Webinar: Dr Jules Dickinson – Interpreter or interrupter? Getting your foot on the floor in team meeting talk (Workplace Interpreting: Part 2)

Interpreter or interrupter? Getting your foot on the floor in team meeting talk
(Workplace Interpreting: Part 2)
‘Can you all please speak one at a time!’- odds are that if you interpret workplace team meetings, you will have at some point uttered this sentence. Meetings are a central element of workplace interaction, where business is discussed, information is shared, and relationships are built and maintained. Meetings dominated by hearing people will be conducted according to traditional hearing ways of operating and will draw heavily on cultural norms. Laden with jargon, threaded with humour, characterised by overlapping speech, and bracketed by informal conversations, team meeting talk can be particularly frustrating for the interpreter and exclusionary for the Deaf professional. In this webinar I will look at team meetings through the lens of a Community of Practice and tease out some of the reasons why interpreting this form of workplace talk can be such a headache. Building your awareness of the complexity of this aspect of workplace interaction will enable you to better understand the challenges it poses, and will allow you to develop the strategies necessary to make it more inclusive for Deaf professionals.
Learning outcomes
Be aware of how cultural norms impact on meeting interaction.
Understand the concept of Community of Practice in relation to workplace meeting talk.
Develop strategies for turn-taking and getting a foot on the collaborative floor.