Neutrality in interpretation is best achieved without an interpreter

Thank YOU so very much for your services yesterday... you were truly instrumental. You have no idea the impact that you provided which is something that is priceless. It was a pleasure working with you... Thank you for your professionalism... it was bar none ...

OK, this is shameless boasting, a true satisfied customer statement you can type yourself claiming you went on diet the night before and are now slimmer than ever.

But the purpose here is not boasting, truly, but pinpointing at something that appeared, at that occasion that later generated that comment (genuine, I swear), that the liaison interpreter is an enabler, an instrument of catharsis, sometimes. And this can't be let go with a mere, "so what?".

Neutrality in interpretation is best achieved without an interpreter. Or far away from a booth.

Neutrality is a consciously managed action, something done while performing, with awareness lit up. It is not pretending you are a black clad instrument like the helpers at Kabuki theater. It is instead reckoning that you are way too much visible as compared with the best situation, interaction that happens without an interpreter.

Managing neutrality is in part a matter of body movement control, but not always, controlling speed - try and deliver fast and short, and especially not interfering with the flow unless it is absolutely necessary and you believe it will make the understanding on both side better.

A conversation may start all of a sudden with a commonly known context on both sides, you the interpreter having no clue about it. You can test the following, asking someone to interpret, all of a sudden, not asking to "translate the following" because it will set the tested individual in a different mood.

"I met Mary yesterday and she was very pleased with present."

How many times have you felt even slightly to caress the break pedal because you don't know Mary, you don't know about the circumstances of giving a present, and you don't know what was in the package (and neither what was the color of the ribbon)?

Many times, students start thinking fleetingly about all these and this impairs on the speed of delivery, but also the mood, but also their competence (the lack of it) at controlling that visible frown on the face that tells "what the hell are you talking about?" Yet, you know that we know that it doesn't matter that you don't know who is Mary, what is the relationship between the people involved, why did she give a present, and whether the ribbon was stripped red and white or navy blue. It is a very easy message to be interpreted in a flash. What's more, chances are high that one side will tell you en aparté in three words who is Mary, or that further on along the path, a portrait of Mary, hints at relationships between protagonists in-situ or not will pop up in the picture. Interpreting in liaison mode is more than often also making a mental image of the various pieces of a puzzle and try make sense out of it while delivering. There are many instance pushing you to fall into the puzzlement trap, the questioning, inner or not, about who the hell are they talking about. Giving freedom to that feeling is putting your role as a communication enabler at risk.

Controlling neutrality is working hard keeping at bay all that makes you want to reach the break pedal and start talking "wait a minute, can you tell me what you are talking about, because you know I am here to help, that is granted I have at least a clue on the subject and what is at stake ... ." Because at heart you naturally want to be a participant to the interaction. Donning that unnatural role of the interpreter doesn't come naturally. Being fully aware of the fact, every time, helps switching fast to interpreting mode. Very often, it's all about awareness of the traps. Routine is the enemy. Where do you learn about composure? Not in books about interpreting as far as my readings tell, but for instance in books about ... savoir-vivre!

I remember reading somewhere a "true statement" about an interpreter praised for being "passionate" in delivering. Passion is required when the situation requires to convey passion from the speaking side. Otherwise, passion pushes you into the trap of overstretching you role of communication conduit. Keeping composure, but also giving clear clues to the talkers and listeners that you are over and that it is time from either side to go on, helping at times to push forward that shy talker whose stance may be drowned in the interaction, behaving in that instance as maître de cérémonie, a discreet actor director is all part of the show, that enhance the liaison interpreter's visibility, for the sake of better interaction.

Petit vengeance (?)

My stance has been so far that Japanese agencies don't give interpretation assignments to Westerners. There are not enough Westerners clearly designed and self-touted as interpreters here to negate the point, except for the exceptional. I know a single French national in Tokyo being a top class interpreter of all trade. I suspect another one to be. That makes a two. In some countries, it's called a throng. There must be a trickle of Westerners in niche totally undercover doing most exclusively non-simultaneous. Non-simultaneous is the massively performed technique (and that also means "situation") and the massively ignored subject - unless you happen to work for the US army in Irak or Afghanistan and get killed by your own son as it was reported some weeks ago.

You get touchy, too much, after all these years, starting from despair, moving toward self-claimed deep understanding of the ecosystem of your profession, the muck of the untold, the weight of the cream and recognized kins who pace the rules and themes of academic world. An invitation from a Japanese organization to fill a survey the other day, with the mention "only simultaneous interpreters apply", this survey being led by a mostly famous non-Japanese interpreting scholar in Europe. Anyway, what's the fuss.

I have claimed so far that local agencies as a rule don't give assignments, except for the exceptional. I have a clear memory of an agency I was involved with for +20 years that gave me an assignment, one in +20 years. The management of it was awkward enough to suffocate on it.

I now must reckon I am mongering biased information. I just now remember an assignment from a trade fair agency at a shoe exhibition in Tokyo, maybe 20 years ago. That makes two. Now, I have a third exception to log for posterity. An agency just emailed me with an offer for a two days assignment. They wanted me to come to their office to discuss it. What are the modern telecommunication technologies worth in 2010 Japan?

Anyway. They announced right away the fees. I had the immoral pleasure to answer back right away that I do not work for such fees, and that I am the one who set my fees, not my customers.

In the good times, not brilliant but good as it has not been for 6 months in a row in a long long time, you start to be pretentious. You are on the verge of forgetting the very roaring speech and definition you like to hammer on the head of others, that knowing the hardship of having no work for quite a while, the human being optimistic at boots, once you survived the despair zone (we are know flying through a despair zone, fasten your seat belt and hold on for a few years), once the better times are in until the next hole in the sky, you tend to forget not to forget to be aware of the market, you tend to forget that market scanning, understanding your professional ecosystem is never acquired, is never mathematically proven.

A tiny voice tells you in the back that behaving in such a pretentious way toward the third agency that dares and come forward to offer you an assignment, the third over 25 years, should be treated with courtoisie. After all, haven't you been reading these days books on courtoisie and politeness after all these years of ups and downs (many ups)? But no, the middleman most probably wanted to meet me and "check" if I speak Japanese among other claims (good at fixing dinner except dessert).

Some believers of fate and the voices of the unknown whisper that you will pay one day to having sent back that agency where it belongs - the mostly incompetent but can't do without band. And yet, you can't settle on the feeling of shame, whose opposite is not pride. That's for the manicheistic lot.

Talking about "know THY market", I was lured into buying (for speed) the electronic version of a book named "The entrepreneurial Linguist - The business-school approach to freelance translation". It's a broad surface scanning of things with at least a 150 pages to let go. A 20 pages book, pointed list, would have been enough, rather than skimming of the surface of things like "how to register to Facebook". There's a strategy of not showing the book index. Because the index might be enough.

I knew the book to be (so American!) yet another cool book claiming to be different just by lurking at the promo site. It's OK when you start in the profession(s), but it tells too much at face level. And misses something I have seen as crucial over the years : know Thy market, which means more precisely, develop a model that allows you to understand as best as you can the ecosystem of your profession, starting from who teach what to who, down to who does what and how job is created, passed along and filtered by who. It takes a good concept map and revisions to come up with a never perfect version. I have such concept map nurtured over some 4 years now, with the latest entry dated a few days ago. IHMC Cmap Tools is the free software. Pretty enough for the purpose and good.

It is the map of the Americas of the profession as seen from Tokyo, and still an unfinished roadmap. Nowhere in the book I read sideway (en parallèle) could I spot a clear invitation to know Thy market, and that the knowing is an endeavor over time (because the market doesn't want you to be known down to its innards).

So that makes 3 over 25 years. Not bad.

Of noise and making the best of that lingering feeling

"I would appreciate your position as a neutral party." This is a smart and sharp request from a new customer, one I have never read nor ever received so far. I could write pages on this matter but will keep quiet this time.

My understanding was that meeting would take place in a meeting room. It started in a coffee shop and ended there. Will someone give me an informed opinion on this kind of gear? Unless you have experienced it, stating that doing interpretation in a noisy environment, BGM and the likes, is hard, is only but a tiny part of the story. After 2 hours and a half non-stop, I was washed out. Ear dropping, literally cornering the ear to try and catch what they say over there at the table I am supposed to interpret is massively stressing and tiring. In a quiet meeting room, you usually don't need to over focus on hearing. Focusing is enough. In a coffee shop, standard conversation may be tiresome depending on the decibel level of the BGM and the level of each participants. But the interpreter is listening, full time, non-stop, non-stop deciphering, analyzing, grabbing context rich information in side-talks not to be interpreted to better understand what is at stake. Hearing is paramount to everything else. That's what I tell again and again at courses. But what when hearing is impaired because of the environment?

As for that lingering feeling, a white trace in a blue sky, it is both the result of sheer fatigue and the conclusion of a meeting, the standard little drama that develops each time, because things went pretty OK, the client is happy, and chances are this 2.5 hour encounter will never happen again. The unplugging when all the "arigato" are distributed, the noises of the chairs behind pushed away, and the first noise you don't care about because standard listening, which is partial listening, is now authorized. That's where the trail starts, and accelerate when you start sailing your own path back to the train station where no participant is heading. You are alone.

The standard bragging about interpreting, better than translation because when things are over, they are indeed over and you can call it quit is ... totally wrong. It's a trail and a tail at the same time. Flash reminiscences of things that took places a few minutes ago, the longing for something more especially when human contact with the client has been especially pleasurable - it does happen often. All this makes for boatload of virtual luggage your start dropping item by item as you move away from the professional scene. That's the substance of the trail.

Making the best of this time at long last alone with the self means doing a debriefing between you and you, a silenced but serious debriefing on what went OK, what went less than OK. Even if it does not transpire in this blog, because 99% of it is confidential, and because after a few stations, the mind starts focusing on the future like what to fix for dinner, it aggregates somewhere and will be of some use next time. For instance how checking the self to stick as best as possible this time to the request of keeping a neutral position, awareness in doing so, allows for further reflexion for the future about what is referred to when talking about neutrality in liaison interpreting, and more. Instead of pretending to call it quit when something doesn't want to quick, better investigate while it's hot on the (professional) meaning of it all.