The Duality of the Sign Language Interpreter
Before I can even consider being an ally to Deaf people in the face of societal audism, as a sign language interpreter I must address another overlooked and, at times, more pernicious enemy—the sign language interpreting profession itself.
Enemy is, perhaps, too strong a word for the darker side of my role in Deaf people’s lives, but as it stands in counterpoint to the term ally, I find it opens a useful a window into the duality of my role. I’d like to share some traces of this shadowy figure that I’ve spotted in the mirror over the last thirty years in both my interpreting process and my doing business as an interpreter. I learned to manage parts of this enemy long ago, while in other ways he will always challenge me.
The Enemy Lurks in My Interpreting Process
Inspiring trust and delight in my customers happens, rather paradoxically, more easily when they feel I understand that there’s no real reason they should trust me, and that the reason for my presence, at all, is something less than delightful. They need me to be aware that I come with potentially harmful side effects.
Put another way, I sometimes feel I’m like Dr. Jekyll, keeping Mr. Hyde on a strong, short leash. As did Dr. Jekyll, I have to keep this lurking enemy to heel, because he:
Tends to Monopolize Deaf People’s Time, Attention, and Space.
I’ve come to understand that my habit of making a bee-line to a Deaf person’s cubicle and cheerily plopping myself down in the guest chair to start establishing our working relationship is often, well … annoying. The first time I took it upon myself to acknowledge he might be busy and offered to wait elsewhere, the Deaf person’s sense of surprise and relief was palpable. This has led me to look for other instances where my presence or my good intentions get in my customers’ way and can be managed less obtrusively.
This tendency also manifests itself in how I approach prep. My insistence on time to prepare with a speaker may prioritize my need for confidence in the quality of my product over the speaker’s need for confidence in hers. Insistence on advance prep can also have the effect of implying either that I’m not confident in my comprehension of the source language or that I suspect that the speaker won’t express herself well. Also, I may over-estimate how much my product improves as a result of the preparation I demand.
Overestimates His Centrality to the Relationships Between Deaf and Hearing People.
I think he must have had a hand in writing the RID Philosophy Statement:
“The philosophy of RID is that excellence in the delivery of interpretation and transliteration services between people who are deaf or hard of hearing and people who are hearing, will ensure effective communication.”
On some level I truly want to believe in this. If I don’t, how do I have the nerve to interpret at all? But my customers are not well served by a quasi-messianic philosophy that valorizes my role far above theirs. It’s also simply inaccurate; customers often communicate effectively despite my excellent service rather than because of it. They also, due to forces beyond the reach of my service, can end up not communicating effectively.
Is a Fundamentalist in His Adherence to Interpreting Models.
I am tempted to embrace new wisdom on effective practice in a way that stigmatizes older wisdom as outdated and oppressive. I believe that fully empowered customers may still request that I perform more like what we’d call a machine or a conduit. Even as I understand that some customers express such a preference because that’s all they think sign language interpreters can do, or they think they’re doing me a favor in making my job “easier.” My Mr. Hyde and I go ’round and ’round over whether it’s more oppressive to comply with requests that might stem from internalized oppression or an incomplete understanding of one’s options, or to presume that it’s even my place to try to “diagnose” such things.
Is Wired to Privilege Auditory Input Over Visual Input.
I realized at one point that my default strategy for managing turn-taking was to always finish what the hearing person said before attempting to get the floor for the Deaf person. On one hand, it merely revealed my auditory bias. On the other, it perpetuated the notion that the hearing person was the holder of knowledge, and the Deaf person was the needy receptacle. Once I realized this input bias and its implication, I over-compensated by stridently talking over hearing people the second a Deaf person raised her hands. While I’ve since greatly improved the equitability of my turn-taking management, I’ve only very recently learned that I maintain eye-contact in a way that doesn’t accurately convey the availability of the floor in ASL-discourse, depriving Deaf people of cues that would help them manage graciously taking the floor for themselves.
The upshot: The choices I make in the name of effective practice almost always come with potentially dangerous side-effects that I must predict and be prepared to mitigate.
The Enemy Lurks in the Business of Interpreting
For several decades, interpreting has been a viable profession for me due to my having appropriate education, skills, and credentials. Because it has been viable for so long, I’ve never been forced to think much about this Mr. Hyde-like enemy and his conception of what I do as a profession, a career, and a business. There is a need to confront this enemy because he:
Expects His Degree and Professional Credential to Command Respect.
I wonder if it was necessary, in order to put forth the immense effort needed to earn a degree and professional certification, to believe that these things say more about my ability than they really do. Hearing people, including my family members and the people who are usually responsible for hiring me, typically consider me an expert because I have a degree and a certification after my name. It’s tempting for me to do the same. It’s tempting to resent having to prove myself anew to each customer and each colleague I meet. It’s tempting to feel betrayed by the institutions that authorized my entry to practice, knowing that savvy customers consider me competent in spite of my paper qualifications, not because of them.
Is Rigid About Best Practices and Industry Standards.
There’s a fine line between what I need in order to do my work well and what I want in order to make it easier. I often lose sight of that line. I insist on industry standards like going rates, cancellation policies, two-hour minimums, and best practices like requiring a teammate and prep materials as if these were all cast in stone, even at times when there might be a good reason to waive or modify them. I also don’t want to legitimize disreputable agencies that don’t follow standards, even when this may cause customers whose are stuck with those agencies to suffer. This is another issue on which this Mr. Hyde like character and I go ’round and ’round.
Maintains Faulty Expectations of a Profession, a Career and a Business.
I was raised to expect that a profession would provide all of my material comfort, and that at some point I would cease having to defend or prove my expertise. I expected I could pursue a career ladder in my own best interests, and that there would always be a higher rung to reach for. I expected that as a businessman I would be expected to prioritize maximizing profit, at least slightly, ahead of all other considerations.
These unexamined expectations clash with my reality even during flush times, but significantly more so in the current economic climate, with an ever-expanding roster of gatekeepers to the work. The situation has become dire for some colleagues, and the volume of my work is trending in same direction. What happens when my profession can no longer provide the same income? How do I continue to provide customer-centered service while dealing with the financial hardship, the blow to my professional ego, and the feeling of betrayal by my industry?
Aaron Brace
I think that understanding and seriously altering my expectations, learning to live with less to the extent that I can, is the best thing I can do to avoid having to make choices out of desperation while I work with my community to make things better. I also wonder whether it’s viable to continue bringing new practitioners into the field, or into specific markets, expecting that we will all continue to be able to support ourselves solely as sign language interpreters.
The upshot: A schema roughly bounded by concepts like profession, career, and business fosters expectations of the rewards for my work- expectations of which I’m mostly unaware, yet which can thwart the interests of my customers.
Living With Duality
One last observation about this enemy in the mirror: he resists thinking about issues like these because he thinks they entail a life of constant apology.
I’m not sure I’ll ever fully understand my duality as both ally and enemy in the lives of Deaf people without some measure of guilt. Like many members of privileged groups, I hope to learn the right way to behave toward an oppressed group—once— and never again have to feel unsure of myself or guilty about my privilege. I seek constant validation as “one of the good ones.” I believe this takes a psychic toll on Deaf people, though—even those who know me well and truly value what I have to offer—when I deny there’s a shadow cast by even my worthiest efforts.
I can only hope to be an effective ally against an enemy opposing Deaf people’s interests when I understand how “he is us,” and in some ways always will be. When I demonstrate a fuller understanding of both what I give and what I take, it is returned by Deaf people, not with a sneering pleasure at my knowing my place, but with greater trust, friendship, and welcome.
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Category: Community & Culture
About the Author (Author Profile)
Aaron Brace has been interpreting for over 30 years, primarily as a community and conference interpreter and also for six years as a designated interpreter for a university professor. He credits Patrick Graybill, Ted Supalla, and the Deaf communities of Rochester, NY and the San Francisco Bay Area for making him the interpreter he is today. While its debatable whether he deserves his reputation, it's absolutely true that he hasn't always.Subscribe
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Sites That Link to this Post
- The Duality of the Sign Language Interpreter | Metaglossia: The Translation World | Scoop.it | June 6, 2012
- Is it Time to Certify Sign Language Interpreter Referral Agencies? | Street Leverage | July 24, 2012
- Lynette Taylor: A Role for Sign Language Interpreters – Preserving the Linguistic Human Rights of Deaf People « The Limping Chicken | October 3, 2012
- Do Sign Language Interpreters Ever Have "Clients?" | Street Leverage | January 22, 2013
- Sign Language Interpreters and the Quest for a Deaf Heart | Street Leverage | February 27, 2013
I LOVE this take on our profession! I was often at odds with my “other self” as I began this career 16 years ago and the battle wages on. Thank you for this article and putting these thoughts down on paper so eloquently.
Thanks for reading and responding, Sharon. You know what they say: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. I think that the biggest stumbling block we often face is the hope that at some point we can win the battle and be free of this “enemy”.
Thanks again,
Aaron
Aaron! You give an old woman hope for the future. I (and my colleagues) have experienced the same dichotomies and have discussed them at length. It is a joy to know that I don’t have to polish the writing, since you have said what I wanted to — and did the job so much better!
It is reassuring to me that you and others like you are still active in the field.
Thanks for your observations!
Hi Marina,
Thanks for the vote of confidence! This is actually an effort on my part toward become more active in the field, beyond my direct work as a practitioner. I’ve been reticent, as the only way I can think to do it at this point in my life is through self-disclosure, which may or may not be as helpful as academic insight. I figure, though, that if I sense internal conflicts that people feel but don’t acknowledge, or acknowledge but don’t share, it’s up to me to take a stab at it by bringing my own internal conflicts into the light of day.
Cheers,
Aaron
I applaud your courage, Aaron and am grateful for your willingness to step up and self-disclose – I personally find it very helpful indeed. I don’t think self-disclosure and academic insight have to be mutually exclusive, but can, in fact, inform each to the other. Only when we see the Truth of each, can we begin to move forward in new and insightful ways. Thanks for initiating this dialogue and giving us all reason to pause and reflect.
Thanks, Amy. I agree that self-disclosure and academic insight are both crucial for our continued understanding of this work we do, and I think that too few people, once established in their careers, attend to either. We have to get at the root(s?) of why such things appear threatening to so many of our colleagues. At a panel presentation here in the San Francisco Bay Area last fall, entitled “Interpreters through Deaf Eyes”, Deaf people shared their frustrating experiences with interpreters at different times in their lives. While I believe that most of us found it illuminating and were grateful for the panelists’ openness with us, I learned later that many were angered by it, feeling dumped on without any opportunity to defend themselves.
Where does this urge to defend come from? What is it that allows some of us to see such a presentation as a valuable display of trust on the part of the panelists and their investment in interpreters’ collective growth, while others see it as an existential threat? I don’t have any satisfactory explanation for it, but I can only assume that it involves fear of one kind or another.
Thanks again for posting!
Cheers,
Aaron
It’s tempting to focus on the clever, concise, exact, and frankly enjoyable prose in Aaron’s polished article. The content is, of course, even more important than the skilled presentation. Aaron’s way of clarifying this duality with the Jekyll/Hyde metaphor is helpful to me in my continuing struggle of adapting my practice to needs of the diversity of individuals for whom I work at any given time in any given situation. These judgements are exactly why we are professionals. Great article!
Hi, Bill,
My thanks to you, as well, for taking the time to read and comment on the piece. I’d love to take credit for its conciseness, but that’s largely due to Brandon’s invaluable input.
I sometimes think of Dr. Jekyll as the brains and Mr. Hyde, the muscle. In some ways I think I *do* need some of my faulty expectations and lofty opinions of what I do; without them I might not have the necessary confidence and energy to do much of anything at all.
My, I do have a way of wringing every last drop out of a metaphor, don’t I?
Cheers,
Aaron
Very well-done, Aaron! Thank you for articulating the struggle. I particularly appreciated your comments on trust, and on prep time.
Thanks, Rubin. The dynamic of trust could be (maybe already is?) a book unto itself. I’m constantly amazed by how much of it we get from both Deaf and hearing people- though I guess it’s mostly because they don’t feel they have any other choice. Rare instances occur for them to get useful data when live captioning is being provided as we interpret, or when, as one extremely savvy Deaf person has arranged, one interpreter transliterates back what the other interpreter is generating from ASL into English. Mostly, they have to derive their trust in us in a way similar to how some viruses are detected: not by the presence of direct data, but by its fall-out. In viral studies, the presence of a virus may not be directly observed but identified by the presence of its antibodies; for our customers, lacking direct access to the ingredients of our work, they have to rely on things like appropriate (or at least rationale) reactions to what they’ve said. Even then, how can they be sure we haven’t just artfully managed to cover our errors in both directions? Who among us has never done just that?
Thanks again, for reading and commenting!
Cheers,
Aaron
Thank you so much for a moving, eloquent and thought inspiring piece. I, too, have been in the field for 30 years, and am also an interpreter educator. You’ve articulated misgivings that I’ve had, in a much clearer way than I’ve been able to. Much gratitude!
Hi, Karen,
I’m so glad you connected to what I wrote. One hopes that with longevity in the field comes greater understanding of the scope of what one doesn’t know, and that the task of interpreting up to the standard set by the RID Philosophy Statement is, ultimately, impossible.
Cheers,
Aaron
Aaron,
A big hello to you and an even bigger thank you!
You have said many things in your article that resonate but I am compelled to reply after reading two things in your responses to others that resonate even more for me.
In your response to Marina (hi Marina), you speak of self disclosure as a way to move the field forward and get involved. I, too, have taken this tack more and more often with interesting responses. This ‘softer’ side of the work we do is actually the most important aspect of our field. Impossible to measure, to teach, to codify. It is only through dialogue that we can get to a place professionally where we can actually think about our roles in Deaf people’s lives and the true impact and role we have. There needs to be more understanding and acceptance for self disclosure and dialogue to be an integral part of our field.
The other point I am responding to came in your response to Karen (hi Karen) where you speak to a benefit to longevity being that you have a “greater understanding of the scope of what one doesn’t know.” I am a coda and have been a professional interpreter for 22 years. All of that and I am constantly face to face with new takes on the same scenario. Going into the job I have done 100 times and one day seeing my humanness and others’ humanness in a new way. It blows my mind.
The Jekyll/Hyde metaphor is a good one. Our work is complicated, and I am not just talking about language competency in English and ASL.
Again, thank you.
I look forward to more self disclosure from you.
~Amy
Hi Amy,
It’s wonderful to hear from you! Self-disclosure and grasping how little one knows are both antithetical to the ways I was taught to think of who I am as an interpreter. I was actually trained to think as little about myself as possible; let alone feel- or worse, express- doubts about myself and the larger endeavor I’m engaged in. This level of false confidence, that I think at some level I’ve always known was false, closed me off from the people who relied on me.
Being able to remain accessible and responsive in the broadest possible range of uncertain circumstances is the most important thing one (hopefully) develops with longevity. This can’t happen if I continually try to be “that man behind the curtain” (oh, good grief … now I’m off in Oz!) who thinks that if he can only pull all the levers fast enough, all will be well and no one will be the wiser. False, false, false, and ultimately harmful to both consumers and me.
Yes, our work is complicated, and only possible in the full awareness of its impossibility. It’s a multi-valent cognitive dissonance that we must learn to embrace without needing to resolve.
Thank you so much for reading and responding… I look forward to more from you, too.
Cheers,
Aaron
Thoroughly enjoyed the article! The section on wants vs. needs in regard to industry standards gave me a reason to stop and think about the reasons for standards, when and how the standards came into being, and when and how to be flexible. Very interesting.
Hi, Lynetta,
Thanks for reading and posting. I’m glad you mentioned how our standards “came into being”, as I’ve long had a theory about that. I believe that Deaf people largely supported our nascent professionalism, hourly rates and industry standards because they felt that was all fair exchange for our volunteer work and other investments we made in the community. That and the fact that community interpreters couldn’t count on billing anything near 40 hours per week when there first started being full-time community interpreters.
But our opportunities grew. Hiring us even became required by law! The more we pushed for professional recognition and respect as business people, the less we held up our end of the reciprocity balance. In larger markets, interpreters can often bill over 40 hours per week for many months of the year; we’ve practically commodified every interaction with Deaf people in terms of billable hours. I exaggerate, but not by much. We don’t like to commit to their one-hour staff meetings or medical appointments because that might preclude our booking all-day work. We book so much work that we’re too exhausted to go to community events. We book ourselves so tightly that any need for a few extra minutes at the first job goes unmet as we bolt out the door to the next– and if we *do* stay those few extra minutes, they get billed to the next half-hour. We bill for whatever we *can* without thinking about whether we *should*. And we don’t see or don’t care about the gulf this creates between us and the Deaf community.
I am not innocent of any of these practices. They are much more in the forefront of my decision-making now, though, than they were for an embarrassingly large part of my career. I still struggle, particularly during economic uncertainty, to make choices that maximize Deaf people’s access to service above- but not to the exclusion of- my need to earn a living. Earning a living is certainly a ‘need’. What about upward mobility? That’s a cultural expectation tied to the notion of being a professional, but is it a ‘need’ or a ‘want’? Does it matter? Should it matter?
Too late to make a long story short… I’ll just stop there. Thanks again for posting!
Cheers,
Aaron
Hello Aaron,
This is, for me, a thoughtful and thought producing article. Two points you make, one in the piece and a second in the comments thread, struck me hardest.
” My Mr. Hyde and I go ’round and ’round over whether it’s more oppressive to comply with requests that might stem from internalized oppression or an incomplete understanding of one’s options, or to presume that it’s even my place to try to “diagnose” such things.”
I don’t know how many times in the last 20 years I have smugly thought and even audaciously said out loud “oh, he wants me to use THAT sign (obviously implying that I knew it to be conceptually wrong). He must have learned it from his HEARING teachers in his MAINSTREAM class. Or admittedly being annoyed with consumers that tell their interlocutor (Doctor, Boss, Teacher) “oh just pretend the interpreter isn’t here.” Or deliberately doing the opposite of what I am asked to do because in my “professional experience” that is what so and so REALLY wants.
Thank you for providing an open door for me to also self disclose how yucky this all feels in the end. Isn’t it just privilege gone amok that even allows me to think this way? I want to reflect much more on this strain of Mr. Hyde in my practice.
The second point on which I would like to comment: “we’ve practically commodified every interaction with Deaf people in terms of billable hours” I too live in a market where historically one can jam on it and rack up the billable hours during academic season, literally billing over 40 hours a week. Well off universities in the flush days of the 90s and early aughts would hire me to work “all day” 8-5 when in fact classes met only for 3-5 hours of that time, and I always had a teammate,who also was extended the same opportunity, and even classes that met for 50 minutes or less had two interpreters assigned. Sure I was available for the last minute meeting between Deaf students and their professors, I was basically on retainer!
Today, the market here is very different. The numbers of Deaf students attending expensive, prestigious universities is down substantially. The number of interpreters working in higher ed is UP substantially. As Yeats put it so succinctly “the center cannot hold.” I am not upwardly mobile, I reached the top of the earning “ladder” quite some time ago, and there are plenty of folks out there that can do it cheaper and just as well.
This “every interaction with a Deaf person = shake that money maker” formula stopped working for us a long time ago, if it ever really worked at all. I hear more and more from Deaf critics of our field who believe we earn too much, that we are barriers to entry to mainstream society and gainful employment, and that we are sadly absent from community volunteer opportunities/community cultural events.
My income has gone down steadily over the last 5 years. So has most of American’s income decreased. I do better work and feel better when I balance out my need for income, my ability to do good work, and my need for community involvement. I don’t know how long I will be able to continue making a reasonable living with if this downward trend continues,coupled with the increase of interpreters entering the marketplace.
Wow thanks for a great piece and a wonderful opportunity for introspection.
Hi, Susan
Thanks for sharing your own internal struggles. The first point you responded to is an example of what I think of as our “multi-valent cognitive dissonance”. We have to be prepared to hold several conflicting truths in our minds and hearts all the time: I’m the expert/Except when I’m not/XYZ choices foster Deaf people’s empowerment/ABC choices are what this individual wants/ABC and XYZ are mutually exclusive/maybe this individual has just never seen XYZ/maybe this individual knows more about ABC than I do…. and it goes on and on. Even as we learn from our local Deaf community and Deaf leaders about what constitutes a path to self-determination, and learn how we can foster it, we have to prepared to shift gears into a completely different world view in order to not obstruct the choices other customers have made for their own reasons. All this, while looking for respectful and appropriate opportunities to demonstrate what else we have to offer… or not.
The second point is equally challenging. As economic conditions upset the income we’re accustomed to, or what we have to do to maintain it, we come face-to-face with what we think we’re doing with our lives. Are we primarily earning a living in a way that serves the Deaf community, or are we primarily serving the Deaf community in a way that earns a living? When times are flush and the work is plentiful one can more easily maintain a self-image that integrates the two. What one does when they come into conflict clarifies which is stronger, and I don’t believe that we generally don’t talk about this in ways that provide any guidance for us as a field or as individual practitioners. It’s a scary thing to confront alone.
Thanks again for reading and responding, Susan.
Cheers,
Aaron
Thank you for your thoughtful and transparent reflections Aaron! Jekyll and Hyde are alive and well in many professions where collaborating with others is part of the job. Working with ‘communities’ always opens the door to generalization, assuming everybody’s preferences are the same. Awareness of this tendency along with the ability to ‘read’ the other person and inquire as to their personal preferences is ideal. Thank you for bringing this topic to the surface. I’m sure many interpreters can relate.
And thank you for reading and replying! Forgive me if I’m taking your words to an extreme you didn’t intend, but they brought to mind things I’ve encountered in myself at various time throughout my career.
I’ve found myself trying to understand the challenges facing me in terms of what I already knew about collaborating in general or of working with any community other than my own. The nature of our collaboration and the community/-ies we serve, though, require a very different approach, with introspection that goes beyond an understanding of “me” and “generic other” (my term, not yours).
This collaboration involves choices on our part that always threaten to reflect negatively on the people we serve, more so than on ourselves, regardless of whether we’re doing our best work or truly failing the task- yet we hope to pull it off transparently. The community we serve exists only in diaspora, which adds significantly greater depth to issues of identity, affiliation, linguistic purity and strategies for navigating the matrix language and culture in which it exists than might be faced by many other communities. Our very understanding of Deaf/deaf/hard of hearing people as (potentially) linguistically and culturally distinct from hearing people- which is often a very difficult understanding to achieve and long in coming- has implications on how/if a particular customer feels they can trust us to practice in a way that dignifies their self-image.
Again, I’m quite sure I’ve taken this as an opportunity to address something that you didn’t intend, but that I think is often expressed in terms similar to some that you used. Thanks for your indulgence.
Cheers,
Aaron
Aaron -
It is so inspiring to again hear your wisdom. Street Leverage is offering conversations that have been missing, and are vital, to maintaing a profession that aspires to remembering the very privileged and delicate place we have in the lives of Deaf people. Your contribution is one that invites both introspection and a how-to approach.
Though any verb describing our relationship to the role of ally will always be coupled with “-ing”, you have, as you did almost 20 years ago, gracefully and graciously reminded us of the challenges we can easily overlook.
I’ve forwarded your article to every interpreter I can think of and encourage others to do so.
Hi, Laurie!
While I won’t pretend that I’m just thinking out loud here- I do hope there’s some inspiration and wisdom to be found in what I’ve shared- I am humbled by any and all who it take that way, and welcome those who don’t to share their thoughts, too. If there’s one thing I want us all to consider it’s that in order to do our work effectively and with the appearance of simplicity, we must never stop rooting around in its booby-traps and contradictions.
Do you (or does anyone reading this) know of curricula in any IPPs that get at the kind of issues I’m addressing here in a way that’s at all similar to my approach? Can these arguments even find fertile soil in those who haven’t already been in the field for some time? Any insight that anyone has on this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again, Laurie.
Cheers,
Aaron
Greetings Aaron (wow long time – dont know if you remember me) – but yes – I am not a formal IPP – but I am now teaching interpreters (and have been for about 10 years)… and many of the ideas you have presented in both your article and your followup comments are ideas that I speak with to my students – regularly (and redundantly – so they say – smile & wink!). It has been occasionally difficult for me to express the HOW when speaking of the need to be comfortable with the “cognitive disonance” that laces itself into and through our professional experiences… difficult in that, these points of dissonance are those points that most often get challenged by my studnets saying ,”but you just said that…” and “but I thought we were supposed to…” Its definately a good thing when they start to see it, and can start making live decisions based on an awareness of the push/pull between their best interest and that of the Deaf person’s. (and between what they’ve been taught – what they think they know… and a coming awareness of the fact that in most cases – we’re taught Interpreter, Professional (as defined), Academic… and we’re NOT taught – Deaf…what it is to be a Deaf person (feeling, perception, and ultimate desire for autonomy – or not)… when using your services.
So yes – its out there – being taught to some – while I dont have access to many… I have been working with as many of the One-s I can get in hope that someday they will mulitply!
I think I’m going to posterize your quote on that topic for my Thoughts Wall!
Hi Terri!
Thanks for posting! I’m not sure the “how” of navigating our cognitive dissonance can even begin to be understood until one personally knows a lot of Deaf and hard of hearing people and clocks a lot of hours of service to a wide variety of people. The analogy that keeps coming back to me is the story of the blind men and the elephant. When I visited the Wikipedia page on the story (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant), two quotes really struck me:
Denying something you cannot perceive ends up becoming an argument for your limitations. (unattributed)
“We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” -Werner Heisenberg
If we can all find comfort with these notions, and the fact that they’ll always define us no matter how much we learn, that’d be a great step toward managing our Mr. Hyde.
It’s great to hear from you, and thanks again for posting!
Cheers,
Aaron
I think we can learn to navigate “cognitive disonance” – not by pre-concieving what might cause it for us (that recognition and working through, indeed must come from experience and reflection)… but to undertstand that it will happen… and it is uncomfortable… but that, that discomfort does not mean you’re a terrible interpreter – it is a moment when, whether through mistake or success) you will come to be a better one.
Hi again, Terri,
I agree that we ultimately have to be prepared for a certain level of cognitive dissonance as a way of being, regardless of its source, but I’m wondering if, by identifying and analyzing some common causes of it, we can shorten the time it takes students and new practitioners to find their comfort with it in any form.
I also agree that the discomfort with cognitive dissonance doesn’t make you a terrible interpreter (if there were no discomfort, there’d be no dissonance, after all). It’s the urge to resolve it (remove the discomfort) in one way at the expense of the other that I think leads us into a kind of calcification that limits our ability to respond to evolving needs and preferences of individual consumers and the Deaf community at large.
Thanks for your continued thoughts on the topic… keep ‘em coming!
Cheers,
Aaron
Aaron – there is so much freedom provided in the honesty of this expression and self examination, and so much joy in the sheer beauty of your articulation of it; the bittersweet and unpleasant does not disappear, as it should not. Thank you for the impact and subsequent inspiration to, as you say, keep rooting about… your thoughts have cleared the path to new daylight on several subjects that are so very critical to my place in this work and community. “Multi-valent cognitive dissonance” – holding conflicting truths in heart and mind – this dialogue is a gift that keeps on giving!
There is so much to think about and comment on. Here though, I’ll take on your question to Laurie (IPPs that get at this) . While reading your article and commentary, the DC-S came to mind over and over again – looking at the expectations and consequences of our actions and decisions, the resulting demands, the potential for new/different controls, the thought worlds of each person, the looking at my own intra-personal process, and more.
Taking the years to learn and practice the DC-S is what allowed me to start a more focused ‘rooting about’ and while any schema or model can’t possibly reflect the reality in toto of ours and Deaf folks’ experiences, it begins a critical level of this conversation (even if I’m only talking to myself – me ‘n’ Ms. Hyde? – the Bride of Frankenstein? The 1995 British comedy version – Helen Hyde?)
Using the DC-S provides language to describe what I find as I root about. It has thus far proved a collaborative, co-constructive process that guides and supports the analysis of the contradictions and booby traps and how we manage them. I’d love to see in-depth applications to business practices, linguistic decisions, Deaf/Hearing teams, and taught from a Deaf perspective.
As an IPP instructor and consultant, I use the DC-S to get to the deeper levels of understanding and recognize trajectories for development, attempting to teach it in a way that goes beyond the initial pedagogy into a very warm and real and challenging discussion and appreciation of our presence, impact of our interactions. The time and curriculum constraints as well as my own work to truly understand and apply it beyond a theoretical level are the challenges in this. It’s a beginning… I see your article as a resource for students (and all).
As an interpreter, I have plopped into cubicles and grilled folks for information and had insecurities which put the weight of the interaction onto others and more. As a businessperson, it’s got me considering the weight I place on the future, the community; the need to develop something much more sustainable…for all. Thank you for your personal approach here, especially. And thank you, Brandon for this forum.
-Kendra
Hi, Kendra,
Thanks for your kind words, and for bringing your insight into DC-S into the discussion. I freely admit that I’ve spent far less time with DC-S than you or, I’m sure, many others who read Street Leverage. My exposure has always been to it’s application to the demands we face in the setting, the participants, our immediate internal factors, etc.
I’m wondering if any curricula out there bring students through a formalized analysis of the things they may not realize they’re expecting from their Chosen Career based on their early enculturation, and the ways those expectations might best be tweaked, jettisoned, or “kept to heel” in order to speed new practitioners through some of this learning that has taken me 30 years to be able to start articulating. If I’m missing a nexus with this and DC-S, please let me know more of how you see it applying to this.
Perhaps instead of “Helen Hyde” you could be “Helen Joy” because that, after all, is what we are to Deaf people.
Thanks again, Kendra,
Aaron
Aaron,
Thank you for bringing up this topic and discussing it so well. I wanted to comment on the “multi-valent cognitive dissonance” idea. After 35 years I am still deeply engaged with the interpreting process, still trying to figure it out, moment by moment, challenged in both good and bad ways. Your analysis is helping me clarify what those variables are – the stuff we juggle when we are making our moment by moment decisions.
I agree with Amy Williamson – “our work is complicated, and I am not just talking about language competency in English and ASL.” It’s precisely that complication that keeps me coming back for more.
What a joy and privilege it is, indeed.
Hi, Dan,
Thanks for your comment. Who, in our generation, knew going into this field that there was much more to it than “keeping up”?
Do you (or other readers) feel that more recently minted practitioners have a better handle on, or at least comfort with, the complexity that we continue to find engaging? Certainly, we owe a debt to Robin Dean and Bob Pollard for getting D-CS into our collective consciousness and IPP curricula.
I couldn’t agree more with your use of the word “privilege”. That my consumers trust me to so intimately handle their self-expression is more humbling than I’ll ever be able to capture in words.
Thanks again for commenting!
Cheers,
Aaron
Hi Aaron!
Thanks for the post!
I have a couple of thoughts:
1. For me, not being the sole breadwinner takes the pressure off financially. I see interpreting as a great supplemental income but not something I would want to depend on, for some of the reasons you mentioned. I really like having the freedom to adjust my work/invoices/rates/timeframes to meet customer needs and not have any agenda besides earning fair wages for fair work. If work slows down, I cook more ;o) I am expendable.
2. I have often thought of the “equipment” analogy for my work. People want a reliable, dependable, on time, available toyota interpreter. If I perform like a mercedes, that is fine (and brings me personal joy and satisfaction and hopefully enhances the experience for the consumers) but bottow line is the market can support fords. I know we aren’t supposed to think of ourselves as a machine and that analogy has definite limits, but it also has some merit as will continue to be evidenced by VRI and attempts to mechanize/electronicalize interpreting via software programs intended to replace live interpreters.
3. When I start to sense myself acting in Mr. Hyde ways, I try to: give more time for each assignment so I don’t seem to emphasize my own time constraints to everyone around me, defer and stay humbly available, focus on empowering and staying in my role unobtrusively and pleasantly.
Thanks for the post! ;o)
SH
Hi again~
Wanted to add:
Example of making adjustments: When the state contract came up this year for annual renewal, I decided to reduce my rates a bit. The state employees are going on furlough here and there…seemed appropriate. Other professional fields often include an annual cost of living salary increase (3%?) Independently contracting interpreters do not have industry support for that kind of model.
Second thought: I struggle more with the reciprocity issue and how to not have that look like favoritism or trying to curry business. Something I’m trying is having $5 Starbucks cards on hand so that when I am late to an appointment (due to close scheduling or an emergency job) I can give the D/HH person a card as a thank you for their patience. I can also reduce my fee for the appointment I arrived late to depending on the situation.
SH
Hi, Shelly,
Thanks so much for your thoughtful post. It’s great to see some specific examples of strategies you use to navigate the sometimes choppy waters of our “duality”.
You raise a number of interesting points. Your first point brings me back to the idea that maybe we can’t truly be maximally effective with interpreting as the sole source of our income- at least not if we’re intent on making it as profitable as it can be. What other models, if any, might work better than the single-career interpreter?
I was taken with the phrase “I am expendable”. That’s part of my experience of cognitive dissonance. I have worked so hard, for so long, to learn how to do my work effectively; I work very hard in any given situation to provide quality service; and yet, in many ways I am, indeed, expendable. I’m an add-on that people generally wish they didn’t need, but to be the best “necessary evil” I can be I have to behave in ways that appear confident, sometimes to the point of stridency, while also displaying a humble availability, as you mentioned.
A danger is that in many, if not most situations, this balance isn’t too hard for a skilled practitioner to pull off… or appear to do so. What I suggest is rather counter-intuitive- that we look even at the things that seem to work well for us, to spot those times when the nods or smiles of approval might be just a bit forced, when we are just a little higher-maintenance than we need to be.
Regarding your automotive analogy… it applies except when it doesn’t. A straightforward meeting can turn into an ER visit at the drop of a hat. We need to get better at managing the level of skill and experience available in the local interpreting pool and deploying it appropriately to the sorts of jobs that need covering. Maybe we need to really shake things up… which might just be a good topic for another essay : )
You mention allowing more time for each assignment. “Allowing more time” is a good idea in general. The time-shifting caused by the lag between the source message and our delivery of the interpretation is something that we often don’t manage well. If we aren’t able to allow more time, more breath, the prosody of our interpretation is often a slave to that of the source, we become barriers to turn-taking, and we can make our audience feel disengaged from the speaker. Being effective doesn’t mean managing all of this seamlessly within the interpretation; such a thing is impossible. It means being available to our consumers and being adept at overtly smoothing out the wrinkles in time that are a necessary by-product of our process.
I’m a worrier. I envision some practitioners really liking the gift card idea and adopting that as their primary, or sole, means of addressing “reciprocity”, which I know is not *at all* your approach, but maybe you can imagine the kind of practitioner I mean. “Gift card delivered, slate cleared, record expunged. Now they can’t hold anything against me.” In isolation, it may come across as another commodification of our presence in Deaf people’s lives. Another cognitive dissonance: my work is commodity-based /my work is relationship-based.
Oh dear, there I go again. Thanks again for your post!
Cheers,
Aaron
Hi Aaron!
Cheers too!
I agree about how hard we work to be a quality professional interpreter. I love my work, and know that in many ways it is a luxury for me to have pursued this career. If my husband wasn’t able to provide as well for our family of 5, I might have had to pursue a different, more traditional career. I’ve seen many interpreters struggle to make ends meet as a single parent, when injured, when trying to get certified, with a larger family etc…
I am concerned about aging interpreters and their ability to retire.
Regarding reciprocity and the gift card idea…true. I can imagine that. I think being a genuinely grateful person goes a long way. If clients know you are grateful to be interpreting, and are trying your best to provide consistently quality interpreting services for all parties, it should be an acceptable gesture taken within the whole context of your work.
Best to you!
SH
Thanks again, Shelly! As a brand new member of the AARP, I’m with you in your concern about interpreters approaching retirement. I don’t think we’ve seen more than a generation or two of interpreters actually move into retirement, so many of us don’t feel we have clear paths to follow. It does seem to be changing, as rapidly as the nature of our work and our opportunities to do it are changing.
I like how you summed up the reciprocity idea… couldn’t have said it better myself!
Cheers,
Aaron
Thank you so much Aaron for your very thought-provoking article. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and have been excited to see the response from our colleagues. This is a problem that transcends continents and languages.
Hi, Pip,
Thanks for your reply! I, too, have been gratified by all the responses that people have been kind enough to share, including yours. What languages do you work in, and primarily on what continent?
Cheers,
Aaron
Aaron,
Thank you for having the courage to write this piece. It is eloquent, raw, heartfelt, and oh so true. As a late-deafened adult who interpreted part time before losing all hearing, many of your comments pertaining to the Deaf consumer’s feelings hit home for me from both perspectives. I was always aware of the power inherent in the interpreting profession, but those insiduous “auditory biases” often caught me unaware, at least until the oppression had already occurred. Going from being an interpreter to needing an interpreter for myself was an extremely difficult shift in both identity and power dynamics.
After about 2 years of being profoundly deaf, I made the difficult decision to receive bilateral cochlear implants. The implants are so successful that I have actually been able to return to interpreting part time, but the guilt (which you mention) that I had as a hearing interpreter is only intensified by the reality that I am only two batteries away from again being the Deaf consumer rather than the interpreter.
Again, thank you for your comments and for putting into words what many interpreters feel, but cannot express.
Warm regards,
Lisa
P.S. You interpreted for me in S.F. for a conference during my time on the “other side,” and I would like to applaud you for having amazing skills and exceptional professionalism. I continue to hold you up as the example of the first interpreter I had that made listening visually as easy as listening aurally.
Hi Lisa,
I do remember you and the conference you attended here in SF. Thanks so much for taking the time to read my essay and respond! And thank you for the incredibly kind words. We didn’t get to know each other very well then, so I didn’t know that much about your background. You’ve got a unique perspective as both a provider and recipient of interpreting service. I hope you find a way to put more of your thoughts into a piece to share with us as your colleagues and once (and future?) interpreters.
All the best,
Aaron
Hi Aaron,
we have worked together, and you put my thoughts into English at conferences. I remember very well your moderating one Allies Conference in New Hampshire in the late 1990′s.
I think, I know your views of the profession, and I presume you do the same of mine.
As I analyzed the issue in an article in the VIEWS of August 1996, there are three spheres to consider for an interpreter who strives to do a complete justice for the deaf consumer as a professional interpreter, so that he not only derives most benefit from the communicative transaction with his hearing counterpart, but also that he gets empowered to assert his rights and due place in the society. Interpreters are to see themselves as agents of social change and contemplate different ways, often in subtle and covert ways, how to affect them. The three spheres are 1) on-site while doing an interpreting job, 2) as a person (off-site, not involved in an interpreting task), and 3) as a member of the profession/industry. I don’t want to get into details here to explicate with examples what they are.
Brace points out the dissonances in the work of an interpreter. As I look back during the 40+ years of the growth of the professional sign language interpreting, both as a consumer, practitioner and observer, I judge the work of the interpreters in the first sphere to be largely OK, while more problems become apparent in the second and third spheres. Information were exchanged adequately between the communicators with the interpreter(s) in the middle. Interpreting skills are getting better with time. Many inadequate interpreters have left the profession.
Problems, I observe, persist how interpreters handle and represent themselves in interactions with consumers and public, and as a professional in terms of involvement in the Deaf Community and local and national RID. Nowadays, fewer graduates of IPPs are seen involved in the organizations than I saw during the early times of the profession.
Hi Harmut,
Thanks for contributing your wealth of experience and wisdom to the discussion. I agree with the three spheres you mentioned. The only thing that I would add is that, in addition to the knowledge and experience we need to *add* in order to be effective interpreters, we also need to identify what expectations and cultural norms we need to *subtract* from our reflexes. The interpreters who are best able to manage those subtle and covert ways of being agents for social change are, I believe, as engaged in *un*learning as they are in learning.
Thanks again for your thoughts,
Aaron