CASLI Interpreting Skills & Techniques 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: During a medical appointment, the Deaf patient uses regional signs unfamiliar to the interpreter. What is the best immediate response?
- Invent a sign that seems logical
- Ask the patient to fingerspell or clarify the intended meaning (Correct answer)
- Skip the unfamiliar signs and continue interpreting
- Request the appointment be rescheduled
Correct answer: Ask the patient to fingerspell or clarify the intended meaning
Asking for clarification ensures message accuracy and respects the patient's right to be fully understood.
Question 2: Which ethical obligation is most relevant when an interpreter realizes mid-assignment that they lack sufficient expertise in the subject matter?
- Inform the hiring agency or client and request a more qualified interpreter if possible (Correct answer)
- Continue interpreting to avoid disrupting the event
- Begin offering simplified interpretations without disclosing the issue
- Ask audience members to help clarify terminology
Correct answer: Inform the hiring agency or client and request a more qualified interpreter if possible
NAD-RID Code of Professional Conduct requires interpreters to disclose limitations and advocate for a qualified replacement.
Question 3: In a team interpreting scenario, what is the primary role of the 'support' (non-active) interpreter?
- Rest completely until the next rotation
- Monitor the active interpreter for errors and provide unobtrusive cues (Correct answer)
- Interpret for audience members who approach them
- Take notes for a written summary
Correct answer: Monitor the active interpreter for errors and provide unobtrusive cues
The support interpreter monitors the work and feeds corrections or missed information unobtrusively to the active interpreter.
Question 4: When interpreting a spoken-English lecture into ASL, the interpreter uses ASL spatial grammar to show relationships between concepts. This practice is called:
- Literal transliteration
- Conceptually Accurate Signed English (CASE)
- Semantic restructuring using ASL linguistics (Correct answer)
- Pidgin Signed English (PSE)
Correct answer: Semantic restructuring using ASL linguistics
Restructuring source content using ASL's spatial grammar and visual syntax produces a semantically equivalent and linguistically appropriate interpretation.
Question 5: A CDI (Certified Deaf Interpreter) is most effectively utilized in which of the following situations?
- Any assignment where a hearing interpreter is unavailable
- Situations involving Deaf-Blind consumers, foreign sign language users, or consumers with minimal language competency (Correct answer)
- Assignments requiring simultaneous interpretation only
- Legal settings exclusively
Correct answer: Situations involving Deaf-Blind consumers, foreign sign language users, or consumers with minimal language competency
CDIs bring native language fluency and cultural knowledge critical when communication access is especially complex.
Question 6: Which processing strategy helps an interpreter avoid falling into the 'source language trap' of producing a word-for-word rendering?
- Increasing lag time to allow for full message comprehension before production (Correct answer)
- Reducing lag time to stay as close to the source as possible
- Fingerspelling all nouns to maintain accuracy
- Mouthing each English word while signing
Correct answer: Increasing lag time to allow for full message comprehension before production
Increasing lag time (processing time) allows the interpreter to comprehend meaning holistically before producing an equivalent target-language message.
Question 7: An interpreter is working in a K-12 educational setting. The teacher uses humor involving a cultural reference unfamiliar in Deaf culture. The best approach is to:
- Omit the joke entirely
- Interpret the humor and, if appropriate, briefly provide cultural context that preserves intent (Correct answer)
- Laugh along without interpreting the joke
- Stop the lesson to explain the reference at length
Correct answer: Interpret the humor and, if appropriate, briefly provide cultural context that preserves intent
Interpreters should convey all messages including humor, adapting cultural context minimally to preserve the speaker's intent without overstepping.
CASLI Interpreting Skills & Techniques 2
During a medical appointment, the Deaf patient uses regional signs unfamiliar to the interpreter.
What is the best immediate response?