South African Sign Language used in Parliament: Is there a need for standardisation?

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: During interpreting in the National Parliament of South Africa, the South African Sign Language(SASL) signs used for terms frequently occurring in political debates appear to differ from oneinterpreter to the next. The question arises as to whether this could be a possible source ofmiscommunication, and, if so, whether there is a need for SASL to be standardised in order topromote successful communication and/or avoid misunderstandings while interpreting theproceedings of Parliament for a Deaf Member of Parliament as well as for Deaf members of thepublic.The present research set out to answer these questions. In order to do so, video-recordings weremade of two parliamentary SASL interpreters each independently signing 10 English terms oftenused during Parliamentary sittings. These recordings were shown to three Deaf adults, from moreor less the same linguistic background, who were tasked with writing down the meaning of eachsign of each interpreter. Responses given by the informants were allocated marks and a total scorewas calculated to reveal the level of intelligibility of the signs of each interpreter. It was found thatnot one of the deaf adults could understand all 10 signs of any one interpreter, and that the signsused by the two interpreters for eight of the 10 English terms differed vastly. The answers indicatethe possibility of miscommunication, which could be avoided if standardised terms were availablefor use in the Parliamentary environment.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University