Constructing meaning through translation

One aspect of the author’s dissertation ( Sheneman 2018 ) was the use of cognitive linguistics as a theoretical framework to address a relevant research question regarding how key cancer terms are translated from written English to American Sign Language (ASL). This study examined ASL translations by two Deaf interpreters and compared them with an ASL narrative about cancer by a deaf oncologist in the United States. The key difference between these two Deaf interpreters was that one was familiar with cancer and oncology, while the other was not. Cognitive linguistics was the approach for analyzing the three ASL texts following Fillmore’s ( 1982 , 1985 ) frame-semantic model, examining what knowledge is evoked when expressing meaning in their utterances.