Preparation to technical assignments in scarce information context

I could not find a better title at this point although I already referred in the past to this issue. Many if not all the OPI assignments I am offered take place with a very scarce information context. It is not OPI for daily life services but specialized OPI. Despite this, interpreters are expected to deliver in assignments where the only verbal clue is a short sentence, a few words spelling the subject. Beyond that is the twilight zone. It goes against everything that is suggested in the literature about preparation. It puts at the risk the interpreter to deliver a less than expected level of service. The keyword behind the fact is less a matter of confidentiality than a matter of lack knowledge on the part of the intermediary about what interpretation is all about. With the recent introduction of a systematized online interface, the interpreters are farther away from interfacing with real humans on the over side, besides the clients. The super keyword that tops all others, the one tabou word is "savings", even if putting at risk quality. Despite this, and as workaround are out of reach, especially in this recession, the need for strategies to get ready in scarce information context is more than ever mission number one. There is no financial incentives to spend several hours getting ready in the mist, yet not spending time searching the subject and framing the possible scale and shape of the conversation to come is equivalent to commit suicide by starvation. Not that the scale and shape of the conversation to come cannot be etched out or fathomed, but risks are that the interpreter misses the point in anticipation outright. The equation is therefore to frame out possible scenarios, skim the subject based on these assumptions, take note of vocabulary, understand the industrial context big picture, and try and spend the least time on all this. There is a call here or spelling out strategies to get ready for the unexpected, but also strategies to frame out the salient features of a subject without expecting to get deeper into specialization. Same subjects may pop up from time to time, but usually, they come as a sweet new surprise. If it's not flexibility that is required, then there is no name for that super tender latex. I assume that some OPI practitioners in the US are seasoned experts of tactics on how to get ready for the unexpected. I have yet to read anything tangible about the subject. Probably, they are too busy and badly paid to care about spelling out the methods, and why would you spell out the methods in a throat cutting economic environment? I will come back to this subject again in the near future.

A glimpse inside the remote interpreter's den

Global Watch Tower has a post with a link to a short introduction of a remote videoconf interpreting service in the USA that provides a rare glimpse into the work environment of a remote interpreter. It may be time to invest in one or two broader screens and have all the tools (which tools?) in full view while delivering. I have yet to find any tangible description of the chores and strategies of remote interpretation. The standard mantra, "the interpreter must be knowledgeable in her specialties, fast witted" and the likes is redundantly boring. On the sideline, how does the economic slump impact the remote interpreting business?

NHK World launched

NHK launched NHK World. The site is also a gateway to all the NHK content geared at the outside world. There are legal restrictions that bar Japan to be on the receiving side of the broadcast, although content is available to some extent online. For our purpose here, the question is whether there are ways to exploit the content for multilingual purpose, that is between at least English and Japanese. Hardly so as it seems. Besides simple Japanese lessons that are not new but conveniently accessible there, Japanese language is absent.