Page 215 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

200 Reading Between the Signs

Let us use this common situation to go through the eight tech-
niques described earlier and see how each one could be applied.
The waiting room chat is invaluable for medical appointments. If
you learn that this is the patient’s first visit to this particular doc-
tor, at least you will find out that you are on equal footing with the
doctor in knowing about the events which led up to it. If, on the
other hand, the patient and the doctor have a long history to-
gether, it may be more difficult for you to catch the context. In the
waiting room, however, if the patient doesn’t mind giving you a
brief overview of what the appointment today is for and what led
up to it, you will have a mental picture of the timeline of events
and the point of the visit.
Like the interpreter in “It all started when…,” you should an-
ticipate how easily this first exchange can turn into a frustrating
experience for both doctor and patient. It’s a good idea to try to
target the translation in ASL to focus on the reason for today’s visit.
You may add an inoculation by stating that this is not the moment
to describe all the events leading up to today, so hold that for a bit
later. For example, point-doctor-HE WANT KNOW YOU HERE TO-
DAY FOR-FOR? [HAPPEN++(moving from past till present) THAT
HOLD, point-HE WILL ASK-YOU LATER.] WHY HERE? WRONG
WHAT?
If that strategy doesn’t work, and the patient, like the one in
“It all started when…,” responds with a chronological narration,
you can use a signposting phrase to clue in the doctor as to the
reason the response is not in the form he or she expected.
It is important, in your own mind at least, to identify the func-
tion of each of these statements. The doctor’s question is an at-
tempt to elicit a short statement of what brings the patient in
today. The patient’s statement is an attempt to give the doctor
valuable information connected to the patient’s medical history,
without which the patient believes the doctor cannot make an
enlightened diagnosis. One of my Deaf consultants on this book
confided that even though she considers herself to be bilingual
and bicultural, for a medical appointment several years ago she
wrote out pages and pages explaining her medical history, which
the doctor put aside after barely a glance.
Having learned the reasons for the patient’s visit during the
waiting room chat, the interpreter can use this information to high-
light the point in the signposting phrase or at the end of the patient’s
narration (e.g., “So you can see that the reason I’m here today is

08 MINDESS PMKR 200 10/18/04, 12:02 PM