Organisation of Conferences and Seminars

The Process of Sign Language Interpretation

Date: 03/01/2011

On 3 January 2011, Dr Rachel McKee from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, was invited to hold a public seminar entitled The Process of Sign Language Interpretation. Dr McKee is currently the Programme Director of Deaf Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. Trained in the first group of NZSL interpreters (1985), she also holds RID (CI) certification as an ASL interpreter, and a Ph.D. in applied linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles. Working with Dr David McKee, she has established programmes to train sign language interpreters, Deaf teachers of NZSL, and NZSL as foreign language courses. During the seminar, Dr Rachel McKee led the audience to look in detail at layers of meaning in communication and components of the interpreting process. She explained how the seemingly straightforward process of relaying a message from speech to sign language, or vice versa is indeed a process that requires an interpreter to make many complex decisions. Different approaches to interpreting between signed and spoken language – including consecutive / simultaneous modes, and literal / free interpretation were also discussed.