Interpreter keeping the deaf and hard of hearing in Sask. informed during COVID-19 pandemic

For those tuning in to the provincial government’s daily COVID-19 new conferences, Karen Nurkowski is becoming a familiar face.

Nurkowski has been interpreting the briefings into American Sign Language (ASL) for the deaf and hard of hearing community.

She says it’s important work because, due to isolation, members of that community are not getting information from the people they might normally get it from.

Nurkowski, who hails from Regina, told Gormley she is using conceptual interpreting to get the messaging across.

“We interpret from meaning. We don’t interpret every word. The words don’t necessarity translate word for word anyway,” Nurkowski said.

“In English, we have idioms that don’t translate. If we say, ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’ and I sign that into ASL, deaf people would be looking in the sky for cats and dogs to be coming down on them. That’s not how we interpret that — we interpret that as, ‘It’s raining very hard,’ so we interpret for meaning.”

Nurkowski says a very important aspect of sign language is non-verbal communication, including body language and facial expressions.

“The facial expressions are very, very important in ASL,” she said. “It gives a lot of the meanings and a lot of the message. It tells a lot about what the point is and the severity of the situation — if it’s happy or if it’s sad or whatever the emotion is.”

Nurkowski says in English we have so many words to express deeper meaning, but that’s not necessarily the case with ASL.

“Ecstatic means extremely happy, but in ASL we don’t have a sign for ecstatic, so that’s where you have the look (facial expression) of very, very happy when you’re signing the word ecstatic,” she said.

Nurkowski is very aware of the importance of the work she’s doing for the deaf and hard of hearing community and is putting everything she has into it.

“It’s very exhausting because it’s very emotional and it’s very important and the pressure is on, so it’s a very exhausting assignment,” she said.

Nurkowski says a lot of the challenge was learning a new medical vocabulary and words that didn’t exist in ASL, like COVID-19 and coronavirus, so she has taken cues from other interpreters.

She says with one in 10 people considered deaf or hard of hearing, she understands how vital this service is to the Saskatchewan community.