Doctoral Dissertation Research: Ethics, Sign Language, and the Development of Interpreting

语言人类学和口译研究早就证明，有效的口译不仅取决于语法和词典编纂的准确性，还取决于口译员的文化才能和道德行为。这个项目训练学生的经验，科学数据收集和分析的方法，询问当聋人的声音必须由口译员调解时，如何表达聋人的声音。使用口译员需要回答一系列道德问题；口译员应该如何从隐喻和字面上表达聋人的声音？口译员应该如何参与聋人政治？谁主张口译的发展？本研究考察了聋人和口译员如何应对这些伦理问题，以及这样做如何影响手语口译的发展，以及聋人和口译员被听力正常的公众所感知的方式。由于聋人组织和口译正在同时出现，在这些领域中，演员们相互参与并定位自己，口译员如何使用他们的身体声音为聋人和他们自己说话的问题已经成为紧张的根源，也是道德实践的主题。除了为人类学研究生的培训提供资金外，该项目还将扩大在科学领域代表性不足的群体的参与，通过国际科学合作建设能力和科学基础设施，并通过向学术界以外的组织广泛传播研究成果，提高公众对科学的理解。在芝加哥大学的Michele Friedner博士的指导下，Sharon Seegers将调查在听力正常的人、手语翻译和手语者之间的互动中道德实践的形成。本研究的重点是越南河内的手语翻译，在过去的三十年里，越南河内的聋人社区组织有所增加，手语翻译也有所增长。因此，上下文提供了一个统一的标准来检查如何实时做出道德决策，并制定手语解释协议。从日常伦理学和声音人类学的框架出发，本项目考察了在Vi&amp；#7879；在复杂的表达过程中，南辩论、想象、创造并融入新的道德规范。特别地，该项目考察了作为聋人和口译员作为特殊主体出现的场所的口译互动。这名学生研究员将在越南河内与聋人和口译员进行为期8个月的实地工作，结合民族志实地工作、半结构化访谈和口译互动的对话分析。她将观察聋人和口译员，看看他们在日常生活中是如何沟通的，以及聋人在有或没有口译员在场的情况下是如何被描述给听力正常的人的。研究人员还将跟踪聋人倡导组织，看看聋人的声音是如何通过口译员描绘出来的，以及口译员参与聋人组织的道德规范是如何协商的。该项目将推动人类学、语言学、聋人研究和残疾研究中关于伦理、翻译和残疾的理论辩论。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Linguistic anthropology and interpreting studies has long established that effective interpreting depends not only on grammatical and lexicographic accuracy, but also on the cultural aptitude and ethical behavior of the interpreter. This project, which trains a student in the methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, asks how the voice of a Deaf person is represented when that voice must be mediated by an interpreter. Using interpreters requires answering a host of ethical questions; how should interpreters (re)present Deaf people's voices, both metaphorically and literally? How involved should interpreters be in Deaf politics? Who advocates for the growth of interpreting? This study empirically examines how Deaf people and interpreters navigate such ethical questions, and how doing so shapes the development of sign language interpreting, and the way Deaf people and interpreters are perceived by the hearing public. As Deaf organizing and interpreting are emerging simultaneously as fields in which actors engage and position themselves in relation to each other, the question of how interpreters use their physical voices to speak for Deaf people and for themselves has become a source of tension, and the subject of ethical practice. In addition to providing funding for the training of a graduate student in anthropology, this project would broaden the participation of groups underrepresented in science, build capacity and scientific infrastructure through international scientific cooperation, and enhance public scientific understanding by broadly disseminating findings to organizations outside academe.Sharon Seegers, under the supervision of Dr. Michele Friedner of the University of Chicago will investigate the formation of ethical practice in interactions among hearing people, sign language interpreters, and signers. This study focuses on sign language interpreting Ha Noi, Viet Nam, where over the past three decades, there has been a rise in Deaf community organization, coupled with a growth in sign language interpreting. The context thus provides a unifor examining how ethical decisions are made in real time, and sign language interpreting protocols are formulated. Drawing from the framework of everyday ethics and the anthropology of the voice, this project examines how Deaf people and interpreters in Việt Nam debate, imagine, create, and inhabit new ethical norms around the complex process of voicing. In particular, the project examines interpreted interactions as a site where Deaf people and interpreters emerge as particular types of subjects. The student researcher will conduct eight months of field work with Deaf people and interpreters in Hanoi, Vietnam, combining ethnographic fieldwork, with semi-structured interviews and conversational analysis of interpreted interactions. She will observe Deaf people and interpreters, to see how they communicate in their daily lives, and how Deaf people are portrayed to hearing people with and without interpreters present. The researcher will also follow Deaf advocacy organizations, to see how Deaf people's voices are portrayed through interpreters, and how the ethics of interpreters' involvement in Deaf organizations is negotiated. This project will advance theoretical debates in anthropology, linguistic, deaf studies, and disability studies about ethics, translation, and disability.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.