Making vague language in English explicit in ASL

© 2022 Daniel Greene
Making vague language in English
explicit in ASL
Daniel Greene, MA, NIC Master

Workshop description
Presenter will describe types of vague language in English that are rarely
used in ASL and will discuss the communicative purposes of those types of
vague language. With guidance from the presenter, participants will analyze
contextualized vague utterances in English for implicit meaning and
communicative purpose, will determine if and how such meaning needs to
be made explicit in ASL, and will develop translations that convey the same
meaning and serve a similar purpose.

Educational objectives
Distinguish between unintentionally
ambiguous language and
purposefully vague language.
Recognize when an English
speaker is using vague language
purposefully.
Infer an English speaker’s
communicative purpose for using
vague language in certain
contexts.
Interpret the meaning of vague
utterances in context.
Convey the meaning of
contextualized vague utterances
into ASL.

Presentation agenda
Theoretical: Presentation on vague language
Q & A
Practical: Practice interpreting vague language
Discussion

My experience with vague language
Interpreting since 1990 in many
settings. Earned Master of Arts in
Interpreting Studies, with an
emphasis in Teaching Interpreting,
from Western Oregon University,
where I wrote my thesis “Keeping
it vague: A study of vague
language in an American Sign
Language corpus and implications
for interpreting between English
and American Sign language.”

Your experience with vague language
Ever interpreted vague language
you knew the meaning of but
the Deaf client didn’t seem to?
Ever interpreted vague language
you didn’t know the meaning of,
but the Deaf client seemed to?
Ever questioned whether you
should leave something vague
or make it explicit?

Essential Questions
When is it necessary to make vague language explicit?
How can I make vague language explicit without limiting meaning?

Questions during presentation?
Wait-n-see, or
Pass me a note, or
Ask during Q & A
?

What is Vagueness?

Vague Language (VL) is…
Intentional
Pragmatic
Accurate

Vague Language (VL) is not:
Unfocussed,
uninformative, sloppily
constructed, poorly
articulated, badly written,
or incomprehensible to
those who know the
speaker
Ambiguous language like
“porcelain egg container” or
“The chicken is ready to
eat” whose “vagueness”
usually serves no social
function
Specialized
terminology you
don’t know

My de
fi
nition of vague language (VL)
“VL is a set of linguistic forms people employ to moderate the accuracy,
certainty, clarity or speci
fi
city of a statement.” (Greene, 2013)

Where do you see VL?
Intimate or casual conversations (everyday chats, street talk, slang…)
Casual/consultative “talking shop” (professional jargon, case conferencing)
Illicit or secretive exchanges (mischief, scheming…)
Frozen texts such as literature,
fi
lm, music, theater…
Formal address, academia, courtroom, business meeting…
Basically — everywhere! — regardless of register, setting, topic, genre, etc.

Communicative Purposes of VL

Purposes of VL
reduce social distance, imply
group membership, develop
rapport
be concise, relevant, informative,
non-pedantic
be
fl
exible, allow for alternatives,
collaborate, co-create meaning
be polite, manage tension, save
face, avoid losing face
Promote group identity, protect
individual identity
Share blame/credit with others,
avoid taking responsibility alone

Paul Grice’s Conversational Maxims
Maxim of Quantity: Be succinct.
Say as much as necessary, but not
too much.
Maxim of Quality: Be honest. Only
say what you have evidence for
and believe to be true.
Maxim of Relation: Be relevant.
Make your contribution relevant to
the interaction.
Maxim of Manner: Don’t be
ambiguous (or vague)

Violating the Maxim of Manner
“Indirect Strategies” (Brown &
Levinson, 1987 in Hoza, 2007)
Be ambiguous, be vague
Overgeneralize
Displace hearer
Be incomplete, use ellipsis

Implicature
Coined by H. P. Grice (1975).
Termed “Humorous Conversational
Implicature” by Joan Cutting
(2007).
“Well you know what he’s like.”
“…and you know what that
means.”
“…and I don’t have to tell you
what that means.”
“…and we all know how that
went.”
How can we handle such
implications?

Ellipsis
Speakers sharing knowledge claim in-group membership by omitting it
when referring to it in casual conversation. In/exclusive.
Examples: “Did you get what I sent you?” “So, shall we do it?”
You, the interpreter, don’t usually claim in-group membership.

Metonymy
The substitution of the name for the thing meant, for example suit
for business executive, or the track for horse racing.

Metonyms
How’s your Chomsky coming?
She ran off and married that suit.
She’s no Mother Theresa.
He’s no Tom Cruise.
Dude’s going full-on Chris Pratt!
I just pulled a Carol!
She was a Karen.

How do you suppose people make
sense of vague language?

Confusion is part
of communication
“…if communication depends on the construction
of meaning from cues, and if communicators do
not have direct access to others’ meanings or
intentions, then what we should expect is partial
communication. Successful communication
requires our attention and explanation”
(Wilcox & Shaffer, 2005, p. 45).

“Our models do not do justice to the
act of communicating.”
“The problem is not interpreting. It is not that English is indirect and that ASL is direct
as Humphrey and Alcorn (2001) and others would have us view it. It is not that
translation equivalents are hard to
fi
nd (indeed, they are, but that pales in
comparison to the real problem). It is not that ASL is direct and elaborative and relies
on expansion techniques while English is indirect and non-elaborative (Lawrence
1995; Humphrey & Alcorn 2001). The problem is that our models of interpreting
simply do not do justice to the act of communicating. In trivializing the cognitive work
that is done whenever we communicate with another we fail to prepare interpreters
for the awesome and mysterious task that they perform: speaking for another.”
(Wilcox & Shaffer, 2005.Towards a cognitive model of interpreting. In Terry Janzen
(Ed.) Topics in signed language interpreting: Theory and practice, p. 44)

Consumer Collaboration Model:
(Greene, 2011)
Some consumers are each other’s family, friends, classmates,
coworkers, etc. They know each other better than the interpreter knows
them.
Some consumers communicate independently— they use facial
expressions, gesture, writing, home/name signs, speech & lipreading,
etc. (Some sign with each other when they’re not using VRS!)

Interpreter
Fluency in
Deaf/Hearing
Culture/Language
Group Membership
Shared Knowledge
Social Space
Relationship
COLLABORATION
Communication Tools
Hearing
Consumer
Deaf
Consumer

National Center for Sign Language
and Gesture Resources (NCSLGR)
In 2013, there was only one published ASL Corpus and only one
published study of vagueness in that ASL corpus (Greene, 2013).

ASLLRP DAI
American Sign Language
Linguistics Research Project
Database Access Interface to
search NCSLGR Corpus

© Daniel Greene, July 2016
From NCSLGR Corpus
Utterance & sign videos with glosses

Sample from NCSLGR Corpus
Full gloss of ASL utterance

Vague signs by
category found
in NCSLGR
Corpus

Interpreting vague language

Translated texts tend
to be less vague
than source texts
(Quantitative corpus studies
by Olohan & Baker, 2000;
Razuaité, 2010)

Options for interpreting VL
Vague to explicit
Explicit to vague
Vague to vague

NAD-RID CPC illustrative behaviors
applicable to interpreting VL
“render the message faithfully by conveying the content and spirit of what is
being communicated, using language most readily understood by
consumers” (2.3).
“conduct and present themselves in an unobtrusive manner” (3.5).
“demonstrate respect for consumers” (4.0).
“facilitate consumer access and equality, and support the full interaction and
independence of consumers” (4.4).

Interpreting
without
Interrupting
Strategies for interpreting
vague language without
asking for clari
fi
cation

Drawbacks to Interrupting
Breaks
fl
ow of conversation, throws off speaker’s train of thought
Shifts focus from consumers to interpreter
Assumes interpreter is responsible for communication
Deprives consumers of natural consequences, self-correction, and rapport
Defeats the purpose of VL

Bene
fi
ts to Interrupting
Prioritizes clarity over the pragmatic purposes of vague language
Clari
fi
es information that might otherwise be lost
Reminds clients that this is an interpreted encounter and requires some
modi
fi
cation compared to unmediated conversation

Should the interpreter interrupt?
Are the consumers using VL? How can the interpreter tell?
How might the interpreter defeat the purpose of VL by clarifying?
What harm or good might the interpreter do by interrupting?

Interpreting VL ENG-ASL
Vague body language, facial expression, and mouth morphemes (adverbial
and adjectival modi
fi
ers)
Vague signs such as ETC., WELL, LIKE, VARIOUS-THINGS, TIME-
PASSING
Creative expressions that convey a message that is equivalently vague in
ASL as the English message.
Passive voice or non-agent construction (e.g., “I was called” or TAP(me)–
ON–SHOULDER)

Interpreting VL ENG-ASL (continued)
Transliteration
Fingerspelling— (if you can’t make sense of what you’re hearing but you got
the sounds of it).
Approximation— “Sounds like…” (good with f/s) “Something to the effect
of…” “Something about…”
Check w/consumer: Hearing: “…and you know what that means…” You:
“YOU KNOW MEANS, YOU?”
Make the implicit explicit if you know what it means and consumer doesn’t.

Game: Interpret VL w/o interrupting
Pair up and choose who interprets
fi
rst.
Attend to the source text and interpret VL in four different ways:
1. Ignore/omit vague language.
2. Make vague language less vague.
3. Make non-vague language vague.
4. Make vague language equivalently vague.

VL examples to interpret
1. Open the container 2. Remove the seal 3. Procure the substance
“All this Mexican food is going make for an interesting afternoon.”
“I’m not here to discuss your case.”
“And you know what that means!”
She pulled a Carol.
He’s the Simon Cowell of bosses.

Making vague language in English explicit in ASL

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