EASIT: Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training
Easy-to-understand language in Germany:
overview and legal situation.
This is unit 2: Easy-to-understand language,
in short E2U.
Element 2:
Legislation, standards and guidelines.
Video lecture: Easy-to-understand language in Germany:
overview and legal situation.
My name is Christiane Maaß from the University of Hildesheim.
We give an overwiew on the situation
of easy-to-understand language in Germany in two video lectures.
In this first video, we will give an overview
about the German concept of easy-to-understand language.
We will give insight into the fields
where easy-to-understand language is already used
and where more Easy Language material is needed.
This video will end with an overview
on important legal milestones.
The second video is on the German research situation.
We will talk about the existing practical and scientific guidelines.
We will go into more detail
with regard to the German easy-to-understand language rules.
This topic covers more aspects than the other videos
and treats the situation of easy-to-understand language
in Germany from different viewpoints.
Therefore, we have created two videos to cover this topic.
In Germany, easy-to-understand language is differentiated
in Easy Language and Plain Language.
Easy Language is strictly normed and is maximally comprehensible.
Plain Language is not as strictly normed,
but covers an area of different complexity stages.
It can be adapted to the target groups
and the respective target situations.
Let`s have a look at the different areas of application.
Easy-to-understand language, especially Easy Language,
is widely implemented in legal and administrative communication.
The situation has evolved
on the basis of the legal situation in Germany
that privieges Easy Language.
We will talk about the legislation in a short while.
On the basis of the legislation passed on federal level,
federal agencies of all kinds, but also federal states
have to offer Easy Language on their homepages
and there are projects to translate
legal and administrative information into Easy Language.
Especially on municipal and local level,
there are many interaction texts, for example,
municipal services, available in Easy Language.
Political participation is another field
where many Easy Language texts are available:
polling information, programmes of political parties,
explanations of the German political system
news from different news media etc.
News are actually available in Easy as well as in Plan Language.
An example for a regular Easy Language news offer
are the daily news of the North German Broadcasting Association.
If you are interested, you can visit their homepage and see
how they provide this service.
Offers in the field of public health
are also growing. In this field,
it is especially Plan and not Easy Language that is used.
Still quite rare are multimodal services in Easy Language,
but there are some examples
like the fairy tales in Easy Language and sign language.
Literature in Easy Language is very rare in Germany
and there is no state funding
in place to promote such offers.
Very active are museums,
that are open to a broad and diverse audience
and increasingly offer Easy Language.
But there are many other contexts
where information in easy-to- understand language is needed
and wished for by the target groups, but are still lacking.
In the field of legislation, the central pillar is the
Federal Act on Equal Opportunities of Persons with Diabilities,
in German Behindertengleichstellungsgesetz
or short BGG.
This law was passed first in 2002
an amended in 2016 and 2018.
In the 2016 amendment,
in this version,
a paragraph is contained on comprehensibility and Easy Language
that became effective in January 2018.
This paragraph states
" [...] that official notices, general rulings,
public law contracts and forms
should on request be explained in Plain Language and,
if it does not suffice, in Easy Language".
That means, Easy as well as Plain Language are mentioned
and we can see the continuum of comprehensibility,
the different stages of complexity, that we mentioned before.
Authorities may try with Plain Language first,
but if this doesn`t work, they have to go for Easy Language.
Paragraph 11 is limited to certain text types of legal communication
and to persons with cognitive and psychological diabilities.
Nevertheless, this law has boosted
the implementation of easy-to-understand language
in Germany.
The Federal Act on Equal Opportunities
of Persons with Disabilities
is implemented through different regulations.
The most important for Easy Language
is the Accessible Information Technology Regulation, in German:
Barrierefreie- Informationstechnik- Verordnung
[in German] BITV 2.0 [in English] BITV 2.0
in its version from 2011.
It regulates the accessibility of websites,
mobile apps, e-government tools and graphical interfaces.
This regulation states
that every federal agency
has to have Easy Language offers on their homepages.
In addition, the BITV 2.0 contains an appendix
with 13 basic rules for the creation of Easy Language content.
This makes the Accessible Information Technology Regulation
an important promoter
of Easy language in Germany.
On rather political-administrative level,
there are the National Action Plans
that were drafted in 2016 and 2011
to concretely implement the UN Convention
on the Rights of People with Disabilities,
short UN CRPD, on a national level.
They contain many measures evolving around
communicative accessibility in general, among which Easy Language.
The National Action Plans for the implementation of the UN CRPD
is not a binding document,
but rather a letter of intent.
Nevertheless, its implementation is being monitored
and Easy Language is mentioned several times.
You can find more information about the UN CRPD in the video lecture
Unit 1 "Easy-to-undersand language", Element 2
"Legislation, standards, and guidelines",
video lecture "Legislation" (international perspective).
Plain Language, on the other hand,
is mentioned in the National Action Plan Health Literacy
that was passed in 2018 as a means to improve
health literacy of the broader population,
especially the vulnerable groups
that tend to have reduced health literacy
and are disproportionately often
faced also with communication difficulties.
The main idea of the National Action Plan Health Literacy is
that health literacy
can only develop on the basis of accessible health information.
Plain language is seen as the tool of choice to achieve this goal.
We will continue on the research on Easy and Plain language
and the rulesets used in Germany in our next presentation.
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 this 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 Universität Hildesheim,
SDI München,
Dyslexiförbundet,
Radiotelevisija Slovenija,
Zavod Risa.
EASIT: Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training
Subtitled by Katharina Broermann.