IW 207: Interview Debra Russell Part 3: Ready or Not Here's Your Deaf Guide

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Debra Russell gives us part of the WASLI history and explains a bit of her research too. See a new view of the profession worldwide.

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IW 207: Interview Debra Russell Part 3: Ready or Not Here's Your Deaf Guide

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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

And now, the quote of the day by Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

00:00:42 Tim

“The guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.”

00:00:48 Tim

I'll let you figure out how this quote connects to this episode.

00:00:55 Tim

I will say we are meeting again with Debra Russell, and she speaks today of the history of WASLI, its mission, and how she has been guided through her path of her practice in the sign language interpreting profession.

00:01:10 Tim

She explains a little bit more about her probably most famous research about consecutive interpreting and the results that she found that has changed many things in our profession.

00:01:23 Tim

So, let's get started.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:01:28 Tim

I want to clarify, for those who don't know for sure, when we say WASLI, the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters, it doesn't necessarily mean it's one big organization for interpreters, or does it?

00:01:44 Tim

What is the mission of WASLI?

00:01:47 Debra

Great question.

00:01:49 Debra

Our mission originally was to be able to represent the profession at the international level and to increase standards for interpreters and to help create interpreter associations that could then develop standards in their own country. [Tim: yeah]

00:02:04 Debra

That's really what it's about.

00:02:06 Debra

And so, we adopted a structure that's similar to the World Federation of the Deaf in that National members are the voting members.

00:02:15 Debra

National members are the ones that set the agenda and away they go.

00:02:19 Debra

And WASLI is structured in a similar way, although we do have individual sponsoring members, but it's really the impetus is for national interpreting organizations to set the agenda and to lead.

00:02:33 Tim

Yeah.

00:02:34 Tim

For those countries that don't have a national organization, WASLI is there to guide and support them to do that, correct?

00:02:42 Debra

Yes.

00:02:43 Debra

So, I think about the earliest stages of our website, I think we even had a document out there about how do you start from ground zero?

00:02:50 Debra

If you've never had an interpreter association, how do you pull together your first meeting and who should be there and what should that look like and those kinds of things.

00:03:00 Debra

So, yes, because obviously we cannot speak for interpreters in every country of the world and nor should we. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:03:09 Debra

You know, those are not countries that I live in.

00:03:12 Debra

I don't work in them, I don't speak their language, I don't live their culture.

00:03:15 Debra

So there has to be a national association that can do that effectively and then communicate effectively with WASLI around ways that we can support them in their own development.

00:03:26 Debra

But I think that at the individual level, for countries that don't have an interpreter association, that they may have benefited from being able to come to conferences, to be able to meet people, to be able to learn about “how do you create an association, is it our time in our country to create an interpreter association?”

00:03:46 Debra

And I just marvel at people's creativity, but again, the creativity that has to come from partnership with the Deaf community.

00:03:53 Debra

So, I think about WFD's work in the Democratic Republic… uh, Republic of the People…

00:04:00 Debra

Let me try that again. [Tim chuckles]

00:04:01 Debra

When I think about [both chuckling slightly] WFD's relationship with North Korea…[Tim: hmm]

00:04:07 Debra

And so, they invested through the Deaf community in Germany in project work in North Korea.

00:04:13 Debra

And that project worker worked closely with WASLI and WFD to help form an interpreter association in North Korea.

00:04:22 Debra

And each time that we have had the pleasure to be invited to North Korea, so Liz [Scott Gibson] has been and I have been, I'm amazed at what can happen even in a country where there are very limited resources, and limited access to information from the outside world, I'm amazed at how things can progress and how supports can come for the Deaf community.

00:04:46 Tim

Hmm.

00:04:47 Tim

Wow.

00:04:48 Tim

When did that happen?

00:04:49 Tim

When did they first form their association?

00:04:52 Debra

The Deaf members that first got passports and were allowed to go to WFD, I think might've been Spain.

00:04:59 Debra

And so then shortly after Spain, I think Paris, allowed us to see the Interpreter Association formed.

00:05:07 Tim

Wow.

00:05:08 Debra

And, it's very difficult, of course, as you can imagine, to share information with them.

00:05:13 Debra

But once...

00:05:15 Debra

the interpreters were allowed passports as well, too, to travel to WFD to interpret for those Deaf delegates and have tours to Sweden and see what was going on there.

00:05:26 Debra

Again, it just broadens that lens and it broadens the number of people who have a relationship with the country.

00:05:31 Debra

And, you know, I think WASLI and WFD, both organizations, would probably say that I can't change a political system, [Tim: Mm-hmm] but maybe, just maybe, I can have some influence on creating better interpreters that might better serve the Deaf community.

00:05:48 Debra

And if I can do that piece, I should do that piece.

00:05:52 Tim

Yeah.

00:05:53 Debra

Regardless of a country's political context. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:05:57 Debra

Yeah, I feel strongly about that one.

00:05:59 Tim

Yeah.

00:06:00 Tim

It just dawned on me, when we create a national organization, there's a system to go through or a regional association.

00:06:10 Tim

I know here at efsli, the European form of sign language interpreters is established through the EU.

00:06:18 Tim

What about WASLI and WFD?

00:06:21 Tim

Are they established through the UN, or how are they officially an international organization? [Debra: Mm-hmm]

00:06:30 Debra

Again, a point in history.

00:06:32 Debra

So WFD had tremendous leadership from the Finnish government, [Tim: hmm] who funded their early leaders and funded the organization, and they are, their legal seat is in Finland.

00:06:44 Debra

But I think that funding has been precarious in more recent years, and they've probably experienced some cuts like every other international organization.

00:06:55 Debra

But WFD certainly has United Nations recognition as a body, and they are able to address the United Nations and participate at that level.

00:07:04 Debra

WASLI does not have United Nations status by any means, but the United Nations certainly has worked with WASLI.

00:07:12 Debra

So, they were one of the pushes behind having an accreditation for international sign interpreters so that they could determine who was qualified to work in Geneva and New York and any of their other human rights events that occur around the world.

00:07:26 Debra

Wasley's legal seat was a long process of becoming incorporated.

00:07:32 Debra

So, I think we operated out of board members' homes for a long period of time. [Tim chuckling]

00:07:38 Debra

“Have file box, will travel.”

00:07:41 Debra

I think it was not until, you know, again, maybe, maybe 2013, 2014, when we were able to work through the legal process to be incorporated or have our legal seat in Switzerland.

00:07:57 Debra

We were a long time looking for a legal seat, trying to find something that could reflect an impartial international body.

00:08:06 Debra

And it seemed like many international NGOs are based in Switzerland.

00:08:13 Debra

And it seemed like a good fit for us, but it's, again, a difficult and long legal process, as you well know, in order to have that.

00:08:22 Debra

But that's where we're based now. [Tim: hmm]

00:08:24 Debra

And again, based on relationships, we've been able to collaborate with the International Disability Alliance based in Geneva.

00:08:34 Debra

And so, they allow us to have office space and call that our home in that way.

00:08:41 Debra

But the staff who work for WASLI live in other countries.

00:08:45 Tim

Yeah. Yeah.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC STARTS]

00:08:46 Tim

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00:08:50 Tim

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00:08:53 Tim

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00:08:58 Tim

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00:08:59 Tim

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[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC ENDS]

00:09:03 Tim

You've had many experiences going from interpreting, getting involved in different organizations locally, and internationally, as we've talked about, how did you find time to start teaching interpreting and even researching in our field?

00:09:20 Debra

The teaching part, again, came with somebody pushing me through the door who was probably Deaf.

00:09:25 Debra

And so, when we lobbied the provincial government to create the first interpreter program in the province that I live in, then I went to my first CIT conference in Monterey, California, came back with lots of ideas and at that point, the person who was going to coordinate that program said, “How about you just teach one course for us?”

00:09:48 Debra

“Just one, that's all you have to do.” [Tim chuckling]

00:09:51 Debra

And that one turned into two, and then it turned into probably much more.

00:09:56 Debra

But again, it was at the grace of Deaf people identifying, we think you've got something to offer, and you know how to teach.

00:10:04 Debra

And at that point, I was just finishing up an education degree.

00:10:07 Debra

I had just finished my practicum working with Deaf kids and Deafblind kids.

00:10:12 Debra

And uh…

00:10:14 Debra

It was probably two months later that I found myself working with adults and teaching interpreters, which again, not something that I thought I was qualified for.

00:10:24 Debra

But I think like many things in life, I do things before I'm probably qualified. [both chuckling]

00:10:29 Debra

So, I interpreted before I was qualified.

00:10:31 Debra

I probably taught before I was qualified.

00:10:34 Debra

But prior to that, I'd been teaching the odd workshop as part of my leadership work.

00:10:39 Tim

Yeah.

00:10:39 Tim

In those early days, what materials did you use then?

00:10:43 Debra

[laughs] We made them up.

00:10:45 Debra

So, we created whatever we could find and then we taught from our own base of experience and we drew on whatever was available to us. [Tim: yeah]

00:10:52 Debra

And there wasn't, to be fair, there wasn't a lot in those early days.

00:10:58 Debra

And so, I think we really drew heavily from our friendships with our American colleagues who shared curriculum they were using.

00:11:05 Debra

And we had the...

00:11:07 Debra

…you know, leadership abilities to somehow bring people like Sharon [Neumann Solow], and Betty [Colonomos], and others to help us develop that curriculum and, and learn how to teach it and so on. [Tim: hmm]

00:11:18 Debra

And I think, you know, I've always been curious.

00:11:21 Debra

And so, it was not, it was not a difficult stretch for me to think about, okay, what's the next piece of education that I need while I'm teaching adults?

00:11:29 Debra

Maybe I should go get a master's in adult ed and community development.

00:11:33 Debra

And in that, I had fabulous research mentors as well.

00:11:37 Debra

So that research project was capturing the experiences of Deaf women in preserving language and culture in Canada.

00:11:46 Debra

And I think that that was probably one of my first research projects and probably one that I didn't even realize I was doing research.

00:11:53 Debra

It just felt like I was having these great conversations with women's who had been overlooked in the history, because we recognize the Deaf men who politically created the Canadian Association of the Deaf.

00:12:06 Debra

But women who created the first Canadian dictionary of ASL, their experiences hadn't been recognized at all. [Tim: hmm]

00:12:13 Debra

So that led me on to that little piece of research.

00:12:17 Debra

And I think like many researchers, all of my questions come from the community or they come from my own practice.

00:12:24 Debra

And so, I feel like you can't teach unless you're still interpreting.

00:12:27 Debra

So, I've always interpreted and you can't, you can't, your teaching should be based on some sort of evidence.

00:12:35 Debra

So, what is the research out there?

00:12:37 Debra

So, getting curious about that and then having your own research questions that emerge from your practice, I think.

00:12:43 Debra

So those three things have always, been my experience.

00:12:47 Debra

And you know, I'm very fortunate in that when I had the research chair, the Pikoff Chair of Deaf Studies, that allowed me to do an awful lot of research that answered some questions in my practice and left me with many others.

00:13:01 Tim

Yeah.

00:13:02 Tim

If I may dive into your research for a second, one study research project that really resonated with me more than anything of yours would be comparing consecutive versus simultaneous interpreting.

00:13:17 Tim

And one question I've always had, I don't know if it's the astrophysics background, [Debra chuckling] all about time and so forth, but I always think there is no simultaneous interpreting.

00:13:28 Tim

There is definitely a delay there before we can actually react and analyze and so forth.

00:13:32 Tim

It just means that the time between receiving the information and putting out the interpretation that we've analyzed and so forth, that time just differs.

00:13:44 Tim

But I've always thought the more time we have to a certain point, the clearer understanding we will have and therefore a better, hopefully better interpretation.

00:13:56 Tim

Tell me about that study.

00:13:57 Tim

How did you first think of doing this?

00:14:02 Debra

Great question.

00:14:04 Debra

That came to me from my work in legal interpreting.

00:14:08 Debra

And so, being part of legal teams that were working trials that were dealing with historical allegations of abuse of Deaf children [Tim: hmm] in schools for the Deaf.

00:14:22 Debra

And when I looked at transcripts of previous trials, you could see why Deaf people were disbelieved.

00:14:28 Debra

I looked at transcripts of police interviews historically; I could see why their stories were not believed.

00:14:35 Debra

And it made me very curious about what went wrong, because for me, the red flag immediately was that the interpreting went wrong. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:14:43 Debra

And what is it about those narratives that could not be heard by those who needed to hear them?

00:14:49 Debra

And so that got me very curious.

00:14:52 Debra

And at the same time, I think I read one of Sandra Hale's publications, and then Burke Seligson, who did a similar study with Spanish/English interpreters in the US.

00:15:04 Debra

And at that time, I was in a PhD program, and...

00:15:07 Debra

thinking about going into a PhD program.

00:15:10 Debra

And I was interested about how do we make this better so that the consequences of errors is not so grave as these people are disbelieved for 25 years and they don't get their day in court. [Tim: yeah]

00:15:22 Debra

So, you know, a little bit of a passion project for me around the legal piece, but curiosity and framing then from spoken language [Tim: Mm-hmm] that helped me frame that study.

00:15:33 Debra

And I think I couldn't find anywhere when I started to pour through the literature, I couldn't find anything that had been written about consecutive and, you know, quasi simultaneous or whatever, whatever that continuum is.

00:15:46 Debra

I couldn't find that in the literature about ASL English interpreting.

00:15:49 Debra

And so, I couldn't find an answer.

00:15:50 Debra

So, I thought maybe I could just study that and see what, that's what I did.

00:15:56 Debra

Studied it and saw what emerged.

00:15:59 Tim

Yeah.

00:15:59 Tim

Well, for those who haven't read this research, what were your results, your conclusions?

00:16:06 Debra

So, I used mock trials, so they were real trials, and I used real lawyers, real judges, real Deaf people, and experienced interpreters.

00:16:16 Debra

We ran four mock trials that were all videotaped and then analyzed, and two of the trials were done, and I asked the interpreters to use a consecutive mode and two trials they could use simultaneous.

00:16:29 Debra

And I looked at three different frames of how courtroom discourse happens.

00:16:34 Debra

So direct examination of a Deaf witness, cross-examination of that same Deaf witness, and an expert witness on the stand.

00:16:45 Debra

And so, looking at those three pieces of discourse, and then looking at what did the teams of interpreters do when working consecutively and simultaneously.

00:16:55 Debra

And those same teams, very competent people, if you looked at the consecutive work, their accuracy levels were in the 90s.

00:17:05 Debra

So 93%, 97%, something like that.

00:17:07 Debra

And when you looked at their work in the simultaneous, it was 87 and 83, I think. [Tim: yeah]

00:17:12 Debra

And so, you might think, well, 87 and 83 is pretty darn good.

00:17:17 Debra

But when I talk to judges, that's not pretty darn good. [Tim chuckling]

00:17:21 Debra

That's a problem because 13% of it is wrong.

00:17:24 Tim

Yeah.

00:17:25 Debra

And so, I think the results were, again, very difficult for our field to accept, because I think our field has accepted the idea that sign language interpreters have no linguistic interference, and we can work in both languages at the same time, and there's not a problem.

00:17:43 Debra

And so, working through that resistance was a hard piece, I think, on that particular study.

00:17:49 Debra

There were other practitioners who embraced it and said, finally, we have something to go on because this is what we've been saying for a long time.

00:17:56 Debra

But there was also a significant portion of people who were just like, yeah, but that might be your research, Deb, but my work is consistently accurate and I'm always at the 98% accuracy, no matter what setting it is.

00:18:08 Debra

And so, I think there's still, you know, 20 years later, lots of work to be done around, are we willing to really look at our work and think about the impact on consumers?

00:18:19 Debra

Because again, the consequences of errors is very grave in a medical or a mental health or a legal setting.

00:18:25 Debra

And I think interpreters have not always taken a really close look at what is the effectiveness of their work.

00:18:34 Tim

Yeah.

00:18:35 Tim

Do you think that resistance attitude or feeling towards your research has something to do with how we've been teaching interpreting.

00:18:45 Tim

Let's start with translation skills to consecutive interpreting, and then later simultaneous interpreting.

00:18:52 Tim

And I've heard interpreters say, “Well, you know, when you can really do simultaneous interpreting, that means you're really at the top level, and that's when you can do conference interpreting.”

00:19:03 Tim

“That's what conference interpreting means, is you're at that level.”

00:19:07 Tim

That part of the education sequence I understand, and I think we all understand why you would do that, to give yourself those mental muscles, prepare them for that.

00:19:19 Tim

But is there a way for us to change it in a way to make us understand that sometimes translation is what you need, sometimes you need consecutive, sometimes you need simultaneous.

00:19:30 Tim

And when do you switch?

00:19:33 Debra

You need a whole blend of activity in your practice.

00:19:36 Debra

I think that there are two layers there.

00:19:39 Debra

I think one of them is how we sometimes teach interpreting, which is a problem.

00:19:43 Debra

Because I think that the message that students get is, okay, I have this foundation of translation, and now I've taken this semester of consecutive, and then we never do consecutive again, because now we're just going to practice everything is simultaneous. [Tim: yeah]

00:19:58 Debra

And that's a problem in terms of how we've structured our programs.

00:20:02 Debra

But it's also a problem in terms of how we teach, because I think some educators don't use consecutive in their own practice, or they don't recognize when they're using it, or they no longer practice, but they teach. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:20:14 Debra

And so the messages that students get is that this is not going to be a piece of your practice once you graduate.

00:20:21 Debra

It's just a piece of teaching.

00:20:22 Debra

It's a foundational piece of teaching, but it's not part of your practice.

00:20:26 Debra

And then students report to me sometimes that, you know, they're placed with working interpreters on their practicum and their internships.

00:20:33 Debra

And the, the supervising interpreter might say, “Well, just speed it up a little bit. Nobody likes to wait for that stuff.”

00:20:40 Debra

Or, “I know you did that in school, but we don't really do that in the real world.”

00:20:44 Debra

And yet, this morning, I used a combination of simultaneous – I worked consecutively for a couple of utterances back to simultaneous.

00:20:52 Debra

I used both. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:20:54 Debra

And I think those are the messages that we need to give our field and to our educators.

00:20:59 Debra

And again, if I am the role model for the next educator, I would like that educator to think about better effective ways to teach the interpreting continuum as you described it.

00:21:12 Debra

And I think that places like Northeastern that played with adapting their four years, so that a more emphasis on translation in the beginning, then moving to consecutive, but then building in simultaneous, but always, always the practice requires students to make decisions about when to use consecutive and when to use simultaneous.

00:21:35 Debra

And those are, to me, the hallmarks of better programs that have better results when students recognize that these are tools that I will need in my toolbox for 40 years, if they're going to be a practitioner.

00:21:49 Debra

But there is something about the pinnacle, I see it as well, too with the double-edged sword of international sign.

00:21:55 Debra

People are like, “Oh, I must be an international sign interpreter.”

00:21:59 Debra

And I just say, let's just be really good national sign language interpreters.

00:22:03 Debra

And maybe a few people will go off and do that work.

00:22:06 Debra

And I hope more of them are Deaf who do that work.

00:22:09 Debra

But, you know, there's nothing wrong with being a really good community interpreter with all of these toolkits and tools in your tool belt.

00:22:17 Tim

Yeah.

00:22:18 Tim

Because everyday interpreting means working in the community, having that relationship, closing the distance between you and the Deaf community, because that's where we're needed.

00:22:29 Tim

We're not needed only for conferences, which are once every month or every three months, maybe once a year.

00:22:36 Tim

We need to focus on the day-to-day lives that need accessibility.

00:22:41 Debra

Yeah.

00:22:41 Debra

Yeah, I worry a little bit about the, more countries implement legislation, obviously design support accessibility, but who gets to define accessibility and where that shows up?

00:22:53 Debra

Because I think sometimes you see all of the interpreting resources spent on.

00:22:58 Debra

I'll just use our provincial legislature, you know, question period every day, five days a week for the session that is being held.

00:23:06 Debra

And I think maybe if there are two Deaf people who have nothing to do that afternoon, they might watch the interpreting.

00:23:12 Tim

Yeah.

00:23:13 Debra

But it's not really getting the level of political engagement that one would hope.

00:23:17 Debra

So, it's performative.

00:23:18 Debra

And I worry a little bit about performative with no audience and the Deaf woman who needs to go see an oncologist, and have a very difficult conversation and doesn't have access to an interpreter.

00:23:29 Debra

I worry about those pieces, so…

00:23:31 Tim

Yeah, exactly.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:23:38 Tim

Speaking more of your research or research in general, what is the current or perhaps the most imminent study that's in your mind right now that you think is going to help push the development of our practice profession even further.

00:23:58 Debra

Nothing like a hard question.

00:24:00 Tim

No. [chuckling]

00:24:01 Tim

Or perhaps what do you think should be the next phase of research?

00:24:05 Debra

Mm-hmm.

00:24:10 Debra

I think there are many unanswered questions about the nature of co-interpreting between Deaf and hearing teams.

00:24:18 Debra

And so, you know, I've played with some of that work, but I think there's many, many more questions I have about how the hearing interpreter may be processing information and presenting that to the Deaf interpreter and what they do with that.

00:24:33 Debra

And I'd like to look at the nature of that.

00:24:36 Debra

It was one of the things that my PhD supervisor discouraged me from looking at because he said, you know, you have enough complexity right now with one interpreter, let's not think about two right now.

00:24:47 Debra

But I'd to go back and redo that and really explore that because I think more and more countries are gaining awareness of the importance of Deaf interpreters.

00:24:59 Debra

And again, I think given the quality of some programs and the graduates that they have, those interpreters need to be working with Deaf interpreters and Deaf mentors all the time.

00:25:08 Debra

And so I'd be curious a little bit about, if we can take a person who's just graduated and have them with a full-time Deaf mentor for a certain period of time and contrast that with somebody who's not actually activating a mentoring relationship with a Deaf person who is specialized in understanding how L2 users use language and so on.

00:25:30 Debra

I'd be curious about what that could look like as well too, because if I'm worried about the educational models of how we train interpreters, and if I really think back on things that have worked well, I think it's the experiential learning.

00:25:43 Debra

And so maybe there's a need to flip this completely on its head [Tim: Mm-hmm] or to think about greater use of internships for longer periods of time and internships where there are significant Deaf language models working with L2 users of sign language to start their career.

00:25:59 Debra

So those are things that I think might be useful.

00:26:01 Tim

Yeah.

00:26:02 Debra

What do you think?

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC STARTS]

00:26:08 Tim

Whoa! She caught me off guard.

00:26:11 Tim

What do I think?

00:26:12 Tim

Well, you'll have to wait until next week to find out if I actually had an answer or not.

00:26:18 Tim

We'll see.

00:26:19 Tim

Talking about the history of WASLI helps us envision how we should plan our own practice.

00:26:27 Tim

Her description of the WASLI mission basically is supporting each country to create conditions to serve the clients better.

00:26:36 Tim

That sounds like a mission for all of us.

00:26:38 Tim

Supporting each other to serve better.

00:26:41 Tim

And we can narrow that down to supporting my development to serve better.

00:26:47 Tim

How do we serve better?

00:26:49 Tim

As…

00:26:50 Tim

Debra Russell started each stage of her development, every step was guided by a push from the Deaf community, from Deaf friends and mentors.

00:27:02 Tim

She took that attitude to continue on where she was risking everything because she wasn't sure what she was doing.

00:27:11 Tim

She didn't have the attitude of, …

00:27:14 Tim

“Well, I think this would be great if this, this, this, or it would be such a pity if we didn't do this for the Deaf community.”

00:27:22 Tim

Not that type of attitude where she was looking inward in what she thought she should do or could do or should be done but rather being guided by the Deaf community and what they wanted when they saw she was ready.

00:27:38 Tim

So, take those risks.

00:27:41 Tim

Take a chance when you don't feel ready, but only if you have guidance from those who know, who can see if you're ready or not.

00:27:52 Tim

Ask the Deaf community.

00:27:55 Tim

And Debra gave us another way that we can improve our services.

00:28:00 Tim

Think about how you handle the interpreting process spectrum, the range of skills that we use from full translation to simultaneous interpreting and the consecutive interpreting in between.

00:28:17 Tim

The point is to give yourself enough time to accurately convey the message.

00:28:24 Tim

Give yourself that wholly rounded meaning from not just the words, the sentence, the paragraph, but the whole context to give you that meaning.

00:28:36 Tim

Give yourself a little more time.

00:28:40 Tim

And when it comes down to it, the most important thing about our practice is the day-to-day work that we all do in the community, where it really matters, where it really touches the lives of everyone we serve.

00:28:57 Tim

We need to not look to the academics, not look to those who are on TV, to not look at, at just the conference interpreters as the end-all and be-all, the greatest interpreters.

00:29:12 Tim

Because the greatest interpreter is the one that serves the best at that moment for that situation.

00:29:23 Tim

So, keep up the good work.

00:29:24 Tim

Until next time, keep calm, keep following your guide in your interpreting practice.

00:29:32 Tim

I'll see you next week.

00:29:33 Tim

Take care now.

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC ENDS AT 00:30:10]