Captioning and Interpreting in Broadcast News
The use of interpreters and sign language in media …show more content…
For example, the average speech rate of live programs was 240-248 wpm in Spanish news with the peak rates reaching between 400-600 wpm. China had a rate of 300-350 characters per minute with some reaching numbers as high as 370 cpm (Xiao, Chen, & Palmer, 2015). In the U.K., it was common for the speech rate to reach 220 wpm which caused a lot of viewers to inevitably miss the images that occur on the screen due to eye focus on captions. When the speed of the text was at a rate of 150 wpm, viewers attended to the subtitles about 50% of the time with the other 50% being spent looking at images. Increasing the speed to 180 wpm meant the viewer spent 65% of their time attending to the subtitles and a speed of 200 wpm only provides an opportunity to view the images 20% of the time. People were able to view the images and subtitles more evenly when the slower pace was provided (Romero-Fresco, P. & Martinez-Perez, …show more content…
One issue that was just mentioned is the problem of divided attention. By providing visibility of the source material images, the subtitles, and the interpreter, the viewer is required to divide their attention. Studies show that this behavior often slows reactions times to complete tasks, and in the case of television viewing, it reduces the speed of visual processing of information (Wehrmeyer, 2014). Jelinek-Lewis & Jackson suggested that the viewer would process images in captioned videos at the same time as they would the text (2001). In contrast, the information included in the Wehrmeyer study showed only 5% of the viewers focused on the text when the interpreter was present. This has changed from the study in 1991 where 57 Deaf people were interviewed in England and Northern Ireland to determine their habits when watching a program that provides both signing and subtitles. According to those respondents, only 25% said they focused on the signing only, while 75% said they focus on both the subtitles and the signing (Allsop & Kyle,