Katrina Mynard: A Deaf interpreter for the Deaf community

For more than a year now, Katrina Mynard has been part of a small team that signs the Sunday morning Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral for the wider Deaf community watching online or on TV. However, it wasn’t until six months ago that Katrina stepped out from behind the camera and began signing on TV. Katrina is Deaf, and Deaf interpreters signing for the Deaf community is not as common as one would think.

Katrina was three years old when she was officially diagnosed as being Deaf. She’s not sure if she was born Deaf, or if it developed in her younger years, but it was her older sister Maree, who first realised. Maree is also Deaf.

Growing up in Lang Lang in south-east Victoria, Katrina and her sister were Deaf children among four other hearing siblings and hearing parents. They were both sent to a boarding school for Deaf children in Portsea. When it came to learning and communicating, Katrina said it was ‘very oral back then’. She relied on lip reading and also paid careful attention to ‘reading’ people’s expressions and body language.

When her sister met and married a man who is Deaf, she and the family were introduced to Auslan, or Australian Sign Language, for the first time. ‘My brother-in-law helped us to become part of that Deaf community,’ said Katrina. ‘Everyone started using mime or sign language just to be able to communicate with each other. So that’s when I started to really learn sign language.’

When Katrina later moved to Melbourne for work, she met more and more Deaf people and encountered hearing interpreters for the first time. ‘Suddenly there was this person here communicating when I was used to lipreading,’ she said, ‘When the interpreter came in, they almost didn’t move their mouth and I thought, “Oh God, I can’t just follow the signs”.

It took me quite a long time to adjust to this new world. Still today I have to ask my interpreters to have a little bit of lip patterns so that I can understand completely what they’re signing.’

Katrina met a man who is Deaf and who later became her husband, which further increased her involvement in the Deaf community and strengthened her use of Auslan. But when she started working with Deaf children, she was again faced with a challenge.

‘Working with Deaf children is a little different,’ she explained, ‘because at that time, the sign language they were taught in the education system was signed English—it was using signs with English word order. So, I had to learn and adjust to this,’ she said.

It is Katrina’s lived experience as a Deaf person, facing myriad of challenges and adaptations over the years, that has put her in good stead for her role as a Deaf interpreter translating the 11am Sunday Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral. This is in addition to her part-time work as Pastoral Care Coordinator at the John Pierce Centre for the Deaf (JPC), a role she’s enjoyed for 15 years.

‘I’ve had so much exposure to such a variety of language in the Deaf community alone,’ she said, ‘I’ve had to adapt all the time to the language that was presented to me. People have different levels of language. As a Deaf person, I’ve had to learn to adjust depending on who I’m with. I have to adjust all the time, change the information, change the signs or the words so that they can understand what I’m trying to say.’

When the Victorian lockdown commenced in March last year, members of JPC Community began signing for the livetsreamed Sunday Mass from St Patrick’s Cathedral. Initially, hearing interpreters were used. However, in December last year, Teresa Paulet, the JPC Communications Coordinator working with Katrina, suggested that Deaf interpreters be employed to sign to the Deaf community on screen.

‘At first, I was a bit reluctant,’ said Katrina, ‘I thought “Oh gosh, live TV! You want Deaf interpreters? You want me to get on the screen?” but Teresa truly empowered me in that moment. She said, “It’s time for you to get on screen; it’s time to make a shift”.’

In the past six months, the team has grown to now include five Deaf interpreters on rotation and hearing interpreters acting as prompters. Each week the team interpreting at the Cathedral spend hours going over the Sunday Mass readings and prayers, to ensure they understand everything well.

On the day, Katrina appears on screen and interprets what she sees coming from Teresa, who is standing beside the camera. Teresa is listening to the Mass and interpreting what she hears to Katrina, who then applies her own experience and knowledge of language for the Deaf community watching on TV or livestream.

‘It’s really important to think first about the Deaf person who is watching. We want to ensure that they understand the information on as deep a level as they possibly can. And when we have a Deaf person signing, there is this natural connection, this lived experience between the Deaf person watching and the Deaf person signing.’

‘Of course, a hearing interpreter can provide the information but sometimes I take the information in and I think, “What would be a better way that a Deaf person would understand that, based on my own experience of being a Deaf person?” So, I am translating it in a second capacity to ensure that the Deaf person really understands it.

‘The hearing interpreter wants to convey the English into Auslan and then I want to convey it in a way that is Deaf-friendly and engaging. Perhaps it’s more visual in a sense and relates to their life. A hearing person doesn’t have that lived experience to put into that space.

‘Auslan is a very rich language to begin with. But the way that we’re able to adapt it, becomes very natural. I appreciate it is hard for hearing people to understand why we are signing the same thing twice but it’s actually coming out slightly different with a Deaf interpreter.’

However, it does rely on ‘good teamwork’, said Katrina. ‘I love working with Teresa. As a Deaf interpreter you have to find a good teammate to work with, somebody who can prompt you in a way that you want it to be delivered so that I feel confident in taking in that information and can then put it out appropriately. It’s been really great for the interpreting team to be seen by the wider community and for people to see that it works really well together.’

Katrina and the interpreting team are deeply grateful to Archbishop Peter A Comensoli and the staff at St Patrick’s Cathedral for providing the opportunity for Deaf interpreters to work in this capacity.

‘Truly I would like to express my appreciation to the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne because I think we are the only Catholic group in Australia doing this kind of work,’ she said.

‘The Archdiocese should be really, really proud that they were so progressive and offered us an opportunity to bring in Deaf interpreters. We’ve developed our team and learned new skills, which has been truly valuable.’

Katrina added, ‘I think Deaf people now realise that we can do this job too. We don’t need to just rely on hearing interpreters. And even though of course we need them absolutely in our life, it’s encouraging Deaf people that they can be a part of this process too. They really can.

I really enjoy what I do and attaching Deaf interpreting to my Catholic faith is part of who I am, too. Being able to combine my skill and what I love makes me feel good.

‘I hope there are more opportunities for Deaf interpreters to be involved, specifically in the area of Church, faith and spirituality. We have the knowledge, so now it’s time for us to be ambassadors in this space and to lead the way.’