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Bebonang

It does have a point about which actor a male and actress a female and both signs are the same. My only guess is to use fingerspell and then sign the word. It is a crock when he said that if the actress sign might be for hand form A and rotating around the breast that would help explain the female. Beside it is not a nice way of gesture if you do that with the female or to make the male smirk and think it is funny. It is humilating and embarrassing. Gawd, where do men learn to find the way to sign words that they don't know?

ClearSky

I think it's a joke.

I remember an interpreter had signed an embarrassing sign for penis in sex ed class. She used the index finger and wrapped two fingers (index and thumb finger) of the other hand around the other hand index finger and wiggled the finger.

Boy, I had hoped no one saw that! I think the class did. It was embarrassing, but I tried not to show any emotions and the class too.

I thought THAT was uncessesary. Just spell the word P-E-N-I-S! Don't need to show graphic sign that hearing people will know.

I really think sex, penis and vaginas should be spelled in schools because hearing people are foolish sometimes.

Interpretrator

It's perfectly possible to use signs for these without non-signers knowing. Yes, the class will look at the interpreter to see if they can catch the "dirty" signs, but you either simply sign them with no extra emphasis and nothing revealing on your face, or you come up with nonce signs with the student if it's really a problem in class. Maybe a student would prefer the signs to be spelled, or maybe the student doesn't care what his classmates think.

For some reason this reminds me of the time when I was interpreting in a history of religions class, and the teacher was talking about a time when he had to replace someone doing a sermon at short notice. He misread when turning the page and missed the first part of "resurrection," so he accidentally referred instead to "Christ's erection." Now the class thought this was funny but I was a relatively new interpreter and, not expecting that sign to come up (ahem) in class, I froze a bit and went to the only one I could remember, where you raise your forearm with your fist closed to indicate a gentleman of very large size with an erection.

So yes, the way I signed it, Jesus was hung like a horse.

jillio

ClearSky

The interpreter never used signs like that so graphic. I felt it was a gross disturbing sign. I even wondered if she made up that sign. Do many interpreters have the guts to do the penis sign?

I think it's ethically better to just spell it when among hearing people watching. If I knew better, I would have said something.

ClearSky

I think the simplest way to solve the actor and actress is to the sign woman or male sign before signing actor or actress.

Interpretrator

That is not among my signs for PENIS. It sounds more like a sign for INTERCOURSE to me. There's no reason to make the circle unless you're talking about some kind of sex.

It's just a body part. If an interpreter is that shy to not be able to sign PENIS or VAGINA then she is going to have problems in her career.

I think if you make arrangements with your interpreter due to your own discomfort, that is perfectly fine. I would never have said "no" if a student asked me to fingerspell something instead of signing it.

However, there is nothing ethically wrong with signing the actual signs. That is an interpreter's job, to interpret what is said in English into, among other things, ASL. It would be ethically wrong to skip that information or, in my opinion, fingerspell it just because the interpreter doesn't like to think about peepees or vajayjays.

There are certainly situations where interpreters may not be able to handle the subject matter. I knew an interpreter who asked to be reassigned from a class due to a student constantly spouting anti-Semitic stuff. (All of which he DID interpret while he was there.) Being Jewish, I would have done the same in his position. If an interpreter has been raped, it might be too hard for her to interpret a rape-related discussion. We're all human after all. But body parts -- at least the correct signs for them! -- should be part of any educational interpreter's lexicon.

I think here you might be applying your own personal discomfort to every person and situation. Again, talking to the terp is the best way to go here, but aside from the fact that I don't think that sign was appropriate if there wasn't a discussion of intercourse, there is nothing inherently unethical about signing the correct ASL signs. I've worked in a number of health classes and never had a problem with this. I even had to interpret one asshole teacher talking about how great his turds were. Yes, I had to classify "NICE GIANT TURD."

Handling the hearies in the class is, as I mentioned, a whole other skill interpreters need to know.

Completely agree, that's the simplest and clearest way to do it. If there is a person's name involved I just sign "ACTOR" since the name will make it clear if male or female. But if the sentence were, for example, "I need to hire an actress," I would do what you said.

shel90

QUOTE=Interpretrator;1051146]It's perfectly possible to use signs for these without non-signers knowing. Yes, the class will look at the interpreter to see if they can catch the "dirty" signs, but you either simply sign them with no extra emphasis and nothing revealing on your face, or you come up with nonce signs with the student if it's really a problem in class. Maybe a student would prefer the signs to be spelled, or maybe the student doesn't care what his classmates think.

For some reason this reminds me of the time when I was interpreting in a history of religions class, and the teacher was talking about a time when he had to replace someone doing a sermon at short notice. He misread when turning the page and missed the first part of "resurrection," so he accidentally referred instead to "Christ's erection." Now the class thought this was funny but I was a relatively new interpreter and, not expecting that sign to come up (ahem) in class, I froze a bit and went to the only one I could remember, where you raise your forearm with your fist closed to indicate a gentleman of very large size with an erection.

So yes, the way I signed it, Jesus was hung like a horse. [/quote]

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~Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

shel90

I wouldnt want the terp to change the meaning just because he/she is uncomfortable with signing the concept. It is not a gross nor disturbing sign. No signs are gross nor disturbing just like the spoken word. If the context being discussed is gross or disturbing, cant blame the sign nor the spoken word...blame the speaker!

__________________
~Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

frogsign

"peepees or vajayjays"

I'll have to add those to my spoken English lexicon!!!

Reba

That's my approach also. I follow the deaf client's preference.


Yeah, isn't it pitiful when the teachers are less mature than the students?

The one thing I hate is when the instructor is going to use some kind of vulgar term intentionally, and says, "I want to see how the interpreter signs this one!" Cute.