Interpreters and Voicing

[ayala920]

I discussed this topic very briefly with some fellow interpreters (one nationally certified, the other regionally certified, and myself, not certified), and we couldn't come up with an answer. So I propose this question to you brilliant folks here at AD, in the hopes that someone can come up with a semi-intellectual rationale:

Why is it that many interpreters seem to have such an incredibly hard time voicing for their deaf clients/consumers/students? Is it lack of training? Are interpreters taught to be more expressive than receptive? Perhaps it's lack of socialization within the Deaf community? I'm very curious as to why it is so many interpreters produce beautiful ASL, but stand open-mouthed when it comes time to voice what someone has signed.

I'd be curious to hear responses from the consumer side as well. I only ask that you refrain from turning this into an, "Interpreters suck at life, that's why many can't voice well" argument.

 

[ismi]

I'd be curious to know (since I don't sign) what exactly you mean when you say interpreters don't voice well. Do you mean they're hesitant to voice? Or that they don't speak in the first person?

 

[LMM]

When I have seen terp for LMM, yes they voice for us hearies in the room. but if it's just her say in w/ doctor's police etc. No they respect the Language. You don't use your voice when you are signing ASL.
ASL is part of the Deaf Culture. Now if you have a SEE terp yes they sign & voice. Because it's English Language.
So Ayala, LMM ask you please respect her Language! Don't use your voice when you are terp for Deaf! If you keep voice everytime you terp for them, They start tell company they don't want you, They tell other Deaf's don't get so so! Word travels fast in the Community! No it's not gossip, it's the truth, how they feel about someone! Deaf people very straight forward about anything!

LMM

 

[timmie]

I have read that normal progression is that sign production develops sooner that sign reception. But, in the real world, if you understand the client, you should be able to put that into the English language without standing there open mouthed. Is it perhaps they take a little longer to process the message than you are used to?

I agree about the lack of socialization. I have learned a lot from being exposed to different people with their different and localized signing.

In my humble opinion, if the terp (myself included) doesnt understand, then should ask the client to clarify or repeat. Its sometimes embarassing but has to be done, thats what I do.....

Still Learning..............

 

[Tousi]

Other than to say that, invariably, reception is almost always the last to be assimilated and the occasions to voice are comparatively far and few in between, I'm stumped for the intellectual response you desire.

 

[Tousi]

When I have seen terp for LMM, yes they voice for us hearies in the room. but if it's just her say in w/ doctor's police etc. No they respect the Language. You don't use your voice when you are signing ASL.
ASL is part of the Deaf Culture. Now if you have a SEE terp yes they sign & voice. Because it's English Language.
So Ayala, LMM ask you please respect her Language! Don't use your voice when you are terp for Deaf! If you keep voice everytime you terp for them, They start tell company they don't want you, They tell other Deaf's don't get so so! Word travels fast in the Community! No it's not gossip, it's the truth, how they feel about someone! Deaf people very straight forward about anything!

LMM

I'm sorry but I think you missed the question and I'm sure Ayala will be along soon to clarify it for you.

 

[LMM]

Tousi

I'm sorry but I think you missed the question and I'm sure Ayala will be along soon to clarify it for you.

Well excuse LMM & myself! LMM want to help people to know why ASL terp's dont voice .
Did I address LMM relpy to Ayala? No I DID give her tip about voice when hearing family isn't in the room w/ the Deaf person!
LMM don't have to help people understand about her world. Yes you have your choice to relpy to LMM, But reply's like your's will turn LMM off to relpy, When someone may really need her help!

LMM

 

[ismi]

I interpreted (no pun intended) "voicing" to mean ASL -> English translation, not voicing to supplement signing (which is what LMM seems to be talking about).

 

[Ariakkas]

granted the question is rather ambigious...


but sounds like she meant, why don't interpreters voice while they are signing....simple answer in my opinion is they haven't been taught that.

its been my expierence that interpreters, for the most part, get most if not all of their expierence in signing from school. And thats great, being able to communicate formally is very important. But they don't expierence the different ways that deaf people communicate.

Its been my personal expierence, that deaf people who are mainstreamed in school, prefer that you voice when you sign, so that they can hear your tone, read your lips, and read your sign.

i learned all of my sign from my job and deaf friends...i have some friends that i sign ASL only without voicing, others who prefer i voice when i sign, and one who doesn't need me to sign at all, she prefers to just read my lips in most situations, tho she can sign very well.

i believe interpreters in school are taught the "right" way...same as an english class won't teach you slang, but you will be able to communicate.

again, its all jsut my opinion

 

[ismi]

but stand open-mouthed when it comes time to voice what someone has signed.

This is what made me think it's about sign->English translation.

i believe interpreters in school are taught the "right" way...same as an english class won't teach you slang, but you will be able to communicate.

Just my opinion, but that's not quite a true analogy. A translator (and I'm thinking here of my experience with spoken languages) will (or should) learn slang, colloquialisms, and so on. Example: I know a bit of French and a significant amount of German, though not enough to interpret either. As early as second year in French, we were talking about colloquialisms like "wey-wey" for oui, and in German, we spent a lot of time talking about dialectal German (as opposed to the proper Hoch Deutsch, or High German) - pronunciation differences, regionalized slang, etc. Things like, in most cases, although the German word for keyboard is "Tasstitur" (sp?), you should use "keyboard" (with a German accent).

You may be correct that ITP programs don't deal enough with the different types of signing (voiced and unvoiced, ASL/PSE/SEE), but that's very different.

 

[ayala920]

I interpreted (no pun intended) "voicing" to mean ASL -> English translation, not voicing to supplement signing (which is what LMM seems to be talking about).

That is what I meant, and I apologize for the confusion. Lack of sleep + posting in public forums= thoughts expressed in a somewhat unclear and jumbled manner. How I should have worded it:

Why do you think many interpreters have Voice-to-Sign (expressive) abilities, but often have a hard time with Sign-to-Voice (receptive) tasks?

 

[Tousi]

Ayala, what about what I said--t'was all I could come up with......

 

[Reba]

In a nutshell:

"Sign-supported speech" when someone speaks English out loud and signs at the same time. (Often used is social settings that include non-signing hearing people and Deaf people.)

"Sim-Com" is "simultaneous communication", which means signing and silently mouthing the English words at the same time. (Often used in educational settings.)

"Voicing" (which used to be called "reverse interpreting") means the interpretor receives the signed message/"utterance", and produces a verbal interpretation, including the appropriate tone and expression.

 

[Reba]

...Why do you think many interpreters have Voice-to-Sign (expressive) abilities, but often have a hard time with Sign-to-Voice (receptive) tasks?

Good question!

Some possible reasons:

1. lack of training in sign-to-voice (check out how many hours of ITP are devoted to sign-to-voice compared with voice-to-sign)

2. lack of exposure to a variety of Deaf signers (people sign differently; young and old, black and white, male and female, Yankee and Southerner, residential and mainstreamed, lazy and precise, etc.); this is where socialization is important

3. stage fright (yes, some terps are more intimated by hearing people listening than Deaf people watching)

4. lack of experience (many Deaf prefer to do their own voicing, so terps don't get as much practice voicing)

5. too locked into the "glossing" mode (stuck on using the "dictionary" word assigned to a sign instead of using a mental "thesauras" to use words that are appropriate to the topic, setting, and signer); that is, suppose a teen boy chatting with his friends before class, and a middle-aged woman lawyer chatting with her peers before a professional meeting, both use almost the same signs about the same topic (weather, traffic, gas prices, whatever), but I would voice differently (vocabulary and intonation) for each of them; I would NOT "gloss" for either of them

 

[Cousin Vinny]

Reba-

Good post! I vote door #2 as the primary reason why certain interpreters have 'voicing' problems in interpreting ASL into their spoken counterpart. A few weeks ago, I was in a retreat, consisting of a few Deaf people and some hearing people.

I would sign something, and thanks to the muted and underwhelming response from the hearing audience, I knew the interpreter muffed the interpretation. (Or, it could just really be my own boring self!) Another example, during a break in the retreat, I was chatting with a Deaf colleague and she laughed at one of my stories. Approximately ten seconds later, the interpreter finally chuckled. A wee bit slow on the uptake, perhaps?

 

[ayala920]

Ayala, what about what I said--t'was all I could come up with......

I wonder why it is that there isn't more emphasis on voicing in ITPs. Many interpreters and ITP teachers alike acknowledge that voicing is one of the most challenging components of interpreting, yet it's rarely what people focus on in classes.

 

[Tousi]

I wonder why it is that there isn't more emphasis on voicing in ITPs. Many interpreters and ITP teachers alike acknowledge that voicing is one of the most challenging components of interpreting, yet it's rarely what people focus on in classes.

Not to say voicing isn't important but on an average week how much time do you think a full-time terp would do this voicing?

 

[ayala920]

Not to say voicing isn't important but on an average week how much time do you think a full-time terp would do this voicing?

It's true that a significantly lesser amount of time is spent voicing than signing. However, if someone is in a classroom setting, they should be expecting to voice fairly frequently. I work with mostly high school-aged kids, and the teachers do a lot of activities that involve talking, group discussions, etc. While there's no comparison between V-S and S-V time, I would feel comfortable saying I have to voice in every class I'm in, everyday.

 

[ayala920]

Reba-

Good post! I vote door #2 as the primary reason why certain interpreters have 'voicing' problems in interpreting ASL into their spoken counterpart. A few weeks ago, I was in a retreat, consisting of a few Deaf people and some hearing people.

I would sign something, and thanks to the muted and underwhelming response from the hearing audience, I knew the interpreter muffed the interpretation. (Or, it could just really be my own boring self!) Another example, during a break in the retreat, I was chatting with a Deaf colleague and she laughed at one of my stories. Approximately ten seconds later, the interpreter finally chuckled. A wee bit slow on the uptake, perhaps?

Agreed with #2, Reba. Despite the emphasis placed on socialization within the Deaf community, it was rare to see ITP students out at Silent Dinners in my town, or other Deaf events. There was a small handful that attended frequently, but the majority did not.

I'm hearing, but I often find myself to be the only one laughing in a setting with a Deaf presenter/speaker, because the voice interpretation has been botched. My least favorite thing, however, is when people just start making up things if they don't understand.

 

[Etoile]

Not to say voicing isn't important but on an average week how much time do you think a full-time terp would do this voicing?

I work full-time (40 hours/week) in a business setting, and I would say about 50% of my time is voicing. Most of the time this is one-on-one interactions with the occasional staff meeting in which the deaf clients participate fully. How much voicing a terp does, though, is going to depend a lot on what setting they are in. Educational terps voice much less than business terps, in my experience. (But that, too, depends on the students.)

Ayala, I think I know the answer to your question, and it's a very simple one. This is one thing I remember hearing in the brief time I spent in an ITP.

The reason many terps shy away from voicing is because it is always easier to go from your native language into your second language. This is true of voice interpreters too - it's just a fact of interpreting, the way linguistics naturally works. Additionally, because no two people sign identically, a terp has to adjust for "accent" (manual differences in signing) every time they have a voicing job.

So it starts as a native language thing, and then it's compounded by fear. Getting over the fear leaves only the "second language to native language" hurdle to be conquered, and that comes with practice.