When Tina Lannin, a lip-reading specialist from County Down, first cautiously stepped into the “strange new world of hearing” after her cochlear implant operation, her hearing began to deteriorate “intermittently”.
“My hearing was like a baby's; it took time to learn and grow, but it was also fun,” she recalls.
“I loved discovering the sound of the rain, and was blown away by the sound of waves on the shore. At first I thought it was an airplane. It was like being on a rollercoaster, it was mind-blowing.”
The year was 2012, and she was in her 30s, four years after she founded 121 Captions, a groundbreaking live captioning business that reads lips to provide instant captioning at major events for the deaf and hard of hearing.
The company currently employs a team of around 300 subtitling staff across the globe, providing shorthand services in 23 languages and working with a range of major corporations including Microsoft, Oxford University, Disney and the National Crime Agency.
Tina is already well known for her lip reading services for police, justice, medical professionals and television, where her skills are often sought after to decipher the secret whispers of the rich and famous. Tina hopes that increasing awareness of her live speech-to-text service will encourage more people to think about inclusivity in all areas of their lives.
Sometimes surprisingly, she says, the lack of understanding and support is closer to home than people think.
“My childhood was a mixture of supportive and challenging experiences,” she says. “My family encouraged me to adapt to the hearing world, but no one at home or when I was out and about really understood my hearing loss.
“My teachers were supportive and my friends were understanding and encouraging, but I sometimes felt lonely, especially in an environment where it was difficult to communicate effectively.”
“All families face challenges, but families with hearing loss have unique challenges and I believe hearing people should also make an effort. Communication is everyone's responsibility.”
All families face challenges, but deaf families have unique challenges and I believe hearing people should also make an effort. Communication is everyone's responsibility.
— Tina Lannin
As she learned to speak, she also learned to read lips, quickly becoming able to recognise different lip shapes, facial expressions and body language.
“In primary school, along with intensive English lessons, I learned lip reading and became very good at it,” explains Tina, who lives in Groomsport with her 11-year-old hearing dog, a toy poodle called Bailey.
“At boarding school, after lights out, I would read my best friends' lips in the moonlight and have conversations with them in whispers that I couldn't hear, of course.”
Years later she trained as a lip-reading teacher and now, as a member of the Lip-Reading Society, her skills are in demand in all sorts of situations, from interpreting the silent speech of royalty and celebrities for television commentary and analysis, to lip-reading for speechless members of the public in courts and hospitals.
Once, she was asked to read the lips of a poltergeist – she wasn't surprised when the person didn't come out. Another time, she was asked to vet answers during the Mastermind final alongside presenter John Humphreys after the (eventual) winner mixed up the words “gerbil” and “jerboa” in a crucial answer about a rat, the symbol of the desert rat.
“There are ethical considerations involved in interpreting private conversations, especially in high-profile settings like royals or major sporting events,” she acknowledges, “but in my opinion, these public figures are in a public setting and so what they say may be heard anyway. I have always placed more importance on accuracy than on headlines created by so-called 'experts.'”
She says the toughest moments are when reading lips is distressing or involves highly sensitive material, such as rape cases or murder scenes, but the best moments are when her skills have helped present a complete transcript for forensics from “crystal clear footage” and in projects like Peter Jackson's films. They never grow old, The World War I film clips proved to be “really interesting to look at”.
Like school life, university life was “tough” and he was unable to get support from his three universities while studying Business, Japanese and Law. However, later on, assistance in the form of subtitlers, transcript writers and lip speakers (hearing impaired people who are professionally trained to read lip movements) for his “Professional Career Consultant” qualification finally made “a big difference”.
“I actually wanted to be a lawyer but at the time there was very little deaf accommodation in law firms and it was impossible to secure work,” explains Tina, who has previously worked as an accountant, finance manager for the charity Hearing Concern, a lip-reading teacher and deaf accommodation trainer.
“While helping deaf people around me gain access to education and work, I was often frustrated by the limited quality and range of communication supports available to deaf people who need captioning. So 121 Captions was born.”
Tina was recently recognised for her achievements when she won the Entrepreneur of the Year award at Local Women Magazine's Inspirational Women of the Year Awards in Belfast.
Does she think more people should learn to lip read, as well as sign language? “Yes, of course,” came the immediate reply (over email, all answers to questions came back as expected, detailed, insightful and lightning fast).
“We encourage people communicating with deaf people to learn sign language, but lip reading can be a valuable skill for anyone,” adds Tina, who is learning English as a “foreign language” and also speaks Japanese and “a little” German, Spanish and BSL (British Sign Language).
“I have learnt sign language up to level 2 as an adult, which means I can have a basic conversation in BSL, but my focus is on developing my lip reading skills, which I have found to be more immediately useful in my personal and professional life.”
Regarding the debate over cochlear implants, she believes that while they can be life-changing for some, others in the deaf community prefer to rely on sign language and cultural identity.
“It's important to respect an individual's decision,” she emphasizes. “For me, it was difficult to step into the strange world of hearing and to stay there. My experience has helped me understand why some people who have been deaf their whole life give up on getting a cochlear implant. Understanding the hearing world takes a lot of practice, persistence and perseverance. But I'm stubborn and I don't give up easily.”
Outside of work, Tina, who suffers from tinnitus and frequent auditory hallucinations of phantom music when in fact nothing is playing, has been forging her own path (or rather, race track) with the same high pace and winning streak.
A member of the Porsche Club, she recently achieved her advanced driving qualification and is a regular at Kirkistown racecourse near Newtownards.
“Driving the Porsche and taking it to the race track is fun,” she says, “but I have to remove my cochlear implants to make the helmet fit my head, which means I have to drive quietly and can't hear cars coming up behind me or gear changes. They tailored the course and tests for me so I could keep my eyes on the road.”
She may be a truly inspirational recipient, but it seems even Tina Lannin can't drive a Porsche and read lips at the same time.
121captions.com
