Deaf professionals’ perceptions of 'trust' in relationships with signed language interpreters

The concept of ‘trust’ is frequently used when discussing the working relationship between deaf signers and signed language interpreters, with interpreters often claiming that trust a prerequisite to successful interaction. This paper presents original data from an in-depth research project which collaborative autoethnography gather experiences seven academics who work regularly British Sign Language (BSL) interpret BSL spoken English, analyse in our relations interpreters. We found not useful or productive for interpersonal professional aims. Instead, we outline multiple ways can assess evaluate interpreters’ values, competencies, performance without relying on ‘trust’. Our findings provide important, powerful under-explored perspective suggest these be applied by contexts beyond academia, constitute important contribution literature interpreting.