He made waves with his arms, touched his forehead and reached out with an embracing motion. And as the official interpreter for the deaf watching the Nelson Mandela memorial event Tuesday, he stood right behind the world’s most powerful leaders, including President Obama. And he was a fake, advocates for the deaf say. Web sites and radio shows here were flooded with condemnations of the African National Congress-led government and the organizers of the memorial at FNB Stadium in Soweto for failing to figure out whether the man was simply waving his arms around. “Please get RID of this CLOWN interpreter, please!” Bruno Peter Druchen, head of the Deaf Federation of South Africa, tweeted during the memorial. “ANC linked interpreter on stage is causing embarrassment amongst deaf ANC supporters. Please get him off,” added Wilma Newhoudt, a deaf member of the South African Parliament and vice president of the World Federation of the Deaf. But the man remained on stage, and on Wednesday, his performance became the focus of a new storm of criticism. People who phoned an afternoon radio call-in show said the situation showed inept hiring, insensitivity to the deaf and a serious security lapse on the part of event organizers. And, they said, it marred the solemn event by distracting attention from Mandela and the world leaders who came to pay tribute to him. On Thursday, the Johannesburg Star reported that the man, Thamsanqa Jantjie, said in an interview that he was suffering from schizophrenia and that he had lost concentration and started hearing voices during the event. He said that made it hard to hear the speeches and interpret but that he couldn’t just leave so he stayed on. “There was nothing I could do. I was alone in a very dangerous situation. I tried to control myself and not show the world what was going on. I am very sorry, it’s the situation I found myself in,” Jantjie, 34, told the Star. He said he works for a company called SA Interpreters and that they told him on Monday that he would interpret at the memorial service. “Life is unfair. This illness is unfair. Anyone who doesn’t understand this illness will think that I’m just making this up,” Jantjie told the Star. In other interviews, however, Jantjie defended his performance at the Mandela memorial. Asked if he was happy with it, he told Johannesburg’s Talk Radio 702: “Absolutely, absolutely. I think that I’ve been a champion of sign language.” Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, deputy minister of women, children and people with disabilities, told a news conference that Jantjie, 34, “was not a professional.” She said he was paid far less than a professional sign language interpreter would have earned and that the company that allegedly employed him “vanished into thin air.” Bogopane-Zulu added: “It’s a clear indication that over the years they have managed to get away with this. They have been providing substandard sign language interpreting services to many of their clients.” She apologized to deaf people who were offended and were denied translations of the memorial speakers’ remarks. According to the Associated Press, Collins Chabane, one of South Africa’s two presidency ministers, said the government was investigating and “will report publicly on any information it may establish.” The agency also reported that an address and phone number that Jantjie provided for his company in an interview turned out to be false. White House officials directed questions about the interpreter to the South African government but gave no indication that there were concerns about Obama’s security arising from the discovery. “I think the point is that he apparently was not translating him into anything but was enjoying the opportunity to be on the stage,” Josh Earnest, the principal deputy White House press secretary, said Wednesday at the daily briefing. “It would be a shame if a distraction about an individual who’s on stage in any way detracted from the importance of that event and the importance of President Mandela’s legacy.” It was the latest controversy in a week devoted to remembering Mandela. President Jacob Zuma was booed by the crowd at the stadium, rain kept “overflow” stadiums largely empty, and lines of people waiting to see Mandela’s body in state Wednesday snaked their way through a hot, jam-packed parking lot while a single security checkpoint slowed progress. Many viewers of Tuesday’s event noticed that the man was using the same gestures over and over again. Druchen tweeted that the man “is not using sign language at all.” Sign language interpreter Francois Deysel tweeted, “please can someone ask the interpreter to step down from stage, it is embarrassing and making a mockery of our profession.” Video clips show that this wasn’t the man’s first performance. He was the interpreter at the ANC’s Mangaung policy conference in the Free State last year. He interpreted the controversial song “Shoot the Boer” led by Zuma during his election campaign. When Zuma said people would run, the man pumped his arms up and down. Often, the man’s gestures were the same as Zuma’s. (Boer is a term for white Afrikaners.) Druchen observed that the phony interpreter “knows that the deaf cannot vocally boo him off. Shame on him!” Interpreters are not unusual in multilingual South Africa, where large groups of people speak English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa or other African languages. Druchen recommended that signing be made the country’s 12th official language. Sign language interpreters and others in the United States and around the world also expressed outrage at the incident. “We, along with many other organizations, are disappointed with the process that selected the interpreter that was shown on camera for the Mandela service, and feel that a great disservice was done to both the South African signing community, and the international signing community,” the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, based in Alexandria, Va., said in a statement. The World Association of Sign Language Interpreters, based in Australia, said: “This situation stresses the need for continued public education about the formal training required to be a qualified sign language interpreter and the need for interpreter and deaf associations to collaborate on pressing governments for standards.” The National Association of the Deaf, based in Silver Spring, Md., said interpreters must be vetted. “Each country has its own national sign language and sometimes even regional sign languages,” the association said. “In the United States, we use American Sign Language (ASL) while in South Africa, most people use South African Sign Language (SASL), which is distinct and uses different signs than ASL. We, at the NAD, cannot assess the qualifications or fluency or lack thereof of the interpreter in this video, but are informed by the South African deaf and hard of hearing community that this interpreter is not legitimately interpreting in SASL.” One expert in the United States who reviewed a video of the event said problems with the purported interpretation were easy to see. “When I watch him, he appears to be doing a lot of repetitive hand motion. It doesn’t look like any natural sign language to me,” said Melanie Metzger, head of the department of interpretation at Gallaudet University, a prominent school for the deaf and hard of hearing in Washington, D.C. “What he’s doing is not matching the speaker. He’s not interpreting the speaker.” Metzger said another tipoff was that the man onstage used minimal facial expressions. Authentic interpreters around the world, she said, make extensive use of their eyebrows, cheeks and other parts of the face to communicate in sign language.
|
在南非前總統(tǒng)曼德拉的追悼大會(huì)上,一名男子引起各方注意。作為官方手語翻譯,他站在上臺(tái)致辭的各國(guó)元首和領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人身后,將其對(duì)曼德拉的悼念和追思“傳遞”給全球聾啞人士。 據(jù)美國(guó)《華盛頓郵報(bào)》12月12日?qǐng)?bào)道,這名手語翻譯被聾啞人權(quán)益保護(hù)組織指認(rèn)為“徹頭徹尾的騙子”,成為眾矢之的。12日,該男子接受采訪辯稱自己在臺(tái)上失態(tài)是因?yàn)橥话l(fā)“精神分裂”。 ***假翻譯當(dāng)場(chǎng)露餡 在10日舉行的曼德拉追悼大會(huì)上,許多觀眾注意到臺(tái)上的手語翻譯雖然手臂翻飛、煞有其事,但細(xì)看之下就會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)他只是在一遍又一遍重復(fù)相同的動(dòng)作,根本沒有使用手語。 “請(qǐng)讓這個(gè)小丑翻譯下臺(tái)吧,求求你們了!”追悼大會(huì)舉行時(shí),南非聾人聯(lián)合會(huì)主席布魯諾?彼得?德魯琛發(fā)布微博,要求組織方把這個(gè)裝模作樣的假翻譯撤下。 德魯琛的呼吁得到了其他專業(yè)人士的聲援。南非議會(huì)聾人議員、世界聾人聯(lián)合會(huì)副主席威爾瑪?紐豪特說稱:“臺(tái)上的手語翻譯,只會(huì)給‘南非非洲人國(guó)民大會(huì)’(ANC,南非執(zhí)政黨)的聾人支持者帶來尷尬,請(qǐng)讓他下臺(tái)!”資深手語翻譯弗朗索瓦?德賽爾在微博上說,這個(gè)假翻譯讓手語“淪為笑柄”。 然而,組織方并未作出調(diào)整,這名男子一直留在臺(tái)上直至追悼大會(huì)結(jié)束。 ***南非政府被狠批 “曼德拉追悼大會(huì)的口語翻譯是個(gè)冒牌貨”的消息傳出后,南非各大網(wǎng)站和電臺(tái)節(jié)目瞬間就被譴責(zé)聲淹沒,人們指責(zé)南非政府和追悼大會(huì)組織方嚴(yán)重失職。 11日下午,當(dāng)?shù)匾粰n電臺(tái)熱線節(jié)目接到聽眾投訴,稱假翻譯事件暴露出組織方存在招聘不力、不關(guān)心聾人群體、安全意識(shí)嚴(yán)重匱乏等問題,更為嚴(yán)重的是,它分散了公眾對(duì)曼德拉逝世和各國(guó)首腦向其致敬這一莊嚴(yán)事件的注意力。 目前,南非政府宣稱正在調(diào)查此事,并承諾“及時(shí)向民眾通報(bào)調(diào)查進(jìn)展”。但還無法知曉這名男子的身份,以及他是如何應(yīng)聘成功的。 ***白宮斥其為“恥辱” 11日,美國(guó)白宮公開回應(yīng)曼德拉追悼大會(huì)上發(fā)生的假翻譯事件,但拒絕說明美方是否因由此事?lián)目偨y(tǒng)奧巴馬的人身安全。 “我想重點(diǎn)是他顯然沒有翻譯什么東西,而是他在享受登臺(tái)的機(jī)會(huì)?!卑讓m副新聞秘書喬什?歐內(nèi)斯特說,追悼大會(huì)意在緬懷曼德拉的傳奇一生,此時(shí)出現(xiàn)這類無關(guān)緊要的插曲是一種“恥辱”。 《華盛頓郵報(bào)》指出,視頻顯示曼德拉追悼大會(huì)并不是這名冒牌手語翻譯首次登臺(tái)。去年,南非政黨“南非非洲人國(guó)民大會(huì)”在該國(guó)中部自由邦省舉行政策宣講會(huì)時(shí),他為南非總統(tǒng)祖馬充當(dāng)手語翻譯。宣講會(huì)全程,他的手勢(shì)與祖馬大同小異。 “他知道聾啞人不能發(fā)聲把他噓下臺(tái)來,簡(jiǎn)直是太可恥了!”德魯琛還補(bǔ)充道,在南非這個(gè)多語種并存的國(guó)家,手語翻譯并不少見,“手語應(yīng)成為南非的第十二官方語言”。 ***惹怒外國(guó)“同行” 除了聾啞人權(quán)益保護(hù)組織和出席追悼大會(huì)的貴賓外,南非“冒牌”手語翻譯的蹩腳表現(xiàn)還惹怒了他的外國(guó)“同行”。 “據(jù)我觀察,他只是在做大量的重復(fù)手部動(dòng)作,根本不是手語。他的手勢(shì)不符合講話內(nèi)容。”華盛頓高立德大學(xué)手語翻譯系主任梅勒妮?梅茨格說,除在臺(tái)上“胡言亂語”外,這名假翻譯還面無表情,“真正的手語翻譯,會(huì)充分利用眉毛、臉頰等面部部位,從而進(jìn)行更好的手語交流”。 美國(guó)非盈利組織“手語翻譯注冊(cè)協(xié)會(huì)”發(fā)表聲明稱:“我們對(duì)南非曼德拉追悼大會(huì)的手語翻譯以及組織方挑選翻譯的過程深感失望,這嚴(yán)重?fù)p害了南非手語翻譯群體和國(guó)際手語翻譯群體的形象和利益。” 總部設(shè)在澳大利亞的世界手語翻譯協(xié)會(huì)認(rèn)為,曼德拉追悼大會(huì)假翻譯事件凸顯出,“開展公共教育、告訴民眾成為合格的手語翻譯需要接受正規(guī)培訓(xùn),以及有關(guān)各方敦促政府出臺(tái)行業(yè)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的必要性和迫切性”。 ***辯稱失態(tài)因“精神分裂” 當(dāng)?shù)貢r(shí)間12日,這位名為薩瑪???姜杰(Thamasanqa Jantjie)的“冒牌”手語翻譯自動(dòng)現(xiàn)身,接受南非約翰內(nèi)斯堡《星報(bào)》的采訪。他解釋稱自己在臺(tái)上失態(tài)是因?yàn)橥话l(fā)“精神分裂”,導(dǎo)致無法自控。 “我試著想要控制自己,不讓觀眾發(fā)現(xiàn)異常。但是很抱歉,我什么都做不了,我當(dāng)時(shí)的情況十分危險(xiǎn)。”姜杰聲稱,他在臺(tái)上進(jìn)行手語翻譯時(shí),突然無法集中注意力、腦中出現(xiàn)幻聽和幻覺,這才導(dǎo)致他失態(tài),比劃出毫無意義的“手語”。他還說自己現(xiàn)在正在服用治療“精神分裂”的藥物。 當(dāng)被問及“既然病發(fā)為何不離場(chǎng)休息”時(shí),姜杰回答道:“考慮到(曼德拉追悼大會(huì))的歷史重要性,他認(rèn)為即使自己狀態(tài)很差也不能離場(chǎng)。“生活是不公平的,這種疾病同樣不公平”,他還補(bǔ)充道,“不了解這種病癥的人肯定認(rèn)為我在撒謊?!?/p> 另據(jù)法新社報(bào)道,早在曼德拉追悼大會(huì)之前,姜杰的手語翻譯能力就遭到南非業(yè)內(nèi)人士的質(zhì)疑。南非手語翻譯協(xié)會(huì)主席喬翰?布洛烏稱,此前協(xié)會(huì)收到過幾起投訴稱姜杰的工作表現(xiàn)不佳,協(xié)會(huì)對(duì)姜杰“持保留意見”。 相關(guān)閱讀 【我的中國(guó)夢(mèng)】夢(mèng)想翅膀沐浴陽光—記日喀則邊雄盲校教師 NSA監(jiān)控魔獸世界反恐 情報(bào)特工被指上班打游戲 英國(guó)5歲女童體重近130斤 兒童肥胖引擔(dān)憂 (歐葉 編輯:信蓮)
|
|