Page 142 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

6

The Impact of Cultural

Differences on
Interpreting Situations

If you travel to a new country and stay there long enough, you will
probably go through three stages of acculturation. Stage one we
may call confusion. The language you hear is a jumble of sounds.
The behavior of others might seem arbitrary. Sometimes people
bow to you; at other times they don’t. A policeman shoos you off
the grassy lawn in a park, while dogs are welcomed in restau-
rants. You think you are being polite by bringing your hostess
flowers, yet when she sees they are yellow, she can barely hide
her dismay. It all makes little sense.
Stage two we may call delayed understanding. If you watch
what goes on around you carefully, begin to converse in the lan-
guage, and have a few friends of whom you can ask questions,
things start to become a little clearer. Yet it may only be after an
embarrassing moment or two that you belatedly figure out what
went wrong. You arrived too early or too late. You brought a gift
when you should not have or failed to bring one when you should
have. You used the polite form of address when the familiar was
appropriate or vice versa. Most of the time no one informs you
directly of your mistake, but you grow sensitive to a raised eye-
brow, a sharp intake of breath, a muffled giggle. Slowly, slowly,
the pieces begin to fit together.

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