Ep. 11 – TCI: Connected to Self :: Interview with Colleen Jones

Watch in ASL

Hi. Welcome to the connected interpreter podcast, where we will explore ways of staying connected to ourselves in our work, acknowledging the impact of our practices and continue to grow as practice professionals. I’m Amanda Smith, an interpreter, educator, coach and creative, and I’d love to discuss the puzzles of interpreting the complexities of human interaction and the power we have within ourselves to make a difference. So today’s episode is specifically about connecting with ourselves and both from a personal and a professional standpoint. And so as you go into listening to this, I want you to think about the following reflective prompts. So:

• what if anything is sparking your care for yourself, the work and others?
• Do you feel moved to take any action? And if so, what and when will you do it?
• What questions arise?
• What insights and connections do you see to yourself and your work? So those are the questions to keep in mind.
• I will answer a few of them at the end as well, and let’s go ahead and get started.

Interview with Colleen Jones

Amanda Smith
Welcome to the connected interpreter podcast, where we will explore ways of staying connected to ourselves in our work, acknowledging the impact of our practices and continuing to grow as practice professionals. I am Amanda Smith, an interpreter, educator, coach and creative. I love to discuss the puzzles of interpreting the complexities of human interaction and the power that we have within ourselves to make a difference in each of the episodes in this series. I am starting out with some reflective questions to kind of frame your listening to this podcast, so you can always find show notes, transcript and these questions again by visiting AR Smith studios.com and clicking the podcast button in the upper right navigation bar. So the questions that I want to pose to you to frame your listening today are, what if anything is sparking your care for yourself the work and for others, do you feel motivated to take any action? If so, what and when will you do it? What questions arise for you as you listen? What insights and connections do you see to yourself and the work and of course, I’m always happy to hear anything else that percolates while you are listening.
Hi, Colleen,

Colleen Jones
Hi,

Amanda Smith
I am really happy to have you here and really excited that you are my first guest on my podcast. So thanks for being willing to join me and chat a little bit. I always enjoy chatting with you, so I’m going to try to stay focused. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about who you are, and the topic that I actually invited you to come talk about is connecting with consumers. So maybe tell us what your connection is with that topic, sure.
Colleen Jones
So I’m Colleen Jones. I go by CJ in the interpreting community, and I’m a full time interpreter. I’m also a researcher, and I do a little bit of teaching, a little bit of presenting, and I also own a professional development company called the insightful interpreter. I think you invited me here because my research is on consumer orientation, which is how we share information with consumers to support their understanding of what’s happening when they work with an interpreter. Yeah,
Amanda Smith
we met through grad school, and your your original research on this topic, which was super exciting and groundbreaking in a lot of ways in our field. And then I know that you have just you are currently concluding a study and analysis and writing for a publication, so I’m excited to kind of get into the you know, comparisons of what you originally found, not necessarily how you designed the second one, but what you’re finding in the second one as well. Yeah,
Colleen Jones
yeah.
Amanda Smith
I think it’s going to be interesting. I’m excited. I know me too. So these two research studies that you’ve done, what do you now know about consumer orientation and how we do as interpreters, in terms of orienting consumers, yeah,
Colleen Jones
so I think what I have come to understand is that we hearing interpreters. I don’t speak for Deaf interpreters, obviously, in their experience, but us hearing interpreters, I think we’re taught to and are very comfortable connecting with deaf consumers and being part of the community, having deaf friends, having deaf family members, showing up to a job and introducing ourselves to the deaf person, getting to know them a little bit. And we are much less comfortable and skilled for many of us connecting with the hearing consumer, and we are not taught how to do that very well. And so that has been my finding, and it has a negative impact. Hearing consumers are coming into situations kind of naive. And you know, we as bilingual people and as interpreters, we are very used to the experience of an interpreted interaction and a interaction that’s happening in two languages. And so for us, it’s, you know, it’s our daily experience. It’s normal. All the things that happen are predictable to us and for hearing consumers, it is not predictable, and it’s can be really it can throw them for a loop. It can be very confusing, and it can be off putting, and it can leave them with a more negative perception of the conversation, the interaction, the deaf person, and so that’s important to think about.
Amanda Smith
I. Think one of the the there were so many interesting things about your first study, and of course, I haven’t read your second study yet, but just the idea of, like the hearing consumers being thrown for a loop that they didn’t even know who was talking. They didn’t even know who was the the person who they were supposed to be engaging with. And that it makes me think of some of the studying that I’ve been doing on somatics and neuroscience and the nervous system kinds of things, and that that confusion of like, I don’t even know what’s happening here. I don’t even know who’s talking to me right now is not good for our brains, right? Our brains want to know what’s going on. And so if we leave hearing consumers in a state of confusion. And I don’t mean leave them like we have the power to solve or not solve, but like, if we don’t take responsibility for part of our job being explaining to you what I do, right? It’s hard to get past the hurdle of confusion, right? Like confusion blocks us from learning, from connecting, from going any further, until we’ve got some semblance of like, okay, I kind of know what’s going on here, right? And so that does feel like part of our job. And I even this is a silly example, but the thing that came to my mind was like, even when you go to a restaurant, the waiter will come up and say, hi, I’ll be serving you today. They don’t just show up, right? And stand there awkwardly, right? They come up and they say, Hi, I’m Amanda. I’ll be your server tonight, right? And so that gives us a sense of like, oh, okay, that’s why you’re standing so close to my table, right? Um, yeah, I think,
Colleen Jones
I think one of the takeaways that I have, and that I’ve been thinking about a lot, is that we as interpreters, and I’m sure Deaf people, have this experience even more profoundly than we do, but we see cues that a person is confused, right? We see them looking over their shoulder at us, or looking back and forth trying to figure out who’s talking and why, or asking who said that like we see. And facial expressions, just facial expressions that show that they’re not fully figuring out who is doing what and why. And I think one of my big takeaways is that should elicit some sort of response from us, and we should take a little bit more responsibility in noticing that and in responding to it.
Amanda Smith
Yeah, and we’ve been conditioned to not take responsibility for that, right? We’ve been conditioned and even trained sometimes to not take responsibility, right? I mean, one of the common myths of our profession is the invisibility myth, and the idea that you should just act like I’m not there, right? And so then we do all these weird things that are not normal, right, these messages of like, you know, just pretend I’m not here, but you are. It’s very awkward, right? And off putting. So we, I would argue we do respond to those cues. I’m not sure they’re effective. I’m not sure that the way we’ve been responding has been effective.
Colleen Jones
Yeah, I have just a short story about that, yeah. So I presented at the CIT conference. I presented a poster on my research a few years ago, and I was setting up my poster next to another researcher who has a great reputation, a ton of experience, is a practitioner herself, and she was asking me what my topic was, and I was explaining it, and she said, Oh, sometime I have to show you my secret ninja moves when the hearing person keeps looking at me while I’m interpreting, and how I like, Get behind them and duck around and hide from them. And like, we all know what that looks like, right? Like, I’ve done it where I’m standing kind of behind a hearing person, and they keep looking at me, and I keep just getting more and more behind them, or gesturing towards the deaf person, or trying to use my eye gaze to show like, No, we’re all looking over here right now, because that’s the person who’s talking, but I never actually say that’s the person who’s talking, right? And, yeah, I think that’s interesting that we we do all of and the active interpreting is unusual as well, right? Like That’s right, just how we respond to people’s confusion, and don’t explain ourselves and don’t introduce ourselves and all of that, but just being in the room and interpreting is confusing because it’s not,
Amanda Smith
it’s not normal, regular, no, it’s
Colleen Jones
not normal. It’s not what a regular conversation looks like.
Amanda Smith
No,
we’re we’re being weird. Yeah,
yeah. And, and it strikes me, then that we need a really, really full tool bag of options. For those familiar with the demand control schema, they have a spectrum called the conservative to liberal spectrum, in terms of, you know, not taking action all the way to taking action and. And we need options along every single point of that line to respond to what’s happening in front of us, because everything we do is different, but all of it is not normal, right? Quote, unquote, not normal. And yet, the tools that we use are either these, like avoidance tools of trying to make it so awkward for them to find the interpreter visually that they are just stumped about where to even look right or tools of like, just pretend I’m not here, just talk like you normally would. No, it’s not normal. It is normal. It’s totally normal, and it’s totally a way to have a conversation, right? But it’s not the way you probably have a conversation most of the time. Yeah. And so I think our tools don’t work,
Colleen Jones
yeah? And some cues like that might be helpful for some people, but I think in a broader context, and in within a broader understanding of, here’s why I’m here, here’s what I’m doing. Here’s why I need you to ignore me for the next hour, right? Here’s why I need you to not ask me questions when you’re going around the room and asking everybody the icebreaker question. You should not ask me that, because instead of just ignore me, right, right? And I’m saying I and we like this is all interpreters responsibility, and that’s not necessarily the case. My most recent study actually found that it might be more effective for the deaf person to conduct the consumer orientation, but that’s that requires many more conversations, broader community conversations, where we talk about what that could look like, and what the pros and cons are. And, you know, negotiate that kind of on a community level, and then also, one on one conversations with the deaf person that I’m working with today, like, hey, if this happens, you want me to do it. You want to do it. Like, how, how are we going to how are we going to handle this? Right? And some of the best consumer orientations I’ve ever seen, because I’ve been looking for it for the last few years, are from Deaf people and from deaf, blind people who are very savvy and know how to explain. Like, isn’t it weird that my voice is coming from over there, right? Or the interpreters in this meeting are bound to buy confidentiality and NDAs, because they know that that’s important for that context. Yeah, right. So deaf, enough blind people and interpreters, in many cases, are doing this, but we need to have more conversations about best practices and how to negotiate and how to approach it. It’s also interesting that you mentioned the demand control schema and the range of options that we have as interpreters. One of my findings reminded me that we know we have a broad range of options, and that those are all valid depending on the context and normal quote, unquote, right? Like, yeah,
Amanda Smith
whatever we’re doing with that word, right, yeah.
Colleen Jones
But hearing people, many hearing people, think that interpreting looks like one very narrow, very specific thing, and behaviors outside of that are not interpreting to them, not valid, very confusing. And so I think telling people more about what they can expect, or noticing that something I have done has thrown them off. And like, taking a moment to give a little orientation or after the job, right, sharing a little bit of information to explain why you might have noticed that, I think is going to be really key.
Amanda Smith
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It makes me think, so I kind of have two directions. One is, why does it matter? So we talked about confusion, and we talked about how that can be a barrier. Why? Why have we not done consumer orientation, I would argue, to either party, what are some of your thoughts around what our motivations as interpreters are to really just kind of show up, align in a particular way, and then try to pretend like. Everything is fine, and we’ll just get through this. Yeah,
Colleen Jones
I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently, and I’m I don’t have fully formed thoughts, but I’m excited to talk about with you. So one of them, I think, is the vestiges of the machine model and interpreters coming into their work, thinking I’m just here to facilitate communication, right? And that trying to be invisible, which, again, is not realistic. So I think that’s one thing. I think wanting to avoid deaf disempowerment, because coming in and taking over and telling people what to do, and explaining what a deaf person is, and explaining what an interpreter is, and can be very paternalistic, and we don’t want to do that. And also, I am going to be very honest that I have been looking at myself and thinking about my own resistance to engaging with consumers, and I think sometimes it’s because it’s easier. I identify as an introvert, especially since covid, and I don’t want to make small talk, I don’t want to chat, I don’t want to do those things. I don’t want you to try to include me, because it’s just uncomfortable for me, and so if I just ignore you, then maybe I won’t have to do those things. So I think that’s part of it too.
Amanda Smith
Yeah, 100% and I think that we have come to this place in our profession. I think we’ve come by a lot of these tools really, honestly and really from a place of good intent, and based on what we understood about the practice of interpreting at the time, right? And then as we’ve continued to add more information, we’ve gotten more sophisticated as interpreters, and we kind of understand a little bit more of the dynamics then this has kind of come up as an area that we probably need to attend to, because currently we don’t have a real formal or structured way to learn how to do these things, this whole customer service kind of element of being an interpreter, when really we thought it was just flapping our hands around a little bit and that, how fun is that? Right? Like, no, it’s so much more than that, to be connected with consumers in all of the languages, both of the languages, all of the languages, and to do it intentionally, to be actually responsible for something that occurs. They’re being responsible for our part of what is occurring in that situation. I also, I think, I think we’ve mentioned a couple of times just the idea of like, how varied our work is as interpreters, that it might feel daunting to think about, like, I’m responsible to make sure that everyone knows what the expectations are like. I don’t have that kind of time, because it could be this, it could be this, it could be this, it could be this, it could be this. And so I wonder about, like, the goal of not of the orientation, because that makes it sound like it’s one thing. One of the things you just said was this idea of, do I say something ahead of time? Do I say something in the moment, or do I even kind of do some education after the fact? And I think that that’s a really helpful way to look at it, that it’s not a one and done thing. It’s actually relational. It’s actually like paying attention to the cues in the moment and being present with the people who are there, and do they have a need that I can actually and I’m responsible to respond to in some way. That
Colleen Jones
was something that came up in my most recent study, because I compared groups that received a consumer orientation at the beginning of watching a video and those who didn’t. And there were things that came up for folks that they were confused by that were not part of that one time orientation, and it made me think about the real world where, right? I can come into a job and say, you might notice this, you might notice this, you might notice this, here’s why. But then in the moment, if something else happens, and they go, Wait, what was that? That’s an opportunity for continued dialog, right? And I think it is more relational and dynamic than just a one time thing. I really wanted it to be just an email template that we just all the people, and then they would understand, and then we wouldn’t have to talk to them again. This is, yeah,
Amanda Smith
the introvert in you is really strong. Yeah, it is. The introvert in me is, would love a template. I would love the template. So when you get that worked out, be sure to share that, because you will. I think that’s brilliant.
Colleen Jones
Now I’m stuck with this research that tells me that that’s not going to be good enough. Colleen,
Amanda Smith
not so much. Gosh, that’s annoying. Um, it’s annoying when research doesn’t confirm what we wanted it to i. Like, when it gives us new information that we’re like, oh, okay, let me keep working at this. You know, kind of thing. I think the other part of the relational piece is the is the establishment of trust, because I’m never going to be able to give you predict all of the things that could happen, like you just said, right? I’m never going to be able to do that. But can I establish a rapport that establishes a place of trust, where we can, when, not if, when something happens, we actually are primed to look to each other as the people trying to communicate for resolution, as opposed to what is happening and what is going on, which then disrupts the entire communication. So I think trust building is an important piece, which I think is also related to the what we have come by honestly in terms of wanting to align with the deaf individuals is to establish that trust, right? We want to establish trust.
Colleen Jones
And the reason that I have feelings about and have a reaction to talking to the hearing person in front, especially in front of the deaf person, is because I don’t want to break that trust with a deaf person, right? And so yeah, we have some larger thinking and conversations to be doing and having about this topic. And I wish there was a more clear cut like answer that, but I wish there was an email template, but it’s a complex issue that’s going to look different in every situation.
Amanda Smith
It is, and we as interpreters need to what was, what I was about to say was, need to be okay with that. You don’t have to be okay with it, but you need to develop a series of tools that you can use in a given situation. Because, again, if we go back to this varied piece, I my primary workplace these days is court. That looks really different, because there’s actually, like other rules governing in that space than in a business meeting that I interpret every Wednesday, right? That it’s a whole different ball game in terms of how and what kind of orientation is needed in those places and allowed, and how it happens, and all of those kinds of things. And so we actually need a ton of options, but we also just need to just, I shouldn’t say just, we also need to be present with the people we’re with and paying attention to those cues that you mentioned a moment ago, right paying attention to what’s happening. And I also think part of the broader conversation is, at what point did we decide talking to another person was a betrayal as an interpreter, right? Have we? Have we be chosen deference in a way that actually was harmful. When we wanted it to be a good thing, we wanted it to mean like, yep, yep, you’re in safe hands. We’re good here. And then it actually has had an maybe not opposite impact, but more negative impact than we had imagined it might,
Colleen Jones
right? And something that I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet about the data that I’ve found is that when the hearing consumer is confused, distracted, you know, trying to figure out what’s going on, they have a more negative perception of the deaf person, and That has an impact that huge causes harm. So that ignoring those cues, ignoring opportunities for orientation, for sharing information, for connecting, or giving them a chance to connect, yeah, it causes harm.
Amanda Smith
Yeah, yeah, okay, there’s something you said, Hold on, connecting. Lost it. So, how has your How has your research and mulling over of these concepts and ideas impacted your everyday practice as an interpreter.
Colleen Jones
So right now, I feel like what it looks like in my everyday practice is a lot of self reflection and a lot of just noticing. I just finished writing the paper this week for this new study. Thank you. It’s not done, done, but it’s off of my plate for a little while, while I got some other eyes on it, and right now I’m still just kind of chewing on it, which I hope is what people do after listening to this or watching this, and, you know, with new information and. This new data, we need to spend some time just thinking about it. And that’s kind of the stage that I’m in, is noticing what’s happening around me when I’m interpreting and when I’m on the job, and then noticing my own reactions to it. So that’s kind of the stage I’m in right now. Yeah,
Amanda Smith
one of the things I really appreciate about you as a researcher, which I know you would not identify as previously, but I’m thrilled. It’s part of your introduction now, is that you are very practical. You wanted, you didn’t just want theoretical information out there in the universe. You wanted the chewing on that you’re doing now to lead to something practical. And so one of the powerful things I think, that came out of your original research is this model for orienting people to the work of interpreting and I’m curious if you would talk about that for a second. But then also, is there anything from your new study that is going to impact what that model becomes?
Colleen Jones
Yeah. So you’re right. I have strong opinions about how we learn things and how we apply them. That’s why I set up a professional development company. Is because when I go to a workshop and they give me information, but then nothing to do with it, I get very frustrated. So I love application and I love practical information, so I did come up with the model. I call it the FEI model, just because it’s easy to remember. And so the basic of it is that no matter how much time you have for consumer orientation, it might be five seconds, it might be half an hour, it might be a lifetime, you can include information about the function of the interpreter. So like, Who is this person in the room, and why are they here, and what are they doing? Plenty of consumers need the information of so when the deaf person signs, I’m going to interpret it into English. You’ll hear my voice, and then when you talk, I will sign it so that they can understand you. Right? Plenty of people don’t even understand that level of function for interpreters, the E is for expectations, so telling people what to expect, giving them a little bit of a warning or a heads up about what they’re going to notice, because, like we mentioned, this interaction is going to look different, and it’s going to feel different than your regular monolingual interactions. So what to expect and when this happens, don’t be surprised. And then, I is for inclusion. How can you be inclusive in this conversation? And I think most people want to be inclusive, right? They want to be respectful, but they don’t know exactly what that means. And so that’s where the don’t ask me the questions I’m here to. I’m here interpreting, and I can’t interpret and answer your questions at the same time. That’s where that comes in. Yep, and my most recent study really made me think about emphasizing the expectations. Part of it because of what I mentioned earlier, that things that I think are very normal, very typical for interpreting, like very reasonable choices that the interpreter made, really threw people off, and it’s just because it’s different, and people are trying to make sense of it and trying to understand it. And I think if we emphasize the expectations part, and then also stay open to the idea that we might need to keep talking about that piece of it, we might need to keep talking about all the pieces of it, but yeah, I think that’s, that’s where my focus is right now, and that’s kind of where the data is leading. Yeah, yeah.
Amanda Smith
I so appreciate you, and I appreciate your time. If people are interested in finding out more about you and what you do, your studies, any of that, your courses, anything like that. Where should I send them?
Colleen Jones
So if you are a big nerd and you love research papers, all of my research papers are linked on my personal website, okay, and then
Amanda Smith
which will be in the show
notes, yep, go ahead and if you more
Colleen Jones
want kind of bite sized pieces, and give me the kind of the key points and the application that part of it. I have a self paced course on insightful interpreter.com that is all about consumer orientation. It’s 90 minutes. It’s very digestible and hopefully very useful information. And kind of wherever you start between those two options, you can find the other option very easily. So if you start with papers and then want to see me sign it, you can find that easily. Or if you start with the course and you want to read more of the papers, you can go the other way too.
Amanda Smith
Awesome. Final question, yeah. What would you want the listener to leave with? What is like the takeaway from your perspective that you want them to leave with?
Colleen Jones
I think the thing that’s top of mind for me right now is that we we we see cues and we see opportunities for clarification, for explanation, for a little bit of education. And I’m not saying that we have to be responsible for that all the time, but doing nothing about it causes harm.
Amanda Smith
Yeah. Thank you so much. Colleen, I always enjoy chatting with you same.
Colleen Jones
Thank you for having me.

Conclusion

And again, I want to, I want you to think about anything that might have sparked your care if you feel moved to action questions that arise, what insights and connections you’re making. I’d love to hear from you about those insights ahas and questions. So feel free to reach out to me at arsmithstudios@gmail.com and you can also sign up for my very intermittent newsletter at arsmithstudios.com and click on the newsletter button in the upper right hand corner. So let me go back and answer some of these questions.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai