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Interpreting ASU Downtown Grand Opening in 2006

Apr 12

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Here is a sample of my platform interpreting. Had the opportunity to interpret the grand opening ceremonies of Arizona State University (ASU)’s downtown campus five years ago in Phoenix, Arizona. It took me a while to post this, but now I “have the technology,” so here it is.

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The truth on interpreters for deaf at WordCamp Phoenix 2011

Jan 23

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I was “the interpreter” who offered to coordinate interpreters for WordCamp Phoenix 2011. I wish I could remain silent, but the blog post I’m responding to has been viewed almost 900 times already and has already been sanctioned by a famous deaf blogger who I believe would think otherwise if he read my side of the story. So, before anyone else is misled, allow me to set the record straight.

I first spoke with Amanda, the conference organizer, on Thursday afternoon, January 14, and offered to interpret and coordinate. She told me the budget was $2,000 for a four–track conference which would need a maximum of eight interpreters. I figured I could get four professional interpreters to earn $50 an hour, get four students to volunteer their services pro bono, and that would still leave $400, half of which might go toward compensating me for coordinating services, and half of which might go toward gift cards for students.

That same night, I found out that Amanda had un–registered a deaf registrant because she didn’t like her attitude. I advocated for the ousted registrant, emailing Amanda, “Deaf people routinely face discrimination and have to fight for their rights. In light of this, I find the registrant’s demands assertive rather than aggressive.” I even followed this up another day and asked Amanda if she would please consider reinstating her. Amanda was immovable.

I should mention that the first deaf registrant had approached me around Thanksgiving about interpreting for WordCamp. I had said I would be interested and asked him to send me more information, but the holidays came and went before I saw an announcement from Amanda on the Arizona RID Yahoo Group. I knew how important it was for this deaf person to attend WordCamp, so I decided to provide for him even though I was not happy with Amanda’s handling of the other deaf registrant.

By the end of the week, I had offers from two other professionals and at least four other students. At this point, all I needed was one more professional if (and that’s a big “if”) there were deaf attendees in all four tracks on Saturday. Read the rest of this entry →

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Rave Review for my Vague Language Workshop

Oct 3

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I was honored that a participant in my Vague Language (VL) workshop for ASL interpreters was moved to write this review for our local chapter of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (Arizona RID). The writer wishes to remain anonymous, but I found out who they are and got their permission to publish their review on my website. I assure you that this review was entirely unsolicited and is reprinted here in the writer’s original words. Here it is!

Hi everyone. I was able to attend the workshop this past Saturday by Daniel Greene entitled, “Just What They Said: Retaining Ambiguity When Interpreting Vague Language.” This was an excellent workshop for a number of reasons and I’m thrilled that Daniel has taken it up to present this topic because it is one thing I know I have struggled with and it hasn’t been addressed enough in regards to the work we do as interpreters. There was so much that I learned.

It was all about vague language of course which has really been brought to light, I think, by video relay interpreting but certainly applies to the work we do in education. It is a fairly new topic in linguistic studies too. It is the concept that people do use vague and unspecific language in their everyday interactions and often it is for a purpose that they are being vague. This brings up the question, do we as interpreters then clean it up and make it clear, do we interrupt the conversation to get clarification, or do we just render the message as vague as it was given? Keep in mind it might be the person’s goal to be vague.

For example: a teenager might wish to cover up the truth to avoid getting in trouble; a teacher might wish to protect a student’s feeling when giving feedback about work; a person might just be trying to be polite in their use of words; a doctor might wish to be less direct about a person’s life expectancy; a counselor might purposely need to ask an open ended question without leading the client with examples. How much of this can and should an interpreter try to clarify?

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Speak & Spell II a Successful Workshop

My first Speak & Spell workshop went so well that people demanded more, so I put together a Speak & Spell II workshop. I improved upon the first workshop by organizing all the phonological and orthographical features by feature rather than by language. I also tweaked a few other things based on participant feedback.

Eleven people attended the second of my phonology / orthography workshops, Speak & Spell II. It went very well. I got the workshop evaluation feedback today, and the average of all scores was 5.0, the highest rating possible.

My next workshop, "Just What They Said: Retaining Ambiguity when Interpreting Vague Language" is next Saturday, September 26th, from 1-6:30 PM in the same location, the Desert Valleys Regional Cooperative. Thanks to Joy Marks who continues to support my workshops and allows me to use this excellent facility. This coming workshop is sponsored by the Arizona Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf. Anyone interested may register and pay for the workshop on Arizona RID’s Professional Development page.

Interpreted my first Shakespeare play!

Apr 20

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A lot has happened since I last wrote a blog post, but this post is about how I interpreted my first Shakespeare play.

I had been preparing to interpret The Merchant of Venice for the Southwest Shakespeare Company at the Mesa Arts Center since early March, but after I presented my workshop at the Arizona RID State Conference at the end of March, I got to work on Merchant in ernest.

My co-interpreter, Sandra Solomon, who had already interpreted four shows for SW Shakespeare Co., met with me several times to rehearse interpreting the show. We corresponded with Missy Keast, our ASL Producer, via e-mail and met with her over videoconference to show her some of our interpreting and get her feedback, which was very beneficial. (Sandra came to my house and we sat together in front of my iMac with built-in iSight camera and used iChat to connect to Missy in Hawaii, since she also has a Mac with built in iSight and iChat. I only wish we’d been able to do this more than once.)

In addition to meeting a few times at each other’s homes to discuss the play and rehearse, Read the rest of this entry →

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