TORONTO -- An American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter who became well known for his expressive facial reactions during B.C.’s daily health briefings will be teaching a university course this fall in an effort to dispel common misconceptions about sign language.
Nigel Howard has been a professional interpreter for more than two decades and is deaf himself. For the past few months, he has been signing beside B.C.’s provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and health minister Adrian Dix during their daily press conferences on the COVID-19 pandemic.
His expressive style has gained him a loyal following of fans who have even created a Facebook page in his honour.
However, Howard said those facial expressions are actually just a part of the language itself.
“We call them non-manual signals,” he told CTV’s Your Morning through the use of another ASL interpreter on Friday. “When you're speaking, for example, you alter your voice, right? And so imagine taking that ability to alter your message and do that visually on your face with your facial grammar.”
Those facial expressions are important to emphasize things, to present humour, or to keep the message going, and to ensure he’s matching what the person is saying, he explained.
“That's how I connect with the audience and I think it's nice that people are recognizing that,” he said.
Howard said, because his first language is ASL, he understands the deaf community and their culture, which has allowed him to connect to his audiences during his career.
“I can meet the needs of the deaf community and diverse deaf community, regardless of their age, I have that ability,” he said.
“In any language, you need to connect with the culture of the people that you're talking to so for me, I can connect with the audience that way.”
This fall, Howard will be connecting with a different audience at the University of British Columbia when he teaches the school’s first-ever introductory ASL credit course. He said he hopes the course will change people’s perceptions about sign language, such as that it’s only a tool for people who can’t hear.
“I think historically, people have thought that the deaf community are a disabled community and that we can't hear and they really focused on that, but we do have a culture and we do have a language and we really are a minority culture in Canada,” he explained.
Howard said the UBC course will expose people to the concept that ASL is a language in its own right.
“Hearing people grow up with the ability to hear English and speak English and that’s their first language,” he said. “We use a visual language, American Sign Language, so really, that's the only difference between us and the rest of Canadians.”
