Sign Language Interpreters: A Demographic Survey

Fall 1981 SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETERS: A DEMOGRAPHIC SURVEY Dennis Cokely Although the number of sign language interpreters has increased dramatically during the past decade, there has been no formal attempt as yet to investigate their characteristics. It is quite likely that clusters of such characteristics, when correlated with performance, proficiency, and aptitude measures, will yield invaluable information for screening, training, and evaluating interpreters. This paper reports on the results of a demographic survey of 160 interpreters-not a large number, and so the results are preliminary and any conclusions drawn from them should be considered tentative in nature. The data were collected by using a specially designed questionnaire. The majority of responses were collected at the 1980 Convention of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) in Cincinnati, Ohio. Ten major categories of information were elicited by the questionnaire: I. Personal characteristics II. Family background III. Educational background IV. Spoken language background V. Sign language background VI. Contact with the Deaf Community VII. Interpreting background VIII. Interpreting experience IX. Reading/viewing habits X. Socio-economic status 261© 1981 by Linstok Press, Inc. ISSN 0302-1475 32:261 $2.50 SLS 32 Sign Language Studies 32 I. personal Of the 160 respondents, 122 (76.2.%) characteristics. are female and 38 (23.8%) are male. The median age is 31 (range 20-63). The overwhelming majority (97. 6%) are Caucasian; the rest are equally divided among Hispanic, Black, Asian, and other (0.6% each). The majority (61. 9 %) of the respondents wear glasses or contact lenses. Of this number, 71.9 %report that they are nearsighted, 23. 6 %farsighted, and 4.5 % report being both nearsighted and farsighted. Of those who wear glasses or contact lenses only 73. 1 %wear them while interpreting. The reasons why the others who normally wear glasses or contacts do not wear them while interpreting are not clear. It could be that it is felt that they are not needed (in which case one wonders about the accuracy of Sign-to-Voice interpretation); or because it is felt that lenses might create an obstacle to understanding interpreters' facial behavior in Voice-to-Sign interpretation. Table 1 summarizes information about the dominant hand the respondents use in a variety of activities: Condition Right-hand Left-hand Either Write 88.7 11.3 0 Eat 85.0 12.5 2.5 Throw a ball 87.5 10.0 2.5 Sign 88.1 5.0 6.9 Interpret 83.8 5.6 10.6 Table 1. Hand dominance for all respondents. Notice that left-hand dominance drops substantially for Signing and Interpreting when compared with writing, eating, or throwing a ball. One partial explanation for this difference is that those left-handed respondents who did not grow up signing may have been coerced or influenced by peer pressures and school or both to switch dominance; i.e. to use right hand for Signing. Support for this explanation comes from the data on the dominance of those respondents who do not have Deaf parents and so did not grow up using Sign as their first language. Table 2 summarizes the dominance information Cokely on this subgroup: Condition Right-hand Left-hand Either Write 91.8 8.2 0 Eat 87.6 9.3 3.1 Throw a ball 90.7 7.2 2.1 Sign 92.8 3.1 4.1 Interpret 89.7 3.1 7.2 Ta b I e 2. Dominance for respondents with hearing parents. Notice that the percentage of left-hand dominance is smaller in Table 2 than in Table 1 for Signing and Interpreting; also that the percentage of respondents in Table 2 who claim to be ambidextrous for Signing and Interpreting is likewise smaller; while the percentage who claim right-hand dominance is larger. Thus, it would appear that the decrease in left-hand dominance can be partially explained by coerced dominance switching (or avoidance of left-handedness) for Signing and Interpreting. This decrease in left-hand dominance for Signing and Interpreting can also be partially explained by examining the dominance of those respondents who have Deaf parents and who grew up signing: Condition Right-hand Left-hand Either Write 84.5...