Longer meetings may have breaks in the middle; remember that interpreters need their breaks too! Interpreting is mentally and physically taxing, and it isn’t fair to the interpreter to make them work over their break because you want to talk one-on-one with the deaf client. During breaks, use pencil and paper to write notes or find some other way to communicate with the deaf person to whom you wish to speak.
Do I Really Need An Interpreter?
Despite the more prevalent use of sign language interpreters, many hearing people wonder if they are truly necessary: after all, can’t deaf people read lips?
Reading lips, or speechreading, is a complex and difficult skill that takes years of practice to attain proficiency – and not every deaf person can do it. Some have likened speechreading to singing: after all, can’t every hearing person sing?
As anyone who has heard amateur karaoke can attest, all hearing people are certainly not accomplished singers. Likewise, there are deaf and hard-of-hearing people who excel at speechreading, and others who have never acquired the knack. But even the best speechreaders cannot catch every word: it is estimated that less than 70% of spoken English is visible on the lips and mouth. This means even expert speechreaders must make educated guesses about 30% of the speaker’s meaning; most people cannot reach even that degree of accuracy.
Can’t written communication replace an interpreter? At first, it seems logical that simply writing notes back and forth could enable easy communication between the hearing and the deaf. Remember, however, that ASL is not English and is, in fact, a very different language. Many deaf people are bilingual in both ASL and written English, but this is not necessarily true. English is replete with idioms, proverbs, and other constructions that make it difficult for a non-native user to understand. Writing notes to each other is probably better than nothing, but it cannot match the clarity of communication possible when English speech is interpreted into the deaf person’s native language.