Conveying Environmental Information to Deafblind People: A Study of Tactile Sign Language Interpreting

Abstract

Many deafblind people use tactile sign language and interpreters in their daily lives. Because of their hearing and sight status, the role of interpreters does not only involve translating the content expressed by other deaf or hearing people, but it also involves conveying environmental information (i.e., multimodal communication regarding what is happening at a given moment to be able to understand the context). This paper aims to contribute to the field of tactile sign language interpreting by describing how two Tactile Swedish Sign Language interpreters convey environmental information to two deafblind women in a particular situation, that is, a guided visit to a cathedral by a hearing Norwegian speaker. We expect to find various strategies including the use of haptic signs (i.e., a system of signs articulated on the body of the deafblind person aimed to provide environmental and interactional information). After summarizing the small amount of existing research on the issue to date, we present our data and how they were annotated. Our analysis shows that a variety of strategies are used, including Tactile Swedish Sign Language, using locative points to show locations with some type of contact with the body of deafblind individuals, depicting shapes on the palm of the hand of deafblind individuals, using objects to depict shapes, touching elements of the cathedral with the hands or with the feet such as surfaces, and walking around. Some of these strategies are more frequent than others and some strategies are also used in combination, whereas others are used in isolation. We did not observe any use of haptic signs to convey environmental information in our data, which calls for further research on which criteria apply to use this strategy in a particular situation.

Access to Interaction and Context Through Situated Descriptions: A Study of Interpreting for Deafblind Persons

“…The interpreter’s actions initiate and enable interaction between the guide and the deafblind person, as signaled through bodily movements and orientation. This awareness of a tactile orientation supports some of the findings in Edwards’ (2014) studies of the development of a pro-tactile movement in communities of American deafblind communities and in Gabarro-Lopez and Mesch’s (2020) study of interpreter-mediated action.…”

“…The minimal dialogical clarifications found in the data are in many ways expected, as they are described in several studies of tactile signed conversation that these tactile signals are linked to the grip between hands during communication (Mesch, 2001;Raanes, 2006;Gabarro-Lopez and Mesch, 2020). What is new in this study is the finding that these signals play a role in opening for a dialogically influenced interaction during description.…”

“…Research on deafblind communication has shown how tactile modality leads to solutions that are unique to tactile sign languages, as when interlocutors use their own body as well as the interlocutor’s hand/body to express verb constructions through movements and positions ( Raanes, 2006 ; Mesch et al, 2015 ). In the recent journal of Frontiers in Education , Gabarro-Lopez and Mesch (2020) analyze parts of the corpus data also in use for this article. Their findings demonstrate the variety of strategies in use to convey environmental information to deafblind persons in interpreter-mediated activities.…”

Intersubjective Understanding in Interpreted Table Conversations for Deafblind Persons

“…The interpreters' speaking position is in the middle of different participants and languages, and they have the opportunity to explicitly coordinate the interaction order and the message structures (Wadensjö 1998). For instance, in sign language interpreting for deaf and for deafblind persons, it is documented that interpreters use embodied signals to coordinate mutual attention, negotiate turn-taking, and exchange minimalresponse signals to maintain the turn-taking in the primary participant›s dialogue (Berge & Raanes 2013;Berge 2014;Raanes & Berge 2017;Gabarro-Lopez & Mesch 2020). The interpreter's vision about language and role-set creates a professional framework for their performance.…”

Methodological Approaches to Obtaining Informed Consent when Conducting Research With Individuals With Deafblindness

“…Several studies reported that informed written consent was obtained from deafblind participants, but the authors did not provide any details on how this was accomplished (Wahlqvist et al, 2020b; Wanka, 2020). The presentation of such procedural information would have been especially informative in a study that focused on participants that used signed or tactile communication techniques (Gabarró-López & Mesch, 2020). Some authors provided limited information related to the consent process, such as the provision of a comprehensive information letter (Vreeken et al, 2020), or written and spoken information and the opportunity to ask questions (Jaiswal et al, 2020c; Wahlqvist et al, 2020a).…”