Hearing people perceiving deaf people through sign language interpreters at work: on the loss of self through interpreted communication.

This article addresses the impact on occupational relations of mediated communication through a sign language interpreter from the perspective of hearing people who do not sign but who work alongside deaf signers in the workplace. Based on a phenomenological analysis of eight semi-structured interviews, findings are discussed in terms of phonocentrism as influence and context for the (re) production of workplace subjectivities; the consequences of failure to recognise the interpreter as a contingent practice for hearing people too; the implications of constructing the deaf self as separate and knowable despite the necessity of the interpreter; consequences of failure to acknowledge the inscription of identity and presence through embodied language. The findings have implications for the recognition and promotion of deaf agency and talent in the ‘hearing’ work place and extend understandings of structural influences on workplace discriminations to include those of interpreted communication.