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

语言人类学和口译研究早已证明，有效的口译不仅取决于语法和词典编纂的准确性，而且取决于口译员的文化倾向和道德行为。这个项目对学生进行经验的、科学的数据收集和分析方法的培训，问题是当聋人的声音必须由口译员调停时，如何表现这个声音。使用口译员需要回答一系列伦理问题；口译员应该如何(重新)呈现聋人的声音，无论是比喻还是字面上的？口译员应该在多大程度上介入聋人政治？谁倡导口译的发展？这项研究实证地考察了聋人和口译员如何应对这些伦理问题，这样做如何影响手语翻译的发展，以及聋人和口译员被听力正常的公众所感知的方式。随着聋人组织和口译同时出现，作为参与者相互参与和定位自己的领域，口译员如何利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来源和道德实践的主题。除了为人类学研究生的培训提供资金外，该项目还将扩大科学界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，并通过向学术之外的组织广泛传播研究成果来增强公众对科学的理解。在芝加哥大学米歇尔·弗里德纳博士的监督下，莎伦·西格尔斯将调查听力者、手语翻译员和手势者之间互动中伦理实践的形成。本研究聚焦于越南河内的手语翻译，在过去的三十年里，那里的聋人社区组织正在兴起，手语翻译也在增长。因此，上下文提供了一种检查如何实时做出伦理决定的统一标准，并制定了手语翻译协议。这个项目从日常伦理和发声人类学的框架出发，考察了越南的聋人和口译员如何围绕发声的复杂过程辩论、想象、创造和居住新的伦理规范。特别是，该项目考察了被解释的互动，作为一个网站，聋人和口译员作为特定类型的主题出现。这位学生研究员将在越南河内与聋人和口译员进行为期8个月的实地考察，结合民族志实地考察、半结构化访谈和对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，以及聋人是如何被描绘成在有和没有口译员在场的情况下倾听别人的。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述的，以及口译员参与聋人组织的道德是如何谈判的。这个项目将推进人类学、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。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力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.