IW 81: Interview Marty Taylor Part 3: Filling in the Generation Gaps

"Young Whipper-snappers! Get off my lawn!"

Yes, each generation complains about the younger generations in some way. However, our guest, Dr Marty Taylor points out how we as sign language interpreters have adapted to the changes over the generations in our field.

In this episode, Marty shares her thoughts on how to create an interpreter training program today, how language deprivation experienced by the deaf community affects our work, how interpreting decades ago was vastly different than today, and much more.

Next week, my interview with Marty comes to a close.

Until then...

Transcript

IW 81: Interview Marty Taylor Part 3: Filling in the Generation Gaps

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[ROCK INTRO MUSIC STARTS] 

00:00:02 Tim

Good morning, good evening, good afternoon. Wherever you are, this is the Interpreter's Workshop podcast. I'm Tim Curry, your host. Here we talk everything sign language interpreting the ins, the outs, the ups, the downs, the sideways of interpreting. If you're a student, a new interpreter, experienced interpreter, this is the place for you. If you want to know more, go tointerpretersworkshop.com

00:00:28 Tim

Let's start talking... interpreting.

00:00:34 Tim

And now the quotes of the day, the first one by William James, American philosopher and psychologist.

00:00:44 Tim

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.”

00:00:53 Tim

And the second quote by George Orwell, English novelist.

00:00:59 Tim

“Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.”

00:01:09 Tim

These two quotes remind us that our profession has gone through generations now and through different attitudes. In today's episode, Marty and I discuss the past, the present, and the possible future of the profession. Marty gives us how she would start a new interpreting program today.

00:01:30 Tim

We discuss about knowing the consumers, the clients that we serve and what their needs are when it comes to language.

00:01:41 Tim

She regales us with some wonderful stories that teach us that as interpreters, we must adapt to the many changes that happen to fit the needs of this generation, the one before and the one coming.

00:01:57 Tim

So, focus your attitude and let's get started.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:02:04 Tim

I know you've been an educator. I know you've headed a program for interpreting. What would your advice be for those communities who have no education for interpreters or want to change or improve their education for interpreters? What would be the key points that they need to focus on to start to improve.

00:02:27 Marty

First, if I started a new program today, I would definitely go for a four-year program.

00:02:34 Marty

I wouldn't start with anything less.

00:02:37 Tim

So, you mean a full bachelor's program?

00:02:40 Marty

Right and before I set up any interpreting program, I would make sure that the sign language is taught very well through whatever sources you have could be at the university level could be in the Community level.

00:03:00 Marty

People. But we would want people to enter the interpreting program with fluent sign language skills [Tim: OK] and those sign language skills are the feeders for the interpreting program and the interpreting program is not focused on teaching sign language skills. They're focused on teaching interpreting skills.

00:03:25 Tim

So, the four years would not include the years of learning the language.

00:03:30 Marty

Right.

00:03:30 Tim

So, a long process to be an interpreter then.

00:03:33 Marty

It is, and if it would work, you could have a, a Bachelor’s, a four-year degree in sign language and then Master’s degree another two year degree for interpreting.

00:03:49 Marty

So that's another way to do it. [Tim: mhmm] We have problems in North America with that model because knowing sign language, the colleges and universities don't see that as a terminal degree. What are you going to do with it? There's a lot of things you can do with it, but people don't know that. [Tim lightly chuckling: yeah]

00:04:09 Marty

But you have to have a really strong base. When I moved up here to Edmonton…

00:04:16 Marty

One of the things that impressed me (I moved up here for the job) [Tim: mhmm] and one of the things that impressed me was that it was deaf people who wanted the interpreting program. [Tim: hmm] It wasn't hearing people. It wasn't the college saying, “Oh, we have some money because we're in the field of disability and great. We’ll set up…”

00:04:39 Marty

You know, it wasn't that it was the deaf community saying, “Hey, Community College, we need an interpreting program”. And the other thing that impressed me was that…

00:04:50 Marty

There were no hearing people teaching sign language [Tim: mmm] and my background was teaching sign language, [both lightly laughing] which I knew wasn't the best idea. [Tim: mhmm] So going here and seeing all the different deaf people teaching sign language, it's like, “Oh, this is TERRific!” [Tim: mhmm]

00:05:12 Marty

And then they were going to hire me and a deaf person. So that was the third thing that tempted me. So, when looking at programs, find out who the faculty are, find out, you know, do they have deaf people who are the deaf people? What are their skills? What hearing people are there? [Tim: mhmm]

00:05:32 Marty

It all goes back to good education. [Tim: yeah]

00:05:36 Marty

Back to the beginning of our conversation when I was at California State University, Northridge, having 200 deaf students, and then I could interpret for courses and decide which courses I really wanted to take, because that was a great teacher and those that I wanted to avoid because that teacher was the pits! [Tim chuckles] So, check out the teachers.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:06:07 Tim

How does it differ in Canada for an interpreter to get their gigs and how are they paid?

00:06:12 Marty

Many interpreters work freelance or individual contracts. So, we do have interpreting agencies. [Tim: mhmm]

00:06:24 Marty

And those agencies have a roster of interpreters, and they go out to different assignments and all kinds of fields.

00:06:33 Marty

We have school boards that hire interpreters directly. [Tim: mmm] So the school board is the employer [Tim: mhmm] and that would be for mainstream deaf kids. [Tim: Interesting] We have universities and colleges who contract their own interpreters.

00:06:54 Marty

Often, they contract 1/2 time or full time coordinator of interpreters who also interprets. [Tim: mhmm] We have a deaf professor. She hires her own interpreters. She has two interpreters that are… What's the word?

00:07:12 Tim

Designated interpreter.

00:07:14 Marty

Yes, yes. So, she has two designated interpreters.

00:07:20 Marty

Umm, and then you could have private contracts with employers that have deaf employees who want you regularly and they have their own roster of interpreters and send out a call.

00:07:33 Marty

We also work for the federal government [Tim: mhmm] and work for deaf employees of the federal government. They have their roster of interpreters, so you pretty much nowadays you get emails with all these different jobs and you say if you're available or not available.

00:07:52 Tim

I see. So how do they find the interpreters first to create their roster? Is it from the National Certification Registry or?

00:08:00 Marty

They would get the list of interpreters from our… We have so few certified interpreters we employers can't be picky, [Tim: mmm] but we have a provincial association of interpreters. We have a National Association of interpreters. [Tim: mhmm]

00:08:21 Marty

So, they would get names from those two places, and then we're a tight knit community, so we would recommend people [Tim: mhmm] and you know, maybe new graduates we would say we could work with so and so and new graduate on this job, [Tim: yeah] especially if there were three interpreters.

00:08:41 Marty

Like for a all-day workshop or something, we all often have three interpreters [Tim: mhmm] and it's much easier on the brain, especially if it's a two day or three day workshop and it is something that a new interpreter could do.

00:08:54 Marty

And they might have shorter shifts than the other two interpreters with more experience. So, [Tim: yeah] we would bring them on that kind of thing. And if they had the soft skills, we'd keep them on. [Tim chuckles] If they're lacking the soft skills, that might be the one time for this or…[Tim: mhmm]

00:09:15 Marty

We'll, we'll work with them for a shorter period of time next time. [Tim chuckling]

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:09:24 Tim

So where does the funding come from to pay the interpreters? Is it mandated through the government that these places pay directly or?

00:09:32 Marty

The, uh, Canada does not have what the United States has. The United States has the American Disability Act, [Tim: mhmm] and that requires interpreters.

00:09:47 Marty

We don't have that, but we have pretty good social services. [Tim: mhmm]

00:09:54 Marty

So, the federal government… Actually sign language interpreters are riding on the coattails of spoken language interpreters when it comes to French and English being our national bilingual [Tim: mhmm] country languages.

00:10:11 Marty

So, sign language interpreters slip in under that. [Tim: I see.] So, it's changed over the years. Now we're kind of our own group, but the feds pay for all their own interpreting. [Tim: mhmm] And these other places, healthcare in Alberta is covered by the government, and one agency has the money to do that and contract interpreters.

00:10:41 Marty

The university and colleges have their own money that they provide interpreters, so everybody has their own pots of money it seems. Things that aren't covered are a lot of elective opportunities. So, for example, when I interpreted for the woman who wanted to buy a hat [Tim: mhmm] in Seattle, that would not be covered up here. And although we do have some agencies that…

00:11:11 Marty

When they make their money, they put it away a certain percentage [Tim: mhmm] so that they can provide interpretation for those extraneous activities, [Tim: mhmm] which is really nice.

00:11:25 Tim

It's similar to other countries and, and yet dissimilar as well. I'm glad it works.

00:11:30 Marty

For the most part, we still have our difficulties and challenges. I know there have been a couple of years where the medical funding has run out.

00:11:40 Tim

Oh, they had no funding for medical assignments?

00:11:44 Marty

Yes, they ran out of money like in October of the year.

00:11:50 Marty

And then November and December, they didn't have money, so they were only providing interpreting for serious emergencies. There was an outcry that has never happened again. [Tim: Yeah!]

00:12:03 Marty

Yes, that was a serious situation. But maybe the agency that has that funding needed to make that decision, to let the government know you can't… We can't do that. You have to provide enough funding to provide interpreting services. [Tim: mhmm, yeah]

00:12:22 Marty

So, might have been, you know, good the way it happened, but not good for the people who had need for interpreting services in the medical setting.

00:12:32 Tim

Yeah. So, what happened? I guess the interpreting community just did pro bono work at that time.

00:12:39 Marty

The agency tried to cover some of it. Other places tried to cover some of it. [Tim: mhmm] Interpreters did work pro bono.

00:12:51 Marty

But at the same time, we didn't want to work pro bono because that was the problem. [Tim chuckling: exactly] So, if deaf people knew interpreters to call, they would call the interpreters directly, [Tim: yeah] and say, “You know, we don't have any money, can you come interpret?”

00:13:11 Marty

And of course we would. [Tim: yeah] We would keep it under wraps, but we wouldn't want the government or the interpreter agency to know that that occurred.

00:13:21 Tim

Because then there would be no change to fix the problem. [Marty: right!] Again, working closely with the Community helps that.

00:13:24 Marty

Yes.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:13:33 Marty

Another nice policy I don't know, umm, this has not happened in other communities that I'm familiar with, but in our community, deaf people can book their own interpreter [Tim: mhmm] and then either the deaf person or the interpreter contacts the agency.

00:13:50 Marty

And says I'm booked for this job on this date. And that works really well for the deaf person and it works really well for recurring events like doctor's appointments for example. [Tim: yeah] So, like then you can work it out with the doctor, the deaf person, and the interpreter what works for both of you. And this assignment is related to the previous assignment. [Tim: mhmm]

00:14:17 Marty

So, I, I really like that. And I know some agencies don't allow that because they feel like there might be some, uh,…

00:14:26 Marty

…bad behavior, taking advantage of that [Tim: yeah] which I understand. But nice for the deaf people to choose their own interpreters, [Tim: yeah] back to attitude. [Tim: exactly] They probably choose interpreters with good attitude. [Tim: yeah]

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC STARTS]

00:14:43 Tim

Thank you to everyone who supports this podcast. Check out the links in the show notes to Buy Me A Coffee. That's right, Buy Me A Coffee because everyone needs a little high blood pressure. [WHISPERS] No, wait, that's no… [COUGHS] Thank you. Now let's go back.

[ROCK MUSIC TRANSITION ENDS]

00:14:59 Tim

When you first published your book, what were you envisioning would happen once you published it, compared to what really happened?

00:15:08 Marty

I just knew that I wanted it out there. That was my whole goal. Get it out there. It was selling for $19.95. [Tim: yeah] Nice cheap price.

00:15:21 Marty

And that was it. You know, that, that was it. And then colleges and universities would require it for their courses. And then I'd have to reprint [Tim chuckling] another 1,000 or 2,000 books. [Tim: yeah] So, it's, it's snowballed.

00:15:41 Marty

And then it became a big conversation piece.

00:15:45 Marty

Because the downside of my work is that I look at errors. [Tim: yeah] And the reason I look at errors is because at the beginning of my research I looked at just the skills and when I went to expert panel reviews that I had set up.

00:16:07 Marty

The experts… could not agree… on the simplest of things. Even in a yes and no capacity like something simple “Was the finger spelling clear?”, the experts would disagree. [Tim: wow]

00:16:24 Marty

I couldn't find any reliability or anything, so my advisor, who was a measurement and assessment expert, said, “You have to define these skills by what it's not”, which is the error. [Tim: mmm] So, then I went back out to the field, back out to experts with the errors.

00:16:48 Marty

And then I got very good reliability. [Tim: yeah] So that's the downside of the book. And I always say, well, all those errors, all you have to do is switch them around and then they're sub skills of the main skill like “finger spelling clearly” or “using classifiers”. [Tim: mmm]

00:17:12 Marty

And you just look at the subset and then you've got all the skills. [Tim: yeah] So, it it works that way. And because it was a success. Then I wrote the second book and then that was a success. So, it evolved like a snowball. It was never my intention to have a publishing company.

00:17:32 Marty

It was never my intention to… I wanted my own business. I already had my own business. But now, “Ohh now I have a book.”

00:17:40 Marty

“Now I have two books.” [Tim: mhmm]

00:17:42 Marty

“Ohh now I have a DVD.”

00:17:45 Marty

All these things that I didn't have when I moved up here to run a program.

00:17:50 Tim

How did you do it at that time then, if you didn't have the resources like that or what did you use as resources?

00:17:56 Marty

That was one of the reasons that I went back to the university to get a PhD was because when I moved here, I had already been teaching for five years down in Los Angeles and I was teaching the same stuff that I had been taught. [Tim: yeah]

00:18:16 Marty

Which was fine. And then coming to Edmonton, I was teaching the same stuff. [Tim lightly chuckles]

00:18:23 Marty

And I did it for five years and we created materials, [Tim: mhmm] which was great that in our program and, and that was very, very helpful to have Canadian products because otherwise we were using American. [Tim: mhmm] And it just worked so well to get out of my leadership role and go back to university. [Tim: mhmm] Do this research and then here's the answer. [Tim: yeah, yeah] Basically, this is what an expert interpreter can do and then I never went back to teach…

00:19:02 Marty

…in a fulltime capacity. I've taught part time here and there [Tim: sure] and teach workshops and things like that and courses here and there, including one of yours.

00:19:11 Tim

Yes, I think it evolved quite well.

00:19:15 Marty

[Both chuckling] Thank you. It's, it's rather surprising and it's hard to keep up with the digital age.

00:19:22 Tim

Gotta plug in. [Marty: yes] It's a hard thing, yeah.

00:19:25 Marty

And as an interpreter as well, with all the zoom calls [Tim: mhmm] and the distance interpreting video relay interpreting [Tim: mhmm] things have really changed. [Tim: yeah]

00:19:39 Marty

I remember interpreting in Los Angeles, and we would interpret phone calls. And we had problems because, number one, they were big handsets, [Tim: mhmm] so that you had to put your head against your shoulder and hold on to the phone and then you had a cord on the phone. [Tim: mhmm] So you had to get that out of your way.

00:19:59 Marty

While you were signing and then I'd be interpreting for a male, you know, somebody's named, David, such and such. [Tim: mhmm] And he wanted to sell his stocks from the stock market.

00:20:13 Marty

And I'm a female with a female voice and the stockbroker wouldn't do it, so we had to negotiate that on the phone. [Tim laughs: yeah]

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:20:29 Tim

As you've seen the profession change over the years, where do you think we're headed to next in the profession?

00:20:38 Marty

That is a difficult question because we've just gone through this massive change as a result of COVID. [Tim: mhmm]

00:20:49 Marty

The whole zoom technology and MS Teams, Microsoft Teams, [Tim: mhmm] and now we can work…

00:21:00 Marty

I can work for people in Ottawa, which is a four-hour flight away, [Tim: mhmm] but I can stay here in Edmonton.

00:21:08 Marty

So, I, I would never have dreamed of being able to do that. I can, I can be on call for three deaf employees of a big agency. I can be on call for them [Tim: mhmm] and they only have to, you know, send me a text.

00:21:29 Marty

And say, “OK, having a meeting in 5 minutes.”

00:21:32 Marty

And then I just pop on right here. So, the deaf employees have an interpreter on demand. [Tim: yeah] I have a regular income being paid for my waiting time. So, all of that is different. [Tim: yeah] I mean, it used to be that like, if you'd go into a federal building, it might take you an hour or an hour and a half to get through security and often you weren't paid for that time. [Tim: mhmm]

00:22:02 Marty

So now with just the click of the button I'm paid waiting. I'm paid for the job, and I'm continued to be paid for waiting. So, in the next number of years, number one we just need deaf people to be fluent signers. [Tim: mhmm]

00:22:23 Marty

We need opportunities for deaf people to learn their own language.

00:22:28 Marty

Interpreters know more about ASL than many deaf people, and I don't know if that's true in other countries, but it's certainly true and has been true over all these years. [Tim: mhmm] So, we've, we've lost that. We, in my early days, we had beautiful Signers with fluent languages, graduates of school for the deaf, great models, great teachers.

00:22:56 Marty

And so, in the future, who are our consumers? Who are the deaf people? Do we need to change as interpreters? Yes, we do. We need to be sure we fit who it is we're interpreting for, and we need to not have judgment.

00:23:16 Marty

I need to not have judgment that, gee, this person doesn't sign well or something like that, that I need to put aside and, and not judge that because it's not their fault. [Tim: mhmm] And as a result of, not, just not signing well, the whole idea of learning and incidental learning and what we would call common sense sometimes is lacking because of that language deprivation in their own environment.

00:23:50 Marty

So, now they’re 18, now they’re 25, what have they learned? What haven't they learned? So, I think in my environment in North America, we will be experiencing a whole group of, say, two or three generations of deaf people who don't sign well and that might continue. [Tim: mmm] If it doesn't continue, then we're on a whole different trajectory.

00:24:22 Marty

Then we will continue to see deaf people in very high, highly esteemed positions. We will see more deaf doctors and lawyers and professionals. We already have them.

00:24:39 Marty

And we don't have very many young ones [Tim: mmm] in those professions that I see. [Tim: mmm] So, the old timers versus the newbies… I'm the old timer.

00:24:51 Marty

The newbies are coming up in a different environment the interpreters. [Tim: mhmm] They're used to this online situation.

00:25:03 Marty

They're used to working in carrels, uh, video, little booths, for their practices in their interpreting program. [Tim: yeah] And one thing that we've noticed with our national certification test in Canada is that people who were certified 30 years ago, interpreting was different. [Tim: yeah]

00:25:28 Marty

And yet we're using the same kind of tests, and now we are, unfortunately, that we've gone through a period of time where we have passed people who “look like” interpreters [Tim: mmm] from interpreting programs. And that's a different look from the old timers and how we used to interpret. [Tim laughs] Some people think it's a negative. Other people think it's a positive.

00:25:58 Marty

Because then, you have this standard of a, a graduate who's been out there in the field, and “this is what they look like”. So, this is what we're passing because they've got the information. [Tim: mmm] They've, “they're interpreting it. It's OK.”

00:26:14 Tim

They've checked all the measurements, but we don't know about the immeasurables.

00:26:18 Marty

Means you can't measure yes. [Tim: mmm] And have we really tested them in an environment where they interpret for different deaf people. [Tim: Yeah] It's one of the problems, especially in Canada, with the national test, because we are such a huge country that how you sign the east and how you sign in the West is different. [Tim: mhmm]

00:26:47 Marty

Still, although this is changing, we used to always have the test include platform interpreting [Tim: mhmm] monologue ASL to English, English to ASL speeches.

00:27:01 Marty

And we're getting away from that because most interpreters, most of the time, do community work. [Tim: mhmm] There are some who do platform assignments, but why would we be testing, and deaf people said this. Deaf people said, “Why are we testing people to do platform? Not everybody does platform.” [Tim: yeah]

00:27:23 Marty

So, it's a question. [Tim: mhmm]

00:27:25 Marty

What will the future hold? Maybe we will have all those sub certifications of legal, medical, educational, post-secondary.

00:27:35 Tim

Yeah. And like you said, each region, if it's a large country or large region, some of those smaller communities have different needs for interpreters than the others. [Marty: yes]

00:27:47 Tim

Wow, so even more specialized specializations. [Marty: yes.]

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC STARTS]

00:27:57 Tim

Another wonderful episode with a wonderful guest. So many points that we can take from this and let's start with adjusting to our clients. Language deprivation is a terrible thing, and as Marty pointed out, more and more deaf students are being mainstreamed.

00:28:15 Tim

They are in school at a young age, using an interpreter, and interpreters are not always the language models that they need to be, and she also points out the fact that deaf are not taught their own language academically. Interpreters as we learn the language we are taught the grammar, he structure, the use of the language, and yet the deaf community themselves rarely have this opportunity.

00:28:42 Tim

And what that means for us, as interpreters, is that we need to acknowledge that. Know that this will affect how we do our work. We need to adjust and adapt to the clients that we are working with. The more fluent we are at the languages that we interpret with, the easier it will be for us to recognize the use of the language that is not natural. This will help us understand or comprehend the intended message.

00:29:12 Tim

As an example, I am a fluent native English speaker. Unless you're in the UK, then you're looking at me and smirking. However, when I work with non-native English speakers it is easy for me to recognize when they have a small error in grammar, or the use of a phrase is not exactly true to the meaning of the phrase.

00:29:34 Tim

But I can understand what their intended meaning was because I'm fluent in this language. Therefore, as an interpreter, being fluent in the signed language that we're using means we can do the same, hopefully.

00:29:48 Tim

This is just one change over the generations of the profession. The language change, the deprivation and how it has influenced the communities and our profession. But there are many, many more changes that we have to adapt to in order to give the best interpretation we can. The best service that we can.

00:30:08 Tim

Of course, we've had to adapt to the online presence, feeling more of an observer than a participant, as an interpreter. The communities are the same. They've had to adapt into that role of observers/participant, feeling that disconnect when we're online.

00:30:27 Tim

We need to remember that the old ways, the old situations, the old schemas that experienced interpreters were used to, many of those do not exist today. We can hear it in Marty's stories, and Sharon Neumann Solow’s stories, and many other guests that I've interviewed. And it means that in the coming years…

00:30:48 Tim

What we know now…

00:30:49 Tim

…may not exist either. We must continually develop our skills, develop our knowledge to adapt with those changes. We not only need to look like an interpreter, we need to feel like and be like and perhaps actually be a real interpreter.

00:31:08 Tim

Next week will be the last part in our series with Dr Marty Taylor. Until then, keep calm, keep interpreting… adaptively. I'll see you next week. Take care now.

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC ENDS AT 00:31:57]