The art of getting ready

This sounds redundant and it is aimed at it. Finally, by the end of the day, in such circumstances where the market I know wants you to perform in any situation, even in the thickest, uninformed, unprepared ones, the single competence to nurture, to ponder, to fine tune, to record, to split the hairs of, to massage deep in the skin, to raise to an art, apparently as it must dealt with as a set of technics, strategies, the single edge to build and maintain is nothing but the art of getting ready. "Sonny, you speak the language don't you?" They slyly or worse, genuinely you can deliver at the snap of the finger about LED backlight units, knowing you have had some for breakfast. Don't you? I am reminded of the LinkedIn crowd translation scandal - a sly version of : "Sonny, you can do it for free don't you? You'll get a lollypop, exclusive!". There is no work around. You won't persuade the buyer, the intermediary of your service that preparation time and the money that should but doesn't come with it would benefit anyone, starting from the end user of interpretation : das Klient! They won't buy into it, they know they will find someone, anyone else ready to raise hands and accept for viler price to deliver, something. Are you knowledgeable in thin film PV cells, the whole gamut of it down to the speaks of lab researchers? You bet I am! Just give me a few hours to get the big picture, but would you be so kind as to pay my time getting elements of that big picture? More than ever from now on, besides the possibility to simply quit this profession, the single center of interest must be the art of getting ready under any circumstances.

What interpreters need to know

OPI, over the phone interpretation, is that stupid industry where you are supposed to deliver on mostly any subject, a capela, and often, out of the blue. Self-quoted answer to a intermediary asking the usual question that sometimes just get on your nerves:

"As for the question about my "familiarity with the topic and/or terminology involved", this is the
usual plain joke. There is not a single interpreter on planet Earth with familiarity on such arcane topic. Interpreters are familiar with technics to prepare for mostly any subject although they do not get paid for the preparation task."

OPI interpreters are asked to perform what any professional pilot would absolutely decline to do : fly with no flight preparation and fuzzy maps at best.

Another lost opportunity

"Japan's star midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura will not have to worry about being lost in translation at his new club Espanyol - because he will have no interpreter at his side."

Reasons? Forced immersion :

""We want him to get accustomed to the environment as soon as possible," Espanyol manager Mauricio Pochettino said, explaining the reason for not hiring an interpreter for Nakamura, according to the Sports Nippon."

Or was it the cost factor of maintaining an interpreter-attendent?

"It is the first time that Nakamura will be without a personal interpreter in his past seven years in European football - the first three with Italy's Reggina and the rest with the former Scottish champions Celtic."

You don't get it : someone will take care of him :

"Instead, a Japanese strategy analyst in Espanyol's B team will come to his rescue in the event of any linguistic trouble."

Now, the burning question is : what the hell is "a Japanese strategy analyst in Espanyol's B team"?

But after all, for soccer players, communication comes down more or less to kicking the ball :

"An Espanyol official told the daily: "The manager has repeatedly checked Nakamura on DVD and given high marks to his high ability to understand tactics."

"The manager said that there will be no problem at all, even without an interpreter, once he stands on the pitch and kicks the ball.""

The great full article is here.

The mediocrity we thrive in

I don't like to comment on the news, copy paste a link to an article about a weird story and participate in the "community" jeering, remote winks and guffaws. Simply because that group sneering, all the more in professional settings, is but a poor band-aid slapped onto something that hurts so much you had better laugh about it. You had better laugh about looming professional mediocrity and hide the shame of reckoning that there's nothing you can do against it. Nothing will make the French La Tribune stop attempting at providing other-than-French web content using translation software. They might stop out of the bad image the stupidity of all this has been generating. But it is too late. The worm is in the fruit. Someone has reckon that machine translation muck was well enough a feed to feed readers in other language, a polluted feed, at times decipherable, at times simply meaningless. It's good enough. It saves money. It's the way of the future. You skip the corrector. That is, you skip paying for a corrector. You put instead a single young lad "in charge of managing" the (muck) task. Every jeering and sly innuendo including this one is showing through the seams how powerless responses are. You can of course feel content you work in a domain perfectly safe from this insanity, let's say, patent translation. You can feel safe, like treading on a hip of trash downing sturdy boots knowing you won't get you feet soiled. Bu the mind is soiled. Someone at the top of a top publication covering domains - economy, politics, business - that are deemed important has not only thought that machine translation was palatable enough, but came as far as implementing it. No jeering will wipe out the moral, professional stain and stench. It sucks to the level of nausea, the mediocrity we thrive in.

A nodding acquaintance

"Interpreters need to have a nodding acquaintance with a varied range of different issues". I picked this snippet from the UK National Network for Interpreting. Good, clear basic explanations on what interpreting is all about. But it's not enough nodding at the need to get nodding acquaintance with varied subjects. Cram strategies to go beyond nodding without expecting turning into a specialist is a key subject in itself when you work as a ubiquitous interpreter, a jack of all trade, almost. One agency outside Japan contacted me for a potential stint. I skip the exact subject but quote this : "The interpreter needs to have a strong IT background ...". Does such expectation meet reality? It could, depending on the circumstances. There are in-house interpreters working in automobile. They have strong automobile background. There are not available on the freelance market. I assume there may be interpreters working in a single subject, but by far and large, interpreters are multi-subjects oriented and strive to get quickly acquainted with new stuff. What with over the phone interpretation when background info is close to nil? The proper answer to an agent would be that "I am highly confident I can meet your client's expectations because although I am no IT engineer, I am highly competent at going beyond nodding acquaintance." Now, building that competence is key.

Why take notes

Tonight course took a turn I was not expecting. I decided to introduce the subject of note taking by writing down a few sentences from the recording we were using. From there, we stripped down the sentences to a minimum of vital signs, which was the perfect way to reinforce the never ending message that interpretation is about transferring a meaning uttered in L1 to L2. Once the stripped down version of the sentences well perceived, I wiped out the original sentence and diverted onto various issue to come back to the notes and show that there were more than one way to "translate" it, or let's say, paraphrase the message. When I briefly mentioned the SVO approach, a student asked how to apply this in real. So I called her to the whiteboard and had her take note of my paraphrasing the original discourse. It was the perfect situation to reinforce the message that notes were traces of ideas, and not the exact wording. She had difficulties with "telecom operator" and wrote down a contracted version of the two words but I told her it might be already too long to expect and write down all this in a real assignment. I suggested a possible solution to be the kanji 通 as in 通信. It perfectly examplified both the need for sparse notes, meaning substitution requisite at times, and listening being more important than note taking. i will have to fine tune this approach but it was a good evolution on the previous exposure method.

Future CAI

Future Computer Aided Interpretation

Pre-session:

A self-growing, self-assembling "intelligent" bot-based glossary. An application that scans the web and progressively build an intelligent thematic glossary hyperlinked, with integrated occurence ranking. This would come in a slow continuous version, and a crash-course type of application when you have to get ready for an over-the-phone session on a subject you hardly know, for which you have mostly no clues in terms of specific subjects the speakers will cover. This almost-blind to blind context short notice request is daily bred - just got a call for a session in 20 hours, three words subject, nothing else.

In-session:

CAI could help with the display of glossaries that are not long and boring, and especially hard to use linear lists of words. Something like a moving word clouds with word speech-recognition and "artificial intelligence" to display the best choices of words that may fit the situation now being spelled. Too much science fiction? Time will tell.

Glad they are glad

Second time I get an indirect feedback from previous student about the business presentation interpretation training, the last course where we play a make-believe close to real life standard situation of interpretation. They like it. I am glad they are glad. Someone wished a full course was dedicated to the exercise. Me too.

Gloom

K. who is a veteran professional spells bad omen. She has had no work for a full week. In her case, it is exceptional. Summer, July 4th are only but anecdotes to explain the situation. World slump is the main culprit. The result is not "no work", but instead work at slashed down bargain price. New entrants in the profession OK to get paid ¥25,000 a day get assignments. Clients don't want to spend more. K. believes the situation will not get better. Well paid assignments are things of the past. She is considering intensifying her activity as an interpreters' trainer. This is very, very bad omen. Forces are pulling down fees so much that recovery is seen by some professionals as impossible. Currently, there is no work. Absolutely nothing. July has never been a good time, but this one is extreme. OPI too is flat. Summer heat might be the cause here but I doubt. The crisis factor like the virus is looming in any corner. The culprit is an easy target but a mighty one at the same time. 2009 is to be a remarkable gloomy year.

Friday grudge : no thank you

There is pattern in a short succession of cases where I have recommended a few interpreters/translators for jobs I declined. They don't say thank you. Only S. did. Basic civility is gone. Is it?

The business interpreter as an interventionist

The more I read the sentence already highlighted in my previous post from that academic article, the most I am gasping for air:

""Within the interpreter-mediated interaction frame, it may be considered appropriate to ask or clarify any unknown concepts or words, but the interpreter in this instance did not initiate such an action."

Put it simply, I would argue that in the situation described by the paper, the matter is not that the interpreter "may" ask to clarify, but rather "must" ask. Otherwise, as a "client", I want to dismiss that interpreter for .... you know what for? For sheer, plain incompetence, and a victim of the neutrality myth.

There are many business sessions formats. There are many situations, many talkers with their own style, competence or lack of it. The interpreter constantly navigates a changing sky of meanings and intentions that make at times for a bumpy flight always full with unexpected situations, turbulence that are not to be summed up as mere issues of vocabulary.

Neutrality is on the verge of being zapped out the very moment the interpreter steps in. In a formal, non-naturalist situation - a pre-formatted speech - odds of neutrality to be phased out are extremely low. When the non-scripted dialogues start, neutrality must be managed because:

- very often, people speech are unclear, or at least not as straight as a written speech
- very often, references to implicitly understood facts unknown to the interpreter are raising the risks of misinterpretation, or the impossibility to interpret without asking for clarifications
- very often, the interpreter's doesn't expect neutrality but support from the interpreter that doesn't end with the mere channeling of utterances both ways.

The interpreter is therefore very often tempted to overdo, that is to go over the fuzzy threshold that delimits faithful interpretation to adapted interpretation for the benefit of clarity on both side, usually meaning, adding untold elements to clarify the context.

A client aware of what is implicitly known by each sides - the counterpart and the interpreter - is a rare species.

Of course, preparation in terms of good contextual briefing from the client, alleviate the risk to overdo and put the interpreter in stalling state. But no preparation is always perfect, and minimalist briefing is standard. The interpreter has to steer the plane in that unsteady, changing sky of meanings clear or fuzzy, sudden burst of inferring facts and the unexpected that must be dealt with quickly. That is why, in practice, the interpreter is an interventionist who must take the lead, even briefly, to :

- stop the interaction dynamic underway to get clarifications so that the dynamic won't stall due to sudden lack of meaning visibility
- take action in turbulence - arguments where each side starts cutting into the speech without waiting for the interpreter to start or end delivering. The interventionist interpreter then turns a moderator, not to calm down people around but to allow meaningful dialogue to take place.

The discussion that should take place then in interpretation school should be about the managing of interventionism based on experience. So far, I haven't read anything related to that basic issue in naturalistic multiparty settings interpretation.

Kiss neutrality goodbye 2

Or more precisely, leave the issue in terms of forbiddance as a matter specific to simultaneous. Neutrality in consecutive, or more precisely in dialogic or multi-party interpreting is to be discussed in terms of required or allowed degree of interference. More on this later.

This issue of neutrality knocked my mind again while reading this article - Interpreter’s non-rendition behaviour and its effect on interaction: A case study of a multi-party interpreting situation - over the new online revue T&I.

I was a little bit puzzled by the situation described, a patented trained interpreter working in a company as a multitasking helper, interpreting being but of her apparent many chores.

I am quoting from the introduction:

"An interpreter is supposed to provide interpreting in another language after a
primary interlocutor utters something in one language. This paper attempts to
investigate what happens when interpreting is not provided by an interpreter
in a multi-party interpreting situation. There are occasions when an
interpreter does not or cannot render a message due to various reasons,
including when s/he does not understand the discourse of the previous
utterance/s."

I was glad and sad to read without surprise that " there is only
limited research to date that investigates interpreting in the business area."

This being said, our interpreting has difficulties interpreting. She lacks understanding of the context, what the authors strangely refer to "the
interpreter herself made an explicit comment on the difficulty of interpreting
this specific part because of the technical nature of the conversation. "

Sorry but it's not the technical nature of the conversation that makes interpreting difficult to deliver. It's the fact that the interpreter doesn't know what these people are talking about. This alone stresses something that sets me totally apart from considerations related to "an interpreter-mediated interaction, in particular, involving
complex multi-party business interpreting situations"

But anyway. Just pretend we are on the same bandwidth.

Analyzing the interaction at a point where the interpreter gets lost in translation and stalls, meaning, she does not interpret, the authors announce : "Within the interpreter-
mediated interaction frame, it may be considered appropriate to ask or clarify
any unknown concepts or words, but the interpreter in this instance did not initiate such an action.
"

I was floored by this "may" thing, but more on this later.

I was floored, not the least because it suggests that a trained interpreter is not trained to intervene, that is to break the myth of neutrality when critically needed, that is asking for clarification. What do they teach at interpreting school? The linguistic mantra and nothing else? They don't teach neutrality breaking management, how and when to intervene in the dynamic of multi-party interaction to take charge of the risk of loss of meaning, absence of interpretation, that is, blanks or air pockets, and the steer the dialogical motion clear from stalling. They don't because you discover that through experience, that not only neutrality does not apply in many situation of multi-party interaction, but that neutrality must be broken clean by the interpreter to save the interpreting dynamic. I think it should be part of the awareness given to students that in some circumstances, neutrality is the poison pill. And when being hired by A team to discuss with B team, A is required more than often to tell more to the A team things that are similar to on the spot consultation on communication matters, and suggestions to perform better. I have experienced such situation time and again. Why still chant the neutrality mantra when the issue at stake is interpreter's intervention self-management. So yes, kiss neutrality goodbye but let's talk instead about interference in the multi-party interaction situations.

Kiss neutrality goodbye 1

I don't why "neutrality". In fact, I know but I had not until recently. Discussions about interpreting have been pervaded, monopolized, therefore pervaded by the assumption that interpretation = simultaneous interpretation of perfectly written speeches. Andrew Gillies provides a wonderful book on not taking for consec, taking for granted that you deal or will deal with talkers that deliver scripted, minted, well rounded up speeches. In business interpreting, around the discussion table, as far as my experience tells, and even when the speaker uses a well experienced ppt document, it never gets smooth. The "naturallity" that is unprepared spontaneous speech always gets back into the picture at some point. The speech is never perfect. Pre-interpretation, that is cleaning behind to yield the gist out of the mush is a constant activity. That's the first level of "interventionism" produced and managed up to a point by the interpreter. Neutrality - the holy word - is dead, still born even before the interpreter starts rendering. So the whole question of neutrality is flawed outside the booth as soon as the speaker is not doing the perfect well rehearsed flawless pitch. The only situation where neutrality exists is where the interpreter is not here. Shoot the interpreter, and neutrality raises back from the tomb ....

à suivre ....

A future for Japanese interpretation

This is the first time I was asked blank and clear whether Japanese was a potential for work in the future from a young lad very much in love with languages and considering interpretation as a career. I told him blank and clear that race was a factor you could not turn around. That at equal competence, the odds that a non-japanese for the Japanese-French pair be called upon was starkly low. Every other single example that proves the equation to be wrong is just an exception that tells nothing more than when the circumstances are ripe, not only the non-japanese can of course deliver as anyone else, and that the Japanese side ends up satisfied. The cases I know about are invariably linked with situations of scarcity or hyper-specialization, but here, I am referring to cases of the Japanese-English pair where non-Japanese have been in-house translators/interpreters, or independent interpreters in the legal domain. Otherwise, the standard freelancer stands no chance with Japanese clients who are certainly the majority to require services. I told him that the future was probably with European languages.

Speed

There is a confusion among many student who are not that much enthusiastic about interpretation that the activity is some kind of voiced over version of translation. The standard mantra is to hammer again and again that in interpretation, you transfer the meaning from A to B. And you repeat "meantime" at nauseam, as everyone knows hammering down a word will make it's sense clear enough. Right?

I'm gonna change gears this time. I will tell them that the major difference is speed, and that time management being key (no-time management), it comes down as a matter of fact that you have to concentrate on the meaning, not the linguistic bricks. So the new mantra will be that the difference between interpreting and translating is speed because of lack of time. The time-to-delivery factor, and the consequence of it all.