Discourse Genre and Linguistic Mode: Interpreter Influences in Visual and Tactile Interpreted Interaction

Abstract

This study investigates visual and tactile ASL-English interpreters' influences on interactive discourse through an interactional sociolinguistic analysis of videotaped, interpreted interactions. We examine the participation framework of each of the interactions to determine whether the interpreters' utterances influence the interaction. For example, how do interpreters' code choices align them with the Deaf-sighted, Deaf-Blind, or hearing participants? How do interpreters create footings within their renditions and self-generated nonrenditions? Based on a growing body of research on tactile signed languages and on signed language interpretation of dyadic interaction such as student-teacher meetings, medical interviews, and multi-party genres such as classroom discourse, this study examines ways in which discourse genre and linguistic mode contribute to those interpreter-generated influences.