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American Sign Language Interpreting For D/Deaf Individuals With Disabilities: A Qualitative Study And Practical Guide, Emily Mason

Senior Honors Theses

American Sign Language (ASL) interpreting for d/Deaf individuals with disabilities (DWD) is a complex task, and one which lacks an adequate research-base to inform best practices. Using the foundation of existing literature on closely related topics such as the field of ASL interpreting, educational interpreting, education of DWD individuals, and research about specific disabilities occurring with d/Deafness, I compiled a literature review and created a theoretical conceptual framework concerning this topic. In further investigation of this subject, I also conducted a qualitative study through online questionnaires sent out by email to ASL interpreters located through snowball sampling. The data collected …

Repair Strategies In Consecutive Interpreting: Comparing Professional Interpreters And Interpreting Trainees, Fang Tang

International Journal of Interpreter Education

This empirical study investigates features of interpreters’ use of repair strategies in Chinese-English consecutive interpreting. The data were collected from a consecutive interpreting experiment in which nine professional interpreters and nine interpreting trainees (all native speakers of Chinese with English as their B language) were invited to interpret an authentic speech from Chinese into English. A parallel bilingual corpus was built comprising transcripts of the speech and the interpreting output. All the repair strategies therein were coded for analysis. Follow-up interviews were conducted to elicit interpreters’ recall of their adoption of such strategies. Results show that in general, professional interpreters …

Social Isolation, Anxiety, And Stress Among Vrs/Vri Sign Language Interpreters During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Kolten Schnack

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in increased Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) and increased remote working for interpreters who work in Video Relay Services (VRS) as many have received temporary permission to work from home rather than a central call center. While certain occupational health risks such as stress and burnout for sign language interpreters who work in VRS have been studied, no one has studied general mental health among VRS sign language interpreters under the current pandemic (Dean et al., 2010; Schwenke, 2015; Wessling & Shaw, 2014). This study aimed to collect data on sign language interpreters’ experiences of social …

Use Of A Signing Bioscience Dictionary In Increasing Student Interpreters’ American Sign Language Life Science Vocabulary, Judy Vesel, Diane Clark, Tara Robillard

International Journal of Interpreter Education

Interpreters who are skilled in academic ASL content, such as the vocabulary needed to interpret postsecondary science courses, are rare. This is not surprising, because interpreting training programs focus on developing the skills to fluently interpret from sign to voice as well as voice to sign, not on the specialized vocabulary for more specialized content. This study examined the impact of training interpreting students on the use of a Signing Bioscience Dictionary (SBD). Research involved incorporating terms found in undergraduate biology courses into the SBD, conducting an evaluation, and soliciting recommendations for improvement of the SBD. Key findings showed that …

Driving Without Directions? Modifying Assignments For Deaf Students In An Interpreter Education Class, Margie English, Brenda S. Nicodemus, Danielle Hunt

International Journal of Interpreter Education

In the U.S. and other countries, deaf interpreters are increasingly providing professional interpreting and translation services between one or more languages. One outcome of this trend is that deaf individuals are enrolling in educational degree programs in pursuit of training and credentials for signed language interpreters. Interpreter educators whose experience may have only been with teaching non-deaf students are now seeking to create meaningful learning experiences for their deaf students. In this article, we discuss two course assignments modified for deaf students who were enrolled in a beginning translation course at Gallaudet University and we provide the students’ perspectives about …

Interview With Samoan-English Specialist Mental Health Interpreter Hoy Neng Wong Soon, Jo Anna Burn, Hoy Neng Wong Soon

International Journal of Interpreter Education

This interview was conducted with Hoy Neng Wong Soon, a specialist mental health Samoan-language interpreter from Aotearoa New Zealand³ . Hoy Neng combines her work as a research project manager with the Pacific Islands Families Study with interpreting and translating and also works as a health interpreter and translator educator. Her experiences offer interpreters and educators an insight into mental health settings and into the very demanding area of forensic psychiatry. She is based in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Deaf Women’S Health Vocabulary: Challenges For Interpreters Working In A Language Of Limited Diffusion, George Major, Rachel Mckee

International Journal of Interpreter Education

Interpreters are aware that signed languages often do not have ‘established’ vocabulary for specialized topic domains, including topics that may occur regularly in situations that require interpreting. Healthcare is one such domain where interpreters are often challenged for equivalent signed language vocabulary or ways to communicate about the details of physical conditions, processes and treatments. Motivated by this practice reality, this study analyzed a corpus of deaf New Zealand Sign Language users’ accounts of women’s health-related experiences, to examine the language forms they used to communicate such topics. In this article, we present an analysis of how deaf women express …

Bridging Divides In The Interpreting Profession: Response To Gile And Napier (2020), Hilde Fiva Buzungu, Jessica P. B. Hansen

International Journal of Interpreter Education

This commentary continues the discussion raised by Daniel Gile and Jemina Napier (2020) and aims to examine further the interconnectedness of signed and spoken language interpreting. Whereas Gile and Napier have drawn attention to some dimensions of complexity, we suggest that there are more to be explored. Focusing on the situated nature of interpreting, and including a broader range of practices of spoken language interpreting, we argue that complexities in interpreting are not inherently more present in signed language interpreting than in spoken language interpreting, and that there are situated and local contexts that must be taken more fully into …

From Gestuno Interpreting To International Sign Interpreting: Improved Accessibility?, Anna-Lena Nilsson

Journal of Interpretation

In order to shape the future of our profession, I believe it is necessary for us to also take a critical look at both past and present practices. With that goal in mind, this commentary presents a case study of the sign language interpreting services provided at the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) Congresses held between 1983 and 2019.

During the 1980s and 1990s we witnessed both the professionalization of signed language interpreting at international conferences, and improved accessibility for official delegates of various National Associations of the Deaf (NADs) as well as for other participants. Increasing numbers of …

Forced Transitions: Learning Asl In A Virtual Environment, Kara Gournaris

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

Engagement with native language models is essential for second language acquisition. Social distancing mandates made this interaction nearly impossible for students learning American Sign Language (ASL), at a small rural university in western Oregon. COVID-19 brought with it many challenges, not the least of which was a hurried transition from face-to-face to online learning. The author found that some courses degraded in content and instruction when shifting to an online platform. Without access to community events where native language models were present, ASL students had less opportunities for incidental learning, legitimate peripheral participation, and connection within Deaf communities of practice.

A Lexical Frequency Analysis Of Irish Sign Language, Robert G. Smith, Markus Hofmann

Articles

Word frequency has a significant impact on language acquisition and fluency. It is often a point of reference for the teaching and assessing of a language and indeed, as a control for psycholinguistic studies. This paper presents the results of the first objective frequency analysis of lexical tokens from the Signs of Ireland corpus. We investigate the frequency of fully lexical, partly lexical and non-lexical signs in Irish Sign Language as they are presented in the corpus. We confirm the accuracy of the lexical gloss frequency data with a supplementary corpus subset that is tagged for grammatical class and additional …

A Qualitative Study Of American Sign Language Interpreting For Deaf Individuals With Disabilities, Emily A. Mason

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

There are complexities involved in American Sign Language (ASL) interpreting for the unique population of Deaf individuals with disabilities (DWD), particularly in educational settings, that must be considered. Based on the foundation of existing literature regarding the field of ASL interpreting, educational interpreting, and strategies of working with DWD individuals, the researcher created a theoretical conceptual framework that combined the frameworks of ASL Interpreting and Special Education. The current primary research is aimed at addressing another portion of the gap, that is, research regarding practical experiences in working with this population. This study was conducted through questionnaires sent out through …

Exploring The Acquisition Of American Sign Language By Deaf Kindergarten Children: Early Language Access And The Use Of Appropriate Resources, Jenelle Rouse

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation explores the accounts of educators and parents regarding the accessibility of American Sign Language (ASL) and its acquisition by deaf children in Ontario, Canada. It is generally known that deaf children’s ASL acquisition and proficiency is directly affected by their early exposure to the language; the earlier and greater the exposure, the greater the acquisition and proficiency, while later and inadequate exposure results in poorer acquisition and proficiency. In the face of societal and educational systems in Ontario, there have been some attempts to provide opportunities for deaf children and their families to develop and acquire ASL (Snoddon, …

Sasl Journal, Volume 3, Number 1

Society for American Sign Language Journal

No abstract provided.

Dissertation Abstracts, Robert Andrew Skinner, Thu Thi Quy Do, Kierstin Muroski

International Journal of Interpreter Education

No abstract provided.

Our Work As Interpreters In These Unprecedented Times, Ineke Crezee, George Major

International Journal of Interpreter Education

No abstract provided.

Going Through The Motions: Participation In Interpreter-Mediated Meeting Interaction Under A Deaf And A Hearing Chairperson, Rosie Henley, Rachel Mckee

International Journal of Interpreter Education

In multiparty meetings involving deaf and hearing participants, sign language interpreters are tasked to render talk ‘accessible’ to all by mediating differences across languages, modalities, interactional norms, and cultural statuses (Roy, 1989, 1993; Mindess, 1999; Van Herreweghe, 2002). Although this context of work is relatively common for interpreters, their practices and the interactional outcomes for participants are under-researched. This case study compares chairing and meeting practices under a deaf chairperson and a hearing chairperson, respectively. The impact of chairing on interpretability and deaf participation are discussed. An interactional sociolinguistics framework informs analysis of meeting data and retrospective participant interviews. Analysis …

Book Review: The Next Generation Of Research In Interpreter Education: Pursuing Evidence-Based Practice, Francesca Maria Frittella

International Journal of Interpreter Education

No abstract provided.

Making It Work: Applying Aiic Professional Standards To Conference Signedlanguage Interpreters, Maya De Wit

International Journal of Interpreter Education

Conference interpreters, signed and spoken, work in a wide range of high-level settings, from international summits with (non)governmental bodies to politically-oriented networking events. Considering that such settings require advanced expertise of the interpreters, it is surprising that there is still a lack of awareness among clients and interpreters of the fundamental professional standards of conference signed language interpreters. This article discusses the need to educate and raise awareness among signed language interpreters and their clients regarding the rights to demand, respectively, good working conditions and linguistic access.

Full Issue

International Journal of Interpreter Education

No abstract provided.