The 7 stages of Cokely's Sociolinguistic Model
1) Message Reception
2) Preliminary Processing
3) Short-Term Message Retention
4) Semantic Intent Realized
5) Semantic Equivalent Determined
6) Syntactic Message Formulation
7) Message Production
A simplified schematic of Cokely's Model:
If you're overwhelmed by this version of the model -- ME TOO! I wanted you to see his original model, so you would better appreciate the "simplicity" of the first diagram. This is just for your information, you won't need to go into this level of detail in your Interpreting Processes essay.
Getting the Message
Understanding
Sending the Message
OPTIONAL VIDEO: A Deaf Interpreter gives his explantion of the model and how it works for Deaf interpreters. I thought it might be interesting to see it talked about in ASL (no audio).
ALL of this will be talked about again -- this is just introducing his research and words that you'll hear.
Omissions: Information did not make it into the interpretation
Morphological : tiny elements that change meaning. eg - left off PART of a meaning, signed "UNDERSTAND" when the meaning was "NOT-UNDERSTAND" (didn't shake your head no).
Lexical : word/phrase left completely out -- this is what we think of most often, missed words/signs.
Cohesive : not organizing message parts into contextual relationships -- what we're working with creating space "maps", keeping the discourse markers that help tie everything together.
Additions: Interpretation contains input of the interpreter
Non-manual: grammatically incorrect. -- Added facial expressions that distorted the meaning (those "OOPS" faces are a great example).
Lexical: word/phrase to contextualize or explain, but incorrect.
Cohesive: incorrectly organizing the message; making relationships where none exist.
Substitutions: Produced the wrong sign/word/concept, substituted something in place of another word or sign.
When we sign "FAMILY" but we meant to sign "IMPORTANT" - that's substitution.
Intrusions: Source language feature appeared in the interpretation - when we're too literal.
Lexical: Could be words/signs (GLOSSING) -- when our sign choices are too literal
Grammar: Syntax intrusion -- when our grammar is too close to the source language ("too English" when our goal is ASL)
Anomalies: Interpretation is inexplicably meaningless -- this is miscellaneous. All those other things that don't make sense.
Utterance: meaningless message
Interpretation: excessive or insufficient information
"During the third stage, Short Term Message Retention, information is stored until sufficient portions of the source message are received. Information is "chunked" for storing then organized along with other chunked information. The interpreter uses appropriate "lag-time", waiting for idea completion and understanding. At this stage the interpreter must remember the elements of the source message s/he has determined to be important. This occurs while interpreting the message from just seconds before. The average interpreter tends to be a sentence and a half behind the speaker. The length of the “lag time” will be determined, in part, by the complexity of the message and the mode of communication required by the Deaf consumer, interpreting or transliteration. During this stage, the interpreter might remember the meaningful parts of the message which might differ slightly from the actual source language."
+ You must wait, use your lag/processing time to listen for the main ideas (Gish)
+ When you understand and use the information you can more easily hold the information in your short-term memory. You could still tell me the Junk Drawer story or the Vermont story. How do you remember that? It's been WEEKS! And with the "fun activity" you can see that people who were asked to THINK about the word were more likely to remember the words on the list. Those that were asked to just have information in, information out, struggled to remember the words.
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CHUNKING aids short term memory. If we're asked to remember this number 345908745 we might struggle. But if we chunk that information into our Social Security number - 345-90-8745 - it's easier. Research in memory and chunking is the reason our phone numbers and Social Secuirty numbers are formatted like they are. Our zip codes are 7 digits long because research said that our brains could easily retain 7 pieces of information.
This research was made famous by cognitive psychologist George Miller. In 1956, Miller found that most people can remember about 7 chunks of information in their short-term memory. What Miller found interesting, however, was not the number 7 itself. Instead, he was fascinated by the fact that the size of the chunks did not seem to matter — people could remember 7 individual letters, or 28 letters if they were grouped into 7 four-letter words. The main takeaway from Miller’s research should be this: if you want to retain more, pack information into meaningful chunks.
Give yourself five seconds to look at the letters below, then look away and try and remember as many of the 18 letters as you can
Let’s try again: these are the same letters, but with the order reversed, and grouped to make meaningful 3-letter strings.
You could take it a step further if you want, and categorize into three groups, by theme.
So rather than 18 separate pieces of information – 18 letters – you’ve reduced it down to just 3 concepts:
That’s much easier to remember! Can you try to memorize the words using the 3 categories and look away and recall them?
This is why we talked about the MIND MAPPING with the Vermont Story. One chunk of information may be, "Reasons why" or "Extreme place", then from there we'll remember more details within that chunk.
And DISCOURSE MARKERS help us identify chunks! So we're listening for a chunk of information based on cues in the language, we're grouping that information together, visualizing it (using the information) and if you're doing that -- MEMORY will just HAPPEN. You can't TRY to remember something. It's counterintuitive, it won't work. You have to relax your brain, use the information, and memory will happen.
Artist: Aaron ^ And Carla >
Videos from class that you can practice with
# Constructed Action / Constructed Dialogue -- Describes the process of "creating" action or dialogueby assuming a character.
# Depiction -- This is the term most often used by linguists or researchers to talk about the process of creating a picture, or "depicting" a scene or object. Depiction includes role-shifting and the use of classifiers.
# Describe Then Do -- from our Expansion Techniques - acting something out by doing.
This is another narrative - it's a longer story. When we have done this in class I have you get in teams and switch half way through. You can try to do that with a classmate or your Big, or you can do the full story on your own.
The biggest thing is to focus on what we've talked about so far:
+ LISTEN - listen for main points, as if your brain was in the audience
+ VISUALIZE it - if you see the story, you won't forget it
+ WAIT - until you know what they're saying
+ Play with space and role-shifting - see the space in front of you, BE the people in the story and act it out
Try it again -- RECORD IT
OR paraphrase the story from memory into ASL!
Go back and listen, did you forget anything?
Notes from class -- what to watch for in this text
+ Pay attention to the size of your eggs, is one larger?
+ Can you become a shriveled up chicken?
+ What kind of CL are you using for the chicken falling out? Does it look like a chicken?
+ SPACE - Is your refrigerator in the same place each time? (you can move it, just be sure to label it) - see Marty Taylor p. 145
+ Role-shifting - at 45 degree angles at the most (need to see your faces); label the characters, and if they move, re-label them.
+ Role-shift anything that refers to speaking or even speaking to ourselves.
{ Constructed Action, Constructed Dialogue, p. 174-180 }