The Heart of Interpreting from Deaf Perspectives
Temas
Detalles
At the 22nd International Congress on the Education of the Deaf (ICED) in Greece in July 2015, Kim Kurz was enjoying her stroll in the Syntagma Square in front of the Old Royal Palace when she encountered a group of Deaf colleagues who were also taking a break from the conference. At any other moment, this should be a happy occasion, but their faces told her otherwise. Their request to discuss an important matter conveyed the feeling of urgency. After sitting down at a nearby outdoor café, her colleagues began to vent their frustrations about the lack of highly qualified interpreters and accessibility at the conference. This discussion confirmed for Kim that this was not a unique situation. It was the moment she realized the importance of documenting and sharing Deaf individuals’ perspectives on interpreting. Although there have been countless discussions over the years among Deaf professionals about the qualities they want to see in sign language interpreters, the discussions remain largely anecdotal and not well-documented. This is the motivation that led Kim to recruit her co-author, Joseph Hill, to work on the project of documenting insights and expectations from a group of Deaf professionals about the language and interpreting qualities they consider “the heart of interpreting,” hence the title of this chapter. Background Before sign language interpretation was established as a profession, Deaf people were naturally a big part of interpreters’ development. Translation work was often done by individuals who were intimately familiar with the language and cultural practices of the Deaf community.
En: Holcomb, T. y Smith, D. (eds.): Deaf Eyes on Interpreting