Article,
Sign language: a newcomer to the interpreting forum
Interpreters’ Newsletter, (2001)
Abstract
The vast majority of us perceive language as a form of oral communication, which is taken for granted like the air we breathe. For a minority however, the ability to hear spoken language and use it as a normal means of communication has been lost through deafness, which may have developed gradually through illness or encroaching age, or may never have been acquired because of a congenital condition from birth. Most of us live and work in a spoken-language environment rarely encountenng the invisible reality of deafness, which exists in our midst; it is not immediately tangible when one walks down a street. One instantly recognises a Blind person or someone in a wheelchair as having a physical def\'ıciency, but it is impossible to single out the Deaf, unless they are spoken to.
