Interpreting in International Sign: Decisions of Deaf and non-deaf Interpreters - Christopher Stone & Deb Russel

The theme of this year "Think globally and act locally" ties really well to our research that we have carried out. The data is based on what we observed at an international conference. We will be discussing the interaction between a deaf and hearing interpreter. There are two teams: deaf interpreter with a hearing feed and a hearing interpreter. We are mainly focussing now on the deaf and hearing interpreters working together. The deaf and non deaf team worked with BSL, ASL and international sign.

We recorded the work of the team via zi8 Kodak and then analysed the data with the software programme ELAN. The research focussed on the decision process of the team.

We analysed how the information was chunked by the non deaf interpreter and how they signafied the chunks:
- chunking
- time hold
- hold of the initial fingerspelled word

The chunks were either held or dropped, such as dropping the hands in the lap to signify the end of the chunk. The conference presenter did not end his informational chunk, but the non deaf interpreter decided that this was the chunk to be given to the deaf interpreter.

The data was analysed and compared between the two interpreter teams: how does either team chunk the information. This was done for when and how to request feeds by the deaf interpreter from the non deaf interpreter, how to give affirmations and accomodations.

The results of this were presented in tables giving a comparative overview of the results between the two teams. These results will assist in future training of teams working with feeds, deaf and hearing interpreters and various sign languages.