Signed Language Interpreting

Signed Language Interpreting Preparation, Practice and Performance

Edited by Lorraine Leeson, Svenja Wurm and Myriam Vermeerbergen

St. Jerome Publishing Manchester, UK & Kinderhook (NY), USA

Published by St. Jerome Publishing 2 Maple Road West, Brooklands Manchester, M23 9HH, United Kingdom Telephone +44 (0)161 973 9856 Fax +44 (0)161 905 3498 [email protected] http://www.stjerome.co.uk

InTrans Publications P. O. Box 467 Kinderhook, NY 12106, USA Telephone (518) 758-1755 Fax (518) 758-6702

ISBN 978-1-905763-33-7  Lorraine Leeson, Svenja Wurm and Myriam Vermeerbergen 2011 All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the Publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA), 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 9HE. In North America, registered users may contact the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC): 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers MA 01923, USA. Printed and bound in Great Britain by 4edge Ltd., Hockley, Essex, UK Typeset by Delta Typesetters, Cairo, Egypt Email: [email protected] British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Signed language interpreting : preparation, practice and performance / edited by Lorraine Leeson, Svenja Wurm and Myriam Vermeerbergen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-905763-33-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Sign language--Research. I. Leeson, Lorraine. II. Wurm, Svenja. III. Vermeerbergen, Myriam. HV2474.S5725 2011 419’.70802--dc23 2011029421

Contents Preface Graham H. Turner

v

Hey Presto! Preparation, Practice and Performance in the World of Signed Language Interpreting and Translating Lorraine Leeson, Svenja Wurm and Myriam Vermeerbergen 1 Becoming the Ears, Eyes, Voice and Hands of Someone Else Educating Generalist Interpreters in a Three-year Programme Sonja Erlenkamp, Guri Amundsen, Sigrid S. Berge, Trine Grande, Odd Morten Mjøen and Eli Raanes

12

The Prolibras Test as an Assessment of Brazilian Sign Language Interpreter Proficiency A Critique Maria Cristina Pires Pereira and Cátia de Azevedo Fronza

37

Types of Error in the Learning of Spanish Sign Language as a Second Language The Effect of Age and Experience Isabel R. Rodríguez Ortiz

50

Being There Role Shift in English to Auslan Interpreting Della Goswell

61

Interpreting (Im)politeness Strategies in a Media Political Setting A Case Study from the Greek Prime Ministerial TV Debate as Interpreted into Greek Sign Language Flora Savvalidou 87 Medical Signbank A Cure-all for the Aches and Pains of Medical Signed Language Interpreting? Jemina Napier, George Major and Lindsay Ferrara

110

A Magical Profession? Causes and Management of Occupational Stress in the Signed Language Interpreting Profession Ali Hetherington

138

Notes on Contributors

160

Index

165

Preface Graham H. Turner Heriot-Watt University, Scotland If you aim to write a text that will be known and cited with approval centuries later, many fine models might inspire you. Plato’s Phaedo has been firmly lodged in my memory for at least 25 years. Written nearly two-and-a-half millennia ago, it still tells us all that we need to know about the appropriate balance of courage and humility with which to propose claims about knowledge. According to High Tredennick’s translation (first published in 1954), Plato tells us that, on the night before Socrates died, his friend Simmias summed up Socrates’ teaching thus: it is our duty to do one of two things: either to ascertain the facts, whether by seeking instruction or by personal discovery; or, if this is impossible, to select the best and most dependable theory which human intelligence can supply, and use it as a raft to ride the seas of life. (Plato 1969:139)

This volume, extending the adventure of The Sign Language Translator and Interpreter, appears at a time of considerable global uncertainty when there is great need of rafts and of strong hearts to set sail upon them. Economic and political realms face indefinite turbulence and jeopardy on every continent. Yet the value of ancient values remains to illuminate our way: just as Socrates advised so very long ago, we must simply talk things over, reason it out, select the most dependable theories that we can find. In the fields of translation and interpreting studies, communication is what we do and what we know, enabling dialogue to take place and working to conjoin perspectives. Part of our task in the years immediately ahead, it seems, will be to keep reminding others that communication cannot be taken for granted. That is, you can talk and they may hear, but if you both really want to communicate, the task needs active attention from both parties. In these austere times, securing effective translation and interpretation services will require vigilance and tenacity. There will be pressure to cut corners in the provision of quality and to accept off-the-peg, lowest-common-denominator solutions in unique, complex delivery situations. There will be assumptions made that frontline professionals can sit back once a translation or interpreting agent has been ‘plugged in’ to fill the communication gap, with no further need themselves to take care to ensure that real communication actually occurs. Even where care is taken, there will be diminishing appetite for the effort and expense of cross-checks and loop-closing follow-up actions to improve reliability.

VI

Preface

The papers collected here underscore the role of research, scholarship and analysis in challenging any inclination we may encounter to relax the demand that due care and attention be paid to the provision of high-quality signed language translation and interpreting services. If communication is to be meaningful, perhaps in these of all times, then it requires the application of care and the availability of resources. It is part of the role of researchers to show what can be achieved when all does work well, and not to flinch from revealing the costs when all does not. By sharing these accounts with one another in these pages, we extend the impact of our thinking across contexts and continents. At the same time, we look for theoretical proposals whose dependability we can commend, even as we proceed to test it further in subsequent research. You may hold in your hands, then, a raft to ride the seas of life: we wish you clear water and favourable winds.

Reference Plato (1969) The Last Days of Socrates, Penguin: Harmondsworth.

“Hey Presto!”

Preparation, Practice and Performance in the World of Signed Language Interpreting and Translating Lorraine Leeson, Svenja Wurm & Myriam Vermeerbergen Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; Heriot-Watt University, Scotland; and Lessius University College/ K.U. Leuven, Belgium Abstract. This paper introduces the volume by reflecting on the current state of research and training in the field of signed language interpreting and translating. While the discipline has been successful in maintaining a relevant relationship with the practice and profession, noticeable, for example, in the growing number of practisearchers and a traditional focus on vocationally-oriented training, there is still a need for producing rigorous empirical and theory driven research more consistently. Outlining the importance of adequate, research-informed training of interpreters, the authors argue that research should produce outcomes that (1) feed directly into teaching by describing the skills and strategies that interpreters need to develop, (2) provide technical tools to be used by interpreters or trainees, and/or (3) expand our understanding of interpreting practices, the role of the interpreter and the interpreting context. Setting the scene for the subsequent papers of the volume, this introductory chapter thus argues for a sustainable research basis that will eventually close the research-training-practice cycle.

Keywords: signed language interpreting research, signed language interpreter training, signed language interpreting state of the art. In universities around the world, there are increasing calls for ‘research-led teaching’, whereby findings from empirical and ‘fundamental’, theory driven research are used to inform and shape the delivery of teaching in order to close the circle on the research-teaching-practice-research continuum. In the case of signed language translation and interpreting we might ask: where is the research on signed language translation and interpreting coming from? Analyses of what kinds of interpreting literature exist in our field show that many publications draw on the experience of practice and (until recently) have been based on introspection rather than on research-driven agendas. As one of us, discussing the need for teaching critical, reflective selfanalysis to student interpreters, suggests elsewhere (Leeson 2005), a three-way distinction of the literature in our field is appropriate when it comes to examining the relationship between doing interpreting and becoming an interpreter:

Preparation, Practice and Performance

(1) Generation Zero: Descriptive and prescriptive works about interpreting (e.g. Frishberg 1986; Neumann-Solow 1981) along with more recent works that incorporate the growing body of theory (e.g. Humphrey and Alcorn 1995; Patrie 2000a, 2000b, 2001; Napier et al. 2006). (2) First Generation Research: This includes some of the first theoretical considerations of Source Language (SL)-Target Language (TL) comparability (for example, see Cokely 1992; Napier 2005) as well as much needed descriptions and analyses of performance (e.g. Brennan and Brown 1997; Metzger 1999). Comparisons between student-professional performance (Metzger 1999) may also come under this heading along with analyses of interpreter performance by others (e.g. Johnson 1992), self-analyses in the ‘practisearcher’ mode (e.g. Scullion 2002) and discussions of how to introduce students to self-analyses (e.g. Isham 1986; Patrie 2000a, 2000b, 2001). (3) Second Generation Research: As Leeson (2005) suggests, research is needed that investigates what students or professionals do with this knowledge. What evidence is there that they integrate the literature and theory they receive in order to develop autonomous learning? What happens for those who have access to supported analyses versus those who do not (university based versus vocational training) in terms of reflective development?

Therefore, while some notable work has been undertaken over recent decades, the chain between research and teaching, teaching and practice, and practice and research has yet to be joined up for our field. This is a challenge that has also dogged spoken language interpreting research. As the (spoken language) interpreting researcher Helle V. Dam puts it: Whereas the predominant paradigm prior to the 90s had been conceptual analysis, or what in our particular field also manifested itself as “personal theorizing” or even “speculation” (Gile, 1990), the early 90s saw a massive call for empirical work. While it was therefore clear enough that empirical research was hot, whereas (purely) theoretical research was not, it was less clear how one should, or could, ‘go empirical’ because of the distinct lack of empirical tradition in the field. (2001:164; emphasis in original)

Some twenty years later, the field of signed language interpreting is still working toward the goal of ‘go[ing] empirical’. Much has been achieved, and as this volume demonstrates, there are an increasing number of practising interpreters who are engaging in research and who are keen to share their findings with the field. In recent years we have seen a small but growing number of practitioners seek to extend their knowledge base by participating in research, frequently as postgraduate research students. This is currently typically at master’s level where a requirement of the programme of study is to complete a short research

Lorraine Leeson, Svenja Wurm & Myriam Vermeerbergen

based dissertation. Recent years have also seen the rise of completed doctoral work (e.g. most recently Dickinson 2010; Nilsson 2010; Wurm 2010). The fruits of these labours are starting to find their way into the signed language interpreting and translation literature, and this volume is a clear example of this process in action. This growing tendency for practising interpreters to return to education and conduct research is a very positive one, the potential downside being that these practitioners may only ever complete one piece of research work – that completed for their dissertation; researchers who plough the field for longer periods of time still remain far and few between. Even amongst those whose careers are spent training interpreters and translators, a relatively small few are ‘research active’, that is conducting research and publishing their findings. This is not all that surprising. Even in those universities where interpreter training is established at undergraduate or postgraduate level, the burden of administration and teaching in a field where few resources exist, and where, as a result, lecturers are constantly creating their own teaching and learning materials as well as developing pedagogically sound programmes, often leaves precious little time for engaging in research practice too. Despite the need to acknowledge this ‘slow-grow’ context, we cannot shy away from acknowledging that we need high quality evidence-based analysis to motivate development in teaching, learning and practice. This has been reflected on at international conferences such as Critical Link, as well as at continent-specific conferences such as those of the European Forum of Sign Language Interpreter Trainers, the Australian Interpreter Trainers Network and the American Conference of Interpreter Trainers. In all of these contexts, we have witnessed discussion on the need for an increase in empirical accounts of what interpreters do, and the building of such research-driven findings into training. Theory equally has an important role to play, providing reflections on more fundamental questions, for instance, about the role of interpreting and interpreters. For example, if we draw on developments in cognitive linguistics, we can flesh out a cognitive model of interpreting that looks at the co-creation of meaning by all participants, with the interpreter clearly identifiable as a participant, albeit one with boundaries associated with their participation. Emerging from a paradigmatic shift of how we understand communication (see for example Wilcox and Shaffer 2005), our current theoretical understanding takes us a great distance from the notion of the interpreter as helper or as conduit. A sociologically driven analysis will give an additional perspective on the issue. Theory thus opens the way for a re-positioning of the discourse on power-relations (Cokely 2005; McIntire and Sanderson, undated), while, at the same time, not diminishing the context of oppression that has been described with regard to Deaf communities (e.g. Baker-Shenk 1986), with potentially vast impacts on practice. Yet a lot of work remains to be done before we


have an adequately fleshed out model and the empirical evidence to provide a research-led approach to teaching interpreting on this front, although an increasing body of description of communication, spoken and signed, exists within this paradigm (for example, Brennan 1990; Dudis 2004; Fauconnier 1994; Fauconnier and Turner 2002; Lakoff 1987; Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Leeson and Saeed, in prep; Liddell 2003; Nilsson 2010; Taub 2001; Wilcox 2000; Wilcox 2004; Wilcox and Shaffer 2005). The call for research goes beyond the need to ‘know more’ and expand the theory of interpreting; as an applied science, interpreting research is concerned with the practice of interpreting, and with understanding the constructs that impact on how interpreting and interpreters are positioned in any given context (Cokely 2005). The ultimate goal should be to theorize a success model for interpreting and translation, evaluating our theories, modifying the constructs and better aligning them with practice. Critically, such outcomes need to shape our understanding of what is reasonable to expect from interpreters. At a conference on aptitude for interpreting in 2009 in Antwerp (Belgium), the demands posed on interpreters were discussed. While spoken language interpreter trainers stressed the need to be realistic about the competencies that a student could grasp within the scope of a bachelor and/or master’s level programme, signed language interpreter trainers took stock and commented on the perhaps unrealistic set of competencies that signed language interpreters are expected to attain. Despite the fact that very few signed language interpreters have the opportunity to be trained to the same level as (conference) interpreters working with majority spoken languages, the expectation is that signed language interpreters can and will function bilaterally (i.e. interpret into and from their mother tongue, be that a spoken or signed language), and increasingly into or from a third or subsequent language, in a simultaneous mode, in a vast array of contexts, of which many are highly specialized, and with a large diversity of service users. Around twenty years ago a report by McIntire and Sanderson (undated) notes that a survey of members of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) in the USA demonstrated that 15% had undertaken no formal training; 19% had completed one year of training; 39% a two-year training programme; 9% a Bachelor in interpreting programme and only 0.6% a masters programme. Despite this, demands on interpreters have not been lowered; regardless of the level of training, interpreters have been expected to operate in community, public service, conference, educational, political and entertainment settings. Because Deaf people are now engaging professionally in domains that they did not yet have access to even ten or twenty years ago in many parts of the world, the range of situations interpreters are supposed to function in have become even more varied. Yet, while some countries have established academic signed language interpreter training programmes by now, as is the


case, for example, at our home universities Trinity College Dublin and Lessius University College, too often opportunities for high level training for interpreters are still not in place or unsatisfactory for reasons including a lack of legal recognition of signed languages, the shortage of financial and/or political support for interpreter training, and the absence of localized expertise to deliver on local goals. At the same time, we note that the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI) has been engaged in working with communities to support change, as have many national associations of interpreters (e.g. The Australian Association of Sign Language Interpreters, ASLIA), and the need for sufficient training opportunities is increasingly recognized by governmental and policy-making bodies. In Scotland, for example, another of our home countries, the Scottish government, acknowledging the urgency of addressing the shortage of signed language interpreters, has provided funding which amongst others covers the development of a full-time undergraduate programme in signed language interpreting at Heriot-Watt University. Further, initiatives like the European Masters in Sign Language Interpreting (EUMASLI) programme, delivered by Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Humak University of Applied Sciences (Finland) and Heriot-Watt University (Scotland), are leading the way in showing what cross-institutional collaboration can achieve in our field. Yet, to attain significant and radical improvements, we need something to happen on a larger scale. As outlined above, expectations of the professional skills required of an interpreter have changed but training programmes, particularly those uninformed by research, lag behind. This impacts on Deaf communities. If we are interested in emancipatory approaches to working with Deaf communities, then we must begin by arguing the case for better quality education for interpreters, for creating the potential for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in interpreting, and for supporting research on interpreting. At the same time, we are highly conscious of the fact that high-level interpreter training alone cannot solve all the problems we face. But it gives us a better starting position, and this, coupled with a commitment to continuous professional development and collaborative engagement with stakeholders whom we work alongside, will help. So too will a commitment to further research. We suggest that there are three key strands needed: (1) Research that feeds immediately into academic teaching, e.g. linguistic research regarding SL structures (cf. Goswell, this volume, for example), which may lead to the provision of strategies for interpreters. Work here needs to go beyond the immediate interpreting context, and include discussion of strategies used before and after an event, such as coping with stress (cf. Hetherington, this volume).


(2) Research that results in the development of tools that can be used by interpreters, for example the Medical Signbank website discussed by Napier et al. (this volume). (3) Research that leads to better understandings of limitations on the functionality of interpreters in certain contexts, be they cognitive, knowledge or experience based, social, environmental, etc., and the role interpreters and other participants play in an interpreting process. This should lead to increased knowledge of the tasks of interpreters by interpreters themselves, and by the Deaf and hearing communities interpreters work with.

We have a duty of care to the profession to nurture best practice, and we argue that this can come only from a commitment to research and researchled teaching. Otherwise, as Hetherington (this volume) puts it, interpreters are often expected to perform magic, but (we add) without recourse to a box of magic tricks or magic spells that can be cast to ensure smooth communication in all situations at all times, where all parties feel engaged and empowered and where each participant maximally upholds the boundaries of their role. There is always slippage, and this, as we shall see, is sometimes, but not always, on the part of the interpreter, and sometimes with significant consequences. This throws up questions about fitness to practice (the interpreter’s) on the one-hand, and safety to practice (i.e. is the environment that the interpreter finds herself in safe?) on the other. In order to understand these issues better, we need greater academization of our profession of training interpreters. This in turn raises several questions for our consideration that include (but are not limited to) the following issues. We need to explore what baseline we are responding to when we train interpreters. That is, what community of practice do we expect our graduates to be interpreting in? Can we compete for the brightest and the best students when (in many countries) there are no established career trajectories for graduates? How can we convince bright students to study interpreting rather than medicine or education or physiotherapy, for example? Linked to training, we must ask what does, could and should researchled training for signed language interpreters look like in our current stage of development, which differs so significantly from country to country. Indeed, some might ask if we should even raise the issue of research-led interpreter training when there is no training at all available in so many countries. But ignoring the need for informed practice leads to a stand still; whereas instead, we argue, we need to push forward. In pushing forward a research agenda, we need to consider if there are challenges that custom and practice in the field pose: for example, is there resistance to empirical research in our field that is presented as ‘concern for intruding on clients’? Thus, we can ask if ‘we’ as a community of interpreters and/or a community of practice-oriented trainers are getting in the way


of developing our knowledge regarding what we do. We can also ask what stakeholders can contribute to training ‘fit-for-practice’ interpreters in a university environment and consider the role that collaborative cross-border cooperation in research and training might offer in addressing some of the challenges we face. Several of these questions are tackled in the contributions to this volume, with a particular focus given to issues of proficiency, performance and practice, and indeed, a little bit of magic! In chapter two, Sonja Erlenkamp, Guri Amundsen, Sigrid S. Berge, Trine Grande, Odd Morten Mjøen and Eli Raanes present a signed language interpreting training programme offered by the Sør-Trøndelag University College in Norway. Situating the development of this programme in a Norwegian context which is characterized by its small population and legislative need to cater for the wide-ranging linguistic background of the Norwegian Deaf community, the authors discuss the challenges and positive by-products of developing a course which holistically covers not only Norwegian/Norwegian Sign Language interpreting, but also tactile communication for interpreting with deafblind people, caption interpreting and interpreting between Norwegian and signed Norwegian communication modes, while preparing reflecting professionals capable of informed-decision making. Maria Cristina Pires Pereira and Cátia de Azevedo Fronza stress the importance of accounting for both linguistic as well as translational competencies when assessing signed language interpreters’ skills. Reflecting on the Brazilian context, where graduate level training of signed language interpreters is new, the authors describe and critically assess the Prolibras test, a recently introduced signed language testing system in Brazil, which sets out to assess competencies needed for signed language interpreters. Comparison with other signed language interpreting proficiency tests reveals that the Prolibras test is limited not only due to imprecision of instruction, but also that it is based on a too narrow assumption of the skills needed for interpretation. Also focusing on the issue of language proficiency, Isabel Rodríguez Ortiz investigates the types of errors made by learners of Spanish Sign Language. Given that the majority of signed language interpreters do not acquire signed languages as a first language but rather learn them later on in life, the paper addresses an important issue in our field. Testing language proficiency of 35 second language users of Spanish Sign Language who work as interpreters or in other contexts in signed language settings on a regular basis, Rodríguez Ortiz examines whether age of learning and length of time of access to signed language impacts on proficiency, examining potential differences between semantic and phonological errors that arise in her data. From proficiency we move to performance. Della Goswell’s chapter deals with role shift. An essential element in most if not all signed languages which does not share a clear correspondence in spoken/written languages, role shift is typically considered a challenging linguistic feature to be acquired by second


language learners. Goswell’s study offers a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the use of role shift in interpretations of four Australian Sign Language (Auslan)/English interpreters. The study takes into account the contexts in which role shift is used, and explores whether or not a native/non-native signer advantage exists. Goswell looks at the persona adopted by interpreters in this study and considers such issues as constructed action versus constructed dialogue as well as length and intensity of role shift. With reference to the ratings of a Deaf informant, the author debates whether role shift may be regarded as having an impact on clarity of a target text and particularly investigates triggers of role shift in the source text. Flora Savvalidou discusses pragmatic issues involved in signed language interpreting. Focusing on a signed language interpreted television broadcast political debate before the Greek elections in 2009, she analyzes a situation which is not only highly regulated in terms of its discourse structure, but also one which typically involves face-threatening acts. Exploring features of politeness in source and target text, particularly with regard to the notion of face, Savvalidou finds that the use of coping strategies commonly employed by signed language interpreters (particularly omissions, additions, substitutions and paraphrasing) can undermine the politeness strategies employed by the source text speakers. Her aim is to raise consciousness of the importance of politeness issues in interpreting. Jemina Napier, George Major and Lindsay Ferrara focus on signed language interpreting in medical settings. Recognizing the challenge faced by signed language interpreters in medical settings in terms of dealing with complex subject matter and a plethora of subject specific terms, many of which do not have any widely-used or established counterparts in signed languages, the authors present the Medical Signbank, a project developing an online and freely available database of medical terminology in Auslan. Inviting members of the Auslan community, interpreters as well as health-care professionals, to comment on the entries and make suggestions for additions, the project aims to address language planning bottom-up. The paper, however, goes further by presenting the findings of an analysis of a focus group with Auslan/English interpreters investigating interpreters’ perceptions of issues particular to working in the medical domain. Also stressing positive aspects of interpreters facilitating communication between health-care professionals and Deaf patients in medical settings, the chapter addresses the challenges regarding the interpreter’s role, socio-political and cultural aspects, issues of discourse and context and terminological difficulties. The authors conclude that the Medical Signbank is a significant step in order to address some of these challenges of signed language interpreting in medical settings. In the final chapter of this collection, Ali Hetherington places emphasis on issues of stress faced by signed language interpreters. Presenting her findings from a study of a sample of six interpreters working in the North-West of England,


she outlines their perception and experience in relation to occupational stress. Hetherington finds that stress is a crucial factor in the working lives of her signed language interpreting participants, and amongst other factors particularly relates to the unachievably high expectations of interpreters in terms of role and performance. Coupled with this are the facts that many practitioners work in isolation without structured support networks and are bound by codes of conduct to comply with confidentiality, which leaves many feeling unable to talk about issues of emotional stress associated with their occupation. Moreover, interpreters may work in emotionally sensitive situations with potentially severe impacts on their own psychological well-being. Hetherington makes the point that structured support networks are much needed. The emotional engagement involved in interpreting stands in stark contrast to the traditionally perceived role of a neutral, ‘machine-like’ professional. By addressing issues of preparation, practice and performance, we hope that this volume will contribute to supporting the consolidation of practiceoriented theory, theory-informed practice, as well as practice-relevant, theoretically-sound training, thereby narrowing the gaps in the researchteaching-practice-research cycle.

LORRAINE LEESON Centre for Deaf Studies, School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences, Trinity College, 7-9 South Leinster Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. [email protected] References Baker-Shenk, Charlotte (1986) ‘Characteristics of Oppressed and Oppressor Peoples: Their Effect on the Interpreting Context’, in Marina L. McIntire (ed.) Interpreting: The Art of Cross-cultural Mediation, Silver Spring, MD: RID, 59-71. Brennan, Mary (1990) Word Formation in British Sign Language, Stockholm: University of Stockholm. ------ and Richard Brown (1997) Equality before the Law: Deaf People’s Access to Justice, Durham, UK: University of Durham, Deaf Studies Research Unit. Cokely, Dennis (1992) Interpretation: A Sociolinguistic Model, Burtonsville, M.D.: Linstok Press. ------ (2005) ‘Shifting Positionality: A Critical Examination of the Turning Point in the Relationship of Interpreters and the Deaf Community’, in Marc Marschark, Rico Peterson and Elizabeth Winston (eds) Sign Language Interpreting and Interpreter Education: Directions for Research and Practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3-28. Dam, Helle V. (2001) ‘The Manipulation of Data: Reflections on Data Descriptions Based on a Product-oriented PhD on Interpreting’, in Daniel Gile, Helle V.

10


Dam, Friedel Dubslaff, Bodil Martinsen and Anne Schjoldager (eds) Getting Started in Interpreting Research, Philadelphia & Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 163-84. Dickinson, Jules C. (2010) Interpreting in a Community of Practice: A Sociolinguistic Study of the Signed Language Interpreter’s Role in Workplace Discourse, Unpublished PhD thesis, Edinburgh, Scotland: Heriot-Watt University. Dudis, Paul (2004) ‘Body Partitioning and Real-space Blends’, Cognitive Linguistics 15(2): 223-38. Fauconnier, Gilles (1994) Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in Natural Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ------ and Mark Turner (2002) The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities, New York: Basic Books. Frishberg, Nancy (1986) Interpreting: An Introduction, Maryland: RID Press. Gile, Daniel (1990) ‘Scientific Research vs. Personal Theories in the Investigation of Interpretation’, in Laura Gran and Christopher Taylor (eds) Aspects of Applied and Experimental Research on Conference Interpretation, Udine: Campanotto Editore, 28-41. Humphrey, Janice H. and Bob J. Alcorn (1995) So You Want to Be an Interpreter? An Introduction to Sign Language Interpreting (2nd ed.), Texas: H & H Publishers. Isham, William P. (1986) ‘The Role of Message Analysis in Interpretation’, in Marina L. McIntire (ed.) Interpreting: The Art of Cross Cultural Mediation, Silver Springs, Maryland: RID, 111-22. Johnson, Kristen (1992) ‘Miscommunication in Interpreted Classroom Interaction’, in Dennis Cokely (ed.) Sign Language Interpreters and Interpreting, Burtonsville, MD: Linstok Press, 120-61. Lakoff, George (1987) Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ------ and Mark Johnson (1980) Metaphors We Live By, Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. Leeson, Lorraine and John I. Saeed (in prep) Irish Sign Language: An Introduction, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh. Liddell, Scott K. (2003) Grammar, Gesture, and Meaning in American Sign Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McIntire, Marina L. and Sanderson, Gary R. (undated) Who’s in Charge Here? Perceptions of Empowerment and Role in the Interpreting Setting. Available at www.rid.org/UserFiles/File/pdfs/whos_in_charge_here.pdf 9 (accessed 14 March 2011). Metzger, Melanie (1999) Sign Language Interpreting: Deconstructing the Myth of Neutrality, Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. Napier, Jemina (2005) Sign Language Interpreting: Linguistic Coping Strategies, Coleford: D. McLean. ------, Rachel McKee and Della Goswell (2006) Sign Language Interpreting: Theory and Practice in Australia and New Zealand, Sydney: Federation Press. Neumann-Solow, Sharon (1981) Sign Language Interpreting: A Basic Resource


11

Book, Silver Spring, M.D.: National Association of the Deaf. Nilsson, Anna-Lena (2010) Space in Swedish Sign Language: Reference, RealSpace Blending, and Interpretation, Stockholm: Stockholm University Press. Patrie, Carol J. (2000a) Cognitive Processing Skills in English, San Diego, C.A.: Dawn Sign Press. ------ (2000b) English Skills Development, San Diego, C.A.: Dawn Sign Press. ------ (2001) Translating from English, San Diego, C.A.: Dawn Sign Press. Scullion, Roisin (2002) ‘Distance from the Source Text’, Deaf Worlds 18(2): 39-49. Taub, Sarah F. (2001) Language from the Body: Iconicity and Metaphor in American Sign Language, Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press. Wilcox, Phyllis P. (2000) Metaphor in American Sign Language, Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. Wilcox, Sherman (2004) ‘Cognitive Iconicity: Conceptual Spaces, Meaning and Gesture in Signed Languages’, Cognitive Linguistics 15(2): 119-47. ------ and Barbara Shaffer (2005) ‘Towards a Cognitive Model of Interpreting’, in Terry D. Janzen (ed.) Topics in Signed Language Interpreting, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 27-50. Wurm, Svenja (2010) Translation across Modalities: The Practice of Translating Written Text into Recorded Signed Language. An Ethnographic Case Study, Unpublished PhD thesis, Edinburgh, Scotland: Heriot-Watt University.

Becoming the Ears, Eyes, Voice and Hands of Someone Else

Educating Generalist Interpreters in a Three-year Programme Sonja Erlenkamp, Guri Amundsen, Sigrid S. Berge, Trine Grande, Odd Morten Mjøen & Eli Raanes Sør-Trøndelag University College, Trondheim, Norway Abstract. This paper provides a brief introduction to various aspects of the educational model used in the interpreter education programme in Trondheim, Norway. The choice and development of the model is based on the need to integrate several different forms of communication used by three groups – deaf, deafened, and deafblind people – in a three-year bachelor programme. In answer to this challenge, the educational team chose to combine and further develop a socio-cultural model of language and communication drawing on cognitive linguistic theories. The advantage of this model is that the basic understanding of communication and the analytic strategies used are independent of the particular communication form and can thus serve as tools for the interpreter student’s training for all the communication forms they need to acquire. Furthermore, the approach to each communication form needs to be consistent with the programme’s perspective on the interpreter’s role and function in the profession. Thus the programme has been designed as a holistic approach, where the various aspects of interpreting between different communication forms are understood through the same socio-cultural communication model. The authors present the key concepts of this educational model and discuss its advantages and challenges.

Keywords: Sign language interpreter education, interpreting for the deaf, interpreting for the deafened, interpreting for the deafblind, captioning. In Norway, access to interpreting services is part of everyday life, not only for deaf individuals, but also for those who are deafblind and deafened. In many ways, the Norwegian process of developing an interpreter education programme and agencies for interpreting services resembles similar developments in other We use the term ‘deaf” to refer to individuals with a severe to profound degree of hearing loss. The term ‘Deaf’ is used to refer to individuals who identify themselves as part of a sociocultural group that includes hearing individuals, like CODAs (children of deaf adults).

S. Erlenkamp, G.Amundsen, S. Berge, Trine Grande, O.Mjøen & E. Raanes 13

countries. There are, however, some additional challenges for Norwegian interpreter education due to the country’s small population. Since Norwegian interpreters in our field are licensed to work with three user groups (deaf, deafened and deafblind people), the programme has had to incorporate methods of communication such as tactile signing, haptic signals, caption interpreting, sign-supported Norwegian, and Norwegian Sign Language. Interpreter education itself consists of a three-year programme leading to a bachelor’s degree. From the perspective of the demands on a licensed interpreter the programme is rather short, challenging the educators to find a balance between including as much as necessary but not more than practicable in a three-year programme. This chapter has been written by six colleagues from the Faculty of Teacher and Interpreter Education, Sør-Trøndelag University College. We represent one of the three Norwegian educational institutions where a BA programme in signed language and interpreter education is offered. The goal of this article is to provide some insights into the Norwegian educational model for interpreters, our practical solutions to the challenges posed by our historical development, and to point out some of the advantages of our model.

1. The history and context of signed language interpreting in Norway As in most other countries, interpreters in Norway were once primarily hearing children or other family members of deaf people, apart from a handful of teachers and members of the clergy for the deaf. Interpreting was charity work done to help the individual deaf person or the deaf community. In the 1960s and 1970s, some deaf individuals occasionally managed to procure funding for an interpreter in a few specific situations based on individual arrangements (Sander 1993; Raanes 1999). Deaf people had to rely on hearing people to assist and help them in situations where communication was difficult and their need to communicate was of paramount importance. The preparations for the United Nation’s International Year of Disabled Persons in 1981 started a process of several improvements for the deaf and the deafblind, ending in important legislation entitling deaf people to free interpreter service with governmental funding (Lov om folketrygd 1981). A similar right was granted to deafblind people some years later, enshrined in national insurance regulations (Lov om folketrygd 1986). Parallel to the focus on acquiring rights to interpreting services, the associations for deaf and deafblind people campaigned for an official interpreter training programme that would formally certify interpreters. The first training course for interpreters for deaf people started in 1978 as a five-week intensive programme. The course followed a curriculum officially approved by the

14

Becoming the Ears, Eyes, Voice & Hands of Someone Else

Department of Education, and ended with a formal examination (Falkenberg 1999a). From 1983, a similar course in interpreting and guiding for deafblind people enabled candidates to qualify after an eight-week programme. During the next 20 years, several hundred candidates were enrolled in these short courses and certified as interpreters for deaf and deafblind people. With only a few weeks of training, there were limitations on the level of competence that could be achieved by these interpreters. Both the Norwegian Association of Interpreters and government authorities recognized the need to strengthen the educational basis of these programmes. As a result, in 1989 a one-year interpreter programme was offered for the first time in an institution of higher education. Admission to the programme required a general entrance qualification for higher education. Candidates also sat an entrance test in Norwegian Sign Language. During the one-year programme, the candidates were trained to interpret for the three main groups of hearing impaired individuals in need of interpreter services – those who are deaf, deafblind, or deafened. This model was the result of a compromise between several different interests. There were two main reasons for this compromise: (1) The population using interpreter services is fairly small in Norway. There are approximately 4000 deaf signers (Erlenkamp 2007), 8000 registered deafened users of interpreter services (Sund 1994), and 500 registered deafblind people with varying needs for interpreting and guiding (Raanes 2006). (2) Norway – which extends to 2600 kilometres (1600 miles) from north to south – has a total population of fewer than five million inhabitants. Although there is a concentration of deaf signers in the larger cities, the general population in Norway is still relatively decentralized, with small numbers of users of interpreter services living in fairly remote areas of the country. Only a handful of users in the far north of Norway may require the services of an interpreter, but requirements vary significantly from individual to individual.

Today, interpreting service provision is based on the personal needs of the individual, at least to the extent that the interpreter agencies have the capacity to meet those needs. In 1994, the interpreter education programme was reformed again, with an increase in duration from one to two years. The programme still included training in interpreting for all groups and an entrance test in Norwegian Sign Language remained in place (Curriculum for two-year programme for interpreter education, 1994). In 2003, a three-year bachelor programme in signed language and interpreting was introduced, and this has been offered at three institutions (Bergen, Oslo and Trondheim). The programme now contains intensive signed language training in the first year of study and students can thus enrol in the programme without any previous knowledge of Norwegian Sign Language, leading to increased recruitment rates. As a consequence,

S. Erlenkamp, G.Amundsen, S. Berge, T. Grande, O.Mjøen & E. Raanes

15

entrance tests in the form of interviews and language pre-tests are no longer routine. Students are admitted to the programme on the basis of applications coordinated by the Norwegian Universities and Colleges Admission Service, based on grades from upper secondary school. However, after the first year in the programme and before entering the second year, our students must achieve a passing grade of C or better in their examinations in signed language skills. In this model there is no formal specialization within subject domains (such as legal, educational, religious, or medical interpreting) and all candidates are educated as general interpreters or ‘all-rounders’ who are certified to interpret for different groups or types of user populations.

1.1 Qualifying staff to develop interpreter education When our programme started in 1995, it was hard to find staff with sufficient formal education in signed language and interpreting to meet the theoretical and didactic requirements of higher education. Qualified teachers were needed to develop the curriculum and didactic assessments that would advance the field. It was necessary to develop an educational programme for interpreters for deaf, deafened and deafblind individuals while qualifying experts to teach at the same time. Knowledge about different aspects of interpreting for deaf, deafened and deafblind individuals had to be developed as well as didactic methods for teaching these subjects. All this was done while the educational programmes for interpreters were already up and running. Thus the first teachers in the programme became experts during the process, acquiring the necessary knowledge through the development of the programme.

1.2 The Norwegian interpreting services The public interpreter services as we know them today were first established on a provisional basis in 1990 in four cities in Norway, and became a permanent part of the Norwegian social welfare system in 1994 (restructured as the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Organization, NAV, in 2006). Today, interpreter services are placed in Assistive Technology Centres in different regions of the country. These centres employ most of the licensed interpreters, and government-funded interpreting for deaf, deafblind and deafened people is provided by a total of 17 regional interpreter agencies in all parts of the country. These public-sector agencies administer nearly all requests for interpreting services, and manage assignments for both permanent employees and freelance interpreters. The agencies are the only providers of interpreter services for deaf, deafblind and deafened people, except for interpreting in compulsory schooling (primary and secondary school). Although workplace

Grades in the Norwegian higher education system range from A (excellent) to F (fail).

16


interpreting is also funded and, for the most part, serviced by the regional agencies, a small number of separate interpreting services have been organized to meet the specific needs of deaf professionals in the workplace. If these agencies cannot meet the demand using their own staff, they hire freelance interpreters. Since the late 1990s, interpreters have worked in pairs for the most part, supporting and helping each other. The right of deaf, deafened and deafblind people to free access to interpreter services in all areas of everyday life leads to great variation in interpreting domains. Interpreter services are offered in basic health services, in higher education, in all kinds of everyday activities such as parent-teacher meetings, participation in sports, courses linked to hobbies, cultural events, family gatherings, and celebrations. It is basically up to the individual to decide when the services are needed. There are very few limits as to where an interpreter may be used should a member of the deaf, deafened or deafblind community desire to participate in any kind of communicative event. Due to the relatively wide variety of communication forms our students have to master, the theories and approaches used to develop language and interpreting skills need to be correspondingly flexible. The following section provides a brief overview of the approaches used in our educational model to meet these challenges.

2. Theoretical approaches and key concepts used in our educational model 2.1 The use of a combined approach for a language model and teaching method For the reasons described above, our interpreter education is highly dependent on the choice of a language model that facilitates the process of learning all the different communication forms, and moreover makes this possible within the limited time period of three years. The main goal is to enable our students to become interpreters with a broad understanding of language and communication as a basis for their own further progress after completing their education. Since all three communication forms (Norwegian Sign Language, Norwegian tactile signed language and sign-supported Norwegian) are not languages that have written communication forms, and are under-documented, the language model we apply in our programme has to be able to contribute to understanding these communication forms based on limited resources. Furthermore, any given language model used in an interpreter education programme will have an impact on how the interpreter’s role is perceived by both the interpreter and the users. For example, what is expected of interpreters and their role will vary depending on whether language is primarily understood


17

as a tool based on a set of rules, or as fulfilling different functions in different contexts as part of human interaction. Consequently, the choice of language model will have an effect on interpreter education as a whole. In our case, the language model was a relatively conscious choice governed by the need to find a way to meet the demands of the different user groups by setting our educational goals accordingly. With little or no research-driven knowledge about the relevant communication forms at the beginning, the choice of a language model was almost self-evident: a social-cultural perspective on language and a cognitive-linguistic language model led to a communicative approach towards language learning. In recent years, the use of our language model has been further developed and now includes various aspects of different linguistic theories. Today we use our own research based model which relies on a combination of functional (Givón 1990), cognitive (Langacker 1987, 1991, 2000; Fauconnier 1997, 1985; Fauconnier and Turner 2002; Liddell 2003) and socio-cultural theories (Berger and Luckmann 1967; Bakhtin 1986; Linell 1998). These approaches combined into one model contain important elements that provide a perspective on language as a social process, in which meaning derives from interaction and negotiation between people based on basic cognitive processes shared by all humans and languages. It is assumed that the meaning of an utterance derives as much from the (cultural) context of the communication event as from the words of the utterance. Different linguistic forms may have different functions mirroring different cognitive aspects of meaning construction in the communication process, which can be used to explain what is going on in hindsight. Ultimately, however, meaning is created through negotiation in the actual situation based on limited shared signals – the language resources. Thus the construction of meaning is a cooperative venture that we can capture partly through a socio-cultural understanding of language. The interpreter is therefore seen as a co-participant in interaction, who shares responsibility for negotiating meanings with others. The concept of culture, according to Berger and Luckman (1967), plays an important role in this understanding as part of the idea that reality is a social construct. Following this idea, culture contains every kind of human expression, objectivation and production, and language is important for the creation of a common sense of order and meaning. In our interpreter training we stress interpreter students’ understanding of the communicative process as a whole as part of our teaching method. The interpreter as a professional has to consider how to be part of the ongoing negotiation process in any communicative event. These professional considerations are based on a theoretical understanding of how different languages and cultures construct meaning as a subset of social activities (Berger and Luckman 1967). By focusing on how interpreters work in various situations, we address these challenges in school training sessions and in discussions with the professional field. A multidisciplinary perspective

18


on language and communication using a socio-cultural approach combined with a cognitive linguistics model may support the interaction between those involved in a particular situation. Deaf, deafened and deafblind people actively contribute across the life of the three-year programme. In the early stages of the programme they act as informants who talk about their experiences; later they have a role in interpreting exercises. To grasp the complexity of interpreted communication, students’ training is situated in role plays where users participate both as authentic models and instructors, giving the students feedback on how they are performing their role as interpreters, and on their practical language and interpreting skills. Functional and cognitive theories as a basis for our language model give us the tools to explain in hindsight how the negotiation in a given situation took place, making it more transparent to our students. As two of the communication forms in our education programme are visual, we focus a great deal on visual communication; the use of iconicity plays a major part in our language model, in addition to context and coherence (Erlenkamp 2009). Our students, who are usually native speakers of Norwegian but not native signers of Norwegian Sign Language, need to understand how to communicate visually in general, not only by using a signed language. We believe that a general understanding of visual communication is a good basis for understanding the peculiarities of the grammar of a visual language like Norwegian Sign Language, and this also enables our students to perceive differences between Norwegian Sign Language and sign-supported Norwegian. One of the key concepts of our approach is interdisciplinary cooperation in the education programme. All parts of the programme are seen as contributions to the primary goal of training interpreters, and we strive to coordinate them accordingly. As a consequence of the language model we adopt, the interpreter’s role is conceived as an active part of communication and meaning construction. This has consequences for our educational model and teaching method, as outlined in the next section.

2.2 Goals and key concepts in our approach towards interpreting Our socio-cultural perspective on the professional practice of interpreting is also our ideological basis for educating interpreters. The primary goal of our three-year programme is to educate knowledgeable and skilled professionals who are able to make informed choices and to reflect critically on their professional practices. This includes being able to assess the specific qualifications and levels of proficiency needed in a given situation. For each student, the main goal throughout the three-year period is to gradually widen their perspective from the production of grammatically correct language to the conveyance of meaning, and finally to the mediation of a multi-party meeting with a particular purpose.


19

An important aspect of educating interpreters is to develop their awareness or understanding of how to create an atmosphere of professional cooperation with participants in a given situation in order to ensure that the quality of interpreting is as high as possible. This is reflected in a holistic approach to educating interpreters where the specific focus of a particular exercise may vary, but where the exercises are always embedded in multi-layered situations. In a problem-based learning approach that incorporates both theoretical and practical aspects of communication (Barrows and Tamblyn 1980), these multilayered situations can be analyzed with regard to speech acts, the role of the interpreter, how an interpreter may influence the participants in the situation, or the information packaging of a message. A problem-based learning approach requires a high level of active participation by the students in practical exercises, in addition to well-developed independent and cooperative study habits for reflection on these practical exercises in light of different theories. Writing is an important tool for developing academic skills in general, but also more specifically for developing students’ language for describing ‘what interpreters do’, i.e., the processes of interpreting and the interaction between participants in an interpreting situation, and for developing what and how students think about ‘what interpreters do’, that is, their depth of reflection. Both in reports and in papers of a more reflective nature, the students are taught to reference their writing. One particular assignment also has an explicit research focus and is included in the final assessment of each student. At regular intervals, students participate in real-life training situations under the guidance of professional interpreters. These training situations develop gradually over the three years from role-playing exercises in the classroom, to observation of real interpreting situations, to trying to interpret for a few minutes, and finally to working in real life situations where the students take responsibility for interpreting and the professional interpreter (the instructor) is an observer and a ‘safety net’ in case problems arise. As the situations become increasingly complex, they also gradually include professional aspects of interpreting such as working with a co-interpreter, explaining how interpreting functions, and strategies of intervention in difficult situations. Holistic assessment forms mirror holistic teaching approaches and include both portfolio assessments that emphasize academic and reflective skills, and examination forms that test interpreting skills, interpersonal skills and professional communication strategies. Throughout the three-year programme, students are closely monitored to ensure that those who do not fulfil the study requirements or who lack sufficient aptitude for interpreting are counselled to choose a different field of study. As a consequence of our approach, certain aspects of developing both interpreting skills and a professional interpreter identity permeate the whole programme, independent of particular interpreting methods for specific user

20


groups. Interpreting as a professional act or action is always an underlying feature of all teaching and learning activities in our programme. A specific aspect common to the entire programme is developing the students’ ability to analyze a given interpreting situation on the basis of the conditions and participants in the particular situation instead of coming to the situation with preconceived notions of how interpreting is to be done. Through training in natural situations, we encourage the students to reflect on the interpreter’s role and function in the current setting. In exercises and assignments, we also encourage the students to put themselves in the positions of the participants and reflect on their perspectives (i.e., how did the deaf person experience the interpreted event, see the hearing person as a result of the way the interpreter presented his or herself, participate in the event through turn-taking mechanisms managed by the interpreter, etc.). Examples of interpretation are brought in as a point of departure for understanding ordinary human interaction and talk. For instance, if the use of metaphors in language is in focus, the programme includes the use of a theoretical framework, our language model, the pragmatic analysis of different language activities with regard to metaphors, the use of metaphors in different communication forms (e.g. different genres in Norwegian Sign Language and tactile communication) and by different user groups, such as the use of metaphors in communication by deafblind people. Such different perspectives on the same topic give students a broader basis for their reflection and knowledge, which, in turn, is used actively in their work as interpreters. The focus on different user groups and their respective languages and methods of communication creates many challenges, but also enriches understanding of the communication and interpretation process in general. In periods of practical training at interpreting agencies (14 weeks in total), the students are mentored closely by staff at those agencies who work with the university-college on a contractual basis. After this supervised professional training, all students write assignments describing some of their experiences in the form of case studies, wherein they provide theoretically driven analysis of real-life scenarios they have encountered. The objective of these assignments is to develop the students’ ability to reflect on action, and later, as they become more skilled, to reflect in action (Schön 1983). Important components of developing these analytical skills are developing appropriate interpersonal and communicative skills and an awareness of how interpersonal communication influences the participants in an interpreting situation. The students work in pairs, both to develop their supportive skills in the role of supportive interpreter, and their ability to use the supportive interpreter when actively interpreting. Recognizing the need for further development of interpreting skills after completion of the three-year bachelor programme, we stress the importance of learning how to exchange constructive responses with one’s co-interpreter after an interpreting assignment.


21

2.3 The role of the interpreter The interpreter’s role (or how interpreters manage their professionalism) has been, and is, an ongoing discussion in the Norwegian field of practice and in our training. This area has been in constant change since the first interpreter training courses were offered (see contributions in Woll 1999). When interpreting was provided as individual help performed by those with personal or professional connections to the Deaf community, there were many relations and bonds between the deaf/deafblind community and their ‘helpers’. The position of being a son, mother, clergyman or teacher came into conflict with the role of the ‘neutral’ interpreter and the contradiction between the role as a helper and the role as a professional interpreter emerged (Metzger 1999). The basis for this pre-professional understanding was that interpreters evaluated the consequences of their acts and assessed whether they were good. If everyone was pleased with the result of the act, or in this case, the interpreter’s management of his or her role, it was a correct way to perform the role. When the work of interpreters became a legal entitlement in Norway during the 1980s and 1990s, and these rights were met via a professional interpreter service, changes had to be made. As the profession developed, the interpreters’ view of themselves changed (Kermit 2001). From being helpers based on a utilitarian perspective (ibid.), interpreters developed a different perception when the first interpreter training courses, the system for certification of interpreters, and some degree of legal entitlement to interpreter services were all established. Interpreters had to prove that they were a professional group with the competence necessary to perform professional interpreting in a trustworthy and reliable way. As the profession developed, the perspective shifted from utilitarianism to the rules of good conduct, and the interpreters based their understanding on ethical responsibility (ibid.). The Norwegian Association of Interpreters became an important element in the discussion of the interpreters’ understanding of their own role. The association developed a code of ethics, understood as a set of guidelines which helped the interpreters in the management of their professional role and their relation to the communities they served, as well as in defining their role in a given situation (Falkenberg 1999b; Harrington and Turner 2001). The first code of ethics was established in 1983. Expectations were that the interpreter’s practice was (and still is) “concerned with confidentiality, neutrality, accuracy, and faithfulness to the message” (Roy 2000:101). From the beginning (in 1995) our interpreter education programme fulfilled working interpreters’ expectations, and primarily maintained a view of the interpreter’s role as a technical aid. This has been referred to as a ‘machine’ model of the interpreter’s role (according to Harrington and Turner 2001; Roy 2000). This view matched the understanding of language and translation that had dominated the field of practice in the preceding years (Roy 2000). It was seen as positive if the students were rigid in their interpretation of the code of

22


ethics, and discussion was often focused on what the interpreter should not do, according to the ethical guidelines. Today, our interpreter training programme has a special focus on the interpreters’ professional position and their management of this professional role. At the same time, the interpreter’s role is highly dependent on the language model that is applied in the education programme. As our socio-cultural understanding of language and communication gradually developed, the monologue-oriented approach to the role of interpreters had to change as well. Researchers who have studied interpreting (Englund Dimitrova 1991; Wadensjö 1998; Roy 2000) led us to a more dialogical perspective, directly influencing our view of the role of interpreters. The consequence has been that we perceive the interpreter as a participant in the communication situation, but with a different role and function (i.e., a secondary role) from that of the other (primary) participants. Interpreters are called on to interpret in a wide variety of situations in the lives of people from all walks of life. An interpreter may be more or less qualified to interpret in a given situation and must be able to find the right balance between assertiveness and deference. The interpreter is present because the participants need interpreting to be able to communicate with each other. As such, the interpreter must be professionally assertive enough to make her professional needs known, to ensure a high quality of interpreting, but not to the point where the interpreting is more important than the meeting or situation itself. The meeting (the situation where the interpreter is needed) belongs to the participants. Thus, in our programme we aim at the following outcome: when the students are certified interpreters they should be critically reflective professionals who are able to make qualified decisions based on a professional judgement of specific needs and demands in a specific situation.

3. Different components of the programme Despite the key concepts and approach towards language/communication and the interpreter’s role shared by the programme as a whole, each component of the programme has its own requirements and approaches its subject matter from specific practical and theoretical viewpoints, as discussed below.

3.1 Learning a signed language and developing interpreting skills Although the goal of the three-year programme is to educate and certify interpreters who are qualified to interpret for all three groups – deaf, deafblind and deafened individuals – signed language interpreting is at the core of the programme. There are several reasons for this. Signed language interpreting requires a high level of language proficiency, and it takes a long time to develop


23

language proficiency in a second language. Fluent signing skills are also a prerequisite (though not sufficient on their own) for developing fluent skills in tactile Norwegian Sign Language. Our experience indicates that it requires less effort for a fluent signed language interpreter to adapt his or her signing to a deafened user who prefers Norwegian-based forms of signing than for earlier generations of interpreters. These earlier generations were not taught a natural signed language and its grammar but were reasonably fluent in signsupported Norwegian; thus they were less able to adapt their signing to Deaf users. As a consequence, in the first year of the programme the emphasis is on learning Norwegian Sign Language and developing signing skills as naturally and fluently as possible. At the end of the first year, the students are generally able to understand and produce basic signing of an everyday nature, whereas they lack a more extensive register and knowledge of the more complex parts of the grammar of Norwegian Sign Language. Even though the students are continually confronted with similarities and differences between spoken Norwegian and Norwegian Sign Language in a contrastive learning approach, they do not engage in interpreting exercises in their first year of study. From the first day of the second year of the programme, however, the students start interpreting in role-play situations to get an idea of what it ‘feels like’ to interpret, and what the challenges of interpreting are. Throughout the second and third year of the programme, the development of language skills and interpreting skills are closely interwoven. As a result, students continue developing their signed language vocabulary, register, genres and grammatical structures as an integrated part of interpreting exercises. They also develop an understanding of the different functions of language and how they are realized in Norwegian and in Norwegian Sign Language. On a meta-cognitive linguistic level, students learn how the mind works when we use language (Fauconnier and Turner 2002; Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Taub 2001) and when we interpret from one language to another. Ideally, students would have near-native signing proficiency and a welldeveloped sense of the nuances of Norwegian Sign Language before they start interpreting. In the pragmatic world of resources in higher education and within the framework of a three-year bachelor’s degree, this is not possible. As a consequence, the programme has to focus on the most crucial parts of signed language structure and use. Linguistic areas that are specifically taught are iconicity as a basic difference between spoken and signed languages (based on a further development of Liddell’s 2003 model, see e.g., Erlenkamp 2009), the challenge of interpreting metaphors in both languages, following conceptual blending theories and metaphor theory (Fauconnier and Turner 2002; Lakoff and Johnson 1980), homonyms (false friends) and an awareness of profiling mechanisms (according to Langacker 2008) (i.e., the choice of particular words to emphasize a certain point) as a powerful resource in interpreting between languages.

24


Throughout the programme we alternate between a top-down and a bottom-up approach when analyzing different interpreting situations, at times focusing primarily on the context of the situation, at other times focusing on the linguistic details of an interpretation. In a top-down approach, the focus may be on the role or function of the interpreter in the given situation, what specific qualifications are needed, what expectations the participants may have, and how the communication in the situation is structured. In a bottom-up approach, the focus may be on genre-specific aspects of language use, register, the use of intonation, emphasizing sentence markers, cohesion markers, etc. In all learning and practice situations, discussion about and reflection on aspects of interpreting are an important part of the learning process. Students practice interpreting in a variety of different situations such as educational interpreting, workplace interpreting, interpreting in formal and informal meetings, religious and ritualistic interpreting, and performance interpreting. In addition to experience in a variety of situations, it is a goal for the students to meet and interact with as many representatives of user groups as possible, such as representatives of organizations of/for the Deaf, deaf children, pupils, college and university students, academic staff, blue collar workers, unemployed people, senior citizens, etc.

3.2 Interpreting and guiding for deafblind people The right of deafblind people to an interpreter and guiding assistance is governed by Norwegian legislation (Lov om folketrygd 1986) and includes provision of interpreting services, guiding, and other types of assistance. This differs from the description of interpreting tasks for deaf and deafened people, because, additional to the need for access to information about what is said, it is crucial for a deafblind person to secure orientation with respect to the communication setting, descriptions of who is present, who is talking, what is happening in general and the reactions of others. These are all part of the formalized job tasks of a licensed interpreter and guide for deafblind people. Following the Nordic definition for deafblindness (Nordic Centre for Welfare and Social Issues 2007), which is based on functional criteria, the focus in defining deafblindness is mostly on the consequences of a combined reduction of the visual and auditory senses (Petrén 1980). Not all deafblind people are totally deaf or totally blind in medical terms. Consequently there is a great divergence in communication methods used by this group. Some use spoken language as their primary communication method, while others primarily use a visual signed language, and others again make use of different forms of tactile communication. Many deafblind people rely on more than one communication method. Depending on the situation, they will choose the communication form that is most effective. Visual conditions (e.g. lighting), adjustment to acoustic and auditory conditions as well as general physical conditions influence the


25

possibility of making the most out of reduced sight and hearing. Knowledge about the consequences of deafblindness is thus important in preparing interpreters for working effectively with this community. The number of deafblind people in Norway is estimated at only 500, and this group is a minority among the users of the Norwegian interpreter service. When our students enter the programme, most of them have absolutely no knowledge about deafblind people or their communication requirements. The subject of interpreting for deafblind people is gradually introduced across all three years of the programme: we begin with an orientation to the topic in the first year. During the programme the students learn and practise different communicative methods, and they learn how various aids and adjustments are applied, based on the individual needs of deafblind people in a particular communicative situation. To understand the issues of progression of the loss of one or more senses, theories about syndromes and medical issues are introduced. We also use biographies in introducing the different groups of deafblind people in order to emphasize some of the personal experiences of individuals living with deafblindness. To succeed in interpreting for deafblind people, the interpreter needs to be aware of the fact that there is more information in a situation than lies in the spoken words or signs expressed by the participants. Even if nothing is said in a situation, there may be a need to give descriptions and guide the participant. The development of such skills demands special training (Raanes 2001). When describing the environment to a deafblind individual through the use of spoken or signed language, students need to develop awareness of their own language skills and the need for general contextual information in communicative settings. Through practical experience, theoretical studies and reflection, students gradually come to realize what constraints varying degrees of deafbindness pose on communication and how these constraints may be compensated for, to some extent. As part of their profession, interpreters for deafblind people need to learn to have an open view on the whole communication situation to be able to consider available choices in making communication work. Tactile communication is one of the methods used by deafblind people. Tactile signing involves working in close proximity to another person, using touch and physical contact in the communication process. Few of our students are familiar with this technique when they start practising it, and they literally need to learn it in a ‘hands on’ manner. Practical exercises provide an introduction to interpreter and guiding functions. In these exercises, second-year students try out everyday life as ‘deafblind’ people relying on an interpreter. The students are provided with black goggles and ear guards or earmuffs that reduce their level of hearing. After some instruction in mobility and daily living skills, and explanations of how deafblind people negotiate these things in life (and with important information about safety issues when doing this

26


exercise), they are asked to wear this equipment for 24 hours. During this period they test their own daily living skills in ordinary routines in their own homes. With the assistance of third-year students acting as their interpreters and guides, they participate in activities such as using public transportation and visiting a shopping mall. Such exercises evoke a greater awareness of access to information, and the need for and the challenges of using interpreters and guiding services as a deafblind person. Over the years, Sør-Trøndelag University College has established cooperation with a group of deafblind instructors, giving our students the opportunity to take part in important training situations in real life. In an intensive oneweek programme of practical training that involves close monitoring by the deafblind instructors as well as teaching supervisors, students focus on a variety of communication, interpretation, description and guiding skills. We have seen the positive effects of this training in which the deafblind instructors work together in teams with the teaching supervisors who are skilled interpreters/guides. In advance of the training week, students prepare themselves through periods of theoretical studies, and after intensive practical training they continue developing their skills in more ordinary educational settings. Thus, representatives of the deafblind community are contributing to provide interpreter students with valuable knowledge on how to meet the needs of their group. There is, however, still a need to develop more formal training for the deafblind instructors to work within an interpreter training programme. Some of the communication techniques used by deafblind people are timeconsuming. The use of the hand alphabet or the combination of descriptions of environments with the interpretation of messages conveyed through speech create many layers of information for the interpreter and for the deafblind person to handle. Lack of time increases the pressure to make fast decisions on how to make the necessary information in the situation accessible. As a result, interpreting for deafblind people emphasizes the challenge of compressing information both in simultaneous and consecutive interpretation. Few studies have been conducted on communication among and with deafblind people, and even less research focuses on interpreting for this group. Results from recent studies (Raanes 2006; Berge and Raanes 2008) are drawn on in the education programme, as well as active use of examples and material from ongoing research. Students are encouraged to become acquainted with and sometimes even to take part in research projects.

3.3 The use of sign supported speech and interpreting for deafened and hard of hearing people As a third component of the interpreter education programme, students learn how to interpret for deafened or hard-of-hearing people working between Norwegian and several different communication forms. Clients who are deaf,


27

deafened or hard of hearing are offered a choice of Norwegian Sign Language, sign-supported Norwegian, typed Norwegian (caption interpreting, see next section), or a combination of these. Deafened persons will often choose the approach that is closest to their mother tongue, like sign-supported Norwegian or a written text. Learning a totally new language in addition to handling the loss of hearing can be experienced as overwhelming. Sign-supported Norwegian is not a natural language, but an artificial system based on a combination of elements from spoken Norwegian and Norwegian Sign Language (Nelfelt 2001, 2003; Vogt-Svendsen 1987). Hard-of-hearing and deafened people often have spoken Norwegian as their first language, and rarely know Norwegian Sign Language, so the requirement is to access the spoken Norwegian language despite their hearing impairment. Therefore, sign-supported Norwegian interpreting tries to create a visual impression of the spoken Norwegian utterances. The interpreter combines signs from the vocabulary of Norwegian Sign Language with the structure of the Norwegian spoken sentences. This means that the interpreter’s manual signs and oral components follow the speaker’s words more closely than a translation from speech to Norwegian Sign Language. Earlier work on interpreting has shown that interpreters often had an instrumental understanding of interpreting processes when explaining their actions and that the ‘transmission of words in a neutral manner’ was the main focus of the interpreter’s work for a long time (Berge and Karlsdottir 2003; Wadensjø 1998). It seems that this is still partly true for those working into sign-supported Norwegian. Amongst practitioners there has been a perception that sign-supported Norwegian interpreting is not a ‘proper’ interpreting process, but just a direct copying of single words into single signs. As long as the spoken word is accompanied by a sign, then the meaning is transmitted to the hard-of-hearing or deafened user (Berge and Raanes 2008). In our programme we have chosen a different approach, based on the assumption that working between spoken Norwegian and sign-supported Norwegian involves some of the same cognitive interpreting processes as other forms of interpreting. Part of the reason for this assumption is that the words alone cannot provide enough information to create the whole meaning (Bakhtin 1986). Thus, we teach our students that in order to offer the hard-of-hearing user a meaningful interpretation, signs must be combined to make meaningful sentences that give an adequate representation of the genre (Berge et al. 2007; Berge and Raanes 2008). To do this, interpreters can use different elements of Norwegian Sign Language. The use of signing space to refer to different referents is important because it makes tracking of referents more accessible. Another element borrowed from Norwegian Sign Language is the use of non-manual features that indicate sentence and text structure. Due to the meaning construction process in visual communication it is important for the hard-of-hearing or deafened user to get information about sentence types, argument structure and text

28


structure, all of which is part of the spoken language structure, in addition to intonation and word order, but is not directly conveyable into a sign-supported structure without borrowing elements from Norwegian Sign Language. This can be shown by using variation in facial expression, body orientation and the signing intensity and movement. Sign-supported Norwegian is, however, not the same as Norwegian Sign Language, since many elements of Norwegian Sign Language are left out and the structure of sign-supported Norwegian in principle follows the grammar of spoken Norwegian. Thus, in our training programme we try to teach our students that the focus in all interpreting, including the use of a sign-supported system, is to mediate the speaker’s intention and meaning in the interpreted utterances.

3.4 Caption interpreting In addition to the components described above, our students must also learn how to represent spoken language as written language by creating captions. Through the mechanisms of supply and demand in the field of interpreting, combined with new technical developments, new methods of making information accessible are being developed. Caption interpreting is one of these, and is a relatively new component in the interpreter’s repertoire. Finland, a role model in the field of caption interpreting, established its first interpreting service between spoken and written text in 1981. Norway followed a few years later, in 1989 (Raanes and Urgård 1994). In 1991 typing was added to the interpreter training programme. By 1994, 17 registered caption interpreters were working part time in Norway. Fourteen years later, 40 freelance caption interpreters were working full time and about 50% of them had general interpreter skills as well as speed typing skills (Hjort 2008). Interpreting between spoken and written language is most often an intralingual transliteration, where the interpreter simultaneously transliterates spoken language into written text. The concepts of source language and target language are thus irrelevant with respect to transliteration between spoken and written Norwegian. Neither can we talk about cultural translation in the same way that we do between Norwegian Sign Language and Norwegian. The greatest difference between the communication forms applied in this kind of interpreting is that spoken language is produced orally and comprehended auditively, while written language consists of graphic symbols that are perceived visually. It is important to be aware that spoken language communication consists of approximately 55% non-verbal elements (Aas 1996); these are usually not preserved in a written form. The grammatical differences between prototypical spoken and written language must also be taken into consideration. For example, spoken language often has low lexical density, short sentences, is transitory and may be informal in style. Written language often has high lexical density and long sentences; it is permanent


29

and has a formal style (Blanche-Benveniste 1997; Halliday 1985). In speech, fewer words are required due to the extensive use of non-verbal elements. In contrast, a written language mediation of a spoken language utterance needs additional description to represent these ‘extra-linguistic’ markers. As in other interpreting techniques, the interpreters normally work in pairs. The interpreter who is off-task (i.e., not actively interpreting for a turn) is still actively working: their job includes tasks such as taking notes about names, dates, etc. In our country the most commonly used equipment for caption interpreting is a standard computer running a word processing programme, mostly Microsoft Word, connected to an additional screen on which the spoken language is displayed to the client as written text. Interaction between the interpreters and with the clients is important as well. Since 2007, clients have had a statutory right to request that the written text be saved on a memory stick for further individual examination or use (NAV 2007). Caption interpreting is taught during the last two years of our educational programme. At the beginning of the second year of the programme, students receive an introduction to caption interpreting, giving them an incentive to start practising. In the early years of the interpreter programme, typing speed was a skill developed over the life of the programme. This is no longer the case. Over the years we have seen that students’ typing skills are improving due to the many written assignments in all educational programmes and more frequent use of computers in society in general. Thus, today’s students usually have good typing skills before they start the programme. We expect rapid typing by the end of the third year, but this is not taught in class. Training programmes for learning touch typing are installed in computers at the school so that students may work on increasing their typing speed. In the final year, role play and reflection are important parts of learning caption interpreting. Practising out in the field is another essential element. One of the challenges in caption interpreting is that even the fastest captioner will never type as fast as humans can speak. While we tend to speak at a rate comparable to 900 keystrokes per minute, a fast captioner will type from 300-600 keystrokes per minute. Thus, the interpreter always needs to focus on the essential information, and to develop editing techniques that interpret, add or subtract information so that the message will be understood. Techniques and strategies used by the interpreter to bridge the gap between the two different modalities may include condensing the text, using abbreviations, and selecting key information or particular terminology. The style of spoken language can be portrayed through additional punctuation, capital letters, brackets, italics, etc. (Kristiansen Skovgaard 2008). In particular, the question of full text versus condensed text is an ongoing challenge for caption interpreters. A full text might give the client a feeling of control and participation in society. A condensed text, on the other hand, gives deafened individuals more time to observe the situation as well as follow the letters on

30


the screen. In addition, the interpreter should visualize who says what and how. It is important to teach students the differences between spoken and written language to give them the awareness and ability necessary to compensate the differences. Our curriculum claims that we educate everyday community interpreters in our programme. How do we test this? In caption interpreting, a test is set up for the students: A dialogue is created and the students must type it. The main goal is to be sure they will be responsible participants in the process of communication when providing caption interpreting. A short written reflection is required when the dialogue is finished. These reflections give the students an opportunity to communicate what choices they made, how the preparation before the interpretation was done, and their thoughts about what they would do differently the next time. Not only do our students have to learn how interpreters may influence the people participating in a communication situation, they must also be aware that the equipment may effect a distance between the deaf client and other participants. Interpreters using meta-communication tend to bridge the gap between the participants more efficiently than those who do not use this technique. Ensuring that the equipment and the loss of hearing are not threatening to the other participants is also a goal. Quality in caption interpreting is not always measured by speed of typing. On the other hand, we also know that a time lag creates a distance between the situation and the client’s participation, and here too we need to try to reduce the difference between people with normal hearing and those who are hard of hearing or deafened.

4. Conclusion: Does the generalist approach work? As described above, the most important task in our programme is to educate students to perform as responsible professionals. To give information that is correct, sufficient and not excessive is a great challenge for an interpreter. Students should learn to acknowledge the whole situation, not only the language used in it. Being able to use interpreting techniques, to acknowledge clients and their needs and to interact and collaborate with them are skills that we also like to see in the interpreters of the future. We feel that our educational model facilitates this outcome to some extent, e.g. such as understanding communication in general, and in applying this to specific communications forms, reflections on the interpreter-client relationship, knowledge about interpreting techniques and different groups of clients and their needs. However, a generalist approach to interpreter training obviously presents some significant challenges, and not all of these can be solved by applying an appropriate educational model.


31

One of the challenges we face every year when new students arrive is that they are not aware of what they will learn. Most of them expect a programme in signed language interpreting, but none of the other communication forms. In fact, most of them have not even heard about these other forms. Thus, students’ expectations do not always match the reality they have to face at the beginning of the educational programme, and this results in a decrease in student numbers throughout the first year. We have tried to address this issue by educating about twice as many students in the first year as are expected to continue in the second year. This, combined with a specific type of assessment at the end of the first year, makes it possible for students to leave the programme after only one year with valuable ECTS points (European Credit Transfer System) and skills they can use in other professions. Since there is a shortage of professionals such as teachers, nurses and social workers with Norwegian Sign Language skills in Norway, for many students a one-year programme in Norwegian Sign Language is a welcome addition to their curriculum vitae. Thus, we try to make sure that students can use the first year not only to acquire knowledge and skills in Norwegian Sign Language, but also to find out whether they want to become generalist interpreters or not. Another point – and probably the most important – is that our students are not fluent interpreters when they graduate from the programme after three years, nor are they specialized in any of the relevant communication forms or in any domain. Due to our limited resources and time, this is not our ambition either. From the beginning of the programme we make clear to the students what level we expect them to be at after completing the programme, and their own responsibility for further Continuing Professional Development (CPD). In order for them to continue developing their skills, we try to ensure that our programme equips them with the necessary meta-knowledge, awareness and ability to reflect. Thus, we try to achieve a balance between the ideal of an interpreter with fluent skills, the demands of Norwegian society, and the resources available to us. By taking advantage of what at first sight seems to be a problem, even a disadvantage, our approach, however, prevents us from just teetering on a thin edge. We believe that the different communication forms taught in our programme combined in a holistic approach give our students both broader and deeper perspectives on language, communication and interpreting than would be possible by focusing on only one of the communication forms. As a result, we have reason to believe that our students develop a greater flexibility towards the different interpreting situations they meet. This has, however, not been investigated and is based wholly on observations on our part. Recently the question has arisen as to whether the programme should be re-structured to provide different, more specialized training. So far the density and the demography of the Norwegian population have been the main reasons

32


for not having separate programmes, but now a case is presented for teaching caption interpreting separately, for two main reasons. First, Sweden has already established a separate educational programme focusing on caption interpreting, and it is argued that those trained to do caption interpretation in Norway get a more superficial introduction to the method than their Swedish counterparts. Second, it has been suggested that most of our graduates choose to specialize in one of the other communication forms. To compensate for the resulting shortage of trained caption interpreters in Norway, it has become common to use people with excellent speed typing skills, to carry out assignments for the interpreting service. These captioners usually lack general interpreting skills. Thus, it could be argued that a separate education for caption interpreting would ensure that caption interpreters in the future are both fast captioners and interpreters with some basic interpreting skills. Another recent development is the demand for more specialization and opportunities for certified interpreters to continue their education. As a consequence, our department is planning to offer a master’s degree in signed language and interpreting in the near future. The field is developing rapidly, and this is essential to keep up with the needs of clients and society. The Norwegian Anti-Discrimination and Accessibility Act of 2009 also strengthened clients’ demands and needs considerably. What direction Norwegian society, the educational institutions, clients and the interpreter services will agree on is still unclear, but our experience has shown that today it is already possible to educate insightful and reflective professional interpreters who are able to make qualified decisions based on professional judgement within a three-year generalist interpreters’ programme. Moreover, we see that our interpreter students reach an acceptable level of skill in a variety of communication situations, though it is imperative that they continue to develop their interpreting skills. When the Norwegian Association for the Deaf published a memorial volume as a part of their 90th anniversary in 2008, they presented the Norwegian interpreter service under this heading: ‘The world’s best interpreter service’. Our aim is to continue educating the best interpreters possible, who in turn will contribute to ‘The world’s best interpreter service’. Although we might not succeed in every respect, we believe that the necessity for a generalist approach might have been a blessing in disguise, forcing us to approach interpreting from a broader perspective than we might have done if the focus had only been on interpreting between Norwegian and Norwegian Sign Language.

Sonja Erlenkamp Sør-Trøndelag University College, Faculty of Teacher and Interpreter Education, Sign Language and Interpreter Education Programme, 7004 Trondheim, Norway. [email protected]


33

References Aas, Kjell (1996) Tale er sølv, tie er tull: kommunikasjon i dagliglivet [Speech Is Silver, Silence Is Silly: Communication in Daily Life], Oslo: Cappelen. Bakhtin, Mikhail, M. (1986) ‘The Problem of Speech Genres’, in Vern W. McGee, Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (eds) Speech Genre and Other Late Essays, Austin: University of Texas Press, 60-102. Barrows, Howard S. and Robyn M. Tamblyn (1980) Problem-based Learning: An Approach to Medical Education, New York: Springer. Berge, Sigrid S. and Ragnheiður Karlsdóttir (2003) ‘Tegnspråktolkens handlinger’ [The Actions of the Sign Language Interpreter], Skriftserien Klasseromsforskning 14, Trondheim: Tapir, seminar paper. ------, Marit Kjus Garden, Marianne Pilskog Nyhus and Eli Raanes (2007) ‘Tolking med metoden TSS’ [Interpreting with the Method Sign as Support for Lip Reading, TSS], Tolkeavisa 6: 6-9. ------ and Eli Raanes (2008) ‘Sentrale strukturer i TSS-tolking: En analyse av tolking med TSS/tegn som støtte med eksempler fra et klasserom’ [Central Structures in TSS Interpretation: An Analysis of Interpreters Working with TSS with Examples from a Classroom], in Sigrid Berge and Eli Raanes (eds) Rapport fra konferansen TSS: Tolking med tegn-som-støtte, Trondheim: HiST, 32-47. Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann (1967) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, London: Penguin. Blanche-Benveniste, Claire (1997) ‘The Units of Oral and Written Languages’, in Clotilde Pontecorvo (ed.) Writing Development: An Interdisciplinary View, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 21-46. Rammeplan for 2-årig utdanning av tolker for døve, døvblinde og døvblitte, Godkjent av Kirke-, utdannings- og forskningsdepartementet 28 januar 1994, Oslo: Rådet for høgskoleutdanning i helse- og sosialfag [Curriculum for Two-year Education Programme for Interpreters for Deaf, Deafened and Deafblind People, Approved by the Ministry for Church, Education and Research, 28 January 1994, Oslo: Council for higher education in health and social issues]. Englund Dimitrova, Birgitta (1991) När två samtalar gennom en tredje: interaktion och icke-verbal kommunikation i medicinska möten med tolk [When Two Talk via a Third: Interaction and Non-verbal Communication in Interpreter-mediated Medical Consultations], Stockholm: Centrum for tvåspråklighetsforskning, Stockholm University. Erlenkamp, Sonja (2007) ‘Et tospråklig liv med norsk tegnspråk’ [A Bilingual Life with Norwegian Sign Language], Språknytt 4: 16-19. ------ (2009) ‘“Gesture verbs” – Cognitive-visual Mechanisms of “Classifier verbs” in Norwegian Sign Language’, CogniTextes 3: 1-81. http://cognitextes.revues.org/250 Falkenberg, Eva-Signe (1999a) ‘Tolkeutdanningen i perioden 1977-1982’ [Interpreter Education 1977-1982], in Heidi R. Woll (ed.) Døvetolk- og døvblindetolkyrkets fremvekst i Norge, Bergen: Døves Forlag, 35-48.

34


------ (1999b) ‘Norsk døvetolkforenings tilblivelse og utvikling 1978-1988’ [Establishing and Developing the Norwegian Deaf Association 1978-88], in Heidi R. Woll (ed.) Døvetolk- og døvblindetolkyrkets fremvekst i Norge, Bergen: Døves Forlag, 107-26. Fauconnier, Gilles (1985) Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in Natural Language, Cambridge: MIT Press. ------ (1997) Mappings in Thought and Language, New York: Cambridge University Press. ------ and Mark Turner (2002) The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities, New York: Basic Books. Givón, Talmy (1990) Syntax: A Functional-Typological Introduction, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Halliday, Michael A. K. (1985) Spoken and Written Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harrington, Frank J. and Graham H. Turner (2001) Interpreting Interpreting: Studies and Reflections on Sign Language Interpreting, Coleford: Douglas McLean. Hjort, Peter (2008) Tolkeutredningen 2008: Framtidens tolke- og kommunikasjonstjenester for døve, døvblinde og hørselshemmede [The Review of the Interpreter Service 2008: The Future Interpreting and Communication Service for People Who Are Deaf, Deafblind and Hard of Hearing], Oslo: NAV. Kermit, Patrick S. (2001) ‘Utviklingstrekk i tolkeprofesjonens yrkesetikk’ [Development in Interpreters’ Professional Code of Ethics], Tolkeavisa 2: 8-10. Kristiansen Skovgaard, Janne (2008) Intralingual Subtitling of Norwegian Film: Representing the Audio Aspect in the Best Way Possible for Both a Hearing and a Hard of Hearing Audience, Stavanger: Faculty of Arts and Education, Stavanger University. Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson (1980) Metaphors We Live By, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Langacker, Ronald W. (1987) Foundations of Cognitive Grammar: Theoretical Prerequisites, Stanford: Stanford University Press. ------ (1991) Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. II: Descriptive Application, Stanford: Stanford University Press. ------ (2000) Grammar and Conceptualization, Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. ------ (2008) Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction, New York: Oxford University Press. Liddell, Scott K. (2003) Grammar, Gesture, and Meaning in American Sign Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Linell, Per (1998) Approaching Dialogue: Talk, Interaction and Contexts in Dialogical Perspective, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Lov om Folketrygd [National Insurance Act] (1981) Government document, passed by the Norwegian Parliament. Metzger, Melanie (1999) Sign Language Interpreting: Deconstructing the Myth of Neutrality, Washington: Gallaudet University Press.


35

NAV (2007) Utlevering av tolket materiale [On Distribution of Interpreted Text], Oslo: Nav hjelpemiddelsentraler og spesialenheter. Nordic Centre for Welfare and Social Issues (2007) The Nordic Definition of Deafblindness. Available at http://www.nordicwelfare.org/?id=89785&cid=89791 (accessed 1 February 2011). Nelfelt, Kerstin (2001) ‘Tecken som Stød: Rapport 1 från TSS-Prosjektet’ [Sign as Support: Report from the TSS-project], Seminar Paper in Theoretical Linguistics, Gothenburg: Department of Linguistics, University of Gothenburg. ------ (2003) ‘Når jeg var på TSS-kursen och alla TSS: ade tyckte jag att jag fått tillbaka min hørsel, men på tåget hem var jag stendøv igjen’ [When I Was at the TSS Course Where Everybody Was Using TSS It Was like Getting My Hearing back, but on the Train Home I Was Stone Deaf Again], Seminar Paper in Theoretical Linguistics. Gothenburg: Department of Linguistics, University of Gothenburg. Petrén, Finn (1980) Bättre livsvillkor för dövblinda i Norden: förslag från Nordiska arbetsgruppen för dövblinda [Better Quality of Life for Deafblind People in the Nordic Countries: Recommendation from the Working Group for Deafblindness], Bromma: Nordiska nämden för handikappfrågor. Raanes, Eli (1999) ‘Tolkeutdanning i Trondheim fra 1995’ [Interpreter Education in Trondheim from 1995], in Heidi R. Woll (ed.) Døvetolk- og døvblindetolkyrkets fremvekst i Norge, Bergen: Døves forlag, 85-106. ------ (2001) Beskrivelse [Description], Dronninglund: Nordisk Uddannelsescenter for Døvblindepersonale. ------ (2006) Å gripe inntrykk og uttrykk: Interaksjon og meningsdanning i døvblindes samtaler: En studie av et utvalg dialoger på taktilt norsk tegnspråk [To Catch Impressions and Expressions: Interaction and Meaning Construction in Deafblind People’s Conversation: A Study on Tactile Norwegian Sign Language Dialogues], Trondheim: Department of Language and Communication Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. ------ and Sissi Urgård (1994) Skrivetolking: Rapport fra et fagseminar [Caption Interpreting: a seminar paper], Trondheim: Høgskolen i Sør-Trøndelag, Utdanning av tolker for døve, døvblinde og døvblitte. Roy, Cynthia B. (2000) Interpreting as a Discourse Process, New York: Oxford University Press. Sander, Thorbjørn J. (1993) Døveorganisasjonen i kamp gjennom 75 år: Norges døveforbund 1918-1993 [The Association for the Deaf Battling through 75 Years: The Norwegian Association for the Deaf 1918-1993], Bergen: Døves forlag. Schön, Donald A. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action, London: Temple Smith. Sund, Astrid M. (1994) Forandringen: En undersøkelse av livssituasjonen til personer som har mistet hørselen [The Change: A Survey about the Circumstances of Life of People Who Have Lost Their Hearing], Oslo: Universitetet.

36


Taub, Sarah F. (2001) Language from the Body: Iconicity and Metaphor in American Sign Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vogt-Svendsen, Marit (1987) Tegnspråk og norsk og blandingsformer av de to språkene [Sign Language and Norwegian and the Mixing of the Two Languages], Spesialpedagogisk Artikkelserie 2, Hosle: Statens spesiallærerhøgskole. Wadensjö, Cecilia (1998) Interpreting as Interaction, London: Longman. Woll, Heidi R. (ed.) (1999) Historien om tolkeyrkets fremvekst: Hvordan døvetolker og døvblindetolker ble en egen yrkesgruppe i Norge [The History of the Interpreting Profession: How Interpreters for theDeaf and Deafblind Became a Profession in Norway], Bergen: Døves forlag.

The Prolibras Test as an Assessment of Brazilian Sign Language Interpreter Proficiency A Critique

Maria Cristina Pires Pereira Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Santa Maria, Brazil Cátia de Azevedo Fronza Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, São Leopoldo, Brazil Abstract. This paper focuses on the issue of testing language or translating and interpreting proficiency among Brazilian Sign Language interpreters, and specifically on the recently introduced Prolibras test, which is a standardized tool of assessment. The main purpose is to explore whether a single test of translation and interpreting proficiency is valid for both Brazilian Sign Language interpreters and teachers of Brazilian Sign Language (Libras). The authors also ask whether there is consistency (both theoretical and in practical terms) between the proficiencies assessed and their effective application. A number of features of Prolibras are analyzed and compared to the Sign Language Proficiency Interview, SLPI, (Caccamise and Newell 2007, 2011) applied in the United States, a typical language proficiency assessment. The results provide evidence that the Prolibras professional certification process demonstrates some features of a language test, but for several reasons (which are outlined in the article) it should not be considered a valid assessment of interpreting proficiency.

Keywords: Signed language interpreting, Prolibras, assessment, proficiency. In September 2006, a National Certificate Exam for Brazilian Sign Language Proficiency for signed language teachers and interpreters was established. This test sets out to assess Libras competency for signed language teachers and for interpreters of Libras/Portuguese. The assessment has its basis in a government law (Decree 5626 (2005), which regularizes a former law (Law 10436 (2002)) regarding Brazilian Sign Language. The assessment also relates to Article 18 of Law 10098 (2000), which requires that anyone who wishes to work as a signed language teacher or interpreter must take the Prolibras test. The Prolibras test emerged as a response on the part of the Ministry of Education to demands to certify signed language interpreters who were already working or applying for jobs in educational institutions as signed language

38

The Prolibras Test

interpreters. Prolibras was established as a temporary solution: the exam has a 10-year life span; beyond this period it is expected that those wishing to be interpreters will undertake formal training. In Brazil, graduate level training for interpreters is a recent phenomenon, with courses offered by Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina and Universidade Metodista de Piracicaba. The first cohorts from these programmes will not graduate for a number of years yet. Until then, Polibras certification functions as a means of demonstrating fitness to practice on the part of a professional interpreter. The key issue that we wish to address here is that the Prolibras proficiency test is based on a false understanding of the kinds of language proficiency that are required to teach Libras on the one hand, and the interpreting competencies required to interpret or translate on the other. The Libras prociency test was originally created as a professional certification, and this raises the question of whether this test should be accepted as proficiency sign language certification for both teachers and interpreters. The question of whether a language proficiency assessment should be a prerequisite for practice as an interpreter is also an issue for consideration. We start by pointing out that it is erroneous to suggest that a test of language proficiency equates with competence to teach or interpret. While we will not expand on this issue here, we will refer to the Libras proficiency test regarding discussion of what should be tested in a signed language interpreter competency assessment. In the field of signed language interpreting, language proficiency is usually conflated with interpreting proficiency: whoever demonstrates proficiency in these areas is assumed to be a good interpreter. The conflation of language testing with translation proficiency testing often arises without reference to the stage of training the signed language interpreter (SLI) is at: for example, is someone applying to a signed language interpreter training course at the beginning of her/his professional life or is he or she an experienced interpreter who is being assessed at specific intervals during their career? Each one of these cases requires a different kind of assessment. Thus, this paper asks what the Prolibras test actually assesses, and compares and contrasts that with what should be assessed when examining a SLI’s fitness to practise. To do this, we analyze documents associated with the Prolibras website and the Sign Language Proficiency Interview, SLPI, (Caccamise and Newell 2007, 2011) as a model of language assessment.

1. Prolibras Prolibras is the first national standardized test of signed language interpreting in Brazil; it was established in 2006. Before that, all proficiency evaluations for SLIs were limited to admission tests to signed language interpreting training

Maria Cristina Pires Pereira & Cátia de Azevedo Fronza

39

courses, and translation proficiency was taken to be the most important skill evaluated. There was no signed language proficiency testing of candidates seeking entry to signed language interpreting training courses (Pereira 2008). This may have been because interpreting courses were quite short in duration, ranging from 20 to 200 hours, leading to a kind of ‘emergency training’ model. This was particularly true in the 1990s, when the demand for skilled SLIs increased enormously due to the introduction of legislation that supported Deaf people’s rights to interpretation (Brazil, Federal Law 10098 2000; Brazil, Federal Law 10436 2002). Returning to the Prolibras test, we can say that the Prolibras decree (2006) explicitly states that the proficiency certification test is aimed at deaf and hearing Libras users. The Libras/Portuguese Language Translation and Interpreting Proficiency Certificate is open to hearing people fluent in Libras who hold a degree or a high school qualification. All data pertaining to the Prolibras tests are drawn from text and video archives that are available on the Prolibras website. At this point, there are two important aspects to consider with regard to the Prolibras test: (a) its professional certification feature, and (b) the inaccuracy in the usage of the terms ‘fluency’ and ‘proficiency’. According to the prerequisites for the test, hearing people can sign up for either of the two Prolibras assessments: to teach Libras and/or to work as a SLI in educational institutions, both professional level functions. Here, we face a problem: Prolibras presents, on the one hand, an assessment called ‘Libras proficiency’, which was designed to assess teachers of Libras (not SLIs), and on the other hand, a specific assessment for SLIs; on passing the latter, successful candidates receive a certificate of ‘translation and interpreting proficiency’. Neither of these are proficiency assessments in the technical sense: the test instead focuses on professional competence certification features such as ethical and/or didactic aspects rather than language assessment. Because of this we focus our analysis on the feature the assessment refers to as ‘proficiency’, even though this does not focus on interpreting per se. With regard to the requirement that hearing people be ‘fluent’ in Libras, we point out that linguistic fluency does not necessarily equal total proficiency in a language. Fluency comes from the Latin word fluens, to flow, as a regular flow of speech, and from a linguistic point of view, fluency is more frequently approached as a branch of phonology, mainly within the framework of prosody studies. It is mentioned as one of the distinctive features associated with the development of second language skill, along with accuracy (Davies 1982) and complexity (Thornbury 2000; Fortkamp 2003; Mizera 2006). Fortkamp (2003) includes lexical density as an issue for consideration here. Davies (1982) suggests that sociolinguistic features also contribute to proficiency,

Available at http://www.prolibras.ufsc.br/index.html (accessed April 2011).

40

The Prolibras Test

contributing to flux and ease of expression and accuracy, in association with lexical and syntactic precision. All these features usually take the performance of an idealized native speaker as a reference point. On the other hand, language proficiency comprises a range of competencies that represent metalinguistic and grammatical knowledge. It is the proper use of this knowledge with other speakers in a socio-cultural context that influences how we conceive of our interlocutor and how we react to each other as speakers and as interpreters in multilingual events. Despite these factors, no evidence of linguistic fluency was required in Prolibras, and the judgement of sufficient fluency in Libras was based solely on self-reporting on the part of the candidates themselves. Polibras is a two-part test. It contains a written test with multiple choice answers and a practical test. The written test has ten questions where the applicant has to choose the correct answer from five alternatives. The questions are signed in Libras on video, and the answer must be marked on an answer sheet. We noted earlier that the decree does not differentiate between proficiency in Libras (i.e. language proficiency) and translation and interpreting proficiency. Evidence of this includes the fact that candidates of both tests shared the same room, the same video, and both tests followed the same template. Deaf and hearing people who had Libras as a first language or who learned Libras as a young adult sat exactly the same multiple choice assessment. The assessment begins when the two signers who appear on the video are introduced. They give a brief introduction to the Prolibras testing process and outline the objective of certifying Libras instructors, teachers and interpreters. An explanation of the test process is given, along with details regarding the assessment structure, and a demonstration of how questions will be presented in Libras. Content for the test includes: • a text signed by one person • a Libras dialogue • questions on grammar and law Candidates were instructed to record their answers in a booklet, and these were later transferred into an electronic format. Finally, there was an example of how the questions would be presented and how they should be answered. As the questions were signed in Libras, it was not possible to watch the video and answer at the same time. Instead, questions were shown twice, with a ten second pause between each rendition. At the end of the exam, after a fiveminute pause, the video was shown again from beginning to end, without any pause. We have no intention of exhausting every aspect of the video, which, in and of itself, deserves further consideration. For example, some questions were not explicitly stated as questions, and it was not clear if the options provided by signers were potential answers to some question or a point that had an


41

association with the theme of the question. For other questions it seemed as if each option was signed with a polar interrogative intonation (i.e. a yes-no question), demanding an affirmative or negative answer. These gave rise to difficulty in understanding the intended instruction, as illustrated in question seven, which we use as an example (1): Example 1 Signer 1: You must be careful regarding how you translate Libras to Portuguese. For example; the word “more” has different senses in signed languages. [another deaf person appears, signing a story, using different signs for the word ‘more’]. Signer 2: You just saw many signs for ‘more’. Now you will pick the most adequate use for ‘more’: a) /four/ /MORE/ /four/ [addition, mathematical sign]. b) /four/ /MORE/ /four/ [again, repetition, new round, one more time]. c) /four/ /MORE/ /four/ [in a group, with]. d) /four/ /MORE/ /four/ [more quantity]. (Prolibras, Question 7)

According to the template, the correct option is ‘a’, but it is not clear whether only this sign could be used, because this definition has no bearing on the extended signed story used to exemplify the question (of a deaf person who meets a friend and goes to a restaurant). Hypothetically, it is acceptable to think that a deaf person in a situation where they wanted to emphasize that they had four glasses of soda and asked a waiter (who knew Libras) for four more glasses might use that construction, as in (2): Example 2 [looking into four empty glasses on a table] /four/ [looking to the waiter] /MORE/ /four/ [emphasis]! If the signer wanted to be even clearer, she could have added the sequential order of the rounds, /one/, /two/, /three/, /four/, stating her intention that the waiter would be coming to her table with drinks four more times. The same kind of explication could have occurred with respect to the quantity of drinks. The ambiguity in the relationship between questions and answers is just one of the aspects that could be explored in a critical review of the assessment. Other aspects would include the use of prosodic features, resources, and regional variation versus the construction of a standardized form of Libras. Prolibras is not a test of language proficiency in the strict sense, despite the fact that it is presented as such. We note that language testing can take

42

The Prolibras Test

place at any point on the route to professional certification, alongside the testing of specific professional skill requirements, theoretical and practical knowledge, educational background (specific scholarship levels) and professional experience (practical in some specific area) (Norma ERG BR 3001 2004). However, as we demonstrate in example (3), the candidates taking the Prolibras test were evaluated for linguistic competence, but linguistic competence was subsequently equated to and conflated with fluency. Example 3 Those who take part in the Libras proficiency test will be evaluated regarding two things: linguistic competence (Libras fluency) and competence in approaches to teaching Libras. (Brazil Federal Decree 5626) It is possible to see here that the conceptualization behind the tests is erroneous, and this probably results in the inaccurate treatment of the skills and competencies of candidates who are evaluated. Additionally, another evaluation criterion specified in (3) is competence for teaching: this is a professional competency and not an issue of language proficiency per se. Candidates can be assessed as having reached proficiency or not, resulting in certification or non-certification. A score of six or higher in the practical exam leads to certification. Prolibras SLPI Classification of candiApproved or not approved by Classification according to one’s dates’ results Prolibras proficiency level

Table 1. Candidates’ classification after sign language proficiency tests

To illustrate the way in which evaluation works, we have adapted Scaramucci’s (2000:14) schema to represent the non-technical use of the term ‘proficiency’ in the Prolibras context: (0, 00)............................................(5, 99)

(6, 00).....................(10, 00)

Non-proficient 

Proficient

Figure 1. Non-technical use of the term ‘proficiency’ in Prolibras

For Scaramucci (ibid.) a language proficiency test must include a range of scales and descriptions to define each scale. According to the Prolibras assessment, candidates scoring six or above are considered proficient, but nothing sets a ‘six’ apart from a ‘ten’. This lack of distinction between proficiency


43

levels, which also arises in the translation and interpreting assessment, may give the impression that anyone approved is able to do any task. Specific to the case of Libras teachers, one may assume that everyone had the same education, presented the same performance and made the same effort in seeking certification. Article 8 of the decree which regularized Libras also evidences conceptual errors in stating that: The Libras Proficiency exam … must evaluate usage fluency, knowledge and competence for the teaching of this language. § 1 The Ministry of Education and higher education institutions accredited by it must apply the Libras Proficiency exam annually. § 2 The Libras Proficiency certificate will allow the instructor or teacher to teach. (Federal Decree 5.696)

In stating that the test evaluates fluency but at the same time competence to teach, signed language proficiency and professional competencies are not properly distinguished from each other. In a bid to collate some additional complementary data, we sent a brief questionnaire to the Permanent Vestibular Commission (COPERVE) from Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) via e-mail, to try to clarify internal issues that were impossible to verify via test analysis only. Despite our questioning being in the form of a text, the answers we received were arranged thematically and were extremely truncated, making it difficult for us to reach a conclusion in some cases. For example, when we asked how the tests were created, the answer was: “They are available on the Prolibras website”. When we asked about who the evaluators were, how they were prepared and how many they were, we certainly did not wish to know the identities of the evaluators, but rather their profile. The answer received was: “We cannot say, for confidentiality reasons”. In response to our question about the handling of video evaluations (we asked if they were assessed by individual evaluators, or by pairs or groups of evaluators. We also asked how they were graded), we were advised that: “In pairs, the grades are an average, and when there are discrepancies, the evaluation goes to another pair” – i.e. the evaluators worked in pairs. We were not informed about how the evaluators were recruited or trained nor what would be considered a discrepancy in marking. We also received no feedback on how such deadlock would be solved, even if the same problem was replicated with a second pair of evaluators. In some of the responses from the Prolibras administrators, we were directed to the text of Decree 5626, which was rather redundant. If we were only interested in researching the textual description as enshrined in the decree, clearly we would have started with the decree.

44

The Prolibras Test

2. Comparing Prolibras and the Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI) In considering the authenticity of Prolibras as a proficiency test we compare and contrast it with a standardized signed language test, namely, the Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI), which has been applied in the United States for decades. The SLPI can serve as a basis for reflection on linguistic testing, since it is regularly revised and updated (Caccamise and Newell 2007, 2011). The SLPI is presented as a semi-structured interview that presents characteristics which make it flexible enough to test for different purposes. In the SLPI tests we reviewed, we detected at least three different objectives. It is possible that each objective generates a specific test, aimed at gaining entry to interpreting courses, professional certification, or determining what standardized level of skill the candidate has attained. In comparing Prolibras and SLPI, there are other points that deserve emphasis such as prerequisites for taking the tests (table 2). It is possible that the prerequisites for sitting the Polibras test are an attempt to certify only those SLIs who are already working and who have no specific degrees. Prolibras

SLPI

1. be a user of Libras; None detected, except for the premise that the 2. be a hearing person; candidates must have some knowledge of American 3. hold a high school qualification Sign Language (ASL). or a degree.

Table 2. Prerequisites for Prolibras and SLPI

The criteria used to judge signed language proficiency are also different in both tests. The criteria used in Prolibras to judge language proficiency are (a) fluency, (b) lesson planning, (c) contextualization of subject matter (signs, fingerspelling use and characteristics of people, animals and things, etc.), (d) adequate use of the 15 minutes of lesson time, and (e) metalinguistic knowledge (types of sentences in Libras, formation of plural marking, quantifiers, etc.). The criteria that Prolibras uses in assessing candidates are aligned to the professional performance functions that candidates are expected to perform in their roles as signed language teachers or interpreters. In contrast, SLPI, due to its conversational approach, which is concerned with language use, has a focus on criteria that are related to candidates’ performances in interactional tasks. SLPI uses a proficiency scale to judge performance, as illustrated in table 3.

Maria Cristina Pires Pereira & Cátia de Azevedo Fronza SCALE

45

DESCRIPTOR Able to have a fully shared and natural conversation, with in-depth Superior Plus elaboration for both social and work topics. All aspects of signing are native-like. Able to have a fully shared conversation, with in-depth elaboration for both social and work topics. Very broad sign language vocabuSuperior lary, near native-like production and fluency, excellent use of sign language grammatical features, and excellent comprehension for normal signing rate. Advanced Plus Exhibits some superior level skills, but not all and not consistently. Able to have a generally shared conversation with good, spontaneous elaboration for both social and work topics. Broad sign language vocabulary knowledge and clear, accurate production of signs and Advanced fingerspelling at a normal/near-normal rate; occasional misproductions do not detract from conversational flow. Good use of many sign language grammatical features and good comprehension for normal signing rate. Intermediate Plus Exhibits some advanced level skills, but not all and not consistently. Able to discuss with some confidence routine social and work topics within a conversational format with some elaboration; generally 3-to-5 sentences. Good knowledge and control of everyday/basic sign language vocabulary with some sign vocabulary errors. Fairly clear Intermediate signing at a moderate signing rate with some sign misproductions. Fair use of some sign language grammatical features and fairly good comprehension for a moderate-to-normal signing rate; a few repetitions and rephrasing of questions may be needed. Survival Plus Exhibits some intermediate level skills, but not all and not consistently. Able to discuss basic social and work topics with responses generally 1-to-3 sentences in length. Some knowledge of basic sign language vocabulary with many sign vocabulary and/or sign production errors. Survival Slow-to-moderate signing rate. Basic use of a few sign language grammatical features. Fair comprehension for signing produced at a slow-to-moderate rate with some repetition and rephrasing. Novice Plus Exhibits some survival level skills, but not all and not consistently. Able to provide single sign and some short phrase/sentence responses to basic questions signed at a slow-to-moderate rate with frequent repetition and rephrasing. Vocabulary primarily related to everyday work Novice and/or social areas such as basic work related signs, family members, basic objects, colors, numbers, names of weekdays, and time. Production and fluency characterized by many sign production errors and by a slow rate with frequent inappropriate pauses/hesitations. (May be) Able to provide short single sign and ‘primarily’ finger No Functional spelled responses Skills to some basic questions.

Table 3. Sign Language Proficiency Interview rating scale (Caccamise and Newell 2007, 2011)

46

The Prolibras Test

What must be stressed is the fact that these tests (standardized or nonstandardized) do not determine criteria peculiar to SLIs, but rather generic criteria, applicable to any kind of test and candidate. It is possible that evaluation factors specifically concerned with SLIs could be added to such proficiency examinations. However, if we accept that competence in translation is a specialized skill (Hurtado Albir 2005; PACTE 2003), then we can say that the criteria to determine competence in translation skill are different from those measuring general bilingual competence (Hurtado Albir 2005). Given this, we suggest that a systematic approach to determine these criteria is needed.

3. Final comments We have strong evidence that Prolibras functions primarily as a professional certification test that examines the didactic competence of Libras teachers, and we note that it does not serve as a linguistic evaluation per se. The same comments hold for assessment focused on translation proficiency, which aims to certify professional SLIs who are already working in the field and those who have the intention of working in educational institutions. In practical terms, this means that in Brazil there is no consensus regarding how best to test SLIs while they are training (i.e. formative/summative assessment) nor in terms of entry-level ‘fitness to practise’ evaluation (i.e. a high-stakes assessment to look at whether a candidate meets the threshold for working in the field as a licensed practitioner). We can also say that Prolibras does not function, strictly speaking, as a language proficiency test. Our main goal in this paper has been to tease out the definitions relating to what constitutes a language proficiency test, an interpreter proficiency test, and a teacher competency test in order to better highlight what Prolibras actually assesses in practice vis-à-vis these definitions. The hope is that this process of clarification will assist test-makers and linguists in re-focusing on the issue of how to effectively promote signed language proficiency assessment development in Brazil. As we have seen, translation and interpreting proficiency is acknowledged as entailing a skill set that differs from language proficiency, because the development of translation and interpreting skill requires ‘bilingual competence’ as well as a range of high level cognitive processing skills (PACTE 2003). Thus, it is logical to say that proficiency in a signed language should be evaluated separately from, and before, translation/interpreting proficiency. We need to ensure that we are separating out the need to assess signed language learners’ language proficiency separately from their interpreting/ translating proficiency.


47

In Brazil, interpreters have traditionally been assessed as they enter the profession due to the lack of availability of formal training. This, coupled with the folk belief that “interpreters are born, not made”, led to a context where interpreters entered the field without sufficient training. Today, an increasing number of interpreters come through formal education. This in itself suggests the need to analyze how we deliver signed language teaching as a second language, and explore methods of developing and improving students’ signed language skills over time. Our hope would be that this informs the Prolibras testing process, and leads to a distinction between a language proficiency assessment and professional certification. In 2009 a booklet entitled ‘Exame Prolibras’ appeared, which outlined the examination aims and process. This alluded to the double nature of the current Prolibras test as well as its function as an interim measure: (The) Prolibras exam is a combination of a proficiency assessment and a professional certification. Hence the Prolibras exam was elaborated to resolve a short-term demand. (Quadros et al. 2009)

This supports Pereira’s (2008:83) analysis: The keywords ‘professional certification, competency certification and people certification’ should be applied to Prolibras. However, the use of the term ‘language proficiency assessment’ is not a good description of what Prolibras currently does. Nothing prevents the inclusion of a language assessment as one of the stages of a professional certification, but this must occur along with evaluation of how candidates meet the threshold in required theoretical and practical skills and knowledge, the level of formal education completed (a requisite level of study is required) and their professional experience (practice in the specific area).

Our hope is that governmental authorities will take on board feedback from linguists regarding the Prolibras test and consider the place of language testing as part of professional certification (be it for teachers, interpreters, technicians who work with deaf people, etc.), while noting that professional certification and language assessment are two distinct entities which need to be treated separately. Legally, the Prolibras test will run for ten years. In the interim, we need to construct a true signed language assessment appropriate for different stages of signed language skill development, and we must design tasks to support such learning. This undertaking will demand

Translated by Maria Cristina Pires Pereira. Translated by Maria Cristina Pires Pereira.

48

The Prolibras Test

more serious research and funding, but will reap dividends in terms of the Brazilian context.

MARIA CRISTINA PIRES PEREIRA UFSM - Av. Roraima, 1000, Cidade Universitária, prédio 16, sala 3171, Santa Maria, RS – Brazil, CEP 97105-900. [email protected] CÁTIA DE AZEVEDO FRONZA Epifâneo Fogaça, 181, São Leopoldo, RS – Brazil, CEP: 93022620. [email protected] Acknowledgement We would like to thank our Brazilian Portuguese/English translator, Felipe Milano ([email protected]) and especially Frank Caccamise for his attentive and precise feedback.

References Brazil Federal Law (2000) Law 10098, 19 December, Brasilia: Union Official Diary. ------ (2002) Law 10436, 24 April, Brasilia: Union Official Diary. Brazil Federal Decree (2005) Law 5626, 22 December, Brasilia: Union Official Diary. Caccamise, Frank and William Newell (2007) Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI) Papers, National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) and Washington School for the Deaf (WSD). ------ (2011) Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI) S7 Paper #20, National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) and Washington School for the Deaf (WSD). Davies, Norman F. (1982) ‘Training Fluency: An Essential Factor in Language Acquisition and Use’, RELC Journal 13(1): 1-13. Fortkamp, Mailce Borges Mota (2003) ‘Working Memory Capacity and Fluency, Accuracy, Complexity and Lexical Density in L2 Speech Production’, Fragmentos 24: 69-104. Hurtado Albir, Amparo (2005) ‘A Aquisição da Competência Tradutória: aspectos teóricos e didáticos [Translation Competence Acquisition: Theoretical and Didatical Issues], in Adriana Pagano, Célia Magalhães and Fábio Alves (eds) Competência em Tradução: cognição e discurso [Translation Competence: Cognition and Discourse], Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 19-57. Mizera, Gregory John (2006) Working Memory and L2 Oral Fluency, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh.


49

Norma ERG BR 3001 (2004) Estabelece os Critérios para a Certificação de Pessoas, 2ª. Revisão realizada na 5ª, São Paulo: Reunião da Câmara Técnica de Certificação. PACTE (Process in the Acquisition of Translation Competence and Evaluation) (2003) ‘Building a Translation Competence Model’, in Fabio Alves (ed.) Triangulating Translation: Perspectives in Process Oriented Research, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 37-61. Pereira, Maria Cristina Pires (2008) Testes de Proficiência Linguística em Língua de Sinais: as possibilidades para os intérpretes de Libras [Sign Language Proficiency Tests: Possibilities for Libras Interpreters], Unpublished Master’s thesis, São Leopoldo, Brazil: Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos. Prolibras (2006) COPERVE, EDITAL 13: inscrições ao Exame Nacional de Certificação de Profi ciência em Língua Brasileira de Sinais – Libras e ao Exame Nacional de Certificação de Proficiência em Tradução e Interpretação da Libras/Língua Portuguesa, denominado Prolibras, Florianópolis: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina – UFSC, Comissão Permanente do Vestibular. Quadros, Ronice Müller de, Júlio Felipe Szeremeta, Edemir Costa, Maria Luiza Ferraro, Olinto Furtado and João Carlos Silva (2009) Exame Prolibras, Florianópolis: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Scaramucci, Matilde Ricardi (2000) ‘Proficiência em LE: considerações terminológicas e conceituais [FL Proficiency: Terminological and Conceptual Considerations, Applied Linguistics Workings], Trabalhos em Lingüística Aplicada 36: 11-22. Thornbury, Scott (2000) ‘Accuracy, Fluency and Complexity’, English Teaching Professional 16: 3-6.

Types of Error in the Learning of Spanish Sign Language (LSE) as a Second Language The Effect of Age and Experience Isabel R. Rodríguez Ortiz Universidad de Sevilla, Spain Abstract. Previous studies have shown that people who learn a signed language earlier in life make fewer errors when trying to understand a signed message than people who are exposed to a signed language later. Typically, native signer errors are most frequently semantic in nature, while late signer errors tend to be phonological in nature. Semantic errors positively correlate with recall of a signed message, while phonological errors have a negative correlation. With a sample of 35 hearing persons who have a good command of Spanish Sign Language, this study sets out to explore whether hearing late signers behave similarly to deafened adults who learn a signed language as an L2 with respect to the type of errors they make during comprehension tasks. The paper also examines whether comprehension correlates with specific errors for hearing late learners of a signed language and if length of time using a signed language has any effect.

Keywords: Spanish Sign Language, LSE, second language, language learning, comprehension, errors. As posited for spoken language, signed language acquisition is also limited to a critical period for acquisition. The term ‘critical period’ refers to a time when a child is particularly receptive to certain kinds of environmental experiences. Given their high level of receptivity, this is an ideal time for learning a language (signed or spoken). Outside this period, acquisition is not only more difficult but there are certain aspects, such as accent acquisition for oral languages, which will be virtually impossible to master in adulthood (Torres et al. 1999). Natural language acquisition therefore occurs only when exposure to the language begins early in life. With regard to signed languages, Mayberry (1993, 1994), Mayberry and Eichen (1991) and Mayberry and Fischer (1989) note that age of acquisition affects performance in sentence shadowing tasks (i.e. repeating a sentence while watching it) and recall (i.e. repeating a sentence after it has been completed) in American Sign Language (ASL). Participants who learned ASL earlier made fewer omissions and substitutions in their shadowing and recall,

Isabel R. Rodríguez Ortiz

51

and their comprehension was better than that of the participants who were exposed to ASL later in life. Thus, typical errors made by native signers when memorizing a signed sentence were most frequently semantic in nature, i.e. participants tended to replace a sign with one that had a similar meaning and an identical syntactic role (Mayberry 1993:1259). The result was a phrase that kept its original basic meaning, or at least a sentence that made sense. In contrast, late signers most frequently made errors of a phonological type, for example, changing a parameter of the original sign for another, which resulted in a sign with a different meaning, and which perhaps also changed the syntactic role of the sign. Thus, the resulting sentence lost its original meaning and, very often, became meaningless. Phonological errors showed a linguistic relationship to the stimulus lexical item and were tied to the surface pattern structure but were divorced from lexical or sentential meaning (Mayberry 1993:1259). Mayberry and Fischer (1989) also observed that, while semantic errors positively correlated with recall of a signed message, phonological errors had a negative correlation. Semantic errors are indicative of automatic access to the meaning of signs. Phonological errors mean that late signers have to spend extra cognitive resources in decoding messages phonologically, which slows down access to meaning in sentences and impairs understanding of the message. Later studies (Mayberry 1993, 1994) also found that late acquisition of a signed language as a second language (L2) did not affect its development to the same extent as when it was the first (L1) and only language. Mayberry (1993) compared 27 deaf subjects who acquired ASL as their L1 at ages ranging from infancy to childhood. Nine subjects were born with ‘normal hearing’ which they lost in late childhood and they subsequently acquired ASL as their L2 (they had acquired spoken English as their L1 in early childhood). The typical late learner of ASL obtained lower scores on a sentence recall task than the late-deafened adults even though both groups of signers were first exposed to ASL between the ages of 9 and 13 (Morford and Mayberry 2000). The latter group produced as many errors as the first language learners on sign comprehension, but their errors were primarily semantically appropriate, unlike the errors of the first language learners. The case of hearing learners of a signed language as L2 is very similar to that of late-deafened adults. This is because like late-deafened adults, hearing people generally acquire a spoken language before learning a signed Native signers are defined as those people (deaf or hearing) who acquired a signed language from birth as a first language. Late signers are defined as those people (deaf or hearing) who acquired a signed language at some point later in life. The term ‘later in life’ is defined as post-puberty.

52

Types of Error in the Learning of Spanish Sign Language

language in adulthood. This raises the question of whether hearing signers behave like late-deafened adults with respect to the type of errors they make during sign comprehension tests. This study pursues the following aims: • to examine whether comprehension correlates with specific errors for hearing late learners of a signed language; • to assess if length of experience with a signed language has any effect on misunderstandings for hearing late learners of a signed language.

1. Method 1.1 Participants The sample for this study comprises 35 hearing persons with a good command of both Spanish Sign Language (which we discuss further below) and spoken Spanish. The sample consists of 19 people who work as interpreters while the remainder work in a range of other capacities (e.g. as social workers, teachers, instructors, administrators of associations, etc.) who use LSE because they have daily contact with deaf signers. All have undertaken various training in LSE. In short, all participants know LSE and make use of it on a regular basis. Mastery of LSE was assessed by engaging the participants in a referential communication test and a signed narration. In the first task, they had to describe several pictures using LSE and understand what another signer described to them. In the second task, they had to sign a narrative. Each test was assessed by a deaf native signer and by an interpreter. Both concluded that all participants had at least an intermediate knowledge of LSE (that is, both judged that all participants were able to communicate with native signers at a sufficient level of fluency and naturalness, that all participants could communicate without difficulty and understand extended discourse). According to this judgement, participants could be considered to have, at least, a B2 or C1 level of competence according to the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference (Council of Europe 2001). The sample also included six persons with deaf parents (three of whom also work as interpreters and two of whom work as teachers of LSE). All of these are native signers. Table 1 shows other socio-demographic and communication variables examined in the sample. Participants were recruited through Deaf Associations from three Spanish cities, namely, Seville, Cadiz and Huelva. As we can see, gender is unevenly distributed across the participant group, with female participants outweighing their male counterparts. However, this reflects the situation of interpreters in


53

Spain and should therefore not be considered a ‘bias’. Educational level

- Elementary: 1 - High School: 6 - Postsecondary education: 28 Profession - Interpreters: 19 - Other professions: 16 Presence of other deaf family members - No: 25 - Yes: 10 (signer parents: 6) Active participation at (a) deaf - Weekly: 19 association(s) - Less frequently: 15 - Never: 1 Age of learning signed language - Average: 19.63 years (SD = 9.99, range 0-39) Number of years of experience with LSE - Average: 8.91 years (SD = 8.88, range 1-31) Where they learned signed language - Family: 6 - Association: 14 - Other courses:15 Do they know the interpreter in the video? - Yes: 12 - No: 23

Table 1. Socio-demographic and communication variables examined in the sample

1.2

Task and procedure

To assess the type of errors made in the reception of a signed message I used a comprehension task (for details see Rodríguez 2005, 2008 and Rodríguez and Mora 2008). An experienced interpreter of LSE translated two texts into LSE, one on the history of war and another on trends in birth rates worldwide (see Appendix A). An interpreter was used instead of a deaf signer because the data were taken from an earlier study (Rodríguez 2005) which investigated deaf individuals’ comprehension of interpreted signed language texts. Nevertheless, the data were regarded as appropriate for assessing hearing signers’ comprehension of signed texts. The content of the texts was deliberately left at a general level to ensure that no specific prior knowledge was needed on the part of the participants to facilitate understanding. More specifically, the topics covered in the test data correspond to topics taught at high school level in Spain, with vocabulary and register in line with language that interpreters work with in such educational settings. While half the sample group was exposed to one topic, the other half was exposed to another. The analysis of data showed that the difference in subject did not introduce any bias in the type of errors evaluated. The signed messages were presented on video (TV). Each text was subdivided into shorter segments to facilitate subsequent recall. Each fragment

54


lasted approximately one minute. Subjects were also allowed to watch a text fragment again if needed, in order to facilitate recall. The number of repetitions per participant was recorded. After viewing the signed text, subjects were asked to recall what they had understood. Subsequently, the subjects’ responses were analyzed by collecting the following information: • The number of explicit items from the message that a subject was able to refer to. Propositions were used to quantify explicit items. A proposition was defined “as a verb and its arguments and, semantically, corresponds roughly to a single event” (Capps et al. 2000:196). For example, the utterance, ‘War is as old as humanity’ was coded as one explicit item. • The number of implicit ideas that the subject extrapolated from the message presented. For example, in the utterance ‘In their remote and isolated living areas, with small populations, there are no enemies to speak of’, an implicit idea was ‘They have no enemies because they are far away’. The capacity to outline explicit and implicit ideas was considered indicative of having understood the message. • The number of ideas that were ‘invented’, i.e. that did not correspond to information in the original text but were added by the subjects. For example, in the utterance, ‘On the one hand, among Eskimos and certain tribes in Colombia, Ecuador, and Africa, war arms do not exist; only weapons for hunting are evident’, an invented idea that was inserted was that ‘The hunting of animals depended on the area where they lived’. • The number of errors made by subjects in their understanding of the text. Error was defined as a distortion of the information presented in the text. There were two types of error: phonological (when the lexical substitution bore no semantic relationship to the original sign but varied from it in one or more articulatory parameters) and semantic (where the original sign was exchanged with another sign from the same or related semantic field, resulting in a message that retained the overall meaning of the original message). Examples of phonological and semantic errors are included in Table 2. The number of errors, invented ideas and repetitions needed to understand the message were considered indicative measures of lack of comprehension. Phonological errors Original Valid Success Aggressiveness Brutality Statistics

Error Beginning Save Race Very late Crisis

Semantic errors Original Scare color painted face Italy Name Lance

Error Lack of fear painted their faces black Africa To build To kill animals

Table 2. Examples of types of error found in the sample


55

Participants were also asked to complete the following comprehension exercises: • To respond to six true/false questions about the piece they had reviewed. Each correct answer received one point, with a maximum possible score of six. • To respond to six open questions about the piece they reviewed. One point was given to responses which answered the questions accurately and provided full information that could be traced back to the original question. 0.5 points were awarded if the response contained some but not all the information required. 0 points were awarded if there was no response or if the response did not contain any of the details required. The maximum possible score was six. • To propose a title for the piece reviewed. There was a maximum possible score of one point for each response. One point was awarded if the title referred to key aspects of the topic. 0.5 points were awarded if the proposed title referred to aspects of the key message of the piece reviewed, and 0 points were awarded if no title was produced or if the proposed title had no bearing on the piece’s content. • To assess their own level of comprehension on a scale of 1 to 5, where: 1 = very low comprehension, 2 = low, 3 = medium, 4 = high and 5 = very high. The participants’ responses were recorded. In order to avoid additional pressure, participants were allowed to take as much time as they needed to make responses. The assessment of responses was made by consensus between a native teacher signer of LSE and the author of this article (MA in Teaching and Interpretation of LSE).

2. Results and discussion The data did not meet the assumptions of parametric tests because they were not normally distributed. Because of this, in order to carry out statistical analysis, nonparametric tests (Mann Whitney’s U, Kruskal-Wallis, Wilcoxon and Spearman’s rho) were used. The level of statistical significance used was .05. Signed comprehension of the participants was characterized in the following way (see Table 3): hearing signers on average recalled somewhat more than half of the explicit content contained in the message they reviewed, 63% of the total (M = 45.63; SD = 11.96). On average, participants inferred 5.06 implicit ideas from the passages (SD = 2.46); invented (added) 2.09 items (SD = 1.81) and made 6.57 mistakes (SD = 3.64).

M = Mean, SD = Standard Deviation.

56


Closed questions

N 35

Min 4.00

Max 6.00

X 5.49

SD .70

Open questions

35

2.00

6.00

4.29

.88

Title

35

.00

1.00

.76

.31

Explicit

35

16

61

45.63

11.96

Implicit

35

1

10

5.06

2.46

Invented

35

0

6

2.09

1.81

Error

35

0

15

6.57

3.64

Subjective evaluation

35

2

5

3.43

.74

Repetitions

35

0

25

6.37

5.38

Table 3. Overall results of the signed comprehension in hearing signers

As for the questions about the passage, hearing signers obtained an average score of 5.49 out of 6 (SD = .70) on the true or false questions, and a score of 4.29 out of the same maximum score on the open-ended questions (SD = .88). High scores were also obtained in the proposal of titles for each piece with an average score of 0.76 on a maximum of 1 (SD = .31) recorded. The average number of repetitions requested was 6.37 (SD = 5.38); however, there were certain participants who did not require any repetitions and others who needed up to 25 repetitions to complete the task (2 participants 0 repetitions, 4 participants 2 repetitions, 4 participants 3 repetitions, 5 participants 4 repetitions, 3 participants 5 repetitions, 7 participants 6 repetitions, 2 participants 7 repetitions, 1 participant 9 repetitions, 4 participants 10 repetitions, 1 participant 16 repetitions, 1 participants 22 repetitions, 1 participant 25 repetitions). Even so, no significant correlation was found between scores on understanding explicit content and the number of repetitions needed. Subjective evaluation of the hearing signers’ own comprehension performance was relatively high (M = 3.43; SD =.74), but this variable did not correlate with any other measure of sign comprehension. The analysis of the influence of socio-demographic variables on comprehension (displayed in Table 1) produced significant differences only in the case of profession and the place where LSE was learned. Hearing signers who worked as interpreters surpassed those who had other professions in terms of understanding the explicit content of the message (U = 80.50; p = .018; r = .46; M = 50.63, SD = 7.58 for interpreters and M = 39.69, SD = 13.04 for the rest). Those participants who had learned LSE in Deaf Associations scored lower in response to open questions (M = 3.64, SD = .84) than those who had learned it in other academic contexts, such as courses organized by educational institutions (M = 4.90, SD = .54) (U = 23.50; p = .000; r = .67).

U = Mann Whitney’s U, p = statistical significance, r = effect size.


57

In line with Marschark et al. (2005), comprehension results for this study showed no differences in the performance of the hearing signers with respect to how well they knew the signer. With respect to the question of whether late learners of a signed language as L2 make more phonological than semantic errors, the results indicate that the number of errors produced by the whole sample in their understanding of the signed messages was, on average, 5 (SD = 2.5) for phonological errors, and 2.4 (SD = 1.68) for semantic errors. Differences between the two types of errors were statistically significant (Z = -3.783, p = .000; r = .52). This suggests that participants made more phonological than semantic mistakes in their understanding of signed messages. Phonological errors reflect poorly automated phonological decoding of signs, which results in significant confusion when extracting meaning. We must not ignore, however, that the participant group in this study comprises both native (n = 6) and late learners (n = 29). If we distinguish between these two subgroups with regards to type of errors made in understanding a signed message, we find some statistically significant differences. Specifically, there are differences between natives and non-natives in terms of semantic errors (U = 39.00, p = .031; r = .50): natives have a mean of 4.33 (SD = 2.58) while late learners have a mean of 2 (SD = 1.13). These data are consistent with those proposed by Mayberry (1993, 1994; Mayberry and Eichen 1991; Mayberry and Fischer 1989) and show that errors made by native learners are often due to a highly automated processing of signed sentences which leads them to access the global significance of a statement quickly.

Figure 1. Differences in types of error between native and late hearing signers

Z = Wilcoxon’s Z.

58


Statistically significant differences between native and non-natives were not found regarding phonological errors. With respect to whether semantic errors correlate with understanding of signed messages I found that, taking into account the whole sample, semantic errors correlated only with the score given to participants for selecting a title for the signed piece (r = -.377, p = .026, N = 35). That is, those who made semantically driven mistakes often failed to successfully assign a title to the signed message which adequately captured the main theme of the content. But this correlation is weak and when we analyze this relationship with respect to each subgroup (native and non-native), no significant relationship is found, perhaps because the largest group in the sample (late learners) made very few semantic errors (M = 2) and the native group was very small. Phonological errors negatively correlated with scores on explicit content (r = -.413, p = .014, N = 35) and implicit content (r = -.335, p = .049, N = 35) across the participant group. That is, the more phonological errors were made, the poorer the understanding of the signed message was. This showed up in lower rates of recall of the explicit message and lower extrapolation of implicit ideas from the signed piece. When we look at how this difference is distributed across the native and late learner groups, we find that correlation of phonological errors is a function only of the late learners group (r = -.340, p = .041, N = 29 for explicit content and r = -.418, p = .024, N = 29 for implicit content). For native users, this does not occur, perhaps because of the small number of participants in this group, and/or the lower number of phonological errors produced by native signers generally. One might expect that within the group, the participants who are working as interpreters would demonstrate lower error rates (phonological and semantic errors) than non-interpreters. This was not reflected in the results: no significant differences were found between the groups either in terms of error rates or in terms of age of learning LSE or years of experience working with the language. Taking the participant group as a whole, the only socio-demographic variables (displayed in Table 1) that manifest a relationship with the types of error in signed comprehension are age of learning LSE and the number of years of experience that a participant has had with LSE. A negative correlation was observed with semantic errors with respect to age of learning LSE (r = -.571, p = .000, N = 35). That is, the length of time a participant had been learning LSE for had a positive relationship to semantic errors (r = .409, p = .015, N = 35). Thus, focusing on late learners only, we cannot find any significant correlation between years of experience of using LSE and occurrences of phonological or semantic errors. It may thus be concluded that the age at which someone learns LSE has greater influence on his or her subsequent command than years of experience in using this language.

r = Spearman’s rho.


59

3. Conclusions The critical period for language learning also seems to affect LSE, even when it is learned as an L2. Late learners of LSE as L2 make more phonological than semantic mistakes, which contrasts with data suggesting that native signers make more semantic than phonological errors. Semantic errors then are one of the ways in which we can distinguish between native signers and late signers, and this seems a more consistent measure than phonological errors for these groups. This suggests that semantic errors are more sensitive to the effect of age when learning a signed language. Semantic errors also positively correlate with the length of time that one has known LSE. Phonological errors, on the other hand, related to the degree of comprehension of a signed message: they are negatively associated with the recollection of explicit and implicit ideas of the signed text and they imply poor understanding of signed messages. This study cannot propose any definitive conclusions about the correlation between the years of experience with LSE and comprehension. However, with regard to hearing signers only, my findings suggest that years of LSE experience correlate positively with semantic errors, i.e. those with longer experience of LSE behaved more like native signers in terms of the speed with which they accessed the meaning of the signed message. The findings of this study may positively feed into the training of interpreters. For example, exercises that aim to promote rapid access to the meaning of LSE signs and facilitate differential recognition of the formational parameters of signs could be incorporated into training. Limitations of the study, which should be addressed by further research on the topic, include: • • •

The use of signed content rendered by deaf people and not only by interpreters; a larger sample of native signers; a more precise measure of the quality of training of interpreters.

Despite these limitations, this study aimed to stress the importance of early learning of LSE.

ISABEL R. RODRÍGUEZ ORTIZ Dpto. Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educacion, Universidad de Sevilla, c/ Pirotecnia, s/n, 41013 Sevilla, Spain. [email protected] Acknowledgements This investigation was conducted thanks to the funding received from the Consejería de Innovación, Ciencia y Empresa, Junta de Andalucía, via its

60


Excellent Research Projects (P07-SEJ-02574). The author also wishes to thank everyone who participated in this study.

References Capps, Lisa, Molly Losh and Christopher Thurber (2000) ‘“The Frog Ate the Bug and Made His Mouth Sad”: Narrative Competence in Children with Autism’, Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 28(2): 193–204. Council of Europe (2001) Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Available at http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/CADRE_EN.asp (accessed 27 November 2010). Marschark, Marc, Patricia Sapere, Carol Convertino and Rosemarie Seewagen (2005) ‘Access to Postsecondary Education through Sign Language Interpreting’, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 10(1): 38-50. Mayberry, Rachel I. (1993) ‘First-Language Acquisition after Childhood Differs from Second-Language Acquisition: The Case of American Sign Language’, Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 36: 1258-70. ------ (1994) ‘The Importance of Childhood to Language Acquisition: Insights from American Sign Language’, in Judith C. Goodman and Howard C. Nusbaum (eds) The Development of Speech Perception: The Transition from Speech Sounds to Words, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 57-90. ------ and Ellen B. Eichen (1991) ‘The Long-lasting Advantage of Learning Sign Language in Childhood: Another Look at the Critical Period for Language Acquisition’, Journal of Memory and Language 30(4): 486-512. ------ and Susan D. Fischer (1989) ‘Looking through Phonological Shape to Lexical Meaning: The Bottleneck of Nonnative Sign Language Processing’, Memory and Cognition 17(6): 740-54. Morford, Jill P. and Rachel I. Mayberry (2000) ‘A Re-examination of “Early Exposure” and Its Implications for Language Acquisition by Eye’, in Charlene Chamberlain, Jill P. Morford and Rachel Mayberry (eds) Language Acquisition by Eye, London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 111-27. Rodríguez Ortiz, Isabel R. (2005) Comunicar a través del silencio: Las posibilidades de la Lengua de Signos Española [Communicating through Silence: The Possibilities of Spanish Sign Language], Sevilla, Spain: Universidad de Sevilla, Secretariado de Publicaciones. ------ (2008) ‘Sign Language Comprehension. The Case of Spanish Sign Language’, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 13(3): 378-90. ------ and Joaquin Mora Roche (2008) ‘The Efficiency of Information Transmission for Sign and Spoken Language’, American Annals of the Deaf 152(5): 480-94. Torres, Santiago, Rafael Urquiza and Rafael Santana (1999) Deficiencia auditiva: Guía para profesionales y padres [Hearing Impairment: Guide for Professionals and Parents], Málaga, Spain: Ediciones Aljibe.

Being There

Role Shift in English to Auslan Interpreting Della Goswell Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia Abstract. This paper investigates the use of ‘role shift’ by interpreters working from spoken English into Australian Sign Language (Auslan). Role shift is a high-order linguistic skill which students typically find difficult to master. The study looks at possible source text (ST) motivations for its use by four skilled signed language interpreters in an English to Auslan interpreting task, with a view to later pedagogical application. Auslan target texts (TT) rendered by the interpreters were mapped against the English ST using ELAN annotation software. Salient features of the role shift generated by the participants are documented, including: incidence of role shift, native/non-native signer advantage, persona adopted, constructed action versus constructed dialogue, and length and intensity of role shift. Examination of ST segments which trigger role shift in the TT reveals that agent-focused active clause constructions in particular require little manipulation and most readily lead to role shift outcomes. Passive constructions, nominalizations and complex/higher register segments, however, are frequently re-structured into simpler active clauses, with role shift incorporated (or not). The data does not support a strict cause-effect relationship between any particular ST feature and the production of role shift in the TTs; rather, it points to the need for interpreters to recognize ready opportunities for inclusion of role shift, and/or to reconfigure the ST content and form, with role shift as a further layer of depiction.

Keywords: Interpreting pedagogy, signed language interpreting, Auslan, role shift, constructed action, constructed dialogue. This paper investigates the use of ‘role shift’ by interpreters working between spoken English and Australian Sign Language (Auslan). Role shift (also called perspective shift or referential shift) occurs in many, if not all, signed languages. It is a mimetic feature, whereby the signer depicts the affect, speech and/or action of another character, including themselves in a past or future time. This type of enactment is not exclusive to signed languages; role shift is equivalent to direct speech and the mimetic-like use of prosody and gesture in spoken languages (Clark 1996; Emmorey and Reilly 1998; Liddell and Metzger 1998; Metzger and Bahan 2001; Kendon 2004; Sandler and LilloMartin 2006). Examples of overt role shift in spoken English can be seen in

62

Being There

children’s story telling, where the narrator takes on each character’s voice and mannerisms. It is also part of more routine spoken discourse; if you walk behind teenagers and eavesdrop on their conversation, you will very likely hear them shift role if you listen for quotative cues such as: ‘and he’s like…, and I’m like…’. Such re-enactment of another’s words is referred to as reported speech or constructed dialogue (Tannen 1989). Role shift is of particular interest to signed language linguists and interpreters because it is a significant feature of signed language discourse, especially narratives (see Liddell and Metzger 1998; Mather and Winston 1998; Rayman 1999; Janzen 2004). Narrative episodes can also be embedded within a wider range of signed discourse types, including conversations (Johnston et al. 2007) and formal lectures (Roy 1989); role shift therefore occurs across a variety of signed texts. Given the visual-gestural modality of signed languages, role shift appears to be an effective and logical means of depicting action and events, and may be an obligatory, or at least preferred, communication choice by deaf signers for portraying some ideas (Quinto-Pozos 2007). It seems reasonable therefore to assume that fluency in a signed language, in this case Auslan, includes competence in role shift. Correspondingly, qualified Auslan/English interpreters should ideally be able to incorporate role shift into a range of Auslan target texts (TT), in similar ways to their deaf clients. Typically, they do not. Unfortunately there is little published research about signed language student, or interpreter, competencies across the range of linguistic skills. McKee and McKee (1992) and Quinto-Pozos (2005) note that role shift is a complex linguistic task, and that students of American Sign Language (ASL), who are usually non-native signers, have difficulty mastering its production. QuintosPozos (2005, 2007) identifies the production of role shift and polycomponential signs (depicting or classifier signs) as frequently co-occurring, and equally difficult for students to acquire in their second language. The author’s own observations of entry-level interpreting students in Auslan/English interpreter training programmes over 20 years resonate with these identified skills gaps. Role shift appears to be a high-order signing skill ideally consolidated throughout training; however, many graduating students, and interpreters generally, seem to have a limited concept of what it actually is, and how and when it can be employed in their interpretations. Typically, when asked to demonstrate role shift, they portray two characters talking (signing) to each other, one tall and one short, using exaggerated left-right body and eye-gaze shifts, and dramatic facial expression. Whilst not incorrect, this ‘standard’ version represents only one end of the role shift spectrum, and suggests that the function and nuances of role shift may not be sufficiently understood. Most of the published work around role shift to date describes its use by deaf signers, but the findings do not seem to be feeding back into signed language and interpreter education.

Della Goswell

63

There have been some initial research forays into the use of role shift by signed language interpreters (e.g. Armstrong 2003; Goswell 2007) and the teaching of role shift skills in interpreter training (Quinto-Pozos 2005), but much more investigation is required to understand when, how and why interpreters use role shift in their signed TTs. This study seeks to add to that exploration by looking at how role shift is used by skilled interpreters in an English to Auslan interpreting task. Possible source text (ST) motivations for its use are explored by examining the role shift occurrences in the Auslan TTs, and mapping them back against the English ST triggers. In the course of the analysis, some patterns of ST reconstruction are observed alongside the role shift, or lack of it, and are flagged for further research.

1. Working definition of role shift The phenomenon of role shift has been well-documented in signed languages, with much of the published research based on American Sign Language (ASL), for example: Metzger (1995); Wilson (1996); Emmorey and Reilly (1998); Liddell and Metzger (1998); Rayman (1999); Metzger and Bahan (2001); Liddell (2003); Dudis (2004); Janzen (2004) and Quinto-Pozos (2007). Research on British Sign Language (Sutton-Spence and Woll 1999; Morgan 1999), Irish Sign Language (O’ Baoill and Matthews 2000, as cited in Janzen 2004), Danish Sign Language (Engberg-Pederson 1993), Swedish Sign Language (Wallin 1987), Italian Sign Language (Pizzuto 1986), South African Sign Language (Aarons and Morgan 2003), and Auslan (Johnston and Schembri 2007) confirms that role shift exists across a broad range of signed languages, and potentially all of them. Therefore, for the purposes of this paper, any references to role shift in other signed languages are taken to also apply to Auslan. Before analyzing role shift in the target texts, I needed to be clear about what I was looking for. The literature provides varying frameworks and terminology for the general idea of role shift, i.e. the ability of a signer to change character roles and perspectives within a text. Terms used for the over-arching concept include: role shift, reference shift, performatives, perspective-taking, transfer of person, and constructed action. For interpreters, the last term, ‘constructed action’, can sometimes cause confusion as it is used as both a superordinate and subordinate label. Some authors, following on from Tannen (1989), present role shift as a dichotomy, distinguishing the representation of a character’s speech or thought (constructed dialogue) from a character’s actions or behaviour (constructed action). Roy (1989), Winston (1992) and Wilson (1996) use these terms as discrete sub-categories when discussing role shift, and consequently so do many interpreters. Liddell and Metzger (1998), however, use ‘constructed

64

Being There

action’ as a broader construct that includes speech-like utterances as part of a range of enacted behaviours which can occur independently or together. As ‘role shift’ is a widely used term among interpreters in Australia, it is used in this paper as the superordinate term, and includes instances of enacted speech and action. To distinguish between character speech and character behaviour, constructed dialogue (CD) and constructed action (CA) are maintained as sub-categories; however, these are not seen as discrete and can co-occur. In describing what constitutes an instance of role shift in a signed text, the literature documents overlapping sets of changes which signal the enactment, including: • • • • •

face/body expression, gaze/posture, reference (Engberg-Pedersen 1993) direction of head and eye-gaze; facial expressions of affect, effort, etc; articulation of words, signs, emblems; gestures of hands and arms (Liddell and Metzger 1998) body position, facial expression, eye-gaze (Rayman 1999) body shifts, shoulder shifts, head orientation, eye-gaze orientations, facial component and character style (Sutton-Spence and Woll 1999) eye-gaze, verbal movement features, relative positioning of elements in signing space, and body shifts (Janzen 2004)

Janzen (2004) and Johnston and Schembri (2007) observe that while eye-gaze and character facial expression and posture appear to be key elements of role shift, body shift seems to be optional, rather than obligatory. Going back to the ‘standard’ student example of role shift portraying two interlocutors, the use of overt left-right body shifts makes sense, especially in a public presentation (as noted by Zimmer 1989). However, these physical shifts can also be much more subtle, and move along different planes (e.g. forward-back), while episodes of self-talk, or the enacted behaviour of a single character, do not seem to require body shifts at all. As a result, shifted eye-gaze (usually away from the addressee) and character facial expression and posture were the starting points for identifying role shift in these texts. Many interpreting students, and practising interpreters, seem to conceive of role shift as a discrete, special type of signing, so another aspect of role shift worth noting is its relationship to concurrent signs and gestures. Role shift seems to be a layer of non-manual performative information that can simultaneously be produced along with lexical or depicting signs, and gestures, i.e. a signed clause can be produced with or without role shift. Metzger (1995) and Sallandre (2007) discuss the idea of a continuum of role shift, describing degrees of embodiment or engagement with the narrator’s signing. Different combinations of sign and enactment can be produced, from full-body mimetic performance to subtler face-centred enactment that co-occurs simultaneously with the signed narration of the event (Liddell and Metzger 1998). Whether

Della Goswell

65

role shift is linguistic, paralinguistic and/or gestural is a moot question, for others to determine. Liddell (2003) and Dudis (2004) locate role shift within a broader paradigm, as part of the repertoire of depiction in signed languages generally. They draw on cognitive linguistics, and Mental Spaces theory in particular (Faulconnier and Turner 1996), in describing the capacity of signers to blend real and imagined spaces together in the portrayal of a character’s action. A signer can use their body, or parts of it, as surrogates for components of an event, and engage with a character’s virtual world. Dudis (2004) uses the term ‘body partitioning’ to describe the ability of a signer to simultaneously map different elements of an event onto different parts of their body, so that they can portray multiple actors, actions or perspectives at the same time. This relatively recent analysis of role shift, and depiction generally, is useful in illuminating further component parts that can be identified for teaching.

2. Methodology This study offers a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the interpretations of four Auslan/English interpreters. The participants in this research were experienced accredited freelance interpreting practitioners who had worked for a minimum of eight years. They were selected because they were not novices; each of the participants had demonstrated the ability to produce effective role shift in their English to Auslan interpreting work. The analysis is therefore focused on when and how they each chose to use role shift in their interpretations, rather than who could use it, and who could not.

A B C D

M/ F F F M M

AGE RANGE 40-50 40-50 40-50 40-50

AUSLAN ACQUISITION non-native native native non-native

NAATI* ACCREDITATION Professional Professional Paraprofessional Professional

FORMAL TRAINING yes no no yes

* National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters Table 1. Participant profile

The participants were all of similar age, with a mix of native and non-native signers, genders and training backgrounds. All participants were accredited interpreters, but due to difficulty in finding enough interpreters to cover the full range of criteria outlined in Table 1, one interpreter (participant C), although experienced, was not accredited as highly as the others. The native/non-native variable was included to test for any native signer advantage in producing

66

Being There

role shift. Armstrong’s (2003) study of four ASL interpretations found that the native signers produced significantly more role shift in their ASL TTs than the non-native interpreters, whereas Goswell’s (2007) analysis of three Auslan interpreters noted that the two native signers were widely variable in the amount of role shift produced, with no significant difference between one of the native signers and the non-native signer. Neither of the native signers in this study had undertaken formal interpreter training; they achieved their accreditation via examination and were accredited before professional level training became available. One of the limitations of the earlier studies was that no objective assessment was made as to the impact of the role shift on the quality of the TT; it was assumed that the more role shift, the better the interpretation. This study included one native deaf signer as the target audience and judge, who then ranked the four interpretations in terms of clarity of message. The deaf informant chosen was not strongly bi-lingual, in order to encourage more native-like Auslan TT production from the interpreters, and to minimize any false impression of clarity from overt English syntax patterns in the TTs. The task for each interpreter in turn was to simultaneously interpret a video-recording of the English ST into Auslan. The ST was derived from the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) radio programme ‘Perspective’, a daily five-minute opinion piece. A deliberate decision was made to avoid using a purely narrative ST, since this text type is the most likely to generate role shift, and arguably the least likely English ST material for the majority of Auslan interpreters in their day-to-day work; the key service areas for interpreting work are educational (vocational and university) and workplace settings (Orima 2004). The particular episode selected was entitled ‘Ted’s Story’, which was a composite text: introduced via the anecdotal experience of a client, and then predominantly expository, decrying the lack of public housing available for people with a mental illness. Nevertheless, a significant degree of role shift was anticipated in the interpretations, partly because of the initial personal framing of it, but also in light of findings from the author’s earlier study of Auslan interpretations where the ST was similarly ‘dry’. That ST contained minimal direct or indirect speech or narrative episodes, yet the interpreters produced significant amounts of role shift (from 9 to 19 percent) in their respective TTs (Goswell 2007). The transcript of the programme (included in section 3.2) was downloaded from the ABC website and read out by an actor to camera. The speed of this re-read was slightly slowed, to achieve a more natural pace, and was 5 minutes and 30 seconds in length. Each interpreter was filmed as they simultaneously interpreted the content to the deaf informant, who was sitting opposite them, as if in a classroom tutorial session. The interpreted video footage was edited using iMovie software, saved as QuickTime files and then imported into ELAN (annotation software widely

Della Goswell

67

used by sign linguists, and increasingly, interpreting researchers) for analysis and transcription. Each interpretation was individually ‘mapped’ – plotting instances of role shift, documenting ST trigger segments, identifying the various persona (character roles) taken on, and noting any observations and questions that arose (the ELAN tier template is attached as Appendix 1). It was possible to align all four video clips allowing for comparisons across interpretations. Data from the ELAN file was then exported into an Excel file for manipulation and calculation. The process of identifying TT role shift was not straightforward. In deciding on what to include or exclude, the key role shift indicators mentioned earlier were relied upon. Sometimes, however, the role shift was very subtly portrayed, or very fleeting, according with Emmorey and Reilly (1998) and Quinto-Pozos’ (2007) observations. From my own analysis of interpreted texts and those produced by deaf Auslan signers, there appears to be a continuum of role shift intensity from overt, and therefore easy to identify and agree upon, to minimal, where the boundaries between subtle characterization blur with other affective (e.g. adverbial) non-manual information. Coding decisions for a few examples at this end of the continuum were therefore based on native signer intuition.

3. Data and discussion By identifying any common patterns in role shift output across participants, I hoped to identify possible role shift triggers in the ST, and if so, to see whether they could be classified for later pedagogical application. This required analyzing each TT against the ST.

3.1 Instances of role shift Table 2 documents amount of role shift production for each participant. Participant A B C D

Auslan acquisition non-native native native non-native

ST trigger segments n=28 n=8 n=16 n=16

Role shift instances n=34 n=9 n=18 n=17

% of TT time using role shift 23.4% 6.1% 10.8% 9.7%

Table 2. Overall results

In order to comparatively analyze the frequency of role shift in each participant’s Auslan TTs, the total time spent on role-shifted segments was calculated as a percentage of the total length of the TT. Reliance on the raw number of

68

Being There

instances of role shift alone to determine frequency would have been misleading given the variable length of segments (from less than a second to many seconds). The number of role shift instances in each participant’s TT is greater than the number of segments identified in the ST as triggering the role shift because all participants generated multiple instances of role shift in at least one of their re-constructions of a single ST segment. The first glaring result is the large variation in the extent of role shift output across participants. Interestingly, participant A, with the highest incidence, is not a native signer, using role shift in 23.4 percent of their Auslan TT, whereas participant B, with the least role shift production at 6.1 percent, is a native signer. Participants C and D, one native and one non-native signer, are very similar in terms of role shift output. Bearing in mind the small sample size, this result does not support a default native signer advantage, but points to possible variation within the two groups as well as overlap between them.

3.2 Segments of the source text that triggered role shift in the target text Because the source text is relatively short, I have reproduced its transcription below so that all the segments which triggered role shift (bolded) can be seen in context. Five ST segments (shown as bold and boxed) were interpreted using role shift by all four participants. A further 11 segments (bold and underlined) elicited TT role shift from at least two of the four participants. Ted’s Story I want you to picture Ted, a 51-year-old man who has suffered with schizophrenia for more than half his life. He weighs only 52 kilos because of his increasing delusional episodes and reluctance to eat properly, despite the help of his sister and 81-year-old mother, who have cared for him for years. He desperately needs supported community accommodation, but the only hostels available are a few overcrowded houses where up to five people share one room. There is no privacy, and the environment is dismal for someone like Ted, who already suffers from anxiety and depression as part of his illness. In desperation, Ted’s sister wrote to me after she had exhausted every avenue to find suitable housing for her brother. She had nowhere else to turn. Shamefully, there are hundreds of thousands of people like Ted in Australia for whom the fundamental human right to a safe and secure environment in which to live is unattainable. Since the deinstitutionalization of people with a mental illness began more than 40 years ago, state and federal governments collectively have failed to develop adequate supported accommodation programs to enable people with severe mental illness to live with

Della Goswell dignity in the community. The consequence of this failure is an overrepresentation of people with a mental illness living on the streets or in sub-standard housing, such as boarding houses. It’s been a long time since the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission first warned that the lack of supported accommodation is the single largest obstacle to recovery and effective rehabilitation for people with a mental illness. Worldwide research and experience confirms this. One of the most well known examples is the 2001 New York/New York study, which developed 4,679 community-based permanent housing units for homeless people with a mental illness. The impact was significant: when pre- and post-intervention data was examined, it revealed marked reductions in use of hospital and correctional facilities. The annual cost of service use per homeless person involved in the program fell from more than $40,000 to just $16,000. The New York/New York initiative not only greatly improved the lives of many marginalized people with a mental illness; it was a sound investment of public resources. Despite these lessons, the housing crisis for people with mental illness in Australia continues, along with a paucity of programs providing the support they need. Every Australian state has unmet social housing needs. The need has been recognised by the Prime Minister who has pledged funds to address the homeless in Australia, a huge number of whom have severe mental illness. The need for housing with support was rated the biggest issue in the latest national survey conducted by Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia last year. Those who responded included people with a mental illness, their carers and health professionals. Housing was seen as more critical than other key issues such as appropriate employment and social security services, education and the need for greater investment in mental health research. Australia has a failed social housing policy – the current Commonwealth State Housing Agreement expires in June. This provides an opportunity for the Commonwealth and the States to look squarely at this problem. Mental Illness Fellowship Australia urges the Commonwealth to specifically build the resources to address the deficit in housing stock and support services for people with a mental illness. Too often health policy omits to look at the vital supports people need to maintain their health. As this government has acknowledged, health policy is not just about hospital beds; we must look at the social underpinnings that contribute to meeting the fundamental needs of people with social disadvantage. It is a sad and frustrating reality that when good people in all spheres of political life hold serious issues at arms length in order to escape

69

70

Being There from the moral imperative to do something, we end up with failed social policy. I’m glad to report that Ted’s sister found suitable supported accommodation for her brother. Yet, the lack of long-term solutions for thousands of others continues. What we most need now is for the state and federal governments to stop blaming one another, face up to past failures and prioritize social housing for people with a mental illness – for the sake of Ted and others like him.

The proportion of ST lexical items expressed via role shift in the TT across participants was 36.4%; similar to the 34% I found in the previous study (Goswell 2007). Interestingly, these trigger segments are scattered throughout the text, and not just clustered around the first two paragraphs, which are more narrative in style.

3.3 Who and what appeared as role shift in the target text? When discussing the roles that are shifted in a signed text, the signer is usually described as a neutral ‘narrator’ character (Metzger 1995; Liddell and Metzger 1998; Quinto-Pozos 2007). The narrator is the baseline from which further characters or persona emerge, which can include a depiction of themselves in the past, or future. In an interpreted text, the interpreter is relaying another speaker’s thoughts and ideas, so the baseline is already one degree of separation away from the speaker. The interpreter therefore ‘becomes’ the speaker, portraying the ST utterances in first person. For this analysis, I have taken ‘speaker’ as the neutral persona for all participants. From there, each participant’s brief foray into another character’s world was identified according to the further persona being adopted. Participant A B C D

Role shift instances n=34 n=9 n=18 n=17

Persona adopted 19 6 10 10

Table 3. Persona adopted

Table 3 shows that all participants adopted a number of different persona, reflecting the amount of role shift they portrayed in their target texts. Often these character roles were inhabited more than once, and as a result there are a greater number of role shift instances listed for all participants than there are for persona. These roles are listed below in frequency order across combined TTs:

Della Goswell 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Australian government Ted’s sister Ted Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia generic person with mental illness you, the audience generic decision-makers State & Federal governments Ted’s mother New York Housing project researchers New York housing project survey respondents Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia researchers generic researchers generic community member generic housing residents Australia Prime Minister generic policy writers

71 9 9 7 6 5 4 4 4 3 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1

Table 4. Range of persona by frequency of occurrence across TTs

In each instance, the interpreter demonstrated the behaviour and/or words of animate and inanimate entities derived directly or indirectly from the ST. Of the 19 persona listed in Table 4, five (26.3%) are organizations or entities rather than identifiable people (items: 1, 4, 8, 11, 17). Depicting these ‘plural human’ or ‘organizational’ agents (Myhill 1997) demonstrates that role shift can extend beyond the characterization of individual people and animals. The decision to depict the actions of a government, country or project via a single representative (unspecified agent) may be an example of metonymy – where the role shift persona represents the related entity. Six (31.5 %) of the persona listed above (items: 5, 7, 14, 15, 16, 19) are tagged as ‘generic’ (they could also be termed ‘unspecified’). This means there was no explicitly named person or entity identified in the ST, but a general reference to a group or type of person can be inferred (i.e. a de-focused agent). For example: ST: “when pre- and post-intervention data was examined…”

This segment is in passive voice, with no explicit ‘examiner’ agent stated. However, listeners can infer from the preceding text that it relates to research about a housing initiative, and therefore understand that the people who

72

Being There

examined the data are (generic) researchers. Janzen et al. (2001) point out that it is possible to make general de-focused reference to an agent in signed languages. In this case, three participants changed this ST segment into an active construction, where we can see someone doing the research work. They introduced the missing referent as follows (the glossing conventions are provided as Appendix 2): 3.3.1 Participant A Participant A introduced the agent by signing RESEARCH – using facial expression and eye-gaze (to show the affect of a researcher) along with signs describing what the researcher did: ST: when pre- and post-intervention data was examined TT: RESEARCH, PERSON TYPICAL-OF-THEM LOOK-ASSESS PROBLEM NOTE-DOWN…

3.3.2 Participant B Participant B added a 3rd person pronoun (PRO3) as unspecified researcher referent: ST: when pre- and post-intervention data was examined TT: WHEN PRO3 LOOK TIME-TILL-NOW GIVE ACCOMMODATION, LATER ACCOMMODATION

What is not encoded in the basic gloss above is that this interpreter also included an anaphoric (left-right) time-line indicating the ‘pre’ and ‘post’ temporal aspect of the researcher’s analysis, as well as adding what the ‘preand post-interviews’ related to, i.e. the provision of housing. She then enacted a generic researcher looking at these two stages at their different points in space, to compare for differences between the two. Interestingly, she did not specify the agent as a researcher, just as a generic ‘other’. 3.3.3 Participant C As with Participant A, Participant C introduced the agent RESEARCH(er) but did not extend the characterization of the generic researcher beyond the one sign (surrounding non-role-shifted Auslan text is shown in brackets): ST: when pre- and post-intervention data was examined TT: (WHEN) RESEARCH (D-A-T-A, FIND…)

Della Goswell

73

Even this single ST example, and responses to it, provides insights into the process involved in deciding to utilize role shift, as well as what other changes may need to be made to the ST along the way. In order to get to the role shifted TT, the clause was re-constructed (from passive with no agent, to active with de-focused agent), so that there was a generic ‘someone’ to role shift into. It may be that this reconfiguration is a necessary step in translating some passive English ST segments into Auslan, with role shift as an optional further layer of depiction. (See further discussion of this point in the ‘Triggers for role shift?’ section 3.7 below).

3.4 Constructed dialogue (CD) and constructed action (CA) Both Armstrong (2003) and Goswell (2007) found that there was a higher incidence of constructed dialogue in interpreted TTs than use of direct or indirect speech in the ST. In the ST for this study, there were no examples of direct speech (e.g. Bob said: “I feel sick”) or reported indirect speech (e.g. Tom said that he felt sick). Despite the absence of reported speech in the English ST, three of the participants created direct speech (constructed dialogue) in at least one of their TT role shift segments, as shown in Table 5. Participant Role shift instances A n=34 B n=9 C n=18 D n=17

CD only 0 0 2 0

mixed CD/CA 3 0 1 1

total segments with any CD 3 (8.8%) 0 (0%) 3 (16.7%) 1 (5.9%)

segments with CA only 31 (91.2%) 9 (100%) 15 (83.3%) 16 (94.1%)

Table 5. Role shift as constructed dialogue (CD), constructed action (CA) or mixed, per participant

While CD is often presented as the default form of role shift, it may not be the most common. In this data, the vast majority of role-shifted segments did not reflect character speech or self-talk; they represented character action. Johnston and Schembri’s (2007) analysis of an Auslan narrative shows the same pattern. One of the few ST segments that did trigger CD was interpreted by two participants, who added words (or thoughts) in different ways. The original source text states that “… she had exhausted every avenue to find suitable housing for her brother. She had nowhere else to turn”. 3.4.1 Participant A rendition TT: TRY HELP++ DEAD-END++ “WHERE CAN FIND HOUSE?” g:well(neg) PRO1sg DEAD-END++

74

Being There Back-translation: I tried to get help, but kept hitting dead ends. I thought to myself: “Where can I find a house?” But I was getting nowhere.

3.4.2 Participant C rendition TT: TERRIBLE “WHAT D-O?” AIM CAN’T, FAIL++ FOR HOUSE Back-translation: This is terrible. “What am I to do?” I asked myself. I’m trying to find a house but it’s not working.

Both interpreters A and C immediately adopted the first person perspective of the sister; they ‘became’ the sister. Participant A translated “exhausted every avenue” into a similar visual metaphor (hitting dead ends), and dramatized the agent’s search by adding a form of self-talk. The use of a rhetorical question, “WHERE CAN FIND HOUSE?”, and related non-manual enactment add to the portrayal of the agent’s distress. Participant C unpacked “exhausting every avenue” into a less figurative translation, where the agent also ‘verbalizes’ a rhetorical question: “WHAT DO?” – again dramatizing the portrayal. Two further instances of CD are discussed in the next section.

3.5 Temporal length of role shift As noted earlier, some role shift instances were fleeting. These shifts were sustained for only one sign, and that sign was always either a verb (used as a verb if a noun/verb sign) or an adjective relating to affect. The microenactments were embedded into ‘straight’ (un-role shifted) narrated text. They were signalled by a momentary shift in eye-gaze away from the addressee into the character’s world, and a parallel shift in facial expression to depict the character’s affect for the duration of the sign. Examples of one-sign role shift by the participants included: IMAGINE (all participants), HELP (participant A), FIND (participant B), DEPRESSED (participant C) and ARGUE (participant D). Other role shift segments were more sustained. The following two examples also contain constructed dialogue. 3.5.1 Participant A ST: (Mental Illness Fellowship Australia) “urges the Commonwealth to specifically build the resources to address the deficit in housing stock and support services for people with a mental illness.” TT: TRY LOBBY GOVERNMENT “PLEASE HELP THOSE PEOPLE MORE ESTABLISH++ HOUSE++ PLEASE HELP” TRY ENCOURAGE SUPPORT

Della Goswell

75

This was the longest role shift segment in all the TTs, lasting 9.4 seconds. It demonstrates the restructuring of more dense higher register text into simpler clauses. The constructed dialogue (shown in inverted commas in the gloss) is possibly triggered by the English ST verb ‘urge’ plus the intonation in the speaker’s delivery. The unpacking of the higher register ST segment into less formal, simpler form may be a response to the communication style and educational background of the deaf ‘client’ in this setting. It also begs the question of what an equivalently academic TT looks like in Auslan, given it has “considerably less register variation in its native lexicon than English” (Johnston and Schembri 2007:254). 3.5.2 Participant D ST: (state and federal governments need to…) “face up to past failures and prioritize social housing for people with a mental illness” TT: ACCEPT PAST PROBLEM HAVE g:well THINK TRY DEDUCE “HOW CAN PROVIDE GOOD ACCOMMODATION?”

This role shift was sustained for 5.4 seconds and is an interesting re-construction in two parts. The meaning of the idiomatic expression ‘face up to’ has been made less figurative, showing the governments (plural) acting as one person accepting their mistakes. Because signers only have one face to use for any characterization, they often portray multiple or ‘choral’ dialogue (and action) as one person’s response (Villanueva 2006). The translation of the latter section of the segment has shifted subtly from an external exhortation for all governments to prioritize housing, to a single agent (generic government), asking themselves how they can prioritize housing. Both the above examples demonstrate the complex deconstructionreconstruction task of creating equivalent meaning between texts. Each of the TT segments could have been ‘played straight’ (i.e. signed without role shift) and would still have made sense in Auslan, because of their active and cohesive form. It appears role shift was added to this platform to more overtly depict the action.

3.6 Perceived clarity of TT production When the incidence of role shift was cross-tabulated against the deaf informant’s ranking of the clearest TT, the results were surprising: role shift frequency did not correlate with the perceived clarity of the TT (Table 6).

76

Being There

Role shift frequency x TT clarity 25.00%

20.00%

15.00%

10.00%

5.00%

0.00% B - native

A - non-native

D - non-native

C - native

ranked TT clarity

Table 6. Frequency of role shift against ranked perceived clarity of TT

The deaf informant stated that although she felt she understood all of the TTs, in terms of overall clarity, participants B and A were ahead (in that order), with D and C very close in ranking. In the discussion following the interpretations she described ‘clarity’ in terms of who was more comfortable to watch, easier to follow and understand – a ranking of the comprehension quality of the TT, if not the fidelity of the translation. This outcome was initially disappointing in terms of original research assumptions, i.e. the more role shift, the better the interpretation. Participant B’s interpretation, ranked clearest, contained only nine role-shifted segments, whereas participant A’s interpretation, ranked second, contained 34. One of the limitations of the methodology for this study was the bluntness of the assessment instrument in determining clarity of TT: the deaf informant did a simple ranking of participants at the end of the filming process via a short discussion. This does not account for personal preference in interpreting style, nor her inability to judge the accuracy of message transfer from ST to TT, since she was not shown the ST transcript. However, to add a further subjective opinion, the author also concurred with the ranking of participants for this task in terms of TT clarity. I considered participants A and B to be very close in their message transfer skills, but noticed that participant B seemed slightly more effective in conveying the ST concepts succinctly and cohesively. This begs the ongoing and fraught question of what criteria to use in attempting to objectively determine a ‘good’ interpretation, which is beyond the scope of this paper. In terms of the link between ST and TT role shift, further analysis of the

Della Goswell

77

data was warranted and, as is often the case, the apparent anomaly was helpful – it led to a closer examination of the syntactic and semantic reconstructions that the interpreters were making on the path to producing their TTs, with or without role shift outcomes. These observations have been suggested in the discussion so far and are further explored in the next section.

3.7 Triggers for role shift? In the course of the analysis it became apparent that the initial question, i.e. whether interpreters can identify features of ST that lead directly to role shift, seemed a premature and simplistic cause-effect construct in the light of what else interpreters were doing with the ST in their translations. As noted in the analysis of the TT samples above, the interpreters were often concurrently re-constructing the ST while adding role shift, switching from passive to active form, and editing complex segments into simpler ones. Where no clear agent was present in the source text, one was frequently created in the TT, to enable the role shift. In order to see whether this was a pattern across the most commonly roleshifted ST segments (i.e. those that generated TT role shift from at least two of the four participants), each of these segments was examined to identify basic grammatical features related to active/passive form (e.g. verbs, nominalizations, and specified agent) and complexity (Table 7). 1 2 3

I want you to picture (Ted) his increasing delusional episodes and reluctance to eat properly

specified agent and active verb retrievable agent and emotional state retrievable agent, nominalization and active verb 4 the help of his sister retrievable agent and nominalization 5 mother who cared for him specified agent and active verb 6 he desperately needs supported commu- no agent or verb (for 2nd noun phrase) nity accommodation 7 Ted … suffers from anxiety and specified agent and emotional states depression 8 she had exhausted every avenue to find retrievable agent and idiom suitable housing for her brother 9 she had nowhere else to turn retrievable agent and idiom 10 people like Ted … for whom the de-focused agent and complex/ higher fundamental human right to a safe and register construction secure environment in which to live is unattainable 11 when pre- and post-intervention data was de-focused agent and passive verb examined 12 the need has been recognized by the specified agent and passive verb, then Prime Minister who has pledged funds active verb

78

Being There

13 Mental Illness Fellowship Australia urges the Commonwealth to specifically build the resources to address the deficit in housing stock and support services for people with a mental illness. 14 good people … hold serious issues at arms length in order to escape from the moral imperative to do something 15 Ted’s sister found suitable supported accommodation for her brother 16 state and federal governments stop blaming one another

specified agent, active verb and complex/ higher register construction

de-focused agent, idiom and complex/ higher register construction specified agent and active verb specified agents and active verb

Table 7. Commonly role-shifted ST segments and grammatical features

The source text features generating the most role shift can be grouped into combinations shown in Table 8. (Please note that some categories are not discrete and co-occur within a ST segment.) Category agent plus active verb agent affected by emotional state agent plus nominalization agent plus complex/higher register construction agent plus idiom agent plus passive verb

Instances 6 2 2 3 3 2

Percentage 37.5% 12.5% 12.5% 18.75% 18.75% 12.5%

Table 8. Categories of ST features triggering role shift

The largest category included a specified agent plus active verb, occurring in 6 out of the 16 segments (37.5%), and already in a form that needed no reconstruction before role shift was added. Consequently it seems that at least some English ST is in a ‘role shift-friendly’ format, and it makes sense that the participants most readily recognized opportunities to role shift at these points. Segments 2 and 7 referred to agents affected by emotional states (delusional episodes, anxiety and depression). This ST also seems amenable to role shifting since information about the character’s affect is already provided, and enactment is therefore only one step away. Participants depicted the agent experiencing the stated emotion. Another category arising involved the presence of an agent plus nominalization (where a noun is used instead of a verb). For example, in segment 3, ‘reluctance’ (rather than reluctant) is used, and since the verb is easier to depict, the interpreters changed the clause construction to show the agent (Ted) looking reluctant. In segment 4, ‘help’ is used as a noun, and again the clause

Della Goswell

79

construction was changed to show the agent (Ted’s sister) doing the action of helping. From these ST examples, the participants created TT renderings with a clear agent and active verb. Other segments include an agent plus complex or higher register construction. For example, segments 10, 13 and 14 were unpacked into simpler clauses with clear agents and active verbs. As previously suggested, perhaps for reasons of deaf client schema, and more limited register variation in Auslan, interpreters often reformulate complex concepts and jargon into simpler, more explicit forms. The introduction of an agent provides a ‘person’ whose experience can then be portrayed via role shift. Clearly this ability to identify and unpack or exemplify abstract concepts or dense text segments (let alone role shift them) is reliant upon a solid grasp of the ST content and meaning. Agents also appeared in conjunction with idiomatic expression: segments 8, 9 and 14 include metaphors. Two of the expressions: “exhaust(ed) every avenue” and “hold (serious issues) at arms length” imply action that can be portrayed. As noted earlier, some of the participants were able to match them with equivalent Auslan metaphors. For the third example, “nowhere else to turn”, both participants who role shifted this item chose to unpack it back to its denotative meaning first. There was also evidence of agents co-occurring with passive verbs. For segment 12, the participants reconstructed the passive verb into an active verb, allowing role shift to be easily added. Where a passive verb is used in the ST, and no agent is explicitly mentioned, as in segment 11 (discussed in section 3.3), the participants reconstructed the clause to include an agent, and the verb form was made active, enabling role shift to be added. This breakdown suggests that some existing ST forms need little manipulation and are ripe for role shift, whereas other features may be ‘flags’ for reconfiguration into a functional TT, which then enables role shift. On closer analysis of the interpreting choices made by participant B (judged as most ‘clear’), it became evident that although she did not employ role shift as often as the other participants, she consistently re-structured ST segments in the ways outlined above. The perceived high level of clarity in her rendition is worthy of further analysis to identify what other factors beyond role shift output contributed to the coherence of the TT. It is important to note that these identified ST features are not presented as obligatory role shift triggers, and in any case the interpreter manipulations leading to role shift outcomes were not universal across the text or participants. Examination of the ST as a whole shows that not all agents with active verbs were role shifted; neither were all references to emotional states, nominalizations or idiomatic expressions. This raises further questions that require analysis beyond this study: why did the interpreters choose to add role shift when they did? Why did they not add role shift when they could have?

80

Being There

4. Conclusions The investigation of four interpreted texts was designed to analyze the relationship between speaker ST and interpreter TT, focusing on role shift outcomes. The data from this study does not support a prescriptive, cause-effect relationship between lexical or grammatical ST content and TT role shift, however there may be an indirect one. What the data does suggest is that interpreters do a great deal of manipulation of ST content and form as they transfer the message into Auslan. This is nothing new, however the study provides a glimpse into what sort of manipulations interpreters are doing as they deconstruct/reconstruct a ST, and how this sometimes leads to role shift outcomes. The results also suggest that the presence of abundant role shift is not a sufficient indicator of clear and accurate interpretation; it does not suggest that role shift is a bad thing, rather, it is not the only translation choice to make. The clarity and efficacy of TT production appears to involve a range of inter-related features beyond the ambit of this research, but again worthy of further investigation. In terms of pedagogical application, there are a number of findings that may be helpful in describing role shift and flagging possible pathways to its use. Features of interpreted role shift that students can be made more aware of include: •

The portrayal of a range of character roles beyond the expected ‘people and animals’ – signed language interpreting students can be guided to also depict the actions of organizations and entities via role shift. • Constructed dialogue can be created in the TT, even when there is no direct speech in the ST. • Constructed action (other than dialogue) may be the most common form of role shift, so students need to listen for more than direct speech in a ST. • Role shift intensity can be subtle to overt – students need to develop a range of portrayal intensities. • The temporal range of role shift can be fleeting (on one verb) or sustained – students need to see this to understand it. • Characterized facial expression/posture and eye-gaze into the character’s world space may be obligatory signals for role shift, with other indicators (body shift, head tilt etc) as optional. Students need to move beyond gross exaggerated role shift, and use their face and eyes more than their shoulders and legs. • Role shift can co-occur with lexical and depicting sign (classifier) production, or stand alone. • All of the above features can be analyzed (e.g. via ELAN) to better understand the range available.

Della Goswell

81

One finding that may serve to encourage non-native signers, who represent the majority of interpreting students, is that while native signers may have an advantage in being able to generate role shift, this study suggests that this is variable, and that experienced non-native signers are capable of producing at least as much role shift in their interpretations. English source text features that interpreters can be alert to, for potential role shift, include: •

Reported speech (direct and indirect) – not actually present in this ST, but already discussed in the literature, and possibly the most obvious role shift cue to respond to. These are usually signalled by quotatives. • Clauses with clear agents and active verbs – these may require least manipulation into coherent Auslan TT, so that role shift becomes an easy transition, where appropriate. • An agent affected by an emotional state – lexical items related to emotions in the source text seem to be a strong trigger for role shift. Enactment is only one step away when affective information is provided directly. • Nominalizations – it is not clear whether nominalizations occur in signed languages; interpreters seem to intuitively convert the nouns back to active verb forms. Once this step occurs, role shift is more easily introduced. • Complex concepts/higher register text – unpacking of dense or complex information into simpler clauses allows interpreters to introduce agents, who are doing things, and therefore increases the opportunity to include role shift. • Passive clauses with no agent – it is not obligatory for interpreters to convert every passive into an active form; role shift can still be used to demonstrate the undergoer’s (person acted upon) experience of an action, leaving the agent unspecified. However, the data suggests that interpreters sometimes make the agent and action explicit, allowing for more typical incorporation of role shift. To reiterate, none of the above ST features are obligatory triggers for role shift, however, as noted in the discussion, they point to a process of identifying or constructing agent-focused clauses that seem useful in creating coherent Auslan TT. Role shift may be an optional extra dimension of depiction, for those interpreters skilled enough to use it. One omission from this analysis, because the written ST transcript became the reference point in the annotation process, is the possibility of a speaker’s paralinguistic features (prosody, intonation, etc.) to also play a part in motivating interpreted role shift. This is definitely worthy of further investigation. Finally, it is worth noting that before interpreter trainers like myself can

82

Being There

better teach a specific skill-set like role shift, we need to understand its function in a broader context, and to be informed by much more research.

DELLA GOSWELL Linguistics Department, Macquarie University, 2109 NSW Australia. [email protected] References Armstrong, Julie (2003) An Investigation of Constructed Action and Dialogue in an American Sign Language Interpreted Lecture, unpublished masters dissertation, Muncie: Ball State University. Baker, Charlotte and Cokely, Dennis (1980) American Sign Language: A Teacher’s Resource Text on Grammar and Culture, Silver Spring, MD: T. J. Publishers. Clark, Herbert (1996) Using Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cokely, Dennis (1992) Interpretation: A Sociolinguistic Model, Burtonsville, MD: Linstok Press. Dudis, Paul (2004) ‘Body Partitioning and Real-space Blends’, Cognitive Linguistics 15(2): 223-38. Emmorey, Karen and Judy Reilly (1998) ‘The Development of Quotation and Reported Action: Conveying Perspective in ASL’, in Eve Clark (ed.) Proceedings of the Twenty–ninth Annual Stanford Child Language Research Forum, Stanford: CSLI publications, 81-90. Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth (1993) Space in Danish Sign Language: The Semantics and Morphosyntax of the Use of Space in a Visual Language, Hamburg: Signum-Verlag. Goswell, Della (2007) Getting Our Acts Together: Role Shift for Interpreters, unpublished Masters course work paper, Sydney: Macquarie University. Janzen, Terry (2004) ‘Space Rotation, Perspective Shift, and Verb Morphology in ASL’, Cognitive Linguistics: Cognitive Approaches to Signed Language Research 15(2): 149-74. Johnston, Trevor (2002) ‘BSL, Auslan and NZSL: Three Signed Languages or One?’, in Anne Baker, Beppie van den Bogaerde and Onno Crasborn (eds) Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research, Hamburg: Signum-Verlag, 47-69. ------ and Adam Schembri (2007) Australian Sign Language (Auslan): An Introduction to Sign Linguistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ------, Louise de Beuzeville, Adam Schembri and Della Goswell (2007) On Not Missing the Point: Indicating Verbs in Auslan, paper presented at The 2007 International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Krakow, Poland, 15-20 July 2007. Kendon, Adam (2004) Gesture: Visible Action as Utterance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Della Goswell

83

Liddell, Scott (2003) Grammar, Gesture, and Meaning in American Sign Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ------ and Melanie Metzger (1998) ‘Gesture in Sign Language Discourse’, Journal of Pragmatics 30(6): 657-97. Lillo-Martin, Diane (1995) ‘The Point of View Predicate in American Sign Language’, in Karen Emmorey and Judy Reilly (eds) Language, Gesture & Space, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 155-70. Mather, Susan and Elizabeth Winston (1998) ‘Spatial Mapping and Involvement in ASL Storytelling’, in Ceil Lucas (ed.) Pinky Extension and Eye Gaze: Language Use in Deaf Communities, Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 183-210. McKee, Rachel and David McKee (1992) ‘What’s So Hard about Learning ASL?: Students’ & Teachers’ Perceptions’, Sign Language Studies 75: 129-58. Metzger, Melanie and Ben Bahan (2001) ‘Discourse Analysis’, in Ceil Lucas (ed.) Sociolinguistics of Sign Languages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 112-44. Morgan, Gary (1999) ‘Event Packaging in British Sign Language Discourse’, in Elizabeth Winston (ed.) Storytelling and Conversation: Discourse in Deaf Communities, Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 27-58. Myhill, John (1997) ‘Toward a Functional Typology of Agent Defocusing’, Linguistics 35(5): 799-844. Orima (2004) ‘Supply and Demand for Auslan Interpreters across Australia’, Department of Family and Community Services, Australian Commonwealth Government, Canberra. Quinto-Pozos, David (2005) ‘Factors that Influence the Acquisiton of ASL for Interpreting Students’, in Marc Marschark, Rico Peterson and Elizabeth Winston (eds) Sign Language Interpreting and Interpreter Education: Directions for Research and Practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 159-87. ------ (2007) ‘Can Constructed Action Be Considered Obligatory?’, Lingua 117(7): 1285-314. Rayman, Jennifer (1999) ‘Storytelling in the Visual Mode: A Comparison of ASL and English’, in Elizabeth Winston (ed.) Storytelling and Conversation: Discourse in Deaf Communities, Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 59-82. Roy, Cynthia (1987) ‘Evaluating Performance: An Interpreted Lecture’, in Marina McIntire (ed.) New Dimensions in Interpreter Education: Curriculum and Instruction, Proceedings of the 6th National Convention of the Conference of Interpreter Trainers, November 6 - 10 1986, Silver Spring, MD: RID Publications, 139-47. ------ (1989) ‘Features of Discourse in an American Sign Language Lecture’, in Ceil Lucas (ed.) The Sociolinguistics of the Deaf Community, New York: Academic Press, 231-52. Sallandre, Marie-Anne (2007) ‘Simultaneity in French Sign Language Discourse’, in Myriam Vermeerbergen, Lorraine Leeson, Onno Crasborn (eds) Simultaneity in Signed Languages: Form and Function, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 103-26.

84

Being There

Sandler, Wendy and Diane Lillo-Martin (2006) Sign Language and Linguistic Universals, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sutton-Spence, Rachel and Bencie Woll (1999) The Linguistics of British Sign Language: An Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Villanueva, Miako (2006) Constructing Dialogue (and Action) Through Blends, paper presented at 2006 High Desert Linguistic Society Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico, US, 9-11 November 2006. Wilson, Julie (1996) ‘The Tobacco Story: Narrative Structure in an ASL Story’, in Ceil Lucas (ed.) Multicultural Aspects of Sociolonguistics in Deaf Communities, Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 152-82. Winston, Elizabeth (1992) ‘Space and Involvement in an American Sign Language Lecture’, in Jean Plant-Moeller (ed.) Expanding Horizons: Proceedings of the 12th National Convention of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 93-105. Zimmer, June (1989) ‘Toward a Description of Register Variation in American Sign Language’, in Ceil Lucas (ed.) The Sociolinguistics of the Deaf Community, New York: Academic Press, 253-72.

Della Goswell

Appendix 1 ELAN working file showing annotation tiers

85

86

Being There

Appendix 2 GLOSS CONVENTIONS USED Glossed Auslan

PRINTED IN CAPS

Lexical matching

where one sign requires a number of English words to gloss its meaning, they are joined together: JUMP-TO-CONCLUSION

Fingerspelling

S-P-A-C-E-D

Gesture

g: name-of-gesture

Pronoun

abbreviation indicating person and number: PRO1, PRO2, PRO3 possessive: POSS1, POSS2, POSS3

Point

PT (indicating pointing signs other than obvious pronouns)

Depicting (CL) sign

pm: description-of-verb-action-or-referent

Reduplication

repetition of sign movement: WHY+ (with each + representing a single repeat)

Pause

, (comma is used to show a shift in message/meaning)

Constructed dialogue “….” (inverted commas indicate

Earlier conventions for transcriptions of signed languages have generally used SMALL CAPITALS for sign glosses – ELAN output format has determined the regular CAPITALS form for this transcription. Also, for ease of reading the examples, the gloss choices used are more meaning-based than usual (i.e. not consistent with names used in the Auslan lexical database).

Interpreting (Im)politeness Strategies in a Media Political Setting A Case Study from the Greek Prime Ministerial TV Debate as Interpreted into Greek Sign Language

Flora Savvalidou University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal, Germany Abstract. This paper investigates the (im)politeness strategies employed by the candidates for the office of Prime Minister in a media political debate in Greece and their rendering in Greek Sign Language by the signed language interpreter. Drawing on the concept of face (Goffman 1967) and politeness theory (Brown and Levinson 1987), the study explores the interpreter’s strategies of omission, addition, substitution and paraphrasing (Leeson 2005) and how they potentially influence the target text and hence the deaf viewers’ perception of the two candidates. Based on a small corpus (30 minutes of the 90-minute debate) the author provides preliminary qualitative evidence that the candidates’ (im)politeness strategies can be undermined when mediated through an interpreter. The findings of the study suggest the need for raising interpreters’ awareness of (im)politeness strategies and how these are used by both hearing and deaf participants in an interaction with the aim of preserving face.

Keywords: Greek Sign Language, politeness theory, face, political discourse. In October 2009, a few days before the general election in Greece, the two candidates for the office of Prime Minister participated in a political debate that was broadcast on public television. The same debate was simultaneously broadcast on digital television with an interpretation into Greek Sign Language (GSL). This paper investigates the linguistic coping strategies employed by one of the two interpreters involved in the process and their impact on the pragmatic rendering of the debate by drawing on the concept of face (Goffman 1967) and politeness theory (Brown and Levinson 1987). Political debates are structured face-to-face interactions where interlocutors try to convince their voters of their suitability for a higher office. In order to do so the participants bid for power over their rival through positive self-presentation and negative other-depiction. In other words, the aim is to preserve and defend one’s own ‘face’ (Goffman 1967) while attacking that of the opposing candidate(s). In this process the interlocutors can draw on a number of linguistic strategies in order to achieve their goal. As will be

88

Interpreting (Im)politeness Strategies

explored further below, these strategies are comprised of “politeness or face mitigation and impoliteness or face aggravation strategies” (Garcia-Pastor 2006:iii) and will be referred to hereafter as (im)politeness strategies. The use of these strategies contributes to the audience’s perception of the candidates’ political image and leadership qualities and can have an impact on a viewer’s evaluation of the candidates (Hinck and Hinck 2002). Like other discourse types, media political discourse is therefore not only characterized by ‘what’ is being said, but particularly by ‘how’ it is delivered. An interpreter thus faces the challenge of rendering factual information while being faced with fine-tuned pragmatic information. When working into a signed language, the interpreter deals with the additional difficulty of rendering information to an audience which is deprived of equal access to public discourse that is much more widely accessible to a mainstream, hearing audience and in a target language for which politeness strategies remain largely un-analyzed. In the political debate under study, the face-to-face interaction is simultaneously interpreted into GSL. Rather than being a primary participant in the actual event, the interpreter remains off-side without impacting on the dialogue between the candidates, therefore not influencing the politeness strategies employed by the candidates during the event. However, the interpreter’s rendering, and particularly the rendered (im)politeness strategies employed in the target text, do potentially have an impact on the deaf viewers’ perception of the event and thus the target audience’s impression of the political candidates. The latter therefore share ownership together with the interpreters over how they are being portrayed to deaf viewers, i.e. potential voters. Although they are not present during the interaction and are therefore invisible to the key interlocutors, the interpreter becomes a co-participant of the event at least for part of the audience, in this case, the deaf television audience. The examination of (im)politeness strategies in the context of electoral debates has not received much attention (Garcia-Pastor 2006). There is moreover no investigation to date that explores the special challenge faced by interpreters when mediating these strategies into a signed language in the context of a political debate. The aim of this study is to open up the discussion by exploring the interpreter’s linguistic choices and their potential impact on the mediation of the two candidates’ (im)politeness strategies in the abovementioned political debate. In particular, I analyze the interpreter’s strategies of omission, addition, substitution and paraphrasing (Leeson 2005) and how they potentially influence the target text and hence the deaf viewers’ perception of the two candidates. The analysis of this small corpus presented here provides preliminary qualitative evidence that the candidates’ (im)politeness strategies can be undermined when mediated through an interpreter.

I follow Spencer-Oatey (2005) here.

Flora Savvalidou

89

1. Face-work and (im)politeness strategies Face, according to Goffman (1967:5), is “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself [sic] by the line others assume he [sic] has taken during a particular contact”. Face, being “an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes” (ibid.), is an important factor influencing human interactions in all contexts of social life. The main concern of the interactants is generally to maintain face during an interaction. The strategies that people use in order to save face, although not always the result of a conscious choice, are labelled by Goffman (ibid.:12) as “face–work”, defined as “the actions taken by a person to make whatever he [sic] is doing consistent with face”. “Face-work”, he suggests (ibid.), “serves to counteract ‘incidents’ – that is events whose effective symbolic implications threaten face”. Based on Goffman’s concept of face in face-to-face interaction, Brown and Levinson (1987) elaborate a theory of ‘politeness strategies’ that interactants use in their face-work. The authors treat this aspect of face as “face wants”, distinguishing between negative and positive face (ibid.:62): negative face: the want of every ‘competent adult member’ that his [sic] actions be unimpeded by others. positive face: the want of every member that his [sic] wants be desirable to at least some others.

In that sense, “negative face represents a desire for autonomy, and positive face a desire for approval” (Spencer-Oatey 2005:101). It is important to note that the term politeness is not used here in the conventional sense, as a synonym of ‘courtesy’, but rather refers to “all aspects of language usage which serve to establish, maintain or modify interpersonal relationships between text producer and text receiver” (Hatim and Mason 1997:66). However, there are acts that intrinsically threaten face, i.e. ‘face-threatening acts’ (FTAs), which “by their nature run contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/or of the speaker” (Brown and Levinson 1987:65). If an agent decides to commit an FTA he or she can go ‘on record’, i.e. be open and clear about her or his intentions, or ‘off record’, i.e. employ “more than one ambiguously attributable intention so that the actor cannot be held to have committed himself [sic] to a particular intent” (ibid.:68-69). A “communicative behaviour intending to cause ‘face loss’ of a target or perceived by the target to be so” is defined by Culpeper (2008:36) as “impoliteness”. In the context of impoliteness, face loss refers to a “conflict and clash of interests” and the lowering of one’s “positive social value” (Goffman 1967:5). As Bousfield (2008) notes, the deployment of an indirect illocutionary act that has more than one interpretation allows for plausible deniability on the part of the speaker if the hearer is offended by the FTA. In addition, Leech

90


(1983) claims that politeness in language increases with the use of indirectness because indirectness can help lessen the feeling of being forced to do something. In other words, this strategy of being off-record is used to give the hearer a perceived increased ownership to decide for him or herself how to react. The use of a question instead of a demand to make a request, for example, is less threatening for an interlocutor, as she or he is at least superficially being given the opportunity to choose an answer. In this context, the notion of redressive action is discussed. According to Brown and Levinson (1987:69), redressive action refers to the way a person “attempts to counteract the potential face damage of the FTA”. This can be done through mechanisms of positive and negative politeness, i.e. addressing the positive or the negative face of the interlocutor (ibid.). Brown and Levinson (ibid.:68) state that given the mutual vulnerability of face “any rational agent will seek to avoid these face-threatening acts, or will employ certain strategies to minimize the threat”. Many linguists have challenged Brown and Levinson’s conceptualization of face, mainly their claim regarding the universality of face. For a detailed discussion, see Spencer-Oatey (2005), Vilkki (2006) and Bousfield (2008). In the area of translation studies, politeness theory has been used especially by Hatim and Mason, who promote a translation theory that examines discourse in terms of its pragmatic dimension, stressing that factors such as politeness, power and ideology play a role in every choice of linguistic expression (Hatim and Mason 1997). Their analysis of translated dialogue in subtitling drawing on politeness theory reveals that “there is systematic loss in subtitling of indicators of interlocutors accommodating to each other’s ‘face-wants’” (ibid.:70). Cunico (2009), analyzing translations from Italian to English of a play by Dario Fo using politeness theory, also finds differences in the characterization strategies adopted, and argues that these differences have a clear impact on the overall understanding and reception of the play in Britain. Harvey’s (2000) use of politeness theory reveals how gay fictional characters may deviate from the ‘model person’, who according to Brown and Levinson’s theory is motivated by rationality and the desire to satisfy ‘face wants’, whereas the gay fictional characters of Harvey’s study occasionally carry out face-threatening acts against themselves. He implicitly questions the universalistic assumptions of this theory by suggesting that linguistic strategies are connected to the specific social situations and communities in which they occur.

2. Face-work and political discourse Throughout the centuries and within all kinds of political systems leaders have relied on language to convince others of their leadership qualities. In earlier

Flora Savvalidou

91

times, the skill of political argumentation, its main aim being to convince people, was regarded as an art, the art of rhetoric (Charteris-Black 2005). In the modern age political discourse remains a persuasive discourse (Lauerbach and Fetzer 2007). The difference today, however, is that political discourse is mediated to wider audiences by television and other mass media, which is why politicians now not only strive to convince their supporters but also seek acceptance from the media. As Charteris-Black (2005:32) notes, “linguistic performance is crucial in this gentle art of persuasion impression management through which leadership is performed”. Leadership performance is especially important in the case of a specific media communicated event such as political debates, as these “can be understood as contests about presidential character, political image, and candidate self-esteem – all elements of positive face as defined by Brown and Levinson” (Hinck and Hinck 2002:234). Debates are a special kind of social situation where the participants – candidates for high office – are required to disagree with each other. Contradiction, disagreement, disapproval and criticism, i.e. face-threatening acts, are likely, indeed expected, to occur in this type of discourse (ibid.). In democratic frameworks it is primarily through language that leaders promote their leadership. Their linguistic performance is thus an important factor by which they mobilize their followers (Charteris-Black 2005). In other words, the way candidates argue is as important, if not more so, than what they argue about (Halmari 2008). Linguistic (im)politeness is an important dimension of political leadership and contributes to an audience’s perception of a person’s political image, a central concern in the evaluation of a political candidate (Hinck and Hinck 2002; Blas-Arroyo 2003). Hinck and Hinck (2002), analyzing the 1992 presidential debates in the USA, demonstrated the importance of face and face-saving strategies in that context, along with the need to preserve one’s self-esteem or face-wants in interaction. Positive face, maintained through expressions of understanding, affection, solidarity and positive evaluation or formal recognition of the interlocutor’s qualities, is threatened by expressions of violent negative emotions, blatant lack of cooperation, contradictions or disagreements between interlocutors and by disapproval and criticism, all of which are integral to political debates (ibid.). Persuasion in a political debate is, as mentioned above, generally the ultimate goal of the interlocutors in this discourse type, and this is achieved by a combination of face mitigation and face aggravation strategies. In this specific context the damaging action to the counter candidate’s image entails the enhancement of one’s own (Garcia-Pastor 2006). ‘Impoliteness’, as defined above, consisting of a speaker’s intended face aggravation or attack towards the interlocutor (Garcia-Pastor 2008), is a strategy likely to be employed by the participants in a political debate. However, as Garcia-Pastor (2006:71) notes, “the fact that impoliteness shapes the relationships between politicians in debates by no means implicates that they are not politically correct

92


to each other in their interchanges”. Face-work in the context of a political debate can therefore be expected to be highly formalized and intentional, and even the use of contradictions or attacks is consistent with the rules governing this kind of speech event.

3. Interpreting, off-record strategies and the Deaf Community As mentioned above, FTAs can be committed indirectly (off-record), or directly (on-record). Roy (2000) notes that indirectness poses a difficulty for interpreters that lies in its ambiguity and deniability. While the issue of indirectness is of consequence to any interpreter, it causes a particular difficulty for signed language interpreters considering the long-standing assumption that Deaf people are characterized by their directness, which is sometimes regarded as ‘rudeness’ (cf. Tray 2005; Metzger and Bahan 2004). Although indirectness is considered to be “a universal phenomenon in natural languages” (Thomas 1995:119), signed languages are often thought to lack such strategies. In other words, a widespread prejudice persists that Deaf culture is a ‘direct culture’ and signed language users do not incorporate indirectness in their language. Tray (2005:109) describes the case of American Sign Language (ASL) users as follows: Unfortunately, the minority status of ASL users coupled with the non aural and unwritten modalities of the language has allowed many assumptions about ASL and the American Deaf community to fill the void of research yet to be conducted. Consider the long-held notion that Deaf people are blunt (Lane, Hoffmeister, and Bahan, 1996, p. 73). Such an assumption would lead one to believe that it is impossible to use innuendo when indirect communication is not commonplace.

This stereotype is challenged by two studies that analyze politeness and directness and indirectness in ASL. Roush (1999), supporting Schiffrin’s (1994) contention that politeness is culturally defined, finds that “ASL signers in conversation use both manual and non-manual signs to mitigate what might otherwise be construed as direct and even rude utterances” (cited in Metzger and Bahan 2004:122). Roush’s research thus counters the previous perception that Deaf Americans are direct and rude (see also Tray 2005). Hoza (2007) investigates the politeness strategies used by ASL users and compares them with the respective strategies of English language users. He finds that “ASL signers are not always direct and [...] they in fact engage in a variety of strategies to mitigate threats to face, and many of these strategies are similar to those of English speakers” (ibid.:217). He identifies certain lexical

Flora Savvalidou

93

items (signs) and non-manual modifiers (facial expressions and body movements) in ASL that work to lessen the assumed imposition of a request or soften the negative force of a refusal. Hoza’s findings thus suggest that ASL possesses a wide range of strategies to express varying degrees of politeness. As Hoza notes (ibid.:203), the investigation of linguistic expression of politeness, as an element of conveying ‘social meaning’, is important because: how an interlocutor says something can result in possible misinterpretation, negative perceptions, and perpetuation of stereotypes. Cross-cultural communication can be improved with the understanding that more than one kind of politeness is at work in face-to-face interaction.

As mentioned above, a speaker may use indirectness strategically, so as to “avoid the inescapable accountability, the responsibility for his [sic] action, that on-record strategies entail” (Brown and Levinson 1987:73). This is especially important in the context of a political debate where the way a candidate talks influences the perception of her or his political image by the viewers, i.e. the potential voters. Arguably, a mediation into a signed language should give Deaf people access to the candidate’s original (im)politeness strategies and allow the political candidates to influence the Deaf viewers’ perception in a manner equal to that of the hearing audience.

4. Interpreting a media political debate Simultaneous live interpreting in television settings may be considered one of the most challenging and stressful forms of screen translation or any other interpreting activity (Kurz 2002; Pöchhacker 2007). According to Kurz (2002), this kind of interpreting poses specific difficulties for the interpreter because of three basic factors. The first relates to the nature of the setting since the communication is uni-directional and the interpreter receives no feedback from the audience. The second concerns work-related factors that include little opportunity for preparation, potentially bad sound quality or other occasional technical problems. The third includes psycho-emotional stress factors relating to the fact that the interpreter knows that she or he is interpreting for a wide audience and is consequently likely to be more afraid of failure than, for example, during ordinary conferences. Furthermore, TV viewers cannot be expected to understand or appreciate the difficulties an interpreter may face while the expectations of the quality of media interpreting are particularly high (ibid.:195). In the specific context of a political debate another factor of difficulty is present, which relates to the nature of the political debate as a “standardized

94


genre of the mass media” (Lauerbach and Fetzer 2007:11). Political debates, as a specific genre and discourse style, pose additional difficulties to the interpreter because of the high register and the intentionality of the linguistic choices of the participants. “Register variation, sometimes referred to as style variation, involves differential language use that is sensitive to situational factors” (Zimmer 2000:429), and the literature confirms that register variation exists in signed languages as it does in spoken languages (Napier 2002:288). In the area of interpreting, knowledge of and skill in using register variation is of the utmost importance: An interpreter’s goal is to produce a target language message that is equivalent, at all levels, to the original source language message. An interpretation can be quite accurate at the level of content but still be inadequate if expressed in an inappropriate register. (Leeson 2005:52)

An interpreter therefore needs to make decisions regarding textual information that go beyond content-related issues. Thus, strategizing and prioritizing becomes increasingly important in order to create a target text that reflects the source text content while at the same time being cohesive and grammatically and pragmatically meaningful (ibid.:59). In media interpreting, as in every setting, there are a number of strategies that signed language interpreters can employ to deal with the difficulties that arise from producing a target text that aims to be linguistically, culturally and pragmatically relevant to the target Deaf viewers, while at the same time facing the situational challenges and pressures mentioned above. These strategies include amongst others strategic omissions, strategic additions, strategic substitutions and paraphrasing (Leeson 2005). The present study focuses on instances where these four strategies of omissions, additions, substitutions and paraphrasing have been used in the interpretation of the party political debates and how these decisions impact on the reflection of source text politeness in the target text rendering.

5. Data and method A political debate offers a valuable opportunity to study mediated face-work as it is a conventionalized, structured face-to-face interaction with a very clear aim, i.e. the political candidates’ persuasion of the voters. Another interesting factor is that the interpreter, being absent from the actual event, does not influence the interaction itself, while, at the same time, his or her mediation may have an impact on Deaf viewers’ perception of the candidates. �� It is important, however, to keep in mind, as Pöchhacker (2007:40) points out, that it is a moot point whether the interpreter’s choices simply reflect an attempt to avoid cognitive overload or whether they are strategically, consciously decided.

Flora Savvalidou

95

The debate studied here is a political debate between the two main candidates for the office of Prime Minister in Greece prior to the elections in 2009. The two candidates were the incumbent Prime Minister, Konstantinos Karamanlis, leader of the right wing party (New Democracy), and Georgios Papandreou, leader of the socialist party (PASOK – Panhellenic Socialist Movement), who in the end won the election. The debate was broadcast on 22 September 2009 on public television, approximately two weeks before the national elections in Greece took place on 4 October. The GSL interpreted version was broadcast simultaneously by the digital channel Prisma+, which provides signed language interpreting for almost all of its programmes. This debate was chosen for the following reasons. First, it is a recent, widely broadcast political debate and, although it was the first to be held between only the two main candidates for the office of Prime Minister, there had previously been similar debates involving other political figures, some of which were mediated by the same interpreters. The interpreter in this study thus had the experience of interpreting at least three other political debates with the same candidates in similar settings, and as a result is expected to be familiar with the specific discourse style of the event and the difficulties it presents, as well as the candidates’ individual strategies. As Halmari (2008:249) suggests, “the personality and presentational style of the adversaries is difficult to change”. Second, the structure of the political debate, which rules out the potential for interruptions by journalists, allows the participants to develop their (im)politeness strategies in order to preserve face and deal with FTAs. Third, the interpreter who rendered the part of the debate studied here is a native signed language user and amongst the most experienced interpreters in Greece, whom we would therefore expect to be skilled in using signed language specific politeness strategies strategically. For the purpose of this study a copy of the political debate was obtained from the public television broadcaster (ERT), which operates the channel Prisma+. Due to time constraints and the scope of the study, the analysis particularly focused on the first half hour of the 90-minute debate, which was interpreted by the above-mentioned interpreter only. The Greek source text was transcribed and then translated into English, with the aim of remaining close to the form of the Greek text rather than providing an idiomatic rendition; the interpreter’s rendition was glossed in English. Following common conventions, a gloss for a sign is indicated through capitalization (e.g. POLITICS) and compound signs Another political debate was broadcast the previous day with the leaders of the six main political parties in Greece; this was interpreted by a team of interpreters. One of them was the same person who interpreted the part of the debate examined in this study. The English-Spanish interpreter of the Presidential debate of the 2007 USA elections, Vincente de la Vega, reports that he studied a DVD of Obama’s public-speaking and debate performances, absorbing Obama’s characteristic vocabulary, verbal ticks, and inflections in order to prepare for the event (Montgomery 2007).

96


are indicated with hyphenations (e.g. THINK-EXTRA). Facial expressions were not transcribed, which is likely to have an impact on this analysis. Instead the study consciously focuses on incidences where lexical choices impacted on the politeness strategies in the target text. The aim of this study was not to compare the source and target text as a whole but particularly to explore the interpreter’s strategies of adding, substituting, omitting and paraphrasing and the way these strategies impact on the observed (im)politeness strategies.

6. Data analysis 6.1 Omission Omission occurs when information contained in the source language is left out of the target text (Cokely 1992). Leeson (2005:59) notes that although omissions are considered miscues in some analyses, “an interpreter may consciously decide to omit an item from the target language text” considering “the effect that redundancy of an item in the target language would have”; omission may thus constitute a successful coping strategy. Following Janzen and Korpiniski (2005), Leeson (2005:59) asserts that “such strategic omissions can be successful only when interpreters deal critically with a text, guided by knowledge of their audience and the intentions of the source language speaker”. The following two samples present two cases where omission can be regarded as problematic in conveying the (im)politeness strategies that directly threaten the opponent’s positive face through “direct accusation” (example 1) and, as in example 2, by one candidate’s assumption that the opponent is “unaware of the problematic behaviour or somehow misguided” (Hinck and Hinck 2002:247). Example 1 K. Λυπάμαι που το λέω αλλά νομίζω ότι αποτελεί τουλάχιστον προσπάθεια εξαπάτησης των πολιτών Κ. I am sorry to say it but I think that it is at least an effort to deceive the citizens. I. [I am] SORRY, [I] SEE I. I am sorry but I see K. το γεγονός ότι σήμερα ερχόμαστε, από την πλευρά του ΠΑΣΟΚ, και λέμε ωραίες κουβέντες Miscue in interpretation, according to Cokely’s (1992) taxonomy, is the deviation from a source message. In the transcriptions of the examples, Mr. Karamanlis is referred to as K, Mr. Papandreou as P and the interpreter as I.

Flora Savvalidou

97

K. The fact that we come today, from PASOK’s side, and we say nice words, I. PASOK WORDS, WORDS, WORDS I. that PASOK is only saying words, words, words K. υποσχόμαστε τα πάντα και βεβαίως ζωγραφισμένα σε ένα ταμπλό της απόλυτης αοριστίας και K. we promise everything and of course [all these promises are] painted on a canvas of absolute ambiguity I. PROMISES, PROMISES, PROMISES I. and promises, promises, promises, K. και ασάφειας K. and vagueness. I. BUT NOT CLEAR, SPECIFIC [they are] NOT, WORDS, WORDS I. but without being clear or specific. They are full of words. As argued above, politeness consists of a series of linguistic strategies aimed at mitigating FTAs. For example, when the speaker says “I am sorry to say it but ...”, his utterance should not be taken literally, but instead seen as a preamble to the FTA he is going to employ (cf. Blas-Arroyo 2003). After using this strategy, Karamanlis overtly accuses the opposition party of deceiving Greek citizens. This is a serious FTA against his opponent. In this excerpt we find the accusation that PASOK is only using empty words, with no base in reality, actual facts or specified policies, an accusation that is repeated many times in this debate. While the latter aspect is rendered into GSL, the direct, serious accusation that Papandreou intentionally deceives the citizens is omitted; the interpreter renders the introduction of the FTA but not the FTA itself. By highlighting that the citizens, i.e. the viewers, are being deceived by Papandreou, Karamanlis’s strategy of causing a loss of face to his opponent while enhancing his own positive face in front of the audience is stressed. The FTA, committed by Karamanlis and offending his opponent explicitly, does not make it into the target text. Example 2. K. τώρα από κει και πέρα αν διάφοροι πράσινοι συνδικαλιστές σας τροφοδοτούν με στοιχεία K. Now, beyond that, if some green trade unionists provide you with data I. PERHAPS SOME PEOPLE TELL YOU LIES YOUR TRADE UNIONISTS I. Maybe some people tell you lies. Perhaps trade unionists from your party K. τα οποία είναι ανεπίτρεπτα αυτό θα σήμαινε ότι θα έπρεπε να τα κοιτάτε πιο προσεκτικά

98


K. that are unacceptable – this means that you should look at them more carefully. I. THEY TELL LIES SOMETHING …WHEW I. lie to you somehow, who knows. In this example Karamanlis says that Papandreou’s arguments are based on false data, which were given to him by the trade unionists who support his party. He therefore concludes that Papandreou should check his information more carefully before using it. Although disguised as advice, the latter constitutes an FTA, implying that Papandreou is not only misguided by his own people and unable to control them but also incompetent in terms of distinguishing between true and false data. While the reference to the false data is interpreted into GSL, the ‘advice’ to be more careful given to Papandreou is omitted. Thus the (im)politeness strategy employed in the source text is not conveyed to the target viewers.

6.2 Addition Cokely (1992) defines additions as information that is added to the interpretation which has no corollary in the source message. However, according to Leeson (2005:60), an interpreter may choose to ‘explain’ a term if she or he aims to mediate culture-specific concepts. In such instances the interpreter makes certain information explicit in the target language that is often inferred or ‘gapped’ in the source language (a strategy which can be employed bidirectionally – into a signed or spoken language). However in some contexts the addition of information may be problematic, as in example 3. In this example Karamanlis uses the case of the former General Secretary of the Greek Ministry of Culture who, following the revelation of financial scandals in his department as well as his extra marital affair with his secretary, attempted to commit suicide. Papandreou had previously referred to this case, labelling it as a scandal. Example 3 K. κάνατε το λάθος και ξαναφέρατε σήμερα το ζήτημα του Υπουργείου Πολιτισμού K. You made the mistake again of bringing up the case of the Ministry of Culture today. I. NOW YOU SAID AGAIN MINISTRY OF CULTURE THAT, WHAT YOU SAID BEFORE. [other times] MISTAKE I. Now you mention once more the case of the ministry of culture. You are wrong K. ποιό σκάνδαλο λοιπόν ήταν εκεί; για να μάθουν και οι Έλληνες πολίτες

Flora Savvalidou

K. I. I. K.

99

So, what was the scandal there? So that the Greek citizens will know WHAT SCANDAL ARE YOU TALKING-ABOUT? So, what was the scandal you are talking about?

αναφέρεστε σε μια τραγική προσωπική ιστορία του πρώην γενικού γραμματέα K. You are referring to a tragic personal story of the former general secretary. I. YOU SAY FORMER GENERAL SECRETARY HE PERSONAL STORY [back] BACK THEN, PRIVATE ISSUE I. You are talking about the personal story of the former general secretary, which is an old and private issue K. τίποτα δεν απεκαλύφθη ούτε οικονομικά, ούτε πολιτικά ούτε σε οποιοδήποτε άλλο επίπεδο K. Nothing was revealed, neither in terms of financial issues, nor political or any other issues. I. DIDN’T TAKE MONEY, DIDN’T STEAL ANYTHING, IS PRIVATE BUSINESS, HIS AFFAIR, OTHER THINGS HIS OWN, HIS PRIVATE BUSINESS I. He didn’t take any money, he didn’t steal anything, it was a private issue, the affair he had. All the other issues were his private business. Karamanlis here tries to downgrade the scandal by presenting the General Secretary’s suicide attempt as a ‘tragic personal story’. The details are, presumably, deliberately kept vague. The interpreter, on the other hand, makes direct reference to the AFFAIR (last line), reminding the target audience of this detail of the story explicitly. The intended face-work employed by Karamanlis to downgrade the issue, enhance his own positive face by showing his discretion and discredit his opponent by arguing that it was not a scandal, is undermined by the addition of the interpreter.

6.3

Substitution

According to Cokely (1992), information contained in the source language message may be replaced by information in the interpretation that is at variance with the intent of the source language message. He considers substitutions to be miscues, while according to Leeson (2005:60) they are “often guided by the need to coordinate a simultaneously interpreted message under pressure of time”. In the following example, the substitution again undermines the redressive strategy of the speaker.

100


Example 4 K. Mια τελευταία λέξη, μιλήσατε για ανείσπρακτες οφειλές πράγματι υπάρχουν K. A last word, you talked about the uncollected debts, they exist indeed. I. YOU SAID [we] OWE, YES INDEED, [we] OWE I. You said that we owe money and indeed we do. K. αλλά μη λέτε τέτοια νούμερα γιατί αυτά κινούνται πολύ μακριά από την πραγματικότητα. K. But don’t mention those numbers because they are far from reality. I. BUT DON’T SAY LIES BIG NUMBERS. No [acting out] I. But don’t lie using all those high numbers. Don’t do that! The interesting thing about this example is the rendering of ‘numbers that are far from reality’ as LIES. Although the difference may be subtle, the substitution has a potential impact on the politeness strategies employed. While the wording ‘far from reality’ does not indicate any necessary intended deception, the term LIE inevitably suggests Papandreou’s deliberate awareness of using the numbers falsely. The FTA, comparatively mild in the source utterance, becomes stronger in the target text. We are confronted with another instance where the linguistic coping strategy, here the case of substitution, impacts the rendering of politeness in the target language. Example 5 K. και έρχομαι και λέω τώρα εγώ, και το έχω κάνει δημοσίως, υπάρχουν υποθέσεις K. and I come and say now, I, and I have done it in public, there are cases K. που έκανα την αυτοκριτική μου και ανέλαβα την πολιτική ευθύνη K. when I was being self-critical and I took political responsibility. I. [I] ADMIT I-SEE-IN-ME MISTAKE I SAID I AM AT FAULT, I ADMIT, I, MY SELF, I DID [self criticism] WITH MY SELF I. I admit I had made mistakes and I admitted I am at fault, I have made my self reflect. K. αναρωτιέμαι, στο ΠΑΣΟΚ δεν υπάρχει κανένας να κάνει ποτέ αυτοκριτική; K. I wonder, if in the PASOK party there is nobody to ever be self-critical? I. YOU NEVER? YOU DON’T ADMIT MISTAKE? I. Don’t you do it ever? Don’t you admit making any mistake? K. όλα τα κάνατε τόσο τέλεια; ή έχετε τόσο μεγάλο βαθμό αλλαζονείας K. Did you do everything so perfectly? Or do you have such a high level of arrogance

Flora Savvalidou

101

I. THAT IS, YOU [ARE IN] EVERYTHING PERFECT? I. Are you perfect in everything? K. έπαρσης, οίησης για να προσπαθήσετε να πείσετε K. superciliousness, conceit, to try to convince [the people] I. SO STUFFY? YOU THINK {YOU ARE IN] EVERYTHING PERFECT? EVERYTHING [IS] CORRECT? SURPRISE [acting out] I. Are you so stuffy? Do you think you are perfect in everything? That everything you did is correct? I am surprised! K. Ένα θα σας πω. Βεβαίως είμαι υπέρ του να έρχονται όλα στο φως Κ. I will tell you one thing: of course, I am in favour of bringing everything to light, Ι. I WILL TELL YOU ONE THING, OF COURSE [I] WANT [IN] EVERYTHING TRANSPARENCY I. I will tell you only one thing. Of course I want transparency in everything Κ. Αλλά σε τελική ανάλυση η δύναμη της αυτοκριτικής είναι μεγάλη υπόθεση Κ. but ultimately the power of self criticism is a very important issue. Ι. MOREOVER, [TO] SEE-IN-ME IN-ME [IS A] BIG ISSUE I. Moreover I think self reflection is an important issue Κ. εγώ δεν είπα ποτέ ότι είμαι αλάνθαστος Κ. I never said I am faultless. Ι. I SAID [I] NEVER [MAKE] MISTAKE, RIGHT-RIGHT, NEVER [MAKE] MISTAKE, NO, I SAY [I] ADMIT [I MAKE] MISTAKE MANY I. I never said that I made no mistake, that I was always right, that I never made any mistake. No, I admit I had made many mistakes. Κ. όμως παρεξηγώ και θεωρώ επικίνδυνη μια συμπεριφορά που εμμένει ότι δεν έχει γίνει ποτέ κανένα ατόπημα K. However I judge negatively [this attitude], and I consider it a dangerous behaviour to insist that no fault has ever occurred, Ι. BUT [I] SEE YOU BEHAVIOUR NOTHING NEVER MISTAKE, YOU I.

INSIST, SURPRISE [acting out]

But I see you behave like nothing ever happened, like you have never made any mistake, and you insist. I am surprised!

Κ. και αναφέρομαι ειδικά σε αυτή την υπόθεση γιατί ίσως ήταν η πιο επώδυνη

102


Κ. and I’m referring especially to this case because it was probably the most painful one Ι. THIS I SAY NOW UNTIL TODAY, STOCK MARKET THIS DAMAGE BIG I. I am saying that until today this damage in the stock market was the biggest Κ. Κ. Ι. I.

που έχουν βιώσει οι Έλληνες τις τελευταίες δεκαετίες that Greek people have experienced during the last decades. FOR ALL GREECE [THE] LAST YEARS that Greek people have experienced the last few years

In this example Karamanlis, addressing his positive face, is trying to promote his values and his leadership qualities by referring to his ability to self-reflect and his courage in taking responsibility. He combines his portrayal of positive face with an FTA against Papandreou and PASOK who, he says, are ‘too arrogant’ to admit any mistakes. In this reference, he does not explicitly state at any point that he has made any mistakes. Instead he refers to the more ambiguous notion of political responsibility, turning negative attributes into strength by stressing his ability to self-reflect and take responsibility. In the interpretation, the notion of MISTAKE appears twice. Whereas Karamanlis portrays his behaviour positively in the source text, the notion of MISTAKE explicitly stresses the negative. Admitting in public to have made many mistakes is likely to undermine the speaker’s strategy, which aims to convince his audience of his leadership qualities. Admitting mistakes comes close to an apology, and apologies are naturally face-threatening for a speaker who strives for leadership (Lakoff 2001); with the risk of losing face comes the risk of losing power. Again, the politeness strategies are compromised in the interpretation.

6.4 Paraphrasing In an interpreted situation paraphrasing is an important tool in cases where the interpreter may not know a particular term in the target language or an equivalent term may not exist. In such cases paraphrasing, i.e. using concepts in the target language that differ from those used in the source text, becomes a strategic choice (Leeson 2005:61). The examples presented below indicate that paraphrasing, although generally a legitimate coping strategy, may be problematic in the case of conveying (im)politeness strategies, as the structure may be as important as the content. In example 6, Papandreou refers to the case of a former minister of Karamanlis’s government who was revealed to have an off-shore company in order to obscure his income and avoid paying taxes:

Flora Savvalidou

103

Example 6 P. [σκάνδαλα] που ο κ. Καραμανλής εν μια νυκτί παρέγραψε και μετά ζητάει P. [scandals] which Mr Karamanlis barred in one night, and then he asks from the Ι. HE [person CL] KARAMANLIS ONE NIGHT ERASE, HE COVERED IT UP, THEN HE SAYS I. Karamanlis barred them in one night, he covered them up and he says P. P. I. I.

από τον ελληνικό λαό να πληρώνει του φόρους του Greek people to pay their taxes YOU [the viewers] TAX PAY, ALL THE PEOPLE, I AM SORRY that you have to pay the taxes, all of you, I am sorry

P. όταν έχει ο ίδιος ο υπουργός ο δικός του οφ σορ για να μπορεί να κρύβει το εισόδημά του P. when his own minister has an off-shore company in order to hide his ιncome! I. HIS MINISTER, COMPANY HAS, HIDE INCOME MONEY GO AROUND AROUND-AROUND I. his own minister through his company has hidden his money by circulating it around P. τέτοια αξιοπιστία κύριε Καραμανλή; P. Is this your kind of credibility mister Karamanlis? I. MINISTER SECRET MONEY AROUND-AROUND COMPANY ALLOW MINISTER YOURS, PEOPLE MUST PAY? I. The minister was hiding the money by circulating them through his company and you allowed it while the people have to pay? Here, Papandreou is constructing an FTA against his adversary, challenging his credibility, starting with the reference to the case which involved the Minister. He ends his attack by using a rhetorical question. Rhetorical questions are a “classic case” of a speaker going “off record” (Brown and Levinson 1987:212). Papandreou uses a redressive strategy for his FTA, since “questions that leave their answers hanging in the air, implicated” may be used as such (ibid.:223). In the interpreted rendition, the notion of hiding money is successfully conveyed, while the audience’s emotional response is evoked. Moreover, in the target text, Papandreou’s attempt to relate to the audience is intensified. Rather than referring to ‘the Greek people’, the interpreter addresses the audience directly, signing YOU TAX PAY. That changes the addressee of the FTA. Additionally, in the interpretation the example is

104


made more explicit (money going around in circles and ending up with the same person). The emotional weight is further enhanced by the repetition of this example of injustice and the addition of SORRY. This way Papandreou is portrayed as if he were addressing the audience himself and saying that he is sorry for them for having to suffer this unjust decision. Deaf viewers have no way of knowing that it is the interpreter’s perception that Papandreou is being sorry; thus the interpreted rendition alters Papandreou’s choice of offrecord strategy. As a result, although the meaning relating to the fact that an illegal activity had been carried out which the Prime Minister had allowed is conveyed, the focus is altered and the injustice of the action takes centre-stage. The off-record strategy becomes on-record and the (im)politeness strategy, linguistically realized as a rhetorical question (cf. Brown and Levinson 1987:69), is not conveyed to Deaf viewers.

7. Discussion Political debates are a highly conventionalized genre in which form is an essential element that shapes the discourse type. Napier (1998:16) suggests that signed language interpreters should “focus entirely on the meaning, to ignore the form of the message, and ensure that any piece of information is made equally relevant to all parties involved”. Leeson (2005), however, believes that “this approach of ignoring the form cannot be maintained in every case”. She specifically mentions legal settings but the same can be argued, given the examples presented above, for the setting of a political debate, especially with regard to the (im)politeness strategies that are integral to this discourse type. The use of (im)politeness by a speaker in such an event particularly serves the function of upgrading his or her own face, while lowering that of the opponent. Therefore omission of crucial, presumably carefully chosen words of the primary participants, addition to them, substitution or paraphrase potentially result, as shown in this study, in a degradation of the (im)politeness strategies used or in leading to the opposite outcome of what was intended. Moreover, by employing carefully selected politeness strategies the candidates are able to attack their opponent’s face in a subtle, and ‘appropriate’ manner; “candidates manifest that they adjust to the politically correct behavior expected from them in debates” (Garcia-Pastor 2006:67). As Hoza’s (2007) study on politeness in ASL has shown, politeness strategies indeed exist in signed languages, contrary to the stereotypical belief that signed language communication is more direct than hearing discourse. Hoza points out that “ASL/English interpreters need to understand the politeness strategies used by ASL signers and English speakers because they make decisions regarding how to convey speakers’ politeness strategies (their social meaning) in interpreted interaction” (ibid.:212). This understanding of

Flora Savvalidou

105

(im)politeness strategies in both languages and “preparation based on a real understanding of the event” and the “awareness of the importance of context” (Leeson 2005) can guide an interpreter’s decision making at the linguistic level. In this small-scale investigation the examples have shown that a number of the strategies that interpreters employ in order to deal with the complexity of the interpreting task can undermine the (im)politeness strategies employed by the candidates. Since (im)politeness strategies are able to mould a candidate’s political image, an interpretation which alters the pragmatic dimension of an event may have adverse effects on the target audience’s perception of the candidates. Therefore a more general issue arises as to whether face management can be successfully mediated through an interpreter. Hatim and Mason (1997:74), with reference to subtitling, state that “the problem is not so much that explicit markers of politeness are just absent from the translation; rather, that subtitling may create a substantially different interpersonal dynamics from that intended”. Although discussing a different kind of translation, their comment holds true for this study too. As Blas-Arroyo (2003:418) mentions, in political debates “conventions do count and have to be maintained”; an interpreter needs to be particularly aware of the (im)politeness strategies employed in the source text which enable the speakers to diminish face-threats. As the examples have shown, the interpreter in this study often focuses on the ideational meaning of the source text while the speakers choose their words and examples as a vehicle for their (im)politeness strategies in order to carry out FTAs against their respective rival; the implied meaning is often as important as the ideational information uttered. It seems that in this specific interpretation, the element of ‘form’ or ‘style’ ranks secondary to the content. Thus, while the interpreted outcome was fluent, grammatically correct and ‘pleasant to watch’, the linguistic choices were at points in conflict with the specific discourse tools and (im)politeness strategies used by the two adversaries, undermining the message and its impact on their Deaf voters. If it is true that “[s]uccessful politicians are those who effectively combine appeals to cognition and emotion” (Charteris-Black 2005:xi), then interpreters in this setting should be sensitized to convey both. Interpreters’ choices are nevertheless the result of their own perception of an utterance and what they themselves pay attention to. Preparation for the task, a preliminary analysis of the expected pragmatic level of a setting and an awareness of the emotional response that the politicians are likely to evoke through face-work are all crucial. It has to be noted here that beyond the difficulties related to the specific context of the event mentioned above, an additional issue is the lack of proper education in GSL. Tray (2007:124) notes for the case of ASL that even native bilingual ASL-English interpreters do not have the access to the same opportunities for advanced education (perhaps even

106

Interpreting (Im)politeness Strategies formal education of any kind) in ASL the way other interpreters have when each language in their language pair is regarded as a majority language. This is an obvious disadvantage when striving for equivalence in the message.

This is an even greater problem in Greece since there is no formal interpreter training programme and GSL is under-researched (Kourbetis and Hatzopoulou 2010). The findings of this study then suggest the need to raise awareness of the importance of paying attention to a pragmatic dimension within interpreter-mediated events, and particularly to the notions of ‘face’ and ‘(im)politeness’ when interpreting into a signed language, as well as the need for further study of (im)politeness strategies of native signers. Pragmatic aspects should therefore be considered important when the training of GSL interpreters is designed.

8. Conclusions, implications and further research This paper has sought to investigate the impact that some basic strategies employed by signed language interpreters can have on the (im)politeness strategies and face-work used by the participants in a political debate and how this can potentially shape the Deaf audience’s perception of the political candidates. In order to make informed choices interpreters must be aware of the importance of the discourse context and the function of the message (Leeson 2005). Signed language interpreters need to understand the (im)politeness strategies used in both signed and spoken languages because they need to make decisions regarding how to convey a speaker’s politeness strategies (i.e. the strategies that build the ‘social meaning’) in an interpreted interaction. This work supports Hoza’s (2007:225) suggestion that the way an interpreter’s strategies are rendered can have profound effects on an interaction and how the primary speakers perceive each other as participants. This study of the interpreter’s choices during the political debate under examination offers some initial insights into the abundance of linguistic and cultural elements that are part of a GSL-interpreted event. The setting of a political debate, where (im)politeness strategies are at the centre of an event, provided particularly insightful material for the investigation of pragmatic structures. The concept of face, central in the context of a political debate, is also a basic element in everyday communication. Therefore an interpreter’s awareness of how speakers use face saving strategies and FTAs can result in a better understanding of the intentions of the participants involved in any interaction they are called to interpret. Studies of this kind can thus contribute to promoting interpreters’ development of “an understanding of appropriate discourse features to use in different contexts when conversing

Flora Savvalidou

107

with, and interpreting for, deaf people” (Napier 2006:261). Moreover, by discussing some of the issues at stake in a television broadcast of a political debate, the study provides valuable insights into media interpreting in an era when technology and media are playing an increasingly important role in our life and communication (Gambier and Gottlieb 2001). Finally, this small-scale study into (im)politeness strategies in a GSL interpreted media political event can only serve as a starting point for further investigation into the topic. In order to test the generalizability of these limited findings and to understand the issue better, further empirical research is needed. It would be particularly interesting to investigate the source and target viewers’ impressions of the interpreted debate and their perception of the participants’ interaction. Considering the importance of a pragmatic dimension, particularly in settings such as a political debate, we further need to increase our knowledge of linguistic (im)politeness strategies in GSL and the way native GSL users use these strategies. This knowledge will help us address the difficult issues of interpreting (im)politeness strategies into and from a signed language.

FLORA SAVVALIDOU 12, Diakou str., Glyfada, 16675, Greece. [email protected] Acknowledgement I would like to thank Dr. Svenja Wurm for her continuous support and faith throughout the whole process of writing this article.

References Blas-Arroyo, Jose Luis (2003) ‘“Perdone me que se lo diga, pero vuelve usted a faltar a la verdad, señor González”: Form and Function of Politic Verbal Behavior in Face-to-Face Spanish Political Debates’, Discourse and Society 14(4): 395-423. Bousfield, Derek (2008) Impoliteness in Interaction, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Brown, Penelope and Stephen Levinson (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Charteris-Black, Jonathan (2005) Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Cokely, Dennis (1992) Interpretation: A Sociolinguistic Model, Burtonsville, MD: Linstok Press. Culpeper, Jonathan (2008) ‘Reflections on Impoliteness, Relational Work and Power’, in Derek Bousfield and Miriam Locher (eds) Impoliteness in Language: Studies on Its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 17-44.

108


Cunico, Sonia (2009) ‘Translating Intensifiers: (Non-)Equivalences Across English and Italian’, in Ashley Chantler and Carla Dente (eds) Translation Practices – Through Language to Culture, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 99-114. Gambier, Yves and Henrik Gottlieb (2001) ‘Multimedia, Multilingua: Multiple Challenges’, in Yves Gambier and Henrik Gottlieb (eds) (Multi)Media Translation: Concepts, Practices and Research, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, viii-xx. Garcia-Pastor, Maria Dolores (2006) A Socio-Cognitive Approach to Political Interaction: An Analysis of Candidates’ Discourses in U.S. Political Campaign Debates, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Valencia: University of Valencia. ------ (2008) ‘Political Campaign Debates as Zero-sum Games: Impoliteness and Power in Candidates’ Exchanges’, in Derek Bousfield and Miriam Locher (eds) Impoliteness in Language: Studies on Its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 101-23. Goffman, Erving (1967) Interaction Ritual, New York: Pantheon Books. Halmari, Helena (2008) ‘On the Language of the Clinton-Dole Presidential Campaign Debates: General Tendencies and Successful Strategies’, Journal of Language and Politics 7(2): 247-70. Harvey, Keith (2000) ‘Translating Camp Talk: Gay Identities and Cultural Transfer’, in Lawrence Venuti (ed.) The Translation Studies Reader, London: Routledge, 446-67 Hatim, Basil and Ian Mason (1997) The Translator as Communicator, London: Routledge. Hinck, Edward and Shelly Hinck (2002) ‘Politeness Strategies in the 1992 Vice Presidential and Presidential Debates’, Argumentation and Advocacy 38(4): 234-50. Hoza, Jack (2007) It’s Not What You Sign, It’s How You Sign It: Politeness in American Sign Language, Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Janzen, Terry and Donna Korpiniski (2005) ‘Ethics and Professionalism in Interpreting’, in Terry Janzen (ed.) Topics in Signed Language Interpreting: Theory and Practice, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 165-99. Kourbetis, Vassilis and Marianna Hatzopoulou (2010) Μπορώ και με τα Μάτια μου. Εκπαιδευτικές Προσεγγίσεις και Πρακτικές για Κωφούς Μαθητές [With My Eyes: Educational Strategies and Practices for Deaf Students], Athens: Kastaniotis. Kurz, Ingrid (2002) ‘Physiological Stress Responses During Media and Conference Interpreting’, in Giuliana Garzone and Maurizio Viezzi (eds) Interpreting in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 195-202. Lakoff, Robin Tolmach (2001) ‘Nine Ways of Looking at Apologies: The Necessity for Interdisciplinary Theory and Method in Discourse Analysis’, in Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen and Heidi Hamilton (eds) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Oxford: Blackwell, 199-214. Lauerbach, Gerda Eva and Anita Fetzer (2007) ‘Political Discourse in the Media: Cross-Cultural Perspectives’, in Gerda Eva Lauerbach and Anita Fetzer (eds)

Flora Savvalidou

109

Political Discourse in the Media, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 3-28. Leech, Geoffrey (1983) Principles of Pragmatics, NewYork: Longman. Leeson, Lorraine (2005) ‘Making the Effort in Simultaneous Interpreting’, in Terry Janzen (ed.) Topics in Signed Language Interpreting: Theory and Practice, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 51-68. Metzger, Melanie and Ben Bahan (2004) ‘Discourse Analysis’, in Ceil Lucas (ed.) The Sociolinguistics of Sign Languages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 112-44. Montgomery, David (2007) ‘Echoing the Candidates’ Words – In Spanish’, The Washington Post. Available at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2007/09/09/AR200709072731.html (last accessed 30 August 2010). Napier, Jemina (1998) ‘Free your Mind – The Rest Will Follow’, Deaf Worlds 14(3): 15-22. ------ (2002) ‘University Interpreting: Linguistic Issues for Consideration’, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 7(4): 281-301. ------ (2006) ‘Effectively Teaching Discourse to Sign Language Interpreting Students’, Language, Culture and Curriculum 19(3): 251-65. Pöchhacker, Franz (2007) ‘Coping with Culture in Media Interpreting’, Perspectives 15(2): 123-42. Roy, Cynthia (2000) Interpreting as a Discourse Process, New York: Oxford University Press. Spencer-Oatey, Helen (2005) ‘(Im)Politeness, Face and Perceptions of Rapport: Unpackaging their Bases and Interrelationships’, Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture 1(1): 95-119. Thomas, Jenny (1995) Meaning in Interaction, London & New York: Longman. Tray, Shaun (2005) ‘What Are You Suggesting? Interpreting Innuendo Between ASL and English’, in Melanie Metzger and Earl Fleetwood (eds) Attitudes, Innuendo, and Regulators: Challenges of Interpretation, Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 95-135. Vilkki, Liisa (2006) ‘Politeness, Face and Facework: Current Issues’, SKY Journal of Linguistics 19: 322-32. Zimmer, June (2000) ‘Toward a Description of Register Variation in American Sign Language’, in Clayton Valli and Lucas Ceil (eds) The Linguistics of American Sign Language, Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 429-442.

Medical Signbank

A Cure-all for the Aches and Pains of Medical Signed Language Interpreting? Jemina Napier, George Major & Lindsay Ferrara Macquarie University, Australia Abstract. Language, cultural and educational impediments in the effective use of signed language interpreters in medical and mental health service delivery have been identified by Australian researchers (Cornes and Napier 2005; Napier and Johnston 2005), but until 2008 no linguistic research had been carried out in Australia on signed language interpreter-mediated medical encounters. This paper described an Australian project that involves the development of an innovative web-based interactive multimedia dictionary and database of Auslan. It was designed to create an effective, accepted and shared signed language vocabulary for the discussion of medical and mental health issues by deaf clients and health professionals, mediated through Auslan interpreters. The conceptual framework was language planning and development within a small linguistic community of ‘limited diffusion’. The technology enables the direct participation of interpreters, deaf people and medical practitioners in a project managed by linguists, signed language interpreters, and language service providers (the National Auslan Interpreter Booking and Payment Service, and the New South Wales Health Care Interpreting Service). The paper outlines the progress of the project, and specifically reports on findings from surveys and discussions conducted with interpreters about the strategies they use to deal with medical terms that have no Auslan equivalents, and their thoughts on challenges in medical interpreting.

Keywords: Signed language interpreting, Auslan, healthcare interpreting, Medical Signbank, medical terminology. Medical interpreting involves a diverse range of patients and health problems. Napier et al. (2010) state that, among other things, it is difficult to prepare for medical interpreting assignments, as one cannot always predict the direction a medical interaction will take. Furthermore, it is a potentially high consequence setting, whereby “an incorrect explanation of symptoms to the practitioner or incomplete instructions to the patient can have serious ramifications: the wrong diagnosis or treatment can be life threatening” (ibid.:112). Among other things, these risks are associated with the fact that interpreters in this setting

Jemina Napier, George Major & Lindsay Ferrara

111

are frequently faced with unfamiliar concepts and vocabulary. No interpreter can predict what may occur in every medical assignment, and whether he or she has sufficient background knowledge to accept an assignment. Over the last decade the study of interpreter-mediated medical consultations has emerged as a small but growing field. Most of the published work has been on spoken language medical and mental health interpreting, with researchers using recordings, observations or surveys to better understand interpreter role, communication challenges, and implications of these challenges for interpreter training (see for example, Davidson 2001, 2002; Dysart-Gale 2005; Karliner et al. 2004; Merlini and Favaron 2005; Singy and Guex 2005; Valero Garcés 2002; Wadensjö 2001). Such research highlights the complicated and multifaceted work interpreters perform in these settings. Of particular focus in recent years has been the scrutiny and problematization of the traditional view that interpreters should aim to be neutral (effectively ‘invisible’) in interactions. Various researchers have recorded authentic and simulated spoken and signed language interpreter-mediated data situated within medical contexts in order to present analyses of how the presence of an interpreter can impact on medical discourse and the outcomes of a medical consultation (Angelelli 2003, 2004; Aranguri et al. 2006; Bolden 2000; Cambridge 1999; Metzger 1999). These recent studies clearly show a shift towards the study of situated interpreter-mediated interaction. We now have a better, though still developing, understanding of the impact that interpreters can have on interaction, and some of the consequences (be they positive or negative) of their choices. Little Australian research has been conducted on medical interpreting. Giacomelli (1997) conducted a survey of healthcare interpreter provision in rural areas; and following on from the work of Garrett et al. (2008a, 2008b) and Garrett, Ferero et al. (2008) in exploring language barriers in acute hospital care, Garrett (2009) has proposed a model for providing healthcare interpreters. In her unpublished study, Slatyer (1998) explores the role of the medical interpreter; Tebble (1999, 2003) has discussed the tenor of doctor-patient communication when mediated through an interpreter, and Lee et al. (2005) have detailed issues for healthcare interpreters working in physiotherapy contexts. To date, there has been no focused research on signed language interpreting in medical contexts in Australia. In Australia, it is estimated that there are around 300 Australian Sign Language (Auslan)/English interpreters who are active and regularly available for work (Orima 2004; Napier et al. 2006), to serve a signed language using Deaf population of approximately 6,500 (Johnston 2006). Auslan/ Many readers will be familiar with the fact that in deaf studies, signed language linguistics and interpreting literature the ‘D/d’ convention is used to distinguish between members who use the signed language of a linguistic and cultural minority community (Deaf) and those who have a hearing loss but do not use signed language or identify themselves with

112

Medical Signbank

English interpreters receive their ‘licence to practice’ (accreditation) from the National Authority for the Accreditation of Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) by either passing a NAATI test or completing a NAATI-approved course of study. Accreditation is available at Paraprofessional or Professional level. Paraprofessional level accreditation is an entry-level qualification that assesses interpreters as being ‘safe to practice’, although the Professional level is regarded as the ideal minimum level of competence. Australia is one of the few countries in the world that accredits spoken language and signed language interpreters through the same system (Napier 2004). Recent demographic surveys of Auslan/English interpreters in the last decade have found that approximately 70% are accredited at the Paraprofessional level, and approximately 30% at the Professional level (Bontempo and Napier 2007; Napier and Barker 2003). A study of the supply and demand of Auslan/English interpreters, which surveyed 491 deaf Auslan users and interviewed interpreters, family members of deaf Auslan users, healthcare practitioners and representatives from peak bodies, found that 17% of government-funded signed language interpreting took place in medical contexts (Orima 2004). The study also revealed that: •

87% of deaf Auslan users surveyed had used a professional interpreter at least once in the 12 months preceding the survey; • the area in which most deaf people (almost 70%) required professional interpreting services in the 12 months preceding the survey was general practitioner and specialist consultations; • approximately one third of deaf Auslan users required interpreters for public hospital visits in the 12 months prior to the survey; • fewer than 10% of deaf Auslan users were not able to get an interpreter when needed for public hospital visits; • on average, deaf Auslan users went to a doctor (either a general practitioner or specialist) 8.7 times in 12 months. • Only 16% of deaf Auslan users who went to a general practitioner or specialist in the 12 months preceding the survey indicated they did not need professional interpreters for these visits. The Orima (2004) study also found that two thirds of deaf Auslan users who were not able to obtain a professional interpreter for a doctor’s appointment used written English notes to communicate, whereas the other third went to this linguistic minority (deaf) (e.g., Lane 1993; Ladd 2003). We have opted to use the uppercase ‘D’ when referring to the Deaf population, and the lowercase ‘d’ when mentioning deaf people, individuals or patients, so as to not make any judgements about their linguistic or cultural status as signed language users. See Bontempo and Napier (2009) or Bontempo and Levitzke-Gray (2009) for a detailed overview of signed language interpreter training, accreditation and testing in Australia.


113

the doctor with a friend or family member to interpret. Individual general practitioners consulted as part of the same study considered that – depending on the patient’s level of English literacy – an Auslan interpreter was not always needed for simple consultations; however they acknowledged that there was a high risk of misunderstanding and incorrect treatment or management of the condition if an interpreter was not present in more complex medical cases. In Australia, signed language interpreters are provided in various medical and mental health contexts through different booking agencies dependent on the type of appointment and in which state the deaf person lives. The general model is that interpreters are provided in public healthcare settings via individual state government-funded healthcare interpreting services in each state (HCIS); and private medical consultations are provided through the federally funded National Auslan interpreter Booking and Payment Service (NABS). HCIS and NABS only book interpreters that have NAATI accreditation, and both encourage interpreters on their registers to participate in professional development training about medical terminology, although it is not mandated. The only discourse-based medical interpreter training currently available for Auslan/English interpreters is a module offered at Macquarie University as part of the Postgraduate Diploma in Auslan/English Interpreting. According to the NABS service manager, over a 12 month period 20092010 NABS has booked interpreters for 17,782 healthcare appointments, a breakdown of which can be seen in Table 1. Of the filled booking requests, 5,152 were filled by Professional Interpreters, and 12,630 were covered by Paraprofessional Interpreters. NABS receives very few requests for deaf interpreters, as noted by the NABS service manager: “I guess the problem is that very few health professionals would know of or understand the concept and a deaf person who needs a [deaf interpreter] probably doesn’t recognize the need and wouldn’t make the request” (Keri Gilbert, Manager, NABS, personal communication, 27 September 2010). In funding the establishment of NABS, the Australian government gave them the remit to assist in the professional development of interpreters through training and by supporting relevant research that will benefit the Deaf community and Auslan/English interpreters. NABS was established as a consequence of the Orima (2004) report, when the Australian government decided to fund a national medical interpreting service to meet gaps in provision for private medical appointments that were not covered by state-based public healthcare interpreting services. In many countries (especially the USA and UK) it is established that deaf people work as interpreters in various capacities. In healthcare settings this would typically be in a ‘relay’ role between a hearing signed language interpreter and impairments. In Australia, the term DRI (deaf relay interpreter) is commonly used. See Boudrealt (2005), Collins and Walker (2006), Forestal (2005), Napier et al. (2010, chapter 8) and Turner (2006) for discussions around the role of deaf interpreters and nomenclature.

114

Medical Signbank

Acupuncture Audiology Chiropractic Dental Dietician Endocrinology Family Planning/Sexual Health General Practice Gynaecology/Obstetrics Iridology IVF Medical Imaging Mental Health Naturopath Occupational Therapy Optometry Osteopath Paediatrics Pathology Physiotherapy Podiatry or Chiropody Psychiatry Psychology Remedial Massage Specialist Speech Pathology

0.35% 0.95% 2.12% 6.14% 0.88% 0.43% 0.05% 62.57% 1.34% 0.08% 0.24% 4.95% 4.18% 0.88% 0.34% 0.82% 0.20% 0.14% 0.16% 2.06% 0.59% 1.10% 2.78% 0.03% 6.45% 0.17%

Table 1. NABS bookings by percentage

In this paper we describe one stage of data collection from an Australian research project, in which we worked with Auslan linguist Trevor Johnston to develop a web-based interactive multimedia dictionary and database of Auslan called Medical Signbank. The Medical Signbank project was established in collaboration with NABS and the New South Wales HCIS. Medical Signbank provides the opportunity for members of the Deaf community and signed language interpreters to share in the creation of a signed language lexical database for the discussion of medical and mental health issues by deaf clients

“Medical Signbank: Sign language planning and development in interpreter-mediated medical health care delivery for deaf Australians” (LP0882270) Australian Research Council (Scheme: Linkage Projects) 2008-2011. The authors would like to acknowledge the lead Chief Investigator on the project: A/Prof Trevor Johnston, who has a specific interest in lexicography and terminological issues and who was responsible for establishing the initial Auslan Signbank, on which the Medical Signbank is built.


115

and healthcare practitioners (HCPs), mediated through Auslan/English interpreters. Medical Signbank continued the work of Johnston, begun in 1984, in establishing and developing a lexical database of Auslan (Johnston 2001). The conceptual framework for this project is language planning and development within a small linguistic community of ‘limited diffusion’ (i.e. a small number of people speaking a lesser-known language). The project is innovative in that the technology used in developing this resource enables the direct participation of deaf people and interpreters, meaning that this is a ‘bottom-up’ approach to language planning. As well as enabling deaf people and interpreters to directly contribute signs to the lexical database, surveys were administered to, and focus groups were held with, deaf people and interpreters. It is outside of the scope of this paper to discuss the Medical Signbank project in full. A more detailed description of Medical Signbank and the conceptual framework can be found in Johnston and Napier (2010). Instead, in this paper we give a brief overview of the Medical Signbank project in order to provide a backdrop to the focus of this paper: phase one of the Medical Signbank data collection. We then give a detailed description of the data collection, which was undertaken during workshops held with Auslan/English interpreters in five different cities in Australia. We report on what interpreters have to say about the challenges of medical interpreting, concentrating on their comments regarding medical terminology. In conclusion, we outline how Medical Signbank may address some of these challenges.

1. Medical Signbank To address the gap in the Auslan lexicon and to help improve the health outcomes of deaf Australians through improved interpreting in medical and mental health settings, the Medical Signbank project was established in 2008. The goal of the project was to establish and develop a resource that allows the Deaf community and interpreters to establish an effective and shared Auslan vocabulary for the discussion and interpretation of medical and mental health issues. Medical Signbank was an online, multimedia dictionary and lexical database that provides an interactive virtual forum where members of the community are able to propose, discuss, and explain new or existing medical and mental health signs. Reflecting a framework of cooperative language development with a language of limited diffusion, the project is designed to bring together a scattered Deaf community specifically focused on the task of establishing a set of medical By healthcare practitioners, we mean any professional involved in medical or mental healthcare, e.g., doctor, nurse, psychiatrist, counsellor, etc. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Supporting Deaf People Online Conference, 4-6 February 2010 (www.directlearn.co.uk).

116

Medical Signbank

and mental health signs (Johnston and Napier 2010). These signs, as well as lay definitions in both Auslan and English, can then be accessed by anyone in preparation for interpreter-mediated healthcare interactions. The methodology for this project is multi-faceted and reflects an organic, bottom-up approach to language development. The first objective was to follow on from the earlier Auslan Signbank, and work with A/Prof Trevor Johnston to establish the Medical Signbank website – the forum where new signs are proposed and discussed. Deaf people, interpreters and interested HCPs may register on the site and provide feedback on existing signs in the database and/ or suggest possible new signs. When suggestions for new signs are received, through either a video comment or using pre-set features to describe the sign (see Figure 1), these are filmed by a deaf consultant and posted as potential new signs on which others can provide feedback. In addition to this, a number of lay definitions for medical terms that we have identified from the literature have been translated into Auslan and posted on the site to prompt discussion of possible signs (as in Figure 2).

Figure 1. Options for describing proposed new medical signs

People can register on the Medical Signbank site, view signs and report missing signs, or comment on existing signs in the database – perhaps adding descriptions of alternative signs or variants of the same sign for a particular medical concept. Site users can also participate in an online survey of whether

Available at http://www.auslan.org.au/medical/ (accessed 5 April 2011).


117

they use the particular sign shown in the database. By participating in the survey they have to self-identify as a deaf person, interpreter, teacher of the deaf, parent of a deaf child, or other interested party. This way statistics can be collected about the signs that are used most commonly and by whom.

Figure 2. An example of a common medical concept that has no sign in Auslan

In the future, statistics on sign appraisal by the community in terms of accuracy, comprehension and popularity will be extracted from the site and used to further support or discourage the use of a particular sign based on community usage. Signs that are widely supported by members of the Deaf community will remain in the Medical Signbank database. In addition to collecting feedback on Medical Signbank via requesting input of signs and participation in online surveys, focus groups actively engaged members of the Deaf community and interpreters who are the primary benefactors of this research. While the Medical Signbank site and the online surveys were able to recruit participants from all over Australia, focus groups allowed more in-depth conversations and critical reflections on issues at hand (Myers 1998). Thus focus groups were conducted with both members of the Deaf community and interpreters. Deaf focus groups were held over several months in mid-2009 in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. Further input was sought during 2011 to evaluate the Medical Signbank site as a resource. These evaluations will be reported on in separate forthcoming papers.

118

Medical Signbank

The first phase of data collection with interpreters took place during discussion groups in the form of professional development workshops. We focused on issues faced by interpreters working in medical and mental health settings, including discourse characteristics of this setting as well as medical terminology. Before detailing the procedure and results of the data collection, we will review the relevant literature in relation to medical terminology, before providing an overview of the challenges in interpreting medical terminology between English and Auslan. The remainder of the paper will then focus on the perceptions of the interpreter workshop participants about challenges in medical interpreting, in particular in relation to medical terminology, and how these perceptions relate to the goals of the Medical Signbank project.

2. Medical terminology The use of medical terminology has the potential to act as an impediment to successful communication between HCPs and patients even when they share a common language background. Often patients do not understand the technical terms used by HCPs, which can lead to misunderstandings and miscommunications that negatively affect the outcomes of an interaction (Cole 1979; Gibbs et al. 1987; Ong et al. 1995; Thompson and Pledger 1993). For example, Thompson and Pledger (1993) found that a patient may feel less engaged in interactions where he or she does not fully understand an HCP. This may lead to the patient taking a passive stance towards her or his healthcare. Or perhaps the patient fails to follow a prescription the HCP gives simply because he or she does not understand what to do or what medicines to take. HCP-patient interactions can be further complicated because medical terms exhibit a range of technicalness, that is, some terms may be considered more or less technical depending on the situation and participants involved (Chung and Nation 2004). For example, a GP talking to a colleague about a patient who has just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes can be expected to have a fairly technical understanding of the concept that the term diabetes designates, as can his or her colleague. The patient, however, may have more of a ‘lay’ understanding of the same term. So when he or she tells a friend about the new diagnosis and dietary restrictions, the term is unlikely to evoke a definition that is as comprehensive or as accurate as in the discussion between two HCPs. In both of these instances, the meaning of the term diabetes exhibits a different degree of technicalness. Moreover, in some situations the use of a medical term may be warranted but in others the HCP may choose to purposefully avoid it. As an example, it might be appropriate for a GP to tell a patient who works as a nurse in another


119

hospital that he or she has a case of gastroenteritis. However, the same HCP may be more successful in the first instance using the lay term, stomach flu, with a high-school aged patient who has no extensive medical background. HCPs are encouraged to try and match their language to their patients and remember to check comprehension throughout an interaction. The use of medical terms is related to the patient’s medical background knowledge and general level of health literacy (Thompson and Pledger 1993). This is also important in interpreter-mediated interactions, because an HCP and an interpreter with no medical training will likely have different understandings of the meaning of a medical term. Even interpreters who have had rudimentary medical interpreter training may not necessarily grasp medical concepts to the same degree as HCPs who have received substantially more training. The interpreter may understand the term accurately, but in a less technical way than the HCP, which has obvious implications if the interpreter takes responsibility for mediating understanding of that term.

3. Terminology in (Auslan/English) interpreter-mediated HCP-patient interactions One challenge in settings with deaf patients relates to the HCP’s level of deaf awareness (Smeijers and Pfau 2009). For instance, an understanding that Auslan is not English and that reading and writing will be in a deaf patient’s second language may impact on an HCP’s use of medical terms or distribution of written health materials. Lower deaf awareness on the part of HCPs may require the interpreter to engage in more cultural mediation. Arguably, this may detract from the actual medical purpose of the consultation. This challenge will be referred to again later in this paper as it was an issue mentioned in our workshop discussions. In addition to the HCP’s level of deaf awareness, the educational background of the deaf patient may also present a challenge to the medical interaction, in that the average deaf person generally experiences a “lower level of English literacy, a smaller fund of health care knowledge, and fewer health education opportunities than his average hearing counterparts” (Harmer 1999:80). It can be expected then that deaf patients may experience trouble in understanding English medical terms, much in the same way as other hearing minority language patients or hearing English speaking patients who have limited education backgrounds. This means an interpreter often has not only cultural but also educational gaps to bridge, in addition to the linguistic task Harmer makes these comments with regards to the �� American deaf community. We are working on the assumption that the issues would be the same for the Australian deaf community.

120

Medical Signbank

of interpreting medical terms from English to Auslan and vice versa. Additionally, interpreters may lack experience in medical contexts, or sufficient knowledge about a particular medical condition, which may exacerbate any communicative challenges. In section 2, we suggested that terminology can be a challenge to communication between HCPs and patients who share, more or less, common language backgrounds. It can be expected then that terminology is undoubtedly a challenge in interactions that involve HCPs and patients who do not share a common language. Because terminology is a challenge in both kinds of interaction, we first revisit the notion of terminology negotiation between participants who speak the same language. This will act as a preface to a discussion of the sometimes complex terminological issues encountered in Auslan/English interpreter-mediated medical consultations. What we suggest here is that the challenge of terminology is ‘doubled’ in a sense and consequently can be a complicated issue in Auslan/English interpreter-mediated interactions. First, we address in more detail issues related to terminology used by an HCP with a patient who shares a common language background.10 During an encounter, an HCP may sometimes be prompted to adjust terminology to better suit a patient, who will, presumably, have a more limited and also varied understanding of health-related concepts and the terms used to designate them. Some patients may have an extremely limited knowledge of medical terminology, whereas others (for example those who work in the medical field themselves or who have much experience as patients) may have a more extensive understanding. Consequently, when an HCP uses a term, the patient may either (1) understand the term adequately for the purpose of the interaction, (2) not understand the term well enough but not ask for the HCP to clarify, or (3) not understand the term well enough but then indicate to the HCP that some further clarification is needed. This indication can take many forms, from simply a confused facial expression to a direct question about the term. We assume here that an HCP will work to accommodate the patient’s need for clarification (although in real-life interactions this might not always prove true). This can be achieved either through (1) the repetition of the term, (2) the use of an alternative term, or (3) an explanation/ paraphrase of the term. This process is shown schematically in Figure 3. The downward vertical arrows indicate the use of either a technical (T) or lay (L) term or descriptive explanation of a concept (O) by an HCP. To give a simple example of the differences we refer to here, a technical term is contusion, a lay term is bruise, and a descriptive explanation might be broken blood vessels that show up as While we, of course, realize that patients can also use technical terms with their HCP and that this will affect the use of language within the encounter, this discussion focuses on the use of terms by HCPs with their patients and how this leads to complications in interpreter-mediated interactions. 10


121

reddish-purple discoloration under the skin.11 Requests for clarification by the patient are depicted with curved dotted lines. They arc back to the HCP where he or she can then repeat the use of the same strategy, move on to the use of a lay term, or try an explanation of the term.12

Figure 3. Representation of an HCP’s use of medical terms with a patient

When an interpreter is present, in our case, to mediate between a hearing English speaking HCP and a deaf Auslan using patient, the use of terminology and subsequent requests (or non-requests) for clarification are complicated by two factors. First, now there are two participants who may or may not understand the terms used by the HCP (represented in Figure 4 as the two tiers). If the interpreter does not understand an HCP’s use of a medical term, then he or she must either ask the HCP for clarification, just as a patient with the same language background would have to do, or cope by working around the term (e.g. by simply fingerspelling the term without necessarily understanding it), which can be considered as omitting, editing or changing the information (Bolden 2000). This terminological work between the HCP, interpreter and patient offers further support to Angelelli’s (2004) and Metzger’s (1999) findings that interpreters are visible and make an impact on the interactions in which they interpret. In the case of difficult terminology, striving for ‘invisibility’, that is, failing to address the need for clarification or reformulation of an important term, could be detrimental to the patient. Moreover, in interpreter-mediated interactions it is the interpreter who directly interacts with the HCP’s language use. The patient in this interaction 11 See http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=2541 (accessed 5 April 2011). 12 This discussion and subsequent figure are necessarily simplified. For example, it is also possible for the doctor to ignore the patient’s request or explain a term even if a patient says he or she understands. It is also possible an HCP will revert back to a technical term.

122

Medical Signbank

does not actually respond to the HCP’s use of technical terms but to the interpreter’s interpretation of those terms. This is an important distinction to make, as the interpreter’s interpretations may or may not be fully adequate translation equivalents (see below). The patient is responsible for understanding the interpreter’s interpretation and the HCP’s message. For example, if an HCP tells a patient a sample needs to be taken for a biopsy, the patient may possibly not understand the interpreter’s interpretation of the process to be followed, or he or she may not understand the concept of a biopsy. In the first case, the interpreter might respond by re-signing the unclear utterance. In the second case however, the patient understands the interpreter but does not understand what a biopsy is, which may ideally result in the patient or interpreter asking the HCP for clarification. Although in some cases the interpreter may decide to provide the clarification her or himself, or even ignore the issue, there are many different choices the interpreter could make. All of these issues are further complicated by the fact that Auslan lacks an extensive or standardized inventory of health vocabulary (Cornes and Napier 2005; Johnston and Napier 2010; Napier and Johnston 2005). At commencement of this project, in the most comprehensive dictionary to date on Auslan (Auslan Signbank),13 less than 10% of 3,000 signs (258) were tagged as health-related signs and available as part of the public Signbank dictionary (Johnston 2008). Moreover, much less than the 258 signs would be considered technical medical terms in a strict sense. This contrasts with English, which has thousands of medical terms (both lay and technical). As a result, even if an interpreter understands an HCP’s use of a particular medical term, there may not be an equivalent term in Auslan. The interpreter is then faced with the task of conveying the meaning of the concept through other means such as using a similar lay sign, fingerspelling the term, giving a visual description of the concept using depiction, explaining what the term means, or a combination of several strategies. As stated by Napier and Johnston (2005), interpreters often need to explain certain concepts using more than one sign, because there is no one exact sign choice. In doing so, it may be unavoidable that some of the original meaning of the term is lost or changed in subtle ways. As Figure 4 illustrates, the addition of the interpreter to an interaction, as well as the lack of equivalent Auslan signs for most English technical terms, complicates the discourse environment between a hearing English speaking HCP and a deaf Auslan using patient. 13

Available at http://www.auslan.org.au/ (accessed 5 April 2011).


123

Figure 4. Terminology management during interaction with different-language backgrounds

In Auslan/English interpreter-mediated interactions, terminology, or the lack thereof, motivates the need for specific interactional management. This is a challenge in a time-constrained environment when an interpreter must manage the needs of the discourse environment as well as those of his or her clients. There have been attempts to alleviate this problem in different countries, through the development of medical terminology websites, health sign dictionaries, translation websites, or the provision of terminology DVDs. These are well meaning efforts to provide deaf people and interpreters with information about how to sign different medical or mental health concepts. These glossaries and signed translations are typically created by interpreters or HCPs without consultation with the wider Deaf community or interpreting practitioners. Thus, a project such as Medical Signbank, which enables active participation by the Deaf community and interpreters, was much needed.

4. Data collection: Medical interpreting workshops In order to explore interpreters’ perceptions of the challenges of medical interpreting, and to confirm many assumptions about the challenges of interpreting medical terminology in particular, it was decided to use a phenomenological methodological approach (Moustakas 1994) in collecting qualitative data

124

Medical Signbank

from interpreters. The phenomenological approach is neatly defined by Lester (1999:1) as follows: The purpose of the phenomenological approach is to illuminate the specific, to identify phenomena through how they are perceived by the actors in a situation. In the human sphere this normally translates into gathering ‘deep’ information and perceptions through inductive, qualitative methods such as interviews, discussions and participant observation, and representing it from the perspective of the research participant(s). Phenomenology is concerned with the study of experience from the perspective of the individual, ‘bracketing’ taken-for-granted assumptions and usual ways of perceiving. Epistemologically, phenomenological approaches are based in a paradigm of personal knowledge and subjectivity, and emphasize the importance of personal perspective and interpretation. As such they are powerful for understanding subjective experience, gaining insights into people’s motivations and actions, and cutting through the clutter of taken-forgranted assumptions and conventional wisdom.

In taking such an approach, the research design for the first phase of data collection of the Medical Signbank project was designed to allow interpreters to express their own personal perspectives about their experiences of medical interpreting, in order to gain further insight into this situated practice. Between March and September 2009, the Medical Signbank team conducted medical interpreting workshops around Australia for deaf and hearing interpreters, specifically in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle and Brisbane.14 These workshops doubled as preliminary data collection for the Medical Signbank project and a related PhD project being conducted on discourse features of Auslan/English interpreter-mediated GP consultations by George Major, as well as a professional development opportunity for interpreters. Thus the participants in the data collection were a random sample of Auslan/English interpreters who self-selected to attend the workshops, and seemed to represent a range of ages, qualifications and accreditation level, and male/female interpreters. However this information was not collected from participants, so exact demographic data cannot be provided. Each workshop began with an introduction to the Medical Signbank project, followed by a 20-minute guided but free-flowing discussion on challenges of The authors would like to acknowledge the support of Karen Bontempo and Therese Lewis who co-hosted workshops in Perth and Melbourne respectively, the ARCH group (Department of Primary Health Care and General Practice, University of Otago, Wellington) for providing data upon which the workshop material was based, and NABS (National Auslan Booking and Payment Service), HCIS (NSW Healthcare Interpreting Services) and ASLIA (Australian Sign Language Interpreters Association) branches in NSW, VIC, WA, and QLD for their support in organizing the workshops. 14


125

interpreting in medical and mental health settings; this part was video recorded. We then turned the cameras off and conducted interactive sessions on medical terminology and medical discourse, concluding with a role-play activity. Between 25 and 45 deaf and hearing interpreters attended each workshop, and participation in the video recorded discussion was voluntary. Forty-eight interpreters consented to having their comments included in our research.15 A total of 121 minutes of data was recorded on two digital video cameras. The workshops were conducted primarily in English, with interpretation provided into Auslan for any deaf participants. Any comments from deaf participants were interpreted into spoken English. The data has since been transcribed and analyzed thematically using NVivo qualitative data analysis software.

5. Workshop findings Following on from Angelelli’s (2007) use of focus groups with spoken language interpreters to gauge their perceptions of their role and the Code of Ethics, we did not specify exactly what topics interpreters should talk about in the discussions. The only guidance we gave was that we were interested in mainly linguistic issues of interpreting in medical and mental health settings, as opposed to ethical dilemmas or logistics to do with bookings, remuneration, etc. While we began the discussions by asking interpreters why they enjoy working in this setting, the main focus of the discussion was on challenges, which fell roughly into four main categories: role challenges, socio-political/ cultural challenges, discourse challenges and terminological challenges. For the purposes of this paper, we will briefly describe the key themes that emerged from discussion of these challenges, with illustrative examples. In particular, we focus on the terminological challenges and the implications for interpreters, deaf and hearing clients, and the Medical Signbank project.

5.1 Positive aspects Two themes emerge from interpreters’ comments about why they enjoy interpreting in medical and mental health settings. The first theme relates to how interpreters help to provide equal access to information and healthcare, and how it is satisfying to see deaf people and medical practitioners being able to converse without major problems. For example, one participant thought it was positive that interpreters can provide: Six interpreters in Newcastle represented spoken language pairs. The challenges reported by these interpreters were interesting, but very different to those reported by Auslan interpreters, and so their comments have been excluded from analysis for this paper. 15

126

Medical Signbank … the opportunity for the client to be able to get a proper diagnosis without having to resort to pen and paper.

The second theme that emerged is that interpreters are drawn to medical and mental health interpreting because it is interesting, varied, and a rewarding challenge. As one interpreter explained: When you get the ultrasound and it’s woohoo (there’s a) little person (and) and you know all blood and guts and all the interesting hip replacements and knee replacements and carpal tunnels and I (absolutely think) it’s just fabulous.

In addition to these two main themes, several other comments referred to the work of deaf interpreters: a hearing interpreter explained that she really valued working in collaboration with deaf interpreters, and another made a similar comment but in terms of being able to work closely with the medical professional, arguing that working as a team can benefit the deaf patient.

5.2 Challenge 1: Role In addition to the positive themes, several types of challenges emerged from the discussions. The first to be discussed relates to the interpreter’s role in medical encounters. Hearing interpreters commented that it was challenging to deal with HCPs who did not understand the interpreter’s role. For example: Sometimes when you go into a medical appointment, the health professional seems to think that perhaps you’re the deaf person’s carer because they don’t understand why you the interpreter having told them ( ) having told them that. And it’s like ‘I’m the interpreter, I just met this client’.

We know that not all deaf people choose to have an interpreter present when consulting with an HCP. In a review of various literature and surveys of HCPs, Harmer (1999) confirmed that most HCPs rely on writing notes with their deaf patients. Middleton et al. (2010) found that only 50% of 1,098 deaf and hard of hearing survey respondents in the UK prefer to communicate in hospital clinics through a signed language interpreter. Thus HCPs may not encounter deaf people and signed language interpreters often enough to sufficiently understand the role of professional interpreters and how to work with them. This difficulty is confirmed by findings of a qualitative study conducted in Boston, MA and Washington, DC in the United States by Iezzoni et al.,


127

who held semi-structured interviews with 26 deaf and hard of hearing people with the following findings (2004:358): Both deaf and hard-of-hearing interviewees reported that physicians frequently require them to use inadequate modes of communication, such as reading lips, writing notes, or bringing family members to interpret. Physicians did not understand their responsibility to ensure effective communication and sometimes complained about costs or inconveniences of hiring interpreters or purchasing special equipment.

Deaf interpreters made similar comments, though in relation to hearing interpreters and medical professionals not fully understanding their role or how to work with deaf interpreters. For example: I think it’s very important too that deaf come as deaf interpreters or be there to translate that information that really specific detailed information and let’s make (it more of) importance because it causes so much concern. And, um, you know the lack of respect for DRIs and their work, I think really they’re support workers, too.

It is not within the scope of this paper to spend much time on this issue, but the relevant point for interpreters is not so much that confusion around role happens, but that effective interpreters have strategies to deal with these challenges. Unless HCPs have had experience or training on working with deaf patients and interpreters, we cannot expect them to automatically understand the logistics and dynamics of working with interpreters. In her review of the literature, Harmer (1999) reports that most clinicians have not had any (or only had minimal) training on the communication needs of deaf patients. Although the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has published a fact sheet entitled Caring for Patients from the Deaf Community that describes the need to book professional interpreters for Auslan users, there is no guarantee that HCPs have seen the brochure, or that they have read it. The same can be said for deaf and hearing interpreters learning to work together. There is still confusion over the role of deaf interpreters (Napier et al. 2010). Hearing interpreters are not systematically taught how to work with deaf interpreters in ‘feeding’ them the information they need, and there is little information available on how hearing and deaf interpreters can work as a team effectively (Forestal 2005; Ressler 1999).

5.3 Challenge 2: Socio-political/cultural issues Another theme to emerge, which we mentioned above, concerned HCPs’ lack of awareness of Deaf culture, and in some cases their general ‘bad attitudes’

128

Medical Signbank

towards deafness, signed language and/or signed language interpreters. One interpreter even generalized this to ‘most’ HCPs: Most professionals have no idea that Auslan is its own language in itself, so they just assume well you can read. You know, they don’t understand anything about it.

This could be related back to the positive comments around providing equal access – interpreters likewise find it challenging when they see that deaf people are not being provided equal access to their healthcare, that is, if given written material and the interpreter knows the deaf person will not fully understand information in that format. Other comments included HCPs who assume deaf clients can lipread, HCPs who do not realize deaf patients cannot communicate in the dark (i.e. eye tests), and HCPs displaying the view that deafness is a disability that should be fixed. For example: So often the client will present with particular symptoms to do with flu, diabetes, whatever and then sometimes the conversation then turns to oh have you thought about a cochlear implant?

Interpreters did not explain whether they had taken action in these cases to broker the misunderstandings or to attempt to educate the HCP, but they clearly expressed their frustration with such instances.

5.4 Challenge 3: Discourse and context A third challenge arose related to medical discourse and the use of language in this, sometimes confronting, context. The first main theme in this category is that an interpreter cannot always prepare fully for a medical appointment (see Napier et al. 2010). Interpreters commented that even if you prepare as best you can, even a seemingly simple topic can evolve in an unexpected way. For example: Especially in mental health, because it’s such a broad area, is that you don’t always know what you’re getting into. I mean I’ve been booked for different jobs and I mean you’ve been told one thing to go in there and interpret it and you get in there and you find that the client might have multiple personality disorder and they’re switching between their roles.

Linked to that is the challenge of working in a highly sensitive and emotional setting, and how to deal with these emotions – whether the patient’s or the interpreter’s own emotions. One interpreter told us:


129

That’s really important that you can control these facial ... I remember my first dental – when I saw that needle go in, I know my face did not look good but I just hadn’t realized how bad that was. And I really needed to control cause I’m petrified of dentists, so when I saw this big needle going in this lady’s mouth I was like (does shocked face) and I could see her going ‘what? What? What’?

The other main sub-theme we identified here relates to discourse management; comments included managing the flow of information, managing turn taking, and interpreting during physical examinations (which can be logistically difficult when trying to interpret yet respect the patient’s privacy).

5.5

Challenge 4: Terminological challenges

Many comments related to terminological challenges centred around either the patient’s understanding or the interpreter’s understanding of medical or mental health terms. Regarding the patient’s understanding of terms, several interpreters mentioned that it is difficult at times to convey the meaning of concepts to clients with multiple disabilities or limited abilities in English and/or Auslan, for example: Um, just thinking of another challenge is like working with clients with really low lit-language skills. Or maybe mild intellectual disabilities as well and also just that dichotomy between language of you know doctors or whatever and sort of trying to meet these needs down here, it’s quite challenging.

This comment reflects the linguistic register difficulties present in health communication between a professional and layperson (even when a language background is shared) and how this can be compounded with clients who have limited fluency in a signed language and/or low educational achievement. Other comments regarding patient understanding involved the names of medications; where HCPs most often use the brand or generic name, deaf clients often use descriptions of the colour, shape, etc. of the medicine: And another challenge is, um, not so much medical terms but medications… medications, whether the client knows the generic term or whether they know the full medical term for their tablets or whatever. Because the doctor can be speaking non-generically, and the client only knows generic, or vice versa.

130

Medical Signbank

This comment is a nice example because it illustrates how users of different languages prompt meaning construction using different kinds of language expressions and how interpreters must mediate these differences (Fauconnier 1997). In other words, some languages may prefer to designate a concept, such as a particular medication, through a lexical word, like its brand name, while other languages may convey a similar meaning through a descriptive phrase, such as describing the same medication according to what type of container it comes in or what colour the pills are. In this way, different languages ‘pick’ different parts of a concept to encode. Whilst a resource such as Medical Signbank is much needed, we must remember that word for word translations are not always the most appropriate interpreting strategy. Interpreters may need to use a combination of strategies within the medical discourse to ensure that concepts are understood and communication is achieved. In many cases we expect that Medical Signbank will be a very useful starting point, but interpreters will still need to rely on their skills of observing and anticipating clients’ language needs. Information regarding the colour of the tablets or of the label of a particular medication will not be found in Medical Signbank. For example, as one interpreter explained: About the terminology – I don’t know how to spell this word. Potentially the deaf person doesn’t either. So what I when I ( ) am I gonna use a word, am I gonna use a colour, am I gonna use a label or what you know.

As we mentioned above, it is not only the patient who might not understand a technical term but also the interpreter. This is a significant challenge, especially in light of the fact that the majority of medical interpreters do not have a medical background. Participants in our discussion groups were aware of this, and comments along this theme highlight the importance of background knowledge in the understanding of terms. As two interpreters explain: I find it’s really important when you’re booked to do, um, to do an assignment that we’re given the area. That that’s so that we can do a little bit of like research onto the possible types of terminology and so on. If it’s a specialist appointment there might be terminology that’s conveyed and the interpreter’s unsure and is unable to impart that. And it makes it difficult for the interpreter so I think the interpreter needs to have knowledge of the terminology used in that setting.

It was also mentioned that even if a sign exists, one cannot assume that everybody in the community knows and uses the same sign:


131

… in terms of assumptions that people would know the new signs like if there’s new signs established. So for example I work a lot with deafblind people and I know full well that they don’t get access to the new signs unless someone actually shows them. And then do they want them, can they feel them etc, so I guess I wanted to challenge the assumption that if there’s a sign that’s being used in the community, it’s being used by everybody.

The examples we have shared here, constituting a representative sample of the data, emphasize the importance of background medical knowledge in medical and mental health settings, and show that interpreters are very aware of this. Interpreters in our discussion groups were also aware of linguistic register differences between clients and HCPs that can provide further challenges. In the final section, we will discuss these findings in terms of implications for interpreters and how Medical Signbank aims to address these challenges.

6. Conclusion: Medical Signbank, the cure-all to all some challenges of medical interpreting The findings from the interpreter workshops reported here, although not necessarily surprising, confirm that signed language interpreters working in medical and mental health settings face a myriad of challenges with respect to the demanding level of language used in these settings. While some previous research has explored the role of the interpreter in these settings, there has been virtually no work focused on the impact of medical terminology in interpreter-mediated interactions. Terminology was one of the main themes that came out of the interpreter discussions, although comments were not always explicitly labelled as such. Interpreters made comments related to the importance of preparation work – being able to do some background research to become familiar with some of the terms and concepts that might come up in a consultation. They also mentioned the difficulty in conveying complex medical concepts to deaf clients when there were no equivalent Auslan signs. This creates extra pressure for interpreters to relay the information in other ways. When discussing this phenomenon with other colleagues, a French/ English spoken language interpreter who works regularly in medical settings was surprised when she realized the lack of medical vocabulary available to Auslan/English interpreters. She confirmed that although it is always important to consider the context and the discourse, and not just the words that are used, there are frequently equivalent lexical items in French and English (J. Lane, personal communication, 20 April 2010), Another important part of this discussion is the concept of health literacy. We mentioned earlier that patients from the American Deaf community on

132

Medical Signbank

average exhibit lower levels of health literacy than their hearing peers (Harmer 1999). Researchers have noted the general low literacy levels of deaf children and adults in Australia (e.g. Johnston 2002; Leigh and Cummins 1992; Power 1985; Power and Leigh 2000), thus we can assume that a similarly low level of health literacy would be found in the Australian Deaf community. Interpreters may therefore be required to mediate understanding by unpacking concepts, and this may or may not be conveyed accurately, depending on the interpreter’s skill and familiarity with the term. One might argue that any ‘unpacking’ or explaining of medical terms should be the responsibility of the HCP. However, in a time constrained environment it is unlikely that the interpreter will be able to ask the HCP to stop and explain every single term that is used. And even if he or she did, the HCP’s explanation is likely to need further unpacking. It is important then to bear in mind that medical interpreters must cope not only with the patient’s level of background medical knowledge but also their own health literacy, which is closely tied to language use and experience. We are not suggesting that interpreters are unable to bridge these gaps; on the contrary, we know that skilled interpreters use a range of strategies to negotiate gaps in health literacy and language. We are also not suggesting that Medical Signbank will instantly fix the large gaps in health literacy between HCPs, interpreters and patients. It will, however, be a central online reference point for the Australian Deaf community and interpreters to discuss shared ways to refer to medical concepts, and that is where its strength lies. Both deaf patients and interpreters can now access Medical Signbank to prepare for medical appointments. They can watch video clips of signs submitted by other members of the community, and they can also submit the signs that they use in order to develop this resource. In addition, Medical Signbank also provides basic Auslan definitions of common medical concepts/English terms to prompt a discussion about possible signs. This may indirectly improve deaf people’s health literacy regarding some concepts – although this is not the main focus of the Medical Signbank. We recognize that medical and mental health settings are full of challenges beyond the level of terminology, such as interpersonal and discourse management issues, some of which have been mentioned here; others are the topic of exploration of George Major’s PhD thesis. However, in such a time constrained environment, where real health outcomes are on the line, it can only be an improvement if participants share a greater understanding of the terminology that is used. The Medical Signbank project has addressed the lack of medical vocabulary in Auslan by establishing a collaborative, online tool where the Deaf community and interpreters can work to establish a set of medical and mental health signs, by sharing the signs that they use or see others use (rather than creating new signs per se). As a consequence, both patients and interpreters have access to medical signs all in one place to better facilitate talking/interpreting about medical concepts. Interpreters in the workshops commented


133

on the importance of background knowledge and preparation. With Medical Signbank, interpreters can look for signs that might be used in an upcoming job. Or, they can look up signs after finishing a job, in preparation for next time. However, if a sign does not yet exist for a particular concept, interpreters can also look on the site to see how to explain an English term in Auslan. Deaf people may also use the Medical Signbank facility to look up signs they have seen used by an interpreter; research terminology in preparation for, or after, a medical appointment; suggest new signs for concepts related to their own health issues; or report on existing signs that they have seen used that are not currently in the database. While we hinted in our title that the Medical Signbank would act as a cure-all for the challenges faced in signed language medical interpreting, we have demonstrated that such a claim is too far-fetched because the task of interpreting in medical settings is too complex and varied to have a onesize-fits-all ‘cure’. Instead, Medical Signbank addresses the major gap of medical and mental health vocabulary in Auslan. Put simply, by developing a more extensive and shared set of health-related signs, interpreters and deaf patients will be in a better position to communicate with each other successfully. HCPs may also find the site useful if, for example, they can pull up the Medical Signbank website during a consultation and show the deaf patient the sign/explanation in Auslan for a medical term or concept. This will lead to more success in interpreter-mediated medical interactions and in direct doctorpatient communication, which will in the long term contribute towards better health outcomes for deaf patients. If deaf patients better understand and are better understood by their HCP, they may be more engaged and take a more active stance towards their own health.

JEMINA NAPIER Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia. [email protected] References Angelelli, Claudia (2003) ‘The Visible Co-participant: Interpreter Intervention in Doctor/Patient Encounters’, in Melanie Metzger, Steven Collins, Valerie Dively and Risa Shaw (eds) From Topic Boundaries to Omission: New Research on Interpretation, Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 2-25. ------ (2004) Medical Interpreting and Cross-Cultural Communication, London: Cambridge University Press. ------ (2007) ‘Validating Professional Standards and Codes: Challenges and Opportunities’, Interpreting 8(2): 175-93.

134

Medical Signbank

Aranguri, Cesar, Brad Davidson and Robert Ramirez (2006) ‘Patterns of Communication through Interpreters: A Detailed Sociolinguistic Analysis’, Journal of General Internal Medicine 21(6): 623-29. Auslan Signbank (2011) Auslan SignBank. Available at: http://www.auslan.org. au/ (accessed 2 February 2011). Bolden, Galina B. (2000) ‘Toward Understanding Practices of Medical Interpreting: Interpreters’ Involvement in History Taking’, Discourse Studies 2(4): 387-419. Bontempo, Karen and Patricia Levitzke-Gray (2009) ‘Interpreting Down Under: Signed Language Interpreter Education and Training in Australia’, in Jemina Napier (ed.) International Perspectives on Sign Language Interpreter Education, Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 149-70. ------ and Jemina Napier (2007) ‘Mind the Gap! A Skills Analysis of Sign Language Interpreters’, The Sign Language Translator and Interpreter 1(2): 275-99. ------ (2009) ‘Getting It Right from the Start: Program Admission Testing of Signed Language Interpreters’, in Claudia Angelelli and Holly Jacobsen (eds) Testing and Assessment in Translation and Interpreting Studies, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 247-96. Boudrealt, Patrick (2005) ‘Deaf Interpreters’, in Terry Janzen (ed.) Topics in Signed Language Interpreting, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 323-56. Cambridge, Jan (1999) ‘Information Loss in Bilingual Medical Interviews through an Untrained Interpreter’, The Translator 5(2): 201-19. Chung, Teresa Mihwa and Paul Nation (2004) ‘Identifying Technical Vocabulary’, System 32: 251-63. Cole, Rosalind (1979) ‘The Understanding of Medical Terminology Used in Printed Health Education Materials’, Health Education Journal 38(4): 111-21. Collins, Judith and John Walker (2006) ‘What Is a Deaf Interpreter?’, in Rachel McKee (ed.) Proceedings of the Inaugural Conference of the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters, Coleford, UK: Douglas McLean, 79-90. Cornes, Andy and Jemina Napier (2005) ‘Challenges of Mental Health Interpreting When Working with Deaf Patients’, Australasian Psychiatry 13(4): 403-7. Davidson, Brad (2001) ‘Questions in Cross-linguistic Medical Encounters: The Role of the Hospital Interpreter’, Anthropological Quarterly 74(4): 170-78. ------ (2002) ‘A Model for the Construction of Conversational Common Ground in Interpreted Discourse’, Journal of Pragmatics 34(9): 1273-300. Dysart-Gale, Deborah (2005) ‘Communication Models, Professionalization, and the Work of Medical Interpreters’, Health Communication 17(1): 91-103. Fauconnier, Gilles (1997) Mappings in Thought and Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Forestal, Eileen (2005) ‘The Emerging Professionals: Deaf Interpreters and their Views and Experiences on Training’, in Marc Marschark, Rico Peterson and Elizabeth A. Winston (eds) Interpreting and Interpreting Education: Directions for Research and Practice, New York: Oxford University Press, 235-58. Garrett, Pam (2009) ‘Healthcare Interpreter Policy: Policy Determinants and Current Issues in the Australian Context’, The International Journal of Translation


135

and Interpreting Research 1(2): 44-54. Garrett, Pamela Wish, Hugh Grant Dickson and Anna Klinken Whelan (2008a) ‘What Do Non-English-speaking Patients Value in Acute Care? Cultural Competency from the Patient’s Perspective: A Qualitative Study’, Ethnicity and Health 13(5): 479-96. ------ (2008b) ‘Communication and Healthcare Complexity in People with Little or No English: The Communication Complexity Score’, Ethnicity and Health 13(3): 203-17. ------, Roberto Forero, Hugh Grant Dickson and Anna Klinken Whelan (2008) ‘How Are Language Barriers Bridged in Acute Hospital Care? The Tale of Two Methods of Data Collection’, Australian Health Review 32(4): 755-64. Giacomelli, Joyce (1997) ‘A Review of Health Interpreter Services in a Rural Community: A Total Quality Management Approach’, The Australian Journal of Rural Health 5(3): 158-64. Gibbs, Richard D., Patricia H. Gibbs and Janet Henrich (1987) ‘Patient Understanding of Commonly Used Medical Vocabulary’, The Journal of Family Practice 25(2): 176-78. Harmer, Lisa (1999) ‘Health Care Delivery and Deaf People: Practice, Problems, and Recommendations for Change’, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 4(2): 73-110. Iezzoni, Lisa, Bonnie O’day, Mary Killeen and Heather Harker (2004) ‘Communicating about Healthcare: Observations from Persons who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing’, Annals of Internal Medicine 140: 356-62. Johnston, Trevor (2001) ‘The Lexical Database of Auslan (Australian Sign Language)’, Sign Language and Linguistics 4(1/2): 145-69. ------ (2002) ‘The Representation of English Using Auslan: Implications for Deaf Bilingualism and English Literacy’, Australian Journal of Education of the Deaf 8: 23-37. ------ (2006) ‘W(h)ither the Deaf Community? Population, Genetics and the Future of Auslan (Australian Sign Language)’, Sign Language Studies 6(2): 137-73. ------ (2008) ‘The Auslan Archive and Corpus’, in David Nathan (ed.) The Endangered Languages Archive, London: Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Documentation Project, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Available at http://elar.soas.ac.uk/languages (accessed 2 February 2011). Johnston, Trevor and Jemina Napier (2010) ‘Medical Signbank – Bringing Deaf People and Linguists together in the Process of Language Development’, Sign Language Studies 10(2): 258-75. Karliner, Leah S., Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable and Ginny Gildengorin (2004) ‘The Language Divide: The Importance of Training in the Use of Interpreters for Outpatient Practice’, Journal of General Internal Medicine 19(2): 175-83. Ladd, Paddy (2003) Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood, Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

136

Medical Signbank

Lane, Harlan (1993) The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf community, New York: Vintage Books. Lee, Teresa, Gwenda Lansbury and Gerard Sullivan (2005) ‘Health Care Interpreters: A Physiotherapy Perspective’, Australian Journal of Physiotherapy 51(3): 161-65. Leigh, Gregory R. and Robert A. Cummins (1992) ‘Adult Literacy and Basic Education for Deaf and Hearing Impaired People – Part Two: Consumer Perspectives’, Australian Disability Review 1: 83-97. Lester, Stan (1999) An Introduction to Phenomenological Research. Unpublished report, available at www.sld.demon.co.uk/resmethy.pdf (accessed 10 September 2010). Medical Signbank (2011) Medical Signbank, available at www.auslan.org.au/ medical/ (accessed 2 February 2011). MedTerms.com, available at http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp? articlekey=2541 (accessed 2 February 2011). Merlini, Raffaele and Roberta Favaron (2005) ‘Examining the “Voice of Interpreting” in Speech Pathology’, Interpreting 7(2): 263-302. Metzger, Melanie (1999) Sign Language Interpreting: Deconstructing the Myth of Neutrality, Washington, D.C: Gallaudet University Press. Middelton, Anna, Graham H. Turner, Maria Bitner-Glindzicz, Peter Lewis, Martin Richards, Angus Clarke and Daffyd Stephens (2010) ‘Preferences for Communication in Clinic from Deaf People: A Cross-sectional Study’, Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 16(4): 811-17. Moustakas, Clark (1994) Phenomenological Research Methods, London: Sage. Myers, Greg (1998) ‘Displaying Opinions: Topics and Disagreement in Focus Groups’, Language in Society 27(1): 85-111. Napier, Jemina (2004) ‘Sign Language Interpreter Training, Testing and Accreditation: An International Comparison’, American Annals of the Deaf 149(4): 350-59. ------ and Roz Barker (2003) ‘A Demographic Survey of Australian Sign Language Interpreters’, Australian Journal of Education of the Deaf 9: 19-32. ------, Karen Bontempo and Marcel Leneham (2006) ‘Sign Language Interpreting in Australia: An Overview’, VIEWS, April, Cover story. ------ and Trevor Johnston (2005) Deaf People and Health Care Discourse: A Linguistic Perspective. Paper presented at the COMET-VELIM Conference, Sydney University, 30 June – 2 July. ------ Rachel McKee and Della Goswell (2010) Sign Language Interpreting: Theory and Practice in Australia and New Zealand, Second Edition, Sydney: Federation Press. Ong, L. M., J. C. de Haes, A. M. Hoos and F. B. Lammes (1995) ‘Doctor-patient Communication: A Review of the Literature’, Social Science and Medicine 40(7): 903-18. Orima (2004) Supply and Demand for Auslan Interpreters across Australia, Canberra, ACT: Australian Government Department of Family and Community Services.


137

Power, Des (1985) ‘Reading and Language Development for Hearing Impaired Children’, in Len Unsworth (ed.) Reading: An Australian Perspective, Melbourne: Thomas Nelson, . ------ and Gregory R. Leigh (2000) ‘Principles and Practices of Literacy Development for Deaf Learners: A Historical Overview’, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 5(1): 3-8. Ressler, Carolyn (1999) ‘A Comparative Analysis of a Direct Interpretation and an Intermediary Interpretation in American Sign Language’, Journal of Interpretation: 71-104. Singy, Pascal and Patrice Guex (2005) ‘The Interpreter’s Role with Immigrant Patients: Contrasted Points of View’, Communication and Medicine 2(1): 45-51. Slatyer, Helen (1998) The Role of the Medical Interpreter, unpublished Masters Dissertation, Sydney: Macquarie University. Smeijers, Anika S. and Roland Pfau (2009) ‘Towards a Treatment for Treatment: On Communication between General Practitioners and their Deaf Patients’, The Sign Language Translator and Interpreter 3(1): 1-14. Tebble, Helen (1999) ‘The Tenor of Consultant Physicians: Implications for Medical Interpreting’, The Translator 5(2): 179-200. ------ (2003) ‘Training Doctors to Work Effectively with Interpreters’, in Louise Brunette, Georges L. Bastin, Isabelle Hemlin and Heather Clarke (eds) Critical Link 3: Interpreters in the Community, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 81-95. Thompson, Carol Lynn and Linda M. Pledger (1993) ‘Doctor-patient Communication: Is Patient Knowledge of Medical Terminology Improving?’, Health Communication 5(2): 89-97. Turner, Graham H. (2006) ‘Re-thinking the Sociology of Sign Language Interpreting and Translation: Some Challenges Posed by Deaf Practitioners’, in Michaela Wolf (ed.) Übersetzen – Translating – Traduire: Towards a Social Turn?, Berlin: LIT Verlag, 284-93. Valero Garcés, Carmen (2002) ‘Interaction and Conversational Constrictions in the Relationships between Suppliers of Services and Immigrant Users’, Pragmatics 12(4): 469-96. Wadensjö, Cecilia (2001) ‘Interpreting in Crisis: The Interpreter’s Position in Therapeutic Encounters’, in Ian Mason (ed.) Triadic Exchanges: Studies in Dialogue Interpreting, Manchester: St Jerome, 71-86.

A Magical Profession?

Causes and Management of Occupational Stress in the Signed Language Interpreting Profession Ali Hetherington The University of Manchester, UK Abstract. The absence of literature on occupational stress in the signed language interpreting profession implies that such stress is either absent from, unrecognized by, or indeed considered unproblematic by the profession. This study aims to counter this perception and uses interpretative phenomenological analysis to gain insight into the experience of occupational stress amongst a sample of signed language interpreters in the North West of England. The findings suggest two significant causes of occupational stress for signed language interpreters. Firstly, the expectation that the interpreter performs ‘magic’ contrasts greatly with the participants’ own accounts of the complexity of their role and the responsibility they feel to ensure effective communication occurs. Secondly, interpreting can have considerable emotional and psychological impact on interpreters, exacerbated by working in isolation in the community without organizational support. Finally, this paper puts forward an argument for supervision as a beneficial means of on-going reflective practice and support for the signed language interpreting profession.

Keywords: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, supervision, occupational stress, isolation, psychological impact, practice profession, reflective practice. The aim of this paper is to bring into discussion causes and management of occupational stress within the signed language interpreting profession. The absence of research literature on this subject could lead to the assumption that occupational stress is not of concern to the profession. However, my own experience as an interpreter and anecdotal evidence from colleagues paints a very different picture; interpreters regularly discuss stressful work-related situations and dilemmas. This paper aims to validate the experiences of signed language interpreters by considering anecdotal evidence of occupational stress through a qualitative study of some key issues. This study explores the occurrence and causes of occupational stress amongst a sample of signed language interpreters and their strategies for managing such stress. The accounts given by participants in this study point to occupational stress

Ali Hetherington

139

as a significant factor within the signed language interpreting profession. A lack of recognition of the complexity of the role by other professionals led participants to believe that there was an assumption that they can perform their duties without being noticed; described as an expectation to perform ‘magic’ by one participant. Furthermore, participants’ accounts indicate how exposure to the distress and trauma of others can have a marked impact on interpreters. The experience of occupational stress is compounded by working freelance, without recourse to organizational support structures. Participants predominantly relied on informal networks for support, a situation arising, I argue, due to the lack of established frameworks for reflective practice. The benefits of supervision within other professions are well researched and widely recognized (Hawkins and Shohet 2006; Inskipp and Proctor 1995; Page and Wosket 2001; Carroll 2007; Morton-Cooper and Palmer 2000; Butterworth et al. 1998; Cutcliffe et al. 2001), yet there has been an absence of discussion of supervision within the signed language interpreting profession. This study makes an argument for the benefits of supervision to support the work of interpreters.

1. Occupational stress and professional support frameworks for signed language interpreters An analysis of the literature on signed language interpreting highlights two major gaps. Firstly, there is a lack of literature on occupational stress amongst interpreters and secondly, an absence of research on professional frameworks to support the work of interpreters and provide opportunities for reflective practice. The implication is that these areas are either unrecognized or underestimated within the profession. For example, a wide body of research, drawn from both signed and spoken language interpreting, has argued that the conduit model of interpreting does not accurately reflect interpreting practice; interpreters are required to use their judgement to manage complex communication dynamics and facilitate effective communication (Dean and Pollard 2001, 2005; Wadensjö 1998; Roy 2000; Berk-Seligson 2002; Hitesh 2002; Dysart-Gale 2005; Hsieh 2008; Lee 2009; Pöchhacker 2004; Dickinson and Turner 2009), however, there are continued restrictions on the interpreter’s role that are reminiscent of the conduit model. Dean and Pollard (2005) suggest that interpreting is often regarded as a ‘technical profession’, where the technical aspects of the work – linguistic ability in the case of interpreters – are sufficient for effective work practices. They argue that, although the demands of interpreting go beyond the linguistic, controls, such as ‘decision latitude’ (professional judgement), are restricted due to the prevailing expectation that interpreters are only required to make decisions which pertain to linguistic aspects of their work (Dean and Pollard 2001).

140


The general assumption that the interpreting profession is a technical profession has been reflected in codes of conduct for interpreters, resulting in anxiety and confusion on the part of interpreters regarding what is permitted within the confines of their role (Bahadir 2001; Atherton et al. 2002; Angelelli 2006; Dean and Pollard 2005; Dysart-Gale 2005). Dean et al. conducted a study of occupational health risks for signed language interpreters which identified “a problematic, stress-inducing gap between interpreting practice rhetoric versus the de facto practice experiences and behaviors of interpreters” (2010:41). This suggests that codes of conduct do not accurately reflect interpreting practice or allow for sufficient flexibility within the interpreting role. They add that “interpreters on the whole reported significantly more psychological distress, depression and physical exertion than either the practice profession or the technical profession norms” (ibid.). Interpreting can involve work in highly sensitive and emotive situations, directly witnessing traumatic or interpreting for Deaf people in the telling of traumatic events including death, violence, child abuse and neglect. Figley (1995:xiv) uses the term ‘compassion stress’ to describe how professional caregivers, in particular therapists, experience “the natural behaviors and emotions that arise from knowing about a traumatizing event experienced by a significant other – the stress resulting from helping or wanting to help a traumatized person”. However, not only do interpreters ‘know about’ events, they are responsible for conveying the emotional content and affect of any narrative, often through use of the first person, which could potentially increase the likelihood of compassion stress. The impact the work can have on interpreters has received some acknowledgement (Baistow 1999; Angelelli 2003; Tribe 1999; Johnson et al. 2009; Wiebel 2009; Dean and Pollard 2001; Malcolm 2010; Bontempo and Van Loggerenberg 2010), yet there has been little research within the signed language interpreting profession specifically. Harvey (2003:211) explores signed language interpreters’ experience of empathy and highlights the risk of empathically ‘drowning’. This raises the question of what support is available for interpreters to work both safely and ethically. Supervision is a recognised means of professional support, reflection and development for other professions, yet this valued framework has not been developed for signed language interpreters and there has been minimal discussion within the profession of the benefits of supervision (Dean and Pollard 2001, 2009; Hetherington 2010). In the UK, the Association of Sign Language Interpreters (ASLI) has introduced formalized interpreter support through a mentoring programme; their policy document states: ASLI wish to stress that mentoring is about working on specific objectives. An interpreter may choose to have 6 sessions one year to focus on a specific aspect of their work; 2 sessions another year just

Ali Hetherington

141

to monitor progress on something else; or 0 sessions because they are developing themselves in other ways or have not identified anything specific to work on yet. (ASLI 2003:3)

This implies that mentoring is not intended for ongoing reflective practice and points to a continuing gap in formal support structures for interpreters. It is not within the scope of this paper to explore professional support frameworks in more depth; this will be the subject of further research.

2. Methodology, methods and participants The aim of this research study is to explore how participants make sense of their experiences as signed language interpreters and the meanings these experiences hold for them. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is the chosen methodology as its primary concern is to gain an understanding of psychological processes and individual perception, rather than producing an objective ‘truth’. Furthermore, my role as the researcher within a range of possible methodologies was an important consideration in my selection of a method of enquiry. The core principle of IPA is that “the analyst explicitly enters into the research process” (Reid et al. 2005:20). I was aware that participants would relate to me as a fellow practitioner and I anticipated that our shared experience as interpreters would shape the interview process. This study uses qualitative methodology in the form of semi-structured interviews to allow participants to give detailed, first person accounts of their experience of working as signed language interpreters. IPA uses purposive sampling to find a homogenous group for whom the research question will be significant, which then allows for in-depth analysis of the phenomenon. Six interpreters participated in the study; all participants are female between the ages of 29 and 58 years. The length of time as a Member of the Register of Sign Language Interpreters (MRSLI) in the UK ranged from 18 months to 10 years. All the participants work either solely as community interpreters, or spend a significant percentage of their working time in community interpreting situations. I informed participants that the information they provided would remain confidential and asked them to endeavour to avoid naming other interpreters or clients in order to protect their confidentiality. I assured them that in the event of this happening I would use pseudonyms to replace any identifying information. I obtained permission to use direct quotes, all of which have been made anonymous with pseudonyms ascribed to participants. The participants were asked if they wanted to choose their own pseudonym, and one participant chose to do this. An effort was made to design open, non leading questions and follow up prompts, led by the desire to not influence the participants or make assumptions about their concerns. The interview schedule aimed to encourage participants

142


to reflect on their work experiences and I invited their narratives by asking sufficiently open questions such as “what do you like about being an interpreter?” and “what would you say are the main differences between a ‘good’ day and a ‘bad’ day?”. The interview schedule was consciously left flexible in order to ensure opportunities for participants to raise their own concerns that I had not considered. The aim was to obtain rich, detailed accounts from each participant of what they, as experienced practitioners, considered significant. This was particularly important as such accounts are underrepresented in the literature.

3. Findings The findings are divided into five themes drawn from the interviews. The themes and sub-themes emerged from the analysis of the data and reflect common threads that were apparent throughout the different participants’ accounts. Each sub-theme is introduced with a quote which summarizes the general feeling amongst the participants with regard to that particular topic.

3.1 Theme 1: How interpreters feel they are perceived by hearing professionals 3.1.1 “They think I’m a magicians assistant” They think I’m a magician’s assistant, I wave my hands and the Deaf person understands and they have no [] cognition around how I get from A to B or how things are being conveyed, or the amount of work that I need to do to enable this dialogue to happen. (Chris)

The impression that they are expected to perform ‘magic’ is echoed by all participants. In this sense interpreting is regarded as a technical profession (Dean and Pollard 2005), with interpreters solely working from a source to a target language, without an understanding of how they manage instances of non-equivalence between two languages and the complexities of human interaction. This perception echoes findings in other studies (Dysart-Gale 2005; Angelelli 2006; Hsieh 2008). One participant, Nikki, wondered whether hearing professionals were thinking: I want them [Deaf people] simply to understand A, B and C and why does it take the rest of the alphabet to explain it to them?

Nikki suggests that since the other professionals do not understand the interpreting process, they are frustrated by the time it takes. Val expresses her own frustration when working with a solicitor who was not taking time to present information in a way that his Deaf client would understand:

Ali Hetherington

143

if they would give her more time in that interview or if they would consider other factors – or if they’d just let me do it my way!

Although Val laughed as she said this, the statement indicates both a frustration that the process was not accessible to the Deaf client and a desire to play more of an active role; the latter echoes sentiments expressed in previous studies (Dysart-Gale 2005; Fox and Avegad 2005; Angelelli 2004; Turner 2005; Dickinson and Turner 2009). Participants’ accounts suggest that the image of the ‘magical’ role of the interpreter is based on a belief that they can just turn up and interpret effectively, without needing an understanding of the context they are working in. Three participants made reference to an expectation for them to be ‘invisible’ and emphasized that this did not reflect the realities of the work. The notion of invisibility has been widely challenged (Lee 2009; Davidson 2000; Roy 2000; Dean and Pollard 2001; Berk-Seligson 2002; Hitesh 2002; Dysart-Gale 2005; Hsieh 2008), furthermore, the expectation for interpreters to remain invisible can have emotional consequences. Chris describes her experience of offering advice during assignments: you are seen to interfere, where really I’ve often tried to offer some very polite advice but it’s when that gets ignored and then they still do it, it’s really quite painful.

The ‘pain’ she refers to is related to being unable to prevent discrimination against Deaf people; such empathy has been identified as a cause of stress for interpreters (Harvey 2003). 3.1.2 “Preparation, what do they need it for?” Five of the interpreters described how they were expected to work with little or no preparation or background information prior to an interpreting assignment. Jenny sums up the general feeling when she says: there is no other profession where you could go somewhere, all the other professionals in the room know exactly what’s going to be going on.

She also talked about feeling “completely blind” prior to an assignment and continues: I really don’t think I should go in there without understanding what they mean, because how can I give any kind of correct interpretation if I don’t understand it?

144


3.1.3 “Does anyone really recognize our profession?” The perception that interpreters perform ‘magic’ and the associated lack of awareness of the need for preparation led participants to believe they are not regarded as professionals. Sandra talks about interpreters being regarded as “less than” other professionals. Chris’s impression that: everybody else in the room may have a certain amount of professional respect for each other and []when people don’t understand what you do, they can be dismissive.

Participants found the lack of awareness of their role by other professionals stressful, particularly as this required them to assert their needs when faced with the expectation that they work solely as conduits. The desire to be recognized as a professional has also been identified in previous studies (Hsieh 2008; Bahadir 2001; Angelelli 2006; Dysart-Gale 2005). 3.1.4 “They don’t want a new face when they are dealing with all that” Nikki discusses the importance of continuity of interpreters for sensitive assignments. She describes working within child protection with a Deaf couple and stresses the importance of continuity in order for the interpreter to fully understand the context they are working in. She suggests that meetings should be arranged to also accommodate the interpreter’s diary to ensure continuity: If you don’t know anything of the content, it is very difficult to start deciphering and decoding what the messages [are]. In those situations it’s wrong to bring someone new in. They should really move the meeting [because] the professionals might have their say but your client might not.

Jenny discusses being present during an emotional medical assignment and not being booked for the follow-up appointment. In addition to the distress this caused the patient, Jenny was left not knowing the outcome, which had an impact on her and raises the issue of closure for interpreters. The participants did not overtly mention the need for closure, however the concept featured in a back-grounded manner throughout their accounts. For example, in section 3.3.1, I discuss how one participant, Amy, describes staying with a patient after a distressing assignment, an act that may have served the important function of closure for Amy as well as providing an opportunity for the Deaf patient to talk about her experience to someone who knows their language.

Ali Hetherington

145

3.1.5 “You do really feel you are on an equal footing with the other professionals” The participants gave accounts of assignments where they felt there was an appreciation of the complexities within their work and a recognition that interpreters “supplement their technical knowledge and skills with input, exchange, and judgment regarding the consumers they are serving in a specific environment and in a specific communicative situation” (Dean and Pollard 2005:259). Their accounts describe situations where interpreters are working as practice professionals, that is, situations where the interpreter’s knowledge and expertise has been sought and their expertise recognized. Chris summarizes the positive impact that being seen in this light professionally has had on her: [They] truly understand the complexities of interpreting and they make my job less stressful, because there’s, a respect for what I do [] you do really feel you are on an equal footing with the other professional and that, in that sense that you are respected in what you say.

3.2 Theme 2: Interpreters’ perspective on their role Contrary to the expectation that they perform ‘magic’, the participants describe their own understanding of the complexities of the role. 3.2.1 “I think ‘they’ve not got it’ and everyone else thinks ‘they’ve got it’” Chris describes how hearing professionals: can’t pick up on gaps in Deaf people’s knowledge themselves, it’s often the interpreter who will pick up on that.

This is a reference to their “fund of information” (Pollard 1998:182-3). A number of studies have acknowledged the responsibility interpreters have to ensure clarity when there is non-equivalence between languages (McCay and Miller 2001; Hsieh 2008), rather than regarding it as a collaborative effort by the primary participants. All participants gave examples where assumptions had been made by hearing professionals that Deaf clients would have the same level of understanding of a particular context as a hearing person. Jenny tells of a medical assignment she did with a young Deaf woman: She’s basically got no sexual knowledge, other than what goes where [] She really, really didn’t understand and she’s what 22?[] Anybody else would think a 22 year old in this day and age, god they know more than I do!

146


All participants reported feeling a sense of responsibility to supplement gaps in their Deaf clients’ ‘fund of information’ by providing explanations or background information to facilitate understanding. This contrasts greatly with the expectation of interpreting as a technical profession and is discussed further in the next section. 3.2.2 “It’s people’s lives that we are dealing with on a daily basis” Participants made particular reference to their work in the fields of mental health, child protection and medical domains, which is unsurprising considering the sensitivity involved in these settings and the potential impact that decisions made in these contexts have on peoples’ lives. For example, Val gives an account of the importance of an interpreter being present for Deaf parents during labour: They need you to be there in case something goes wrong and they need to give instructions [] or sign consent forms and people don’t realize we are not there to go “push”, you know, we are there because at any point during that labour and that birth, something critical could happen that requires those parents to sign the consent form, or to make a decision.

In the context of such sensitive situations, it is not surprising that interpreters believed that interpersonal skills and trust were vital in their work. 3.2.3 “Trust is absolutely paramount” The participants gave accounts of waiting in hospital or doctor’s waiting rooms and being aware of the fine balance between “how much of yourself you give away to maintain that professional level” and “still come across as being personable” (Jenny). This suggests that the work of an interpreter extends either side of the interpreting assignment and involves building relationships grounded in trust. Studies on spoken language interpreting have also discussed the challenge of building trust whilst maintaining ethical boundaries (Hsieh 2008; Angelelli 2006; Davidson 2000). 3.2.4 “You kind of step out of role sometimes” This final sub theme concerns ethical boundaries. Val describes being asked by a midwife to prop the Deaf patient’s foot on her hip during the assignment referred to in section 3.2.2. Val did so, but in her discussion of the event, there was a sense that she felt required to justify her decision to do so:

Ali Hetherington

147

Well I wasn’t doing any harm, [] It was only a couple of minutes, but at the end of the day you are a human being [] I don’t see what else I could have done, what am I going to do – “no she can give birth with one leg in the air and the other one dangling on the floor”.

She discussed how her physical engagement in this event might be regarded as breaching the boundaries of the interpreter’s role, yet she felt that her response was appropriate in the circumstances she found herself in. Other participants also described how they made decisions based on the fact that they were “a human being” in situations where they might otherwise be perceived as having crossed ethical boundaries. They considered the code of practice for interpreters as too prescriptive and preferred to apply the ethical principle of ‘do no harm’ to their own practice. The principle of ‘do no harm’ has hitherto been one of the guiding ethical principles for interpreting practice in the UK, however, the current Code of Conduct in the UK no longer includes reference to ethical principles (NRCPD 2010). The accounts given by participants in this study reflect concerns raised in other studies (Atherton et al. 2002; Angelelli 2004, 2006; Dean and Pollard 2005; Dysart-Gale 2005). Thus far I have described how participants in this study report how distant the perception of interpreting as ‘magic’ is from their daily reality of interpreting in the community. Furthermore, participants report that they feel a great sense of responsibility for their interpreting practice. In section 3.3 I describe the impact that interpreting work can have on interpreters.

3.3 Theme 3: The emotional impact of work on interpreters This study aims to contribute to an understanding of the effect that their work has on interpreters. I consider the feelings that arise and how interpreters manage these. 3.3.1 “It didn’t go the way it should have done” This first sub-theme relates to feelings of powerlessness. Participants gave accounts of not feeling respected as professionals and described how they often bear witness to events beyond their control, such as discrimination towards Deaf people. Chris alludes to magic once more and says: I know I can’t wave [my] magic wand and make it all go away, but it’s when […] I do feel powerless or discrimination is going to happen anyway, regardless of what I’m going to say. That’s hard for me, very hard.

The sense of Deaf people being disempowered seems to be mirrored in some of the participants’ own feelings. These “intrapersonal demands” (Dean and

148


Pollard 2001:4) confirm the findings of previous studies (Harvey 2003; Dean and Pollard 2001). Amy tells of the effect of working with a Deaf patient who was “devastated” after receiving some news during a hospital appointment: I got in my car and I cried just because of what had happened [] it just didn’t go the way it should have gone and I was just, I think I was just so angry with this doctor that it came out in emotion. I wouldn’t put up with it [] and I know she did challenge it, so that was great she did that.

It appears that the patient’s actions had eased Amy’s feelings to some extent, possibly because they reflected what Amy would have done herself. The participants were all candid about their desire for the outcome of events “to be resolved in the way I think it should be resolved”. The resolution they sought often related to Deaf people having access to services. 3.3.2 “When you are involved at that level in people’s lives, you’re impacted” Earlier I made reference to how one participant, Amy, stayed with a Deaf patient after her hospital appointment. She rationalized this decision as follows: I’m a human being. She’s a human being. You’re not just going to go ‘right I’m going now my 3 hours are done, I’m off’, so we sat and talked about it after, I know I’m confident she went away feeling a little bit better.

Amy’s experience offers further insight into how some interpreters conceive of the role of the interpreter extending beyond the interpreted event. This too has been acknowledged in previous studies (Dysart-Gale 2005; Davidson 2000; Hsieh 2008). Amy’s rationale is similar to that put forward by Val (as discussed above): like Val, Amy appears to feel a need to justify her decision on the basis that she is a “human being”. Staying with the client after the appointment may have benefited the Deaf patient, this may also have been beneficial for Amy as she would then have been able to enter into a dialogue that she was not able to have with the Deaf client during the interpreting assignment. Thus empathy appears to be a necessary aspect of the role of an interpreter. However, Harvey (2003) emphasizes the need for this to be balanced with the ability to hold on to a sense of self as distinct from another. As described earlier, recent research by Dean and Pollard (2010) identified a high incidence of ‘psychological distress’ and ‘depression’ amongst interpreters. Associated with this, Chris describes how her own emotions were triggered during assignments:

Ali Hetherington

149

Historically [the work] would trigger lots of feelings and emotions in me that I wasn’t really prepared to let come out. That’s why I went to go and do my own counselling and stuff, because those feelings and emotions did need to come out, but they were being pushed out through the type of work I was doing.

Chris’s description of her feelings being ‘pushed’ out indicates that she was unable to prevent the surfacing of her own feelings. Jenny describes how it was many years before she was able to interpret for oncology appointments, following a family bereavement. These accounts highlight the need for further research into how interpreters manage and prevent ‘leakage’ of their own feelings during assignments. A question for the profession is whether it is indeed possible for interpreters to bracket their own emotions, and if so what effect does this have on interpreters and what happens to these feelings on completion of an assignment. 3.3.3 “Jobs can weigh on your mind” Participants also reported having difficulty “switching off” from some jobs. Jenny describes the aftermath of interpreting for a patient receiving a diagnosis, reflecting on the fact that while she can physically walk away from the work environment, psychologically, the Deaf client’s situation remains with her: I can walk away from it, but I can’t to some extent [be]cause I’ve got that knowledge.

Nikki expresses a similar sentiment: if something bad happens, I’m a bit soft. I think I internalize it a little bit too much, I’ve not yet developed that strategy that I can just cut off from it.

The ability to ‘cut off’ varied amongst the participants and raises the question of what training input interpreters receive to manage these feelings. This supports Harvey’s (2003) findings regarding the risk of emotionally ‘drowning’. Nikki talks about the isolation she feels when leaving a difficult job: you have to keep it with you until you can talk about it, well we don’t get the tools to deal with it there and then.

The lack of ‘tools’ she describes points to the need for training programmes to adequately prepare interpreters for the realities of the work and the importance of continued professional support on completion of training.

150


3.3.4 “Who do you share the stress with?” A community interpreter tends to be the only interpreter present during assignments when working alongside other professionals such as doctors, solicitors and social workers. Five of the participants in this study are freelance interpreters and Amy’s comment reflects the views of the other participants when she says that: it can be quite lonely when you are freelance, you don’t always have that support and I can’t always go back [] and offload to anybody. Sometimes I do feel a little bit like you are out there on your own working.

In the next section, I consider how interpreters manage their stress.

3.4 Theme 4: Strategies for managing stress 3.4.1 “I think as I’ve got older, I’ve just had to get more assertive” All participants describe how they assert themselves during assignments. Val talks about how she has: got a bit of strength and more confidence over the years to be able to say ‘this is what I need to do and this is why I need to do it to get a better outcome for both parties’.

She also explains how she clears up misunderstandings as they occur: If I make an error on the day, I will hold my hands up on the day, at the time, and say “I’m sorry, I’ve just made a mistake. Can we go back [be]cause that was my fault?” I think it’s very important for us to own that and be able to be strong enough to say ‘I’m human I’ve just made a hiccup’.

All participants give accounts of taking an active role in interpreted interactions, which reflect more recent analyses of interpreter behaviour (Fox and Avegad 2005; Davidson 2000; Hsieh 2008; Dysart-Gale 2005) and further supports the argument for interpreting to be regarded as a practice profession. The practice profession model recognizes the complexity of the role of the interpreter and acknowledges the requirement for interpreters to use their professional judgement (or “decision latitude”; Dean and Pollard 2005:6). Two participants described how the practice profession model validates their practice and gives them confidence to use their professional judgement, which in turn reduces the amount of stress they experience. Conversely, some partici-

Ali Hetherington

151

pants referred to how they frequently find themselves ‘stepping out of role’, a process that they considered to be an integral part of their work. This term implies that ‘stepping out of role’ is perceived to be outside the remit of the code of professional conduct, despite the frequency of its occurrence. 3.4.2 “I’m a better interpreter when I have got a balance – a variety of work” Participants describe how a balance of work alleviates their experience of stress. Chris describes how she monitors the number of complex cases she takes on: I’ve now been gauging my case load in terms of taking on complex cases, my limit is three. So if people start offering me really hard jobs, I’m more inclined to say, “actually no, I’m at my threshold. I’ve currently got three very complex cases and I need to be able to time manage that”. And when I say time manage it, I mean my own time and what I give to it and the impact it has on me and I never used to be like that.

The ‘really hard jobs’ refers to sensitive assignments such as mental health and child protection which can have a significant impact on the lives of the peoples involved. Sandra also limits how many of these assignments she undertakes and states: having a variety of work keeps me sane.

Other interpreters describe how they aim to maintain a balance between working in familiar and unfamiliar environments. Unfamiliar environments are considered more stressful as interpreters do not have the same background information to underpin their practice, nor do they have an understanding of the context they will be working in. 3.4.3 “I think I’ve learnt to reflect more on what I do over the years” Participants describe the importance of reflecting on their work. Val’s comments summarize the views expressed when she says: I reflect on whether it was a good job, or I could have done that better, or might do that differently next time.

Jenny describes using reflection to acknowledge that: I did the best I could in that situation but we were up against a brick wall.

152


However, the limitations of self reflection are expressed by Val, who notes that: You can do it yourself but you can also fool yourself sometimes [be]cause you don’t want to hear the bad stuff.

3.4.4 “Everything you bring to a job is a part of yourself” Participants recognize how they may influence interpreted interactions and acknowledge the importance of their own self-awareness in order to minimize the impact they have on others. Sandra explains: this is about people’s lives, ours and theirs, whereas I might have thought it was just about them, but it is about me as well and I think that’s become more and more apparent.

Nikki believes that: everything you bring to a job is a part of yourself. You bring everything that you’ve experienced; even the journey to work. I think that’s why you have to be so in tune, you have to be aware of the way you are.

The acknowledgement of themselves within the interpreting process appears to be an important means of separating themselves from the clients they work with (Harvey 2003). To summarize, interpreters suggest that they have a range of strategies for coping with work related stress. Some of these are preventative measures (saying no to too many stressful assignments, focusing on attaining a balance in the type of assignments they commit to), some are self-care measures (acknowledging that assignments can impact on them as individuals in an emotional or psychological manner, and using this knowledge to decline certain assignments), and others, as will be discussed further in the next section, are post-hoc.

3.5 Theme 5: Support Participants describe feelings that arise during the course of their work and a sense of loneliness when working in the community. They strongly express the view that they want support from another interpreter; someone who has an understanding of their work. Their accounts suggest that they feel misunderstood in their everyday working lives and they may want to ensure that this is not the case when seeking support.

Ali Hetherington

153

3.5.1 “Some of my best friends are interpreters as well – I can offload to them” Participants prefer to obtain support from interpreters with whom they have a close working relationship. They report that trust is considered paramount. Amy explains this in the following terms: I don’t want to just tell just anybody, I want to make sure it’s somebody that I know well, that understands, [be]cause they are an interpreter as well – and someone that I trust.

Nikki and Sandra each have a group of interpreters they meet with regularly to reflect on their work. These groups appear to have the features of peer supervision groups (Page and Wosket 2001; Hawkins and Shohet 2006; Barnes et al. 1999), yet the participants do not refer to them as such. In the absence of professional frameworks it appears that interpreters seek support from established friendships with colleagues. However, if this is not a regular commitment, there is the risk that interpreters will be reactive, rather than reflective. Jenny explains that: as an interpreter you don’t really get to talk about it very much, unless it’s ‘I’ve had a really bad day’.

Informal networks are a vital source of support; however, the primary relationship is personal and the principal role is that of support. Colleagues may therefore be reluctant to challenge each other, which may limit opportunities for development and change. In addition, if interpreters meet as a group without a facilitator to manage the group process, there is a greater possibility that the group may inadvertently fall into ‘traps’, such as competitiveness within the group (Hawkins and Shohet 2006:166), which presents the danger that a valuable source of support may become ineffective or destructive. 3.5.2 “I have a great relationship with my co-workers, I am very lucky” Amy and Jenny describe how they miss working as part of a team since they became freelance interpreters. Jenny elaborates on this, arguing that: as a team you always have that support, you can always phone someone.

Conversely, Val feels more isolated now she is working for an agency than she did when she was a freelance interpreter. She says:

154

A Magical Profession? I miss, sometimes, having that close working relationship with other interpreters that you work with on a regular basis. I was working with people I knew well, that I had confidence in, that I had respect for.

3.5.3 “I don’t know how people can do it without supervision” One of the questions I put to participants related to their views on supervision and mentoring. In their responses, mentoring was associated with signposting, helping with transitions, reflecting on work, support, advice, and providing them with someone to look up to and learn from. Five participants link supervision to hierarchical line management relationships. Chris is the only participant who has consultative supervision and she explains why this has been an invaluable source of support for her: That’s the thing that keeps me sane, because it allows me to reflect on my own behaviour, looking at what I do and the impact it has on me. I don’t know how people can do it without supervision [] I just can’t think back to a time whereby I didn’t.

The term ‘consultative’ supervision is often used to describe supervision that aims to provide ongoing reflective practice. All participants valued opportunities for reflective practice yet were unaware of models of supervision that could facilitate this. The above themes suggest that occupational stress is caused by both the disparity between rhetoric and de facto practice and the emotional and psychological impact of the work of an interpreter. However, the enjoyment and sense of satisfaction experienced by all participants in their work appears to alleviate some of this stress; the following quote reflects the views of all participants: It’s probably one of the best jobs in the world – I absolutely love it!

In section 4, I discuss the implications of these findings for the signed language interpreting profession and suggest areas for further research.

4. Discussion A qualitative study necessitates a small sample and therefore generalizations cannot be applied to the profession as a whole. However, all the participants in this study raised very similar concerns despite being asked open, non-leading questions, which led to the emergence of robust thematic responses. The image of the interpreter as a ‘magician’ features throughout the accounts and demonstrates the disparity between rhetoric and de facto practice. The participants

Ali Hetherington

155

themselves are aware of the complexities of their role and express a desire to play a more active part in interpreted events. This view was reportedly not shared by the professionals they worked with, many of whom had not previously worked with interpreters. The ability of participants to ensure effective communication is something they feel a great sense of responsibility for, yet, they report how this goal is hindered by real and/or perceived constraints on their role. This results in feelings of powerlessness on the part of the interpreters, which is a significant cause of stress. I further suggest that the perception of interpreting as a technical profession has an impact on the quality of service Deaf people receive. Participants expressed a need to receive sufficient preparation in order to understand the context and purpose of assignments they are engaged for. Such preparation enables them to make an informed choice about whether to accept a booking in the first instance, and facilitates more effective interpretation should they take on an assignment. Furthermore, the participants’ accounts suggest that interpreters are not interchangeable from assignment to assignment, noting that continuity of provision, particularly in emotionally sensitive contexts, is paramount. All participants expressed feelings of empathy towards their Deaf clients and reported a sense of helplessness and frustration when witnessing discrimination. They also described their emotional responses when working in distressing or sensitive settings, including assignments that triggered their own emotions. Furthermore, Jenny described experiencing a sense of “channelling somebody”, and it is important to note that the use of the first person can intensify this sense of embodiment, as can the visual nature of a signed language. This paper thus presents an argument for further research on how interpreters are affected by their work and for training programmes to adequately prepare interpreters for the realities of interpreting. This, coupled with professional support on completion of training, would both benefit interpreters and protect consumers of interpreting services. All participants expressed their desire to reflect on their work with trusted colleagues. Supervision is not currently a recognized feature of professional practice by the signed language interpreting profession and as such a valuable opportunity for reflection and support is unavailable to interpreters. The perception of supervision as ‘top down’ is the likely reason that mentoring rather than supervision has been developed within the signed language interpreting profession in the UK. However, mentoring is not intended for ongoing reflective practice, and this leaves a gap in the mechanisms of support available. Given this context, I argue there is an urgent need for the development of consultative supervision within the signed language interpreting profession via a process where interpreters would meet regularly with a supervisor, either individually or in groups, to consider the choices they make and the strategies they use in the course of their duties. Furthermore, supervision

156


enables interpreters to gain a better understanding of how they work and facilitates an awareness of their personal and professional limits, ultimately protecting both the interpreter and those they work with and for.

5. Conclusion Occupational stress within the signed language interpreting profession has been underrepresented in literature, yet a significant incidence of occupational stress amongst interpreters has been observed (Dean, Pollard, & Samar 2010). This study further explored the causes of occupational stress and makes an argument for codes of conduct to both reflect de facto work practices and include ethical principles to support interpreters in their work. The findings of this study suggest that training programmes need to ensure there is sufficient input on the psychological and emotional impact of interpreting and equip interpreters with strategies for dealing with this. Without such input, interpreters may not be aware of, or prepared for, the effect the work might have on them. In addition, training needs to reflect de facto interpreting practice to equip interpreters to use their professional judgement effectively and appropriately whilst continuing to maintain ethical boundaries. Finally, further research is required into the adoption and application of models of supervision for signed language interpreters as a means of providing opportunities for ongoing reflective practice and support.

ALI HETHERINGTON [email protected] References Angelelli, Claudia (2003) ‘The Visible Co-Participant: The Interpreter’s Role in Doctor Patient Encounters’, in Melanie Metzger, Steven Collins, Valerie Dively and Risa Shaw (eds) From Topic Boundaries to Omission: New Research on Interpretation, Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 3-26. ------ (2004) Medical Interpreting and Cross-cultural Communication, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ------ (2006) ‘Validating Professional Standards and Codes: Challenges and Opportunities’, Interpreting 8(2): 175-93. ASLI (2003) The ASLI Mentoring and Mentor Training Programme. Available at www.asli.org.uk/asli-s-policies-p35.aspx (accessed 26 November 2009). Atherton, Martin, Angie Gregg, Frank Harrington, C. Laugesen, Gary Quinn, Noel Traynor and Graham H. Turner (2002) Addressing Communication Disadvantage: D/deaf People with Minimal Language Skills, Preston: Univeristy of Central Lancashire. Bahadir, Şebnem (2001) ‘The Empowerment of the (Community) Interpreter: The

Ali Hetherington

157

Right to Speak with a Voice of One’s Own’. Paper presented at Critical Link 3, Montreal, Canada, 22-26 May 2001. Baistow, Karen (1999) ‘The Emotional and Psychological Impact of Community Interpreting’. Paper presented at the 1st BABELEA Conference on Community Interpreting, Vienna, Austria. Barnes, Bill, Sheila Ernst and Keith Hyde (1999) An Introduction to Groupwork: A Group-Analytic Perspective, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Berk-Seligson, Susan (2002) The Bilingual Courtroom: Court Interpreters in the Judicial Process: With a New Chapter, London & Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Butterworth, Tony, Jean Faugier and Philip Burnard (1998) Clinical Supervision and Mentorship in Nursing, Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes. Carroll, Michael (2007) Counselling Supervision: Theory, Skills and Practice, London: Sage. Cutcliffe, John R., Tony Butterworth and Brigid Proctor (2001) Fundamental Themes in Clinical Supervision, London: Routledge. Davidson, Brad (2000) ‘The Interpreter as Institutional Gatekeeper: The Sociolinguistic Role of Interrpeters in Spanish-English Medical Discourse’, Journal of Sociolinguistics 4(3): 379-405. Dean, Robyn and Robert Pollard (2001) ‘Application of Demand-control Theory to Sign Language Interpreting: Implications for Stress and Interpreter Training’, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 6(1): 1-14. ------ (2005) ‘Consumers and Service Effectiveness in Interpreting Work: A Practice Profession Perspective’, in Marc Marschark, Rico Peterson and Elizabeth Winston (eds) Sign Language Interpreting and Interpreter Education: Directions for Research and Practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 259-82. ------ (2009) ‘“I Don’t Think We’re Supposed to Be Talking about This”: Case Conferencing and Supervision for Interpreters’, Views 26: 28-30. Dean, Robyn, Robert Pollard and Vince J. Samar (2010) ‘RID Research Grant Underscores Occupational Health Risks: VRS and K-12 Settings Most Concerning’, Views (Winter): 41-3. Dickinson, Jules and Graham H. Turner (2009) ‘Forging Alliances: The Role of the Interpreter in Workplace Discourse’, in Raquel de Pedro Ricoy, Isabelle Perez and Christine Wilson (eds) Interpreting and Translating in Public Service Settings: Policy, Practice, Pedagogy, Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 171-83. Dysart-Gale, Deborah (2005) ‘Communication Models, Professionalization, and the Work of Medical Interpreters’, Health Communication 17(1): 91-103. Figley, Charles R. (1995) ‘Compassion Fatigue: Towards a New Understanding of the Cost of Caring’, in B. H. Stamm (ed.) Secondary Traumatic Stress, Lutherville, MD: Sidrann Press, xiv. Fox, Annemarie and Jocelyn Avegad (2005) ‘Family Therapy in Translation – Clinical Work through an Interpreter’. Paper presented at Critical Link 5, Stockholm, Sweden, 20-23 May. Harvey, Michael A. (2003) ‘Shielding Yourself from the Perils of Empathy: The

158


Case of Sign Language Interpreters’, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 8(2): 207-13. Hawkins, Peter and Robin Shohet (2006) Supervision in the Helping Professions, Maidenhead: Open University Press. Hetherington, Ali (2010) ‘Stress, Burnout and Vicarious Trauma: The Benefits of Supervision for Interpreters’. Paper presented at Supporting Deaf People, Online Conference, 3-6 February. Hitesh, Ravel (2002) ‘Applying Theroetical Frameworks to the Work with Interpreters’, in Rachel Tribe and Hitesh Ravel (eds) Working with Interpreters in Mental Health, Hove: Brunner-Routledge, 122-34. Hsieh, Elaine (2008) ‘”I Am Not a Robot!” Interpreters’ Views of Their Roles in Health Care Settings’, Qualitative Health Research 18(10): 1367-83. Inskipp, Francesca and Brigid Proctor (1995) The Art, Craft and Tasks of Counselling Supervision, Part 2: Becoming a Supervisor: Professional Development for Counsellors, Psychotherapists, Supervisors and Trainers, Twickenham: CASCADE. Johnson, Howard, Andrew Thompson and Maria Downs (2009) ‘Non-Western Interpreters’ Experiences of Trauma: The Protective Role of Culture Following Exposure to Oppression’, Ethnicity and Health 14(4): 407-18. Lee, Jieun (2009) ‘Conflicting Views on Court Interpreting Examined through Surveys of Legal Professionals and Court Interpreters’, Interpreting 11(1): 35-56. McCay Vernon and Katrina Miller (2001) ‘Interpreting in Mental Health Settings: Issues and Concerns’, American Annals of the Deaf 146(5): 429-33. Morton-Cooper, Alison and Anne Palmer (2000) Mentoring, Preceptorship and Clinical Supervision: A Guide to Professional Roles in Clinical Practice, Oxford: Blackwell Science. NRCPD (2010) Code of Conduct for Communication Professionals. Available at www.nrcpd.org.uk/documents/code_of_conduct/NRCPD_Code_of_Conduct. pdf (accessed 12 April 2010). Page, Steve and Val Wosket (2001) Supervising the Counsellor: A Cyclical Model, Hove, England & Philadelphia: Brunner-Routledge. Pöchhacker, Franz (2004) Introducing Interpreting Studies, London: Routledge. Pollard, Robert (1998) ‘Psychopathology’, in Marc Marschark and M. Diane Clark (eds) Psychological Perspectives on Deafness, Hillsdale, N.J. & London: Erlbaum, 171-97. Reid, Katie, Paul Flowers and Michael Larkin (2005) ‘Exploring Lived Experience’, The Psychologist 18(1): 20-24. Roy, Cynthia B. (2000) ‘Training Interpreters – Past, Present and Future’, in Cynthia B. Roy (ed.) Innovative Practices for Teaching Sign Language Interpreters, Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 1-14. Tribe, Rachel (1999) ‘Bridging the Gap or Damming the Flow? Some Observations on Using Interpreters/Bicultural Workers When Working with Regugee Clients, Many of Whom Have Been Tortured’, British Journal of Medical Pychology 72(4): 567-76.

Ali Hetherington

159

Turner, Graham H. (2005) ‘Toward Real Interpreting’, in Marc Marschark, Rico Peterson and Elizabeth Winston (eds) Sign Language Interpreting and Interpreter Education: Directions for Research and Practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 29-56. Wadensjö, Cecilia (1998) Interpreting in Interaction, London: Longman. Wiebel, Ralf (2009) ‘Keep the Balance: Holistic Stress Prevention’. Paper presented at EFSLI 2009: Sound Mind in Sound Hands, in Tallinn, Estonia, 18-20 September.

Notes on Contributors Guri Amundsen has worked in the field(s) of Deaf Education, Signed Language and Signed Language Interpreting since 1982. She has taught Deaf students in a variety of settings ranging from nursery school to college as well as having extensive interpreting experience. Currently she is teaching interpreter students in the Sign Language and Interpreter Education Programme at Sør-Trøndelag University College. She has a master’s degree in applied linguistics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, as part of which she investigated thematic coherence in expository text in Norwegian Sign Language. Cátia de Azevedo Fronza is a Professor in Languages at the Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS) / Rio Grande do Sul. She obtained a PhD in Languages from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS). �� Her research focuses on the acquisition of phonology, on phonology-orthography relationships, and on the teaching and learning of Portuguese for deaf people and students with special needs. Sonja Erlenkamp studied general linguistics, phonetics and psychology at the University of Kiel, Germany, and finished her PhD on parts of speech in German Sign Language and Norwegian Sign Language in 1999. Since 1998 she has been working in Norway, researching and teaching Norwegian Sign Language at the University of Oslo and the Sør-Trøndelag University-College in Trondheim. In 2007 she became the first scholar to hold a professorship in signed language in Norway. Her department at the University-College of Sør-Trøndelag in Trondheim offers studies in signed language interpreting, signed language education and signed language in general. Currently she works with the education of signed language interpreters and the development of a signed language model for teaching purposes. Della Goswell is an Australian Sign Language (Auslan)/English interpreter and educator. She holds a Master of Translation and Interpreting and a Master of Adult Education. Della co-ordinates the Diploma of Auslan Interpreting (entry level) at Petersham TAFE, NSW and the Postgraduate Diploma of Auslan-English interpreting (professional level) at Macquarie University in Sydney. Her research interests include: Interpreter pedagogy (experiential learning, use of video technology for interpreter training), the use of role shift in signed languages and interpreting, professional and paraprofessional interpreter competencies, and interpreted discourse analysis.


161

Trine Grande finished her bachelor in signed language interpreting at the University-College of Sør-Trøndelag in 2004 where she also studied pedagogical guidance. At the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, she now studies part-time subjects in the field of Norwegian as a second language at the department of Language and Communication studies. Currently she works at the Sign Language Interpreting Service in Sør-Trøndelag and offers time-based tuitioning/education in caption interpreting at the University-College of Sør-Trøndelag. Ali Hetherington has worked as a signed language interpreter for 18 years and qualified as a Member of the Register of Sign Language Interpreters in 1999. Since qualifying she has worked as a freelance community interpreter specializing in mental health and child protection. She is committed to the development of supervision within the interpreting profession and qualified as a supervisor at Manchester University in 2009. She has recently completed MA research on the causes and management of occupational stress within the interpreting profession. Lorraine Leeson has been the Director of the Centre for Deaf Studies at Trinity College Dublin since its establishment in 2001. She has over twenty years experience of working with Deaf communities in a range of capacities at national and European levels, and has taught interpreters in Ireland, the UK, and contributed to training programmes in Belgium, Canada and the USA since the mid 1990s. A founder member and former Secretary of the Irish Association of Sign Language Interpreters (IASLI), Lorraine has practised interpreting locally and internationally, with her work taking her from local tertiary educational environments and legal contexts to the national theatre of Ireland and from there to the European Institutions and the United Nations. A highlight has been working for the European Union of the Deaf. Lorraine’s research interests relate to the morphosyntax of signed languages, the sociolinguistics of Irish Sign Language (ISL), and interpreting studies, with a corpus based description of ISL due in 2011 (‘Irish Sign Language: A Cognitive Linguistics Account’, with John I. Saeed), to be published by Edinburgh University Press. In 2008, Lorraine was named a Léargas Language Ambassador for her work on ISL and was elected a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin in 2009 on the basis of her research work to date. Lorraine is also a member of the Royal Irish Academy’s Modern Languages Committee. George Major and Lindsay Ferrara are both PhD students at Macquarie University, who worked on the Medical Signbank project. George’s related PhD research is on the discourse of Auslan/English interpreter-mediated general practice consultations. George qualified as a New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) interpreter in 2004, and has research experience in workplace communication,

162


particularly in the healthcare setting, and NZSL sociolinguistics. She was the Australasia & Oceania regional representative on the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI) Board from 2007-2011. Lindsay’s PhD research investigates the linguistic structure of depiction in Australian Sign Language. Lindsay completed her Masters degree at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, where she studied for three years on a variety of topics related to the linguistics of signed languages. Her current research interests include language acquisition, signed-spoken language bilingualism, and signed language phonology. Odd Morten Mjøen is a trained signed language interpreter and has a Master of Science in Disability and Society. He has been working as an interpreter since 1988, and has been Head of Studies of Sign Language and Interpreter Education at the Sør-Trøndelag University-College in Trondheim, Norway, since 2002. He now works at the Møller Resource Centre for the deaf and hard-of hearing. Jemina Napier is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University in Sydney, where she is Head of the Translation & Interpreting Section and Director of the Centre for Translation & Interpreting Research. Jemina has over 20 years experience as a signed language interpreter practitioner and over 14 years experience as an interpreter educator. Her major research interest is in the field of signed language interpreting, but her wider interests include effective translation and interpreting pedagogy, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. She has published books, book chapters and articles discussing aspects of signed language interpreting and interpreting pedagogy. Jemina was Chief Investigator with Associate Professor Trevor Johnston on the Medical Signbank project. Maria Cristina Pires Pereira is a Professor in Brazilian Sign Language at the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. She also obtained a Master in Applied Linguistics and is currently working toward her PhD in Translation Studies. She is a practising signed language interpreter and a researcher with a special interest in Applied Linguistics, focusing on the teaching and learning of Brazilian Sign Language as a second language for hearing people and on signed language interpreting.� Eli Raanes is a trained signed language interpreter and interpreter/guide for deafblind people and also has an educational background in the field of special education and speech and hearing therapy. She has studied the influence of deprivation on language development. Since 1994 she has worked in the field of signed language and interpreter education at the department at the University-College of Sør-Trøndelag in Trondheim. Curriculum development


163

within the area of signed language and interpreter education has been one of her commitments. In 2006 she finished a doctoral dissertation in linguistics on tactile signed language. Her current work is in signed language interpreter education and she is involved in a research project describing the structures in interpreter mediated conversations. Isabel Rodríguez Ortiz obtained a degree in psychology in 1992, a PhD in 2002 and an MA in Teaching and Interpretation of Spanish Sign Language in 2006 at Seville University. Since 1996, she has been a teacher at Seville University, where she teaches ‘Developmental and Educational Aspects of Deafness’ at the College of Education and ‘Deafness and Linguistic Diversity’ at the College of Psychology. Her research interests are signed language comprehension of deaf people, and currently (1) literacy and deaf children, and (2) literacy and children with autism. In 2001 she obtained a Marie Curie fellowship and had the opportunity to work at the Department of Language and Communication Science at City University (London). Flora Savvalidou works as a Greek Sign Language interpreter at the Hellenic Parliament. She obtained a BA in Political Sciences from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and is currently a student on the EUMASLI (European Master in Sign Language Interpreting) programme. Sigrid Slettebakk Berge obtained her degree as a signed language interpreter from the University in Oslo in 1994, and has worked as an interpreter for the deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing from then until she started to work as a teacher at HIST, the University-College of Sør-Trøndelag. Her main interests are interactional structures in interpreter mediated dialogues and interpreters’ use of dialogical elements to coordinate turn-taking. She has a masters degree from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, where she studied ‘interpreter mediated actions’ in classroom dialogues between a hearing teacher and deaf students. She started PhD research at NTNU in January 2011, investigating interpreter mediated dialogues involving deaf students at secondary school. Myriam Vermeerbergen is a lecturer in Flemish Sign Language at the Department of Applied Language Studies, Lessius University College (Antwerp, Belgium) and affiliated researcher/associated lecturer at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. She started research on the grammar of Flemish Sign Language about 20 years ago. Her research interests further include the study of the similarities and differences between the grammars of different signed languages and similarities between signed languages and other forms of gestural communication. She has also been involved in and published on lexicographical and sociolinguistic work and – more recently – signed language

164


interpreting. Myriam Vermeerbergen is co-founder and current president of the ‘Vlaams Gebarentaal Centrum’ (Flemish Sign Language Centre), recognized by the Government as ‘knowledge and coordination centre for Flemish Sign Language’. She is a member of the ‘Advisory Committee for Flemish Sign Language’ and one of the founding members of the Sign Language Linguistics Society. Svenja Wurm is a lecturer at Heriot-Watt University, Scotland, where she is part of a team developing a new undergraduate degree in British Sign Language - English interpreting. Svenja coordinates and teaches on the European Master’s in Sign Language Interpreting (EUMASLI). Her PhD research, completed in 2010, explores the notion of signed language translation (rather than interpreting), combining her interests in recorded translation involving written and signed texts, multimodal translation, Deaf literacy practices and qualitative methodology, as well as addressing her more general motivation to encourage exchange between signed and spoken/written language translation, and translation and interpreting scholarship.

Index addition 7, 8, 94, 98, 99, 104 American Sign Language/ ASL 44, 50, 51, 62, 63, 66, 92, 93, 104, 105, 106, 140 Amundsen, Guri 7, 12, 160 assessment 15, 19, 31, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 46 Australian Sign Language/ Auslan 8, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 72, 73, 75, 79, 80, 81, 86, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 133 Berge, Sigrid, S. 7, 12, 26, 27, 163 Brazilian Sign Language 37 British Sign Language 63 captioning/ caption interpreting 7, 12, 13, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32 Cátia de Azevedo Fronza 7, 37, 48, 160 cognitive linguistics 3, 6, 12, 17, 18, 23, 65 community interpreting 141, 147, 150 comprehension of signed language 45, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 76, 117, 119 constructed action 8, 61, 63, 64, 73, 80 constructed dialogue 8, 61, 62, 63, 64, 73, 74, 75, 80 Danish Sign Language 63 Deaf culture 92, 127 emotional impact 147, 152, 154, 156 Erlenkamp, Sonja 7, 12, 14, 18, 23, 32, 160 errors 7, 45, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 58, 59 face/ face-threatening acts/ face-saving strategies 8, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 102, 104, 105, 106

Ferrara, Lindsay 8, 110, 161 fingerspelling 44, 45, 121, 122 fluency 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45 Goswell, Della 5, 7, 8, 61, 63, 66, 70, 73, 82, 160 Grande, Trine 7, 12, 161 Greece 87, 95, 106 Greek Sign Language/ GSL 87, 88, 95, 97, 98, 105, 106, 107 healthcare interpreting 110, 111, 113 hearing signers 50, 51, 53, 55, 56, 57, 59 Hetherington, Ali 5, 6, 8, 9, 138, 140, 156, 161 (im)politeness 8, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107 indirectness 90, 92, 93 informal support 139, 153 Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis 138, 141 interpreter role 1, 3, 6, 8, 9, 12, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 111, 113, 125, 126, 127, 128, 131, 138, 139, 140, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 151, 155 interpreter training curriculum development 12, 13, 14, 15, 30 interpreting for the deafblind 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 22, 24, 25, 26 interpreting for the deafened 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 30 interpreting pedagogy 61 Interpreting Studies v Irish Sign Language 63 isolation 9, 138, 149, 153 Italian Sign Language 63 language learning 17, 22, 50, 51, 52, 53, 59

166 language testing 7, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47 late signers 50, 51, 59 Leeson, Lorraine 1, 2, 4, 9, 88, 94, 96, 98, 99, 102, 104, 105, 106, 161 linguistic strategies 87, 90, 97 Major, George 8, 110, 124, 132, 161 media interpreting 87, 93, 94, 107 medical discourse 111, 125, 128, 130 Medical Signbank 6, 8, 110, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 123, 124, 125, 130, 131, 132, 133, medical terminology 8, 110, 113, 115, 118, 123, 125, 131 Mjøen, Odd, M. 7, 12, 162 Napier, Jemina 2, 6, 8, 94, 104, 107, 110, 111, 112, 113, 115, 116, 122, 127, 128, 133, 162 Norwegian Sign Language 7, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20, 23, 27, 28, 31, 32 occupational stress 9, 138, 139, 140, 154, 156 omission 8, 50, 87, 88, 94, 96, 104 paraphrasing 8, 87, 88, 94, 96, 102, 104, 120 Pereira, Maria Cristina Pires 7, 37, 39, 47, 48, 162 phonological errors 7, 50, 51, 54, 57, 58, 59 political debate 8, 87, 88, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 104, 105, 106, 107 politeness theory 87, 90 political discourse 87, 90, 91 practice profession 140, 145, 150, proficiency 7, 18, 22, 23, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47 Prolibras 7, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47 psychological impact 138, 152, 154, 156 Raanes, Eli 7, 12, 13, 14, 25, 26, 27, 28, 162

Index reflective practice 138, 139, 141, 154, 155, 156 Rodriguez Ortiz, Isabel R. 7, 50, 53, 59, 163 role shift 7, 8, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82 Savvalidou, Flora 8, 87, 107, 163 second language 7, 23, 39, 47, 50, 51, 62, 119 semantic errors 50, 51, 54, 57, 58, 59 signed language interpreter education/ training 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 28, 30, 38, 59, 62, 63, 66, 106, 111, 112, 113, 119, 149, 155, 156 signed language interpreting research v, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 22, 26, 62, 63, 67, 82, 110, 111, 138, 139, 140, 155, 156 sign supported speech 13, 16, 18, 26, 27, 28 Spanish Sign Language/ LSE 7, 50, 52, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59 sociocultural approaches to language 8, 12, 17, 18, 22 South African Sign Language 63 substitution 8, 50, 54, 87, 88, 94, 99, 100, 104 supervision 138, 139, 140, 153, 154, 155, 156 Swedish Sign Language 63 tactile interpreting 13, 16, 20, 23, 24, 25 translation v, vi, 1, 3, 4, 21, 27, 28, 74, 75, 76, 77, 80, 90, 123 Translation Studies 90 Turner, Graham H. v, 21, 65, 113, 139, 143 Vermeerbergen, Myriam 1, 163 Wurm, Svenja 1, 3, 164

Signed Language Interpreting

Signed Language Interpreting

Suggest Documents

Interpreting body language - Judge Wiki

ACCOUNTING AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE/ INTERPRETING ...

Comprehension of Sign Language Interpreting

ACCOUNTING AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE/ INTERPRETING ...

Motherese in a Signed language - Science Direct

Motherese in a Signed language - ScienceDirect.com

Interpreting Text for Indian Language TTS

diploma in legal interpreting - Wits Language School

Interpreting negation in vision and language

Interpreting histories without common language ... - CREST

diploma in legal interpreting - Wits Language School

Recognizing & Interpreting Indian Sign Language ... - IEEE Xplore

A Case for Training Signed Language Interpreters for Legal

transcription and annotation in the creation of signed language corpora

On Defining Lexeme in a Signed Language - John Benjamins

On Defining Lexeme in a Signed Language - John Benjamins

Bilingual signed and spoken language acquisition from birth ...

Signed TOM

signed transfer

Benefits of Sign Language Interpreting and Text Alternatives for Deaf ...

Plain language for interpreting in consulting rooms - Curationis

Situation of sign language interpreting in Asian region_2015.pdf ...

6 - Falkowska - 2016 - Interpreting figurative language from Polish ...

Interpreting and translation services and the Applied Language ...