Contexting interpretive work and depersonalizing feedback
One of the greatest struggles of the professional signed language interpreting field is the difficulty practitioners have in depersonalizing work product. Let’s break that cycle; interpreting evaluation is a scientific process concerned with gathering data and scrutizing equivalency of message from source to target, not adjectival commentary on the interpreter’s ‘goodness’ or ‘badness.’ Let’s do this.
Here are some bullet points/learning outcomes of which we might want to be aware:
- Why is evaluative language in discussion about work product problematic? What formulas persist from speaking this way about our work?
- How do we shift our discussion language away from evaluative to equivalency?
- How can we move past “it depends” when trying to answer questions about how we can solve intepreting problems?
Readings/Discussions
Feedback: A Conversation about ‘The Work’ Between Learners and Colleagues (Witter-Merithew) Required
This article contains an unpublished article (2001) by Anna Witter-Merithew, Director of the Mid-America Regional Interpreter Education Center (MARIE) and a former assistant director of the DoIT Center (now Department of American Sign Language and Interpreting Studies) at the University of Northern Colorado, regarding how we have historically spoken about interpreting work and posits a new paradigm of discussion.
Text/HTML version of “Feedback: A Conversation about ‘The Work’...”
Non-evaluative feedback language (Colonomos) Required
Colonomos’ “yellow sheet.” Simple yet essential recontexting of feedback language we use with interpreter colleagues. To be used in class discussions and interpretive work processing. Live it. Love it. Learn it. (Don’t download this unless you lose the yellow copy handed out in class.)
“Do We Eat Our Young and One Another? Horizontal Violence Among Signed Language Interpreters”
This 2012 thesis by Western Oregon University graduate Emily Ott explores the incidence of intergenerational communication conflict and horizontal violence between new and experienced interpreters.
“Why Is It So Hard to Accept Feedback” Recommended
Short but applicable vlog by writer/educator Trudy Suggs on how to view feedback and commentary on our work. Based on our class discussion about reframing feedback and evaluation discourse, can you see how this would be important? (From Vimeo)
“How to give (and not give) feedback” Required
Courtesy of our friends at GoREACT, this article correlates our other readings about effective feedback (specificity, timing, focus on product not person, etc.)
PDF version of ”How to Give (And Not Give) Feedback”
The Demand Control Schema for Interpreting Work (DC-S)
Consumers and Service Effectiveness in Interpreting Work: A Practice Profession Perspective (2005) Required
Article by Dean & Pollard (2005) discusses the concept of SL interpreting as a practice profession and why overlooking outside factors on SL interpreters is potentially dangerous to the profession. (Read pp. 259–271; stop at “Ethics, Consumers, and...”)
Application of Demand-Control Theory to Sign Language Interpreting: Implications for Stress and Interpreter Training (2001) Recommended
This seminal work in the DC-S theory framework introduces various types of demands — (para)linguistic, environmental, interpersonal, and intrapersonal — and discusses their impacts on interpreter psychology.
The Demand Control Schema for Interpreting Work (DC-S) Required
Definition and explanation of Dean & Pollard’s Demand Control Schema
Apprenticeship in SL Interpreting
Long needed yet sorely misunderstood, apprenticeships and supervision are the next frontier in the elevation of the field. Do you agree with Peterson and/or commenters here?