ASL Interpreting Annotated Bibliography: Understanding the Culture

https://www.sscc.edu/services/assets/guide-71-PEPNet-tipsheet-deaf-culture.pdf

Research Question: How does one become a successful American Sign Language interpreter?

When becoming an interpreter for any language, you need to know more than just the language. It is helpful to understand the culture/cultures that are connected with that language. My source is an online journal article prepared by Linda Siple, Leslie Greer, and Barbra Ray Holcomb, all who are professors that work for the Department of American Sign Language and Interpreting Education at Rochester Institute of Technology.

The article discusses how hearing culture is different from deaf culture by saying that, "the most dominant cultural pattern in the United States is individualism", and that, "one of the most dominant cultural patterns in the Deaf culture is collectivism." It then goes into more detail about American Sign Language specifically and how one should go about communicating to someone who is Deaf or Hard of Hearing. It even covers some common terms used among people that are Deaf of Hard of Hearing and what they mean in the perspective of that community.

This source relates to my topic on how to become a successful ASL interpreter because without knowing about what Deaf culture is, then it will be difficult to be successful. You may be able to become an interpreter, but your true success will come from how much your clients like you and references from those same clients. I will be elaborating on how this source connects with another source in my full annotated bibliography.

When it came to finding different ways of communicating with a deaf person, I knew how to go about doing so from previous experience, however, when reading about how their culture is different from the hearing world, I found it interesting how different it really was. Something as simple as an introduction when meeting someone new is different. As it says in the article, People that are part of Deaf Culture will focus more on physical appearances and "Sometimes a person’s name may not come up until the end of the conversation." When comparing that to how most hearing people introduce themselves, it is with their name first. This is just one specific example the article goes into when distinguishing the two cultures. It is very interesting to read about the more overlying parts of what makes the cultures different, but one thing I wish it had more of are the specific examples. Becoming a successful ASL interpreter is not an easy task (same with becoming an interpreter for any other language), and it requires extensive knowledge of the language and the culture which is why more specific examples would be helpful for someone wanting to become one.