The scant scholarship at the nexus of signed language interpreting and translation history in Anglophone countries tends toward memoir and folklore, and focuses on the perspective of the deaf party. My research pivots toward the interpreter’s perspective, investigating the linguistic and social foundations of how lay bilingual-bimodals began to function as intermediaries between hearing and deaf primary interlocutors. Also, I analyze surviving records to discover the salient features in the work of untrained interpreters, given the limitations of a visual modality which could not have been precisely transcribed.
I maintain a record of research dissemination at anneleahy.com/pubs.