In the summer of 2018 I was given the amazing opportunity to be a part of a summer outdoor camp run by Deaf Youth Today (DYT), a branch of the Family Network for Deaf Children (FNDC). The camp is held every year at Tribune Bay Provincial Park on Hornby Island. This camp is attended by families with Deaf members and children who are Deaf or hard of hearing. The Tribune Bay Park staff are hearing individuals who run camps throughout the summer involving outdoor activities such as hiking, swimming, kayaking, and tree climbing. Myself and five other students were accepted to go to the camp to interpret for all those attending and working at the camp. This was a chance for us all, myself included, to go in head first and really see what interpreting is. We learned very quickly and had to adapt along the way in order to achieve meaningful interpretations.

The outcome of “Interpret Meaning” was often not achieved, and I think this is the biggest takeaway from this camp: seeing the difference between when meaning is properly interpreted and when it is not. The adaptations made and the lessons learned are why this artifact falls under this outcome. When I struggled to interpret meaning I was forced to step back and adjust my interpreting to make meaning happen. I often had to focus on what the goal was of the speaker. With such an array of language users at the camp the way the meaning was portrayed was not always the same and often needed support or expansion. The expansion of the message often showed in the use of real-life demonstrations. As the Tribune Bay staff explained how to participate in the activities they were also showing how to properly and safely partake in said activities. I quickly adjusted my interpreting to include the Tribune Bay staff’s examples. This also forced me to ensure that my positioning was proper (i.e. being close to or beside the speaker) and to occasionally use the equipment myself. Knowing the goal of the Tribune Bay staff as well as the goal of the listener was essential in interpreting meaning. I was lucky during my time at Tribune Bay to have almost immediate feedback in regards to whether meaning was conveyed or not. This did not come in the form of formal feedback from other students or interpreters but rather how the camp attendees partook in the activities. When a particular activity had difficult intricacies to it and required knowledge of the skills needed to succeed I was able to see if the child followed instructions that were given by the staff or if there was a misunderstanding. As we became more comfortable with the activities and got to know them better throughout our time there I found my interpretations to be fuller and have a more clear message. The interpretations were often tailored to a specific child or group of children based on their language needs and preferences. For the most part, the younger the group of campers the more “visual” the interpretation (i.e. more real-world resources were used). Through my time at DYT camp I found my interpretations improved in regards to conveying meaning. The adjustments I made and the resources/approaches I used helped achieve meaningful interpretations and a successful message was often the outcome.

During my third block of practicums I was located in Ottawa working for Sign Language Interpreters Associates Ottawa Inc (SLIAO). While I was working with this agency I was booked for an interpreting assignment for teachers, educational assistants, and early childhood educators. We received some prep for this assignment but upon arriving at the assignment I was told that the Deaf consumer uses more of a Contact Sign style of ASL. This meant that the consumer preferred English word structure, more fingerspelling, and more English mouthing than you would expect to see in ASL use. This was a new challenge for me. Throughout the program at Douglas College we have been practicing to use ASL in a manner that is truest to American Sign Language’s linguistic structure.

My first turn up interpreting did not go well. I was far too focused on trying to make my ASL structure fit English word order and I lost a lot of the meaning in the message. Luckily there were three interpreters present this day so I was able to observe the other two interpreters turn for roughly a half an hour before I was up again. I noticed some techniques that they used to attain the goal of an English structured message. One method, one which I was taught but had forgotten about, was the ability to paraphrase the message. On my first turn I was struggling to keep up with the speaker and therefore when I fell behind I felt like I had to omit a lot of information to get back to where I needed to be in regards to processing time. I thought that the shorter the processing time the more English my signing would be. This was not the case. Seeing the other interpreter work into ASL with English structure I noticed a lot more meaning based paraphrasing. This meant that the interpreter allowed herself time to create a whole message and then she only had to change the style/structure in which the message was produced.

When I had the opportunity to go up next I gave myself a lot more processing time in my work and was able to better understand the speaker. Once I knew I understood the speaker and his message I found it much easier to create a cohesive and comprehensible message in ASL with an English structure.

It was a real pivotal moment for me as I realized that even if we are working into a more English-based version of ASL we are still working into a different modality and using an entirely different language to do so. Just because we are working into a similarly structured language does not mean we can skip any steps in the interpreting process.

There are always challenges to interpreting for a recorded sample like the one above. That being said it has become somewhat of a norm for us here at Douglas College. The issue with a pre-recorded sample is the lack of interaction management that we have. We can ask for clarification of a word, topic, or message but unfortunately all the clarification we will get is what we just saw. I am aware of the different options and controls that we have as interpreters out in the field and how they may be more effective than the tools we have in this situation. Knowing what controls to use in different scenarios is a skill in and of itself and it is a skill that will continually be improving and changing. I, for one, have become a lot more comfortable asking for clarification or pausing an individual when I need time to catch up or expand on a concept. Doing so has helped my interpretations become a lot more clear as I am ensuring that I fully understand the source message before attempting to interpret into the target language.

In regards to this specific interpretation, please see the PDF below of my analysis/critique of my work. Each time stamped comment will be preceded by TAP or by ANALYSIS. TAP being an acronym for “Thinking Aloud Process” in where I will state what was going on in my brain/process at that exact moment. Analysis really speaks for itself, it will be a critical/theoretical look at some of the successes and miscues in the interpretation above.