Back to the fake interpreter. While he was obviously not the only fake person on the stage, here is what the Deaf Community in SA has to say about him according to a statement by Bruno Druchen, the national director:
“This man is not in fact a recognised, professional South Sign Language Interpreter. He is not known by the Deaf Community in South Africa nor by the South African Sign Language interpreters working in the field. To the best of our knowledge he has not undergone any formal training in South African Sign Language or Interpreting offered by any recognised institution which
offers these training courses.
“The interpreter was not able to use South African Sign Language from English into , meaningful semantic units. Handshapes used were meaningless and basic distinctions between signs are made in terms of Handshape (or Handform), Orientation, Location (or Place of Articulation), Movement, and Non-manual expression.
“No classifiers were used and classifiers are common linguistic features of many sign languages are the occurrence of classifiers, a high degree of inflection and a topic comment syntax More than oral languages, sign languages can convey meaning by simultaneous means, e.g. by the use of space, two manual articulators, and the signer’s face and body.
“This ‘fake interpreter’ has made a mockery of South African Sign Language and has disgraced the South African Sign Language interpreting profession. The organisers of the memorial service, and indeed any event, should have contacted organisations who coordinate South African Sign Language interpreting services to secure a professional, trained experienced interpreter.”
Oh Schucks, maybe it was Schuster… if it was, he would be signing the booing of the Zumster too!
