Abstract
This article describes deaf and hearing expert interpreter participants’ perspectives on Deaf-World cultural competence (DWCC). DWCC is a concept explicitly and implicitly embedded in the Conference of Interpreter Trainer’s (CIT’s) mission statement. American deaf and mainstream cultures coexist and interpreters facilitate communication between individuals not sharing a common language. The author completed a qualitative study and dissertation, and relied on expert deaf and hearing participants’ responses given during narrative interviews. Participants described their lived experience entering and maintaining ties to the Deaf-World. The inquiry explored participants’ identity transformations as they came to be described by their deaf-conferred ASL label, HEARING. Salient concepts raised in this article include a proposed description of interpreter DWCC, and a tacit seven-step process of Deaf-World connections, the interpreter affiliation/alliance narrative (IAAN). Being ascribed ASL/English interpreter status includes co-constructed community and cultural connections between two language worlds explained comprehensively via the interpreting spectrum (IS).
Recommended Citation
Subak, Leah
(2016)
"Becoming HEARING: Describing Co-Construction of Expert ASL/English Interpreter Deaf-World Cultural Competence,"
International Journal of Interpreter Education: Vol. 8:
Iss.
2, Article 3.
Available at:
https://open.clemson.edu/ijie/vol8/iss2/3
