“My Name is A-on-the-cheek”: Managing Names and Name Signs in American Sign Language-English Team Interpretation

Mark Halley,Valerie Dively,Marc Holmes,Giulia Petitta,Brenda Nicodemus

doi:10.1080/00277738.2018.1490521

Abstract

Interpreters face challenges when rendering names between languages. First, names may be unknown to the interpreter or contain culturally specific information. Further, names lack contextual clues that aid the decoding process. Finally, names may be pronounced in a manner that is difficult to understand (e.g., rapidly or with an accent). Spoken language interpreters have the option of repeating names in their original form; however, signed language interpreters work between languages produced in distinct language modalities (sign-speech) that share no phonological features; thus, names cannot simply be reproduced across languages. In this study we created a mock scenario between two interlocutors (a hearing computer specialist and a deaf international student) who enacted a training session in which they deliberately incorporated names. The interlocutors repeated this training session three times, each with a different team of interpreters. We report strategies used by the teams to convey names in their interpretations.

Highlights

Navigating a trip in another country can be a disorienting experience, especially when travellers encounter the name of a city or country that is dissimilar from what is used in their own language
In this paper we report on the strategies used by deaf–hearing signed language interpreting teams to convey names when interpreting an interaction between a deaf student and a hearing trainer
Our results show that interpreting culturally marked items such as names is challenging in communication across language modalities

Summary

Introduction

Navigating a trip in another country can be a disorienting experience, especially when travellers encounter the name of a city or country that is dissimilar from what is used in their own language. An English speaker who believes she has arrived in Munich may be momentarily perplexed by a sign. This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article. A Spaniard planning a trip to Londres may be distracted when London pops up on his laptop. Such variation of names occurs frequently in languages and emerges in a number of ways. Italian speakers use the anthroponym Cartesio (from the Latin Cartesius) to refer to the French philosopher Rene Descartes. Speakers’ adaptation of names is a natural and frequent process in languages, which typically results from phonological, historical, and cultural influences in a language community, rather than through a translation process (Jordan 2012; Woodman 2012)

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