How did the sign language "Mandarin" for ice and snow sports come into being?
After a year of research and testing, 379 common sign language words and expressions have been determined, covering the Winter Olympics, Winter Paralympics, etc.
From Dingliu Bingdundun at the Beijing Winter Olympics to Xue Rongrong, who is about to take a job at the Beijing Winter Paralympics, the splendid ice and snow sports are attracting more and more disabled people.
Today, a set of sign language for ice and snow sports and the "Mandarin" version of Bing Dun Dun and Xu Rong Rong's sign language officially meet with hearing-impaired friends.
Recently, a reporter from the Beijing News interviewed the main participants of this sign language project to learn more about the stories behind the corresponding sign language of Bing Dun Dun and Xue Rong Rong.
Some ice and snow projects are less popular and it is necessary to standardize sign language
As a sign language user, Xu Cong, vice chairman of the China Association of the Deaf, participated in the formulation of a common sign language program for common words used in ice and snow sports.
With the approaching of the Beijing Winter Paralympics, more and more deaf friends around Xu Cong began to learn the sign language "Mandarin" related to ice and snow sports, such as Bing Dundun, Xue Rongrong, alpine skiing, speed skating, etc., to communicate about ice and snow sports. It has become a hot topic for deaf friends recently.
Wang Yibo, the chief editor in charge of the "National Universal Sign Language Series", is a hard-of-hearing person. At the same time, she is also a participant in the formulation of the universal sign language scheme for commonly used words in ice and snow sports. In her opinion, promoting the "Mandarin" version of ice and snow sports sign language is more important. It is easy for deaf friends to walk on ice and snow and experience the joy of ice and snow sports.
"Take the Winter Olympics as an example, some projects may be relatively unpopular, so it is necessary for us to pass a set of standardized sign language to let everyone have an accurate understanding of this project." Wang Yibo said.
According to statistics, there are nearly 27 million hearing-impaired people in China, and a considerable number of people use sign language to communicate.
But similar to dialects, sign language styles vary from place to place.
Wang Yibo said, for example, the place name "Longqing Gorge" in Yanqing, the local deaf people have a set of their own sign language, so if you communicate with deaf friends in other places, you may need to call each other a lot. Only sign language can express the place "Longqing Gorge" clearly.
Sign language in motion is determined by the experience and needs of the deaf
There is a long history of action to develop a unified style of sports sign language.
The reporter learned that as early as 2008, the China Disabled Persons' Federation took the opportunity of Beijing to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, and successively published "Sign Language Commonly Used in the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics" (2008), "Sports Professional Sign Language" (2010). ); in 2018, the revised "Sports Professional Sign Language" was renamed "General Sign Language for Common Words in Sports and Rhythm" and republished.
Various sports-related sign language publications standardize and popularize common sign language for sports professional words, solve the problem of information barriers in physical education and competitive activities in a timely manner, and effectively help hearing-impaired groups in daily cultural and sports activities and competitive competitions. vulgar grades.
However, the reporter also noticed that although the sign language version of "Mandarin" has been formulated in some sports before, the formulation and popularization of sign language for the Winter Olympics, Winter Paralympics and ice and snow sports have not done much. not enough.
With the arrival of the 2022 Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics in Beijing, in order to fill the gap of common sign language for the Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics, the China Disabled Persons' Federation will solicit sign language through a national tender in March 2020. The research force entrusts the Beijing Sign Language Research Association (hereinafter referred to as the "Research Association") to undertake the project "Supplementary Research on Common Sign Language for Commonly Used Words in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics".
Xu Cong and Wang Yibo joined the research at that time.
According to Liu Wa, the head of the National Digital Center for Universal Sign Language, the biggest feature of this project is that most of the people who participated in the research and development of sign language for ice and snow sports are deaf people who use sign language. Sign language for sports is not decided by any expert or scholar, but by deaf people themselves, because this is the language they will use in the future, and it should be decided according to their experience and needs.”
Recalling the situation during the seminar, Xu Cong smiled and told reporters in sign language: "Mr. Hu Ke, who was in charge of the sign language project of the Chinese Disabled Persons' Association at that time, participated in our discussion. He searched for a lot of information about the Winter Olympics on the Internet, but some sports introductions are only in English. There is no Chinese version. In order to facilitate everyone's discussion, Mr. Hu Ke simply demonstrated at the venue what the physical movements of the athletes look like when the sport is carried out. Our discussions are all carried out in joy. "
Sign language play is in line with international sign language to a certain extent
During the discussion, Hu Ke did his best to use body language to convey the information contained in the Winter Olympics to everyone, but the unavoidable problem is that because the winter sports represented by the Winter Olympics and the Winter Paralympics are not like the Sports competitions represented by the Summer Olympics are so popular, winter sports are mainly concentrated in northern regions with ice and snow conditions, and deaf people participating in winter sports are even rarer. Therefore, sign language related to winter sports is relatively scarce.
"There are not many online video materials for some sports, so we went to consult professional disabled athletes and asked them to help us demonstrate these sports." Wang Yibo said that during the discussion, the participation of sports athletes made the sign language of ice and snow sports more effective. Professional and accurate.
At the same time, the members of the research association also widely solicited the opinions of deaf friends from all over the country to determine the most suitable sign language style for deaf people in the country.
Sign language is the most important communication tool for deaf people. It is precisely because of the opportunity of the Beijing Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics that it is more necessary to develop a set of sign language that can communicate with international deaf friends on the ice and snow arena.
Xu Cong said: "At the beginning, we considered to be in line with international standards. For example, snowboarding, alpine skiing, etc. have international sign language, but they are not the same as Chinese sign language. So during the discussion, we encountered some problems. If According to the international style of play, Chinese deaf people can’t understand it, so it is very inconvenient to use many gestures to explain it.” After several rounds of discussions, everyone unanimously decided that sign language for ice and snow sports should first be accepted from the perspective of domestic deaf people. , if the international sign language is simple and easy for the Chinese deaf people to understand, the international sign language is used, otherwise it needs to be modified, "for example, snowboarding, we have changed the action of 'jump' in the international sign language to a direction. , which is more in line with the understanding habits of Chinese deaf people, and also in line with international sign language to a certain extent.”
In addition, on the basis of inheriting the research spirit of the national common sign language, the members of the research association follow the language normative spirit of the "National Common Sign Language Common Vocabulary", and focus on drawing on the internal word formation rules of "The Common Sign Language of Common Words for Sports and Rhythm". Followed the research method based on the principles of sign language linguistics.
After a year of research and testing, the project team has finally determined 379 styles of common sign language words commonly used in ice and snow sports.
Common sign language for ice and snow sports includes sports headings and humanities headings, covering major categories of athletic events in the Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics and key words that are essential for people-to-people and cultural exchanges.
Launched sign language teaching videos one after another to promote popularization
There are "Mandarin" versions of commonly used words in ice and snow sports, but how to promote them has become a new topic.
At the end of June 2021, the National Universal Sign Language Digital Promotion Center, jointly established by the State Language Commission and the China Disabled Persons' Federation, was established. Therefore, the task of promoting Universal Sign Language for commonly used words in ice and snow sports naturally falls on the center.
Liu Wa said: "We originally planned to make this set of books into a paper version with videos, but for various reasons, we finally promoted it in the form of e-books, which just matched the name of the 'Digital Promotion Center'."
On the 50-day countdown to the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the National Digital Promotion Center for General Sign Language has publicly solicited sign language videos for "Together to the Future".
Liu Wa said: "Our original intention was to encourage everyone to participate more in the Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics, but what we did not expect was that a total of more than 200 units and individuals submitted submissions to us. The sign language video of 'Together to the Future'." In order to express its gratitude, the National General Sign Language Digital Promotion Center presented the e-book activation code of "Common Sign Language with Commonly Used Words in Ice and Snow Sports" to all units participating in the "Together to the Future" sign language collection activity and Personally, this has also popularized the use of the "Mandarin" version of the commonly used term in ice and snow sports to a certain extent.
At the same time, the National General Sign Language Digital Promotion Center has successively launched sign languages for the Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics, such as Bingdundun, Xue Rongrong, and "Together to the Future" on the WeChat public account "General Sign Language". Teaching videos, every sign language video about ice and snow sports has been clicked by thousands of netizens, and everyone followed the sign language model in the video to start a magical journey of expressing "ice and snow feelings" in sign language.
Beijing News reporter Wu Tingting