The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
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26 The Linguist Vol/58 No/3 2019 ciol.org.uk/tl OPINION & COMMENT words, new phrases, and for the transfer of old words to new objects." A recurrent solution was to borrow from the indigenous languages, often using spellings based on how the words were heard (e.g. 'raccoon' from Virginia Algonquian ärähkun), many undergoing different spellings until becoming standardised. They also borrowed from indigenous customs, thus we bury the hatchet because the Native Americans buried their weapons as a symbol of peace. The American love for simplicity is illustrated by word chopping ('gentlemen' > 'gents'), construction simplification (orientate > orient) and verbing, which was inaugurated with 'to scalp' as early as 1693. It is verbing that the British seem to hate most about AmE, yet England has also been known to make use of this practice. 'To hospitalize' was first recorded in London, while in the early 1900s, W H Hoover (credited with Spangler's invention of the vacuum cleaner) saw the British turn his surname into a verb. But what about the similarities? Today, all Englishes face similar issues, one of which is political correctness. According to the American author Bill Bryson, the aim is "to make language less wounding or demeaning to those whose sex, race, physical condition or circumstances leave them vulnerable to the raw power of acceptance of words". Examples include the replacement of 'chairman' with 'chairperson' and the new use of 'they' as a non-binary pronoun. Nowadays, digital globalisation and immigration have mostly replaced colonialism. English continues to evolve thanks to the languages it co-exists with in the places it is spoken. In addition, as a lingua franca, it is being shaped by non-native speakers. In an attempt to preserve their linguistic heritage, purists in Britain have, for generations, made a pet hate of AmE, even as their country adopts Americanisms such as 'you guys' (ubiquitous these days). How about we bury the hatchet and toast the similarities that make it possible to bridge an ocean and communicate with each other despite spelling, pronunciation and word choice? Carolina Casado Parras MCIL CL is a freelance translator and founder of VibrantWords Translations. TL hashtag. Then there was a myriad of selfies: selfies in sound booths, selfies in meeting rooms, buffet queue selfies and, why not, hotel bathtub selfies (#TiredTerp). It seemed that interpreters were getting increasingly narcissistic. Perhaps, with social media being part and parcel of their upbringing, this seemed normal for up-and- coming interpreters to do – yet older, more experienced colleagues were oversharing too. Whatever the reason, we had worrying quantitative data showing that interpreters often did not know how to negotiate their social media presence while ensuring that client confidentiality – and the reputation of our profession – was being maintained. Some may argue that this is a matter of style, but it is clear that existing codes of conduct are being ignored. It was here that we found a gap where we could really make a difference to the community. We ran an online survey which informed our campaign, entitled 'Conference Interpreting: Confidentiality and the use of social media'. We made a quirky Are interpreters oversharing on implications both for individual In 2017, as part of my Conference Interpreting MA, I was involved in a group assignment to make a presentation about one of the many practical challenges of the profession. We soon realised that we were not going to settle on the usual topics (booth manners, client liaison, dealing with agencies), but after a few weeks we still had nothing to work with. Our eureka moment came in a very millennial way – via a bit of Instagram scrolling. A quick search under the #ConferenceInterpreting hashtag provided a barrage of videos and pictures, some of which were rather worrying. The material included interpreters recording themselves in the booth and uploading videos while on assignment, geotagging (i.e. adding geographical identification metadata), pictures of preparation papers with clients' details in full view, and the not-so-LOLable #ViewFromTheBooth Too much HUGO MENENDEZ