An estimated 50,000 people in the UK who were born deaf or became deaf at an early age use British Sign Language (BSL) as their preferred language. BSL – the language of the british deaf community - is one of many sign languages found throughout the world.
Although signers also use fingerspelling – the representation of letters of the alphabet on the hands to represent ‘foreign’ words (i.e. words from written english), BSL is not ‘english on the hands’ – it has a very different grammar and there is no one-toone correspondence between BSL signs and english words, any more than there is such a correspondence for any two unrelated spoken languages.
Unrelated sign languages are not mutually intelligible, so users of one sign language generally do not understand users of another sign language. Some sign languages are historically related to each other, for example australian sign language and BSL, or french sign language and irish sign language, but these relationships are not the same as for the spoken languages in these countries.
As well as general issues relating to disability rights, some specific issues arise in relation to deaf people and the law. Where a person who uses sign language is claiming for compensation for accidental injury, it is important that any assessment include an evaluation of injuries which may specifically affect sign language. These may include problems with movement of the upper limbs, with vision, or with sign language itself – for example, as a result of head injury.
Within legal settings there are often failures to meet the communication needs of deaf people. They often have poor literacy skills – the average reading age of deaf school leavers is below that of 10 year old hearing children, and lipreading provides only partial access to spoken language. Communicating through speech and writing is likely to result in only partial comprehension and the speech of deaf people may be very difficult to understand.
Qualified interpreters must be provided when required for police interviews, consultations with solicitors and in court. Some deaf people may need additional communication support, for example, where a deaf person has a learning disability, or deaf people who have limited skills in BSL, such as deaf immigrants who may be fluent in another sign language or who may have limited skills in any language.
Use of a deaf relay interpreter as well as a hearing interpreter may be essential in such cases. It is important that interviews with deaf people be video-recorded in order to be able to check the BSL and english later to ensure that communication was effective.
Experts in the sign language field can provide evaluations and an overview of essential issues – in all cases safeguarding the rights of deaf people will require attention and often time for appropriate preparation.