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.