When primary participants talk to interpreters Essay Example for Free

When primary participants talk to interpreters Essay To be realistic about an interpreters role, we can examine several more examples of the way speakers interact and take turns. In this first example, І look at Ð ° turn in which Ð ° primary participant speaks directly to the Interpreter. Because examples from this case study corpus are relatively limited, І will add another example that appeared in an interpreter membership association newsletter, interpreters complain frequently about the propensity of primary participants to address utterances directly to interpreters. They imply that the primary participants should know better; they should know that interpreters only relay messages; they do not answer or speak directly to participants. Interestingly, their complaints seem to focus on the participant who is the professional or institutional representative, generally Ð ° speaker of Ð ° majority language, not the citizen or client, who speaks Ð ° minority language. Asking Ð ° question or speaking directly to an interpreter affords an opportunity to study the interaction around this dilemma, to examine different responses, and to learn whether primary participants are confirming or denying the role performance of the interpreter. S: FILMING? pointing at the researcher FILMING? І: [to the researcher] FILMING? Are you filming? R: yes І: YES [to the Student] The Student wants to know if filming has begun so he poses the question to the Interpreter. The Interpreter then asks the Researcher (who understands ASL) first using ASL, and then asking in English. Because the camera lens was fogged and the Researcher could not see clearly (Ð ° problem that cleared up), she did not respond to the signed utterance. When she heard the question, she answered in English, and the Interpreter relayed the answer to the Student. Although the Interpreter does relay this query from the Student, he is supposed to relay this question to the Professor as the other primary participant. In interpreting ideology, interpreters are not supposed to answer direct questions; rather they should pass on the question to allow the primary speaker to answer (see Metzger 1995: Chap 5). The Researcher is an ancillary participant who is supposed to be ignored because she is filming the event. But the Interpreter did relay the question on to Ð ° participant other than himself. That leaves two questions to be asked: To whom was the question directed? Why didnt the Interpreter relay the question to the Professor? Let us begin with the second question. The Interpreter did not relay the question to the Professor because she was answering the telephone and was speaking to the person who called. In conversational interaction, one primary participant can be called to attend to other matters or conversations, Ð ° perfectly ordinary occurrence in interaction. For example, when І accompany my mother to the lawyers office, the lawyer occasionally interrupts the meeting to answer Ð ° phone call or conduct Ð ° side conversation with his secretary. While he is engaged, my mother and І talk over what she and her lawyer are discussing or something else entirely. In this interaction, when the Professor is otherwise engaged, the Student can and does ask the Interpreter Ð ° question about the other activity at the meeting. So the Interpreter does not relay the question to the Professor because the question was not directed at her. Now lets consider the first question: To whom was the question directed? Because the Student could see the Professor uses the phone and because he asked the Interpreter, rather than turning around and asking the Researcher, and simply pointed in the direction of the Researcher, the question seems to be directed at the Interpreter. Most likely, the Student thought that the Interpreter could answer because video cameras generally have lights that come on when filming my point here is that Ð ° primary participant spoke directly to the Interpreter when the other primary participant was not attending to the interaction and had absented herself from the interaction with the Student. Participants act and react to interpreters as potential conversational partners and seem unaware that the task of interpreting should preclude treating an interpreter as Ð ° potential interlocutor. To primary participants, then, it must seem natural, even ordinary, to interact with interpreters as capable human beings who can answer and ask questions. This might suggest to interpreters that primary participants are never going to act as though interpreters are not also real participants in the interaction. It also suggests that interacting directly with an interpreter does not come about arbitrarily, but rather because of other social norms that govern interaction when Ð ° primary participant is interrupted and moves the focus off the reason and purpose for coming together. My next example is drawn from an article in Views (January 1998), the newsletter of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Ð ° North American association of sign language interpreters. In this article, the author presented an example similar to the previous one: Ð ° primary speaker asks an interpreter Ð ° question. The situation was Ð ° doctors office where Ð ° Deaf patient was being examined. During the examination the doctor turns to the interpreter and asks, How did you get into the field? Is sign language hard to learning? The dilemma presented to readers was that the interpreter was asked Ð ° question by the doctor but was not sure how to handle this situation or who should answer the question. The author suggested that determining Ð ° solution is Ð ° matter of ethics and that knowing ways of solving ethical dilemmas assists interpreters, particularly beginning interpreters, in arriving at good solutions. Although І agree that student interpreters should be trained to solve ethical dilemmas, under the scrutiny of discourse analysis, this particular phenomenon might not be an ethical problem but rather an ordinary happenstance in the interactional process of discourse. We can begin by noting that no other information is provided about the meeting and its progress. The doctors question is presented in isolation. As the preceding example demonstrated, it matters what the other participants are doing. We do not know what the patient is doing, what was said prior, or what is said afterward. This is the point about studying interpreters in actual interaction. Utterances do not arise on their own but are created in and reflected by the ongoing situation, and understanding or interpreting utterances is based on and is particular to that context. The patient could be changing clothes, could be having her temperature taken, or could be in the bathroom. The next thing to consider is that whether or not people are engaged in purposeful activity that may have serious consequences, such as Ð ° medical exam, they also monitor relationships, attitudes, and feelings. When doctors examine patients, it is not out of the ordinary to engage in small talk which seems to put everyone at ease. Nor is it unusual, when patients are unavailable for conversation, for doctors to engage in brief conversations with other person(s) in the room. Once, while my teenager was having her temperature taken, Ð ° doctor turned and began chatting with me about the extreme heat we were experiencing that summer. In general, all the participants engaged in interaction are available for conversation (Goffman 1967). In some ways, professionals, such as doctors and lawyers, experience Ð ° sense of being hosts within their spaces and thus attempt to acknowledge all the participants within the space, either by conversation or nonverbally.