Environmental terms for British Sign Language? Yes please!
This is some really great news from a team of deaf scientists, deaf educators, and sign linguists at the University of Edinburgh. They’ve completed a project developing 400 environmental science signs for British Sign Language (BSL).
“Rather than literally translating English words, we focused on visually representing the underlying concepts for these terms,” Audrey Cameron wrote in an article in The Conversation. Take a look at this video showing the BSL sign for carbon footprint, for example:
“The sign for “carbon footprint” doesn’t attempt to combine signs for carbon and footprint. Instead, it shows carbon emissions being released into the atmosphere, with the speed of movement indicating emission levels. This approach makes complex concepts immediately understandable, eliminating the need for time-consuming finger-spelling,” Cameron explains.
