The Subjective Assessment of Sign Language Interpreters

A group of hearing raters were asked to make a subjective evaluation of the signed and spoken output of 25 sign language interpreters, using taped samples recorded under test conditions. Three hypotheses were examined: (1) that raters would agree with one another, (2) that subjective evaluations would correlate positively with interpreter accuracy ratings, and (3) that subjective raters would be able to determine whether the interpreters had deaf or hearing parents. Results showed that rater agreement was high (0.52 – 0.86) but much lower than would be required between raters on an objective measure. Correlation between subjective and objective assessment was also high (0.59 – 0.79). Subjects were not successful at identifying which interpreters had deaf parents. Implications are drawn for interpreter assessment in general, particularly that employed by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf.