Toward a Deaf Translation Norm

6. The Translation and Interpretation Process

133 Chapter 6 The Translation and Interpretation Process Differences occur in the translation and interpretation that lead to similarities and differences in the construction of the TL by the T/Is. As seen in chapter 3, translations and interpretations can be judged against the SL, the TL or, by using relevance theory (Hatim 2001) according to different linguistic and cultural needs for implicitness and explicitness. The final judgment should include whom the T/Is construct as the pragmatic other (Ruuskanen 1996) and the ways the Deaf and hearing T/Is conceptualize the information. It should also include translation shifts and the inferential processes that occur because of grammatical need (Sequeiros 1998, 2002) and because of the visual information present in the cognitive environment found in the screened video footage of the news. THE TARGET AUDIENCE All of the Deaf T/Is are from Deaf families of at least two generations and draw upon this cultural resource in the construction of their target audience. As discussed previously, these T/Is show no desire to construct the TL constrained by the subtitles, by order, or by formal equivalence. The Deaf T/Is use their experience of re-telling information to relatives at home and Deaf friends at the Deaf club to inform the construction of their TL. They ensure the language used is broadly communicative and caters to a wide variety of Deaf people, addressing different language competence and educational backgrounds. In the interviews of hearing T/Is, a theme emerged. They do not adjust their register or level of language for different audiences. This is also discussed in terms of socializing, or “dipping in and out of the Deaf community ,” as Clark notes. The Deaf T/Is perceive this difference as a lack of engagement with the Deaf community and a lack of exposure to a broad spectrum of Deaf sign language users, which compounds the linguistic inflexibility of the hearing interpreters. The hearing T/Is are unable to domesticate the TL to the same degree as Deaf T/Is and cannot draw 134 : c h a p t e r 6 from the personal experience of modifying their language for different parts of the Deaf community. The informants also commented on the different target audiences that Deaf and hearing interpreters construct when interpreting to the camera. This is similar to Ruuskanen’s (1996) idea of equivalence (mentioned earlier ). She suggests there is no single meaning of equivalence, and equivalence has to be influenced by whom the translator imagines, is told, or constructs the audience to be. Any explications made by the T/Is in the TL aim to yield greater relevance to a broad section of the Deaf community constructed as the target audience or “pragmatic other.” The interpreters construct this target audience according to their experiences, the goal they give to their translations, and, perhaps within a Deaf community context, whether or not the T/I is a community member. The T/Is who are core members of the Deaf community target the pragmatic other in a way they perceive eases the comprehension of the TL by the constructed audience. This in turn licenses the explicit rendering of internal enrichments , which become interlingual enrichment. Sequeiros (2002, 1083) explains that, “interlingual enrichment is more acceptable to readers that are willing to trade some loss of faithfulness in the translation for ease of comprehension and interpretation.” The pragmatic other has an influence on the contextual assumptions the interpreters make (Gutt 1991). This, in turn, should also mean differences between the Deaf and hearing T/Is in their TL output and may well be something that can be changed through training or dissemination of this finding. When asked about the ideal audience, Rebecca, one of the Deaf T/I informants in the interviews said, “the audience I aim for is those that don’t understand English at all . . . it is better that they watch the information in BSL so it is clear.” The T/Is have no influence on stories chosen and little power over the length of time given to ensure an effective translation . Within these constraints, they rank clarity as the most important goal. The T/Is are also aware that non-Deaf people are watching the television; they cannot afford to offend their sensibilities. This is well expressed by Kat’s comment on the first interpretation of the Queen’s Christmas speech in the 1980s, “the Queen was very solemn and the Deaf person had...