Online: Creating a Collaboration in Communication: Exploring Crip Linguistics in Interpreting

Online: Creating a Collaboration in Communication: Exploring Crip Linguistics in Interpreting

1st June @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm GMT

The SW Massive Region is pleased to welcome Naomi Sheneman, Ph.D to present on her latest research, Crip Linguistics.

Two ASL-BSL interpreters and two ASL-Spoken English interpreters have been booked.

Equitable communication access is about making interpreters accountable for being more active in achieving comprehension. The interpreting process is an active collaboration between deaf consumer(s) and interpreter. This collaboration will be impacted by creating an oppressive experience for deaf consumers if the interpreter harbours specific beliefs and attitudes regarding language use.

Crip linguistics challenges the premise that there are “good” and “bad” languages. In signed language interpreting, we are influenced to use our power as able-bodied and educated professionals to assess diverse deaf signers to determine whether they have “good” or “bad” languages. Instead, the focus should be on determining how effective communication can be achieved when interpreting.

This workshop will introduce participants to a new theoretical linguistic framework: crip linguistics and how it can be applied to sign language interpreting.

The aim of this workshop is twofold:

To offer a paradigm shift in the use of registers by encouraging interpreters to explore various communication and linguistic strategies until effective communication takes place among interlocutors in various settings.

It challenges interpreters’ internalized language attitudes, which impact how they communicate with diverse deaf consumers.

The sign language interpreting profession has placed much focus on the use of registers to determine how we would say/sign in specific contexts. Raciolinguistics and crip linguistics challenge the concept of registers and the belief that only specific sign selections are appropriate for specific settings. Raciolinguistics argues that the approach to communication and recognition of communication norms is agreed upon by participants. Crip linguistics argues that if communication is taking place, why does it criticise the process?

Participants will identify possible approaches/strategies of collaborating with deaf consumers to determine the best approach to interpreting with the primary goal of reaching communication that is comprehensible whatever might look like.

The event will be recorded.

Any questions, please email us at southwest@asli.org.uk.

Joe, Holly and Lynne

SW Massive Regional Team

Presenter’s Bio: Naomi Sheneman, Ph.D, has been working professionally in the interpreting profession in the United States since 2000 in various roles. She is a consultant, researcher, educator, interpreter, diagnostician, and interpreter. She is the second deaf person to receive a Ph.D. degree in Interpretation from Gallaudet University in 2018. She gives presentations and training both nationally and internationally, focusing on ethics, deaf interpreters’ work, power dynamics in interpretation, and medical interpreting. Her publications include a study on Deaf interpreters’ ethics, interpreting in international conferences, and power imbalances in interactions between deaf people and interpreters. Her most recent publication with John Benjamins Publishing Company argued for the need for critical disability lenses in interpretation and translation for both spoken and signed languages. In 2022, she received an “Excellence in Research” award from the Conference of Interpreter Trainers.