Daniel Greene

Tag: Deaf

Posts about Deaf people and deafness

  • Workshops on deaf-blind interpreting, oral transliteration at RID V in Hawaii

    Workshops on deaf-blind interpreting, oral transliteration at RID V in Hawaii

    I am presenting two workshops at the RID Region V conference in Hawaii June 13–17:

    Lend me an ear. And a hand. And a black shirt: What you need to know about deaf-blind interpreting.

    Have you ever had consumers who asked you to “sign small” and “wear a black shirt”? If you have done video interpreting, chances are you have interpreted for deaf-blind “low vision” consumers at least a few times. Less likely is that you have interpreted for low vision consumers in person, and even less likely is that you have ever done tactile interpreting— which technology has not yet made possible over VRS. This workshop will introduce you to various kinds of blindness and teach you how to accommodate your signing space to the resulting kinds of “low vision.” You will also learn the basic techniques of tactile interpreting and informing the consumer about the environment. Come expand your repertoire. No black shirts required.

    Read my lips: Making English visible through oral transliteration

    This workshop provides an overview of oral transliteration: what it is, who uses it, and how to do it right. Come and learn: Why some deaf people want to read your lips; How you can be pro-Deaf culture and still respect and serve oral deaf people; How you can transfer what you’ve learned in ASL interpreting to oral transliteration. Have you ever been sent to a job where the person didn’t know sign language but wanted to read your lips, and you didn’t know what to do? Here’s a good place to start. Unlearn some of the “good habits” in sign interpretation that are “bad habits” in oral transliteration. Increase the number of consumers you can serve. People of all knowledge levels are welcome.

  • Participated in an ASL Hangout on Air on Google+

    I just realized I never blogged this! Did this last month on Google+ to help them test their Hangout On Air technology with other people using sign language.

  • Spoke to Deaf interpreters about ethical business practices today

    https://twitter.com/#!/danielgreene/status/160980607948689409

  • Are most ASL interpreters working in their C language?

    TerpTrans logoI began writing this as a comment to C is for… – The Interpreter’s Languages (Part II), a follow-up to Learning your ABCs – The Interpreter’s Languages (Part I)— both posts from the blog The Interpreter Diaries. The comment got so long, though, I decided to make it a post on my own interpreting blog. So, here we go.

    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, (more…)

  • Why shouldn’t I let my consumers do my work for me sometimes?

    Some interpreters just hate it when they’re trying to interpret from ASL to English and someone in the audience who knows sign language blurts out a word the interpreter missed or is trying to think of. I had such an interpreting experience recently, and it made me think about my willingness to let my consumers help me with my interpretation. Looking at it now, I think it is a question of humility, not laziness, but that is the wisdom of hindsight talking. Let me bring you back to the not-so-wise moment when I had a conflict with my audience.

    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: (more…)