Doctoral Dissertation Research: Ethics, Sign Language, and the Development of Interpreting

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

Linguistic anthropology and interpreting studies has long established that effective interpreting depends not only on grammatical and lexicographic accuracy, but also on the cultural aptitude and ethical behavior of the interpreter. This project, which trains a student in the methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, asks how the voice of a Deaf person is represented when that voice must be mediated by an interpreter. Using interpreters requires answering a host of ethical questions; how should interpreters (re)present Deaf people's voices, both metaphorically and literally? How involved should interpreters be in Deaf politics? Who advocates for the growth of interpreting? This study empirically examines how Deaf people and interpreters navigate such ethical questions, and how doing so shapes the development of sign language interpreting, and the way Deaf people and interpreters are perceived by the hearing public. As Deaf organizing and interpreting are emerging simultaneously as fields in which actors engage and position themselves in relation to each other, the question of how interpreters use their physical voices to speak for Deaf people and for themselves has become a source of tension, and the subject of ethical practice. In addition to providing funding for the training of a graduate student in anthropology, this project would broaden the participation of groups underrepresented in science, build capacity and scientific infrastructure through international scientific cooperation, and enhance public scientific understanding by broadly disseminating findings to organizations outside academe. Sharon Seegers, under the supervision of Dr. Michele Friedner of the University of Chicago will investigate the formation of ethical practice in interactions among hearing people, sign language interpreters, and signers. This study focuses on sign language interpreting Ha Noi, Viet Nam, where over the past three decades, there has been a rise in Deaf community organization, coupled with a growth in sign language interpreting. The context thus provides a unifor examining how ethical decisions are made in real time, and sign language interpreting protocols are formulated. Drawing from the framework of everyday ethics and the anthropology of the voice, this project examines how Deaf people and interpreters in Việt Nam debate, imagine, create, and inhabit new ethical norms around the complex process of voicing. In particular, the project examines interpreted interactions as a site where Deaf people and interpreters emerge as particular types of subjects. The student researcher will conduct eight months of field work with Deaf people and interpreters in Hanoi, Vietnam, combining ethnographic fieldwork, with semi-structured interviews and conversational analysis of interpreted interactions. She will observe Deaf people and interpreters, to see how they communicate in their daily lives, and how Deaf people are portrayed to hearing people with and without interpreters present. The researcher will also follow Deaf advocacy organizations, to see how Deaf people's voices are portrayed through interpreters, and how the ethics of interpreters' involvement in Deaf organizations is negotiated. This project will advance theoretical debates in anthropology, linguistic, deaf studies, and disability studies about ethics, translation, and disability. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.