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Finally free of the interpreter's gaze? Uncovering the hidden labor of gaze work for deaf consumers of interpreter services
De Meulder, Maartje
De Meulder, Maartje
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2024-09-30
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Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a shift towards remote video-mediated sign language
interpreting. This has uncovered the hidden labor of gaze work that deaf consumers of interpreting services
have been obliged to engage in. We specifically focus on one group of deaf consumers of interpreter
services: deaf academics. We consider the role of interpreter education in the context of the backchanneling
expectation, the invisibility of gaze work prior to the proliferation of remote video-mediated interpreting,
during the COVID era, and then post-COVID. Throughout this chronology, we consider the expectations
of interpreters and deaf academics for interaction and feedback between interpreter and academic. While
gaze work historically forms part of the wider calculated consumer labor, this is something within the
conference setting that deaf consumers are now more resistant to engage in. This is partly because of
sensory overload and the need to manage multimodal resources. However, this is also about exercising
choices. We highlight the need for sign language interpreters to be educated in more nuanced ways with
respect to gaze behaviors. It is clear that deaf consumers want interpreters to provide solutions to ensure
that interpreter-mediated access provides access without the problematic addition of consumer labor.
Citation
De Meulder, Maartje and Stone, Christopher (2024) Finally Free from the Interpreter's Gaze? Uncovering the Hidden Labor of Gaze Work for Deaf Consumers of Interpreter Services. International Journal of Interpreter Education, 15(1). https://open.clemson.edu/ijie/vol15/iss1/8
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Journal article
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en
Description
© 2024 The Authors. Published by Clemson University Press. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://open.clemson.edu/ijie/vol15/iss1/8
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ISSN
2150-5772
EISSN
2150-5772