It’s (not) all about language!
The acquired skill of preparation – what interpreters need to know before they start speaking.
Every single interpreter or translator is used to friends coming up to them asking “So how do you translate [insert vague word] into [insert working language]?”, expecting an immediate response as if they were consulting a dictionary. I believe we all have the same reaction: our inner linguists take off their glasses, inhale deeply to calm themselves, and then politely ask “could I have a bit of context?”
This everyday struggle perfectly shows how interpretation and translation are much more than a mechanical act of word-matching or equivalence finding, words are rooted into circumstances and contexts, and that’s why prior preparation for any assignment is essential to say the least. Don’t get me wrong, no one is denying the usefulness of vocabulary research and preparation, but how are we going to use all those pretty new words we memorised if we can’t actually make sense of what is being said?
To help us understand what is going on in a room where potentially everyone knows everyone, there have been prior meetings or visits and we are the only non-experts on the subject matter, we have to gather the most varied types of information. And believe me, everything is useful. I learned this lesson very early on, during a dedicated practical seminar on the topic of pre-assignment preparation: we were given a few pieces of background information (name of the agency we had been contacted by and day of the meeting) with the agenda. Our task was to extrapolate as much information about what the company dealt with, what the topic of the meeting was and the implications, who would attend and what parties we could expect to be present, what terminology would be useful and if we could ask the conference organiser for specific documents. After 15 generous minutes, we thought we were ready to answer every question, but alas, we were wrong. The speaker crushed our hopes with very easy and useful questions, leaving us a bit ashamed we had not thought of them ourselves. He then patiently showed us how to go about looking them up, together with a few tricks of the trade, and stressed the importance of communicating with whomever is in charge: we should not be ashamed of asking for documents or information – thorough preparation is the part of our job that makes the interpretation faster, more accurate and more reliable. A few papers (theory anyone?) have now shown that preparation, and what type of preparation, impacts the performance (Díaz-Galaz, 2015). In short, the earlier the interpreter has access to materials for preparation, the better the interpretation will be in terms of accuracy and speed (i.e. shorter decalage). I would add that the mind-set of the interpreter entering the booth or sitting at the table is completely different, as we all know the role that confidence plays on our performances. Sure, we are equipped to deal with the worst, but taking away that bit of pressure dictated by the unknown coming at you at full speed is always a relief.
What if you’re told that requesting all the documents in advance is basically cheating? “You already have the agenda, the list of participants and their resumés, the reports from the previous meeting, and now you even want the PowerPoint presentations? I mean, will you be interpreting at all or you’ll just read out the translation you can come up with beforehand?” Let’s just agree this can be the equivalent of complaining to the doctor because he wants your previous analysis and reports, asking him to guess the cause of your illness.
However, sometimes preparation (document and background information) is not possible at all. Interpreting for the Public Sector is the best example: agency mediation, privacy regulations and other factors leaves us with little to no information about our client, and even if they are briefed quickly at the beginning of the session, interpreters are often dropped in the middle of the situation in medias res. Time to resort to the old but gold coping strategies and our best educated guesses.
Reference List
Díaz-Galaz, S. 2015. The role of advance preparation in simultaneous interpreting - A comparison of professional interpreters and interpreting students. Interpreting 17(1). Amsterdam: John Benjamin. pp. 1-25
