Reflexivity

It was a tiny pop quiz in the midst of a comprehensive examination.

First Responders reaching to the Deaf community

During last November’s nationwide test of FEMA’s public warning system, an action research study (#DEMX) was conducted to assess the communication potential of social media. The goal was to find a way to bridge the longstanding divide between “people of the eye” who use American Sign Language and emergency responders who rely on their ears. From the Deaf point-of-view, these “hearing people” are dependent on sound.

A dedicated group of social media pioneers keeps pushing the envelope of public communication within the field of emergency management. Meanwhile, the American Deaf community remains essentially neglected despite generations of struggle and decades-old accessibility rights legislation.

in all of the years of researching and taking courses / training in crisis communications – one group has not been mentioned as much as others.  This audience group is the deaf community. ~ Karen Freberg

Tweeting against Historical Trends

One popular social media tool for emergency warnings is Twitter. It is unclear how many Deaf people know about this timely and current source of information about emergencies of all kinds. Meteorologists are using Twitter to warn populations in their local media markets about serious weather events, and some emergency responders are using Twitter as part of crisis communication and disaster response. Figures 1 &  2 show a key result from the #DEMX experiment run during the November 2011 national “Emergency Alert System” test. Overall, although information about the Twitter-based #DEMX test spread, there was very little crossover between the two groups: Deaf citizens shared information within the Deaf community, and emergency management planners and responders shared the information within their community. This leads to a conclusion regarding how hard it is to stimulate conversation between communities who have an (apparently entrenched) history of ineffective communication.

However, in the course of a short campaign, the #DEMX Tweetstream garnered 163 unique users, and the Prezi explaining the idea (in English and ASL) got 1,500 hits! The information spread, but it was decontextualized from the relationships that need to be built among First Responders and members of the signing Deaf community.

Strategy (Action Research Methodology)

Few Deaf Tweeters "cross over" to the First Responder tweetstream

An already existing Twitter community using the hashtag, #SMEM (for social media emergency management), was introduced to a new hashtag, #DEMX (for deaf emergency management of variable “x”). The #DEMX hashtag was invented for this experiment, so it had no pre-existing user base. A late-deafened blogger and tweeter, Joyce Edmiston (@expressivehandz), spearheaded spreading the #DEMX hashtag among her followers. Using a text analysis software tool, we were able to track the spread of news about this social media experiment in both communities and break down the results.

Findings: A small but dedicated leading edge

In the nine days of monitoring (from November 2-11, 2011, with the test day on November 9), the 163 users in the #DEMX tweetstream gathered 765 tweets, while the #SMEM tweetstream garnered 5,759 tweets, generated by  1,135 unique users. We were interested in the tweets that included both hashtags. Barely 1/2 of 1% of #DEMX tweets included the #SMEM hashtag; and only .01% of #SMEM tweets included the #DEMX hashtag. Research team member Joe Delfino of DiscoverText writes, “Unfortunately, the mass crossover of Tweets that we had envisioned did not occur.” By “drilling down” into the data, however, we were able to generate some findings that, combined with knowledge of the historical basis of the overall challenge, confirms hypotheses worth testing in another round of Twitter-based action research.

4:1 Ratio Hearing to Deaf

In the #DEMX tweetstream, there were 26 unique users who included the #SMEM hashtag. After eliminating tweets from members of the research team there were a total of 28 tweets from 23 unique users. Of these 23 unique users, 20 are not deaf – they are hearing people associated in one way or another with emergency management.  Only three deaf tweeters “crossed over” to the emergency management community tweetstream. Some reasons for this terribly low percentage are explored below.

In the #SMEM tweetstream, there were 17 unique users who included the #DEMX hashtag, again, after eliminating tweets by research team members,  tweets including both hashtags were sent by 13 unique users: 9 hearing and 4 deaf, repeating the pattern in which more hearing people reached out toward the Deaf community than Deaf people reached back to the “Hearing” world of emergency management.

Concerning? Yes. Disheartening? No!

Obviously these sample sizes are too small for statistical significance. However, they do suggest some generalizations that could be formulated into concrete hypotheses and studied on a more robust scale. One issue involves whether the Deaf American linguistic minority of American Deaf Culture can be convinced that the dominant culture actually cares. In promoting this action research project, I created an online presentation, Deaf Eye on Emergency!, which describes the context of the national emergency alert system test using visual imagery, written English and several videoclips of commentary using American Sign Language. The presentation garnered over 1500 views during the nine-day research window and 1,846 as of this posting. English translations of the ASL clips are available now so that non-signers can know and respond to the explanations and ideas expressed in the video clips.

Creating New Relationships

Although good efforts and success stories do circulate, there is no commonly-recognized and widely-used medium of communication (yet) that satisfactorily mediates the sight-sound perceptual distinction between “People of the Eye” and “Hearing” people.  Written English and spreading more information are perceived as “the answer.” While both of these strategies are necessary, without an interaction strategy to cultivate and redefine the inherited perception of neglect, systemic improvements in Deaf preparedness and contribution to emergency response efforts cannot occur.

An Interaction Strategy for Emergency Preparedness

Individual Deaf people often experience being told to wait while someone tries to figure out how to communicate with them, and then (usually) delivered sub-par and minimal information rather than being fully engaged as intelligent and competent human beings who can help resolve aspects of the situation, whatever it is. Historically, the legacies of discrimination and prejudice have convinced many members of Deaf culture that Hearing people really do not care about them. Serious effort needs to be strategically planned and exercised in order to overcome this unfortunate dynamic. It can be done, and if done well, crucial skills, knowledge, and benefits of resilience will flow from the Deaf community into the larger fabric of American society.

Popularity: 1% [?]

“In all of the years of researching and taking courses / training in crisis communications – one group has not been mentioned as much as others.  This audience group is the deaf community.  How do we go about in making sure that this audience group gets the same information about an emergency or crisis like all of our other audiences?“

~ Karen Freberg, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in Strategic Communication at the University of Louisville

Does the Deaf Community Need ASL Interpretation for Emergencies?

Long before today’s nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System, the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) advocated for improved accessibility to emergency warnings with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In response, FEMA made a video with American Sign Language explaining that old technology prevents full communication access to the Deaf and asking Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing people not to worry because, “this is only a test.”

Exclusive design?

However this is not “just” any old test. According to the Chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, “This test is vital to ensuring that the EAS, the primary alerting system available to the American public, works as designed” (emphasis added).  Chief James A Barnett explains, “the EAS is a media communications-based alerting system designed to transmit emergency alerts and warnings to the American public . . . providing vital information in crises, and the system is designed to work when nothing else does” (emphasis added).

Only One Way of Communicating?

My career as an American Sign Language/English interpreter, along with graduate study in the field of Communication, gives me reason to wonder at the insistence on a one-size-fits-all method of communicating emergency warnings.  Of course this makes sense from the topmost levels of the communication hierarchy, but at some point the local takes over.  Is text enough?  Are captions (assuming they are even provided!) adequate for catching the attention of a Deaf person in order to warn them of an impending crisis? Why not supplement outdated technology with live interpretation?

Getting Real – or Postponing It?

The national Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) has a Working Group developing a Standard Practice Paper on Emergency Interpreting. While the draft is under administrative review, efforts to properly train interpreters for integration into emergency planning and response were begun at a Florida State RID workshop in October. Meanwhile, information to guide Emergency Managers and First Responders in working with Sign Language Interpreter strike teams was presented in September at Getting Real II: Promising Practices in Inclusive Emergency Management for the Whole Community.

Deaf Tweet-In to Teach about communication access!

“One final note, for the communities that are deaf or hard of hearing, there is a special evaluation of how emergency alert information is transmitted to these communities. Emergency agencies are being encouraged to use the hashtag #demx during this EAS test so that social media can be evaluated for its effectiveness in reaching populations which may not hear the emergency alert.” ~ Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency

#demx introduced a few days before the test

Why do Deaf Americans have to keep waiting for the majority to decide to protect everyone?  Why are Deaf Americans being told – yet again – to wait until … when?  The obvious, logical, and easy solution to inadequate captioning technology is to have sign language interpreters on contract for emergency interpreting. Despite years of advocacy from Deaf individuals within their communities and organizations, as well as at the institutional level by the National Association of the Deaf, provision of communication access is apparently such a low priority that the first national test is going to happen without any backup plan.

What are Deaf people to do if (when) there is a real emergency?

Where’s the ASL?

But maybe I assume sign language interpretation is the answer.  I designed an action research study to learn what the Deaf community needs.  The lead time has been extremely short, and the Deaf community may be experiencing “EAS fatigue”, however some traction on Twitter from social media users in emergency management and a loose network of deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals suggests that a useful conversation may occur today about creating a warning system that effectively includes this neglected population.

Please read the Guidelines for Tweeting to #demx and follow @Deaf_Emergency, @stephjoke and @XpressiveHandz

Popularity: 3% [?]

North American Summit on Interpreting
Arlington, VA

I discovered many kindred spirits at the 2^nd North American Summit on Interpreting.  I recognized colleagues as language service professionals as well as activists who

Luis, Carmen and me: Happy to be there!

• hold optimistic views of what simultaneous interpretation is, does, and can do,
• believe in the need for unity of professional simultaneous interpreters across sectors and languages, and
• are eager to train interpreters and users of interpreting services about best practices for effective intercultural communication.

“We’re still in push”

I presented a poster summarizing a good chunk of my dissertation, including its main point, that the way simultaneous interpretation has been institutionalized results in the perpetuation of social inequality more than it contributes to leveling the playing field.

On the one hand, this is a grim conclusion. On the other hand, it provides a base from which concerned interpreters, providers and users of interpreting services can identify and strategize together about leverage points for introducing sociocultural innovations and legislative changes.

We are not compelled to continue all of the ritualized elements of simultaneous interpretation that we have inherited or even helped to build. We can learn from the trajectory of the last 70 years and make precise modifications in training, education, credentialing, and professional practice. These changes can be calibrated in order to reshape this special form of intercultural communication so that it serves the common good. By using simultaneous interpretation as an institutional mechanism for deliberately redressing systematic inequality, more safe and humane life chances can be generated for people of all classes and ways of life.

Popularity: 5% [?]

North American Summit on Interpreting
Arlington, VA

“Intelligence is tactile”

Luis was describing the difference between teaching and learning. “Teaching,” he said, “is finite. Learning is infinite.”

One hundred and eighty language service providers have gathered at the 2nd North American Summit on Interpreting for the purpose of learning how to gather our collective intelligence and generate an intercultural revolution. Barry Olson calls us to engage:

Ask

Why not!

and

What if!

Most of the participants are interpreters; some are owners or representatives of businesses that provide language services, and a few are technical gurus who design the communication technologies that increasingly re-shape the limits of what interpreters can and cannot deliver. Nataly Kelly (of Common Sense Advisory), used excerpts from science fiction films to expose the confusion most people have between “translation” and “interpretation.” I reflect on these processes with an engineering analogy in a blog entry about paradigm consciousness. If you read that entry, you’ll get a taste of how I think about these things and understand that

I’m still processing yesterday’s amazing series of Summit events.

I can offer teasers, though! Over the next week or two, watch for entries on:

• Contextualizing this moment in interpreting history, building on Nataly Kelly’s challenge: “The idea is not to resist the tools, but use them to do more.”
• The What? Factor (independent contractor or employee model?)
• Cheerleading for the new social movement (inspiring riffs from Barry Olson)
• How the Deaf community might be leading the way….

Meanwhile, the interview Nataly had with Ray Kurzweil captured my imagination. I’m not sure if I got his statement verbatim, but I’m pretty sure he said:

“The most high level work one can imagine,
the epitome of human being,
is our ability to command language.”

Popularity: 2% [?]

Professional Development/Certification Maintenance Workshop
New England Home for the Deaf, Danvers MA
30 January 2011

There were many things talked about at the same time during Stephanie “SC” Clark’s and Rebekah Barkowitz’s workshop, Navigating Through Social Networking with Confidentiality and Ethics. Not that they need my approval, but they did a great job with some tricky material. The reality is that the massive spread of social media over the last decade changes everything. We are not living in the same world that spawned the original (1960s) RID Code of Ethics, nor even the recently updated RID Code of Professional Conduct.

No one knows what recent changes in communication mean for our relationships with each other or where they will lead in the future. How can we know what to talk about now?

Seeking illumination!

SC and Rebekah gave background information about some legal cases as well as precedents from employers who have policies about what employees can and cannot say about their work in online social media like Facebook. As workers, interpreters fall into a middle category (the always gray zone, as Sharon described it) which includes some of us being staff employees while many more are “freelance” – self-employed independent contractors. As SC and Rebekah proceeded with the workshop, responses and questions from the participants were welcomed. Slowly a “picture” of the issues as they concern professional sign language interpreters began to emerge.

I want to start with my last Aha, because it took some hours of reflecting and a helpful conversation with a colleague who didn’t attend but debriefed with me. The most striking feature of the talk during the workshop, viewed in historical terms, is that only a few people seriously questioned whether interpreters should not post comments to Facebook that are in any way related to an interpreting assignment. When someone did suggest that interpreters choose not to (even though we “can”), there was no uptake: in general it was assumed that interpreters will post about work on FB just like most FB-users do.

The fact that Facebook is a public space and the profession’s traditional confidentiality rules apply as they would under any other circumstances has been overwhelmed by the emergent social interaction made possible with online communication technology. My imagery might not be the best, but its like the gold rush, or any colonizing movement of people who “discover” a “new land” and rush to stake their claim. Interpreters – along with nearly everybody else – dove headlong into this new exciting territory and began to play there (more-or-less just like everybody else). It needs to be noted that the majority of veteran interpreters attending this workshop rarely if ever post anything remotely job-related to Facebook or other online social media. I emphasize this observation because we (the profession) need to understand our position vis-a-vis the new social reality. The point is that the older generations of interpreters could not assert the traditional value of confidentiality in the new timespace of social networking.

“Thank god my FB name isn’t my real name!”

Mikey got us laughing in the discomfort zone of wondering about the new boundaries. The conversation unfolded around what kinds of things would be “okay” or “not okay” to post. In other words, a surrender to the new communication technology has already happened. We are behind the curve, playing catch-up. The evidence from our talking with each other during the workshop is that “confidentiality” – in the ways we used to understand it – is gone, or at least seriously compromised. What this hard fact suggests is that our elected representatives and national office staff need to formulate questions that lead us toward answers that serve the profession and our clients well – all of us: Deaf, hard-of-hearing, and non-deaf (”hearing”). This is similar to the question that Jo asked when she was talking about Facebook as a “tool” for new generations. Rather than treating FB and other social media platforms (such as Twitter), as sites for interpreters, the Deaf community, hearing interlocutors, and institutional representatives need to police each other, is it possible to ‘go with’ the new flow and put the tool to productive use?

Atmospheric conditions? Mostly cloudy.

The strategy that Rebekah and SC used to stimulate our thinking was to ask us to consider the viewpoints of three potential audiences to status messages posted on Facebook: the Deaf community, professional colleagues, and the hiring/paying agency. Then they gave us several actual status messages to evaluate. Opinions varied quite a bit on what was acceptable and why, or not acceptable and why not. “It depends” remains the interpreter’s favorite answer! What we demonstrated is that meaning is always in the eyes of the beholder.

There were some observations that might be useful. For instance, in the first batch there was a categorization based on

• naming the institutional site of a job and
• comments that humanize the interpreter and the interpreter’s relationships with interlocutors and colleagues.

The second batch broke down into

• comments that cast the profession overall in a bad light, and
• a relational comment (that could be considered humanizing or insulting depending upon one’s predisposition and/or knowledge – or lack thereof – of the circumstances that inspired it).

Roughly, one could say (based on the given samples) there are two dimensions to consider: the institutional/macrosocial level and the interpersonal/microsocial level. When, how, where, and to what extent can Facebook be used as a means to leverage institutional respectability for the profession, as well as to draw interlocutors more actively into the processes of co-constructing understanding across cultural differences?

What do we want to protect for the future?

You’ll have to forgive some of the references here, but let me play a little bit. I’ve actually always had some resistance to the extent of the confidentiality rule. It has been repeated my entire career that interpreters used to tell their spouses, “I’m going out for ice cream,” whenever they received last minute requests, as if interpreters are on par with international spies. It reminds me of a few scenes in Fair Game, when Valerie Plame insists to her husband that she is “going to Detroit” (instead of, for instance, Afghanistan or Darfur) and “works at [such-and-such fake company]” instead of for the Central Intelligence Agency. As if he doesn’t know. (But then, he doesn’t know the specifics, but generally, he knows!)

The two prompts that we were given early in the workshop as a warm-up for the small group exercises referred to the screening and rating systems by which interpreters become certified. I didn’t know that these people’s identities are kept secret! I’m interested in the rationale, having just learned that the people who rate movies are also essentially undercover. This Film is Not Yet Rated documents the search for these raters who have incredible influence over what movies get advertised, distributed, and seen in the US.

SC made an important observation about modern-day compartmentalization, in which a person’s different identities belong to different physical places and are performed with particular people associated with those places – rarely if ever to meet. This is of course what is radically changed by participation in cyberspace: work, family, friends, activism, school, hobbies…. all our varied aspects can be brought together. Young people are mashing-up all these previously-separated spaces and we’ve got no choice but to react. The heart of the matter for RID is if we can move beyond gut-level reactions to proactive responsiveness.

...imagine...

Some of the resources shared by SC and Rebekah are definitely worth checking out, especially if you are a Massachusetts’ state employee. There’s a quiz about ethical behavior, which can be used to assess conformance with the MA State code of conduct Chapter 268A. They also shared some resources on making your Facebook page “nearly invisible” and otherwise learning how to take advantage of privacy settings. If you’re interested in some theory about challenges with understanding/interpreting online text (including email, SMS, etc), you might want to look at social information processing theory, which describes internet-based communication as “cues filtered out,” but is one of the first theories with a positive take on the kinds of relationships that can develop in cyberspace that are not possible face-to-face (for all kinds of reasons).

Getting nerdy

Finally, I want to describe two “discourses” that struck me as the main junctures of discussion during the workshop. First, note that I am making a technical distinction between conversation (in which we “share verses with” each other) and discussion (in which we bounce off each other’s utterances as if they were billiard balls). Conversation is generative – it can lead to new knowledge, new relationships, new possibilities. Discussion maintains the status quo (especially hierarchies of dominance and entrenched disagreements).

Discourses are patterned ways of talking: they represent particular attitudes or approaches to a topic and every human being is caught up in them, one way or another. Whatever we say, every time we say anything (and even when we say nothing), we are participating in one or several discourses. It is the cumulative action of discourses (many people saying similar things) that shapes social realities.

One of the discourses in the workshop represents our professional conditioning: it is habitual and traditional – one could say it is the ‘dominant’ perspective on interpreters’ professional conduct. This discourse was foreshadowed by the workshop title, which emphasizes “confidentiality and ethics.” The second discourse questions this historical inheritance – some might call it critical or challenging, but if we’re interested in accuracy, I think it is a transitional discourse: it is the one we need to have until we figure out how to be in the new social mash-up where the old categories get all mixed up with each other.

The great benefit of Stephanie Clark’s and Rebekah Barkowitz’s leadership on these issues is that they invited and welcomed both discourses to be co-present in the room. For the most part, the two discourses bounced off each other, discussion-style. Conversations did occur, however, along the sidelines in small groups and during lunch. Hopefully as professionals we can make conscious choices toward conversation in order to mobilize our collective intelligence toward strategies and positions that enhance the profession by improving the intercultural communication service we provide.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Region 1 Conference
Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf
Albany NY

Rene Pellerin froze in motion when the interpreter placed her hand on his back. While telling his story, he had been rotating gradually toward his right, giving the camera his profile and making it difficult for those in the audience to his left to read his signing clearly. Rene thanked Regan for saving him from talking to a wall. The laughter from the audience was rich with appreciation.

Rene shared several anecdotes from his personal life and professional career with the State of Vermont. Rene uses normal, everyday events that anyone can relate to in order  to draw us into his experience as a Deaf person gradually becoming blind. His detailed explanations take full advantage of the linguistic capacity of signed languages to put you in your body. For instance, when Rene described his train ride to college, he included walking through the carriages to get a drink from the cafe car. I didn’t just remember my own struggles with those dang doors, trying to balance against the rocking motion, and how many cars they can string together – I re-felt the embodied sensations that generate those memories.

You can perhaps imagine how relieved we were, then, when Regan pulled Rene back from his slow migration toward the front edge of the stage! And how we winced when he described the drastic shifts in visual perception that accompany moving from well-lighted environments to dark ones and vice-versa. And how we cringed when he recounted some of his strategies for getting around without his flashlight or cane. And groaned upon discovering the mistaken use of baking powder instead of starch.

only connect

Maybe I am projecting Rene’s desire to connect with us, the audience, as the reason for his movement in our direction. This is what the skilled use of interpreters enables – relationships across differences that appear insurmountable. Selecting Rene to provide the entertainment program for the conference is in keeping with a decades-long trend increasing the prominence of providing interpretation services for deafblind people. Giving Rene the stage also shows the deep heart of many interpreters, especially those who invest long hours becoming skilled providers of tactile sign language and often develop strong bonds with some of the people for whom they work.

As I watched Rene give humorous accounts of difficult situations, I was struck by the tremendous commitment to the social aspects of being human that is lived out by people associated with this profession.

“In the end,”
Thomas Merton said to a friend engaged in peacework,
“it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.“[1]

why pie?

I attended the Closing the Gap workshop offered by Young Professional Interpreters hoping they would show me some cool technology that they’re using to build bridges among experienced and new interpreters and/or with members of the deaf community.  We talked mainly about the informal peer support model that YPI is using to encourage and motivate each other while getting established in the profession. We seemed to agree that the best way for anyone to build a peer group (whether experienced or new – to an area as well as to the field) is to participate in their affiliate chapter. It is crucial for interpreters to feel good enough about our work to be able to go back to the job everyday. But emotional support is only one part of the comprehensive network of support for the high quality provision of service that is required by a practice profession like ours. Other mechanisms are needed to constantly build skill, not only knowledge. Dennis Cokely made the point in his Closing Address that building knowledge at three- or four-hour conference workshops is not the same as subjecting our skills to regular assessment in order to target and focus attention on improving particular and specific areas of performance.

Time for Supervision

Informal support is great. I’m not knocking it; indeed I wouldn’t mind more! It is just that informality, comfortable though it is, is not enough to strengthen ourselves for the immense challenges of the next decade or two. As Dennis Cokely pointed out, more people want mentoring than are able to receive it, and less than a third of the organization’s members are willing to provide it. Peer mentorship and process mediation are useful tools, but they each rely upon personal preferences and a kind of interpersonal chemistry to be effective. These supports are a significant step up from the casual informality promoted by the YPI (and we need all these types of support), but – as far as I am aware – none of them are standardized enough to be implemented in a systemic way. And, like it or not, want it or not, RID needs a system that can be institutionalized. By “institutionalized,” I mean organized procedurally so that it can be delivered across the country in a relatively uniform way to practicing interpreters of any language combination, in any setting, at every level of competence.

If you were inspired by Dennis’ argument that our profession is right now in a state of crisis, bear with me while I try to explain the logic. My argument is teleological and interpersonal.  The roots of our profession tell us that the relationship matters most. But which one? Aren’t there many relationships happening all at the same time? Where we are stuck (imho) is that we keep trying to make the entire profession about only one of the multiple ‘relationships’ present and active in any and every interaction involving simultaneous interpretation. We’re asking the deaf-interpreter relationship to bear the weight of the sum-total, all-encompassing, complete and irreducible whole of interpreted interaction as if all the other relationships are simply irrelevant. This bias made sense in the early days of the field. In fact, our profession could have begun no other way. But acting on the belief that the deaf-interpreter relationship is the only justification of our being a federally-mandated profession disregards the most important lesson we’ve learned from working as professionals providing simultaneous interpretation:  context matters.

Transnationalism is the context

Language policies are being contested around the world. Minority languages continue to fight for survival against the imposition of national languages and the spread of dominant languages.  Immigrants are moving in droves from country-to-country and most will need access to high-quality simultaneous interpretation at one time or another. We know that cultural diversity resides in languages!  Yet, in the embattled way of weary soldiers who can only perceive the outline of the trench they’ve been trapped in for the last … 100 years? … we are still strategizing as if the conditions of the fight are identical to what they were four decades ago.

What transnationalism does is inject global economics into interpersonal relationships. It isn’t only the interpreting profession that has become corporatized. Nearly everything has. The cushy middle-class lifestyle of professional interpreters is under threat, or at least the fear of threat. Some traditional ways of Deaf cultural life are changing, perhaps even vanishing, but these old ways are being replaced by new cultural forms of deafhood, some of which need interpreters less than they ever did before! We grieve the loss of ‘the origins’ so much because that era – the personalities and relationships – is a point of clear focus amidst a maze of multiple losses.

Vision looks ‘ahead’ to the unknown,
memory looks ‘back’ to the familiar

As many people said in various ways throughout the conference, RID needs a coherent vision. The birth was grand and the adolescent years were rough. Now, the sea is turbulent, but we’ve found a pool of calm by re-forging connections in sync with the original raison d’être.  This must remain our touchstone, but we need to enlarge our imagination to take in the ramifications of being players on the international scale. Sign language interpreters in the English-speaking countries are not only experts in sign language interpretation; we are uniquely positioned to become experts for all forms of simultaneous interpretation. Rather than looking to the charitable ethos of spoken language interpreters laboring under the voluntary or underpaid conditions of (the bad part) of ‘the good ol’ days’, we should be figuring out how to bring their working conditions up to par with our own! Strengthening the use of interpreting in all situations, with any languages, is a possibility that will open more doors for Deaf people than anything else we are in position to do.

Why? Because as people learn to interact well during interpreted interaction, they build new skills for communicating when the flow is un-even. The more flexibility in skill, the more capacity for making connections across difference. Increased capacity for connecting leads to more chances for relationships. This is the gift our profession can give the world: a specific practice of intercultural communication that improves equality, promotes justice, and even enables democratic participation in a more fair – and still diverse! – society.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Region 1 Conference
Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf
Albany NY

Laughing our way to a healthy profession

I attend conferences in several different fields. No one laughs as often or as loud as sign language interpreters. Robyn Dean’s workshop, “I don’t think we’re supposed to be talking about this….” Case Conferencing and Supervision for Interpreters, was punctuated with humor a dozen times an hour, and occasionally we would hear outbursts from the neighboring workshop group as they took Steps to Feel More Comfortable Interpreting the Twelve Steps. Having a sense of humor is prerequisite for survival in this field, especially being able to make fun of oneself and teasing colleagues in affectionate ways. In the open comment time after Keynote Presenter Lewis Merkin’s small group activity about the passions we bring to the profession, Betty Colonomos commented on the health of growing pains: instead of staying stuck in comparative judgment, we’ve become more cooperative with each other time, allowing the recognition of each other’s humanity. Her reflection reminded me of Robyn’s definition of “responsibility” as the act of continuing in conversation. Instead of being stopped from communicating because of an unanticipated reaction, to be response-able means finding a way to respond again.

Lewis had just taken us on a journey back to RID’s founding and shown a few clips from the organization’s 25th anniversary video (Silver Threads). RID’s 50th anniversary arrives in 2014; it makes sense that thoughts turn to organizational history. It was fascinating to watch MJ Bienvenu describe her reluctant entry into RID in a calm, almost nonchalant, manner. At first, she explained, she didn’t want to be troubled by all the commotion, but was told that things were “getting better” (because by 1985 there were two Deaf interpreters) and eventually decided that she wanted to invest time and energy in this field. Patrick Graybill was prescient, forecasting ahead from the tumultuous ‘80s to indicators of maturity and stability as we close in on half-a-century of growth and development as an organization representing an increasingly significant profession.

Welcome to transnationalism!

There is no way to know what would have developed if dynamics from the 1980s had not been interrupted, but Video Relay Services happened. Mary Lightfoot’s presentation on Video Interpreting: The State of the Practice and Implications for Interpreters reinforced Janet Bailey’s information from RID’s Government Affairs Program. Although VRS was an industry initiative – a technological and entrepreneurial invention – it brought sign language interpretation to the attention of the FCC. Suddenly, interpreters were confronted with law.

The professionally-engaged American Deaf and interpreting communities are mainly of white/European descent, and thus have been cushioned by the global state of political affairs for several generations. The resulting mindset is the unconscious attitude of privilege. So far, the best way I’ve come up with for explaining “privilege” is the experience of flow. Everybody wants flow – the easy experience of thinking, doing, and communicating when comprehension is not a problem. It seems to me that white people in the US experience uninterrupted flow more consistently than nearly everyone else. This is not to say that other people do not experience flow! Everyone does. You are most likely to feel flow when you are with your own kind (however you define the groups you belong to) and are comfortable in your status/position among the members of that group. It is the presence of difference, often combined with some kind of force, that disrupts flow.

Coming from a background or context of privilege simply means that shocks and disruptions to the experience of flow are minimized. This is the essence of whiteness. At a certain very basic level, ethnicity or audition has nothing to do with privilege, because individually you may have been very well protected from difficult or challenging life events (by chance or design, it doesn’t matter). The problem with privilege isn’t that someone has privilege or comes from a privileged background. The problem with privilege is that it creates an incapacity for handling interactions that do not conform to expected or desired flow.

Beauties of bilingualism

Learning another language, and interacting with people who think in another language, requires us to cultivate the capacity for dealing with differences. But fluency doesn’t necessarily mean we manage the differences gracefully! Experience doesn’t make the relational challenges go away when the pushes and pulls of accommodating difference upset the intrapersonal experience of flow. While RID and NAD continue to celebrate the reunion of the Deaf and interpreting communities after the eighties’ uglies, some of the core tensions persist. The evidence from the large group attending the Region 1 Conference has to do with language policy. Do we use ASL all the time, exclusively and only? Or is spoken English allowable, and if so when and under what circumstances?

Upon arrival to the conference venue on Thursday afternoon, Hartmut Teuber greeted me at the end of the registration table. Did I understand the meaning of the ASL Committed! button? I had already seen – and misread – the button, thinking it was a club membership (for an ASL Committee). When I realized the slogan was intended as a political statement, I had played through the joke about being “committed” to a mental institution. (I wasn’t the only one, an interpreter from NYC made the same joke while arguing passionately in support of the ASL/signing policy after Lewis’ keynote address.) At any rate, in the way that I do this kind of live/action research, I have been watching the group dynamics about language use carefully.

Ethics and Effectiveness

Placing myself with all of those who remember Bob Pollard’s single slide on the liberal-conservative political spectrum of interpreter decision-making (more than the other 75 slides that Robyn Dean has created about the Demand-Control Schema, wink), there are at least two ways to frame the question of language policy for RID. One way is how I’ve introduced it above, as a matter of competition between privilege and disenfranchisement. Another way is as a contest between deontological and teleological ethics. Does RID want to be a rule-based organization (deontological) or an ends-based organization (teleological)? If only the choice was simple! Answers to the latter question (where does the profession base our ethics) are ‘in discussion’ with the former framing of language use in the dynamics of oppression/empowerment.

The way interpreters and the Deaf community talk with each other about privilege and oppression is one discourse. The way interpreters and the Deaf community talk with each other about ethics and effectiveness is another discourse. Each discourse has its own internal patterns, and the two discourses interact with each other in another layer of discursive patterning. Every individual, meanwhile, is situated within each of these discourses in a particular ‘position.’ It is these positions that bounce and bang off of each other or bond tightly with and to each other that result in various kinds of group dynamics.

The way we talk and interact with each other about language policy is another discourse. I would call it a nested discourse, because whether or not to sign or speak is a specific example that can be used in service of either of the ‘larger’ discourses about ethics/effectiveness or oppression/empowerment.

Button up!

I am a teleologist, which partly explains why I am not wearing the button. I have never been good at ‘going along with’ the dominant, main, or ‘in’ thing. I resist going along with ‘the rules’ just because it is the politically correct or otherwise fashionable thing to do. I am not criticizing people who are wearing the button – I support the cause! Signing in the presence of Deaf people is the right thing to do, and it should be the official policy of RID to use ASL whenever Deaf people are involved. Wearing the button is a symbol of intention, but wearing the button is not the actual behavior of signing in the presence of Deaf people. How does one build the common culture that inspires people to sign whether or not they are surrounded by political reminders?

What I’ve noticed during the course of the conference is that it really matters whether the presenter signs ASL or speaks in English. During the Thursday evening updates, Cheryl Moose and Janet Bailey set the tone by signing from the main stage. They generated enough momentum that when the next presenter used voice instead of sign, the group overall maintained the mode of signing (even though the percentage of Deaf to non-deaf attendees is small). It happened that both the workshops I attended on Friday were presented in spoken English. Please understand, I’m not slighting that choice! I have preferred to present in English too – I am more confident expressing myself in my native tongue. (I am also more competent, as the reparative (clarifying) captioning of my talk to the New England Deaf Studies Conference illustrates!)

During Mary’s workshop, we had several breakouts for small group activities, and I wound up in a group using spoken English. This communicative mode was good for me, as the challenge of taking notes while watching ASL is real. Karen, Julie, Elizabeth and Julaine were awesome: they knew I was double-tasking (listening/learning and watching/recording) and kept me in the loop, filling in whatever I missed, clarifying what I partially understood, and correcting misunderstandings. Other groups were using sign, but as the morning’s session drew on, the switch from ASL to English became more marked. At one point, a woman behind me complained (loudly) that she couldn’t hear the presenter because of the noise from everyone’s chatter. The sudden silence that filled the room was thick with guilt. It was as if the hundred of us had all been ‘caught’ and were stunned into suspended animation, waiting for the punitive blow.

The woman who made the intervention commented, “Wow, its quiet now” (or maybe she said, “Wow, that got everyone’s attention”), which broke the ice. Mary then engaged her around whether it was an issue with the mic and – after a few turns back-and-forth – clarified for all of us that there was so much talking occurring throughout the room at such a volume that Mary’s voice was drowned out, despite being broadcast through speakers from a microphone. The depth and starkness of the group-level silence, combined with the confusion about what exactly the problem was, suggested to me that this moment was about language policy.

Only a short time later, the session ended and I ‘caught’ a guy talking in the lunch line. At least, he made me feel as if I had ‘caught’ him. He said something to the woman across from him and then startled, turning to me and apologized, explaining how well they knew each other. It seemed he reacted as if I might report him for violating the signing rule. Perhaps he had just come out of the same workshop, and was still affected? At this point in the conference, there is probably a roughly equal percentage of signing and speaking. The background buzz of audible conversation accompanies the visual field of multiple moving hands and animated faces.

Discomfort: Adjusting to the Loss of Flow

That afternoon, during a break in Robyn’s workshop, one person walked away from talking with me in a rather abrupt fashion. Was it because I was speaking English or did she have something else on her mind? Probably I was oversensitive. Since I am deliberately trying to ‘tune in’ to these dynamics, I may be ‘reading’ them in interactions where they are not actually operating (especially at the interpersonal level, because one never knows what is going on in another person’s mind). Behaviors at the aggregated group level are a more reliable measure. So I was acutely aware of the stony lack of response to Lewis’ announcement of the target date of 2013 for RID to host a national conference with an all-signing policy.

Given all of the celebratory rhetoric about the special, happy relationship between RID & NAD and between interpreters and the Deaf community, the prospect of ASL as the preferred official language of our professional conferences ought to have been greeted with cheers! Instead, a sense of stillness passed through the room: the hint of displeasure, perhaps even a solidification of resistance. What is the right thing to do? How is one supposed to feel? Why do we have to be reminded – in the midst of enjoying each other so comfortably! – that there are still matters of justice and fairness to be addressed?

Scope of Responsibility

Social change usually involves a combination of breaking old rules and enforcing new ones. Each individual will have to come to terms with your own stance in relation to the changing language policies. The teleological question may be useful in figuring this out. What is the desired end result? Because we are talking about language policy for an entire profession, the end result has to be imagined in terms of the function we want sign language interpreting to play in the larger scheme of world affairs. My stance is that as an organization, RID needs to be positioned further toward the liberal end of the ethical decision-making spectrum. As individual practicing professionals, we may still perform mainly toward the conservative end of the spectrum, but as an organization, we have to attempt to direct the influence of our aggregated decisions within the larger society.

This means perceiving our individual actions from the outside, and projecting the accumulating impetus of our combined individual choices over time and in relation with other people’s choices. We cooperate to generate the social conditions of our work and our world. Whether we cooperate with awareness and consciousness of consequences, or by accident – come what may – is a measure of how seriously we embrace the responsibilities of providing simultaneous interpretation.

Popularity: 7% [?]

indexical timespace
Region 1 Conference
Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf
Albany NY

Where is your meaning?

Opening night at the Region 1 conference for American Sign Language/English interpreters featured two information-rich sessions on the strategic organizational development of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID). The Government Affairs Program presentation by former RID President Janet Bailey illustrated RID’s progress in earning recognition as experts on interpreting with the federal government. The report from Tracey Frederick of the Strategic Challenges and Bylaws Review Task Force revealed intra-organizational schisms on issues such as the range and type of certifications authorized by RID, the extent of linkage between “certification” and “membership,” and the distribution of voting rights and limitations according to certification status. The question of control is at the core of both internally and externally oriented topics.

The historical inheritance of the sign language interpreting profession in the U.S. privileges the control of space over efforts to control time. The emphasis on controlling space parallels global patterns in communication technology since the invention of mail (the physical delivery of letters) and railroads (the industrial distribution of goods). Faster forms of travel (of material things as well as communicative messages) are a major contributor to the pace of today’s society. Control over territory (including the people within that area) is determined by the capacity to manage distance. Imagine a three-way chemical reaction: the further you can go, the faster you can get there, and the reliability with which you can go and return all interact to produce a desire for speed. The demand for speed is a result of attempts to control space.

Janet Bailey gave a brief history of RID showing how, as an organization, despite funding ties with the Department of Education and some connections with Vocational Rehabilitation, we were essentially unknown to the federal government until video relay technology blasted onto the scene in the 1990s. The technological capacity to transmit two-way video signals in synchronous time allows the Deaf Community to communicate with each other as easily as non-deaf people have been using the telephone for the past century. Curiously, the obvious fairness of making communication access as available and everyday for the Deaf as it already is for the non-deaf is one of the institutional challenges of our era. Actually, I overstate the case. Deaf people have figured out very well how to use technology to communicate among themselves and with anyone who is fluent in a sign language. The serious challenge for RID is leveraging the intercultural communication skills of video relay simultaneous interpreting to helping people connect across significant language differences.

Building relationships is a matter of time

Connecting with other people is a function of understanding. Humans tend to become friends with the people we understand, and enemies (or emotionally indifferent to) the people we do not understand. If understanding comes easily we appreciate the flow. When understanding requires a process, most people do not seem to enjoy the interaction as much. Wait. Let me qualify that last statement: most monolingual people do not enjoy interactions that require effort in understanding. My evidence is both personal and professional. As a simultaneous interpreter, I am constantly under pressure to understand instantly with a level of accuracy possible only by telepathy. Failures to immediately grasp meaning are heavily criticized by all parties to the interaction. In contrast, anyone who seriously begins to learn another language develops individual capacity for handling difference. If you want to connect with someone who uses a different language, the first step involves accepting the fact of differences – whether they are cultural, grammatical, or perceptual. The second step in building a relationship with someone who is not the same as you requires learning how to manage the time of trying to understand them and their ways.

Recently I was privileged to attend a wedding between two amazing people whose combined network of family and friends is a microcosm of diversity. During quieter activities before and after the main event, I observed the bride and groom’s family members and friends communicate with each other. All of the Italians and Romanians who had learned a bit of English made efforts to connect with each other as well as with the Americans (and guests of other nationalities using English as the lingua franca). Since both Italian and Romanian belong to the Romance family of languages, Italians speaking Italian to the Romanians and Romanians speaking Romanian to the Italians supplemented (in some situations) limited vocabularies in English. Spanish is also a Romance language, unlike English, so Spanish also served as a communicative bridge.

The point is that no one with any degree of bilingualism was upset about making the effort! No one complained that communicating took “extra” time! What was important was the mutual desire to connect, and whatever language was available was what was used. The relationships were forged in-and-by the process of figuring out the meanings together. There is a special quality to connections based on conscious cooperation that distinguishes them from relationships that stem from the automatic flow of using the same language. This is the zone where the intercultural communication skills of simultaneous interpreters have particular importance and special use. No other communicative practice has as much potential for forging individual, cultural, and systemic capacities for the equitable embrace of diversity and fair treatment of difference.

Dynamics of Simultaneously Interpreting Signed & Spoken Languages

Tracey shared results of the 2007 member survey with us, including the dismal statistic that a mere three percent identified as Deaf. Although RID is officially invested in putting a positive spin to recent efforts at increasing and enhancing the Deaf role in the organization, this figure represents a drastic drop from the percentages at the organization’s founding in 1964. What I want to emphasize is the disproportionate influence of this tiny slice of the membership on the organization overall. The success of such a numerical minority to shape organizational goals, mission, and culture brings to mind Margaret Mead’s famous quote about small groups of committed people being the only effective agent of large-scale change.

One of the historical puzzles that Janet clarified is why the law requiring sign language interpretation as a reasonable accommodation uses the adjective “qualified” instead of “certified” to establish a baseline measure of interpreter competence. This is because, at the time of the public hearings, RID was a small organization (less than 5000 members) and only a fraction of those members were actually certified. The law could not be written with a requirement that would be impossible to satisfy. The result is a chaotic and contested terrain that contributes to some of today’s tension among interpreters working in different institutional fields.

A distinction I heard in Janet’s talk that I will continue to listen for involves a difference between “consumers” and “clients.” Janet mentioned consumers referring specifically to the Deaf, and clients in reference to who pays the bill. One of my criticisms of our field is the general disregard for the non-deaf, “hearing” participants in interpreted interaction. Until we bring all interlocutors into the overall professional discourse, we cannot resolve persistent problems nor achieve the promise of the field: the unprecedented capacity of simultaneous interpretation to contribute to multicultural practices of equality and democracy.

Popularity: 2% [?]

documentary timespace

That’s so #DEAF! from Stephanie Jo Kent on Vimeo.

This is the first ten minutes of a presentation about what the Deaf Community can teach the rest of the world about using interpreters. Later in the talk I explain some details in a timeline, ReTaking RID: A Story of Deaf Empowerment. I summarized the other events of the day-long conference event in Showing Empowerment.

I’ve been pitching Ryan Commerson’s video since I first saw it a year and a half ago. Redefining Deaf is a masterpiece of contemporary theory and political activism. His newest short film, Gallaudet, is the best artistic rendering of how the Deaf see/perceive that I’ve come across.

Can’t get enough of Deaf consciousness?  Watch the post-production video.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Real World Ethics

One thing I love about the sign language interpreting community is how seriously we take the matter of professional ethics. We have no choice, actually, because the Deaf community holds our feet to the fire on a regular basis. It is an extraordinary dynamic. The effects of participating in simultaneously-interpreted communication may appear to be concentrated in the interaction between the interpreter and the signer, but the significance of using interpreters extends as well to the entire group and among all languages. Patty Azzarello writes of a team-building activity without an interpreter, detailing the embarrassing lessons learned by the team that discounted the member who was not fluent in English.

He was the smartest guy in the room.

He tried to share his good ideas with us – over and over again.

We basically threw him overboard.

I cannot speculate as to how the dynamics in Patty’s team would have been changed if there had been an interpreter included, but I can say that interpreters witness Deaf people being “thrown overboard” on a far too regular basis.  Michael Harvey has researched and written about vicarious trauma  and interpreters. Notice the disturbing chain effect: Deaf empowerment is (largely) directed at interpreters, who are (often) traumatized by the effort to balance Deaf claims for accessibility to goods, resources, and other forms of participation in democratic society against the (too typical) non-Deaf person’s disregard not only of the claim, but even of the person asserting the claim.

What Can Be Done?

Two dozen interpreters gathered last fall to explore “The Intersection of Ethics and Interpreting” with Robert Nash (author of Real World Ethics: Frameworks for Educators and Human Service Professionals) and Patricia Chau Nguyen (Assistant Dean of Students and Director of  The Asian & Asian American Center at Cornell University). We spent the day exploring the “three moral languages” framework to our experiences as professional interpreters.  “Each of us,” Nash explains, “lives our lives in at least three overlapping moral worlds, and each world features its own special moral language” (Real World Ethics: A Holistic, Problem-Solving Framework, p. 3).

First we explored what Nash calls “zero-level first moral language.” His investigatory questions inspired a range of passionate identifications with deeply-felt personal beliefs:

• “giving back” as a volunteer because without that “we don’t survive as a community”
• “treating people equally,” “not making judgments on them”
• the absolute significance of children: “children have the right to claim my full attention without any preconceptions”
• the ultimate prioritization of right here, right now, “All that I’m sure of is being right here right now right away.”
• “I believe relationships are primary in this short life that we live.”

Among the challenges of making good moral decisions – and of being a good interpreter – is not getting stuck at the zero-level – because there is no “resolution” to be found there. The zero-level involves an individual’s intrapsychic being, which is usually not amenable to alteration. The second language refers to moral character and the role of a person in relation with others. Someone characterized the narratives of the second moral language as a “responsiveness” that is “more than duty.”  I jotted down two examples that captured the gist of this language in relation to sign language interpreters (who tend mainly to be female):

“I think I should be a big girl and stay.”

“I got my big girl pants on today.”

Interpreters are on the boundary not just between languages (and the cultural norms, values, pains, and pride of the people who use them) but also between the second and third moral languages. Naming and excavating our second moral language elicited as much – and in some cases even more – passion than we discovered at the zero-level!

“Brimming over with Beliefs”

• “people should be there for each other when there’s a need”
• “meaning is in deep connection”
• “there is a duty to love”
• “everybody should get what they  need”
• the need for balance: “If you push a virtue to an extreme, it becomes a vice.”  I think this was illustrated by someone’s tease: “You never had a feeling you didn’t express!”
• the skill of empathy, defined as “feeling for” (which raised questions about “the authenticity of generosity” and the risk of vice through “overgiving” and/or “becoming a doormat”)

While the second moral language occurs at the level of the community, Nash and Nguyen showed us how the third moral language is the one imposed by the professional working world. This third level of moral language eschews both the first (personal) and second (communal, cultural) moral languages, emphasizing codified rules and principles rooted in respect and tolerance of moral differences.  Rather than promoting one moral  language over another, Nash and Nguyen both shared examples of ways in which all three languages are always interwoven in any professional discussion of ethical behavior and decision-making.

Interrupting Moral Silence

“Whoa!” Patricia was excited. “That brought out the signing!”

A Spring Thunderstorm in New England

One of the interpreters shared a horrific situation that she’d just been through with a medical doctor who had aggressively refused to negotiate how to make the communication with a Deaf patient work. Her story hit us where we live; we’ve all been there.  Stuck.  Because there is a Code of Conduct that governs the boundaries of the professional delivery of services, and because you can’t reason with people who aren’t willing to listen. Implicit throughout the institutional-level moral language in the professional code is that we won’t disrupt the proceedings by making issues out of dynamics that are problematic. Debate over when and how we should and why we should or should not has raged over decades between the Deaf community and interpreters. Meanwhile non-Deaf users of interpretation services remain generally oblivious, content to assert the supposed role supremacy of their status and their normal ways of doing business.

Our colleague was still fuming over the blatant disrespect that the physician had shown for the client (not to mention herself). We took the situation as a case, and applied the nine questions Nash has developed for analyzing and deciding upon an ethical course of action. The involved interpreter reflected on the range of perceptions she had about the doctor being unaware that the (new) patient was Deaf, not knowing an interpreter had been hired for which his practice was financially responsible, and otherwise being completely unfamiliar with interpreted communication. In general, we agreed that all these factors combined still did not justify his reaction, however the involved interpreter was able to perceive that if he was already having a bad day and then “all this” happened….well, even doctors are human. After the initial exchange, he had made an effort to work with the situation and the patient did receive treatment.

Knowledge for Action

A few weeks later that same interpreter happened to be driving by the offending physician’s office with some time on her hands.  She decided to stop in. As it happened, the doctor was available, and they spoke about the incident, de-briefing it together.  I’d like to report that the doctor made a 180-degree shift, but that would be exaggerating. However he did apologize, and it seems possible that he won’t put another Deaf person through the trauma of watching non-Deaf people argue over whether or not communication access is going to be provided to them while they seek health care.

Popularity: 9% [?]