EASIT: Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training
This is Unit 2:
Easy-to-understand language, in short E2U.
Element 5: Visual presentation of easy-to-understand language.
Video lecture: Visual presentation of E2U: images.
My name is Sergio Hernandez Garrido from the University of Hildesheim.
This short video lecture is about
the visual presentation of content in E2U.
The focus is on the use of images.
We talk about the aspects that have to be considered
when images will be used in texts in Easy and Plain Language.
An important function of images: enhance comprehensibility.
One of the most important aspects when using images in a text in E2U
is that the image should have a purpose in a text.
Images should refer to the text's content
and serve the purpose of exemplifying, adding information,
securing comprehensibility or summarizing information.
The relation between the images and the text must be clear.
Comprehensibility is the most important principle of E2U content.
Even if aesthetics may still serve a purpose,
it is of reduced importance.
Purely decorative images should not be integrated
in a text in Easy or Plain Language.
It must be carefully decided what images are to be used.
Images can help to make abstract information more visible.
This is only helpful if the image used is itself not abstract.
Charts and diagrams are effective to clarify abstract content.
As an example for this use of images,
we show a chart used in a pamphlet about inheritance law.
The text was created by the Research Centre for Easy Language
in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice of Lower Saxony.
Family relations may be difficult to explain with just written text.
For that reason, it was decided to create charts that show
how the persons are related to each other
in order to illustrate who inherits how much.
Here, an abstract subject was made more comprehensible
through the use of a visual tool.
The text works with the chart to clarify the inheritance rules.
In this case, the use of images was not primarily a choice
to increase the text aesthetics.
The chart is intended to increase comprehensibility.
There is no empirical proof on the comprehensibility
of charts and diagrams for the primary target groups.
Especially the group with cognitive impairments
may have problems understanding abstract content.
No matter which resource is used to display it,
be it verbal or non-verbal.
Another function of images: enhance acceptability.
In the chapter on pragmatic aspects of E2U
we stressed that easy-to-understand languages work on acceptability.
Images are a powerful resource, but they are also ambivalent.
Different parts of the target groups
or even individuals within the same target groups
might react differently with respect to the same type of imagery.
In the German context,
Easy Language texts are often illustrated with naive images.
These images usually make no contribution to comprehensibility
and are purely illustrative.
But they signal that a text belongs to the Easy Language universe.
They tag the text as inoffensive and highly comprehensible.
Even if they do not contribute themselves
to the comprehensibility of the text.
These images work
for some of the target groups on the motivation barrier.
We talk about the motivation barrier
when we address pragmatic aspects of E2U.
For other parts of the primary groups
and for most of the secondary target groups,
that is the general public that are confronted with Easy Language texts
or for experts that work with Easy Language
with the primary target groups,
those naive images have a very different effect.
These images in their differentness stress
that the users are cognitively impaired.
They are unacceptable for most adult users.
These images might therefore trigger stigmatisation processes.
Regarding the usage of images in E2U content,
further empirical research is needed.
Some projects concerning different image resources
regarding the comprehensibility and acceptability for the primary groups
are under way at the University of Mainz/Germersheim in Germany.
This video lecture has been prepared by Sergio Hernandez and Christiane Maaß
from the University of Hildesheim.
You can reach us at: easit@uni-hildesheim.de
The project EASIT has received funding
from the European Commission
under the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships
for Higher Education programme,
grant agreement 2018-1-ES01-KA203-05275.
The European Commission support for the production of the publication
does not constitute an endorsement of the contents,
which reflect the views only of the authors,
and the Commission cannot be held responsible
for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Partners of the EASIT project:
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Università degli studi di Trieste
Universidade de Vigo
Stiftung Universitat Hildesheim
SDI München
Dyslexiförbundet
Radio Televizija Slovenija
Zavod Risa
EASIT: Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training
Subtitled by: Sabrina Januzik.