Interpreting Introductions

I really can’t wait until there is a forum set up for aspiring interpreters to talk to each other online – I’m working on it.

There are a few groups on LiveJournal that talk a little bit about these topics, but not in the frequency or detail that I would like. I really want to discuss this Joey Baer vlog with someone. (Via gnarleydorkette: EXPOSED.)

In this video Joey Baer discusses a linguistic convention of introductions in ASL whereby people sign: MY NAME, FIRST J-E-S-S-I-C-A LAST N-A-M-E. I understand that much, I’m just not sure if I got all of the points that he was making even after watching it a few times (I’m still learning). These are the things I think he’s saying:

1. It is an interesting cultural/linguistic pattern that has evolved among many signers.
2. He wonders how this evolved in the first place and welcome ideas and comments from viewers about that.
3. He wishes that interpreters would voice “My name is John Smith” rather than “My first name is John last name Smith.”
4. Some people have strong preferences about whether they like to see this used or not.

So I’d love to know how other wannabe interpreters translate his video. Am I right about the content? As for an answer to Joey’s musing about why it is done in the first place, I think many of the reasons put forth by people in the comments are plausible. Such as, that it appeared at a certain time period in Deaf Schools for various reasons. As a linguist, I tend to agree with the idea proposed in comment #31, that it might be related to the topic-comment pattern in ASL where the signer establishes the topic of the conversation then elaborates on it. It also goes along with rhetorical conventions of ASL. So, that would mean that the signs FIRST NAME, and LAST NAME merely set up the topic rhetorically (or you could even say grammatically) and that’s why they are not supposed to be voiced by the interpreter.

What do you think? I welcome the ideas of any other aspiring interpreters who are trying to perfect their ASL – as well as those of Deaf signers, of course!