NIC study guide
NIC · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The National Interpreter Certification (NIC) is the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf's national credential for interpreters who work between American Sign Language and English. It is intended for practitioners who have completed interpreter education and want a recognized professional credential they can present to employers, agencies, and state agencies that look to national certification when setting qualification requirements. Broadly, the exam is described as covering both applied skill - interpreting and transliterating - and the professional knowledge base behind that work: language and communication theory, ethics and professional conduct, and the interpreter's role, settings, and business practices. Because RID's certification program has been revised more than once, candidates should verify the current content outline, delivery method, testing vendor, and scoring directly with RID and its testing partner before registering; figures published in older study guides may no longer apply. The NIC study guide has 4 sections and about 1,160 words.
01Interpreting and Transliterating Practice
Interpreting is a meaning-based, cognitively demanding process, not a code-substitution exercise. Candidates should know the difference between simultaneous interpreting (source and target overlap, with lag or decalage), consecutive interpreting (speaker pauses and the interpreter delivers chunks), and transliteration (conveying English in a manually coded form while preserving English word order and morphology).
287 words, about 1 min02Language and Communication Theory
Communication theory gives interpreters the vocabulary for what they already do: constructing meaning. Know semantics (word and sentence meaning), pragmatics (meaning in context), speech act theory (locution, illocution, perlocution), Gricean maxims (quantity, quality, relation, manner) and implicature, politeness and face, schema and frame theory, discourse analysis (cohesion, coherence, turn-taking, topic management), register and genre, and high- versus low-context communication.
273 words, about 1 min03Professionalism and Ethics
The RID Code of Professional Conduct is organized around seven tenets: confidentiality, professional competence, conduct, respect for consumers, respect for colleagues, business practices, and professional development. Candidates must know that the Code is not a list of absolute rules to memorize; it frames a decision process.
306 words, about 2 min04Interpreter Role, Settings, and Business Practices
Role is context-dependent. Know the classic metaphors-conduit, clarifier, cultural broker, advocate, ally-and their limits.
294 words, about 1 min