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Sign Language Interpreter Training in Kenya
- Gallaudet University Press
- Chapter
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Sign Language Interpreter Training in Kenya 295 O K O T H O K O M B O , J E F W A G . M W E R I , A N D W A S H I N G T O N A K A R A N G A THE HISTORY of interpretation is as old as Deaf culture itself. Wherever deaf people have been, interpretation has always been there. Deaf people, of course, do not live in isolation. They live amid their hearing brothers, sisters, and other relatives. According to the Kenya Campaign on Disability and HIV/AIDS advocacy proposal 2008, approximately 3.5 million people in Kenya are currently living with disabilities. This translates to an estimated 800,000 deaf people out of a population of 35 million people in Kenya. This population makes, or will make, use of interpreters in settings such as hospitals, courts of law, police stations, and so forth. Interpreters act as a bridge between hearing and deaf people in terms of communication. Interpretation refers to the act of facilitating communication between two or more interlocutors who belong to different linguistic backgrounds. Interpretation from one spoken language to another is spoken language interpretation. When one of the parties in a communication process is a deaf person, there is need for sign language interpretation. Interpreters differ from translators in the way meaning is transferred. Translation is more concerned with the transference of meaning from text to text. This text can be signed, recorded, or written. Interpretation, on the other hand, is concerned with “the translation by an ‘interpreter’ of what someone is saying into another language to permit a speaker to communicate with people who do not understand the speaker’s language” (Richards, 1987). Interpretation normally involves the simultaneous transference of meaning as the signer is signing. Translation is more of a solitary activity, while interpretation involves more than one person. In Kenya, spoken language interpretation and translation has a rich tradition. There are translators for languages such as Kiswahili, French, 296 OKOMBO, MWERI, AND AKARANGA German, Japanese, and Chinese, to name a few. Almost all foreign embassies accredited to Kenya have cultural centers that train people to various levels of competence. However, the scenario is different when it comes to Kenyan Sign Language interpretation. No real organized interpreter training exists in Kenya. The profession is in its fledgling stages, as we will describe. A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON INTERPRETER TRAINING IN KENYA To a large extent, the history of signed language interpretation in Kenya cannot be divorced from that of the education of deaf people. The registration of the Kenya Society for Deaf Children (KSDC) as a charitable organization in 1958, and the subsequent setting up of two units for deaf students at the Aga Khan schools in Mombasa and Nairobi, marked the beginning of deaf education in Kenya (Mwangiri, 1988). Later, fully fledged schools were established by Catholic missionaries in Mumias and Nyangoma in the early 1960s. The early 1970s saw the advent of a new group of deaf Kenyans who had been through these schools (Mwagiri 1988). Most of them, as with their hearing counterparts, succumbed to rural-urban migration in search of jobs in Nairobi and other towns. In towns, their deafness acted as a common bond and brought them together as a language minority, as is the case with other minorities. In towns they formed welfare associations that sought to fight for their rights, which included the right to interpretation. In 1987, the Kenya National Association for the Deaf (KNAD) was registered as a non-governmental organization (NGO). KNAD was exclusively formed by and for deaf people. Funded by the Swedish Deaf Association (SDR), KNAD held a series of training workshops that targeted hearing people interested in Kenyan Sign Language (KSL). Trained, deaf Kenyans conducted these classes with the assistance of some SDR volunteers who had taken time to learn KSL. The graduates of these classes, held in the late 1980s and early 1990s, ended up forming the first group of interpreters in Kenya. THE KENYA SIGN LANGUAGE RESEARCH PROJECT AND INTERPRETER TRAINING KNAD, having been formed as an umbrella body to fight for the rights of deaf people, realized the importance of interpretation in the lives of [54.144.233.198] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 14:57 GMT) AFRICA 297 deaf people and also recognized the importance of indigenous sign languages . In light of this, KNAD established the Kenya Sign Language Research Project (KSLRP) in 1991 and convinced...