Delivery in American Sign Language interpreting: A case study of The Circle USA

Abstract

Signed language interpreting can be carried out in a sign-to-sign, spoken-to-sign, or sign-to-spoken language direction. In the case of Season 5 of Netflix’s The Circle, the hearing interpreter Paris McTizic carries out a sign-to-spoken language interpretation. It is through Paris’ voice that Raven Sutton, a d/Deaf contestant communicates via the voice-activated “Circle Chat” screen and becomes accessible to non-signing hearing viewers. Paris interprets for the “Circle Chat” screen, non-signing hearing viewers and contestants, making this season of The Circle a unique example of different receivers of interpretation. The Paris-Raven interaction on The Circle is a unique example as the interpreter is primarily part of the programme next to the contestant and not behind the scenes. This paper analyses the interpreter’s output focusing on prosody. I explored Paris’ output as well as interviews held with Paris and Raven. The first episode was analysed using the Praat programme to visualise the interpreter’s output through pitch analysis and discuss the emotions, attitude, and prosody relation. The delivery of the interpreter was also scrutinised using Riccardi’s (2002) descriptive sheet of interpreted text. The findings revealed that, by reframing the emotion and attitude of Raven’s narrative, the interpreter becomes a “narrator” of Raven, a “self-narrator” of himself by reflecting his own emotions and opinions in some situations, and offers a “counter-narrative” to the general narrative of interpreting studies. The interpreter’s use of voice promotes “access intimacy” between Raven and himself, which plays a significant role in their communication on screen.