NAD/Posted May 6, 2005

Interpreting as metaphor
By Mel Whalen

Sign language interpreting is, for me, a metaphor for life in general. The relationship between Deaf clients and interpreters reminds me every day that life is about knowing when to take control and when to let go.

For instance, I went to a comedy club last week. There were two interpreters working that night. Both were very qualified interpreters in a general sense, so I expected to find them equally easy to understand.

However, I was wrong. It took me a few minutes to realize that Sam, the first interpreter, was making implicit "hearing jokes" explicit, while John was simply signing almost everything that the comedian said, and leaving it up to the Deaf audience to figure out the jokes.

Had I been sitting right in front of John, and thus able to truly catch every sign, I might have found him hilarious as well. After all, I read the newspaper just as well as the rest of the hearing audience. I watch CNN. I consider myself culturally literate and highly bilingual.

But from seven rows back, John was a nightmare. I couldn’t possibly follow his speedy signing, which lacked punctuation or facial expression. His movements were clear, but he signed so fast that his concepts all ran together into one long continuous sentence. He tried so hard to "keep up" that he lost sight of the bigger picture.

Sam was much easier to understand. Sam allowed a greater lag time, and thus was able to build up to the punch line using appropriate ASL discourse features. Sam might not have caught every single pun or joke that was flung at the audience, but the ones that he did interpret were clear, funny, and easy to understand. When Sam got up on stage, my eye muscles relaxed and I found myself breathing easier.

During intermission, another Deaf friend asked me, "Why is it so hard to follow John? He’s such a good interpreter in the community." The simple answer, of course, is that not all good interpreters are good at stand-up comedy, music, or other stage work. Everyone has his or her specialty.

But I think the deeper issue is also that John does not seem to have learned to embrace and honor the power that comes with being an interpreter. To be an interpreter is to make constant choices. What is the essence of the message being conveyed? What can be eliminated, and what is essential? How do you shift the wheat from the chaff? How do you take control of the situation instead of just galloping desperately along trying to keep up with someone else’s pace?

When people talk about the power of interpreters, I often think of my friend Julie. One day, on stage, at the end of a performance, Julie suddenly found herself faced with a gospel choir that broke into a spontaneous performance of the song Amazing Grace. The gospel singers were crying. The audience members joined both the crying and the singing. The music flowed, and goose bumps appeared on numerous arms.

Instead of signing the song, however, Julie decided to tell an ASL story about the origins of the song. She became the captain of that slave ship. She talked about his conversion to Christianity in the middle of the ocean. The story came alive in her hands. It was a captivating, beautifully performed ASL story.

But was it the right decision to make? I don’t know. Perhaps for some members of the audience, it was the best interpreted "song" that they’d ever seen. Perhaps she truly translated not only the words but the culture as well. And inevitably, of course, there were those bilingual audience members who were pissed off because they had wanted to see the words to the song on her hands.

Perhaps Julie swung a little too far in the opposite direction from John. But she obviously put a lot of thought into what makes a translation truly work. She clearly understood the vast amount of power she had in that moment. To me, that is what makes both watching and being an interpreter such a fascinating experience.

As an interpreter, one must make rapid decisions about how to make the material culturally relevant to the Deaf audience members. And as a Deaf client, I must cede that control. For years, when I first learned to sign, I would tell interpreters that I wanted to know "what the performer really said." The best interpreters would nod and smile at me, and then get up there and go right on with their ASL interpretation. I finally came to understand that in order to truly enjoy an interpreted event, I needed to stop trying to control the interpreters.

And, in return, they needed to really use their power to make those tough decisions. John had the ability, but he lacked the courage to truly make the comedy acts his own. Perhaps Julie made the song her own a little but too much. Only Sam seemed to find the balance necessary.

It is a tough line to walk, both for the interpreters and for the Deaf clients. Often, it’s a frustrating struggle all around. But when it works, when everything falls into place, the results are beautiful. And in the meantime, the process reminds me that I cannot control much more than my own reaction to what life presents.