Interpreting in conflictual settings

An extended assignment around private people matters is making questions about attitude and competence all the more critical. It is in such time that the lack of opportunity to discuss with other practitioners is proving to be a major loss of opportunity to grow. Interpreters! Unit! From a pure practical point of view, people in conflict using an interpreter are no longer able to verbally fight at each other in standard fashion as the speech flow is broken by the need to have each side's stance be passed over - over time - to the other side. Lag with consecutive in such setting is revealing how people might benefit of simultaneous when arguing. The cultural gap on both side is huge, the communication lag certainly widen it. Another side of the story is about stress management. The interpreter may be neutral, but she thinks, in many terms, that are far from being solely matters of language. After more than 2 hours and a half - it was over the phone this time - I was worn out, cooked, and the echos of the ranting and mumbling were hard to keep at bay, not only during the session but after that. It's easy to state that the interpreter must shield the self from a situation where she is no stakeholder. The reality of such setting is challenging the virtuous and blind view on things that are not simple at all and can't be wrapped down with a short advice like : remember that ou do not belong to the crisis. I will try and list up the issues raised in interpreting conflict in a future post.