If you know of any literature about VL in ASL—or any type of vagueness in ASL—please leave a comment. Thanks!

The American Sign Language interpreting profession has a lot of catching up to do to bring it on par with foreign language interpreting international conference interpreting. I would venture to say that most ASL interpreters are working not only from but also to their “C language.” You have to understand that until the ’60s and ’70s, there was no ASL interpreting profession, and those who interpreted for the deaf were usually family, friends, or neighbors. Deaf people counted themselves lucky to get anyone to interpret for them— free of charge, no less! Unfortunately, here we are in the 2010s and deaf people still find themselves lucky to get an interpreter to provide the service even for pay.

There is a shortage of interpreters to fulfill the demand for “qualified interpreters” required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. There are very few native hearing signers. Even those with deaf parents do not all learn the language fluently; in fact, it has been seen that one child may learn ASL fluently and the other siblings will rely on that child to interpret between them and their parents. And then, even the CODAs (children of deaf adults) who are fluent in ASL are not always as fluent in all registers of the language that they would need to be to call ASL their A language. What’s more, CODAs often have English as a B language because it is their second language. (Babies are developmentally able to learn signed languages at a younger age than spoken languages, so for many CODAs, sign language is their native language.)

To make matters worse, CODAs account for a small percentage of ASL interpreters. Most interpreters don’t learn ASL until college or high school at the earliest. I will speak for myself: I started learning ASL when I was 21. I have been interpreting for 21 years. Most people are very happy with my interpreting services, but I by no means possess native-like fluency in ASL! I always have to work on my fluency, and I honestly don’t know if my ASL will ever be even good enough to even call it my “B language.” And, if I may venture to say so, I am by no means alone in this.

In my defense—and so as not to be so hard on my colleagues—the ASL interpreting profession is still nascent. For decades, one didn’t even have to have a high school diploma to be an ASL-English interpreter. Only a few years ago did an associate degree become a prerequisite to stand for national certification exams. All of the already certified interpreters were “grandfathered” in. As of June 2012, candidates will have to have bachelor’s degrees to sit for the national exams—and their degrees don’t even have to be in interpreting. We still have a situation in which both entrants and graduates of interpreter training programs do not possess the fluency in ASL required to be an interpreter. Things are getting better, but we have much work to do.

Consider, finally, one last thing about sign language interpreting in America: most deaf people are non-native users of ASL. Many deaf children have limited, if any, exposure to spoken, written, or signed language until elementary school! I have heard the expression “semilingual” to describe deaf people who are native in neither ASL nor English. According to your terminology, the word would be “alingual.” I think that is too strong a word, and one that Deaf people would take umbrage to because the Hearing world tells them that if they don’t have English, they don’t have “language.” Deaf people are very proud of their sign language, even the 90% of them who did not learn it from birth (only 10% of deaf people are born to deaf parents). And many deaf people who are not “native” in ASL still have what would be considered to be “native-like” fluency— better than what I and many other hearing sign language interpreters possess. All in all, though, a fair number of the deaf people we interpret for do not sign more fluently than us C language hearing people do. Deaf education and ASL interpreter education both have a long way to go. I do honor our consumers and my colleagues for doing the best that can be done given the circumstances, and I look forward to the better future we are working toward.

The deaf speaker, presenting to an audience of people who knew ASL pretty well but not fluently, fingerspelled a number I wasn’t entirely sure of. I thought I got it, but wasn’t 100% confident in my perception. I didn’t have a team interpreter to support me in voicing. Someone in the audience said the thing I wasn’t sure of, and it turned out I was right. Yet, after they did that bit of work for me, I asked the presenter to reiterate the lexical item. I was doing consecutive interpreting, and while I was watching the deaf signer, yet another audience member said the thing I wasn’t sure of. I said, “Just a moment. I’m getting this.” And then I said the thing we all thought the deaf person said, only this time I was sure of my interpretation. The dialogue between me and the audience members was quiet, and it didn’t seem to be a big deal for anyone, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it after the assignment.

Why did I do what I did? Was it the most appropriate and effective behavior? What could I have done differently? Why didn’t I just let it go when the audience member guessed rightly? And, even if they had guessed wrongly, would it have mattered? These are the questions that nagged me this morning.

I think I did what I did for several reasons I’m not necessarily proud of.

1. I didn’t trust myself.
2. I overestimated the importance of the little thing I missed.
3. I wanted to control my work.
4. I didn’t want to set an unfavorable precedent.

Notice I said, “not necessarily proud of.” That is not to say that it’s never okay to do these things. It is just to say that, in this case, I don’t think any of those “intrapersonal demands” in Demand-Control Schema (Karasek, 1979; Karasek & Theorell, 1990; Dean & Pollard, 2001) were well founded. First of all, I need to get better at trusting myself when I’m 90% sure I’m right; second, I need to get better at realizing when something’s just not that important; third, control is an illusion (or so they say); fourth, and the point of this post, is what is so wrong with letting consumers doing our work for us once in a while?

Could two different members of the audience both be wrong about something I’m 90% sure I’m right about? Unlikely. As far as precedent is concerned, there may be times we want our consumers to let us do our job because we are the interpreter in the room; they are not. It is sometimes not a good thing to have more than one person interpreting at once. And it is not a good thing if the “peanut gallery” gets the interpretation wrong. But we have to look at each case individually and not be rigid. In this case, I don’t think it would have done any harm at all to allow what happened to happen and let it go. It would have modeled good interpreter behavior, acknowledged them for their linguistic ability, and let the speaker go on unimpeded. If I had it to do over, my “control” in Demand-Control Schema would be either to say nothing or say something funny like, “what she said!” Next time, next time…

Incidentally, after I analyzed this interpreting scenario this morning, I read this today in a book by one of the world’s foremost experts on interpreting:

It should be noted that in interpreting, unlike translation, all parties concerned are aware of the communication situation, including possible difficulties associated with the interlingual and sometimes intercultural transfer. Since generally all parties wish to communicate, more cooperation can be expected from them than in translation…. Cooperation may also be forthcoming from listeners, especially in consecutive, where they can help the interpreter with word equivalents and generally listen sympathetically, though this is not always the case. In other words, although the interpreter essentially works alone, he or she may be helped through on-line interaction with both Sender and Receiver, while in translation such interaction is rather rare (Gile, 1995, emphasis mine).

It was so great to read something this afternoon that reinforces the reflections I had this morning! We interpreters should always strive to do our best. One way we can do our best is to be humble enough to let our consumers do our work for us sometimes.

Resources

Dean, R. K. & Pollard, R. Q (2001). The 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.

Gile, D. (1995). Basic concepts and models for interpreter and translator training (p.24). Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Keep watching here for details about future workshops!

Upcoming workshops:

• September 24, 2011, Virginia Beach, VA: Vague Language
• October 15, 2011, Milwaukee, WI: Vague Language

Recent workshops:

• August 20, 2011, Honolulu, HI: Vague Language
• August 12, 2011, Monmouth, OR: Vague Language

For more information about the workshops I offer, take a gander at my Interpreting Workshops page.

Prompt for comments

Have you ever had a speaking engagement cancelled or have you ever had to cancel one as a planner? Or perhaps a college class? Do you have any ideas about getting sufficient registration to avoid cancellation?

Please register right now.

Daniel is a very dynamic presenter!

Daniel Greene, BA, CI & CT, NIC Master, has been brought out to present his Vague Language (VL) workshop in Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Hawaii, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. He has presented on VL locally as well as at state and national conferences. Nationally known for his feature article “Just What They Said: Interpreting Intentionally Vague Language” in the RID Views Spring 2011 edition, Daniel is furthering his research of vague language in the Master of Arts in Interpreting Studies program through Western Oregon University.

Loved, loved, loved Daniel’s passion for his work and wanting colleagues to improve and expand knowledge.

Daniel’s Genre Recognition workshop has been well received at the local, state, and national level. In addition to presenting several times at the Desert Valleys Regional Cooperative, he also presented on Genre Recognition at the Arizona RID State Conference in Phoenix, Arizona and at the RID Region V Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Daniel is an active member of the Conference of Interpreter Trainers and loved attending the 2006 conference in San Diego and the 2010 conference in San Antonio.

I really enjoyed this workshop and how Daniel presented it. I feel like I learned a lot on the topic and that it will help me in my interpreting. I loved the open participation.

Workshops Descriptions

Just What They Said: Interpreting Intentionally Vague Language

As Interpreters, we tend to be very direct about delivering the message, but what if our consumers intend to “beat around the bush”? How do you interpret such messages without being blunt? Participants will study and explore the use of vague language (VL) in both English and ASL, the communicative purposes of VL, the importance of retaining ambiguity when conveying vague messages from one language to another, the benefits of leaving language vague instead of interrupting to request clarification, and specific strategies for conveying VL in both ASL and English. As a result of deeper interpreting studies, this workshop is constantly evolving, discovering increasingly unique and intriguing perspectives on sociolinguistic interpreting models and ethics.

Knowing What They’re Going To Say Before They Say It: Using Genre Recognition To Improve Predictive Skills

Ever miss a joke while interpreting or realize that a story was a cautionary tale only after the fact? We interpreters can become so focused on the words that we miss the point. An interpreter who grasps the speaker’s goal and the “type” of story that is being told or the “kind” of conversation that is taking place has a better shot at delivering a cohesive message. This workshop introduces attendees to genre theory and teaches the skill of genre recognition. Attendees will be guided in the recognition of generic elements of discourse and will be empowered to enhance their predictive skills, thus increasing their self-confidence and composure while improving the accuracy and effectiveness of their interpretations.

How “faithfully” or “literally” should interpreters convey signed English (or Contact Language) into spoken English when sign-to-voice interpreting? Does it make sense to use the “meaning model” or “sense theory” to receive the signed English message, drop all the mouthed, signed, and fingerspelled English words, phrases, and figures of speech, conceptualize it, and speak the “meaning” of it in English?

I tried doing consecutive interpreting lately on 1:1 consultative assignments with deaf consumers who are visiting doctors, social workers, etc. These consumers signed fluently in a mostly English word order. I tried to receive their signed English, conceptualize the message more deeply than I usually do in simultaneous transliteration, and remember some of their word choices. What I found was that the processing time helped me avoid miscues or “false starts,” but I forgot some of their wording.

Does it matter if the interpreter loses some of the deaf consumer’s word choices, turns of phrase, etc.? Or is it more important that the interpreter convey the consumer’s conceptual meaning regardless of language? I would like to hear from sign language interpreters and deaf & hearing consumers of interpreting services.

I based this discussion on sources I have read but cannot remember whom to cite anymore, as well as some I have read this morning to jog my memory and find something specific I could use as a citation:

Anukriti.net About Translation.

Vicars, B. (n.d.). American Sign Language: contact signing. On “American Sign Language University” at Lifeprint.com – A resource for ASL students and teachers. American Sign Language: Contact Signing.

Wikipedia – Language Contact. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_contact.

The other morning for the Master of Arts in Interpreting Studies, I read a quotation of Danica Seleskovitch’s “Théorie du Sens” or “Meaning Model” and I’m not sure it applies to sign language interpreters who interpret contact language between English speakers and bilingual English/ASL deaf signers. After all, it is not that most deaf people don’t know English; it is that they can’t hear it. The only time I do what Seleskovitch describes is when I’m interpreting for ASL monolinguals, and even in their ASL there is often some English. Is there any “pure” ASL that we can apply the Meaning Model to?

Relating how I became an interpreter in 18 months to the chapter “The 10,000 Hour Rule” from the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. What is your “10,000 Hour” story?

A video response to Mikey Krajnak’s video about ways that interpreters accept and deal with feedback. I relate my experience in the MA in Interpreting Studies program at WOU and what I’m learning about effective and nonjudgmental ways interpreters can give each other feedback, including Demand-Control Schema, Observation-Supervision, and Case Conferencing. I also ask Mikey what he thinks about whether “the customer is always right” and how to give good customer service as an interpreting professional.

My reflections after the first week of our two-week face-to-face session (or colloquium). I learned a lot, and I share what I learned about feedback as a follow-up to the video I posted about receiving unsolicited feedback last week. Topics include Demand-Control Schema, Talking about “The Work,” practitioner-centered approach, professional discussion, case conferencing, listening, observation/supervision, nonjudgmental inquiry, guided self-discovery, etc.