Category Archives: Ethics

Sign language research: Deaf-hearing involvement and research ethics

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Click here to watch this blog post in BSL

My topic for this week, the second week of the BSL blog, is on the relationship between ethics and deaf-hearing involvement in conducting research projects. After commencing employment here at Heriot-Watt University, I recently discovered that a joint funding bid to the EU Lifelong Learning Leonardo Da Vinci programme has been successful. The project is called ‘Justisigns’ and the goal of the project is to investigate signed language interpreting in legal contexts in various countries. The partners on the project will be from universities in Belgium (Myriam Vermeerbergen), Ireland (Lorraine Leeson) and Switzerland (Tobias Haug) as well as Heriot-Watt University (Jemina Napier and Graham Turner), and we will be tasked with exploring issues and challenges for legal signed language interpreters across Europe (also with EULITA and efsli).

The success of the funding application got me thinking about the fact that the lead investigators from each of the universities are all hearing people. These people have many years of expertise between them in conducting research on sign language and interpreting, have many publications to their name, and are also involved in training signed language interpreters. There is no doubt that Deaf sign language users will be involved in carrying out the research at the various institutions involved in the project, but the fact of the matter is that the names on the funding application are all names of hearing people. And this gave me pause for thought, so I did some reading around on this issue.

I came across some publications that have emphasised the notion that to be ethical in sign language research, the research project has to be deaf ‘led’. For example, Paddy Ladd, Sarah Batterbury and Mike Gulliver (Bristol University) in their paper about ‘Sign Language Peoples as Indigenous Minorities’ stress that any research conducted with the Deaf community should be deaf-led (Batterbury, Ladd, & Gulliver, 2007). Moreover, researchers in the United States have discussed the need for ethical approaches to conducting sign language research in order to ensure that there is Deaf involvement and Deaf people’s views are taken into consideration (Harris, Holmes & Mertens, 2009; Hochgesang , Villanueva, Mathur, Lillo-Martin, 2010; Mertens, 2010). So this got me thinking even more.

I used to live and work in Australia and observed that there were very few Deaf people there involved in sign language research. Only a handful of people had PhDs or worked in the university context doing research. Even when I obtained research funding for projects, and was keen to work collaboratively with members of the Deaf community, there were only a small number of Deaf people that showed any interest in being involved. Now that I am here in the UK, I notice that although things are somewhat different—there are many more Deaf researchers—very few of them are responsible for leading or managing research projects. This leads me to ask the question why. Is it because hearing people take over? Or is it because Deaf people are uncertain whether they are ready to take on such a role?

In the future do we need to see more collaboration between deaf-hearing research teams in order to determine how best to manage and proceed with research projects. As researchers, we all have the same goals. We want our research to have an impact on, and be of benefit to, the Deaf community. Likewise, my research on signed language interpreting needs to be of benefit to interpreters. But we need to work together to make sure that happens.

I am interested in discussing why there is a lack of Deaf involvement and Deaf leadership in sign language research. Furthermore, I’d like to consider the role of hearing researchers in this context, especially for those people like myself that have grown up in the Deaf community and have close allegiances to the Deaf community and Deaf sensibilities. Does the hearing status of project leaders depend on the nature of the research? For example, whether the project focuses on sign language, Deaf culture, interpreting or translation? Should lead investigators be allocated according to the topic? Is it more appropriate for Deaf researchers to lead on some research topics, but for hearing researchers to lead on other different areas?

So these are the questions I pose to you this week, and I look forward to some discussion on the issue.

Author: Jemina Napier

To charge or not to charge… That is the question

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEcsOApQAZU

Jemina Napier:

I work here at Heriot-Watt in the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies (LINCS). My expertise is in doing research on, and teaching, sign language interpreting, and I also work as a sign language interpreter. Since arriving at Heriot-Watt University I have discussed with my BSL team colleagues the idea of having a regular blog in sign language to bring key information to the Deaf community and the wider interpreting community, and also to raise issues for discussion in relation to the Deaf community, sign language and other related topics. So my deaf colleague, Rita McDade, and I agreed to make a few BSL blogs on the lifeinlincs page. Some of these blogs may be on ‘hot’ [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEcsOApQAZU]topics, where we pose questions for consideration by the Deaf community and interpreters in the interests of generating discussion; and at other times we may make posts about more serious, research-related issues or to share information. Today’s first blog is a ‘hot’ tongue-in-cheek topic to get you talking (or signing!) and is in relation to interpreter professionalism and what is appropriate for interpreters to claim in terms of working hours and expenses. Rita will share her view and we’re interested to hear your thoughts. You can make postings underneath our blog (in English only at the moment) here on the lifeinlincs page.

Rita McDade:

You may be wondering why I’ve chosen to address this subject but it is worth considering the possibility, as I have, that we have been rather slow in raising this issue: that we have neglected to address it.  Whether we have purposefully done so out of a desire to avoid the subject or because we have simply not considered it as yet I do not know but this is what we have done.

All disabled people in employment in our society have access to government funding through the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).  This is mediated through Job Centre Plus and is called Access to Work Funding, known as ATW.  Funding applications are assessed and granted according to the needs of each individual worker which, for people like me, means that funding for an interpreter is put in place so I can attend meetings and communicate with work colleagues who are unable to use British Sign Language (BSL).  The funding has been in place for approximately 20 years now with most disabled employees finding it beneficial.  Recently though I realised that I have been rather slow to notice something.

Those of us who are in employment will be familiar with the fact that we work according to the hours laid down for us by our employers and that, however many hours we work in our full or part time posts, we are contractually obligated to these.  One feature of this is that our lunch break is unpaid.  For over 20 years now I have been booking interpreters from agencies run by both Deaf organisations and private companies as well as freelance interpreters and have only just noticed that the hours invoiced for the interpreting service includes payment over the lunch break.  I have no quibble with the service provided or the fact that I am responsible for processing and signing off these invoices since this is indeed my responsibility.  What has come to my attention is the fact that, while those of us in employment are not paid during the lunch break, interpreters are.  So, I have begun to ask myself, why are interpreters’ lunch breaks covered as part of the overall service cost?

I believe this is a situation that needs changing.  I believe that the manner in which interpreters are paid should fall into line with the norm for other employees and that hours chargeable should be the hours worked only.  For example, a booking of 10am till 4pm requires payment for the whole day.  I believe it should be chargeable from 10am till 12 noon then 1pm till 4pm with one hour off for lunch and therefore one hour deducted from the invoice.  At the moment, the former system is the norm and nobody has challenged this.  As I said earlier, I am unsure whether this is because we have not noticed this anomaly or whether we are reluctant to address it because we do not want to disrupt the status quo given our reliance on interpreters.  It may very well be that interpreters are uneasy about raising this issue and have similarly chosen to leave it be.  One thing is, however, very clear and that is that we should be addressing this.

When we stop to consider the cost, that we are actually paying a lunch break at the current interpreter rate of between £30 and £40 per hour it seems strange.  In fact, it would be nice if I could have that luxury!  This has to change and we have to discuss it amongst the wider community.  At the moment we are either resistant to the conversation or simply have not thought about it as a concern.  My instinct tells me that there are those who have noticed this incongruity but have yet to raise it as a discussion point.  If we do as I believe we should do and begin to refuse payment for lunch breaks we may find that interpreters decline to work with us but this is a matter of principle, a matter of parity for all those in work.  Why should interpreters be treated differently to most other employees?  Why should interpreters be the only workers paid £30 to £40 per hour for doing nothing more than eating lunch?  It’s an expensive lunch and one I wish I could indulge in!

An additional issue is car parking charges added to invoices that were neither discussed nor negotiated before the assignment was accepted.  The response when challenged is based on the assumption that any money paid out by the interpreter is claimed back from the client but I would contest that assumption and argue that it is the individual’s choice to use whatever mode of transport they wish.  Costs associated with this choice should not be passed on to the client.  Those of us in work know that costs incurred in our working hours such as car parking are our own responsibility and not claimed back from our employer.  I believe it is time to have a discussion on all these points and we would be very interested to see your thoughts on this issue.

The Ethics of Not Competing

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Before I get into the subject of today’s post, I want to start on common ground. The language industries and especially the translation and interpreting professions are built on trust. There has to be a great deal of trust between clients and agencies, agencies and freelancers and even between competitors. In that atmosphere, some things are just not morally right.

One of these things is “client poaching”. It would be wrong for freelancers to use the information they receive as part of a job for their own benefit and this of course includes names and phone numbers of end clients. It would be a complete breach of trust and incredibly unprofessional for a freelancer to give the end client a sly phone call, rubbish the agency and steal the end client.

That said, in theory at least, that particular situation should not arise as such information should be routinely deleted by agencies and it should be the case that agencies and freelancers are not direct competitors. Agencies and freelancers should offer different services and the benefits of working through an agency should be clear to all involved. Sadly, theory and practice don’t always meet. If, for instance, the agency does little more than pass the text in one direction and the cash in the other, then there is an argument that the client and the freelancer are better off getting rid of the middle man (or woman). This would especially be the case where the agency has not done any marketing or due diligence on the client before the project begins. In short, the less value the agency add, the greater the possibility for competition between them and the freelancers they work with.

And so we come to the question I would like to pose in this article:

Is it ever acceptable for a translator or interpreter to work directly with a client with whom they have previously worked through an agency?

If the freelancer has signed a “non-compete agreement” where they state they will not work with agency clients directly then the question is moot. If you haven’t signed a non-compete agreement, the question becomes more complex. If the end client is not happy with the agency and decides of their own freewill to contact the freelancer directly then what should the freelancer do?

On the one hand, freelancers might well feel a sense of loyalty to the agency and may wish to try to rebuild any bridges. After all, it could still be in their interest to have the agency in the middle. On the other hand, direct clients do tend to pay more than agencies and it might just be simpler to work together directly.

There are many professionals who would feel that, no matter the agreement in place, it is wrong to work directly with clients if we have only learned about them through an agency. In this logic, the practices of the agency are of much less importance than our professional loyalty. The problem with this view is that it ties the commercial future of freelancers to those of the agencies they work with. If the client is going to cease working with the agency anyway, then it is hard to see why the freelancer should pay for whatever the client feels the agency did wrong. It is impossible to “steal” a client if they have already decided to walk away. Since they are going to find another provider anyway, surely the freelancer is within their rights to respond if the client contacts them and if they have not signed a non-compete agreement.

Of course, this assumes that the “blame” for the breakdown lies simply with the agency. Sometimes it is actually good to lose a client, especially if they cause more problems than they are worth. There are situations where a client choosing to change suppliers should raise warning flags in the mind of the freelancer.

So the whole situation is far more complex than any simple principle could possibly cover. Behind seemingly simple issues such as who contacts whom, why the relationship broke down and the relationship between the freelancer and the agency, there is a plethora of possibilities, each with its own set of ethical and commercial dilemmas. So instead of offering a blanket solution, let’s have a debate. Where do you stand on the issue? Is it ever acceptable for a translator or interpreter to work directly with a client with whom they have previously worked through an agency? Over to you.

Author: Jonathan Downie