Page 60 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

Selected Topics in Intercultural Communication 45

accomplishments and expect to be complimented on them, while
placing less importance on activities that occur within the group.
For Deaf people, who spend a great deal of their lives coping
with the hearing world, the above advice could alert them, say, to
be sure they understand the small print before affixing their sig-
natures to a contract. It might also explain why some sign lan-
guage interpreters end an interpreting assignment by asking the
Deaf consumer, “Was that okay?” What the interpreter may be
looking for is validation of his or her work in the form of a compli-
ment. The Deaf person may be puzzled at this request and mat-
ter-of-factly state, “If there was anything wrong, I would have told
you.”
From the opposite vantage point, individualists are told what
to expect when they deal with collectivists, who are deeply in-
volved with the events in their group. Collectivists have social duties
and obligations that carry great weight in their lives. Individual-
ists are admonished, therefore, to be patient, spend a lot of time
chatting, develop long-term relationships, and be willing to an-
swer personal questions. Things change as individualists move
from outsider to insider status within the collectivist culture: they
are then expected to sacrifice for and contribute to the group.
Those individualists who develop even closer ties by marrying
someone from a collective culture are put on notice that they may
become “annoyed with the time, energy, and resources which the
collectivist puts into the extended ingroup” (Triandis, Brislin, and
Hui 285).
These pieces of advice seem especially appropriate for sign
language interpreters who, although they are hearing, occupy a
special place in the Deaf community. Those interpreters who are
not from Deaf families learned ASL and Deaf culture from associ-
ating with Deaf people and now earn their living from their sign-
ing skills. Although it seems natural to interpreters to compart-
mentalize their work life and social life, in collective Deaf culture
these things are not so easily separable.
To return to our opening example of the misunderstood visi-
tors to the countries of Individuania and Collectivestan, unfamil-
iarity with the opposing worldviews inherent in individualist and
collectivist cultures may not, of course, result in a stay at a psychi-
atric hospital. It is entirely possible, however, that a student ad-
viser at an American college may see Asian students who refuse

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