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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Vol/53 No/6 2014 DECEMBER 2014/JANUARY 2015 The Linguist 27 OPINION & COMMENT Should interpreters work in partnership with clients and are their services better valued when they do? JONATHAN DOWNIE It's 3pm on a Sunday afternoon. I have been in Germany for just over a week collecting data for my PhD. What I have seen and heard has surprised me. As a conference interpreter, I am used to the kind of cool, detached, smooth performance that you would expect from interpreters at a big conference. Here, I have found something quite different. The speakers throw themselves into their talks: they drop to their knees, crack jokes with the audience (and with the interpreters!), act out stories, and generally make it obvious that they love what they are doing. The interpreters, whether cloistered to their booths or on-stage beside the speaker, echo the speakers' movements and enthusiasm, take on roles in the stories, and even offer opinions on what stories and jokes might not work. It's interpreting, but not as I have ever seen it. In this organisation – a church – interpreting is so central, it is written into the constitution. Consequently interpreters are expected to show commitment to the organisation's vision and goals before they even set foot in the booth. The natural result of this commitment is that they act not just as linguistic mediators, but as partners too. Compare this to a church organisation I studied in the UK. There, interpreting was seen as necessary but not central. Clients were happier to let anyone have a go, if they seemed able to handle the mechanics of speaking and listening at the same time. Everyone, without exception, told me that they expected interpreters to be impartial, accurate and to have a pleasant voice. So, where interpreters are central, clients seem to expect partnership. Where their work is necessary but not highly valued, people want them to concentrate on being impartial and accurate, and leave the rest to the speaker. It is that second kind of interpreting that most professionals are trained to offer – ironically, the one that seems to go along with interpreting being undervalued. Partnering the speaker to help them work more effectively appears to cross an invisible line between interpreting and coaching. Yet, partnership is increasingly becoming an accepted part of written translation. In a recent blog post, David Jemielty 1 claims that translators should know their field of specialism well enough that they can have a meeting with people who have been working in that field in two languages for their entire lives and still be able to contribute. While the translation world has had a lot of fun debating how far this kind of specialism is possible – or even useful – for every translator, no one has denied the value of this kind of partnership, whoever your clients might be. Everyone loves people who help them succeed. If your translation happens to help make someone a lot of money, or get that prisoner behind bars, you will be top of the list for future work. Why should interpreters be any different? Sure, some of us work in sensitive situations, such as courts and hospitals, but translators work in these arenas too. In fact, I would argue that it is precisely in these places where partnership matters most. Might it be that one of the reasons why court interpreting struggles with recognition is precisely because of the prevailing view that interpreters are necessary but not valuable? We hear a lot in the press about the need for interpreters in UK justice and in our multilingual societies, but not nearly so much about how their work benefits everyone, not just their immediate clients. To change the mind-set of our clients, we first need to change how we sell our professions. Somehow, we have to convince ourselves, and then our clients, that translation and interpreting don't represent costs but investments. We need them to know that they have something to gain by working with translators and interpreters, not just something to lose if they don't. For that, we need to learn what they want and then be brave enough to partner with them to help them get it. Notes 1 Jemielty, D, 'Specializing: A Ticket to the High End of the Profession?,' ITI: The Pillar Box Blog, 18/8/14, http://bit.ly/DJem-Article In my opinion… Interpreter, translator and writer Jonathan Downie is studying at Heriot-Watt University for a PhD on client expectations of interpreters. TL © SHUTTERSTOCK