Page 216 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

Techniques for Cultural Adjustments 201

to try to get another medication for my headaches which won’t
have such unpleasant side effects”).
One way to balance the context would be to expand the doctor’s
question and specify the type of answer the doctor is looking for.
On the other side, the interpreter may need to reduce the details
of the patient’s narrative response, perhaps summarizing it to,
“As you know, I have experienced several unpleasant reactions to
the medication you have prescribed in the past.”
As to what we can do to satisfy the expectations of the Deaf
client, if we successfully signposted, the doctor may indeed be
listening attentively to the patient’s first statement, which we can
make more obvious by supplying some back-channel feedback. If
we pick up some subtle clues of impatience on the doctor’s part,
however, we can relate those to the client through cues as to what
kind of silence or restless throat clearing we perceive. Lastly, if we
judge the doctor to be essentially supportive of the patient, we
may make it clear through a sign of empathy (e.g., UNDERSTAND).
Clearly, to use all these techniques in one exchange would be
redundant. My effort has been to illustrate the range of possibili-
ties at your disposal. In the remaining scenarios revisited below,
only those techniques best suited to the context will be exam-
ined.

Scenario 4
Deaf Patient: My friend told me she has glaucoma too and she
used a blue bottle of drops that made her vision blurry, but
then she got a red bottle of drops that made her eyes feel bet-
ter….

Hearing Doctor: Never mind about your friend.
“My friend” comments are very common at medical appoint-
ments. The most trusted authorities in Deaf culture are other Deaf
people’s experiences. So if we look under the surface of the state-
ment, its function is to invoke an authority. Some cultures invoke
a holy book as the authority; others, like mainstream American,
rely on scientific data and the media. The doctor, in dismissing
the patient’s statement, is reacting to its nonprofessional, almost
gossipy tone. If a hearing patient had concerns about his or her
medication, yet presented them differently, such as “I read in the
Wall Street Journal” (or “saw on 20/20...” or “found on the

08 MINDESS PMKR 201 10/18/04, 12:02 PM