For English to ASL I: What is Visualization and Visualization Picture Activity:

What is Visualization?

Visualization is creating a mental picture or map in your head of something you see or imagine. It can be one image or a sequence of images like a cartoon strip. It is also seeing in your mind what is not there in reality, or revisiting in your mind what was there in reality, imagining.

• It can be created from one’s memory and can be triggered by other sensations such as touch, smell, hearing, seeing and intuition.
• It can be created on demand, “out of the blue”, by sheer will.
• It can be manipulated, changed, diminished, enhanced, interfered with, joined to other visualizations, etc.
• It is helpful if you can create an image in your head of what you hear and likewise when you see a picture or sign utterances, to be able to capture the essential elements of the picture or signs. Naturally it is easier to visualize something that is familiar to you such as “Seattle’s Space Needle” than it is to visualize an unfamiliar place or concept.

However, visualization can help you to create a visual image of what you hear based around what you already know and then you can “fill in the blanks” i.e., “a palaver hut in Africa.” You do know Africa is a hot/equatorial continent, you may know what a hut usually looks like then you can create a mental image of a roof made of large leaves supported by wooden poles with perhaps wooden benches or tree stumps for seats. The original picture may be closer to what you have visualized. Visualization makes it easier for you to figure out how to interpret that sentence.

The skill to visualize becomes important for interpreters because interpreters work between two distinct and separate languages. Interpreters must listen and transfer information from one language to another without holding onto the original language rules because no two languages has exactly the same set of word meaning or grammatical/syntactical rules. Visualization provides a place for the interpreter to elicit essential information from what she hears/sees then render the interpretation in a different language.

Therefore visualization is:

• Essential to our work
• Is the bridge between decoding and encoding
• Helps us to understand the meaning that is being conveyed, sometimes it is the means by which we discover the meaning of the message.
• Helps us to process the meaning of the message without the encumbrance of the language form
• Allows us to SEE the world as Deaf people SEE it

Some identified functions of visualization are:

1. To aid processing and memory
2. To apply correct usage of ASL features such as chronological sequencing, temporal features, spatial and directional characteristics i.e., locatives and classifiers etc.
3. To provide a tool for interpreting concepts with or without standardized signs
4. To provide choices for describing shapes
5. To assist interpreters in:

      a. interpreting for persons with minimal language competency

      b. interpreting in legal situations (traffic scenes, assault, or murder scenes,

      etc.) and

      c. interpreting artistic passages (poetry, music).

Below are some visualization exercises we will all do.

Visualization Exercises:

A. Write down the words below and imagine the following:

            1. a rosebud

            2. a body of water at sunset

            3. a newspaper headline

B. Then rate each image:

• C if the image is clear

• V if the image was vague but recognizable
• N if no image was created.

            4. a rosebud slowly blooming

            5. a stone dropped into a quiet pond forming concentric ripples

            6. a chair coming alive and carrying someone into the next room

C. Then rate each image:

• “C” if the image was well controlled
• “U” if you are unsure
• “N” if the image was not able to be controlled

D. Visualize each scenario below and give your answer.

1.      My house faces the street. A boy walks by my house in the morning, walking toward the rising sun, with my house at his right. Which direction does my house face?

2.      A rooster was sitting right on the top of the barn roof, which side of the roof slope will the egg roll down?

E. Visualize the following and try to interpret the two following paragraphs into ASL.

1. “When I was seven years old, I decided I wanted to go out on Halloween dressed as a horse. I wanted to be the front end of the horse, and I talked a friend of mine into being the back end of the horse. But, at the last moment, he backed out and I was faced with the prospect of not being able to go out on Halloween. At this point I decided to figure out some way of getting dressed up as the whole horse myself. I took a fruit basket and tied some string to both sides of the basket’s rim, so that I could tie the basket around my rear end. This filled me out enough so that the costume fit me by myself. I then fixed some strong thread to the tail so that I could make it wag by moving my hands. When Halloween came, I not only went out and had a ball, but I won a prize as well!”   (Boles, 1980)

2. “It’s a hot day, the sun is shining brightly in a very blue sky, reflecting the turquoise blue shimmer of the water. You can hear the waves gently lapping at the shore. Palm trees fringe the coast. Seagulls peck at each other over tidbits of food. It seems deserted but you can glimpse thatched roofs here and there among the trees.”

Major Blocks to Visualization

• fatigue from long hours of interpreting
• fear or anxiety about performing the interpreting task
• unfamiliar situation or concept
• inattention to detail through the five senses
• interpreters often have little time to attune to the word around them without interruption

B. Aron 2008