Deaf people’s lives are predicated to some extent on working with sign language interpreters. The self is
translated on a regular basis and is a long-term state of being. Identity becomes known and performed through the translated self
in many interactions, especially at work. (Hearing) others’ experience of deaf people, largely formed indirectly through the use
of sign language interpreters, is rarely understood as intercultural or from a sociocultural linguistic perspective. This study
positions itself at the cross-roads of translation studies, sociolinguistics and deaf studies, to specifically discuss findings
from a scoping study that sought, for the first time, to explore whether the experience of being ‘known’ through translation is a
pertinent issue for deaf signers. Through interviews with three deaf signers, we examine how they draw upon their linguistic
repertoires and adopt bimodal translanguaging strategies in their work to assert or maintain their professional identity,
including bypassing their representation through interpreters. This group we refer to as ‘Deaf Contextual Speakers’ (DCS). The DCS
revealed the tensions they experienced as deaf signers in reinforcing, contravening or perpetuating language ideologies, with
respect to assumptions that hearing people make about them as deaf people, their language use in differing contexts; the status of
sign language; as well as the perceptions of other deaf signers about their translanguaging choices. This preliminary discussion
of DCS’ engagement with translation, translanguaging and professional identity(ies) will contribute to theoretical discussions of
translanguaging through the examination of how this group of deaf people draw upon their multilingual and multimodal repertoires,
contingent and situational influences on these choices, and extend our understanding of the relationship between language use,
power, identity, translation and representation.
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Cited by (7)
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Xu, Qingxin & Xiaoyan Xiao
2024. Deaf translator’s visibility in political discourse: a dialogic positioning perspective. Perspectives 32:2 ► pp. 242 ff.
Nicolarakis, Onudeah D. & Thomas Mitchell
2023. Dynamic Bilingualism to Dynamic Writing: Using Translanguaging Strategies and Tools. Languages 8:2 ► pp. 141 ff.
Sommer Lindsay, Mette, Audrey Cameron & Jemina Napier
2023. Deaf People in the Workplace. In Intercultural Issues in the Workplace, ► pp. 241 ff.
Strani, Katerina & Steven Glasgow
2023. Cross-Cultural Scenarios. In Intercultural Issues in the Workplace, ► pp. 257 ff.
Hulme, Celia, Alys Young & Kevin J. Munro
2022. Exploring the lived experiences of British Sign Language (BSL) users who access NHS adult hearing aid clinics: an interpretative phenomenological analysis. International Journal of Audiology 61:9 ► pp. 744 ff.
Holmström, Ingela & Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta
2021. Patient or Citizen? Participation and Accessibility for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing People in the Context of Interpretation in Sweden. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research 23:1 ► pp. 209 ff.
Young, Alys, Jemina Napier & Rosemary Oram
2019. The translated deaf self, ontological (in)security and deaf culture. The Translator 25:4 ► pp. 349 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 january 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.