Do the TWO Whitmer Sign Language Interpreters Match Up?

3 years ago
39

I've always wondered about the accuracy of sign language interpreters especially since a number of them have been revealed as not knowing what they are doing. In this video we have the opportunity to compare the TWO, count 'em TWO, sign language interpreters for Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

One of the sign interpreters is Whitmer's regular who is standing next to her. The other sign interpreter appears to be the one provided by Detroit channel 4 station WDIV-TV. Why they decided they needed an ADDITIONAL sign language interpreter is beyond me but this gives us the opportunity to observe two such signers interpreting the same speech at the same time. In order to make it easier to make the comparison, after you see a little over a minute of the Whitmer speech at regular speed, I replayed it at half speed for your analysis. To my untrained eye, although some of the sign language gestures seem to match, a lot of them don't even factoring in the fact that they are probably a bit out of synch with each other.

What say you?

Exit question: Isn't it easier and more accurate to just read the closed captions?

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