Deaf Interpreters at Work Melanie Metzger and Earl Fleetwood, General Editors VOLUME 1 From Topic Boundaries to Omission: New Research on Interpretation Melanie Metzger, Steven Collins, Valerie Dively, and Risa Shaw, Editors VOLUME 2 Attitudes, Innuendo, and Regulators: Challenges of Interpretation Melanie Metzger and Earl Fleetwood, Editors VOLUME 3 Translation, Sociolinguistic, and Consumer Issues in Interpreting Melanie Metzger and Earl Fleetwood, Editors VOLUME 4 Interpreting in Legal Settings Debra Russell and Sandra Hale, Editors VOLUME 5 Prosodic Markers and Utterance Boundaries in American Sign Language Interpretation Brenda Nicodemus VOLUME 6 Toward a Deaf Translation Norm Christopher Stone VOLUME 7 Interpreting in Multilingual, Multicultural Contexts Rachel Locker McKee and Jeffrey E. Davis, Editors VOLUME 8 Video Relay Service Interpreters: Intricacies of Sign Language Access Jeremy L. Brunson VOLUME 9 Signed Language Interpreting in Brazil Ronice Müller de Quadros, Earl Fleetwood, and Melanie Metzger, Editors VOLUME 10 More than Meets the Eye: Revealing the Complexities of K–12 Interpreting Melissa B. Smith VOLUME 11 Deaf Interpreters at Work: International Insights Robert Adam, Christopher Stone, Steven D. Collins, and Melanie Metzger, Editors Deaf Interpreters at Work International Insights Robert Adam, Christopher Stone, Steven D. Collins, and Melanie Metzger, Editors GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY PRESS Washington, DC Studies in Interpretation A Series Edited by Melanie Metzger and Earl Fleetwood Gallaudet University Press Washington, DC 20002 http://gupress.gallaudet.edu © 2014 by Gallaudet University All rights reserved. Published 2014 Printed in the United States of America ISBN 1-56368-609-0; 978-1-56368-609-2 ISSN 1545-7613 This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). Contents Preface, vi List of Figures, x List of Tables, xi Deaf Interpreters: An Introduction 1 Robert Adam, Markus Aro, Juan Carlos Druetta, Senan Dunne, and Juli af Klintberg DI(2) = Team Interpreting 19 Stephanie Sforza Deaf Interpreters: The Dynamics of Their Interpreting Processes 29 Eileen M. Forestal Testing Times: Toward the Professionalization of Deaf Interpreters in Australia 51 Karen Bontempo, Della Goswell, Patricia Levitzke-Gray, Jemina Napier, and Linda Warby Deaf and Hearing Interpreting Team Preparation: A Study Using Conversation Analysis 90 Brenda Nicodemus and Marty M. Taylor Adverbial Morphemes in Tactile Sign Language: Deaf-Blind Interpreting 117 Steven D. Collins Conference Interpreting and Interpreting Teams 140 Christopher Stone and Debra Russell Contributors, 157 Index, 159 v Preface Although this may be the eleventh volume in the series “Studies in Interpretation” published by Gallaudet University Press, this is the fi rst that focuses on the research studying t he work of Deaf interpreters. While this is by no means an exhaustive compendium of this topic, it is the fi rst attempt that collates the work done to date and to present to the reader the fi rst volume that seeks to present a discourse that includes: a defi ni- tion of a Deaf interpreter, the kind of work Deaf interpreters undertake, the ways in which Deaf interpreters work, the kind of training available for Deaf interpreters in some places around the world, and how Deaf interpreters work with DeafBlind people. It is hoped that this will not be the last such volume. The journey for many Deaf interpreters has not been an easy one. The earliest known record of a Deaf person working as a language broker is from an essay dated 1684 (Carty, Macready, & Sayers, 2009) telling the story of how Matthew Pratt born in Massachusetts in 1628, the Deaf husband of Sarah Pratt, who was born in 1640 wrote a sight “transla- tion” of his wife’s responses to a conversation between Sarah and church elders. However, working as a Deaf interpreter has been given little con- sideration and only became viewed as a profession in the present era. In many countries Deaf interpreters are not considered an essential compo- nent of quality interpreter service provision, and experience issues of low status and lack of professional respect. This volume will hopefully build on some of the early work by MJ Bienvenu and Betty Colonomos (1992), and the seminal publications examining the work of Deaf interpreters by Patrick Boudreault (2005), the work and training issues for Deaf interpreters by Eileen Forestal (2005) who has fortunately agreed to be a contributor to this volume, and the analysis of Deaf interpreters working in the television media by Christopher Stone (2009) who is also one of the contributors as well as an editor of this volume. There is great scope for more work of this ilk. Deaf people are increas- ingly working in a broader number of domains, in many countries around the world. With more research Deaf people are increasingly given the opportunity to receive training to work as professional Deaf interpret- ers, and there are many other regions such as Africa and Asia where such vi potential for greater examination of this topic exists. In this fi rst-of-its kind volume, 17 widely respected scholars from around the world depict the everyday practices of Deaf interpreters in their respective nations, and add to the growing body of knowledge relating to Deaf interpreters. In the future there could be work that examines the domains not discussed at length in this volume (broadcast media and the internet, weddings and funerals, educational settings to name but a few). Robert Adam, Markus Aro, Senan Dunne, Juan Carlos Druetta and Julia af Klintberg who are all Deaf and from different sign language backgrounds discuss their work and experiences as Deaf interpreters, and offer a defi nition of a Deaf interpreter. They also present different settings in which a Deaf interpreter can work, which range from the individual client to an international event, using video technology. Stephanie Sforza, a graduate of the master’s interpreting program at Gallaudet University shares her insight into Deaf interpreters working in deaf-deaf teams based on data collected in her thesis study. She analyses the work done and strategies used in a team while an interpreter is “on” and while an interpreter is “off.” Eileen Forestal examines the processes involved with Deaf interpreters working with the Deaf consumer, the hearing consumer and the hearing interpreter. Based on a qualitative analysis of data, she offers an insight into the thought process and the relationship between the team mem- bers. She comes up with a dialogic discourse-based interaction model and offers suggestions for a community-based model of interpreting. Karen Bontempo, Della Goswell, Patricia Levitzke-Gray, Jemina Napier, and Linda Warby examine the journey towards accreditation of Deaf interpreters in Australia where, at the time, training for and accred- itation of Deaf interpreters was not available, in spite of Deaf people continuing to have been employed on an ad hoc basis. The Deaf Relay Interpreter Certifi cation Project (DRICP) arose from the need for a stan- dardized test for Deaf interpreters and included a discussion of the com- petencies and how they would be assessed. Bontempo and her coauthors analyze the project and offer recommendations for future action. Brenda Nicodemus and Marty Taylor present a case study of a Deaf interpreter and a hearing interpreter preparing for an assignment from a conversation analysis perspective, examining the various stages using this framework: the opening, turn taking, adjacency pairs, repairs and closing. They conclude, having found that these two interpreters in this study use the interactional units and rules in the conversation analysis Preface : vii framework, that these two colleagues use a collaborative team building approach to this. Steven Collins discusses the use of adverbial morphemes in the use of tactile sign language when working with DeafBlind people. Adverbials in sign language are usually non-manual features and Deaf interpreters often have to use additional strategies to relay this information. Because of the heterogeneity of the DeafBlind population, Collins discusses the subjects in this study and explains how this work deals with categories, including manner and degree of signs, adverbials of time, duration, fre- quency and location, and concludes that there is a grammatical variation between visual ASL and tactile ASL. Christopher Stone and Debra Russell examine Deaf and nonDeaf interpreters working in teams while conference interpreting, and explore the strategies of working in a Deaf and nonDeaf interpreter setting in an international setting. They draw conclusions from both fi lmed data and from semi-structured interviews with the practitioners in this study, which they analyze to delineate the different strategies used in these set- tings. They conclude, highlighting that the Deaf and nonDeaf interpreter work very much as a unit, that the dynamics of this work needs to be examined further. We are honored to present this volume to you, the reader, and hope that this will be the fi rst of many opportunities for the work of Deaf inter- preters, alone and in collaboration with Deaf and nonDeaf interpreters to be examined, in order that this research may inform the training, accredi- tation and continued development of Deaf interpreters around the world. Robert Adam, Christopher Stone, Steven D. Collins, and Melanie Metzger, Editors Washington, DC REFERENCES Bienvenu, MJ., & Colonomos, B. (1992). Relay interpreting in the 90’s. In L. Swabey (Ed.), Proceedings of the Eighth National Convention of the Con- ference of Interpreter Trainers. N.p.: Conference of Interpreter Trainers. Boudreault, P. (2005). Deaf interpreters. In T. Janzen (Ed.), Topics in signed language interpreting (pp. 323–56). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Carty, B., Macready, S., & Sayers, E. E. (2009). “A grave and gracious woman”: Deaf people and signed language in colonial New England. Sign Language Studies, 9(3), 38. viii : preface Forestal, E. (2005). The emerging professionals: Deaf interpreters and their views and experiences of training. In M. Marsharck, R. Peterson, E. A. Winston & P. Sapere (Eds.), Sign language interpreting and interpreter education: Direc- tions for research and practice. (pp. 235–58). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stone, C. (2009). Towards a Deaf translation norm. Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press. Preface : ix