American Sign Language Commons^™

Impact And Utilization Of Asl Lab Spaces In University Settings, Nathan J. Dutra, Michele Vincent

Journal of Interpretation

American Sign Language (ASL) is a challenging yet rapidly growing language taught at both secondary and higher education levels. Despite its increasing popularity, there is limited literature on utilizing ASL labs as learning centers. This quantitative study examines the implementation of a new ASL lab at a large four-year university in California. It investigates the factors influencing participation, the motivations behind students' involvement, and their perceptions of the lab's effectiveness. Results indicate significant associations between course modality, instructor influence, and lab participation. The study suggests that ASL labs function as cultural and educational spaces that promote visibility of Deaf culture …

The Problem With People: Signed Language Interpreter Disposition Match And Attrition, Dawn M. Wessling

Journal of Interpretation

In the United States, communication access is a legislated right for Deaf people in many settings; however, recent data suggest that the number of signed language interpreters does not meet current service demand. This multiple‑case study contributes to understanding interpreter attrition by examining how disposition mismatches between novice interpreters and more experienced co‑interpreters influence early exit from the field. Attrition among novice interpreters may exacerbate demand–supply imbalances and contribute to persistent shortages in interpreting services.

This study draws on applied and organizational psychology frameworks, specifically attraction, selection, and attrition (ASA) theory and person–organization fit (P–O fit). Using these theoretical lenses, …

Fragmented Foundations: Interpreter Educator Resources And Uneven Student Preparation, Kierstin S. Muroski

Journal of Interpretation

The readiness-to-work gap among graduates of signed language interpreting programs has been widely acknowledged for decades. Efforts to address the gap have primarily focused on training methods and student performance. This paper shifts the focus to interpreter educators, examining whether the inconsistencies in their awareness and use of discipline-related books may contribute to the disparate educational outcomes of students entering the workforce. Drawing on survey data from 75 interpreter educators in the United States, this study explores demographic patterns of their book awareness and usage in teaching. Results indicate that awareness and utilization of discipline-related books to support teaching are …

Admission Screening Into Signed Language Interpreter Education: A Longitudinal Case Study Of Readiness, Len Roberson, Sherry Shaw, Gail D. Hughes

Journal of Interpretation

Testing applicants for admission into academic interpreting programs, whether spoken or signed, centers on the attempt to recruit and retain students who are most likely to acquire interpreting skills and successfully complete programs. Despite continual experimentation with various screening instruments and procedures in interpreter education, a definitive battery of tests to predict favorable student outcomes remains elusive to researchers, and programs are justifiably reluctant to enforce admission decisions based on screenings that have not been sufficiently evaluated for validity and reliability. This exploratory study provides an analysis of nine years of admission screening data to identify variables that might significantly …

Evidence For Explicitation: Working From Asl Into English, Campbell Mcdermid, Carrie Humphrey, Anita Harding

Journal of Interpretation

A study was done to examine the explicitation and compression strategies used by interpreters working from American Sign Language (ASL) into spoken English. To date, most research has focused only on their work from English into ASL. A review of the literature identified several expansion and compression strategies that interpreters and translators utilize, and these served as a model of coding the data and for triangulation. The methodology for this study was qualitative and descriptive. Twenty-two interpreters volunteered to simultaneously interpret four ASL recorded texts into spoken English, for a total of 88 target texts. The researchers identified 9 expansions …

Signed Language Interpreter Education Programs In North America: A Descriptive Study, Len Roberson, Sherry Shaw

Journal of Interpretation

The objective of this study is to provide interpreter education faculty, university administrators, accrediting bodies, stakeholders, interpreters, and students (current or prospective) a descriptive snapshot-in-time of interpreter education curriculum and programs in North America. This study expands upon work done in the late 1987-1990 and 2007-2009 to capture a descriptive snapshot-in-time of the preparation of signed language interpreters. Researchers anticipated learning how programs align their curricula with CCIE accreditation standards (whether they are accredited or not), how two- and four-year programs (including Canada) allocate faculty time and resources, and how student characteristics and support systems differ among programs. This study …

Goodnight Gorilla: How Do Second Language Learners’ American Sign Language Narrative Renditions Change After Viewing An Asl Model?, Jennifer Beal Dr., Jessica Scott, Terynce Butts

Journal of Interpretation

We investigated the effects of a single viewing of an American Sign Language (ASL) model on university second language learners’ ASL narrative renditions. Spoken English was the first language of all participants and they had varied lengths of signing experience, ranging from 1 to 26 years. Participants completed a receptive measure of ASL. Then they rendered a wordless picture book in ASL. Afterwards, they watched a native-signing adult model of the story in ASL, and then told the story again. We investigated their inclusion of specific details and how they expressed them, including their use of constructed action (CA), depicting …

Resiliency: Experiences Of African American/Black Sign Language Interpreters., Jordan Satchell, Campbell Mcdermid, Lindsey Totten, Anna Yarborough

Journal of Interpretation

There is a growing body of literature on the experiences of African American/Black sign language interpreters (Carpenter, 2017; West Oyedele, 2015), but still many challenges faced by this community in the field. For example, many experience isolation in their interpreter education programs and later in the field, and they described the programs they attended as White-centric and oppressive (Carpenter, 2017; Cokey & Schafer, 2016; West Oyedele, 2015). To understand their experiences better, a qualitative study was conducted which involved interviewing ten African American/Black interpreters. The findings indicated many barriers in the field, including racism and discrimination in systems of networking. …

Patterns In Eipa Test Scores And Implications For Interpreter Education, Deborah Michele Cates

Journal of Interpretation

The present study addresses existing skill gaps of sign language interpreters by analyzing a database of 1,211 scores from the Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment (EIPA) to answer four primary questions: what patterns are there in EIPA Romans across score levels, what patterns are there in EIPA indices within Romans across score levels, which discreet language and processing skills correlate most strongly with overall EIPA scores, and how does performance on those discreet language and processing skills compare between graduates and non-graduates of interpreter training programs. Characteristics of score patterns and correlations between indices on the test are examined and discussed …

From Interpreting Student To Deaf Interpreter: A Case Study Of Vocational Identity Development, Margie English, Brenda Nicodemus, Danielle I. J. Hunt, Stephan Kennedy, Mckenna Mcgough

Journal of Interpretation

Research indicates that the development of a vocational identity is critical to the process of adult maturation and for creating a sense of purpose in one’s life. Deaf individuals in the United States are increasingly interested in establishing a vocation in signed language interpreting, despite workplace obstacles experienced by other oppressed and marginalized populations. Career identity has been examined in several professions, but little is known about the factors underlying the vocational identity development of Deaf interpreters. To address this gap, the researchers adopted a case study approach to explore the experiences of two Deaf students during their first semester …

Finding Their Fit: An Exploratory Study Of Interpreters’ Perceptions Of Their Membership In The Deaf Community, Cami J. Miner

Journal of Interpretation

In the U.S., Deaf individuals who use a signed language as their preferred and dominant means of communication are considered a distinct linguistic and cultural group known as the Deaf community. Sign language interpreters, particularly non-native signers who are leaning ASL, are frequently encouraged to associate with the Deaf community as part of their language acquisition process. However, interpreters who are not deaf or native signers, especially students, often experience tension as they interact with the Deaf community. The literature is divided on whether hearing interpreters who learn ASL later in life, even those who are arguably bilingual and bicultural, …

Gendered Translations: Working From Asl Into English, Campbell Mcdermid, Brianna Bricker, Andrea Shealy, Abigail Copen

Journal of Interpretation

American Sign Language (ASL) is a visual-spatial language that differs from spoken language, such as English. One way is in the use and characteristics of pronouns (Meier, 1990). Pronouns in ASL, for example, are created by pointing to objects or locations in space (written in English here as POINT), and do not have a gender assigned to them as they do in English (he, she, him, her). So, where it is not specified in ASL, interpreters must decide how to interpret pronouns into English. Limited research has been done on this topic (Quinto-Pozos et al., 2015), and so a study …

Deaf Translators: What Are They Thinking?, Janis Cole Ms.

Journal of Interpretation

The examination of work performed by Deaf translators in creating translations between written texts and signed languages is an emerging area of inquiry in Translation Studies. Deaf people have been performing ad hoc translations within their community for hundreds of years (Adam, Carty & Stone, 2011; Bartley & Stone, 2008). More recently, Deaf translators have begun to work as paid professionals, creating a new subfield of Translation Studies, one that, to date, is largely unexplored. Using qualitative data, this pilot study examines the thought processes of two Deaf individuals in the rendering of an academic text from written English into …

Pronouns In Asl-English Simultaneous Interpretation, David Quinto-Pozos, Kierstin Muroski, Emily Saunders

Journal of Interpretation

Pronominal systems across languages mark grammatical categories in different ways, and this can pose challenges for simultaneous interpretation. Pronouns can also be ambiguous, for example, by collapsing distinctions in some forms or by resembling demonstratives. We examine pronouns produced by a Deaf signer of American Sign Language (ASL) within a TEDx talk and how they are interpreted (simultaneously) by an ASL-English interpreter. Pronouns from both languages were coded and scrutinized for semantic correspondence across the two languages. Robust correspondences were found with some personal pronouns, especially first-person forms. However, mismatches across languages, in particular third-person forms and demonstratives, provide evidence …