Interpreting and Transliterating Practice
Modes and the interpreting process
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). None is inherently better; mode follows setting, discourse pace, audience, and interpreter skill.
Know process models: Cokely's sociolinguistic model (message reception, preliminary processing, short-term memory, semantic intent, target-language synthesis), Colonomos's model (concentrating, representing, planning, producing), and Gile's effort models (listening, memory, production, coordination). These name the same demands: comprehension, analysis, memory, production, and monitoring.
Traps in questions: treating transliteration as word-for-word signing or assuming it is always inappropriate; ignoring register and prosody; overusing expansion; failing to monitor and repair; confusing lag with processing time; assuming consecutive is only for low-stakes settings. Watch also for items that equate ASL with English syntax or reward lexical substitution over pragmatic equivalence.
Worked example: A patient says, 'I'm not saying you're wrong, but I've had this pain for three weeks.' A literal rendering may sound accusatory. The interpreter preserves the hedge and the complaint: 'I'm not saying you're wrong-but the pain has lasted three weeks.' Rule of thumb: interpret intent and register first; when a lexical choice conflicts with pragmatic meaning, choose pragmatic meaning and monitor the consumer's response.