Sign-To-Text Interpreting (Was Interpreters as Typists)

[twflynn at aol.com]

I had a?discussion on just this topic, about two years ago,?with an agency that has Deaf employees. 

The agency wanted me to provide ten or twelve workshops to help the Deaf employees improve their written English. The agency has interpreters on staff, so I tried to convince the agency to use the interpreters - let the Deaf employees sign their texts, let the interpreters voice the text onto audio tape, and let the secretaries transcribe the voicing onto paper.

The agency no longer hires secretaries - each employee writes?documents on her/his own?desktop computer.

So I recommended that the interpreter?watch the signed text (in real time) and transcribe it onto the Deaf employee's desktop computer. 

My thought is that the interpreter's job is to convert text from?source language to target language, but the target language doesn't necessarily have to be produced with the voice.?Converting from signed ASL to written English is just as much within the purview of "interpreting" as going from signed ASL to spoken English. Technically, it might be defined more as "translating", or somewhere on a continuum between translating and interpreting, but all of that is a moot point to a Deaf individual who needs to transcribe a spoken language. And there is probably more need for?sign-to-text interpreting than most people imagine?- or there will be as more and more Deaf individuals take mainstreamed jobs under the ADA (here in the US). 

Some caveats: 

1. The interpreter may want or need to use the consecutive mode of interpreting for this kind of work. Typing is generally slower than speaking. 

2. The interpreter ought not to be held responsible for formatting the document - the Deaf employee should know the company/agency expectations for that sort of thing.

3. The?interpreter should be held responsible for correct syntax, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and punctuation. Anna Whitter Merithew maintains that interpreters need to know both languages (source and target) deeply; knowing the syntax, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and punctuation is simply part of knowing the target language deeply.

Tom Flynn

________________________________________________________________________
More new features than ever.  Check out the new AOL Mail ! - http://webmail.aol.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/slling-l/attachments/20080225/328c8ebc/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
SLLING-L mailing list
SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l