- Joined
- Jan 22, 2012
- Messages
- 1,267
- Reaction score
- 0
I want to talk about what happens when a hearing person is becoming proficient at signing, but is not a professional interpreter, and finds herself (or himself) in situations where she (etc) ends up helping her Deaf friends communicate with hearing people. Just as a natural part of socializing, friendship, life in general - not as any sort of contracted/paid work.
If you've found yourself in this situation, do you keep the code of ethics in mind?
As my signing continues to improve, I'm realizing I really need to think about this.
If a friend asks me to come along for a doctor's appointment* and I help with communication (I keep trying to avoid calling it interpreting, because I associate that word with the pros) that seems obvious: everything there is confidential. My friend knows I know, and we continue to be friends, so the topics from the appointment might come up between the two of us on occasion, but that's it.
On the other hand, if I'm out at a restaurant with a bunch of Deaf friends, and I wind up helping them order and have other very casual interactions with the waitress, that seems completely innocuous to me and I wouldn't hesitate to include stores from that encounter in whatever conversations I might have with other people.
Then there's an odd middle ground. A friend asks me to come to his church and sit in the pew next to a few Deaf people, and take a shot at signing the sermon, plus facilitate some chatting between a mixed table of Deaf and hearing during coffee hour after. My gut reaction was that this wasn't a big deal. It's a public event, anyone else could chat later about who was there and what was said.
But then I met an interpreter and we were talking about a church service she regularly interprets. She was encouraging me to come and mingle, and I stupidly asked her "who goes?" and she said "I can't say." So I apologized, letting her know that I'm not an interpreter and don't have all the code of ethics stuff in the front of my mind, but I'm aware of it, I understand, and of course she can't say anything.
So maybe I should be being stricter with myself than my gut tells me.
And I think that as I sort this stuff out, I'd like to try to get a better sense of the thinking behind the code of ethics.
I understand certain things. Like if you're interpreting an interaction between two people, it should be like you were never even there: no one but the two people should know what they said to each other. That makes sense to me. But something like terping at a church or other public event, my feeling is that anyone else (deaf or hearing, in the congregation or the choir or whatever) can see who's there and can be aware of what goes on. So any of them could be out in the world discussing it. It seems odd to me that the interpreter can't. Unless the idea is just that the interpreter needs to have a big blanket confidentiality rule, so there's never any possible grey areas, no threat of a slippery slope.
And then I think about what that means for me. Don't talk about the church stuff? Don't ever talk about anything? Not even the little restaurant things?
Maybe the difference is if it just happens or if you're asked to do it? (and if you're asked, then just adopt the entire code of ethics, even if you're just volunteering and are not certified). And of course anything sensitive should always be respected whether the "interpreting" happened spontaneously or was planned ahead. That part is clear to me.
So I'm interested in getting feedback from other hearing signers who might have found themselves in this position. Or from Deaf people who read this and can tell me what their preferences and expectations are. Or if any terps feel like weighing in, awesome.
Thanks everyone!
*I know: a real interpreter is supposed to be provided for free for that kind of thing. But they don't always show up, and sometimes for a last minute appointment, getting someone is a serious long-shot.
If you've found yourself in this situation, do you keep the code of ethics in mind?
As my signing continues to improve, I'm realizing I really need to think about this.
If a friend asks me to come along for a doctor's appointment* and I help with communication (I keep trying to avoid calling it interpreting, because I associate that word with the pros) that seems obvious: everything there is confidential. My friend knows I know, and we continue to be friends, so the topics from the appointment might come up between the two of us on occasion, but that's it.
On the other hand, if I'm out at a restaurant with a bunch of Deaf friends, and I wind up helping them order and have other very casual interactions with the waitress, that seems completely innocuous to me and I wouldn't hesitate to include stores from that encounter in whatever conversations I might have with other people.
Then there's an odd middle ground. A friend asks me to come to his church and sit in the pew next to a few Deaf people, and take a shot at signing the sermon, plus facilitate some chatting between a mixed table of Deaf and hearing during coffee hour after. My gut reaction was that this wasn't a big deal. It's a public event, anyone else could chat later about who was there and what was said.
But then I met an interpreter and we were talking about a church service she regularly interprets. She was encouraging me to come and mingle, and I stupidly asked her "who goes?" and she said "I can't say." So I apologized, letting her know that I'm not an interpreter and don't have all the code of ethics stuff in the front of my mind, but I'm aware of it, I understand, and of course she can't say anything.
So maybe I should be being stricter with myself than my gut tells me.
And I think that as I sort this stuff out, I'd like to try to get a better sense of the thinking behind the code of ethics.
I understand certain things. Like if you're interpreting an interaction between two people, it should be like you were never even there: no one but the two people should know what they said to each other. That makes sense to me. But something like terping at a church or other public event, my feeling is that anyone else (deaf or hearing, in the congregation or the choir or whatever) can see who's there and can be aware of what goes on. So any of them could be out in the world discussing it. It seems odd to me that the interpreter can't. Unless the idea is just that the interpreter needs to have a big blanket confidentiality rule, so there's never any possible grey areas, no threat of a slippery slope.
And then I think about what that means for me. Don't talk about the church stuff? Don't ever talk about anything? Not even the little restaurant things?
Maybe the difference is if it just happens or if you're asked to do it? (and if you're asked, then just adopt the entire code of ethics, even if you're just volunteering and are not certified). And of course anything sensitive should always be respected whether the "interpreting" happened spontaneously or was planned ahead. That part is clear to me.
So I'm interested in getting feedback from other hearing signers who might have found themselves in this position. Or from Deaf people who read this and can tell me what their preferences and expectations are. Or if any terps feel like weighing in, awesome.
Thanks everyone!
*I know: a real interpreter is supposed to be provided for free for that kind of thing. But they don't always show up, and sometimes for a last minute appointment, getting someone is a serious long-shot.
