Telephone Interpreting

Right from the beginning of the book Telephone Interpreting by Nataly Kelly, I quickly understood that I have been so far practicing in a niche environment that hardly compares with what is described in those pages. The book is truly fascinating starting from page one. The description of the skills required by a good OPI is must read even for consec interpreters delivering face to face. It reminded me the brief interacting experience I had (the lack of it to state things correctly) when I tried to get in touch with a few budding OPI service providers here in Japan that wanted to cash on Skype. None ever came back to me, but I for sure did not fit the requisite for aspiring interpreters, that is to be a housewife. And on top of that, I was and I am still a foreigner, which is even worse than being a housewife. Anyway, this focus on technology as THE way to provide a service is so ... well, so typical of Japanese entrepreneurship in a sense. There is a short chapter (from page 44) about patience which actually raises more questions than it answers. Basically, in community interpreting settings or close to these, as in the official definition of the role of the interpreter as a neutral agent of communication, discussions that turn sour, tense or more are to be dealt with just the same way as sweet words of lovers speaking different language calling long-distance. What is kept at bay and for a good reason is the issue of the interpreter as a cultural agent when not only language but customs keep both sides of the interaction apart. I am veering away from the book but I think the issue, in the broader perspective of the job of interpreting, cannot be pushed under the carpet like a tabou on the principle that the interpreter must absolutely and in any case stay in the neutral zone. I am looking forward to receive a book on the subject of dialogue interpreting, hoping that the issue of neutrality might be discussed there.