Table Of ContentThe Second International
Symposium on Signed Language
Interpretation and Translation
Research
Melanie Metzger and Earl Fleetwood, Editors
VoLume 1 From Topic Boundaries to Omission: New Research on
Interpretation
VoLume 2 Attitudes, Innuendo, and Regulators
VoLume 3 Translation, Sociolinguistic, and Consumer Issues in
Interpreting
VoLume 4 Interpreting in Legal Settings
VoLume 5 Prosodic Markers and Utterance Boundaries in American
Sign Language Interpretation
VoLume 6 Toward a Deaf Translation Norm
VoLume 7 Interpreting in Multilingual, Multicultural Contexts
VoLume 8 Video Relay Service Interpreters
VoLume 9 Signed Language Interpreting in Brazil
VoLume 10 More Than Meets the Eye
VoLume 11 Deaf Interpreters at Work
VoLume 12 Investigations in Healthcare Interpreting
VoLume 13 Signed Language Interpretation and Translation Research
VoLume 14 Linguistic Coping Strategies in Sign Language Interpreting
VoLume 15 Signed Language Interpreting in the Workplace
VoLume 16 Here or There
VoLume 17 Professional Autonomy in Video Relay Service Interpreting
VoLume 18 The Second International Symposium on Signed Language
Interpretation and Translation Research
The Second
International
Symposium on
Signed Language
Interpretation and
Translation Research
Selected Papers
Danielle I. J. Hunt and
Emily Shaw, Editors
GaLLaudeT unIVeRSITy PReSS
Washington, DC
Studies in Interpretation
A Series Edited by Melanie Metzger and Earl Fleetwood
Gallaudet University Press
Washington, DC 20002
http://gupress.gallaudet.edu
© 2020 by Gallaudet University
All rights reserved. Published 2020
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN (casebound) 978-1-944838-51-5
ISBN (ebook) 978-1-944838-52-2
ISSN 1545-7613
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence
of Paper).
Cover design by Jordan Wannemacher.
Contents
Preface vii
Danielle I. J. Hunt and Emily Shaw
ChaPTeR 1 Introducing Research to Sign Language
Interpreter Students: From Horror to Passion? 3
Annemiek Hammer, Jan Nijen Twilhaar, and
Beppie van den Bogaerde
ChaPTeR 2 Interpreting in Ghana 20
Elisa Maroney, Daniel Fobi, Brenda Puhlman, and
Carolina Mmbro Buadee
ChaPTeR 3 The Role of French Deaf Translators, Case Study:
The Paris Attacks, November 13, 2015 36
Aurélia Nana Gassa Gonga
ChaPTeR 4 Use of Haptic Signals in Interaction With
Deaf-Blind Persons 58
Eli Raanes
ChaPTeR 5 Overlapping Circles or Rather an Onion:
The Position of Flemish Sign Language Interpreters
Vis-à-Vis the Flemish Deaf Community 80
Eline Devoldere and Myriam Vermeerbergen
ChaPTeR 6 Striking a Cognitive Balance:
Processing Time in Auslan-to-English
Simultaneous Interpreting 108
Jihong Wang
ChaPTeR 7 Examining the Acoustic Prosodic Features of
American Sign Language-to-English Interpreting 132
Sanyukta Jaiswal, Eric Klein,
Brenda Nicodemus, and Brenda Seal
ChaPTeR 8 Reframing the Role of the Interpreter in
a Technological Environment 147
Erica Alley
ChaPTeR 9 Deaf Employees’ Perspectives on Signed Language
Interpreting in the Workplace 164
Paul B. Harrelson
Contributors 181
Index 183
vi : contents
Preface
Danielle I. J. Hunt and Emily Shaw
Over a beautiful spring weekend in 2017, more than 260 people from
countries such as Ghana, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Brazil, Panama,
Haiti, and the United States converged at Gallaudet University to dis-
cuss current research in translation and interpreting studies. The second
Signed Language Interpretation and Translation Research Symposium
hosted by the Department of Interpretation and Translation’s (DoIT)
Center for the Advancement of Interpretation and Translation Research
(CAITR) brought together researchers, students, educators, and prac-
titioners alike. The mission of CAITR is to cultivate activities that
advance knowledge about signed language interpreting and translation
research and its effect on communication for Deaf individuals. The
purpose of the symposium was to promote the exchange of scholar-
ship on these topics as well as provide a platform for interdisciplinary
research across various fields, including linguistics, communication,
sociology, psychology, anthropology, and education. The symposium
not only showcased researchers who examine interpretation and trans-
lation from different theoretical frameworks, but also provided a rare
opportunity for individuals from different cultural backgrounds to net-
work and exchange ideas.
This event was the second of its kind—the first symposium was held in
2014—but stood out as compared to its predecessor. Triple the number
of proposals were submitted for this event, and attendees were not disap-
pointed. After 3 days, registrants departed having seen 36 presentations
and 32 posters about topics such as prosody, workplace interpreting,
trust, social and pragmatic considerations, and linguistic flexibility, to
name a few.
Keynote speakers included Dr. Robert Adam of the United Kingdom,
Dr. Beppie van den Bogaerde of the Netherlands, and Dr. Xiaoyan Xiao
of China. On the first day, Dr. van den Bogaerde, an English-Dutch inter-
preter and linguist presented “Introducing Research to Sign Language
Interpreter Students: From Horror to Passion?” which is featured as the
vii
first chapter in this volume of selected works. Dr. Xiaoyan Xiao presented
“Sign Lan–age on Chinese TV: Aw–eness and Ac–s, but Still M–sing the
Mark” on the second day, where she discussed the difficulties of TV news
interpreting in China. To begin the final day of the symposium, Dr. Adam
summarized events from the Deaf Interpreter Summit held before the
second symposium and then presented research related to Deaf practi-
tioners in his presentation “Mind the Gap: What Is Missing for Deaf
Interpreters and Translators?”
A call for papers was announced at the conference requesting present-
ers submit manuscripts based on their talks. Several presenters submit-
ted, and nine of these papers were selected and are presented here. In
Chapter 1, “Introducing Research to Sign Language Interpreter Students:
From Horror to Passion?” Annemiek Hammer, Jan Nijen Twilhaar, and
Beppie van den Bogaerde focus on one interpreter education program in
Hogeschool Utrecht, University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands
and their effort to infuse research into the undergraduate level of inter-
preting education. The chapter provides critical information about the
foundation of this program, the content of its research curriculum, and
directions for future applications of research-based interpreter education.
Several ideas for next steps are provided, including training interpreter
educators about the research process so they can better instruct students
how to do so.
The next chapter, “Interpreting in Ghana,” highlights current practices
among interpreters as they navigate the relatively new interpreting pro-
fession in the country. Elisa Maroney, Daniel Fobi, Brenda Puhlman, and
Carolina Mmbro Buadee collected surveys, conducted interviews, and
documented observations of 13 individuals engaged in interpreting work
to determine what interpreters are currently doing as well as how they
entered the profession. Several efforts are underway to promote the edu-
cation of more interpreters, as there is an increasing demand for skilled
professionals to serve deaf people in Ghana.
In the third chapter, “The Role of French Deaf Translators,” Aurélia
Nana Gassa Gonga provides a fascinating account of the current state of
Deaf translators, with special focus placed on their work in France after
the Paris attacks on November 13, 2015. The events that occurred on this
date were newsworthy; many television channels interrupted their pro-
gramming to report on them. However, these programs were not closed
captioned and did not include sign language interpreters on screen. Born
of necessity, Deaf translators created a live Facebook page to report on
viii : Preface
the events directly, and then to also interpret and translate news items via
hearing interpreters and Deaf translators. In addition to analyzing the
contents of the Facebook page, interviews with two of the Deaf transla-
tors helped to uncover the strategies they used to translate the content.
In Chapter 4, “Use of Haptic Signals in Interaction with Deaf-Blind
Persons,” Eli Raanes describes the form and interactive function of
haptic signals from two interpretations involving deaf-blind consumers.
The interpreted interactions were analyzed for their content, and then
during postinteraction interviews, the deaf-blind participants revealed
strong recollections of the setup of the room and the contributions of the
respective participants. This chapter underscores the interactive benefits
of haptic signals and sheds light on a crucial specialty in interpreting.
To address a perennial issue of the composition of deaf communities,
Eline Devoldere and Myriam Vermeerbergen in Chapter 5, “Overlapping
Circles or Rather an Onion: The Position of Flemish Sign Language
Interpreters Vis-à-Vis the Flemish Deaf Community,” explore where hear-
ing sign language interpreters fit. Given recent shifts in the sociocultural
and political landscape in Flanders, sign language interpreters are begin-
ning to work more frequently in a wider variety of settings, and Deaf
people have played a central role in selecting interpreters. Interviews and
surveys of Deaf Flemish people were used to explore the notion of mem-
bership in the Deaf community and to see if hearing interpreters were
included in that group.
In Chapter 6, “Striking a Cognitive Balance: Processing Time in
Auslan-to-English Simultaneous Interpreting,” Jihong Wang looks at 30
professional Auslan–English interpreters’ use of time lag when interpret-
ing a formal Auslan speech into English at a national conference. She
focused on two types of Auslan sentences: those containing numbers
near or at the end and those ending with negation. Quantitative results
were discussed using representative examples to illustrate how time lag
was closely related to effective interpreting strategies. Qualitative results
supported these findings. As expected, interpreters’ time lag varied from
person to person and from place to place, but excessively long or short
time lags proved to be problematic. As often expressed through anec-
dotes, this chapter provides much needed empirical evidence supported
in its findings.
One goal of interpreting is effectively producing a message in English
that portrays the emotional affect of an American Sign Language (ASL)
text. In Chapter 7, “Examining the Acoustic Prosodic Features of
Preface : ix
