Page 227 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

212 Reading Between the Signs

given to you by a Deaf person, perhaps even your first sign lan-
guage teacher. There are several theories to explain why this oc-
curs.
One is that deaf people invented name signs of this
kind for hearing people to show that they were outsid-
ers in the community’s regard. The other is related to
the “reasons” sign language teachers often give their
students why signs are made the way they are, perhaps
hoping that the (often imagined) etymology will help
the memory. Students in the spirit of “every sign must
have a reason” may have devised or been encouraged
to devise initialized-descriptive name signs. (Mindess,
15)
It may be interesting to learn that it is not only in the United
States that novice signers are given “inappropriate” name signs
with the thought that if they continue their involvement with the
Deaf community, they should later become aware of this fact. I
met one of the top sign language interpreters in Paris, whose name
is Francis. The first name sign he was given was actually a pun on
the fact that phonetically his name sounds like “francs six,” so his
name sign was the sign for this amount of money. Years later,
when he realized the inappropriateness of having a name sign
built on a sound pun, he changed it to a more traditional descrip-
tive name sign. (There is no equivalent to arbitrary name signs in
LSF, although number name signs were common thirty or more
years ago.)

Sharing Personal Information
As discussed in chapter 5, sharing personal information is such a
basic value in Deaf culture that to decline to do so can be seen as
rude. Whereas to hearing Americans a noncommittal “Fine” or
“Okay” may be an acceptable answer to “How are you?” many
Deaf people may find such pat answers far too vague. I remember
one morning, upon arriving at an all-day assignment, when one
of the Deaf participants whom I knew only slightly greeted me
with “What’s up?” My offered response, “Not much,” clearly left
him dissatisfied. He pressed me for details, probably in reaction
to seeing the circles under my eyes. Grudgingly, I described how
my sleep the previous night had been repeatedly interrupted by
my feverish toddler. It was not that the information was exceed-

09 MINDESS PMKR 212 10/18/04, 12:03 PM