Food for Thought: Terms Matter

Stephen Fitzmaurice, Ph.D., NIC:A, CI/CT, NAD 4, Ed:K-12

Stephen Fitzmaurice is an Associate Professor of Interpreting at Clemson University. He received his Ph.D. from Gallaudet University in Interpretation and a Master of Interpreter Pedagogy from Northeastern University. Stephen has worked as an interpreter for over 30 years and is currently the lead faculty for the Educational Interpreting program at Clemson University and Director of the South Carolina Educational Interpreting Center.

Food for Thought: Terms Matter

ASL Link: https://youtu.be/p6-a8D3CZas

As with all languages, both ASL and English change over time. And, certainly, change takes time. For example, we have long since (and, thankfully) moved well beyond deaf and dumb or deaf-mute as terms (National Association of the Deaf, 2024). Yet, we still often hear English users use terms like hearing impaired. As a hearing interpreter, I will often interpret that term literally and offer the Deaf person to decide on providing guidance to the non-deaf person on the appropriateness of the term. Again, change takes time.

When teaching language, we often model the correct articulation to language learners when they make an error. For example, a young hearing child may say pasgetti to mean spaghetti. Generally, we repeat that word the correct way over and over such as ‘oh you want some spa-ghetti’ with over emphasis on the correct part of the articulation. However, if by the time the child is eight years old and has not self-cor- rected, we may intervene with ‘no that is not right – say it with me.’ It is my hope that this article serves not as an admonishment, but an opportunity to take inventory of the terms we use and perhaps give them a fine tuning. While acknowledging change takes time, sometimes it is healthy to take inventory of our own language use.

That said, within the interpreting community jargon I still hear/see many dated terms still being used. For example, ‘voicing’ for a Deaf person. Interpreters have long since agreed that voice is a tool and an essential component of agency. Yet, we still use it. Let us, instead, move toward interpreting to English or interpreting from ASL. Similarly, linguists have long since agreed the term Pidgin Signed English aka PSE is an incorrect nomenclature, which is now often referred to as Contact Sign (Lucas & Valli, 1989). Yet, PSE is used all the time.

While most spoken language interpreters put their A Language first and then their B language (in my case, that would be English-ASL Interpreter) it seems visual language interpreters in many countries put the visual language first. While not really an issue, it does become of notice in meeting formats, such as Zoom, where I often see interpreters with the label ‘ASL Interpreter.’ Ultimately, this is reductionist as we are bilingual individuals working between two languages. In addition, this does a disservice to Deaf individuals as the implication is we are there for the Deaf person only. In fact, I was recently reminded that we are often present in an interpreting scene because the non-deaf person cannot sign; thus, we are really there for them. I would think we should then be using ‘ASL-English Interpreter,’ or whatever your languages are.

Food for thought in language use: we talk about students who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing (American English use has speakers putting the student first – whereas ASL tends to have the Deaf identity first). While this is much better than the federal definition of students who are hearing impaired (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (2004) Section 300.8 (c) (5)), it still reeks of audism (Humphries, 1977). When we talk about Deaf students, we generally mean students who use some sort of ASL or Contact Sign. This is so deeply intertwined with cultural identities – for our purposes as interpreters by saying Deaf and Hard of Hearing students we move from cultural identity to audiological identity in one phrase.

A change that has not really caught on much is moving away from the infamous Interpreter Training Program (ITP) term. Interpreters have also long since agreed, interpreting is not a trade, rather it is a profession with higher level ethics and decision-making demands. Trades are trained. Professions are schooled (Mikkelson & Jourdenais, 2015). A few interpreting programs have switched to Interpreter Preparation Programs (IPPs), or Interpreter Education Programs (IEPs) but it seems the latter regularly gets confused with Individualized Education Programs (also IEPs). More recently interpreters have referred to such as Interpreter Programs (IPs) just to keep it simple. Circling back to being schooled, other professions go to school – Divinity School, Law School, Medical School, and Nursing School. My wish is for Interpreting School to catch on.

We must tip our hat to legacy terms, though. We have the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, and that terminology has been maintained due to our 1964 origins. Likewise, the Conference of Interpreter Trainers (CIT) has also retained its terminology as part of its legacy. So indeed, there may be honored reasons why we do not want to update our terms. Yet, is it not time to revisit the rationale for keeping those terms? Terms matter.

That said, there are also ample times where we get stuck in our own patterns of terms we use – and while we can debate whether that is in-community jargon only, it ekes out into the broader world. Again, not an admonishment, just encouragement to take inventory of the terms we use and maybe perk them up a bit. Food for thought, because terms matter.

References

Humphries, T. (1977). Communicating across cultures (Deaf/Hearing) and language learning [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Union Graduate School, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Lucas, C., & Valli, C. (1989). Language contact in the American deaf community. In The sociolinguistics of the Deaf community (pp. 1140). Academic Press.

Mikkelson, H., & Jourdenais, R. (Eds.). (2015). The Routledge Handbook of Interpreting (1st ed.). Routledge.

National Association of the Deaf. (2024). Community and culture - Frequently asked questions. https://www.nad.org/resources/ american-sign-language/community-and-culture-frequently-asked-questions/