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FEATURES of third persons, the essentials of the nature of conflict and the subject matter terminology. Mediation sessions can be intensely stressful. In an atmosphere of anxiety, mistrust or despair, parties may be insecure and vulnerable, or downright rude and cruel. All participants – including the interpreter – are together in this process for a number of hours, over a number of days, and there is a clear risk of empathy – on the basis of the dispute, ethnicity, gender, language or whatever – with one of the parties. In mediation, legal interpreters need to maintain an exceptionally strong ethical awareness, grounded on the pillars of confidentiality and impartiality. The most specific set of skills relates to the ability to apply, as an interpreter, the whole range of communication strategies used in mediation, such as being aware of people's feelings, reactions, body language and vocal tones, which can be incongruent with or supportive of what is being said. The same goes for the range of linguistic strategies, for example the accurate rendering of simplifying, summarising or mitigating discourse. Finally, as videoconferencing seems to be the most applicable technology to complement face-to-face mediation sessions, the interpreter needs to be aware that, as the communicative environment is fragmented, all aspects of the dynamics of the communication and its management are affected. Whether videoconference-supported mediation works best when it replicates, as closely as possible, the traditional face-to-face setting, or whether it is regarded as a form of dispute resolution in its own right, the legal interpreter would, in any case, need to bring on board the additional skills identified by research on interpreter-mediated videoconferencing. 4 Self-assessment The interactive materials on the project website are for interpreters who want to prepare for assignments in mediation – to show how it differs from other types of legal interpreting – but whose access to taught courses or workshops is limited. 5 These structured self-assessment exercises are designed to be worked on alone, as part of the process of individual legal interpreters setting their own objectives, reflecting on their practice, assessing how much a particular activity has met their learning needs and identifying what they still need to do. The materials include exercises to help improve reflection on performance, video clips highlighting learning points relevant to interpreting in mediation, self-assessment and video clips of the competences required, including comments from interpreters and mediators, templates for the construction of an action plan and record keeping. Just as the goals of mediation differ from a court-based adjudication, the communicative dynamics are different enough to require a set of additional competences. There is not, as yet, a clear understanding on the part of either mediators or interpreters of what it means to interpret in mediation and how this should be managed. The Understanding Justice project aims to take initial steps towards illuminating the challenges involved. For the full text of the project findings, 'Understanding Justice: An enquiry into interpreting in civil justice and mediation', see www.understandingjusticeproject.com. Notes 1 'Directive 2008/52/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008 on Certain Aspects of Mediation in Civil and Commercial Matters'; eur-lex.europa.eu/ legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:32008L0052 2 JUST/2013/CIV/AG/4684; www.understanding justiceproject.com/assets/uj_report.pdf 3 As described in the Building Mutual Trust 1 project; www.buildingmutualtrust.eu 4 See the Avidicus projects; wp.videoconference-interpreting.net/? 5 See the Understanding Justice online self- assessment tool; understandingjusticeproject .com/assessment For writers' biographies for all feature articles, see page 34. FOREIGN AFFAIRS: 15% of divorces in Germany involve couples of different nationalities IMAGES © SHUTTERSTOCK