The starting point of this study is the Convention of the United Nations on the
rights of persons with disabilities, which states that participation to social life
is a fundamental human right and places great emphasis on the principle of accessibility
as a key factor for its achievement. Given that in today’s society information
– especially on the web – plays a crucial role in facilitating access to
many aspects of daily life, the aim of the study is to assess whether the websites
of a number of public facilities take into account e-accessibility, i.e. the particular
needs of people with disabilities. A comparison was carried out among 27 websites
in three different languages (German, Dutch and Italian) in order to evaluate
their accessibility and communicative adequacy, also with regard to the use of
non-discriminatory language. The main hypothesis of the study is that different
cultures show different awareness and sensitivity levels towards these issues,
with such differences being reflected in the language and design of the websites.
If this assumption of cultural differences is true, then translators can play an
important social role by importing and disseminating the “best communicative practices”, and contrastive analyses of this kind can provide them with the necessary
detailed knowledge.
