Repurposing Corpus Materials For Interpreter Education. Nancy Frishberg, Ph.D. MSB Associates San Mateo, California USA

Transcription

1 Repurposing Corpus Materials For Interpreter Education Nancy Frishberg, Ph.D. MSB Associates San Mateo, California USA

2 I was raised in a household with lots of media

3 78 rpm Phonograph Albums (cloth) Book I was raised in a household with lots of media

4 Linguist in academia Interpreter Interpreter Trainer Sign Language Instructor Interpreter Training Program Evaluation Author of Interpreting: An Introduction Some of you remember me: I m the one on the left.

5 present Humanities computing Research on multimedia systems Engineering support for handheld systems, fonts Human-computer interaction Usability engineer Interaction designer Information architect I ve worked in the corporate world in roles unrelated to sign language and interpreting

6 User Experience Strategist My current job title invites a conversation about who are users? and how satisfied are they with their experiences of products and services? Personal/Professional Goal: Find ways for these 2 distinct career streams to flow in one channel

7 Reminders of highlights in Interpreter Education from the past 50 years

8 Interpreter Education 1960 s s Recognition of sign languages as full languages Master s theses and Ph.D. dissertations about sign language specialization, or interpreter training accepted RID formed, certification of interpreters in US begins Federal (US) support for interpreter training programs Materials use children s stories to prompt true deaf sign language (speech-to-text); college lectures for more spoken language influenced varieties Video production, editing, storage, distribution Expensive - U-Matic, reel-to-reel equipment Inaccessible - hard to edit, share, distribute 1960s & 1970s: - Difficulty in identifying materials that are appropriate for training. Confusion between materials that are easy to translate into deaf sign language (children s stories) and materials that are good models of adult linguistic abilities (college lectures).

9 Interpreter Education 1980 s s Careers as sign language professionals, beyond academic Conference of Interpreter Trainers founded (~1979) Deaf Studies & Sign Language Studies programs and departments established Movement toward accreditation of interpretation programs Affordable video production & editing equipment + s/w A few commercial organizations producing materials for teaching and learning (ASL, at least) Captioning of commercial television mandated by (US) government

10 Interpreter Education 2000 s YouTube launches and gains wide acceptance Cheap and easy-to-use video uploading, storage, services Repositories (such as those discussed at this meeting) which might be exploited by interpreter training programs New settings for interpreting: Video Relay, remote interpreting...

11 Interpreter Education Future... More and better corpora to draw from for training Creative ways of bridging the gap between training and work settings Increasingly complex remote interactions

12 Assumptions about Interpreter Education Candidates: quantity & quality Outcomes

13 Not all (hearing) children of deaf adults learn sign language at home or from early age; not all children of deaf adults become interpreters. However, when CODAs who did learn to sign early choose interpreting as a career, they often are better bilinguals than candidates who acquire signing later (as adolescents or young adults). Assumptions about Interpreter Education The pool of candidates CODA 2nd Language Learner (hearing) Deaf Quantity limited plentiful enough Quality typically high, but variable typically lower, but variable full range of skills CODA = Children of deaf adults. In this case we assume CODAs are hearing, but of course there are Deaf CODAs as well, whom we assume are native signers.

14 Assumptions about Interpreter Education The pool of candidates Quantity Quality Metalinguistic Awareness CODA limited typically high, but variable yes, awakening 2nd Language Learner (hearing) plentiful typically lower, but variable developing Deaf enough full range of skills yes, awakening compare Lon Kuntze s work on metalinguistic awareness

15 Assumptions about Interpreter Education Competence in target language A speaking proficiency = educated native speaker Complete fluency in the language Speech accepted by native speakers Breadth of vocabulary, idiom, colloquialisms Pertinent cultural references Level 5 of Interagency Language Roundtable scale

16 Measures of language competence Here are at least 2 criteria that are more operational than scientific Ability to understand a conversation in which you are only an observer/listener Ability to recognize a joke before the punch line (and know when to laugh, even if it s not funny to you)

17 Measures of language competence? Here are at least 2 criteria that are more operational than scientific Ability to understand a conversation in which you are only an observer/listener Ability to recognize a joke before the punch line (and know when to laugh, even if it s not funny to you)

18 Measures of language competence! Here are at least 2 criteria that are more operational than scientific Ability to understand a conversation in which you are only an observer/listener Ability to recognize a joke before the punch line (and know when to laugh, even if it s not funny to you)

19 Challenges for 2nd language learners Depth 5 clocks Fluent long-form narrative/conversation Breadth Range of subject matter Managing errors (comprehension & production) 5 Clocks refers to Martin Joos s 1962 book The Five Clocks in which he used time of day as a metaphor for distinct registers of (spoken) language. Joos s clocks were intimate, casual, consultative, formal and frozen. Whether you believe that these 5 distinctions are sufficient or not, you likely know that this is an area in which 2nd language learners need additional support.

20 Assumptions about corpora + Signs ± Speech ± Markup for {POS, morphology, regionalisms, neologisms, learned terms...} ± Captioning into glosses, full translation ±...

21 Learning from others California State University, Chico s Computer Animation course (c )

22 CSU Chico Computer Animation Course Components Lectures Projects (small number, ~4) Journaling for reflection & introspection All components suitable for remote or collocated courses

23 CSU Chico Computer Animation What kinds of projects? 1. A ball bouncing 2. A collision

24 CSU Chico Computer Animation Evaluating projects? Critique: peers among students in course Top Ten (leaderboard) for this semester overall (including prior semesters) What makes a great response to the prompt?

25 CSU Chico Computer Animation Best responses Go beyond the assignment Tell a (brief, coherent) story

26 Adapting the framework Does this curriculum translate to interpreter education? How well? University courses? Professional development?

27 Proposal for Interpreter Training course Course Components All components suitable for remote or collocated courses

28 Proposal for Interpreter Training course Course Components Lectures All components suitable for remote or collocated courses

29 Proposal for Interpreter Training course Course Components Lectures Projects (a small number, ~4) All components suitable for remote or collocated courses

30 Proposal for Interpreter Training course Course Components Lectures Projects (a small number, ~4) Journaling for reflection & introspection All components suitable for remote or collocated courses

31 Proposal for Interpreter Training course Projects from corpora Within mode (e.g., signing only) Identifying word/phrase boundaries Shadowing signing Shadowing rhythm, pausing, non-manuals Summarizing...

32 Proposal for Interpreter Training course Projects from corpora Across modes (e.g., sign to speech) Glossing (w/o and w/intonation) Captioning into written language Fluency (equivalent to source) Fluency (appropriate for target)...

33 Proposal for Interpreter Training course Why corpora? Take advantage of markup ( I want to work on conversations, especially those with head-tilt. ) AND/OR Provide input to markup (cf. Amazon s Mechanical Turk - crowdsourcing )

34 Proposal for Interpreter Training course How to evaluate projects? Technical competence Creativity

35 Proposal for Interpreter Training course Who evaluates? Insiders: Faculty, coaches, peer students Outsiders: Hiring agencies, alumni, community representatives (employers, clients, agencies)

36 Deaf community participation in Interpreter Education Instructors Sources of materials, models Coaches, tutors Evaluators Trainees