Page 177 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

162 Reading Between the Signs

guage, especially if the joke serves a purpose in one culture that it
would never serve in another culture. For example, an American
may tell an off-color story as an icebreaker to open a speech,
while the appropriate way for a Chinese speaker to begin a pre-
sentation is to humble him- or herself.

Spoken Language Community Interpreters
As previously mentioned, community spoken language interpret-
ing is a very young field. The Program in Translation and Inter-
preting at the University of Minnesota, which was established in
1991, may well be the first of its kind to train bilingual members
of a community to work as interpreters. It offers a series of intro-
ductory and intermediate courses that focus on medical and hu-
man services settings. The interpreters have a variety of language
backgrounds, from French, Spanish, and Russian to Somali and
Hmong.
Laurie Swabey, a former sign language interpreter trainer, has
transferred the skills and knowledge gained in our field to that of
spoken language community interpretation and currently works
as an instructor in this exciting program. She says that the com-
munity interpreters do not restrict themselves to any one inter-
preting model but rather employ the gamut of models from ma-
chine to mediator, depending on the situation. When interpreting
for an elderly, monolingual, monocultural member of a rural soci-
ety who has recently immigrated to the United States, a strict
adherence to the machine/conduit model will likely prove ineffec-
tive. For example, Hmong people are often shocked and resistant
when asked to have a routine blood test. (This may be the first
time they have ever set foot in a Western medical clinic.) The type
of interpreting/mediating required for the Hmong patient, how-
ever, would probably be inappropriate if the patient at the medi-
cal appointment is a Russian physician who has recently moved
here and already speaks a little English.
One of the differences between training sign language and
community interpreters, Swabey points out, is that the spoken
language community interpreters are themselves members of their
linguistic community. This can lead to certain ethical dilemmas.
For example, although interpreters are supposed to observe confi-
dentiality while working, a cultural assumption may be that the
leader of a community has a right to know what is going on with
any of its members. That leader may therefore expect the inter-

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