Interpreting Glossary

Note: all acronyms here are pronounced as individual letters rather than words; e.g., “A–S–L,” not “Azzle.”

ASL

(Pronounced “A-S-L.”) American Sign Language, the signed language used by deaf and hard-of-hearing people throughout North America, with the exception of Quebec.

CDI

Certified Deaf Interpreter

CI

(Pronounced “C-I.”) Certificate of Interpretation, the certificate awarded by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) to those who pass their proficiency tests to become certified interpreters for the deaf.

CT

Certificate of Transliteration, the certificate awarded by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) to those who pass their proficiency tests to become certified transliterators for the deaf.

DI

(Pronounced “D-I”, not “die.”) Deaf Interpreter working with an HI.

HI

(Pronounced “H-I”, not “hi.”) Hearing Interpreter working with a DI.

NAD

(Pronounced “N-A-D”, not “nad.”) National Association of the Deaf, a national American organization of deaf and hard-of-hearing people and those who are aligned with their goals. They also offer a written and performance test to determine levels of competency in sign language interpreting and transliterating. You may learn more about NAD by visiting http://nad.org/.

RID

(Pronounced “R-I-D”, not “rid.”) Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, a national American organization of interpreters and transliterators for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. RID offers written tests and performance tests that interpreters and transliterators can take to become “certified.” You may learn more about RID by visiting http://rid.org/.

NAD–RID Code of Professional Conduct (CPC)

The professional code of ethics created jointly by the NAD and RID, merging the older NAD Code of Ethics with the RID Code of Ethics and expanding upon many ethical considerations and behaviors involved in various aspects of the interpreting profession.

Interpretation

The process of conveying one spoken or signed language into another. Interpretation is performed “live” and “on-the-fly.”

Translation

The process of conveying one “frozen” (i.e. not “live”) text (either written or signed and video-recorded) into another frozen text, either written or video-recorded.

Transliteration

The process of representing the phonemes and morphemes of one language into those of another language via an encoding system that is acceptable to the users of the target language (e.g. the phonetic representation of Hebrew—which has its own unique “alef-bet”—in latin characters using English phonemes, or the visual representation of English into sign-encoded English and mouth morphemes that represent English phonemes.)

Oral Transliteration

The process of making speech visible to a deaf or hard-of-hearing person through precise mouthing of words and the use of facial expression, body language, gestures, and air-writing (such as writing an M or a B in the air to distinguish “million” from “billion” which look similar on the lips).

TRS

Text Relay Service, a service that relays calls made between telephones and TTY’s

TTY

Teletype Machine, or Text Telephone

VRS

Video Relay Service, a service that provides ASL interpreters to interpret calls made between telephones and videophones. In the United States this is compensated and regulated by the FCC.

P.S. The RID Standard Practice Papers discuss some of these topics in greater detail.