Professor Choi Young-joo of Chosun University Develops 'Sign Language Dictionary of Administrative Procedure Legal Terms'

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] Professor Choi Youngjoo of Chosun University is undertaking a project to develop sign language terms related to administrative procedures.

Once the research project is completed, it is expected that the deaf community will be able to exercise their legal rights more easily.

Chosun University announced on the 16th that Professor Choi Youngjoo from the Department of English Language and Literature at the College of Global Humanities is currently conducting a research project titled "Sign Language Dictionary of Legal Terms Related to Administrative Procedures," commissioned by the Court Administration Office.

Professor Choi Young-joo
Photo by Chosun University

Since the enforcement of the Korean Sign Language Act in August 2016, Korean Sign Language has secured the status of an official language equal to Korean; however, it remains difficult to receive proper Korean Sign Language interpretation services in public service settings.

Additionally, due to the absence of sign language vocabulary corresponding to legal terms that are difficult for the general public to understand, the legal accessibility for the deaf and the interpretation accuracy of sign language interpreters have been very low, causing inconvenience for the deaf community.

Therefore, in 2022, the Court Administration Office commissioned the "Sign Language Dictionary of Legal Terms Related to Administrative Procedures" to enable deaf individuals who use Korean Sign Language as their mother tongue to exercise their legal rights without discrimination and to improve sign language interpreters' accessibility to judicial procedures.

Professor Choi will carry out the development together with sign language and legal experts.

He stated, "Providing administrative procedure-related terms in sign language is a legal right of the deaf," and added, "All researchers will carefully propose and create sign language expressions so that deaf and hearing people can exercise equal legal rights."

Meanwhile, Professor Choi is actively conducting research in the field of sign language, including developing teaching materials for hearing-impaired students and launching free sign language learning courses on K-MOOC.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.