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Article published In:
Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts
Vol. 5:2 (2019) ► pp.95–120

“When I speak people look at me”

British deaf signers’ use of bimodal translanguaging strategies and the representation of identities

| Heriot-Watt University
| University of Manchester
| University of Manchester
| Heriot-Watt University

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.

Keywords: sign language, deaf, professional, identities, translation, sign language interpreters, translanguaging, bimodal bilingualism
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Representation and professional identities
    • 2.1Deaf (professional) identities
    • 2.2Translanguaging
  • 3.Method
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Representation through interpreters
    • 4.2Professional identity
    • 4.3Translanguaging as a strategy
    • 4.4Ideology, deaf-and-professional identities and translanguaging
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Limitations of the study
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 24 April 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ttmc.00027.nap
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