Abstracts

Discussions of relationships between sign language interpreters and deaf people assume the importance of deaf people placing our ‘trust’ in interpreters to accurately represent us. ‘Trust’ is framed in these claims as faith in ability without proof of competence. We argue this framing is damaging. However, many deaf people feel that they cannot challenge such concepts for fear of alienating interpreters and thus limiting their choices for accessing their own lives and workplaces. In essence, it is taboo for us to talk about ‘trust’. 

We present findings from a collaborative autoethnographic approach to the question of what it means to ‘trust’ interpreters. Data was gathered using a mixture of interview, written or signed reflections then analysed using a thematic analysis approach.

We found ‘trust’ was not considered when initially selecting interpreters to work with. Instead, we have sophisticated ways in which to evaluate interpreters. These evaluations feed into decisions made about how we work with interpreters and how we build short- and long-term professional relationships.

We argue that scrapping such an emotive and subjective concept of ‘trust’ serves the wider interests of both deaf people and interpreters. Instead, we should be working towards constructing a framework in which interpreters can provide proof of, and be recognized for, their specific competencies.

This paper draws on the Interpreter-mediated Mental Health Act Assessments project (INForMHAA) funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, School for Social Care Research in England. The project focuses on the role of Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHPs) and interpreters in working together to carry out assessments under the Mental Health Act (MHA) 1983. 

The overall research question for the project is: How does interpreter mediation impact on Mental Health Act Assessments and how can interpreter-mediated Mental Health Act Assessments be improved?  

Through a mixed-methods study we have: completed a scoping review of relevant literature, conducted surveys and interviews with AMHPs and Interpreters about their experiences of working in MHA assessments; and have created case study simulations of interpreter-mediated MHA assessment scenarios as a stimulus for focus groups with AMHPs and interpreters.

This paper will explore taboos concerning interpreting in this context that have been uncovered through our research. Our research findings will have implications for best practice guidelines for AMHPs and interpreters working together and will be used to create a portfolio of training resources for inter-professional working.

Taboo…. let’s talk about why there are not enough input from deaf consumers. Professionalization of signed language interpretation has resulted into the exclusion of deaf voices. Deaf interpreters do not count because we are interpreters as well. When I was a deaf doctorate student studying signed language interpretation and translation, I explored with a concern that deaf voices were excluded in various arenas of this profession. I was met with resistance. There were various reasons for this resistance. First, there was an expression of fear that if deaf consumers were included, they may define what constitutes a good interpreter. Second, some professionals argue that deaf people do not understand anything about interpreting. Third, there was the argument that deaf consumers do not work in this field. Fourth, there was an insistence that the deaf community was too broad and diverse. Granted, there are diverse perspectives in the deaf community (race, ethnic, gender, disability, age, educational background, language status). However, just because it is complicated does not mean it should not be done. Why have we not started conversations about creative ways we can get perspectives from deaf consumers to inform our work?

Discussion and disclosure of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence (DSGBV) remains taboo for many cultures, communities, and societies. However, DSGBV has been spotlighted across 2020-22 with police forces and NGOs reporting significant increases in instances of abuse recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic. Concurrently, lack of access to information in many sign languages, along with limited organised opportunities to discuss DSGBV has left many of those experiencing DSGBV in Deaf communities in a vacuum.

The Erasmus+ funded Justisigns 2 project is building evidence-based resources for interpreters, police officers, counsellors and other key stakeholders who engage with deaf, refugee, and migrant women and girls who experience DSGBV but who use a language other than that of the host community. The project team comprises universities, NGOs and police services, chaired by Interesource Group (Ireland) Ltd. In this paper, we present results of a survey of key stakeholders that we ran in 2021 in Ireland, the UK and Spain and unpack important points for the development of specialist training. We also present activities with Deaf communities NGOs and government bodies.

Let’s talk about expletives. How comfortable are you with signing or saying words like fuck, shit, or words in your language viewed as words that do not belong in “polite” company or feels unprofessional and inappropriate? This is an important question because expletives have an vital function in language and communication.

Beyond uttering or signing the expletive, another discomfiting moment in the interpreted interaction is encountering the expletive gesture that also functions as a non expletive gesture in signed language. The signs perceived as expletive gestures by the dominant majority, often accompanied by spoken words, may not necessarily translate into expletive words in signed language. Yet the sight of such gestures disrupts the interpreting process. As expletives, often understood as the domain of specific groups or classes of people, is increasingly found across all types of discursive spaces such as professional and academic settings; interpreters confront the question. This shift in usage of expletives and growth in access via signed language interpretation asks for insights in how we might move beyond this discomfort. Deaf history, women’s history, and language attitudes help us understand and confront some of the challenges and discomfort in teaching and using expletives in signed language interpretation.

Bio: Octavian E. Robinson earned his Ph.D. in women, gender, and sexuality history from The Ohio State University in 2012. Since then, he has published as an interdisciplinary scholar within the broader umbrella of disability and deaf studies. His work focuses on ableist rhetoric, disability and language, and crip linguistics, which frames sign language interpreting as a form of disability carework. His most recent publication is on the intervention of a critical disability lens in signed and spoken language interpreting with John Benjamins. He is Associate Professor of Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University.

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020 a global movement became the catalyst for change and an acknowledgement of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) space. However, Translator and Interpreter Education Programmes (TIEPs) rarely, if ever, include EDI training. Post-qualification professional development activities often cover a small range of topics, focusing on linguistic components, specific domains or interpreter well-being, and are often delivered by the same group of trainers. There seems to be an assumption that interpreters are not in need of specific EDI training. Why is this? Is it because, the profession is largely white, heterosexual interpreters who conform to societal norms?

The Deaf and hearing communities that we work with are diverse, yet the demographic of interpreters is homogenous, so where do we gain our knowledge of difference from? This presentation will advocate that EDI should be integrated into TIEPs, that awarding bodies like iBSL and Signature should include EDI in their training curricula and that post qualification training should also cover these topics. Furthermore, it will be proposed that space should be made for trainers from the global majority, to be involved in delivering interpreter training. It is hard for a minority to make a difference, allies are required to raise their voices and step back, to allow diverse language service professionals to step forward.

In this presentation I explore some #awkward issues regarding the future of human sign language interpreting. The institution of human sign language interpreting services (SLIS) can be questioned regarding scalability and fairness. Even so, the provision of human SLIS has become the institutionally normative, often unquestioned, solution to grant deaf people access to the work place and public services, among other things. This is not yet the case for AI-powered automated translation technologies like (computer-generated) avatars and speech recognition features. If anything, they make interpreters feel #awkward not because these technologies are so good, but because they obviously aren’t good enough (yet), especially text/speech-to-sign technologies. Yet, there is the inconvenient truth that current working practices of sign language interpreters are not unchangeable and in fact, are already changing now. In this presentation, I discuss some of the #awkward questions this situation leads to, such as:

• Will sign language technologies provide a scalable service?
• How will language rights for deaf people keep pace with the development of language technologies?
• Who benefits from these technologies, and who is at risk of being left behind?
• How will sign language interpreting training programs need to adapt to prepare for a hybrid future?

One of the more challenging situations in which we work is when we are interpreting with a patient who is nearing the end of their life. As well as the emotional impact of giving voice to the dying, the interpreter must also carefully manage their relationships with all parties while making some difficult decisions around the language they use to describe death.

This presentation will discuss the conclusions of a cross-disciplinary discussion, where the presenter met with a palliative care consultant and a clinical nurse specialist to review the care given to a deaf patient and the lessons learned as we offered support at the end of his life. It will attempt to answer questions such as:

• How impartial or emotionally detached is it appropriate for the interpreter to be in these settings?
• How will they walk the tightrope between using language clear enough to be certain the patient understands the imminence of their own death, while at the same time working with the euphemisms used by clinical staff to make their conversations as gentle as possible?
• How will we interpret phrases like, “We’re just going to make you comfortable now”?

A dynamic model for smoothly sliding between sign language and signed spoken language

“OH NO. I did it again: I followed hearing grammar. I shouldn’t have. Should I?” Have you ever had a bad conscience about using “Signed Exact [insert your spoken language here]?

Your bad conscience is telling you that “hearing grammar” is deeply rooted in the oppression of sign languages the deaf community has been experiencing for centuries.

My hypothesis is that every interpreter uses elements of SESL in their everyday work. Often, however, more or less unconsciously in the sense of “I was very close to the spoken text” but sign language interpreters often don’t have the tools to articulate exactly WHAT made their interpretation ‘close to the spoken text’ and WHY they chose to do it.

I developed a dynamic model that uses the image of a mixing console with a number of slider controls that can smoothly be adjusted between the two endpoints of the continuum “sign language” and “spoken language”, a continuum between modalities and languages. This model puts our own language ideologies to the test, breaking with the taboo of using phrases borrowed from the spoken working language.

 You are attending an international conference like efsli, a talk is given in spoken English and this is interpreted in international sign (IS). International sign, this lingua franca for signed languages, is supposedly widely understandable because of its visual and iconic nature. That is why you can watch the IS interpreters and expect to understand the talk. However, sometimes you do not understand anything. Oops! How awkward is this? 

Our study provides one possible explanation for this awkward experience. We recorded IS and NGT interpreters interpreting the same lecture from spoken English and investigated what IS is consisted of. Our results show that IS interpreters use about 66% of lexical signs, while NGT interpreters use up to 80% of lexical signs. So, even if IS interpreters do use fewer lexical signs than their NGT counterparts, lexical signs are still the bulk of the IS content. However, these signs are probably the very least transparent part of the different communicative resources of sign languages.
This can make the IS not easily understandable if you did not learn these specific lexical signs before. IS interpreters use many lexical signs, as national sign language interpreters do. If you did not learn these specific forms, you could miss more than half of the IS content.

Remote connections have become a natural way to connect with other people, both in free time and in world of work. It’s easy to make a video call not only from a well-equipped remote workstation, but also from train, café, or home-office when the family is at home. Can we trust that privacy will be maintained? Concern is also relevant for remote interpreting. How can we ensure privacy and security of remote interpretation? The devices and applications used on remote connections also make shooting and recording easy. What should we consider when agreeing to record remote interpretation?

To answer questions concerning remote interpreting, The Interpreting into the Future – Digitality of Interpreter Education and Work –project is surveying and developing the solutions of remote interpreting. Project also compiles guidelines of implementing the remote interpreting, produces educational material and provides training course on the subject. Project is funded by European Social Fund (ESF) and led by Diaconia University of Applied Sciences (Diak). It partners with the interest organizations of interpreters and of clients and the businesses providing interpreting services in Helsinki-Uusimaa Region in Finland. It is time for an open debate and for common guidelines on remote interpretation.

This study explores and demonstrates the patterns in the interpreting taboos on social and religious issues in social media, among the Deaf community in Mumbai. The members of this group are active on ‘WhatsApp’ a social media platform and are constantly in touch with other fellow members for representation of their social and religious needs. We propose that an increasing presence of social media has promoted certain patterns in the representation of social and religious issues in social media. These techno-religious digital spaces (Kong 2001) reframe notions of what it means to be users and depict how such interpretations are enacted in a contested arena, in which competing technological solutions and cultural preoccupations interact in often highly innovative ways. Hence survey study was undertaken to establish and demonstrate various patterns and the usage of social media in interpretation of Indian Sign Language (ISL) and taboos on social and religious issues. The data was gathered using the survey research tool developed for the purpose of the study. The same was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 22). The ‘WhatsApp’ chat of members of the group (n=93) in the group over a period of 6 months was analyzed using ‘WhatsAnalyzer’ an online analysis tool. The results of the analysis depicted that, there is a pattern in the ISL interpreting taboos with reference to in usage of text (24%), visual Images (31%), audio-visual (41%) and audio (4%) formats of communication in the social media group, when representing social and religious issues. The analysis also established that there is no significant gender difference in ISL interpreting taboos (‘p’-value=.681) in the social media usage, while representing social and religious issues.

The UK police have come under criticism for their failure to understand what deaf people need and how this need can be met(Brennan & Brown, 1997; Race & Hogue, 2017; Skinner et al., 2021; Skinner & Napier, in prep). The police have been described as overly dependent on interpreters in their effort to provide an equitable service (Skinner & Napier, 2022). To understand the complex issues linked to over-dependence on interpreters, this presentation will share the findings of a study investigating the possibilities in using video remote interpreting in custody settings. The study looked at how custody sergeants and interpreters worked together to complete a custody booking-in process. Although the booking-in process is highly procedural the study demonstrates how achieving access exists in multiple forms and is unevenly distributed.

The first type of burden is linked to the establishing of roles and managing expectations, the second is linked to understanding and modifying institutional process, the third is connected to the custody sergeant’s knowledge (or lack of) and willingness to understand the citizen’s & interpreter’s needs, and the fourth is accommodating interpreter’s translation styles.

The sign language interpreting (SLI) profession is generally described as being predominantly female (Napier and Leeson, 2016). When looking at International Sign (IS) interpreters, however, the gendered ratio is not being mirrored. In the field of Gender Studies, scholars have extensively been focusing on professions that are predominantly (fe)male to explore workers’ lived experiences of gender in the workplace. Within Deaf Studies and Interpreting Studies, apart from some small-scale studies and personal accounts shared by deaf professionals, interpreters, and interpreter trainers, limited attention has been paid to gender and SLI.

Adopting an intersectional approach (Crenshaw, 1989), this study explores why the IS interpreting arena attracts male interpreters. It looks at how gender, femininities, and masculinities are (re)produced and experienced by IS interpreters in terms of privileges and disadvantages. Deaf professionals’ experiences as well as their aspirations and perspectives on working with IS interpreters in terms of gender are captured.

Preliminary findings, collected through observations, fieldnotes and an ethnographic case study, will be shared. Plans for follow-up research will be discussed. This study aims to make theoretical contributions and hopes to inform future interpreting practices at a micro and macro level.