Daniel Greene

Category: Education

  • I remember a time before… yet where are we now?

    I started thinking tonight about how I remembered a time before every town — nay, every corner — had a Walgreen, Walmart, Starbucks, CVS, Dollar General, QT, 7-11 (are there 7-11’s anymore?), Circle K, etc. Then I realized it was September 11th and it would be wrong not to add that to the mix. Well, this is not a Nine Eleven post, but it’s on 9/11, so I will add to this that, unlike anyone eleven years old or younger today, I remember a time before 9/11. I remember a time when we called the World Trade Center the twin towers. I remember when Philippe Petit walked between them on a tightrope. I remember a time before the twin towers. I remember a time before motion screen billboards. I remember a time before wrap billboards. I remember a time when billboards were rolled out in paper and the strips had to line up just so. I remember a time before Apple. I remember a time before Microsoft. I remember a time before the iPhone, the iPad, Google, AOL, Facebook, Twitter, Quora (I don’t even use Quora), social media, sexual harassment (as a term)… although I remember hearing a joke about Catholic priests and choir boys at summer camp when I was 10,  in 1977, just before this movie called Star Wars came out. So let’s say I remember a time before people said they were shocked that Roman Catholic priests were molesting and raping boys– I remember when it was so well-known there were jokes about it. Hypocrites.

    Hmph. As I was saying… I remember when I had never heard of Starbucks. I remember the first time I saw one I was vacationing in Seattle in 1990. Within a year or two, they were everywhere. I remember when a tweet was a sound a bird made, blah, blah, blah. I’m 45. It’s not so old.

    And yet, you know what else I remember? I remember when I was in first and second grade and being told we had to learn the metric system because we would all be moving to it. Whatever happened to that, huh? I remember when we were going to go solar in the 70s. Whatever happened to that? I grew up watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek, and Space 1999. I thought we would be living on the moon by the end of the twentieth century and in space by the twenty-first. I also grew up believing in and praying fervently for World Peace by the Year 2000! (Soka Gakkai) How about that world peace? Well, if we can’t even switch to the metric system…

    I am not a man who is shocked at all this “newfangled technology.” I’m a boy who grew up expecting a world bigger, better, greater, and more peaceful than what we have now. I hear it’s patent law and trademark and copyright and litigation that’s holding us back, and I’m not surprised. I see trillions (is that enough, or is it quadrillions?) of people burned, bloodied, killed, wasted, and wounded in war, killing, destruction, neglect… I see money stolen from the middle class and given to the rich while the poor have less of a chance of becoming middle class.

    We have such great technology, it’s both awesome and terrifying. When I see what filmmakers do with technology, sometimes it restores my faith in humanity. A lot of what people do with technology in social media, photos, videos, words, music– these things restore my faith in humanity. I suppose I should count us lucky that our whole world hasn’t been demolished, and I do! We are lucky, and I guess we are doing something right. We have a long way to go, though. It’s not too late to adopt that metric system, go solar, wind, water, clean energy, sustainable. It’s not too late to make this world the great place we thought it would be when we grew up. I think I have an idea for tomorrow morning. I’m going to wake up and ask myself, “What can I do today to help make this world as great as I hoped it would be when I was a boy?”

  • Interesting link: 10 questions for a conference interpreter at the European Parliament

    Monterey Institute of International Studies – 10 QUESTIONS for:

    Karen Gross, Conference Interpreter at the European Parliament

  • I am loving teaching!

    I am loving co-teaching this Intro to Interpreting class! As we enter the third week, things are getting more challenging and exciting.

  • Specializations vs. special skills: An interpreter’s scope and abilities

    Confused
    Confused (Photo credit: CollegeDegrees360)

    Having shared my first essay about settings vs. specializations with an Introduction to Interpreting class, I now realize I wasn’t clear enough the first time I wrote on the topic. One confusing aspect is that I called oral transliteration and tactile interpreting “specializations,” which doesn’t quite jibe with the way the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) defines “specialist” and “generalist” certificates. Let me break it down:

    Oral transliteration and the Oral Transliteration Certificate (OTC)

    Oral transliteration is what I would call a specialization — or at least I would have called it so last week. Not everyone can mouth clearly for people who read lips (or, more accurately, “speechread”). Certainly not every spoken/signed language interpreter knows how to mouth spoken language and use natural gestures without signing or mouthing the mouth morphemes that go with signs. Nevertheless, now that I have read and thought about “specialization” the last few days, I have to call oral transliteration a “special skill.”

    …special skills, specializations, and settings are three different things.

    I am coming to understand that “specialization” has more do with focusing one’s scope of practice in certain settings such as educational, medical, performing arts, religious, mental health, or legal interpreting. Yes, oral transliteration for oral deaf people and tactile and close-vision interpreting for Deaf-Blind people are special skills. And, yes, having those skills may lead one into specialized settings such as Deaf-Blind conferences and social events, but it is debatable whether Deaf-Blind interpreting is a “specialization” since one can interpret for Deaf-Blind people anywhere — at the doctor’s office, in a classroom, in a courtroom, at a conference of mostly hearing people, etc. In short, interpreters may “specialize” to work in certain settings, and special skills may lead you or equip you to work in certain settings, but special skills, specialization, and settings are three different things.

    The OTC is a “Generalist” certificate

    However “special” the skill of oral transliteration is, RID’s OTC is a “generalist” certification. RID’s Generalist Certification pagedefines “generalist” thus:

    Generalist certifications recognize professional interpreters who have met or exceeded a nationally recognized standard of minimum competence in interpreting and/or transliterating.

    Yet how does a certified oral transliterator to gain entry into legal interpreting? RID goes on to say:

    Individual certifications vary in their scope, so it is important to know what each credential means.

    So what is the “scope” of the oral transliterator? That page on the RID website does not say. To find out how oral transliterators specialize in legal interpreting, I Googled ‘”oral transliteration” legal interpreting’ and found an Oral Transliteration Certificate (OTC) Examination Information Bulletin that simply says in 1988, RID concurrently worked on developing certification for legal interpreters and (separately) oral transliteration. There is no mention of oral transliteration in legal settings (p. 4). It also mentions that one of the benefits of membership in the Alexander Graham Bell Association (AGB) is Volta Voices, a publication that has medical and legal columns (p. 5). I suppose an oral transliterator could specialize in legal interpreting by studying legal protocol and terminology. Unlike ASL-English (and/or Spanish) interpreters, they don’t have to learn how to talk about law in any language other than English.

    Oral Transliterators licensed to do legal interpreting in Arizona

    How can an oral transliterator get a license to do legal interpreting in the state of Arizona? (And when I say “legal interpreting,” I don’t mean “lawful interpreting” or “interpreting legally.” I mean interpreting in judicial and law enforcement settings.) I searched the Arizona Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (ACDHH) website for “legal interpreting” and found the Initial General or Legal License Application. The section for legal interpreting shows that someone who holds an OTC can only apply for a Class D license, not a class A, B, or C. That is okay, though, because according to this video on  interpreting licensure (which has both captioning and voiceover) Class D is only for oral transliterators and Deaf interpreters (“relay” or “intermediary” interpreters who work between hearing interpreters and deaf consumers who do not communicate effectively with the hearing interpreter and vice versa). Interestingly, according to the application form, applicants for classes A, B, and C all have to sign an affidavit stating they have worked over 10,000 hours since first becoming certified, while Deaf interpreters and oral transliterators only have to have 25 hours experience of any kind past certification.

    The significantly lower requirements for deaf interpreters and oral transliterators in legal settings makes me wonder why legal interpreting requires a specialist certificate of some interpreters but not of all. If it is because of the specialized vocabulary and protocols, then those would apply to deaf and oral interpreters as well. I suppose the difference is a) the rarity of deaf and oral interpreters and b) the softer language barrier between sign varieties for deaf interpreters and diction for oral interpreters than there is for interpreters who have to know how to “interpret” legalese into and from two different languages. Given what can reasonably be expected of special interpreters serving special populations, and given the lack of motivation one might have to specialize in law, I guess it is sort of “sink or swim” for these practitioners. Their incentive to acquire the skills necessary to succeed as legal specialists probably stems from a desire to do good work for others or at least a desire to make it easier on themselves. Luckily, there are law classes people can take, and there are legal interpreting workshops offered by ASL-English-Spanish interpreters that are accessible to both Deaf interpreters and oral transliterators.

    Specialization — when does it end?

    Why do legal interpreters need a specialist certificate when medical interpreters do not? Is not medical interpreting a specialization? Yes, it is, but RID does not have a specialist certificate for it. Is performing arts interpreting a specialization? Yes, it is, and RID used to award a specialist certificate for it (the SC:PA), but it doesn’t anymore. How about political interpreting? Religious interpreting? Academic interpreting? Mental health interpreting? Sports interpreting? Should all specializations require specialist certificates? Once we start certifying interpreters for specializations, where does it end? So far it has stopped at legal, but there is something on the horizon called the Certified Medical Interpreter (CMI) and that, my friends, is “beyond the scope of this article.”

    Psst! Stay tuned. I’ve already started a draft.

  • Me in my fingerspelled university t-shirt

    Me in T-shirt
    Me in my fingerspelled W-E-S-T-E-R-N Oregon University t-shirt