Tlumočení z českého znakového jazyka do mluvené angličtiny s češtinou jako pilotním jazykem

With growing emancipation of the Deaf, sign language has been making its way into conference rooms, entering in contact not only with foreign sign languages, but also with spoken ones. Logically, this entails the need for interpreting, and as the number of interpreters working directly between the national sign language and a foreign spoken language is – at least in the Czech Republic – very low, relay interpreting comes into play. Our research focuses on the quality of relay interpreting, the main criterion being content fidelity. Despite the fact that research on relay has not shown any significant deterioration in quality, we believe meaning shifts still occur, and that they will differ in languages with different modalities (visual/spatial vs. aural/oral); in the sign-to-speech combination, the primary factors are considered to be the simultaneity of expression and the necessity of processing visual input. An experiment will be conducted to test the hypothesis that if meaning shifts and information loss occur in relay interpreting, their nature will differ depending on the language combination (sign-to-speech X speech-to-speech), due in particular to the different modalities of the languages involved. The following research questions will be asked: Do meaning shifts and information loss occur during relay interpreting between languages of different modalities? If so, is relay interpreting itself a factor? If so, do meaning shifts and information loss occur in the first or second interpreting stage? Due to which factors? Is working into one’s B-language a factor? Is the interpreter’s experience level a factor? The experiment will be conducted in laboratory settings, with four pairs of interpreters with various levels of experience relaying between Czech sign language and spoken English via spoken Czech. As a control, the same pattern will be used in interpreting a speech from spoken French to spoken English via spoken Czech.