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Project

A descriptive study of linguistic interpreting strategies in Dutch - Flemish Sign Language interpreting. Exploring interpreters' perspectives to understand the what, how and why.

Research topic

This study sets out to explore linguistic interpreting strategies used by Flemish Sign Language (VGT) interpreters in a monologic simultaneous interpreting setting (Dutch - VGT).  It aims to describe the strategic behaviour of interpreters as reflected in their linguistic actions. This focus on the linguistic decision-making process is combined with a desire to understand what motivates the behaviour. Hence the study does not only examine which linguistic interpreting strategies interpreters (can) use but also why they do so. The analysis homes in on three basic premises: (1) what are linguistic interpreting strategies, (2) how are they used, and (3) why are they used.

Data collection method

The data collection session draws on various methods; (1) think aloud protocol (Jääskeläinen, 2002; 2012), (2) an interpreting task and (3) a stimulated recall task (Gass and Mackey, 2000).

Main research questions

The main research question is the following:

Which linguistic interpreting strategies do Flemish Sign Language interpreters use when interpreting from Dutch into Flemish Sign Language in a monologic simultaneous interpreting setting? 

This leads to the following set of sub questions: 

a. Is there a degree of uniformity across Flemish Sign Language interpreters in which linguistic interpreting strategies they use in this setting? 

b. What are the underlying motivations of Flemish Sign Language interpreters to apply linguistic interpreting strategies in this setting?

c. What are the underlying motivations of Flemish Sign Language interpreters to reject linguistic interpreting strategies in this setting? 

The proposed hypothesis is that Flemish Sign Language interpreters use and/or reject linguistic interpreting strategies when interpreting from Dutch into Flemish Sign Language and that this strategic behaviour is motivated. 

 

Date:1 Sep 2014 →  1 Mar 2021
Keywords:Interpreting, Signed Language, Interpreting strategies
Disciplines:Linguistics, Theory and methodology of linguistics, Other languages and literary studies
Project type:PhD project