and into a sign language.

The conference programme included reports by the supervisors and managers of the EU multilingualism programme, as well as those responsible for recruiting professional sign language interpreters. The conference also involved sign language interpreters from different parts of Europe, who spoke and showed how their work differs from that of a verbal-language interpreter. In addition, the audience listened to a report by representatives of the European Federation of the Deaf Mark Wheatley and Liisa Halonen, who addressed the issue of participation of young deaf delegates in the political life of Europe and communication challenges they face in the hearing society. Liisa Halonen also gave advice and recommendations on how deaf delegates could be motivated to participate in the community’s life.

For CITS, participation in this event was also a big step toward the school’s project on promotion of the Russian sign language and deaf culture.