Outsourcing's Next "Victims": Deaf People

[LoZoccolo]

Somebody has to write those subtitles that allow the hearing impaired to watch movies. Increasingly, that work is being outsourced to India--with some unintentionally hilarious consequences.

According to UPI, professional subtitlers in the UK are up in arms over the outsourcing of their jobs to low paid workers in India. They're also complaining that the trend is resulting in substandard work.

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/03/outsourcings_ne.html

[treestar]

1. The translators are the "victims" not the deaf people

I don't imagine the American subtitling work force is all that great in number, either. Americans don't bother to learn second languages that often. They are probably at least of recent migrant origin.

[Divernan]

2. No - translating from one language to another is not a problem re deafness

Writing as someone with a substantial hearing loss, I know this is all about putting on a TV screen the English dialogues which are being spoken IN ENGLISH. Whoever wrote the linked article missed the point because he talked about DEAF people being victimized. As far as faulty translating from one language to another for subtitles, this has nothing to do with being hard of hearing, because every viewer who cannot speak the language of a film is the victim of inadequate translation.

[EVDebs]

3. We've already outsourced the Presidency to the GOP

without a legit audit trail, jails, sewer, water system operations, all without accountability. China has all the manufacturing jobs, India will soon have all the other whitecollar jobs that can't be nailed down. Only the low cost of oil is propping up this untenable situation.