Interpreters & Presumed Incompetence
I want to present one problem in sign language interpreting. First, I’ll explain what happened then offer some discussion on what was problematic.
The Situation:
A couple of weeks ago, I went to the surgeon’s office to have a surgical drain removed. The doctor informed me that the surgical wound was not ready so I’d have to wait another week before the drain could be removed. I could not stand another day without showering, it had already been five days. I begged for options, alternatives, permission to shower. The doctor suggested a lanyard to serve as a “clip” to hold up the drain so I could carefully shower.
The interpreter, upon hearing the word lanyard, immediately became flustered. She started spelling L-A-N, then stopped, searched the ceiling, started again L-A-N-Y, then again stopped and searched the ceiling. She appeared very clearly frustrated and overwhelmed. She started to describe it then gave up. Throughout this stumbling, I attempted to feed her the word several times: L-A-N-Y-A-R-D? Not once did she make eye contact with me nor acknowledge the word I was trying to feed her.
It was immediately crystal clear she did not think I would understand what “lanyard” meant.
I then described the lanyard using classifiers. She did not “see” me although she was looking at me. I asked again if that was what the doctor meant. But she didn’t “see” me and looked at the doctor with a look of panic on her face, shaking her head. Throughout that exchange, she dismissed both myself and the doctor several times. She simply wouldn’t let me support her, feed her, or act as an equal participant in the communicative exchange. Finally, the doctor just grabbed one of her lanyards and showed it to me. I nodded in understanding. As soon as the appointment ended, the interpreter (on video) turned off the camera before I was able to give her feedback.
[Aside: Why do interpreters NOT ask deaf people for input or feedback?!]
I resent that kind of behavior in interpreted situations.
Discussion:
Problem №1: she presumed linguistic incompetence on my part. She assumed I did not have any competence as a languager or any ability to participate in facilitating communication.
She assumed I did not have the tools to co-construct meaning. Tools such as gesture, pointing, drawing, speech-to-text apps, speechreading, mouthing, and so on. She assumed I could not use my environment or pragmatic skills to figure out what she might have meant.
She assumed I did not have sufficient fluency in English to know what “lanyard” means.
She assumed incompetence on my part as a languager.
Problem №2: She did not treat me as a linguistic resource. I am deaf [AF] and have used sign language for most of my life. She should have let me feed her then at the end of the appointment asked me, for future reference, how I might sign “lanyard”. I would have showed her how: so simple and easy. I’m happy to support interpreters in expanding their toolkits and grow their fluency.
But she didn’t see me as a resource or as a teacher. Or even as an equal partner in the communicative exchange.
That. I resent.
So what do we take from this? Interpreting programs teach interpreters that they are the linguistic authority in the room; that they are the communication experts…experts [sarcasm added]. Interpreters are taught that they’re there to help deaf people, which subjugates the deaf person’s agency and authority. They are taught that deaf people are incompetent at language: poor readers, poor writers, poor communicators.
That deaf people show up hapless, like little blank slates, to be written upon while the interpreter does all the work in brokering meaning rather than see everyone in the room as equal participants in the conversation.
Why did that interpreter not ask the doctor to show the lanyard to me or ask them to describe the lanyard so that the interpreter wouldn’t have to think too hard about putting the concept into descriptive terms? The doctor could have been a linguistic resource for the interpreter too but they were summarily dismissed.
The refusal to allow me to feed her is indicative of Ego.
She allowed her ego and arrogance to disrupt the conversation, impeding my ease of understanding what was happening.
I want interpreting programs to start teaching interpreters how to engage in linguistic care work. As in viewing deaf people as rich linguistic resources and are competent at world-making and co-constructing meaning. To recognize that deaf people have to survive this world as minority languagers. We do this every day through a variety of resources we have at our disposal like pointing, gesturing, acting, writing, texting, using apps and technologies, and so on. This constant communicative survival means we have become very adept at using those tools in figuring out how to understand what’s happening around us.
When you don’t treat deaf people as competent languagers, problems like this emerge.
I want interpreting programs to do better. Start teaching your students that deaf people are their equals. That everyone that shows up in the communicative exchange has a shared goal to understand each other. That the interpreter has a supporting role in that goal.
Instead, we get arrogance and denials of our agency which results in negative experiences and misunderstanding. I left that appointment not feeling good.
ADDENDUM: I know cognitive blocks happen. They happen to the best of us; that’s totally ok! This situation, however, was not a cognitive block. I could see that as she spelled the first time that she didn’t think I’d understand the word. And if there was a block, why not accept my input?
