Theatre Interpreting Survey for Deaf Community

Invitation to participate in online survey

To Whom It May Concern,

Susan Emerson and Julie Judd are Auslan interpreters and also current Masters Students in the Linguistics Department at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. As part of our Masters of Translating & Interpreting program we are conducting research into ‘Musical Theatre Interpreting’ in Australia.

We would like to invite you to take part in this study, which we are conducting to meet the requirements for our unit of study TRAN827: Research methods in translation and interpreting, under the supervision of Ms Della Goswell, Convenor, Auslan/English Interpreting program, Department of Linguistics (email: della.goswell@mq.edu.au / phone 02 9850 9188).

This research aims to address an important issue in our field; the training, provision, and consumer satisfaction of musical theatre interpreter provision. Your participation will make a valuable contribution to the current state of musical theatre interpreting in Australia. We kindly ask you to contribute to our research by completing one or more online surveys.

Your responses will be kept anonymous. The survey questions are for research purposes only and any information obtained will remain confidential. The results will be documented in final dissertation due in March 2012. The results can be obtained by sending an email request to susan.emerson@students.mq.edu.au or julie.judd@students.mq.edu.au.

The research data collection is via four online surveys, one for each identified stakeholder
group:

1. Deaf people/consumers of theatre interpreting services
2. Auslan/English Interpreters
3. Trainers of Auslan/English Interpreters
4. Organisations involved in the provision of theatre interpreting services

Please select the survey relevant to your stakeholder group. If you belong to more than one stakeholder group (i.e., Deaf consumer and interpreter trainer) you may complete more than one survey. We estimate that your time commitment for each survey would be approximately 20 minutes.You may choose to withdraw from the study at any time, without consequence.

The links to the survey are:
1. Deaf people/consumers of theatre interpreting services
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/F2YTJJ2
2. Auslan/English Interpreters
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/99FCN7G
3. Trainers of Auslan/English Interpreters
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/F22NN58
4. Organisations involved in the provision of theatre interpreting services
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/F29ZNLJ

The ethical aspects of this study have been approved by the Macquarie University Ethics Committee (Human Research). If you have any complaints or reservations about any ethical aspect of your participation in this research, you may contact the Ethics Review Committee thought it’s Secretary (Telephone 02 98507854, email – ethics@mq.edu.au). Any complaint that you make will be treated in confidence and investigated, and you will be informed of the outcome.

It would be appreciated if you could forward this information to organisations or individuals who are involved in the musical theatre interpreting field as interpreters, trainers, interpreter provider organisations or Deaf consumers.

Kind Regards
Julie Judd and Susan Emerson