Framing the mission upward

In my definition of liaison interpreting, the interpreter is two-fold, and the client will receive whichever fold she wants, or both, granted she is informed that you may be more than the expected A-B language flipper. The first fold is what I would call "standard interpretation", the one form canonized in the book with the Thou shall not trespass neutrality warning in full scaring view. The second is closer to what fixers do, one of their tricks, the good fixers that is and I know some, being to also interpret. Interpreters keenly conscious and wanting to go beyond and include agency, consultancy and a more proactive side to their business offer row against the tide of a view and definition of their position, real and potential, that has been far and large not defined by themselves but by the users' side. Here again, the very lack of loud enough self-justifying professional discourse on job definition and scope by the practitioners themselves is at the root of the current professional state in liaison interpreting, even if each territory has its own characteristics. 


Clients know business, know their business and don't need to be recommended to do this or avoid that. Yet in the paper by Mr. Ed Lebow I mentioned in a previous post, several points raised are more the authority of the cultural gap aware interpreter than the newcomer to Japan. How would you deal for instance with the recommendtio to # 8.  to "Explain ideas several different ways"? This is a brilliant and essential point. I would dare and ad to this : don't talk about conceptual things. Be down to earth with practical examples, and tell from the start, when the examples you raise are not Japanese, that things, usages, patterns of behavior, consumption, relationship are "somewhat different compared with Japan as you know."


I am a strong believer that in the Western-Japanese interaction in business settings, granted the Japanese side is not your maverick English speaker, in which case there is no need for an interpreter, cultural, communication dynamics, protocol and patterns of speech are so foreign that the word for word act is a sure way at times to loose meaning, and get the wrong impression. Here, I am talking about business interpretation in consecutive mode, that is the plain business scene devoid of glamor.


So how do you go suggesting your client you may be able to do more? In my experience, it starts at self-PR level, if you have a web site to wax on your competences and services. If you can deal over the phone and not only through email, it is time to try and display competence by asking questions about purpose of visit and experiences of Japan (replace with the country of your choice). You won't jump right into the detailed questions about what you need to get wet about which thematics in order to perform well. Asking too much is a sign of lack of confidence. The next window of opportunity follows up at briefing time. A customer who announces she needs no briefing is to me a suspect. I remember one having not even perused in diagonal to the other side corporate web site we were about to visit, so sure of her superior product and knowledge of her domain. It didn't exactly go well. 


There is a valuable chapter about "Performing expertise" in the very valuable book Freelancing Expertise: Contract Professionals in the New Economy, referred to many times here. Performing expertise wraps up the whole issue here but would deserve a much needed long analysis of the many approaches that go at times counter to what an interpreter in perceived to be by the client's side, or worse, those who don't practice nor do hire interpreters.