Edited by Heidi Salaets and Geert Brône
[Benjamins Translation Library 149] 2020
► pp. 107–125
This chapter explores issues related to Video Relay Services (VRS), a telephone access service for Deaf people and Video Remote Interpreting (VRI). First there is a discussion of Deaf people and specifically users of sign language and how they negotiate remote communicative interactions (initially without direct access to audio-only technologies such as the telephone). Similarities and differences between VRS services for Deaf people and remote interpreted interactions (which can involve signed and spoken or solely spoken language interlocutors) are then explored.
The concept of role-space (Llewellyn-Jones and Lee 2014) is then introduced as a lens through which these interactions can be analysed. A discussion of VRI situations through the role-space dimensions of interaction management, participant alignment and presentation of self is presented. Finally, recommendations for factors to be considered to make VRI situations more effective are presented.