IW 139: Interview Isabelle Heyerick Part 1: A Language Focused Linguist - A Strategic Model

I'm curious. Do you have a strategy? Why yes, yes, I do.

My guest is Isabelle Heyerick. Today we learn about her practical and impactful research for the signed language profession. She takes us back to how it all started for her career as a Dutch/English/Flemish Sign Language interpreter, researcher, and assistant professor.

Learn more about her thoughts on ethical decisions next week.

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Transcript

IW 139: Interview Isabelle Heyerick Part 1: A Language Focused Linguist - A Model Strategy

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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 to interpretersworkshop.com.

00:00:28 Tim

Let's start talking... interpreting.

[ROCK INTRO MUSIC ENDS]

00:00:34 Tim

And now the quote of the day by Jack Welch, American business executive. “Strategy is not a lengthy action plan. It is the evolution of a central idea through continually changing circumstances.”

00:00:53 Tim

Strategy. An action plan.

00:00:55 Tim

Hmm. How does that connect to interpreting, in many ways. I can see the sparks in your brain now filling out and brainstorming the answers.

00:01:05 Tim

Well, today's guest gives us some insight into her idea of a strategy, a strategy model for interpreters.

00:01:14 Tim

We learn about her research into language acquisition and research and studies that help us practically as sign language interpreters.

00:01:25 Tim

However, in this first episode, we get to know her background and, and how all of that led to where she is now. With so much research to give to all of us as practitioners of sign language interpreting. So, let's get started.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:01:44 Tim

Our guest is Dr Isabelle Heyerick, a sign language interpreter from Belgium. Isabelle is an assistant professor in Applied Sign Linguistics at the Center for Deaf Studies at Trinity College Dublin.

00:02:00 Tim

She holds a PhD in linguistics from KU Leuven in Belgium.

00:02:06 Tim

One of her many accolades includes being an honorary research fellow with the Institute of Advanced Study at the University of Warwick, UK, where she was a postdoctoral Marie Curie Fellow from 2018 to 2020. Her areas of expertise are interpreting studies and linguistics with a specific focus sign language interpreting and sign linguistics.

00:02:30 Tim

Isabelle's work shows her commitment and passion as an academic to the sign language interpreting profession. She was also the secretary for the World Association of Sign Language interpreters WASLI for eight years.

00:02:45 Tim

And the founder and vice president of Tenuto an organization offering professional development for Flemish Sign language interpreters.

00:02:55 Tim

Isabelle is also a qualified spoken and sign language interpreter with an MA in what else but interpreting?

00:03:04 Tim

So welcome to the podcast, Isabelle.

00:03:07 Isabelle

Thank you, Tim.

00:03:07 Isabelle

I'm so happy to be here and thank you for inviting me.

00:03:12 Tim

So you are a sign language interpreter, but you've done so many things since you started that. Let's go back to the very beginning. Tell us…

00:03:22 Tim

Why did you take these first steps into this profession?

00:03:28 Isabelle

Yeah. So, for me, it would probably go back to where I did my first master’s, which was a master’s in linguistics really, [Tim: hmm] unrelated related to sign language.

00:03:39 Isabelle

Until within that master’s I attended a lecture on general linguistics. And professor the lecturer at that time was Mieke Van Herreweghe, who's a Belgian Flemish professor who did research on sign languages.

00:03:58 Isabelle

And in this very general lecture on linguistics she mentioned. Oh, and there's also signed languages, and they have their own grammar, their own lexicon, their own - everything that has to do with linguistics. And at that point I was nearing the end of my master’s, and we had to decide on a thesis topic.

00:04:20 Isabelle

And I was always fascinated by language acquisition, like the fact that you're born, and your brain is able to acquire and produce language.

00:04:30 Isabelle

It still baffles my mind.

00:04:32 Isabelle

So, I really want to do a master's thesis on that topic and Professor Van Herreweghe...

00:04:41 Isabelle

She coincidentally mentioned during this lecture we don't know a lot about sign language acquisition.

00:04:46 Isabelle

or, how the whole language process kind of evolves for deaf children. And I was like, OK!

00:04:55 Isabelle

Why do research about something we already know a lot like spoken language acquisition, if I can do something that might contribute?

00:05:04 Isabelle

So that's actually why I decided to go into sign linguistics at that point.

00:05:09 Tim

Yeah, it's all about the curiosity and, and that's what I think motivates our passion.

00:05:14 Tim

So, was it from that study that you decided to become an interpreter? Or how did you leap from there to there?

00:05:22 Isabelle

Yeah, exactly. 'cause it is a kind of like a leap.

00:05:26 Isabelle

So, in order to be able to do this master’s thesis, I have to learn sign language.

00:05:32 Isabelle

Like there's no way I could analyze data from deaf parents engaging with deaf children, deaf babies actually.

00:05:38 Isabelle

So, I looked at children or babies between the age of 0 and three years old. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:05:44 Isabelle

…to kind of describe their language acquisition processes.

00:05:48 Isabelle

This meant looking at signed data and at that point I didn't know any sign language, so I was like 19, 20 maybe.

00:05:58 Isabelle

Luckily, at that time in Belgium we had one university where they were teaching sign language as a subject and my university in Ghent allowed me to take on this subject at this university in Brussels, and it would count towards my degree.

00:06:15 Isabelle

So, every week I would go to Brussels.

00:06:18 Isabelle

And take sign language as a subject. So not only learning the language, but also the linguistics, the grammar.

00:06:25 Isabelle

So, after two years, I, I did that.

00:06:28 Isabelle

I did my master's thesis, but by doing this research I obviously met deaf people.

00:06:36 Isabelle

And I was introduced into the deaf community and people were kind of like, “Wow, you only been learning sign language for like one year, once a week and you're already this good, you should become an interpreter.” [both laughing]

00:06:52 Isabelle

And there we go.

00:06:54 Isabelle

So yeah, so it was a little bit because of deaf people motivated me to go into interpreting. And my love for language and my curiosity and just the little bit like why not? But to be honest, it was not always my plan.

00:07:11 Isabelle

If it would have been up to me and not my parents, I would have gone to drama school. [both laughing]

00:07:19 Isabelle

But my parents said let's get a university degree first and then you can still go to drama school if you want.

00:07:25

Ah, well, 20 years later, I didn't do the drama school. Yeah.

00:07:31 Tim

So, I think drama probably helped you visually to take in and acquire…

00:07:38 Tim

Now wait, which sign language are we talking about? In the beginning there?

00:07:43 Isabelle

OK. So, in the beginning there were talking about Flemish Sign Language.

00:07:46 Isabelle

So, the sign language that's used in the north of Belgium. So that's the first sign language I, I acquired. And I did do between the age of 12 and 18.

00:07:58 Isabelle

Drama. So, I, I do have my master’s in drama and I, I do think it helps. Like being able to express being comfortable in your body, the facial non-manual features of sign language, not having that stage fright if you're up in front of an audience and everybody is looking at you. [Tim: uh-huh] It does help, yeah.

00:08:22 Tim

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

00:08:24 Tim

So, your timelines, your occupations, your professions, kind of overlap.

00:08:30 Tim

So, did you continue being a researcher and work as a sign language interpreter at the same time?

00:08:39 Tim

Or did you jump back and forth?

00:08:42 Isabelle

So, I think it in terms of my educational and professional pathways, it's a little bit unorthodox probably.

00:08:50 Isabelle

So, I did my master’s my first.

00:08:53 Isabelle

So, when I finished my masters I was 20, something like that.

00:08:58 Isabelle

And then I went into interpreter education.

00:09:02 Isabelle

So, I went into interpreting training program immediately after my university master’s, but at that time in Belgium it was a part time graduate's degree so it was not full-time education.

00:09:16 Isabelle

So, I combined that with working for the Deaf Association. [Tim: aha] So, the first five years after I graduated from my master's, I was working, umm…

00:09:27 Isabelle

As an advocate policy officer, really within the Flemish Deaf Association, and also I was working as a self-employed translator and editor, because with my linguistics master’s I was able to do translation work and editing work for Dutch and English et cetera. And at the same time, I was pursuing my sign language interpreting degree.

00:09:51 Isabelle

So, I did those three things for a good while combined. And then when I got my sign language interpreting degree, I added the interpreting to my translation self-employment.

00:10:04 Isabelle

And I became the coordinator of the Flemish Sign Language Centre.

00:10:10 Isabelle

That's when I actually returned to research.

00:10:13 Isabelle

So, the Flemish Sign Language Centre is our Centre of expertise in Flanders, with everything that has to do with the linguistics of sign languages.

00:10:22 Isabelle

So, they would do research publications. So, for eight years, I was the coordinator of that research centre and also an interpreter, so I kind of combined interpreting and doing research and I was also teaching sign language interpreters at that time.

00:10:41 Isabelle

So those three jobs are kind of combined for a good while until in 2012.

00:10:49 Isabelle

I decided to do a second master’s. [chuckling]

00:10:53 Tim

As you do, yeah.

00:10:54 Isabelle

As you do.

00:10:55 Isabelle

So yeah, in 2012 I started my master’s, umm, in spoken and sign language interpreting. So, before that time in Belgium, we didn't have any master’s in sign language interpreting.

00:11:10 Isabelle

So when it was established, I kind of was like, yeah, I want a master’s degree in sign language interpreting.

00:11:17 Isabelle

And it is the case that this specific interpreting program you have to do the spoken language part as well.

00:11:25 Isabelle

So, it's actually a master's in interpreting into three languages.

00:11:29 Isabelle

So, there would be your native language in our case spoken Dutch.

00:11:33 Isabelle

Then one foreign sign language, foreign spoken language, sorry, which in my case was English and sign language.

00:11:41 Isabelle

So yeah, so I did learn the teaching, the research, and again going back to school all together for a little while. Yeah.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC STARTS]

00:11:52 Tim

Well, Isabelle did so much at the same time, but I'm not gonna ask you to do multiple things. Only one click on the links in the show notes to subscribe to the newsletter to get the latest updates about the podcast, special events and of course the IW community. So, subscribe today. Let's go back.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC ENDS]

00:12:11 Tim

So, I'm, I'm going to take us back a little bit to your first thesis [Isabelle: Mm-hmm] about acquisition of Flemish Sign Language. And I'm, I'm curious two things really…

00:12:22 Tim

First, what was the most interesting that you found out of that research, that study?

00:12:29 Tim

And second, how did that possibly influence your teaching and interpreting?

00:12:35 Tim

Because those were really close together.

00:12:37 Isabelle

Yeah.

00:12:37 Tim

I'm wondering how that influenced your, your work.

00:12:40 Isabelle

Yeah. So, in regards with what was the most interesting, I think the most interesting and it's been well established now is that the language acquisition process or the pathways that deaf children go through are the same as what hearing children go through when they acquire spoken languages.

00:13:02 Isabelle

So, we see the same kind of over generalizations.

00:13:05 Isabelle

We see the same babbling phase.

00:13:08 Isabelle

You see it in sign language.

00:13:10 Isabelle

You see the same grammatical errors if you can call them errors that children will do.

00:13:18 Isabelle

It doesn't really…

00:13:19 Isabelle

The modality doesn't really have a huge impact there.

00:13:23 Isabelle

What does have a huge impact on what is absolutely different for deaf children is the language exposure.

00:13:31 Isabelle

So, I looked at deaf children with either both parents being deaf or one of the parents being deaf.

00:13:40 Isabelle

It would not have made sense, or it didn't make sense at that point to look at deaf babies with hearing parents because they would not be exposed to sign language.

00:13:49 Isabelle

So, I think that was the biggest thing where we saw like the processes are the same, but if the exposure is not there or the language is not offered to the children their language development will be completely different.

00:14:04 Isabelle

And then in terms of how it influenced my work and my interpreting, I think.

00:14:09 Isabelle

There's no other way for me to be than being a linguist.

00:14:14 Tim

Mm-hmm

00:14:14 Isabelle

And this is also very true in my interpreting. I, I consider myself as an interpreter first and foremost, to be a language professional.

00:14:26 Isabelle

So, I've never had that idea of like, I'm here to help people. I'm here to… I've, I've just, it's never been one of my, even assumptions of interpreting. I've always looked as interpreting as this is linguistics.

00:14:44 Isabelle

Of course, you're working with people and you're working with cultures, but that is also linguistics, languages, culture, languages, people.

00:14:52 Isabelle

So I think I mean you can see it through my career like all the research I've done, all the things I, I talk about when I talk about interpreting, I bring it back to language, to linguistics, to understanding how language works, to understanding what are the pragmatics of language.

00:15:08 Isabelle

What is discourse? Discourse analysis, language ideologies, and it is all… It all comes back to linguistics, and that is for me what is interpreting. Yeah.

00:15:18 Tim

Did your research affect the families in how they approached their communication with their child. Did they change in any way?

00:15:29 Isabelle

I don't think so.

00:15:30 Isabelle

I think what the research did kind of help develop, but like keep in mind this was a master thesis. So, it's not something that's gonna be published widely. But because I was working with, umm, the team from the Brussels University and they were doing a much bigger a much larger research project into visual attention strategies.

00:15:58 Isabelle

So why were there no hearing parents and no hearing children included in this research was to really describe how do deaf parents use visual communication strategies with their deaf children. And the idea was to develop a toolkit really to then present us to hearing parents of deaf children. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:16:21 Isabelle

So, this was the whole goal of the research. Like what…

00:16:25 Isabelle

How do we see that deaf parents actually do this?

00:16:27 Isabelle

What are their ways of kick starting this language development and everything?

00:16:33 Isabelle

Because this is what hearing parents need. Hearing parents don't have this innate idea. They haven't learned it themselves.

00:16:42 Isabelle

So, this is why the focus was really on deaf parents and deaf children. And I think that is what then kind of had the most impact, how this information of how we see how deaf parents do it and how it actually advances their children's well, not only language development, but also psychological development.

00:17:00 Isabelle

How can this benefit deaf children whose parents are not deaf?

00:17:05 Isabelle

Yeah.

00:17:06 Tim

So, did that develop into a program [Isabelle: Mm-hmm] or courses that sort of thing for hearing parents? Wonderful.

00:17:13 Isabelle

Yeah, exactly.

00:17:14 Isabelle

Yeah, still going still going by the way.

00:17:16 Tim

Wow.

00:17:17 Isabelle

So, it's called a course in visual communication strategies for hearing parents of deaf children, I think it is a little bit consciously called that and not sign language courses, even though sign language is used there, and hearing parents will be introduced to sign language. But it's really about this like very first step you need to ensure that communication and language development can happen.

00:17:44 Isabelle

It's still being offered. Yeah.

00:17:45 Tim

That's nice. That's wonderful.

00:17:47 Tim

Wow.

00:17:47 Tim

You should have told me that first before all the other stuff. [Isabelle laughs]

00:17:50 Tim

That's, that's, that's I think is a great impact for a thesis. Wow.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:17:59 Tim

So, my next question is, [Isabelle: Mm-hmm] since you are more linguistic focused as an interpreter. [Isabelle: hmm]

00:18:07 Tim

What is your mental process when you're going through the interpreting process? If you can look at some of the interpreting process models that have out there.

00:18:16 Tim

Which one kind of resonates with you?

00:18:18 Tim

Or is there a different process that you go through?

00:18:24 Isabelle

This is gonna sound so bad, Tim, but it's gonna be my own model. [chuckles]

00:18:30 Tim

That's fine. I think we all kind of do that.

00:18:32 Isabelle

Well, it's kind of the one I describe in my PhD research. [Tim laughing: Aha]

00:18:38 Isabelle

Yeah. I think for me.

00:18:40 Isabelle

Yeah. So obviously, my, my PhD research actually looked at that, at interpreting processes and models of interpreting.

00:18:51 Isabelle

And what I kind of like think, and the way my brain works and the way I kind of approach interpreting is from a very strategic point of view.

00:19:02 Isabelle

So, I call it the strategic nature of interpreting or the strategic model of interpreting, where I see language as being used strategically.

00:19:12 Isabelle

So, it's the process where you understand what's being said in certain language and then you have to make choices. You have to make decisions in how am I gonna convey this…

00:19:27 Isabelle

…with the same intent with the same meaning, with the same all of the linguistic pragmatic elements of this message in this other language.

00:19:37 Isabelle

And what do I have to do in this transfer?

00:19:41 Isabelle

Which decisions do I have to make to make sure that whatever I'm delivering here is as equivalent. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:19:50 Isabelle

And what equivalent this is also what I like kind of try to teach the students.

00:19:56 Isabelle

I don't mean identical.

00:19:59 Isabelle

It's the same value.

00:20:02 Isabelle

Is the same value of what was being said needs to be in what you're interpreting.

00:20:07 Isabelle

So I, I come from like Daniel Gile, the Effort Model.

00:20:11 Isabelle

That's the model I start with.

00:20:13 Isabelle

So, we have these different efforts that you go through and you need to coordinate.

00:20:18 Isabelle

There's definitely some of Cokely’s models. I, I see there because you have these stages of the process and again like having to coordinate it all.

00:20:29 Isabelle

There's also Demand Control schema where you have the demands and then the controls in my case would be the strategies and the demands are things that trigger your strategies. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:20:40 Isabelle

In my model I speak about triggers, motivations and strategies.

00:20:46 Isabelle

So, there can be triggers in the language or in the message, or even in how people interact with each other that alerts the interpreter of like OK, here I have to do something.

00:20:58 Isabelle

Here I need to have a certain strategy, but they can all be in also intrinsic motivations.

00:21:05 Isabelle

So, there's actually nothing in the source text or what the person is saying or signing that would trigger me to think I need a strategy here.

00:21:16 Isabelle

It's my own motivation.

00:21:19 Isabelle

It's because I think this is needed here or I feel that it would be better to interpret it in that way.

00:21:26 Tim

Mm-hmm.

00:21:26 Isabelle

So yeah, linguistic strategies.

00:21:30 Isabelle

That's my thing. [chuckling]

00:21:34 Tim

How does that layer on top of or underneath of practical decisions or ethical decisions?

00:21:43 Isabelle

Yes, that's an interesting one for me.

00:21:46 Isabelle

It's also probably kind of a personal I don't know…

00:21:54 Isabelle

If it's a pet peeve.

00:21:57 Isabelle

I just felt when I started my, my PhD that a lot of work and a lot of thought and a lot of discussions have had been had about ethical things. And I was like that's all great, like thinking about the ethics, about our behaviour and the practicality, but…

00:22:16 Isabelle

Why are we not focusing on language? [Tim: Mm-hmm]

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC STARTS]

00:22:24 Tim

Do we focus too much on ethics?

00:22:26 Tim

Do we focus enough on language?

00:22:29 Tim

Hmm. You'll hear more of her thoughts on this topic next week in the next part of the interview. 

00:22:35 Tim

Looking at her career from this first episode, we see how her curiosity, one little sentence from a presentation from a professor gave her that spark of curiosity of wanting to know more about sign language, connecting it to what she had already wondered is how we acquire language.

00:22:58 Tim

And from there, she started working with Deaf. But realizing that she had to learn sign language to do so.

00:23:05 Tim

And from that she had another link in the chain, another step on the journey of learning how to become a sign language interpreter.

00:23:14 Tim

There are different aspects of our lives that affect or impact where we go.

00:23:20 Tim

What goals we want to achieve, and our ideas are not isolated, they are within the bigger context of who we are and who we want to be.

00:23:31 Tim

And I think we should take that into account with new interpreters or student interpreters. Learning about them. What makes them tick?

00:23:39 Tim

What they're curious about, encouraging extracurricular activities that don't have to do necessarily on the surface with sign language interpreting.

00:23:50 Tim

But they can impact how they improve, how they develop within this profession.

00:23:56 Tim

It's also a way for us, as experienced interpreters, to think about…

00:24:01 Tim

What is it in our lives that are influencing us that we love, that we have a passion and curiosity about that can help us as a sign language interpreter.

00:24:11 Tim

Or what does help us as a sign language interpreter, part of that reflective thinking.

00:24:17 Tim

Looking at ourselves in a way to understand why we do what we do and how we do it.

00:24:24 Tim

Even the fact that Isabelle had the experience of going through an interpreting program that included both spoken and signed languages impacted her work and probably her viewpoint about language and interpreting.

00:24:40 Tim

I hope today's episode gives you something more to think about in your own journey as a sign language interpreter.

00:24:48 Tim

What's your strategy?

00:24:49 Tim

Mine - is to keep calm, keep strategically interpreting…

00:24:54 Tim

I'll see you next week. Take care now.

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC ENDS AT 00:25:31]