Customer Reviews

So You Want to Be an Interpreter: An Introduction to Sign Language Interpreting

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The first time I leafed through this book at a bookstore, I found an error, and it was downhill from there. The most frustrating part is that many of the references cited in the text don't appear in the bibliography. So there's no way to go to the source to learn more about the topic the authors are discussing. You'd think a problem like this would be fixed by the third edition! This book is required reading for becoming a certified interpreter in the USA, so it's really disappointing that it was not more rigorously reviewed and edited.

*So You Want to be an Interpreter?* is a recommended book for those wanting to be an interpreter or CDI (certified Deaf interpreter). (Although, 2nd edition is recommended for RID certification.)

The first half of the book can be boring or redundant for those who are already familiar with cultural and language differences among races, genders, generations and the like. If you know all about L1 and L2, then you'll be reading about them again here.

The other half deals with interpreting for the Deaf. Included are interpreting approaches, the history of RID and AVLIC, codes of ethics and situations.

It would have been a wonderful book except that there are a few problems. First of all, there are some editing problems. By 3rd edition, this should have already been resolved. If not, then obviously the editor isn't doing a good job. Secondly, some information, especially in the second half of the book, are redundant. So redundant that you cannot wait to finish the book. And by hurrying to finish the book, you end up skimming through the last chapters.

This is supposed to be the "bible" of ASL interpreting. Therefore, you shouldn't want to hurry through this book. I believe that the first half could have been condensed or merged with the interpreting issues.

However, this is a resourceful book offering thoughtful suggestions and professional advice for interpreters and students.

I have the fourth edition of this book, published in 2007.

This book was a required textbook for my Interpreter Training Program (ITP), and is likely required for yours too. Humphrey and Alcorn have amassed an enormous amount of material, and take great care in dividing the information up into readable chapters. This is a commendable effort and I congratulate them on it.

Unfortunately, there are a LARGE NUMBER of typographical errors throughout the text that detract from the text's overall effectiveness. I would estimate that there is an error every 3-5 pages. This is inexcusable given spell-checking and editing programs these days. The publisher, along with the authors, should be ashamed of this product. Okay - so you might think that typos are a minor problem. But think about this - if typos abound and are not fixed (and we all know they can be easily fixed by technology and human copy editors) what about the accuracy and trustworthiness of the actual information itself. Is it reliable, or were the authors equally careless with some of it as well?

Many of the cartoonish graphics add nothing to the text and simply waste valuable space. The font size and text formatting are poor, resulting in a textbook that is almost too large and unwieldy to use. It's almost as if the authors (or publishers - who knows who made the font and formatting decisions here) thought like some undergraduates with their term papers: that blowing up the font size and adjusting the margins ever so slightly results in a better product, because its longer. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

But your ITP will likely require this text for your program.

And you will probably have to buy it.

And I will likely keep my copy because it does have a great deal of useful information needed to understand the interpreting profession and to prepare for the National Interpreter Certification (NIC) exam.

Take a deep breath and buy it.

A regrettable but necessary purchase.

As I am just getting into the world of Interpreting it is a very interesting book. Can't really judge it against anything else as this is the first book I saw that came highly touted to read. Being a HoH adult this career seemed a great fit and this book really showed me alot of things I never would have thought about. Good to read

I bought this for my daughter, who is studying for her certification. I has all the information she needs and she requested this book. Thanks.