User:Sbu khambane/sandbox

A new term introduced during a simultaneous live interpreting event.

March 16, 2016

Sign Language interpreting (SLI) on television screens either on parliament feeds or through news bulletins and special broadcasting is slowly gaining scrutiny in politics and social media landscape. Notwithstanding the dawn of Mandela Memorial Fake interpreter as a critical event which raised consciousness of the profession not only in the republic but to the world.

Parliament’s recent occasions demonstrated by chanting, trending hash tags, term coining and name calling brought by the unshaken red berets members of the Economic Freedom Party (EFF) - the opposition party in parliament has really increased a keen viewership on TV.

This brings about a somewhat ridicule central focus to the person(s) we see on the small blue background box, every time parliament sits in its chambers. The upmost event that left the public shaken with laughter was the ZUPTA must fall video clip which went viral and was trending on twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Observing a colleague trending in such fashion for a couple of days led me to writing this piece in pursuance of scrutinizing the role of SLI in a rapidly changing political space full of overwhelming pressures that are sometimes unforeseen like the ZUPTA must fall or the Nkandla rhythm.

The question of continuous professional development irrespective of background and level of work you do remains key as long as one continues to practice in the profession of translation and interpreting in South African Sign Language.

In this regard, it is unfortunate that the reaction by the audience largely disregarded the pressure faced by the interpreter as well as the audience she ought to be presenting for. The focus was mainly on how keen hearing viewers were to see if the interpreter would produce a sign for the newly coined term called ZUPTA must fall forgetting that this is someone who is working under pressure and seemingly someone who might have not registered the new term.

Here, it is painful that the Deaf viewership as the target audience only realised later that the EFF was chanting ZUPTA must fall and unfortunately access during this live transmission simultaneous interpretation event was delayed or rather was not achieved.

It must be noted that the purpose of this article is not to stress the quality of interpretation but to stress the changing role of SLIs in television, where even when you have prepared and familiarized yourself with the jargon, instances like this may occur and lead to one jump a red traffic light when driving back home from work.

In view of the above, I humbly stress the significance of Sign Language interpreting on television and in particular as a scarce skill profession, that we give special attention on issues of continuous professional development workshops to all practising SLIs with special regard to this setting and to those who aspire to end up being TV news, parliament and special broadcast SL interpreters.

Let us stop working in silos, let us unite through social media platforms, where we can exchange ideas, techniques, ethically criticize each other and eventually grow and become better than the status quo. An injury to one is an injury to all. We shear a common goal, which is to achieve best practice and serve the Deaf community of South Africa with honour and integrity.

The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

Written by

Sibusiso Mike Mondlane