Interpreting: June 2004 Archives

Doing all these graduations (that most Deaf folk are only marginally interested in) inspired one of my teammates to share this new model of interpreting with me:

Make Stuff Up.

:-)

Of course we joke about it with hearing people who compliment us (and have no idea whether we really did "do a good job" or not), and Deaf folk complain about it (aka "fill-in-the-blank interpreting"), and occasionally there is no doubt it really happens....I'd suggest it is a very compelling site for the study of dynamics and discourses about these dynamics. Why do we "make stuff up" instead of asking for clarification? Could be to save face. Could be to avoid Deaf criticism. Could be an appropriate decision about some other communicative issue taking precedence over what was 'missed' and filled in for the sake of continuity. Hmmmmm. !

Graduations are the fingerspelling curse of the world (unless one is into the Rochester Method).

Since the lone deaf audience member that my team and I were there for was only interested in his friend's actual reception of her diploma, we spent the time talking about cultural differences, whiteness, and science fiction. :-) He recommended Wilbur Smith; I recommended Octavia Butler, particularly the Xenogenesis series. He recommended George R.R. Martin; I recommended Alastair Reynolds.

I attended the first official meeting of the World Symposium of the Deaf before DeafWay II in DC...two years ago? Hannah and her Oma came for a couple of days too and had a grand time. The three of us had a fun day at the Zoo, too. Anyway, there was a second meeting at the World Congress for the Deaf in Montreal last summer, which I missed. The next event is in South Africa. I'm considering...!

I talked with a couple of Deaf Swedes while I was at the Critical Link conference. I have to admit they made most of the accommodations - adjusting their signing to fit my level of comprehension. Both of them knew some ASL, but not tons. I did get to experiment with a fair bit of gesturing. My first real cross-cultural sign language encounter! :-)

Here's a website in Swedish(!) about SSL. It shows some interpreters at work, at near the end of the clip are the fancy new-fangled cellphones that transmit visual imagery of sign clearly enough to be easily understood! I saw one in action, pretty nifty!

What constitutes "Europe" these days? Especially in light of the continued, yet not yet all-encompassing growth of the European Union? Members of the European Forum of Sign Language Interpreters are trying to come to some agreement on boundaries. To wit:

"As I read the EFSLI aims and objectives, one of the ëshort comingsí is not in relation to what it is setting out to achieve. It is clear and laudable. What does not seem to be so clear what constitutes Europe, at least geographically. It is 2.2.1. (a) of the objectives that seems to come closest when it specifies ëEuropean countriesí as a boundary but this is still somewhat vague. There is a need to a bit more precise especially given the decision made at the AGM last year to set up a fund to assist interpreters from ëEastern European Countriesí to attend the EFSLI conference. It is important because before deciding which countries are the most needy, it is necessary to decide which countries constitute Eastern Europe. It is nice to know that a group of individuals are working on this as they develop the policy and procedures for operating the fund.

But perhaps the enlargement can assist EFSLI in agreeing the boundary. Starting north at Finland and then down to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and then here perhaps in anticipation of some new additions in 2007, go to Romania and Bulgaria to Greece and Cyprus. Perhaps this can be our boundary. What do you think?

Of the 10 new countries that joined on 1 May 2004, some are already members of EFSLI. This includes Czech Republic, Hungary Slovenia and Estonia. EFSLI is already in contact with people from Cyprus, Malta and Lithuania and is working to establish links with Slovakia, Latvia and Poland."

From the newsletter, EFSLI in Brief, 4 June, 2004.