Linguistics
ASL/English Interpreting
DRAFT Mission Statement and Program Philosophy
Mission Statement
The mission of the Concentration in American Sign Language/English Interpreting is to provide students with training in the substance and process of interpreting in the context of a strong Liberal Arts education in linguistics. Via a three-pronged approach involving student-centered approaches to teaching, a balanced emphasis on both practice and research, and a collaboration with the Deaf community and the agencies serving them, our goal is to produce graduates who after two years of consistent work in the field post-graduation will be ready to stand for the national credentialing examinations in this field. We consider the substance of interpreting to include not only familiarity with critical thinking, decision making, and the cognitive task of interpreting, but with the linguistic and multicultural context in which interpreting occurs. Our program is committed to offering a full curriculum that is equally geared to both hearing and Deaf interpreting students at all levels of study and to making on-going efforts to provide training opportunities for working educational and community interpreters throughout the state and beyond.
Program Philosophy
Our philosophy is that interpreting is a linguistic and cultural negotiation among all parties involved and is always framed in a social context. As a result, the interpreter must be linguistically competent and culturally aware as well as ethical and professional.
We believe that if the interpreter puts a premium on message equivalence (in both a linguistics and cultural sense), the interpreter’s path is clear. Do anything it takes to achieve that goal. Interpretation is a complex cognitive task fraught with errors. The interpreter’s primary task is to control the process in ways that allow for processing of the message and its expression in a target language form that is understandable and culturally appropriate to the target audience. It is the interpreter’s responsibility to be candid about the fact that interpreters are fallible, to correct substantial errors whenever possible, to inform all parties involved when interpreting is not happening, and to use discretion in accepting assignments.
We believe that the ideal interpreting situation provides native-level services in all target language output. Since ASL/English interpreters are often not native in both their languages and cultures, we advocate for extensive training in the use of native language/native language teams to allow us to strive for this ideal whenever feasible, and certainly in matters of great importance to our consumers. For this reason, we strongly encourage the training of hearing and Deaf interpreters together because interpreters who train together are more likely to seek to work together as professionals.
We believe that the ability to reflect upon the process of interpreting in a meta-cognitive way allows for both continued self-analysis and productive dialogue between and among interpreters. For this reason, while we expose students to many approaches to the interpreting process, we intentionally spiral an incremental analysis of a single model of interpreting throughout all classes in our interpreting curriculum from beginning to advanced. In addition, our faculty are committed to this model of interpreting and exemplify it in their work and in their dialogues with students.
We believe that interpreting requires maturity, self-respect and respect for all participants in the process. For this reason, we advocate a healthy separation between the work product and the interpreter who produced that product. We advocate for the use of descriptive and non-evaluative language in discussion of this work product.
