Profile: Published in "What's Happening" magazine, Fall 1998, Foxboro, ON, Canada Dale Abel: A Life of Interpretation by Barbara Muirhead As I watch the stage, my eyes keep shifting irresistibly to that far right corner where a separate piece of theatre unfolds in tandem with the presentations being made front and centre. A single figure gesticulates, a flow of energy emanating from the movement of fingers, hands, arms, head and body, the face an ever shifting canvas of expression. Unlike such great mime artists as Marcel Marceau and Charlie Chaplin, however, this silent performer wears no pancake makeup or whimsical costume, nor is her purpose to entertain us with her own stories, but rather to convey the message of the hearing community to the deaf. She is a "terp" and her name is Dale Abel. Terp, for those in the field, is short for sign language interpreter. Interpreting refers to the process of communicating in American Sign Language, and in spoken English. Interpreters work like many professional translators between politicians from different countries who speak different languages. To become a professional interpreter, registered with Ontario Interpreting Services(OIS), "Terp Dale" had to complete a two part screening in 1987: in the first part, she watched a videotape of someone signing and translated it into spoken English; in the second, she listened to someone speaking English and then signed it. The whole thing was videotaped and evaluated, and much to her delight, she passed. She retakes the test every three years to keep working for the OIS, which she continues to do on a freelance basis. In addition, she is now on staff full-time as one of three interpreters at Sir James Whitney School, where she has been since 1990. She is one of six interpreters in the Belleville area. Dale learned interpreting mainly through her involvement with the deaf community. Entering the profession today, however, usually means graduating from a recognized interpreter training program. Programs in Ontario are offered at George Brown College in Toronto, St. Clair College in Windsor, and Cambrian College in Sudbury and take three years to complete. How did Dale initially get interested in learning to sign? No members of her family or friends were deaf. She does remember that in high school she was very impressed when a girlfriend learned to fingerspell for her role as Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller's teacher in The Miracle Worker. It was really much later, through her daughter, that she began to learn to sign. In 1978, living in Florida with her first husband, one of her two young daughters spotted a book on display at the library on learning to sign. They took out a book for adults and a book for children, and learned one phrase - "peanut butter sandwich." Still, Pearl, one of the people they told at church about their efforts took them seriously, and offered to teach all three, free of charge. An interpreter, Pearl came over every Saturday morning for over a year to teach Dale and the children sign language. At this time, interpreters were more likely to be volunteers than paid. There was also a deaf girl in the neighbourhood with whom Dale and her daughters began to have contact. Because they couldn't communicate with her, people would talk about the girl as if she were a strange creature. She already knew some sign language, and Pearl started to take her to church, where others started to sign with her. Then she would come over to the house and visit with Dale's two girls. Dale began interpreting at Sunday school and once at church. It was also here that she saw her first interpretation, of the Easter Story by a team of three or four people, at a large church in nearby Sarasota and was struck by the element of visual theatre. When her marriage broke up, she withdrew from her involvement in the deaf community for several months, but unexpectedly, had an opportunity to renew contact when she moved to London, Ontario, where she enrolled her daughters in a Christian school. The first person to greet them at the school was a deaf person, Henry, who had gone to Sir James Whitney School, when it was known as the Ontario School for the Deaf (OSD). She discovered that the church had a deaf ministry, and as she became involved with the church in the new community, she started interpreting there. She also started teaching Bible class using sign language and this is how she met Harvey, who visited her from time to time. They became acquainted at various events and visits. Although Harvey had hearing when he was born, he lost his hearing at the age of seven or eight. Their Thanksgiving wedding in 1985 was a truly bilingual event, attended by both hearing and deaf guests, with a deaf groom and best man. The minister, Bob Rumball, from the Bob Rumball Centre for the Deaf in Toronto, performed the ceremony in both sign language and spoken English. Harvey also had a friend who interpreted the music that Dale had chosen, and a love poem which Harvey had written entitled "Thank You for the Music." At a hearing wedding reception, the sound of clinking glasses frequently rings through the air; at a deaf wedding, this cacophony is replaced by the visual spectacle of guests waving their napkins in the air to create a sea of undulating colour, known as the "Chautauqua salute." After obtaining professional status as an interpreter, Dale accumulated further experience as a teaching assistant at the Robarts School for the Deaf in London, and *contract interpreter and occasional supply residential counsellor for the deaf at Ernest C. Drury School in Milton*. With encouragement from Harvey, she applied for and obtained a position as one of three interpreters hired at Sir James Whitney School, starting in September 1990. Within 15 minutes of arriving she began interpreting. For Dale, the diversity of her job interpreting at Sir James Whitney School is "fantastic". In addition to interpreting between students and teachers, she is called on for such varied occasions as a meeting between a manager and a staff member, a staff meeting, or a student's medical appointment. She has developed a kind of niche as the math and science interpreter. Students will go to Centennial Secondary School to take a course not offered at Sir James Whitney School, or to have the experience of being in a larger class with an interpreter, perhaps in preparation for college or university. In such situations, Dale will usually stand at the front of the class, alongside the teacher, and interpret simultaneously. Although studies have shown that consecutive interpreting, in which signing is done in chunks, yields better results, students tend to prefer simultaneous signing. It may take some initial adjustment for hearing students to have her signing alongside the teacher, but they quickly get used to it and forget about her. It probably helps that she already knows some of the students since she works with her church's youth group. Being in the classroom as neither a teacher nor a student puts Dale in a somewhat peculiar position of being able to observe a teacher's performance and be privy to student conversations. The key, she says, is keeping her mouth shut! According to Dale, "A signer does not an interpreter make" . Describing interpreting as something akin to mental gymnastics, she identifies the ideal characteristics of an interpreter as having a solid language base in spoken English and American Sign Language, ability to work both ways, that is, signing and speaking, who can understand the main point, as well as the peripheral details, and anticipate what's next. While the terp is conveying what has just been communicated, the speaker is moving forward with new information. On top of this, the terp has to monitor that what he or she articulated was what was said. As an interpreter, you are conveying not only the content of the message but the feeling behind it. Speaking for a very angry person Dale will raise her voice to express the fury contained within the signing. Although Dale has no training as an actor, she realizes that acting is an important part of good signing and has begun a discussion on the internet with other "terps" to do with theatrical background and signing. Role-playing, she says, is part of communicating for deaf people. They use what is called "characterization" as a form of narration. A certain stance, for example, will express the character of one person and a slightly different shift will indicate another character in a dialogue. Because interpreting is so demanding, it is common for interpreters of meetings or guest speakers with a long or dense text to work in teams, spelling each other on and off in 15 to 20 minute intervals. Working with a team can also be valuable in giving feedback, making sure that teammates are being objective and accurate. When an interpreter is working in a stressful situation, for example, where angry words are exchanged, a "teamer" can serve as a check against sugar coating the message. Recalling a staff meeting she interpreted before a strike action last fall, she explained, "you have to watch out for your own personality, " and not put more into your message than was there originally. Interpreting carries with it tremendous responsibility. As part of their professional requirements, interpreters are expected to follow a code of ethics which commits them to objectivity, accuracy, and confidentiality. Dale acknowledges that in her capacity as interpreter, she is entrusted with a lot. She has seen babies born, shared in people's grief, signed for revelations of sexual abuse and rape. She admits that "sometimes, the work is simply heartbreaking." And there are times when very personal experiences make it difficult to remain detached and professional. On the other hand, interpreting has allowed Dale a wealth of experience and access to another language and culture. She feels that she now has a greater appreciation for the richness of both signing and spoken English. Because signing is in part iconic, some spoken English phrases can be expressed more succinctly by signing. However, she stresses that signing is not simply a reduction of spoken English, but an intricate and evolving language with lots of scope for playfulness, and one through which people sometimes create complex visual poems. Signing also has regional variations. Dale has met signers from Picton who were taught English as opposed to North American signing: they use two hands to finger spell instead of one. In fact, she has learned that there are as many sign languages as spoken languages and regional dialects. Certain words tell her when a person learned to sign. Before, index fingers hooked together meant "car" but today, this means "friend." An older person is likely to sign "telephone" as if holding an older "crank" phone, whereas a younger person will place a hand to the side of the face, thumb, and pinky extended. And for some expressions, such as driving a car, women use a different sign than men. At the same time, Dale's involvement with the deaf community has made her more sensitive to the nuances of the English language. One of the many demands on her as an interpreter is to convey meaning as precisely as possible. In the process, she is continually refining and expanding her own vocabulary. When not interpreting, you are likely to find Dale working in her garden at the home on Frankford Road she shares with Harvey and their three cats, at her Bible study, or on one of her many long distance bicycle trips. She has toured to Montreal, the Finger Lakes in New York, and Niagara Falls and plans to tackle the Elmira, St. Jacobs area near Kitchener-Waterloo. She may also be found roaming the internet, searching for new information pertaining to interpreting or conversing with fellow terps.