Interpreting at TISLR 8, Barcelona 2004

[Ulrike Zeshan]

Hi,

the discussion so far has, I think, come up with some creative ideas that
we could work on further. I am trying to summarize from the discussion so
far the points which to me seem promising and creative, fur further
discussion:

- Each presenter, as far as they can, to present twice, once in a signed
language and once in a spoken language. This would still not solve all
problems because some people will present in sign languages that few other
people will understand, but it might be a part of the mosaic.

- Together with the previous point or separately, each presenter to hold a
discussion session, presumably the idea being that those who could not
follow the talk well enough due to language problems get a chance to follow
up on some of the content. This would also be especially useful for
participants from countries where sign linguistics is only just beginning
and where therefore people don't have enough background in the field to
easily understand everything.

- Having volunteer interpreters who attend the conference for their own
purposes and as a way of "giving back" to their sign language community (as
Ben Karlin pointed out) and who would volunteer to do some interpreting.
This seems to me financially very promising, especially if we can do things
like:
        - arrange a pre-conference meeting for interpreters where they can have
their own       forum to discuss their issues
        - waive the registration fees for interpreters who volunteer to do some
interpreting
        - think of something else creative that would make the conference
attractive for  interpreters to come and volunteer

There are probably more points, but I can't think of any more right now.
One more problem is that in many countries, there just aren't any qualified
interpreters who could interpret at this level and in this setting. There
are maybe a handful of good sign language interpreters in Turkey if one
looks hard but none of them is likely to know any English at all. In India,
there are lots of bilingual hearing people who also speak English and some
of whom can interpret quite well informally but none I know has any
background in linguistics and very few can interpret simultaneously. That
is, even if we had unlimited funding, the interpreters would still not be
available in many cases. Which means that presenters have to make a greater
effort, for example through an extra discussion session to answer
questions. We could also think about presenters/researchers themselves
volunteering to interpret. I remember Judy Kegl interpreting for Nicaraguan
deaf people at TISLR in Amsterdam. Some researchers, while not being
trained interpreters, might know a sign language through their lingsuitic
work.

>From the point of view of the organizers, it seems that the overall
structure of the conference needs to be reconsidered . That is, the
suggestions above require more time and/or more parallel sessions. I think
Josep Quer had expressed the plan that there should be no parallel
sessions, and this would not be compatible with the suggestions that have
come up in our discussion so far. I have personally not seen a problem in
conferences having parallel sessions. The thoughtful arrangement of
parallel sessions is more important to me.

Ulrike







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Dr. Ulrike Zeshan
Research Centre for Linguistic Typology
Institute for Advanced Study
La Trobe University
Victoria 3086, Australia
ph. +61-3-94796420
fax +61-3-94673053
u.zeshan at latrobe.edu.au
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