Vague language interpreting dilemma of the day: “S/he's something else.” Hard to find an ASL expression that's as vague. Maybe “WOW.” #VL—
Daniel Greene (@danielgreene) March 21, 2012
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A sample video of English-ASL platform interpreting
I’m posting this for anyone who is curious to watch an English-ASL interpreter at work on stage with a speaker. Dr. Johanna Blackley and the Honors Forum coordinator at Mesa Community College were kind enough to let me share this video my interpreting partner took of me with my phone. I asked my team to record it so I could use it for self-assessment in an interpreting studies class I was taking in graduate school. I’m sharing it because I think it’s important for interpreters to see real examples of other interpreters’ work — the hits and misses in this imperfect thing we call interpretation. Most of this sample is dialogue during the Q & A portion at the end of Johanna’s lecture.
Oh, and one more thing — there was no Deaf consumer in the audience that I knew of. We were providing access for anyone who chose to show up, and there might have been someone there I was unaware of, but I had to interpret as if someone were relying on me for access to the event. My professor in the interpreting studies course I mentioned above advised us always to imagine a specific consumer, so I was imagining a client who was a fashion design student who knew something about the topic and was comfortable with both ASL and English. A more authentic interpreting sample would show an interpreter directing the target text at specific consumers. Nevertheless, I hope you can learn something about English-to-ASL interpreting from watching this sample.
P.S. I apologize that this isn’t closed-captioned. It would take several hours that I don’t have these days to transcribe the English dialogue and synchronize it with the speech. I hope you understand.
What interpreters can learn from HTML
What could HyperText Markup Language (HTML) possibly have to teach interpreters? I learned HTML in the nineties, and I made the connection to interpreting the other day when I watched a colleague’s interpretation. The English sentence she interpreted was:
Also you can take them to a consignment shop, which– they’ll buy your clothes, which gives you a little extra money.
My colleague’s ASL interpretation was:
ALSO YOU CAN BRING TO WHAT CALLED C-O-N-S-I-G-N-M-E-N-T STORE. WHAT MEAN GIVE(I-to-them) CLOTHES? GIVE(they-to-me) MONEY. [1]
Notice that my colleague prefaced “consignment shop” with “what’s called” and she changed “which…” to “which means” (I’m back-translating so you get the idea). She effectively marked her terms so that when the listener saw “called,” they would know what came next was a term, and when they saw “which means,” they would know what came next was a definition.
This reminded me of a Definition List (DL) in HTML. Just like all elements in HTML, a DL has beginning and ending “tags” that mark the language in the container as having a semantic value, or being a certain “kind” of information; in other words, they give context to content. A DL is a list of Definition Term (DT) — Definition Description (DD) pairs. This site’s Interpreting Glossary is an example. This is the HTML code:
<dl> <dt>ASL</dt> <dd>(Pronounced “A-S-L.”) American Sign Language, the signed language used by deaf and hard-of-hearing people throughout North America, with the exception of Quebec.</dd> <dt>CDI</dt> <dd>Certified Deaf Interpreter</dd> … </dl>
And this is how your browser renders it:
- ASL
- (Pronounced “A-S-L.”) American Sign Language, the signed language used by deaf and hard-of-hearing people throughout North America, with the exception of Quebec.
- CDI
- Certified Deaf Interpreter
…
The opening tags in angled brackets and the closing tags in angled brackets with a slash show the beginning and end of each element. Marked-up language also shows the boundaries of semantic values; it contains discourse markers, sentence boundaries, and transitional phrases. Marked-up language helps the listener to parse the information, just as HTML helps a Web browser to parse the language on a Web page; it cues the listener to the genre so they can place it in a schema; in other words, it gives context to content. My colleague marked up her language just like HTML!
I have never heard anyone compare interpreting to HTML before, but the idea of semantic markup in interpreting/translation is not new. I remember my mentor, Jean Kelly, taught me to preface a number with what it stands for such as ADDRESS / PHONE NUMBER / COST, etc. I am calling it semantic markup or data tagging for now, but I would love to know if there’s already a term for it.
How about you? Do you appreciate semantic markup in interpretation/translation? Do you think interpreters can learn anything from HTML? As usual, all stakeholders are encouraged to comment, be they clients or practitioners, hearing or deaf, and whether they interpret, transliterate, or translate in spoken and/or signed languages.
Words in ALL CAPS are English glosses of ASL signs, H-Y-P-H-E-N-A-T-E-D words are fingerspelled, and lowercase words are meanings embedded within the three-dimensionality of signs, such as the directionality that creates pronomialization and dative case in “I-to-them” and “Them-to-me.” This is not the only way to notate ASL, but it is what I’m using here.
Vague language interpreting dilemma of the day
When they talk about you, the interpreter, do-do*?
One of the most uncomfortable things for me is when consumers talk about me while I’m interpreting. Here are some examples:
- On stage: “I wonder how he’s going to interpret that. Let’s all watch the interpreter and find out.”
- In a meeting: “This interpreter is very expensive, so we can’t afford to run overtime. I wish we could have gotten him for only an hour, but they insist on being paid for two no matter what.”
- In a meeting where several people are coordinating schedules while I’m interpreting, and I don’t know whether I will be able to–or am willing to or qualified to–return for subsequent meetings: “It all depends on the interpreter’s schedule. We’re all waiting on him. If we can’t get him, we’ll have to look for someone else.”
- “I’m sure the interpreter knows.”
- “This is the worst interpreter I’ve ever had. Don’t ever hire him again.”
- “This is the best interpreter I’ve ever had. Hire him again!”
- On a VRS call: Hearing person: “Is the interpreter cute?” Deaf person: “Oh, yeah! Big time.”
- And my most embarrassing moment ever:
- In a sex ed class with developmentally delayed children: “Boys have penises and girls have vaginas”… Teacher going around the circle, naming kids and their parts: “Molly has a vagina, Jose has a penis, Billy has a penis, Monique has a vagina…” She’s making her way around the circle in my direction. Uh oh. “Tyrone has a penis, Guadalupe has a vagina…” Surely she’ll skip me?? I’m not one of her students!! “Daniel has a penis.” Oh, God. :-0
I know, I know– you may be wondering, “What’s the matter? Why so embarrassed?” That’s a fair enough question. I suppose part of it has to do with the “myth of invisibility” that we interpreters internalize even though we know it isn’t true. We really are visible. We really are there. We really are human. We really do have various ways of interpreting things, we really are expensive (but worth it), we really do have schedules (and probably have them with us), we really do possess knowledge, we really are the worst or best interpreter a person has ever worked with– in their perception at that moment, we really are attractive at any given moment to any given person, and we really do have boy/girl parts. So what’s the problem?
Well, I think it’s natural not to want to be talked about in front of yourself. It’s like the joke, “Um, I’m right here.” We are there to interpret, not to converse. When we converse, we have to put one party on hold while we talk to the other party, and then fill in the other party. It can be distracting and disempowering to the consumers who feel the interpreter is there for them, not to be the center of attention but to serve as a communication facilitator.
What do you think? What do you do? I would like to hear from interpreters/transliterators of all stripes, and I would love to hear from consumers of interpreting services as well. Do you talk about interpreters in front of them? What do you do when someone else does?
*In ASL, we have a sign that’s a lexicalized form of the letters D-O, repeated at least twice, glossed DO-DO. It means something like, “what to do?”, “how to cope?”, “what do you suggest?”, or any number of similar concepts.
Like this:
Consecutive interpreting note-taking tips from Dick Fleming
I just found this on YouTube, and I love it! It is closed-captioned, and it is one video of many in a channel made by international conference interpreters in Europe. Anyone who does consecutive interpreting in any language can benefit from this– and that includes deaf and hearing interpreters who work in English and ASL. I am excited to find this new resource! (New to me, anyway.)
