Page 208 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

Techniques for Cultural Adjustments 193

Deaf worker and his hearing coworker into her office to resolve a
conflict between them in the work environment. If the interpreter
gets a sense of the sequence of events to follow, either explicitly
or implicitly from the boss, she can lay out a road map for the
Deaf client; for example, “First Fred will tell his side of the story,
then the boss will ask him some questions, then you will get your
turn and she will ask you some questions. Then you and Fred can
ask each other any questions you have and try to come up with a
mutually satisfactory solution.”
Very often in the types of meetings we are called upon to
interpret, the Deaf person is not the one in power and does not
have control over the order in which things are presented. The
way a Deaf boss would structure the same meeting might very
well differ from the hearing boss above. A road map does not
grant you the ability to change the road ahead, but at least it tells
you what to expect.

Identifying the Function

This is a critical skill that is not easily taught. What does it take to
figure out what a person is really expressing? It calls for the intu-
ition of a therapist, the clue-gathering skills of a detective, and a
chess master’s ability to see things from different points of view.
One way to prepare for this task is to become familiar with basic
functions of language acts, such as requests for information, con-
nection-building comments, criticisms, explanations, and so forth.
Just as an actor working on a role looks for the intention behind
each line, we, too, can analyze what is behind the lines we deliver.
To help us anticipate what the function of some of our Deaf
clients’ comments may be, we can refer to the most central val-
ues of Deaf culture. In the successful scenarios at the beginning of
this chapter, the interpreter in “Information, please” looked be-
low the surface form of the employee’s comment and identified
the intention as relating to the value of information, which is a
major theme running through Deaf culture. In “My, how you’ve
changed,” the interpreter saw the intention of the client’s open-
ing remark as connection building and interpreted it to retain that
function, instead of insulting the intended target. Some other
themes in Deaf culture we might want to keep in mind are the
value of clear communication and sharing information about one-

08 MINDESS PMKR 193 10/18/04, 12:02 PM