IW 192: InterpreTip-Comedy: Don't Say That

Say what?! Why do we say that?

Let's discuss some of the terminology of our profession. Why do we use what we do and is it correct?

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IW 192: InterpreTip-Comedy: Don't Say That

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[ROCK INTRO MUSIC STARTS]

00:00:02 Tim

Good morning, good evening, good afternoon. Wherever you are, this is the Interpreter's Workshop podcast. I'm Tim Curry, your host. Here we talk everything sign language interpreting the ins, the outs, the ups, the downs, the sideways of interpreting. If you're a student, a new interpreter, experienced interpreter, this is the place for you. If you want to know more, go to interpretersworkshop.com.

00:00:28 Tim

Let's start talking... interpreting.

[ROCK INTRO MUSIC ENDS]

00:00:34 Tim [ONLY TIM SPEAKS IN THIS EPISODE]

And now the quote of the day by none other than the British band The Beatles.

00:00:42

“You say you will love me if I have to go.

00:00:45

You'll be thinking of me.

00:00:46

Somehow, I will know.

00:00:48

Someday when I'm lonely, wishing you weren't so far away, then I will remember things we said today.”

00:00:58

The Beatles have been quoted countless times, even by me.

00:01:03

Songs are so delicate because each of us interprets it in our own way.

00:01:09

Poetry, prose, lines from movies, we all put our own interpretations.

00:01:17

We give it our own meanings.

00:01:19

He said, she said.

00:01:22

It's a cultural bias and an experiential bias because we see these moving moments from our own perspective.

00:01:33

We will remember things we've said today, and sometimes we will forget them.

00:01:38

It depends on how much of an experiential connection we have to what we've said, what we've created in the moment.

00:01:48

Wow, that sounds very serious, doesn't it?

00:01:50

But I'm not really serious in this episode.

00:01:53

Let's talk about what we say, when we say it, and how we say it in our profession as interpreters, translators, sign enthusiasts, spoken enthusiasts, whatever you want to call us.

00:02:09

We're the interrupters.

00:02:10

I mean, the interpreters.

00:02:12

That's us.

00:02:13

So, let's talk about those oddities in our vocabulary and terminology as sign language interpreters.

00:02:22

Let's get started.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:02:28

Sometimes we just sound, well, silly.

00:02:32

Do you ever hear yourself saying certain things as a sign language interpreter and then realize what you're actually saying does not mean what you think it means to the hearing people listening?

00:02:45

A lot of this vocabulary has to do with our profession and how we talk about it, the education we've had about the profession, the interpreter-isms of interpretation, in other words, the influences of the languages that we're using, and just how we talk about ethics, decision-making, and the communities we serve.

00:03:09

Let's talk about each of these categories and how they affect [lightly chuckles] the silliness that we call sign language interpreting -isms.

00:03:20

Well, without going down the list 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, in reality all of these kind of mix together.

00:03:27

So, let's just randomly start talking about all of it.

00:03:30

Do you listen to yourself when you're interpreting into your spoken language?

00:03:35

The problem is, what I'm about to tell you is pretty much focused on English, because, well, that's what I speak.

00:03:42

And this is an audio podcast.

00:03:44

So, you can apply this to your own interpretation.

00:03:47

Think about how it applies in your languages.

00:03:51

First, there is a term that we've used in American English that has become very controversial.

00:03:58

In fact, we've tried to change it in many ways.

00:04:01

And that's really hard because this one term is quick, it's easy, and everyone knows what you're talking about if you've been educated around the U.S.

00:04:11

And that term is voicing.

00:04:14

When I'm voicing, can you… or you say to your team, “You know, when I'm voicing, can you feed me the fingerspelled words just in case I get behind and I don't remember them all?”

00:04:27

“Because we're going to be voicing, we will need a microphone.”

00:04:30

Voicing is not an English word that, well, normal people use.

00:04:35

It's an oddity in English where we can take a noun or sometimes an adjective and turn it into a verb saying my voice is now going to do an action.

00:04:45

I'm putting an action into using my voice.

00:04:49

But even my voice can also mean my opinion, my view.

00:04:55

So many confusing things as an interpreter.

00:04:57

“I'm going to voice this.”

00:05:00

It doesn't exist as a normal sentence outside of our profession.

00:05:05

And so, a few years back, researchers, teachers in the U.S…

00:05:10

They tried to get everyone to say, when I'm interpreting into English or when I'm interpreting into ASL, and that is more accurate.

00:05:21

That is exactly what we're doing or hopefully doing.

00:05:25

The problem is when you're talking with your team and you need split second meetings or decision making or clarity, the phrase when I'm interpreting into English is a little bit longer than when I'm voicing.

00:05:42

And it sounds better than when I'm English-ing.

00:05:46

And even the phrase when I'm interpreting into ASL is so much longer than when I'm signing.

00:05:53

Now, we could just say when I'm interpreting, but that necessarily does not convey the meaning that we're trying to get across to our team when time is of the essence.

00:06:04

And so that's why we sometimes default and use the bad terms of voicing or signing when we're actually meaning interpreting into that language.

00:06:15

And it's even more silly if we're talking to people who don't know what we're talking about, who are not interpreters, who are not in the profession.

00:06:24

So, we have to decide, just like we do when we're interpreting, we have to decide what is more important, time, right now I need to get this out quickly, or this full meaning and perhaps impression on other people is more important.

00:06:42

So, you have to decide and weigh those options.

00:06:45

Is it more important for me to tell my team when I'm doing this, please do this.

00:06:50

Or is it more important to tell the clients when I am interpreting this way, so they quickly understand what it means and with clarity rather than necessarily speed of thoughts.

00:07:05

That's how we base our decisions, how we base our vocabulary that we're using.

00:07:10

Because we sound very, very silly when we start using this vocabulary with a hearing person who has no idea what we're doing, who probably still thinks that we're related to the Deaf client, and we say voicing.

00:07:24

They might think... you're a protester and you're giving your voice to something.

00:07:29

Or you're a voice actor.

00:07:31

Wow.

00:07:32

So that's your real job is voice acting and you also do this interpreting, I'm sorry, translating thing.

00:07:39

Yeah.

00:07:40

It's funny, that takes me to the British term, or I should say the European English term of voiceover.

00:07:49

When I first learned this term, which was another way of saying voicing from the American side, I first thought, you mean dubbing, giving the spoken interpretation over a foreign language film? “Foreign” in quotes here.

00:08:05

Because voiceover usually does mean someone who's a voice artist or actor who dubs over another language or perhaps voices for animated characters.

00:08:18

And I thought, well, that's actually kind of nice because you are giving an interpretation on top of the other language, so that's kind of like voiceover, but it also is not as clear as interpreting into this language.

00:08:34

It's borrowing the term from another profession, hoping for clarity, and it makes a little bit more sense than saying voicing.

00:08:42

But it always, and I mean always, every time I use voiceover, I immediately think, but I'm not a voice actor.

00:08:51

Well, not officially.

00:08:53

Maybe when I'm reading a bedtime story to my daughter.

00:08:55

Yes, I am.

00:08:57

And every time I say voicing, I immediately think, this is not the right term.

00:09:03

In the back of my head, those wheels are just a burning and saying, this is inappropriate, but by golly, I need to use it quickly because they know what I mean and that's what's important right now.

00:09:16

And they even know that it's inappropriate to use that. Huh.

00:09:19

So, voicing, voiceover, signing, or interpreting into this language.

00:09:26

Perhaps you have a better term in your language.

00:09:28

I would love to hear that.

00:09:30

Send me a voicemail or an e-mail letting me know.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC STARTS]

00:09:34

Wow.

00:09:35

Listening to the theories, the research from interpreters who have changed the direction of our profession.

00:09:42

From the early days, the history, learning it from the people who lived it.

00:09:47

Listening to interpreters from dozens of different countries around the world and what their working conditions are all about.

00:09:53

How it's the same, how it's different.

00:09:55

Wow.

00:09:56

Such value.

00:09:57

I mean, who wouldn't want to support that with just a few cups of coffee?

00:10:01

I mean, it's easy.

00:10:02

You just click on a link, and you buy three, four, five cups of coffee and you're supporting all of these conversations.

00:10:09

Huh.

00:10:10

Well, that's just a few thoughts coming out of my head.

00:10:12

Thanks for listening.

00:10:13

Now let's go back.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC ENDS]

00:10:17

There's one term that really bothers me in how I use it.

00:10:21

And I don't know if it bothers me because I know it's not completely correct or whether it's immediately putting an emphasis on or a misdirection on the meaning of what I mean.

00:10:35

What does that mean, Tim?

00:10:36

You're just talking in circles again.

00:10:38

Yes, I am.

00:10:40

Maybe because I'm on a chair that swivels.

00:10:43

But needless to say, the term is word or sign.

00:10:49

Why are those difficult?

00:10:51

Because when I'm speaking, I want to be as clear as possible.

00:10:54

Sometimes I'm trying to explain to someone else who doesn't understand the profession, doesn't understand sign language, or even their own spoken language well.

00:11:04

And I realize that if I say, well, when I'm using this word, it has multiple meanings.

00:11:10

Or if I say, if I'm using this sign, it has multiple meanings.

00:11:14

It's not necessarily one meaning.

00:11:16

And people understand that.

00:11:18

But I think when I use the term word, it immediately conjures up the image of one word with one definition in people's minds.

00:11:30

And I feel as though the next step logically is for them to think the next sign I talk about is connected to that word.

00:11:38

And there's a word, there's a sign.

00:11:39

Where there's a sign, there's a word, rather than this concept and this concept and how we express it in each of the languages.

00:11:48

But at the same time, if I say concepts or if I say ideas, that's a little too abstract for them to realize that I mean one word has all of those different connotations.

00:12:03

Every word, every sign has multiple concepts attached to it.

00:12:08

And sometimes the concepts need multiple words or multiple signs to try to convey those ideas.

00:12:15

And so, when I just say this word or this sign means - it's so hard for me mentally because I know it's not true.

00:12:26

And one story that I say a lot, which is really difficult for me to tell this story only because of what I've just said about word and sign and concepts and ideas and how they're conveyed.

00:12:38

The story is about our daughter.

00:12:41

Our daughter is bilingual or was multilingual and has lost a lot of her expressive skills in Czech Sign Language or American Sign Language.

00:12:52

She still retains a lot of the reception skills.

00:12:55

However, the story goes that at an early age, we had a little booklet of words, concepts.

00:13:05

This booklet of concepts was listing out which languages did she have a word or a sign connected to that concept.

00:13:15

For example, the word mother or father in English.

00:13:19

Did she know that concept in English?

00:13:23

Did she know that concept in Czech?

00:13:25

Did she know that concept in American Sign Language and Czech Sign Language?

00:13:29

And we would write them down.

00:13:31

She knew that concept in two of these languages.

00:13:34

She knew the next concept in three or four or only one.

00:13:39

We started this at an early age, about, well, just in over six months or so, when she first used the American Sign Language sign for father.

00:13:50

That was the first one.

00:13:51

After several months of me training, and teaching, and showing, and showing, and showing, and showing, she finally had her first sign, which was father.

00:14:01

What I finally started using was the lexical item, the first lexical item and that seemed very academic to me and every time I use it I swap it out for the words concept or idea or just word or just sign.

00:14:20

Many times, in this story I interchange those terms because it just bothers me to not use lexical item only.

00:14:29

But that sounds pretentious, sounds academic, sounds silly for a father to be using that about his daughter, especially when it makes me feel like we were doing an experiment, when it really it was a case study of one, I guess.

00:14:46

Even saying all of that – just – feels – wrong.

00:14:50

But by the end of that little study, we still have the little booklet somewhere around showing us over 200 concepts, lexical items…

00:15:00

No, it was 200 concepts or ideas that she knew multiple lexical items from all four languages.

00:15:10

And it was a way for us to prove or to have evidence that it's okay for this child to learn multiple languages at the same time.

00:15:21

But it's a story that's hard to talk about for me just because I have, well… [sighs]

00:15:26

I have to come to terms with the terms of word, sign, lexical item, which one do I use? [sighs]

00:15:36

Life is so hard.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:15:41

Another thought that just came to mind was about the silliness of using first person, third person in everyday interpreting.

00:15:50

It's a decision that we need to make to clarify what's happening.

00:15:55

Because even if we have been using first person, it can still get confusing because at times, say in a workshop or a conference, someone may be in the middle of...

00:16:08

conversations and then say, does anyone need water or coffee or a chair?

00:16:15

And that's when our interpreter brain needs to switch and make sure that it's clear.

00:16:20

Okay, I've been using first person, so everyone knows it's the Deaf person speaking.

00:16:25

And now I need to also speak for myself as the interpreter.

00:16:29

Yes, I need a chair or yes, I need water, please.

00:16:32

And so, we can switch to making it clear who is speaking.

00:16:36

In many ways, we do that just by eye contact, even with hearing people.

00:16:41

Yes, I know eye contact is very important for the Deaf community, but it's also very important with the hearing community in communication.

00:16:51

Sometimes we just have to look and say, yes, I would like blah, blah, blah, and oh, and I would also like blah, blah, blah.

00:16:58

Or he would like this, and I would too also.

00:17:02

I would too also, I would too also, also as well…

00:17:05

just to be clear, me too.

00:17:08

So it's all a game of he said, she said, I said, we said, we all said together.

00:17:14

At least that's what was said.

00:17:16

Yeah.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:17:21

Sometimes we get on a high horse.

00:17:24

That means we have to explain or give definitions about what we're talking about.

00:17:31

And one big one that we all kind of feel the hairs on our neck standing up and our feathers become ruffled, we get annoyed easily when someone says, are you the translator?

00:17:44

Or, and then Tim will translate what we're saying.

00:17:48

Sometimes we have this inner surge, urge, to say, no, translation is this, and therefore it's totally different than interpretation, which interpreting is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:18:02

And we go on and on.

00:18:04

And in our minds, we have the tirade ready to be thrown and posted and sent out on social media everywhere telling this person what it really means.

00:18:16

But as we get older, as we get more experienced, we realize it really doesn't matter.

00:18:21

The situations, differ for when it's important and when it's not.

00:18:27

Especially when in English, we've all grown up using those two words interchangeably for most of our lives.

00:18:37

And many other languages have the same mix between those two concepts.

00:18:44

And as many people have pointed out that I've interviewed, we have to pick our battles.

00:18:49

We have to pick what's important and realize we're not going to change someone's views in a quick conversation about our profession.

00:19:02

They're just not going to get it that one time.

00:19:05

And that's okay.

00:19:06

It's not going to be the end of the world or the end of society or the end of empathy.

00:19:13

And it's not going to take anyone's rights away in most instances.

00:19:18

So, we have to be okay with terminology that people use wrong about our profession, or misunderstandings about what we do, even when we say clear words about what we do.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:19:38

There are some words that we use that will never be understood fully, or they may be misunderstood as we are using them wrong.

00:19:47

The word Deaf comes to mind.

00:19:50

The word sign language comes to mind.

00:19:53

The word community.

00:19:55

The word culture.

00:19:57

Signs.

00:19:58

Gestures.

00:19:59

Speaking.

00:20:01

Talking.

00:20:02

Eye contact.

00:20:04

Oof.

00:20:05

Eye contact.

00:20:06

Facial expressions.

00:20:09

Space.

00:20:10

What did these words invoke in your mind?

00:20:13

What popped up first?

00:20:15

Did you think, Well, these are clear?

00:20:18

Or did you think,

00:20:20

Yeah, people misunderstand these.

00:20:23

For example, culture, most hearing people don't know that there is a hearing culture or a Deaf culture.

00:20:34

They just think they're from this country, they have the same culture I do.

00:20:38

To a certain degree, yes, definitely.

00:20:41

I agree.

00:20:42

But there are nuances, of course, that they don't get and probably never will.

00:20:48

And that's okay.

00:20:50

What about eye contact?

00:20:52

It means something totally different within the interpreting profession, within Deaf community, and within hearing community.

00:21:01

In the interpreting profession, eye contact is different than from just having a conversation in a Deaf group.

00:21:11

Eye contact can help with understanding, with being a part of a Deaf and hearing team, totally different rules apply there than it does when having a conversation only.

00:21:26

Eye contact in the hearing community is completely different from culture to culture, country to country.

00:21:34

Some people, they stare at you and make you uncomfortable in one country.

00:21:39

Sometimes they stare at you and you're not uncomfortable because you're from that same culture and staring is not as inappropriate as it is from another country.

00:21:49

Not looking at you while they're talking may or may not be appropriate.

00:21:53

So, when we talk about eye contact is important to the signed language, what do we really mean and how does it apply to the meaning that the hearing person in that context is getting?

00:22:08

So many things complicate things, kind of like this podcast.

00:22:12

I'm trying to complicate all of these words, but I think it's something we need to consider in our profession, the fact that not only do we have to understand what it means that has been said or what someone has said in this context, what it means, but we also have to think about how we interact with the clients, hearing and Deaf.

00:22:37

What vocabulary do we use?

00:22:40

Which is the clearer meaning?

00:22:43

What do we really mean?

00:22:45

When we're working with another interpreter who may not be necessarily from our cultural identity, the vocabulary we use can be misunderstood and take too long to explain.

00:23:00

So, part of preparation will also be how do we communicate to each other when time is short.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC STARTS]

00:23:13

I was going to say something, but [sighs] what's the word again?

00:23:18

What do we do?

00:23:18

When do we do it?

00:23:20

Why do we do it?

00:23:21

What words do we use?

00:23:23

And why?

00:23:25

So many things we have to think about.

00:23:27

I've been analyzing how we talk about what we have to decide and talk about.

00:23:34

Maybe I'm a little too analytical.

00:23:36

Maybe it's just too much.

00:23:39

What do you think?

00:23:40

What do you feel?

00:23:41

Most episodes I do word association.

00:23:45

Let's do it now…

00:23:47

…for you.

00:23:48

I'm going to go back through these words.

00:23:50

What do you think of first?

00:23:52

And is it clear?

00:23:53

Is it less clear than you thought?

00:23:56

Let's try it.

00:23:57

Ready?

00:23:58

The first, voicing.

00:24:01

Next, voiceover.

00:24:04

Next, sign.

00:24:07

Next,

00:24:08

Word.

00:24:10

Next, concept.

00:24:13

Next, interpreter.

00:24:16

Next, translator.

00:24:19

Next, big.

00:24:22

Next, context.

00:24:26

Next, ethics.

00:24:29

Next, neutral.

00:24:33

Next, client.

00:24:36

Next,

00:24:37

Community.

00:24:40

Next language.

00:24:43

So many words all about what we do.

00:24:46

What do they mean to you?

00:24:49

Okay, so think about those…

00:24:52

Until then, keep calm.

00:24:55

Keep interpreting the terms.

00:24:58

I'll see you next week.

00:25:00

Take care now.

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC ENDS AT 00:25:36]