Day of the sign language interpreter was established in January 2003 at the initiative of the Central Board of the All-Russian Society of the Deaf. All-Russian public organization The All-Russian Society of the Deaf (VOG) is the largest and oldest public organization of the hearing impaired in Russia, founded in 1926.
The purpose of the Day of the sign language interpreter is to draw public attention to the problems of the deaf. For comparison, if in Finland there are 300 sign language interpreters for every thousand deaf people, then in Russia there are only three. And over time, the number of sign language interpreters is only getting smaller. At the same time, the work of a sign language interpreter is invaluable in social terms for the deaf community, because he is needed in court, the police, the tax office, for social protection, at the doctor's office and so on.
Usually, sign language interpreters are children of deaf parents who grew up in a “deaf” environment. You can get an education in this specialty in training centers St. Petersburg and Moscow.
The language that sign language interpreters “speak” from the screen or with their clients is sign language, and several million people around the world communicate in it. In some countries, it has long been officially recognized and is used to adapt news programs and various programs for people with hearing problems.
By the way, October 24 The State Duma The Russian Federation in the first reading adopted a bill raising the status of Russian sign language. Thanks to amendments to the laws "On Education" and "On social protection Disabled Persons in the Russian Federation” Russian Sign Language is now defined as the language of communication in the presence of hearing or speech impairments, including in the areas of oral use of the state language of the Russian Federation.
The special significance of this bill is that the official recognition of the status of the Russian sign language will allow creating the necessary conditions v educational institutions to receive education for the hearing impaired using sign language, to build a system of training and retraining of teachers on the basis of secondary and higher professional educational institutions, according to the website VOGinfo.ru.
How to communicate with a person in the language of the deaf?
sign language
First, one of the major misconceptions about sign languages is that they are dependent on or derived from spoken languages (sound and written) and that these languages were invented by hearers. This is not true. Secondly, dactyling of letters is often taken for sign languages - that is, when the letters are “depicted” by hands.
The difference between fingerprinting and sign language, which is used by the deaf to communicate with each other, is that fingerprinting is used mainly for pronouncing proper names, geographical names or specific terms, that is, each word is “showed” by hand letter by letter. At the same time, sign signs represent whole words, and in total there are more than 2000 gestures in the dictionary of the deaf. Show some of them will not be difficult.
For instance:
Learn more about sign language famous book G. L. Zaitseva“Gesture speech. Dactylology".
It is easier to get acquainted with the basics of dactylology - there is a well-established alphabet, and by spelling a word with gestures, you can communicate with a deaf person. There are 33 dactyl signs in Russian dactylology, each of which corresponds to the outline of the corresponding letter.
Russian dactyl alphabet from the site deafnet.ru:
Note that a deaf or hard of hearing person is likely to understand exactly what you want to say to him without sign language, because for the most part they are very good at reading lips.
In our classes, we devoted more and more time to the history of the creation of writing. But this time I wanted something different, more unusual and modern. So the idea came up to tell children about other languages. Already in the plans are:
Sign language;
- the language of spies;
- programming languages;
- Braille cipher.
Gestuno is the language of people with hearing impairments.
Deaf people communicate using gestures - quick hand movements accompanied by a lively facial expression. These gestures, like any other language, need to be learned. They quickly convey information to the interlocutor. Where hearing people need many words, for example: Shall we go across the bridge?, one gesture is enough for deaf people.
This possibility is also used where it is impossible to hear: under water by divers or in space by astronauts working outside the spacecraft.
International alphabet of gestures. Each language has its own system of naming letters or sounds.
The sign languages of the deaf and dumb differ in different countries. There are TV programs in which the text is "translated" for the deaf. Then, in the corner of the screen, you can see the announcer, who silently gesticulates, i.e. speaks in sign language.
There are more than 13 million deaf and hard of hearing people in Russia. The birth of a child with hearing impairment in the family is a difficult test both for parents and for the child himself, who needs special teaching aids and, most importantly, communication with peers and relatives. Fortunately, the Russian Society of the Deaf is actively working on this front. Thanks to the activities of its branches, people with hearing impairments unite and communicate with each other without feeling excluded from the social process.
There are also problems: the lack of educational institutions that accept people with hearing impairments, the lack of sign language interpreters and teaching aids, allowing to master the sign language.
Russian Sign Language is an independent language unit used for communication by people with hearing impairments.
Sign language does not consist only of a static figure shown by hands - it also contains a dynamic component (the hands move in a certain way and are in a certain position relative to the face) and a mimic component (the speaker's facial expression illustrates the gesture). Also, during a conversation in gestuno, it is customary to "pronounce" words with your lips.
In addition to this, when communicating with people with hearing impairments, you should be extremely attentive to your posture and involuntary hand gestures - they can be misinterpreted.
The basis of sign language is the dactyl (finger) alphabet. Each letter of the Russian language corresponds to a certain gesture (see picture).
Knowing this alphabet will help at first to overcome the "language barrier" between you and a person with a hearing impairment. But Dactyling (spelling) is rarely used by the deaf in everyday speech. Its main purpose is to pronounce proper names, as well as terms for which their own gesture has not yet been formed.
For most words in Russian Sign Language, there is a gesture that denotes the whole word. At the same time, I want to note that almost all gestures are intuitive and very logical. For instance:
"Writing" - we kind of take a pen and write on the palm of our hand. "Count" - we begin to bend our fingers. "Grandfather" - very reminiscent of a beard, right? Sometimes in gestures for complex concepts, you simply marvel at how accurately the essence of the subject is noticed.
The structure of sign language is not complicated at all. The word order corresponds to the usual sentences of the Russian language. For prepositions and conjunctions of one letter, their dactyl gesture (a letter from the alphabet) is used. Verbs are not conjugated or declined. To indicate time, it is enough to give a marker word (Yesterday, Tomorrow, 2 days ago) or put the gesture "was" before the verb.
Like any other language, Russian sign language is very lively, changes all the time and varies greatly from region to region. Benefits and educational materials updated at a snail's pace. Therefore, the recent publication of a primer for children with hearing impairments has become a real event.
The basic gestures with which you can communicate with deaf people are quite elementary:
The main difficulty is not even in mastering gestures, but in learning to "read" them from the hands. Gestures are complex - they consist of several positions of the brush, following one after another. And out of habit it is difficult to separate the end of one gesture and the beginning of another. Therefore, learning gestuno takes no less time than learning any foreign language, and maybe more.
We often see people with hearing impairments in the subway and on the street, in cafes. These are cheerful, shining people, completely ordinary, just having other ways of communicating. Deafness does not prevent them from being happy - having friends, a favorite job and a family. They can even sing in tin and dance - yes, yes, people with hearing impairments still hear music,
There are about 120,000 deaf people in Russia. The main language of communication for them is Russian sign language. There are less than a thousand interpreters from sign language into Russian - this profession is rare and in demand. Director of the Center for the Education of the Deaf and Sign Language Anna Komarova replied to uncomfortable questions about the profession.
Anna Komarova
Deaf-mute or deaf: how to speak about those who do not hear?
“Deaf and mute” is indecent to say, because the word “deaf mute” implies that a person cannot express himself, and the deaf have their own sign language. So "deaf-mute" is used only in conversations about history - for example, when we talk about the first schools for deaf children.
In English, "deaf" - Deaf - is capitalized, like any other socio-cultural community or nationality. The deaf themselves are proud of the word “deaf”, but various euphemisms like “a person with a hearing impairment or lack of hearing” imply that the deaf person does not have something, although the deaf themselves consider themselves simply different, different.
We can divide the deaf community according to medical criteria into several groups:
- hard of hearing, that is, those who, thanks to hearing aids, can recognize speech or hear sounds environment;
- deaf, i.e. those who have lost their hearing already having a developed verbal language;
- deaf.
Russian sign language is the same Russian, only with hands?
No. Russian Sign Language (RSL), which is spoken by the deaf, is very different from Russian, it has its own grammar and a different word order. For example, the definition comes after the noun, as in French, and the negation of "not" after the verb, as in German. He is as different from Russian as any foreign language. Russian Sign Language is in the same language group as French Sign Language and American Sign Language, but British Sign Language is in another language group.
There is also Russian in gestures, when gestures accompany the words of Russian sentences. Sometimes it is called "tracing paper", it used to be shown on TV, but only those who speak Russian well, most often late deaf or hard of hearing, understand it. The deaf, even those who can read newspapers fluently, do not understand him. Especially if on the screen it is a small head in a circle. Russian subtitles in this case are much better.
Even the deaf use the "manual" alphabet, when one gesture is not a word, but only a letter. The alphabet, which is called dactylology, is used to denote terms and proper names.
Deaf people have slang. Gestures understandable only to one group. Deaf people have their own slang - it may not coincide with Russian at all, however, if a word is popular on the Internet, it is also in sign language.
A Brief History of Sign Language
All modern sign languages are quite young. Russian sign language is one of the oldest in the world, it appeared no earlier than the 1760s. It is likely that deaf people used gestures before, but we do not know which ones. For example, it is known for sure that artels of deaf artists spoke with gestures in Italy in the 16th century, and in the Orphanage in Moscow in the 18th century, but there are no records of the gestures themselves. In general, a national sign language appears when stable groups of deaf people appear.
But for a long time, deaf communities were fought. In the 19th century, in the USA, in Europe, and in our country, the movement of oralists was especially influential - those who believed that the deaf should be taught verbal language, and the deaf should not be allowed to marry each other. Deaf teachers were forbidden to work at school - so the hearing taught the deaf. This was based on various religious misconceptions, such as: God cannot be reached if you do not speak verbal language, or that if you use gestures, then you are a subhuman, a monkey.
Oddly enough, but the idea that if you speak with a voice, then you stand higher on the evolutionary ladder, turned out to be extremely tenacious. In the 1950s, a biology teacher (!) explained to my 16-year-old mother in one of the best schools in Moscow that those who use gestures and wave their hands gradually become covered with fur and turn into monkeys. However, other misconceptions can also be considered game: deaf people are often considered mentally disabled or simply stupid, although deafness has nothing to do with mental abilities. Unfortunately, bad translation can also be to blame for this.
The deaf felt relatively calm in 1938, a seemingly terrible time, repressions, but it was then that a decision was made that sign language should be used to teach the deaf. This is explained by the fact that during industrialization, the country needed qualified personnel for factories, and high-quality education for the deaf without sign language is impossible.
Unfortunately, already in 1950, Stalin's article "Marxism and questions of linguistics" was published, where the sign language was called a fake, ersatz language. After that, Russian sign language was banned again.
Where are sign language interpreters trained?
Since 2012 - at the Moscow State Linguistic University, at the Faculty of English. Students teach English language, as well as Russian and British Sign Languages.
So far there have been two editions of 10 people each. Out of the first 5 people work with RSL. For example, one graduate is seriously engaged in linguistics, went to various foreign seminars, now received a grant from an English university and is going to write for several years. scientific work.
Another graduate interprets in the Deaf Society, she also translated the UN session in Switzerland and is returning today after Olympic Games deaf people in Turkey.
Another one works with RSL in the museum contemporary art"Garage", deals with art, painting by deaf artists. Two more are engaged in community interpreting, that is, they translate in any situation: for example, one of them translated for our deaf-blind people in Finland, now she is going to Denmark ... The guys have not yet decided on the second issue.
Before MSLU, translators mostly learned the language in courses or mastered it in the family. The majority of Russian sign language interpreters in our country come from deaf families, most often they are older hearing daughters. Another small part are missionaries or those who want to help the deaf. But knowing a language and being able to translate are very different skills. So the level of professional training is very different.
What should a sign language interpreter be able to do?
Unlike interpreters from other languages, working with sign language is, with rare exceptions, simultaneous interpreting: that is, you listen to verbal language and translate it into gestures or translate gestures into oral speech.
In addition, ordinary simultaneous interpreters sit in a booth, no one sees them, and they are entirely focused on interpreting, if they are wrong, then no one knows that this particular person was wrong. A sign language interpreter stands on the stage, and everyone who knows sign language evaluates his work, everyone sees his mistakes. Morally, it's not easy.
It is important that the specialist can translate not only in one direction, but he himself understands what the deaf person is saying. It happens that because of the mistakes of the translator, because of his poor command of both sign language and literate Russian, the speech of a deaf person seems incoherent, illogical, and everyone thinks that he is stupid.
Where do sign language interpreters work?
Sign language interpreters can work in the same places as interpreters of any other languages: at conferences, universities, social institutions, businesses. But for some reason, it has historically developed in our country that a sign language interpreter is for some reason a social worker, and in Europe and the USA this problem no longer exists. Our average translator is a woman with a specialized secondary education from a deaf family who works in a deaf society and who knows how to do everything: she is a secretary, an accountant, a lawyer, an assistant, she makes coffee. And this is fundamentally wrong.
People often come into the profession who want to help. For example, when we ask through questionnaires what are the required qualities of an interpreter, we are told “kindness”. Everyone writes “kindness”, but in general a translator should not be kind, he should be a professional, be attentive, accurate, and in our country everyone wants to advise the deaf or decide for him.
Ideally, the interpreter should be invisible: interpret in such a way that it seems to the hearer that the deaf person is speaking, and to the deaf person that the hearer speaks his language. Then the translator is really well done.
An interpreter is needed when visiting a doctor, for any legal actions. Now we require that everyone who works in the courts must pass mandatory certification and receive a certificate of admission for translation in court. There are stories when translators made mistakes in translation, and this was reflected in the verdicts: on the charges and terms of punishment.
Translation is needed not only in a court or a hospital, but also in business, for example, MTS and MegaFon employees learn sign language in order to serve deaf clients. The MFC has an agreement for remote translation: the translator works via Skype with the center, the deaf client has free access to the translation.
But translators are most needed in institutes and colleges, because without them it is very difficult to get an education. And now we are fighting for the fact that the deaf can study where they want, and not where there are groups. It just happened from Soviet times that if you are deaf, you are doomed to study as an engineer, because at the Moscow State Technical University. Bauman since the 1930s, there are special groups with an interpreter, and in other places they may not be.
For example, this year one completely deaf girl entered Moscow State Linguistic University - she wants to study linguistics, become the first certified deaf linguist, but who and under what conditions will she translate all lectures? The question is still open.
As you know, language learning always begins with theory. Therefore, at the first stages of learning the language of the deaf and dumb, you will need to get self-tutors. With their help, you can learn the necessary theoretical foundations that are needed to speak the language at a basic, that is, elementary level. In the language of the deaf and dumb, the basics are the alphabet and the words themselves.
How can I learn to speak the deaf-mute language on my own?
If you want to learn how to use sign language, you need to have a minimum vocabulary. In the language of the deaf and dumb, almost any word can be expressed with a specific gesture. Learn the most common words that people use in everyday life, and learn how to pronounce simple phrases.
For this purpose, special dictionaries are perfect: the announcer shows a gesture corresponding to the word and the correct articulation. Similar dictionaries can be found on sites dedicated to learning sign language. But you can also use book format dictionaries. True, there you will see gestures only on, and this is not such a visual way of learning words.
To speak the language of the deaf and dumb, you will also need to learn the dactyl alphabet. It consists of 33 gestures, each of which corresponds to a specific letter of the alphabet. In conversation, the dactyl alphabet is not often used, but you still need to know it: letter gestures are used when pronouncing new words for which there are no special gestures yet, as well as for proper names (first names, surnames, names of settlements, etc.).
Once you have mastered the theoretical part, that is, learn the deaf-and-dumb alphabet and master the basic vocabulary, you will need to find a way to communicate with native speakers with which you will train your conversational skills.
Where can you practice sign language?
It is important to understand that learning to speak the language of the deaf and dumb without practice is an impossible task. Only in progress real communication you can master conversational skills at such a level that you can understand sign language well and be able to explain yourself in it.
So, where can you talk with native speakers of the deaf-mute language? First of all, these are all kinds of online resources: social networks, thematic forums and specialized sites whose audience is hard of hearing or deaf people. Modern means of communication will allow you to fully communicate with native speakers without leaving your home.
You can go on a more complex, but at the same time more effective way. Find out if there are special schools for the deaf in your city or any other community for the hard of hearing and deaf people. Of course, a hearing person will not be able to become a full member of such an organization. But this is possible if you learn the language of the deaf and dumb not for pleasure, but to communicate in it with someone close to you. You can also sign up to volunteer at a boarding school for deaf children. There you will be completely immersed in the language environment, as you will be able to really communicate closely with native sign language speakers. And at the same time doing good deeds - as a rule, volunteers are always needed in such institutions.
