Interpreters
What is Interpretation?
Many candidates for the Certificate of Interpretation (CI) performance examination have requested guidance for understanding what the target production of the English-to-sign portion of the test should look like. RID raters have reviewed the minimum standard, and performances of passing and failing candidates, and have agreed upon the following description of "interpretation" as applied to the RID Certificate of Interpretation Examination.
Three categories of variables have been defined:
- ASL Grammar and Vocabulary
- Processing
- Mouth Movement Patterns
ASL Grammar and Vocabulary (English to ASL Interpreting)
- Use of appropriate ASL grammar (use of space for characterization, subject-object agreement and verb inflections; facial grammatical forms for questions, topics, commands, etc.).
- Semantically correct sign choices used appropriately for ASL syntax.
- Limited amounts of "initialization" are acceptable but only to the extent used by deaf adults.
Processing
- The minimum acceptable level of processing is at the phrasal to sentential levels. Word-for-word processing will not pass the certification examination.
- Some syntactic influences of the original text may appear in the interpretation, but only so long as the interpretation remains clear and makes "visual sense."
Mouth Movement Patterns
- Mouth patterns should reflect appropriate adult ASL usage.
- Mouth movements which only represent exact English word order will not pass the test.
Working Into Spoken English
- For the Certificate of Interpretation performance examination, candidates should create a grammatically correct and coherent English text which remains true and accurate with regard to the source text. There should be no substitutions. Extended periods of silence (processing time) are acceptable so long as there are no significant omissions.
Overriding all of these details is the requirement that the target message resulting from the interpretation process remains true and accurate with regard to the source test. There should be no substitutions (missing a concept from the original and replacing it with a different concept), and no significant omissions (all of the main points and nearly all of the supporting details) of the source test should be reflected in the target test.
* This information is taken from www.rid.org