Attitudes, Innuendo, and Regulators: Challenges of Interpretation

The second volume in the Studies in Interpretation series delves further into the intricacies of sign language interpreting in five distinctive chapters. In the first chapter, Lawrence Forestal investigates the shifting attitudes of Deaf leaders toward sign language interpreters. Forestal notes how older leaders think of interpreters as their friends in exchanges, whereas Deaf individuals who attended mainstream schools possessed different feelings about interpreting. Frank J. Harrington observes in his chapter on British Sign Language-English interpreters in higher education observes that they cannot be viewed in isolation since all participants and the environment have a real impact on the way events unfold. In Chapter Three, Maree Madden explores the prevalence of chronic occupational physical injury among Australian Sign Language interpreters due to the stress created by constant demand and the lack of recognition of their professional rights. Susan M. Mather assesses and identifies regulators used by teachers and interpreters in mainstreaming classrooms. Her study supports other findings of the success of ethnographic methods in providing insights into human interaction and intercultural communication within the mainstreaming setting. The fifth chapter views how interpreters convey innuendo, a complicated undertaking at best. Author Shaun Tray conducts a thorough examination of innuendo in American Sign Language, then points the way toward future research based upon ethnography, gender, and other key factors.