Participation Framework and Footing Shifts in an Interpreted Academic Meeting

Students training to become sign language interpreters are often faced with the challenge of negotiating boundaries with the deaf and hearing consumers with whom they interact. Many interpreter-training programs have traditionally taught students that it is most appropriate to maintain “neutrality” in our interactions and in our interpretations. (Metzger, 1999). The objective of this study is to add to limited amount of research that examines footings in interpreted interaction. Metzger (1999) performed one of the only studies of participation framework and footings in American Sign Language-English interpreted encounters. This study is a replication of her initial work and aims to apply her research framework to a different set of data and examine how her findings about footings apply to a different setting and different participants. Replication of a study is significant because it adds to a general body of literature in the field and provides a basis of comparison and contrast with previous related studies. The findings of this case study support findings of previous case studies (Metzger, 1999; Roy, 2000) and lend support to the notion that sign language interpreters are active participants in interpreted interactive discourse and play a significant role in coordinating and managing the interaction. The similarity of the findings of this replication study and the original study means that the implications for sign language interpreters are possibly generalizable and that they may apply to other interpreters and participants in different types of interactions and settings