From Our Hands to Your Eyes

Since starting this project just two weeks ago, I have already received numerous messages from colleagues in the sign language interpreting field, and I couldn't be more thrilled about the prospect of including stories from these important (and often pioneering) members of our profession.

Now seems to be an appropriate time to give some kudos to sign language interpreters, being that this is the week that the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) will be holding its annual conference in San Francisco, with approximately 2,000 attendees.

While sign language interpreting is not an area of specialization for me, I've admired sign language interpreters ever since I attended the Critical Link Conference in Montréal, at which interpreters for both signed and spoken languages gathered. I had seen sign language interpreters at work previously, but at that event, there were interpreters on stage for so many different sign languages, each one different from the next, and it was a fascinating sight to behold, something along the lines of a visual chorus.

Many monolinguals, and even many spoken language interpreters, are surprised by the large number of sign languages that exist. It is common for people to assume that sign language is "universal" across the globe. Not so!

There are at least 25 sign languages used in Africa, about 30 sign languages used in Asia, approximately 33 sign languages in Europe, roughly 6 sign languages used in the Middle East, and 22 sign languages used in the Americas.

As for English-speaking countries, readers may be interested in knowing that British Sign Language (BSL) and American Sign Language (ASL) are very different from each other. For example, fingerspelling in ASL uses just one hand, while in BSL, two hands are required. Irish Sign Language (ISL) is different still, and is rooted in French Sign Language (LSF). I was told by a colleague that this was due to the fact that French nuns taught many of the deaf children in Ireland. Northern Ireland Sign Language (NISL) uses both ISL and BSL.

Across the pond, at one point in history, there was even a Martha's Vineyard Sign Language that thrived at one time due to the unusually high number of deaf inhabitants of the island. In one region of a town called Chilmark, as much as a quarter of the population was deaf. On the island as a whole, about 1 in every 155 people was deaf. This is documented in a book called Everyone here spoke sign language: Hereditary deafness on Martha's Vineyard by Nora Ellen Groce, available here. As schools for deaf children opened on the mainland, many families migrated away from the island, and this sign language soon became extinct.

Another interesting tidbit about sign language interpreting in the U.S. is the fact that many Native Americans of the Great Plains once used a sign language to communicate across languages. This was referred to as Plains Indian Sign Language, and was used by Sioux, Arapahoe, Cheyenne and others. In the late 1800's, there were apparently more than 100,000 individuals who knew this sign language. Today, very few remain.

Often, when I am conducting research on interpreting, I come across articles with helpful information for sign language interpreters, although much of the information usually applies to spoken language interpreters as well. Even when it doesn't apply, it's always interesting.

One virtual treasure trove of information is David Bar-Tzur's site, The Interpreter's Friend. There are some fascinating articles on interpreting for spiritual/religious topics, many of which I believe would be of great interest to all interpreters. There is also a tremendous list of resources.

May the knowledge-sharing continue. All colleagues from the sign language interpreting community are welcome to participate in this project.

Alice Kaplan - The Interpreter

The Interpreter. Most (if not all) of us are familiar with the movie starring Nicole Kidman. However, are you familiar with the book by the same name, also known by it's French title, L'Interprete, by Duke University history professor, Alice Kaplan?

If not, it may be of special interest. Kaplan is the author of French Lessons and The Collaborator and the translator of OK, Joe, all published by the University of Chicago Press. Her books have been twice nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Awards, once for the National Book Award, and she is a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Here is what the publisher had to say:

"One of the least-known stories of the American liberation of France, from 1944 to 1946, is also one of the ugliest and least understood chapters in the history of Jim Crow. The first man to grapple with this failure of justice was an eyewitness: the interpreter Louis Guilloux. Now, in The Interpreter, prize-winning author Alice Kaplan combines extraordinary research and brilliant writing to recover the story both as Guilloux first saw it, and as it still haunts us today.

When the Americans helped to free Brittany in the summer of 1944, they were determined to treat the French differently than had the Nazi occupiers of the previous four years. Crimes committed against the locals were not to be tolerated. General Patton issued an order that any accused criminals would be tried by court-martial and that severe sentences, including the death penalty, would be imposed for the crime of rape. Mostly represented among service troops, African Americans made up a small fraction of the Army. Yet they were tried for the majority of capital cases, and they were found guilty with devastating frequency: 55 of 70 men executed by the Army in Europe were African American -- or 79 percent, in an Army that was only 8.5 percent black.

Alice Kaplan's towering achievement in The Interpreter is to recall this outrage through a single, very human story. Louis Guilloux was one of France's most prominent novelists even before he was asked to act as an interpreter at a few courts-martial. Through his eyes, Kaplan narrates two mirror-image trials and introduces us to the men and women in the courtrooms. James Hendricks fired a shot through a door, after many drinks, and killed a man. George Whittington shot and killed a man in an open courtyard, after an argument and many drinks. Hendricks was black. Whittington was white. Both were court-martialed by the Army VIII Corps and tried in the same room, with some of the same officers participating. Yet the outcomes could not have been more different.

Guilloux instinctively liked the Americans with whom he worked, but he could not get over seeing African Americans condemned to hang, Hendricks among them, while whites went free. He wrote about what he had observed in his diary, and years later in a novel. Other witnesses have survived to talk to Kaplan in person."

You can read an excerpt from the book here. You can also listen to an interview about the book with the author, from NPR, here. Here are some other quotes from reviewers:

“A cross section of a tragedy.…This is an extraordinary book.”
John Lukacs, Boston Globe

“A nuanced historical account that resonates with today’s controversies over race and capital punishment.”
Publishers Weekly

“American racism could become deadly for black soldiers on the front. The Interpreter reminds us of this sad component of a heroic chapter in American military history.”
Los Angeles Times

“A brilliant account.… Inventive, moving, and beautifully written, this is a major contribution to investigative history. Highly recommended.”
Library Journal

“With elegance and lucidity, Kaplan revisits these two trials and reveals an appallingly separate and unequal wartime U.S. military justice system.”
Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Kaplan has produced a compelling look at the racial disparities as they were played out.… She explores both cases in considerable and vivid detail.”
Sacramento Bee

In the case of this interpreter, through whose eyes Kaplan allows readers to see a unique perspective in history, the issues surrounding racial disparities were impossible to ignore. While this is an extreme example, as interpreters, we assist members of minority groups constantly as part of our daily work, and many of us are representatives of minority groups ourselves. I am sure that many interpreters will find relevance and parallels in the viewpoints offered in Kaplan's book.

So often, interpreters are portrayed using the dry and inaccurate "parrot analogy", without acknowledgment of the fact that interpreters are human beings, participants, in many ways, of the events and communication acts taking place, not just in our presence, but with our presence. Given the significance of what Guilloux experienced as an interpreter, I venture to say he would probably agree.

I came across a discussion guide for this book online, and it posed a very interesting question:

For French writer Louis Guilloux, being an interpreter was much more than just a wartime profession. What did serving as an interpreter mean to him, and how did he embrace this role both during the courts-martial and throughout his life?

This question is an interesting one to reflect upon, especially in the context of our project. What parallels are there between Guilloux's view about his work, what it meant to him, and the views we, present-day interpreters, hold of our own? I hope that some answers to this question will be revealed through the From Our Lips to Your Ears project. Certainly, Alice Kaplan has given us a banquet of food for thought.

Finally, I'm pleased to share that I've exchanged emails with Ms. Kaplan, and she has kindly offered to support the project by putting us in touch with some of the interpreters she's been in contact with in relation to the writing of The Interpreter.

The Word is Getting Out!

Over the past couple of days, I've been hearing from our colleagues from Down Under as a result of the project being mentioned in the eNewsletter for AUSIT, a professional association for interpreters in Australia with more than 750 members. Thank you, AUSIT!

The national symbol for interpreting services in Australia is pictured at left.

I am also happy to report that many university professors around the world have also been willing to help spread the word among fellow faculty and students.

Our project continues to receive mentions in the blogosphere! It has been mentioned on Transblawg, a blog for German translators, the N-Zone blog, written by Norayda de Leon-Jones, a Spanish<>English court interpreter, and the Translation Blog, written by Céline Graciet.

This week, I also heard from a colleague to let me know that she had already heard about the publication in a variety of ways. The fact that people are hearing about the project from multiple sources is encouraging. Still, my hope is that all interpreters will have the opportunity to participate in the project, if they are so inclined. So, there is still work to be done and still more interpreters to reach. If you are interested in helping get the word out, feel free to visit the project website for some ideas.

The media release continues to be picked up by so many sites, we've lost track! A few new ones we received through Google Alerts include the SmartMoney site, ABC7 news (Los Angeles) and WLS-TV / ABC (Chicago).

In response to the recent story in the Washington Post, I am also supporting other journalists who are writing about interpreting issues. More items are currently in the works. If this project is mentioned in any of them, I will be sure to post an update here.

You can now subscribe to the From Our Lips to Your Ears blog in a reader. To do that, simply click on the small orange icon in the right-hand column. This enables you to view this blog using the news reader of your choice (Yahoo, Google, Explorer, AOL, etc.).

Within just a couple of days of adding the subscription feature this week, the FeedBurner stats indicated that quite a few people are already subscribing to this blog in a news reader. That was a surprise to me, but I chalk it up to the fact that we all enjoy reading positive things about our profession. Also, I may have underestimated the number of contributors who like to stay updated about the project.

I've also been getting requests from individuals for me to receive my "newsletter" and be added to my "mailing list". I had not yet planned for either of those, but given the interest, it looks like I will need to do so in the near future. For now, I've added another new feature, so that now, you can receive blog entries via email. If you're interested, it's easy to do - just enter your email address into the little box in the right-hand column.

Each day, more and more submissions, questions and ideas keep pouring in! So much so, in fact, that it's very hard to keep up with it all. Still, it's inspiring and encouraging to see so much support, both within the U.S. and internationally, for the project.

At this point, several of the interpreters and colleagues who have contacted me have said that this project is a wonderful public relations effort for the entire interpreting community. I consider it an honor to help people understand the value of interpreters in society. So, I can see why the project is being viewed this way. Still, my goal is much simpler: to collect and record anecdotes that demonstrate how interpreters are changing the world, and make them available through a publication. I believe that one of the project's benefits will be greater outreach to the public at large, in a positive way.

Thanks again for the amazing support, now evidenced through hundreds of emails, thousands of unique hits on the project website, as well as your continued phone calls and comments on this blog. As a special treat, click here to learn how to say Thank You in 465 languages.

Janet Perez Eckles

Many years ago, I met a true heroine in our profession. From the moment I first heard her interpreting abilities, I knew she was outstanding in many ways. She was able to render information back and forth in her language pair (English<>Spanish) with utmost grace, retaining accuracy and making the speech sound absolutely natural, even conveying nonverbal information, such as hesitations, tone of voice and inflection. Not only that, but she always had an amazing presence about her, treating speakers of both languages gently, with respect and professional courtesy.

I worked with her for a long time, and always admired her as a professional. She quickly rose to achieve many things in her career as an interpreter, receiving awards for her abilities and obtaining her court certification in the state of Florida. Throughout her career, she has trained and coached hundreds of other interpreters in the United States, Panama, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.

What I didn't know about Janet Perez-Eckles when I first began working with her, and what may surprise many readers here, was that she was blind. When someone told me this, I became even more awestruck by Janet. We worked together for many years, interacting mostly via telephone. It became easy for me to forget that she was sightless, even when we were together in person. This became even more incredible to me when I learned that Janet had actually lost her sight as an adult. You can read more about Janet's incredible abilities as an interpreter in a feature article from Hispanic Times magazine, located here.

But Janet's achievements as an interpreter are not her only admirable qualities by any stretch of the imagination. In addition to losing her sight as a mother of three young children, Janet has overcome a great many obstacles in her life that many of us can never even imagine.

Janet is already a published author, and imparts wisdom to others about the many hardships she has successfully battled in her book, Trials of Today, Treasures for Tomorrow: Overcoming Adversities in Life, available for purchase online here.

Janet's writing - and her amazing life- have received wonderful acclaim in the New York Times, the New York Daily News, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Orlando Sentinel, and many others. Her work has appeared in countless books and publications, and one of her personal anecdotes will be featured in Chicken Soup for the Tea Lover's Soul, forthcoming in November 2007. Her blog is available here.

So, given this extremely impressive background, and even though I already knew her as a friend, I was extremely honored when I received a call from Janet yesterday. With Janet's trademark "smile in her voice", she shared her support of our project and offered to participate. Janet also informed me that, in her book, she has an entire chapter that discusses how she became an interpreter.

Those of you who have worked as telephone interpreters know the importance of note-taking. Now, imagine for a second that you could not take notes and had to rely exclusively on your short-term memory, even for the longest segments. Imagine interpreting a 16-digit credit card number without writing it down. Janet can do this effortlessly now, but in her book, she describes how she came to acquire and hone this unique ability.

Janet has kindly offered to allow our project to use excerpts from her book, especially from this chapter, which is very relevant. She and I are both thrilled about the chance of working together again, this time with another common interest - that of communicating with a wider audience, in writing, and sharing information about the interpreting profession with others.

Readers may also be interested to know that Janet is working on a series of novels at the moment, and one of her main characters happens to be an interpreter! As more updates become available about Janet's work, I will be sure to share them here.

Until then, I just want to say that I am very grateful for the opportunity to meet and collaborate with other published authors whose writing and work focus on interpreting, but are accessible to a broad audience. One thing I am finding in common with all of these authors is that we are unanimous in our belief that it is extremely important to give interpreters from all fields a chance to share their perspectives. There is so much great work being done, and there are so many great stories to share.

TAHIT Annual Symposium

Our friends at the Texas Association of Healthcare Interpreters and Translators (TAHIT) will host their First Annual Symposium on Language Access August 24-25 at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. You can register here.

We're happy to report that our project will have a presence at this event, as participants will be able to pick up copies of our literature there. We look forward to hearing stories from our colleagues from the health care interpreting field in the Lone Star State.