What is it about?
This article looks at what it was like to interpret live COVID-19 press conferences and government briefings into Malaysian Sign Language (BIM) during the pandemic. It explains the pressures interpreters faced when working alone for long periods, often without preparation, while trying to make fast-changing medical and policy information accessible to Deaf viewers. Drawing on interviews and personal reflection, the article shows the practical, linguistic, emotional, and ethical challenges of sign language interpreting during a national crisis.
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Why is it important?
This publication is important because it documents a part of pandemic communication that is often overlooked: how Deaf communities received urgent public information, and what it took for interpreters to make that access possible. It also challenges common misunderstandings about sign language, interpreter visibility, and the idea that accessibility is simply a matter of placing an interpreter on screen. By showing the limits of existing systems and the resilience of interpreters working under extreme conditions, the article highlights the need for better training, preparation, and institutional support for accessible emergency communication.
Perspectives
For me, this publication is both scholarly and deeply personal. As someone who was directly involved in this work, I wanted to document not only the technical demands of interpreting during a crisis, but also the human experience behind it: the fatigue, responsibility, visibility, and constant decision-making that the public rarely sees. I also hope the article helps shift attention toward the linguistic rights of Deaf people in Malaysia and the need to treat sign language access as an essential part of public communication, not an afterthought.
Samuel Chew
University of Malaya
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Media interpreting into Malaysian sign language, INContext Studies in Translation and Interculturalism, August 2022, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.54754/incontext.v2i2.23.
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