ABSTRACT
The American Deaf community is more communal than American mainstream culture, which stresses individualism. This chapter illustrates how the Integrated Model of Interpreting informed working with a deaf dysfluent signer in a legal setting. The major reason for dysfluent language in deaf people, however, is the social cause of language deprivation. The transparency required therein is essential in forensic situations involving clinicians. The risk for this process is that dysfluent language and/or one person's lack of understanding can be masked by the interpreting process. In both a mental health and legal context, this masking of dysfluency can have negative unintended consequences. When one person presents with language dysfluency, the demands on the interpreter/s increase multifold. Betty Colonomos shifted the emphasis in interpreting from finding word equivalencies to understanding the overall message and reconstructing it in the conceptual framework of the language. The chapter presents a theoretical framework for interpreting which provides effective guidance for all interpreting situations.
