Abstract
This article focuses on how to provide environmental descriptions of the context with the intent of creating access to information and dialogical participation for deafblind persons. Multimodal interaction is needed to communicate with deafblind persons whose combined sensory loss impedes their access to the environment and ongoing interaction. Empirical data of interpreting for deafblind persons are analyzed to give insight into how this task may be performed. All communicative activities vary due to their context, participants, and aim. In this study, our data are part of a cross-linguistic study of tactile sign language and were gathered during a guided tour for a deafblind group. The guided tour was tailored to a specific group (adult deafblind tactile signers and their interpreters) visiting one of the oldest cathedrals and pilgrim sites in Scandinavia, with interpreters following up the guide’s presentation and providing descriptions based on the given situation. The tour and the interpreters’ work were videotaped, and the ongoing interaction and communication have been studied through video-ethnographic methods and conversational analysis. The data have been investigated for the research question: What elements are involved in descriptions to provide deafblind individuals access to their environments? Theories from multimodality communicative studies are relevant for the ways tactile descriptions are presented and analyzed. Some of this is an investigation at a microlevel of interaction. An overall inspiration for this study is interaction studies with data from authentic formal and informal conversations and ways of analyzing embodied action and situated gestures in studies of human interaction. Also, concepts of “frontstage,” “backstage,” and “main conversation” are brought into our interpreter-mediated data to follow the role of building meaning in complex conversations. Theories on interaction are used in the analyses to illustrate the participating framework between the guide, the interpreter, the deafblind person, and the situated frame of their interaction. The study opens for a broader understanding of the repertoire of multimodal interaction and how such interaction may be handled as inputs in communication processes. This is of relevance for communication with deafblind persons, for professionals meeting blind and deafblind clients, and for knowledge of multimodal interaction in general.
Highlights
Description as Part of Interpreters WorkDeafblind persons’ sensory loss varies in degrees from having some or no residual sight or hearing (Petren, 1980; Möller, 2008; Creutz, 2019)
Interpretermediated interaction for deafblind people consists of these three main tasks: (1) translate spoken and signed messages in an interpretation process involving different languages and language modalities, (2) describe the environment and the context of the communication settings, and (3) guide the deafblind person finding their way during the interpreted event based on personal communication and guiding needs
We were looking for four informants, and the project was presented to four prospective deafblind informants, via web-based reading programs accessible to deafblind persons
Summary
Deafblind persons’ sensory loss varies in degrees from having some or no residual sight or hearing (Petren, 1980; Möller, 2008; Creutz, 2019). Activities following the ideas of his theories may be seen in interpreter-mediated interactions and in the ways interpreters work to build up knowledge about the scene, the action, and the participants This can be observed when interpreters change position and/or their movements to indicate the direction of those who have the floor in a conversation, as described by a variety of embodied actions, to address the target of meaning construction (Raanes, 2018). Berge and Raanes (2013) have analyzed a collaborative understanding in the interaction process in naturally occurring interpreter-mediated group discussions between deafblind participants. Their findings demonstrate the variety of strategies in use to convey environmental information to deafblind persons in interpreter-mediated activities
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