Perspectives: Fairness and Accessibility

14:30-14:45

Fair Play: The accessibility of audio-visual media and culture

Ellen Schut (Stichting Audiovisuele Toegankelijkheid) [NL]

Media accessibility = ‘fair play’

People with visual or auditory disabilities also have the right to information and culture. In practice, however, they miss out on a lot. How can this be improved and can translators contribute to this? This presentation will center on media accessibility, and aims to raise awareness among and inspire professionals about new forms of translation which deal with accessibility of information. The following questions will be addressed: Is it ‘fair’ that relatively little audio-visual material is made accessible to people with visual or auditory disabilities?  What steps are being taken to remedy this, and by who? What technologies are available to offer this form of translation? And finally, what role do professional translators play or can they play, and are there non-professionals involved in this area of translation?

14:45-16:00

Translation, accessibility and crisis communication

Patrick Cadwell (Dublin City University) [EN]

災い転じて福となす

(wazawai  tenjite fuku to nasu)

Transboundary crises, such as disease outbreaks or mass migrations, are a feature of contemporary life. When crises cut across the languages, cultures, and communicative needs of diverse groups of people, information access becomes an important consideration. Even so, research about information access in multilingual crisis settings has un- or under-recognised until recently. This lack of data has led to flawed assumptions and suboptimal outcomes. This paper explores these flawed assumptions and presents an overview of recent research on the roles that translation can play in achieving effective multilingual, multimodal, and multidirectional crisis communication.