This 300-level Communication course will complement your ITP, ASL, and/or Deaf Studies curriculum while qualifying as a General Education credit. This course will examine interpreting as a special practice of intercultural interaction.
Presented bilingually—in American Sign Language and spoken English (with captions)—students in this course will experience interpreted interaction while learning general theories about communication.
The particular theories have been carefully selected because of their specific relevance to communication involving interpreters. The curriculum will unfold in a steady progression from interpersonal to small group to cultural and then to intercultural communication. Simultaneously, each topic will include a section on paradigms so that students can learn to evaluate social theories according to foundational assumptions about social science and social order. This opens the door to critical thinking, especially from the perspective of cultural studies but also in terms of critical discourse analysis regarding the history of interpreting studies and models for interpreter training. Topics will include rituals and traditions that span sign language and spoken language interpreting as well as innovations in professional interpreting brought about by Deaf resistance to the dominant culture’s ‘Hearing Ways.’
Interpreting for Intercultural Communication and Other Purposes is an online course offered through Continuing Education by the Communication Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Anyone can enroll and transfer the academic credits to your institution. Continuing Education Units (CEUs) from RID are available in addition to or instead of university credit. More information about the course is available at the professor’s website, including information on how faculty can audit the course for free.
The course is taught by Stephanie Jo Kent, PhD, CI and interpreted into ASL by Certified Deaf Interpreters Carol-Lee Aquiline, Arkady Belozovsky and Eileen Forestal, PhD. It is a three-credit undergraduate course so students should anticipate spending 3-9 hours/week viewing videos and interacting in the online discussion forum. There will be optional, recommended reading for students who want to go deeper on any given topic, however no academic texts will be assigned in order to keep the workload manageable.
NOTE for Faculty and Program Directors: this course will bolster your CCIE status by addressing tenets 6.0, 6.3, 6.5 (Knowledge Competences); 7.2, 7.3, 7.4 (Skills); 9.1 (Outcomes); and 10.1, 10.2 (Improvement, Planning and Sustainability).
Still have questions? Email steph@comm.umass.edu or stephaniejo.kent@gmail.com to schedule a Skype or Facetime call.
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