Communication Studies professor imbues anthem with unspoken meaning

When Marquette basketball fans stand for the national anthem, the cameras focus on the performer as live video is projected on Fiserv Forum's jumbotron. A box appears in the corner of the giant screens as the anthem begins - it features Tracey Sturgal, chair and professor of communication studies and strategic communication. As the singer belts out the first notes of "The Star-Spangled Banner," Sturgal weaves her hands into signs, interpreting the anthem for an audience of American Sign Language listeners.

"Oh Say Can You…"

Sturgal sweeps her arms from a closed position near her chest and extends them out in front of her, palms up, as she makes an open gesture toward the crowd.

"Seeeeee…"

Sturgal holds up the index and middle fingers on her right hand and places them under her right eye. On and on it goes for the whole song, Sturgal cheerfully signing away right through the audience's final applause.

"I had one little girl who was at a game with her family come up to me because she was trying to learn the anthem," Sturgal remembers. "I taught her a couple of signs and said that I hope I can teach her the whole song by the end of the season."

Each home basketball game starts with Sturgal standing on the court near the national anthem performer as the Athletic Department's ASL interpreter.

This is far from Sturgal's first time interpreting in high-pressure situations. She's been at job interviews. She's been at medical appointments. She's been in classrooms and in front of crowds at concerts and plays. She has borne witness to the lives of deaf people, from the mundanities of their everyday routines to their most intimate secrets, serving as their conduit to the rest of the world.

There are over 170,000 words in the most recent Oxford English Dictionary, yet only a fraction as many signs that directly translate to one of those words. Finger-spelling, alternate ways of explanation and body language are extremely important for any interpreter dealing with uncommon words. When Sturgal interpreted for college students, she would read ahead in the book to be prepared for such situations.

"We'd have to sit down together ahead of time and agree on the signs we were going to use for all the different types of clouds in a meteorology class or all the unfamiliar terms in business law," Sturgal says.

While the words to the anthem don't change, Sturgal treats her new duties with the same level of foresight. She shows up to sound check two hours before every game, carefully observing how the anthem will be performed that night.

"There's always a day of limbo in the semester where I don't want to start the next unit yet, but we finished the previous unit. That's a great day to teach students the ASL alphabet or to sign 'hi, how are you?'"

"The next people who sing the song might go faster or slower or they might add a little trill here or there," Sturgal says. "Everyone sings it a little bit differently, and so I need to be at every sound check. People do variations with 'home of the brave' at the end of the song. They might be holding a particular note in a stronger tone. Are they going to get louder at certain parts? Are they going to move their voice up or down in pitch? I have to show all of that with my hands."

These moments of creating meaning take Sturgal back to when she was a kid, first learning ASL from the parents of her figure skating coach in Eau Claire. She got curious about the signs that the coach and her parents were exchanging and asked if she could learn them. Pretty soon, Sturgal had learned the whole alphabet and some signs, knowledge that she tried to pass on to her friends so they could sign together. ("It was mostly a one-way conversation," Sturgal remembers.)

That early interest blossomed into a fruitful career as a freelance and educational interpreter, as well as an ESL and ASL teacher. Although these roles have given way to a different career, one more focused on teaching and research than signing and interpreting, Sturgal still slips little lessons on sign language into her undergraduate classes.

"There's always a day of limbo in the semester where I don't want to start the next unit yet, but we finished the previous unit. That's a great day to teach them the alphabet or to say 'hi, how are you?' or something like that," Sturgal says.

Some of those very same people see the classroom lessons in action from the student section, as Sturgal signs her way through yet another national anthem, bringing the full intensity of the song even to those who cannot hear it.