A Study of Skill Science for Sign Language Interpreters and its Applied Possibility for Interpersonal Support Service

Abstract

Sign language is a visual language which main articulators are hands, torso, head, and face. For the simultaneous interpreters of Japanese sign language (JSL) and spoken Japanese, it is very important to recognize not only the hands movement but also prosody such like head, eye, postures and facial expressions, because prosody has grammatical rules for representing the case and the modification relations in JSL. The goal of this paper is to introduce a examination called Skill-Prosody and to demonstrate that it can be an indicator for the other general skills of interpreters. For this purpose, we conducted two experiments: one is to study the relationship between the interpreter's experiences and the performance score on Skill-Prosody (Experiment-1), and the other is to investigate the specific skill that can be estimated by Skill-Prosody (Experiment-2). The data in Experiment-1 came from four interpreters who had more than 1-year experience as interpreters, and other four interpreters who had less than 1-year experience. The mean accuracy of Skill-Prosody in long experienced group was higher than that in short experienced group. The data in Experiment-2 came from three high Skill-Prosody interpreters and three low Skill-Prosody interpreters. Two hearing subjects and three deaf subjects evaluated their skill in terms of the speech or sign interpretation skill, the expeditiousness, and the subjective sense of accomplishment for the ordering pizza task. The two experiments made it clear that Skill-Prosody is useful to estimate how the interpreter is experienced enough to interpret from sign language to spoken Japanese and work on the interpretation expeditiously. Finally we end this paper with the discussion about the possible application for the other interpersonal support skill such as the medical examination skill required to doctors or the childcare skill required to nursery teachers.