A fundamental principle held by professional American Sign Language-English interpreters
is the critical importance of preparing for assignments; however, neither preparation
strategies nor their efficacy have been studied in depth. For this study, six experienced
ASL-English conference interpreters were interviewed about the preparation process they
used to render President Barack Obama’s 2009 inaugural address into ASL. The participants
were given the full script of Obama’s speech and 20 minutes of preparation time.
After completing their interpretations, the participants engaged in a retrospective verbal
report regarding their preparation strategies. The descriptive findings suggest that even
ASL-English interpreters with experience in conference settings do not have standard
strategies for preparing with written material, especially when interpreting a dense text
under time constraints. A systematic approach to teaching preparation may improve the
quality of the interpretations of scripted speeches, and other discourse genres, by ASL-English
interpreters.
