A full-fledged profession

I am slowly reading Liaison Interpreting - A Handbook. This is a consistent book, crammed with issues that would best exploited through discussions. In fact, the ideal setting would be for liaison interpreters to read the book and gather for a session on each chapter. An ideal nowhere to start with. I wonder how the authors would update the book today after 12 years of the original publication. I wonder how they would comment on the book with the perspective of time and what progress if any have been made, at least in Australia as the authors are Australian. There is so much for instance substance of debate with the issues of ethic - the idealization of the interpreter being first and foremost, if not exclusively, a linguistic agent. Reality clashes often with what the authors rightly expose as being the do and do not of the liaison interpreter in action. More than often, clients would ask for hints about the current situation. If the interpreter's role is threatened by such expectation, what if the interpreter flatly but politely decline to answer on the basis that this trespass the appointed role. It could bear a negative opinion on the interpreter by the client. This is but an example where I have been thinking while reading that real life is not always if not seldom that clear cut. The authors seem perfectly aware of that fact though even if they don't delve enough in my sense on these ambiguity that arise in real assignment. It is definitely the only book I know focused on liaison interpreting as a full-fledged profession.

Sale

M. who is not an interpreter told me he is reducing his fees. He is not an interpreter but he is a freelancer. That's the common feature we share. Reducing fees won't make customers come easier. Both of us in our far away professions do not advertise fees on our web sites. I have seldom seen a freelance interpreter providing a public fees page. Anyway, despite the financial slump and economic gloom, despite the high Yen, corporate Japan is a share bargain and commerce could to some extend grow despite low domestic consumption. Those are the only macroeconomics factors to cling to in times of recession. And that more SMEs will google interpreters in the coming months.

Japan gets expensive

Japan is today more expensive than the day before, and much more expensive than the previous week. Right now, a spree in New York or in Paris is to sound like a bargain flying from Tokyo. Only the airfare are higher than what they should cost. It also means that SMEs visiting Japan are put under pressure, and this shall have a negative impact on the number of future assignments. Revising ones fee to match reality may be needed soon. More focused online advertising too.