CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
1.1. Introduction
Taiwan Sign Language (TSL), abbreviated as TSL, is the language used amongst deaf communities in Taiwan. The origins of TSL developed from Japanese Sign Language during Japanese rule, which is why TSL is considered part of the Japanese Sign Language family and has no direct relations with Chinese Sign Language (CSL), although there are loan words from CSL, as will be mentioned later. TSL has some mutual intelligibility with both Japanese Sign Language (JSL) and Korean Sign Language (KSL); it has about a 60% lexical similarity with JSL (Fischer et al. 2010).1 There are many issues concerning TSL interpreters. Generally speaking, there are problems and inadequacies for TSL interpretation system and research on this issue is important because it aims at raising the dignity of TSL interpreters and the quality of the interpretation itself.
The Labor Affairs Department of the New Taipei City government regulates the services, requirements and retribution of sign language interpreters.2
1 For detailed descriptive information on TSL, the reader can refer to the relevant literature (Ann et al. (to appear), 2000, 2007; Brentari 2010; Chan and Wang, 2009; Chang 2009; Chang et al. 2005;
Chang and Ke 2009; Chen and Tai 2009; Chen and Tai, 2009a, 2009b; Chiu et al. 2005; Duncan 2005;
Huteson 2003; Jean 2005; Lee et al. 2001; Myers et al. 2005, 2006; Myers and Tsay 2004; Myers and Tai 2005; Sasaki 2007; Shih and Ting 1999; Smith 2005; Su and Tai 2007, 2006, 2009; Tai 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008; Tai and Tsay 2009, 2010; Tai and Chen 2010; Tsai and Myers 2009; Tsay 2007, 2010; Wilbur 1987; Zhang 2007).
2 The document in question can be freely downloaded from the following address:
www.labor.taichung.gov.tw by inserting the words 提供手語翻譯及視力協助服務人員資格及補助 標準表.
For the benefit of the reader, here is the table which regulates the afore-mentioned services.3
Table 1
Category Services provided Qualification Subsidy Standards
TSL interpreting
3 The English translation is mine. The bold is also mine.
4 New Taiwanese Dollar.
3 2. 200 hours of sign language
interpreting service.
Vocational training In line with the first and second type qualifications interpreters, to inquire on the reality of the market. For someone with a background in simultaneous conference (oral) interpreting, I actually discovered a different situation as far as sign language interpreters are concerned.
According to one of my sources, sign language interpreters, unlike oral interpreters, are paid by the hour and not per working day. She says that every sign language interpreter approximately receives, at the very most, 1600 NTD per hour (anonymous interpreter A, personal communication 2012), which is line with the data presented in Table 1. In some rare occasions, sign language interpreters are not paid by the hour, according to the importance of the event. For instance, in the interview, she said that once she was paid 5000 NTD for a whole session (two hours) because the event was considered of the utmost importance, otherwise the pay is usually hourly, and most of the time it is only 1000 NTD per hour (interpreter A,
personal communication, 2012). At other times, low pay is not even the only problem because in different cities, most TSL interpreters cannot find the interpretation jobs easily even if they have the professional license; this is due to governmental budget restrictions.
When I heard this, I was quite surprised considering the fact that according to the official website of WASLI (World Association of Sign Language Interpreters), the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) has decided, by an overwhelming majority at the AIIC general assembly held in Buenos Aires in 2012, to open its doors to sign language conference interpreters, as a result of the close cooperation and fruitful discussions between AIIC and the World Association and the European Forum of Sign Language Interpreters. AIIC represents more than 3000 conference interpreters worldwide. On the other hand, WASLI and EFSLI promote the professional interests of sign language interpreters. The three associations share professional concerns such as ethics, advocacy, working conditions, and recognition, training and professional development. The main goal is to put sign languages on an equal footing with oral languages within the world of conference interpreting, including working hours, working condition and retribution, which is not respected yet in the world of TSL interpreting (Taiwan).
Simultaneous interpreting, irrespective of the modality is a very complex skill that requires intensive and appropriate training and practice. Successful interpreters rely on many skills in their everyday work. The development of these skills is not intuitive or automatic, nor is it modality-dependent. Simultaneous interpreting must be developed through a careful sequence of learning activities, which starts off from a perfect inter-lingual and intra-lingual command of both working languages.
Isolating specific skills and learning them one at a time is the best approach to learning complex new skills, which one at a time allows mastery of individual skills
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and a feeling of success. Gaining control over components of the interpretation process can assist in developing simultaneous interpreting skills because appropriate practice helps to “routinize” and “automatize” these complex skills. The skills that make up the simultaneous interpreting processes are generally not used in isolation and must be synthesized correctly in order to render an interpretation.
These general observations are the same for oral language and signed language interpreting, because neurobiological mechanisms and efforts underlying these processes are modality independent.
Sign interpreters in different countries may be treated and paid differently, and there are also governmental budget restrictions to be taken into consideration;
however, sign language interpreters should be treated au par with their fellow oral interpreters, all the more now that sign language has officially entered to be a part of AIIC official languages.The afore-mentioned observations, along with the fruitful discussions with professional interpreters, will be further investigated in the course of the thesis along with other problems and inadequacies related to sign language interpreting in order to raise the dignity of professional sign language interpreters and the quality of the interpretation itself. The underlying hypothesis, rationale, organization and anticipated contribution of the research will be underlined in the following paragraphs.
1.2 Research hypotheses
This research study hypothesizes that the efforts which underlie bimodal interpreting, that is to say, oral to sign and sign to oral interpreting, are not inferior than unimodal interpreting, i.e. oral to oral interpreting.
Each chapter in this thesis addresses different aspects of TSL and TSL
interpreting. Broadly, it is hypothesized that the same neurobiological mechanisms activate during oral to oral and during oral to sign interpreting and therefore, Taiwan Sign Language interpreters (TSLIs) should be treated equally as other oral interpreters, in terms of working conditions and retribution.
It will be possible to apply this information in governmental guidelines and regulations stipulating the deontological code and the general code of conduct of Taiwan Sign Language interpreters (TSLIs).
1.3 Background and rationale for the study
The International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC - Association internationale des interprètes de conférence) has a very rigid code of ethics and a set of professional standards that interpreters should abide by.
AIIC liaises with a number of international organizations (e.g., the EU and the United Nations) and negotiates the working conditions for all of their interpreters, including non-members. The goals of the AIIC are to secure acceptable working conditions for interpreters, to ensure professional interpretation, and to raise public awareness of the interpreting profession, including sign language interpreting which is being increasingly used in many fields. Frishberg (1986) reports that sign-language interpreters are called upon to interpret with increasing frequency in commercial settings, whether for employers and employees or for interlocutors who are on a more equal footing.
Given these premises, it seems opportune to raise the public awareness of the importance of interpreters irrespective of the modality. Some people might take the importance of interpreters as cultural mediators for granted, but in many fields, like the sign language interpreting, it is far from being so.
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Many people have to strive to receive subsidies by the government on something which should be rightfully theirs, irrespective of the budget restrictions. Also, TSL interpreters are treated in different ways in different cities. This is an issue which deserves to be mentioned. For example, different cities might have different budget restrictions or even different pay (personal communication 2012); it also depends how close Deaf5 people are with signers, at times just for the sake of maintaining their personal relationship on good terms, and in the hope of having more interpreting tasks assigned in the future. Some signers might even decide to do their job for free.
It seems opportune to handle the issues related to sign interpreting the way they are herein presented because different points of view are needed, both the Deaf people’s point of view and that of interpreters’. From the perspective of the Deaf community, we will analyze issues directly linked with TSL, such as the diachronic variety or the diatopic differences. From the perspective of the interpreters, they should become more and more specialized, that is why the issue of quality and of performance evaluation seems to be crucial and will be further investigated in the present dissertation; this in turn will also raise the dignity of interpreters both from a professional point of view and from a behavioral-empirical point of view, as demonstrated in chapter five.
This research therefore aims to lay the groundwork for a scientifically-based academic discussion not only on the importance of sign language interpreters but also on their professional status which should be on the par with oral language interpreters, both in terms of working conditions and retribution, because according to Holly Mikkelson “analysis of the different types of interpreting shows that
5 Throughout the whole thesis, the word Deaf is capitalized whenever it refers to a specific, self-defined cultural group, with a common history and language.
regardless of the adjective preceding the word "interpreter," practitioners of this profession the world over perform the same service and should meet the same standards of competence. ”6
The issue of interpreting fees in the world of sign language has always been a vague and obscure issue. Even in the Code of Professional Conduct of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, which was established in 1964, under the tenet according to which interpreters are to maintain ethical business practices, we read that interpreters ought to charge fair and reasonable fees for the performance of interpreting services and arrange for payment in a professional and judicious manner, without further explicitating the issue and without operationalizing the definition of “fair and reasonable fees”.
However, this year, 2012, the AIIC has decided to open its doors to sign languages, as previously mentioned. This has finally set some clear-cut professional standards for interpreters to follow. In Taiwan, however, this does not seem to be the case, since as we will delineate in the course of the thesis, working conditions (like the mandatory presence of a co-worker) or the fact that interpreters should be paid by working days or half-days, or even the interpreting professional fees per se are far from abiding to AIIC international standards.
1.4 General method
This thesis is made up of research hypotheses and research questions which attempt at finding an answer both by qualitative and quantitative methods. By using qualitative methods, we aimed to gather an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon which is being studied, namely TSL interpreting.
6 http://aiic.net/page/3356 (accessed in Sept, 2012).
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The samples of interpreters and Deaf people used was in line with the principle according to which in qualitative research smaller but focused samples are more often needed than large samples (Denzin and Lincoln 2005). At the same time, quantitative methods were used to seek empirical support for such research hypotheses.
Broadly speaking, a number of research methodologies were used, such as data collection, interviews, surveys, and experiments. As far as the subjects are concerned, we invited a total of ten participants to take part in the study:
Taiwanese-born Deaf people and professional sign language interpreters, native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, and professional oral interpreters as the control group, five for each category. The participants were duly paid for their willingness to contribute in the research. The materials used in the replication of Gile’s experiment in the fifth chapter are different than the ones used in the original experiment to adapt them to the target language and culture. As for the tasks in the experiment, they will be outlined in detail in paragraph 1.6, i.e. “Organization of the Thesis”.
1.5 The anticipated contribution of the study
This thesis is the first of its kind in Taiwan, insofar as it addresses interpreting issues related to TSL. In the past, there have been many theses on TSL, focusing on singular aspects such as TSL morphology, lexemes, semantics, syntax, etc.
However, to the author’s best knowledge, no one has ever focused on issues concerning TSL interpreting, which is however pressing considering the increasing need of the market. In other words, this is the first dissertation ever on Taiwan Sign
Language (TSL) Interpreting-related issues. There have been theses on TSL, per se, but never on TSL interpreting. This seems to be the main contribution a Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation (GITI) can provide.
Furthermore, we hope that the academic nature of the present study will encourage the government to revise the regulations stipulating the retribution and working conditions of sign language interpreters, which according to our research hypotheses do not differ from uni-modal interpreting, i.e. oral to oral interpreting.
1.6 Organization of the thesis
The thesis is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter is a general introduction to the research questions, the hypotheses and the expected results. It is divided into six different paragraphs, namely introduction, research hypothesis, background and rationale for the study, the general method applied in the study, the anticipated contribution of the study and the organization of the thesis.
The body of the thesis is conceptually divided into two main parts. The first part is made up of chapter one and chapter two which focus on Taiwan Sign Language (TSL), whilst chapters three through seven on TSL interpreting. The second chapter is an introduction to Taiwan Sign Language which has to be duly mentioned before talking about TSL interpreting issues. It can be perceived as a diachronic analysis of TSL, and one if its paragraphs is subtitled a historical journey towards dignity, because it emphasizes the efforts the Deaf community, along with linguists and international scholars, have made to recognize the linguistic dignity of sign languages around the world. This chapter covers a historical excursus of TSL, a delving into TSL diatopic and diachronic variation, including an interview with the older generation of signers vs. the younger one, plus the discussion on how
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interpreters deal with the lexical items with different signings when they are doing the interpretation. Therefore, it is important for the interpreters to have a linguistic background. For example, it is essential for the interpreter to be aware of the different geographic variations so that s/he can not only understand different forms of signing but also adapt his or her own signing according to the interlocutor’s geographic and social background. The remainder of the chapter is dedicated to issues such as the question of language “evolution” (from hands to mouth), cued speech, manually coded language, lip reading, oralism, and grammar sign language vs. sign language, which are important and relevant to the present dissertation from the Deaf community point of view, as previously mentioned. These issues will be further emphasized in the TSL interpreting evaluation chapter by underlining the fact that sometimes the text that is used during the exams is Signed Chinese and not Natural Sign Language. Therefore, they complicate the TSL interpreting evaluation process.
The second conceptual part of the thesis is more directly linked with interpreting issues. In the third chapter, the history of TSL interpreting is introduced. A corpus of TSL interpreters have been surveyed to ensure whether the precarious and unprofessional conditions dictated by the government are indeed so. Under the hypothesis that indeed they are so, the rest of the research is fully aimed at proving my thesis, i.e. bimodal interpreters should share the same professional dignity as oral interpreters. The second paragraph of the third chapter is an analysis of TSL interpreting history. The fourth paragraph is titled “professional volunteers”. This title is a pun. It reflects the almost volunteering nature of TSL professional sign language interpreters nowadays, considering the straitened conditions in which they work and it is also a window of reflection on many other sectors, where professionals are really volunteers, which I have personally come in contact with.
The final part of the third chapter underlines the importance that is given to professional evaluation after many years of sign language interpreting history, not only in Taiwan but also abroad (cf. Malcolm Williams, 2004) and will be further emphasized in the chapter dedicated to the issue of TSL interpreting assessment and evaluation.
Chapter four further explores some challenging areas of TSL interpreting, namely challenging areas such as figurative speech and metaphors, which will have to be taken into consideration in the evaluation process. This chapter is aimed at proving that the efforts underlying sign language interpreting are at the basis of the necessity of turn-shifting on stage while interpreting at a sign language event.
Chapter five covers an exhaustive literature review of all the neurobiological studies that are a proof of the fact that TSL is indeed a natural language and not a human construct. Furthremore, this chapter reunites two experiments, namely the qualitative pilot study and the quantitative pilot study, the latter proves the complicated nature of TSL interpreting process. This will have to be taken into consideration in the evaluation process which is in the following chapter. This chapter is focused on the tightrope hypothesis experiment along with the review of two neurobiological studies concerning the bilingual brain in bimodals, which can be applied also to sign language interpreters, seen as bimodal bilinguals. In the present chapter, I will reduplicate Daniel Gile's Effort Model Tightrope Hypothesis Experiment applied, this time, to TSL interpreting. According to Daniel Gile's Effort Model Tightrope Hypothesis, the so-called ‘competition hypothesis’ can be represented in the following way, with the total processing capacity consumption.
TotC associated with interpreting at any time represented as a ‘sum’ (not in the pure arithmetic sense) of consumption for L(anguage), consumption for M(emory) and consumption for P(roduct), with further consumption for ‘coordination’ (C) between
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the Efforts, that is, the management of capacity allocation between the Efforts:
(1) TotC = C(L) + C(M) + C(P) + C(C) and
(2) C(i) ≥ 0 i = L, M, P (3) TotC ≥ C(i) i = L, M, P
(4) TotC ≥ C(i) + C(j) i,j = L, M, P and i different from j
(Where - equation (1) represents the total processing capacity consumption- inequality (2) means that each of the three Efforts requires some processing capacity.
Now, the idea that most of the time, interpreters, irrespective of the modality, work near saturation level is the so-called ‘tightrope hypothesis’, which this experiment aims to prove for sign language interpreters. This ‘tightrope hypothesis’
is crucial in explaining the high frequency of errors and omissions that can be
is crucial in explaining the high frequency of errors and omissions that can be