I Fill This Small Space: The Writings of a Deaf Activist

Talk at Registry of Interpreters Workshop

106 Talk at Registry of Interpreters Workshop In 1972, sign language interpreting was a nascent field. The Registry of Interpreters of the Deaf had just incorporated. Newman’s prescient talk here shows the gratitude that the deaf person has for the interpreters, and foreshadows how reliant the community has become on interpreters today—from community interpreting to video relay services. Ihappened to be there at San Fernando Valley State College in order to conduct classes for one week under the Institute for Secondary Teachers of the Deaf project and I was minding my own business. So what happens? I am asked to please talk with you and given a mere two days’ notice. It did not matter that my own notes for my own classes here have not yet jelled and need a lot of work and revamping. When one of your instructors, Audree Norton, found out that the topic assigned to me for the aforementioned Institute project was “Emotional Aspects of the Deaf Adolescent,” she said they couldn’t have picked a better person. I looked at her and wanted to ask just what do you mean. You know, Audree’s hands sometimes say a little but her eyes say a lot. Okay, I am an emotional person. Anybody would be with only two days’ notice to prepare a talk for such an elite group as you interpreters . Yes, anybody would be if he had to go through what I have to go through. For example, if I ordered a swing set for my children or a barbecue outfit, sure as day follows night, some part would be missing. Or, if there was supposed to be a left and a right side I would get two left sides. Listen to this one. A friend who was going out asked me if I would like some ice cream. “Yeah,” I said. “What flavor?” The Deaf American (March 1972) 107 “Anything but chocolate chip.” You guessed it. I got chocolate chip. I was asked to give my viewpoints on interpreting and interpreters. If I were asked to give a talk on total communication—no trouble. I could go on for hours. But interpreting and interpreters! Beggars like me cannot be choosers . Interpreters are to cuddle, love and hug—the female ones, of course. Yes, I prefer female interpreters. Naturally! To be serious, the greatest problem we deaf people have is to force our brains to cooperate with our eyes. With eyes open we can remain unseeing. What we see sometimes does not register in our minds. It is said that sound reaches the brain better than anything visual. To be scientific, permit me to quote a passage written by Lou Fant and published in the June 1971 issue of The Deaf American:10 [. . .] Most languages of the world were meant to be spoken and heard. The ear is basically a neural organ which can accommodate the temporal quality of spoken language. The eye is neural, to be sure, but it is also a muscular organ and ill equipped to perceive the temporal quality of spoken language. The eye tires, the ear never does (though we may weary of listening, it isn’t because our ears are tired). In short, vision and hearing cannot be equated, for they are separate sense modalities, the one being primarily spatial, the other temporal. Try as we might, the eye can never absorb the same amount of information as the ear, no matter how often the information is repeated. There you have it. You must fight to get “it” across to us and we must fight to activate the muscular organ of our neural eye. Is it possible for you to approximate the temporal quality of spoken language? In other words, is it possible to approximate the cadence, the influence, the pitch of spoken language so that what is said will better register in our minds? Never having heard for over 40 years, I am not in a position to know what cadence, inflection and pitch really are but my eyes have seen plenty—from a man lying in a pool of blood after having been hit by a car through the awakening landscape as the sun crept up to miniskirted 10. Lou Fant was a well-known sign language interpreter and instructor of interpreting programs. 108 ladies. Those interpreters who have rhythm in their arms and hands, who can...