Page 74 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

Selected Topics in Intercultural Communication 59

An interesting internal struggle with change has been evident
in the recent shift in signs for countries. Many signs in ASL have
iconic roots. It is no surprise, therefore, that the traditional signs
for certain countries referred to perceived physical features of their
citizens (e.g., JAPAN and CHINA were made with twisting move-
ments at the eye). In about the last fifteen years, however, parallel
to the American mainstream movement of showing respect to
diverse cultures by using “politically correct” terms, Deaf people
from different countries have chosen to demonstrate mutual re-
spect by adopting the sign used in the country itself. For example,
the traditional ASL sign for Sweden was made with an initialized
“S” at the forehead, but now many people have adopted the Swed-
ish sign for Sweden made on the back of the hand. Nevertheless,
there are competing feelings that pull in two directions. Although
it is more polite to refer to Japan with the Japanese sign for Japan,
where the two hands outline the shape of the country, many older
Deaf people resist changing traditional signs and continue to make
the old sign for Japan at the eye.
If we look at the profession of interpreting as exemplified by
RID, we can see the American drive for progress and change
through the succession of models suggested for the interpreting
process. First, as we’ve noted, it was the helper model. Then in
reaction to that came the machine model, followed by the facilita-
tor and finally the bicultural mediator. At recent RID conventions,
there have been suggestions that we change to the multicultural
mediator model or ally model. Undoubtedly people will come up
with more new models every few years. While the recipients of
our work, Deaf people themselves, are not that excited if we change
the label on the product, we announce the advent of a new model
of interpreting as if we expect it to be the cover story on the next
issue of The Deaf American.

The Perennial Now
To further enlarge our perspective on time, we find it interesting
to note that not all cultures perceive of time as a line leading from
the past through the present toward the future. Time is experi-
enced in yet another way by many native peoples. Australian ab-
origines, for example, divide time into two types: the ordinary
time of daily life and the sacred state of “dreamtime,” which in-
cludes “not only the events of our sleeping state, but also those
things we anticipate, envision, imagine, intuit and conceive”

03 MINDESS PMKR 59 10/18/04, 11:23 AM