In these previous posts, I started to review the article "Business culture versus interpreting culture" by John Martin Dodds of University of Trieste in Italy.
Interpretazione e Mediazione
Teaching liaison interpreting
The article is highly charged in the church where absolute sticking to the original speech meaning and wording is rule #1. It tells of another church where rules and expectations from the interpreter are heavily colored by clients expectations to quickly come down to business and reach goals. That is why, a business interpreter is an active or potential consultant, a mediator in business dynamics that set the competences required partially far away from matters of linguistics. But I leave chewing this bone for a later time.
Just to clarify, the author I had a very brief email exchange with suggests that liaison interpreting is a late comer in the history of interpreting. I assume that his point is in regard to training offered at university level specifically geared and named as "Liaison interpreting curriculum". Otherwise, he is wrong: liaison interpreting starts in the Bible.
Somewhere in the beginning, the author writes about business interpreting as a market:
"The needs of the market are always of primary importance, which means speed and efficiency. Say what has to be said as quickly and as clearly as possible. Business people have busy schedules and simply do not need details, they do like interpreters therefore who are able or willing to cut, summarize, compress, delete and indeed even take over on occasions."
In other realms, this is anathema, but to move on discussing liaison interpreting for business, one has to change gear, that is, to stop pleading for forbearance and lofty understanding from the side that does "real" interpreting. Realities there are many, and in this specific reality of business interpreting, the rules are different, or rather than different, they are moveable according to the circumstances that are many, and the expectations of the clients that are also culturally charge with more or lessa adrenaline.
And that it is. No more apologize therefore.
Once this standing up for oneself is achieved, there starts the interesting and difficult part to focus on the matter of competence and willingness at doing what the author suggests, a series of verbs that carry for some a culinary value: chop, squeeze, reduce and snap away the seeds. I will try and focus on this at a next time.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
What about G+?
You are asking me about Google+?
The integration with other Google tools is superb and getting better. Videoconferencing is good to great. G+ by itself can be as loosy as Facebook. It is not user friendly. It will be. I have already a growing slew of cool people wanting me to put them in circles. What for is the key question, as usual.
We have been exchanging, talking shop, talking profession across continents. This is the reason why I am using this mainly: to nurture professional dialog, the lateral dialog I have been starving from the lack of. As for the tools, they have been around for a while in more or less complete fashion elsewhere. As for the will to get in touch, it has been stronger than ever on my side, and it does matter more than the tools that are indeed empowering. What do I want to do with this power? What about you?
I am not in love with G+ but with the potential it offers. The usage of it has nothing to do with technology, as you already know, don't you?
The integration with other Google tools is superb and getting better. Videoconferencing is good to great. G+ by itself can be as loosy as Facebook. It is not user friendly. It will be. I have already a growing slew of cool people wanting me to put them in circles. What for is the key question, as usual.
We have been exchanging, talking shop, talking profession across continents. This is the reason why I am using this mainly: to nurture professional dialog, the lateral dialog I have been starving from the lack of. As for the tools, they have been around for a while in more or less complete fashion elsewhere. As for the will to get in touch, it has been stronger than ever on my side, and it does matter more than the tools that are indeed empowering. What do I want to do with this power? What about you?
I am not in love with G+ but with the potential it offers. The usage of it has nothing to do with technology, as you already know, don't you?
Monday, January 30, 2012
DigInfo TV Japan
DigInfo TV Japan is a superb resource for self and group training, both in high end technical business speak acquisition and in interpreting. Each short video clip comes with a transcript of both formal, written speech voice over, and the bits of on site interviews. English versions too come with transcripts and can be exploited for two training course development.
Hanging out
Just finished a second hangout over Google+. Why is it we are doing this now when all the functions available over Google+ have been available more or less scattered over different systems in the past?
I don't know.
Emotionally speaking, on this side at least, it is very charged, like the first time you use a communication mean and hear the voice, and see the face of people whose incarnation so far were mostly constrained by 140 signs over Twitter. It renews the wonder of real time communication between two far away points, and more than two.
In 48 hours with less than 2 hours of talking shop with colleagues in the USA and Europe, I for one have never had so far such an opportunity to exchange in courteous, non-threatening, respectful manners about our different takes, views and experiences of our various involvement into interpreting. Our markets and concerns are different. We are continents apart, yet the common ground is sturdy right from the start.
As with the #IntJC initiative, I consider both to come a little bit too late in my case, but I am awed by the potential lateral communication among peers over continents can prove and generate over time a different breed of interaction grounded in less hierarchical realities.
If you are a student in interpretation, if you are a beginner without much formal training, if you want to share beyond geographical and formal frontiers, by all means, get involve and change the stakes. Nobody is paid by Big Brother Google to pitch the service, but come to Google+ and expand the conversation. It makes tremendous sense.
I don't know.
Emotionally speaking, on this side at least, it is very charged, like the first time you use a communication mean and hear the voice, and see the face of people whose incarnation so far were mostly constrained by 140 signs over Twitter. It renews the wonder of real time communication between two far away points, and more than two.
In 48 hours with less than 2 hours of talking shop with colleagues in the USA and Europe, I for one have never had so far such an opportunity to exchange in courteous, non-threatening, respectful manners about our different takes, views and experiences of our various involvement into interpreting. Our markets and concerns are different. We are continents apart, yet the common ground is sturdy right from the start.
As with the #IntJC initiative, I consider both to come a little bit too late in my case, but I am awed by the potential lateral communication among peers over continents can prove and generate over time a different breed of interaction grounded in less hierarchical realities.
If you are a student in interpretation, if you are a beginner without much formal training, if you want to share beyond geographical and formal frontiers, by all means, get involve and change the stakes. Nobody is paid by Big Brother Google to pitch the service, but come to Google+ and expand the conversation. It makes tremendous sense.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
#IntJC Announcement: Session 10 February 4th
#IntJC The Interpreting Journal Club topic for Session 10, February 4th : "Justice on the cheap", the case of the UK Ministry of Justice outsourcing legal interpreting services.
Read the details here, spread the word and join!
Read the details here, spread the word and join!
Thursday, January 26, 2012
A blessed course
The Winter course on business interpreting in consecutive mode I am delivering in Tokyo has now packed 12 students. 12 is huge. Many are repeaters, many are not in the interpreting trade, all want to practice sophisticated French - and Japanese - as an alternative approach to progress in their second language acquisition, that is, French. Most are or were engaged in professional lives. For most, motivation to attend the course is intellectual pleasure. The keyword of my course has been "encouraging", because we are not here to get discouraged by the task, but to progress in strategic manner. Leaving the course feeling charged up and wanting for more is the ultimate purpose.
With so many repeaters, it is a pleasure to witness how confidence in speaking and managing the tasks of interpreting has been growing through time. I am always telling them we are not seeking perfection, otherwise I quit, but progress. Together with encouragement always comes my invitation to make mistakes. Perfection as an inhibiting factor is very strong here in Japan. Where is it not though? I encourage them to blunder, and I deliver my dose of blundering to show how it feels. It is probably the only course where they hear about shame, or malaise at blundering and the management of it beyond the ineffective recommendation not to worry.
This time, we are blessed by the presence of a young working interpreter extremely talented. I was glad to hear he went through the rare crushing courses available in Tokyo and still decided to attend this serious but light hearted session of mine. Due to the market crunch, he looked and luckily landed a corporate in-house interpreting position, working mostly between Japanese and English, both in simul and consec. He is really gifted in language and we could swap roles in the classroom so I learn a few tricks. I quickly intervene right into the first course to tell mostly frozen students how lucky we were having such competent student here. The frost melted quickly. We also have a soon to be bright engineer who is very helpful with technical topics I sometimes choose. This is going to be an excellent Winter session.
With so many repeaters, it is a pleasure to witness how confidence in speaking and managing the tasks of interpreting has been growing through time. I am always telling them we are not seeking perfection, otherwise I quit, but progress. Together with encouragement always comes my invitation to make mistakes. Perfection as an inhibiting factor is very strong here in Japan. Where is it not though? I encourage them to blunder, and I deliver my dose of blundering to show how it feels. It is probably the only course where they hear about shame, or malaise at blundering and the management of it beyond the ineffective recommendation not to worry.
This time, we are blessed by the presence of a young working interpreter extremely talented. I was glad to hear he went through the rare crushing courses available in Tokyo and still decided to attend this serious but light hearted session of mine. Due to the market crunch, he looked and luckily landed a corporate in-house interpreting position, working mostly between Japanese and English, both in simul and consec. He is really gifted in language and we could swap roles in the classroom so I learn a few tricks. I quickly intervene right into the first course to tell mostly frozen students how lucky we were having such competent student here. The frost melted quickly. We also have a soon to be bright engineer who is very helpful with technical topics I sometimes choose. This is going to be an excellent Winter session.
Working less for less
If you are a real interpreter, don't read further. Enjoy stratospheric thin air.
Down there at ground level, there is an acceleration to the idea that working for less is the new norm. It's no longer an idea. It is. Precarity is cool. Eat instant noodles while watching culinary broadcasts on TV. I have been researching that UK affair of the Ministry of Justice over there outsourcing delivery of legal interpreters like pizzas to a private company. Commodification of language services, that was pushed by over-the-phone interpreting companies, is reaching fastfood dynamics. Lean, always in, 30 sec guaranteed before you have your interpreter ready to deliver in a situation devoid of context. Who cares about context, an other passé, déjà-vu word that sucks? If only it could be moved to China.
It's messy over there in the UK. You have seemingly many entities voicing over the net, wordily clashing with that private outsourcer, all in scattered manners that dilutes the potential of counter arguing. But of course, there must be another option to counter arguing, which is to say and act negatively, to say no working less for less, no to even working more for less, despite the fact that there will be for sure someone accepting the job for less.
It is my understanding that a top class legal terp in the UK going to a job location is being paid 22 pounds per hour of service, flat rate, no costs coverage. Just imagine you go by car 1 hour away and back home to spend a half-day business timeframe for 22 pounds flat.
I quit telephone interpreting a few years ago for the same very reasons. What is taking place over there is already, or will take place close to home soon, unless you are a real interpreter, right?
Someone emailed me last week, stealth mode, that is, inquiring for my availability for a few short sessions end of this month. Useless exchanges of mails were prompted to try and know in order: the setting, the duration, the context, the kind of people attending. This was some French businessman, grown-up for sure, mailing from Tokyo. I suggested we could talk over the phone instead of this stupid, unbusiness like, time consuming method. He asked for fees. I offered a rebate on half-days. He asked for hour based. I said no, and invited him to look deeper into the Tokyo market. He would without any doubt find someone agreeing to work more for less, although working more is not a guarantee. Of course, all this mail based until the end. He didn't react to my suggestion we talk. Talking is the new fear, or is it?
If you can offer working less for less, don't accept anything. Don't interpret for a world president. Stop the precarity is cool in disguise. Don't read their counter arguments. Communicate instead in lateral mode with colleagues. Don't just gawk watching TED presentations. Listening is not a conversation.
If you can't say no, consider moving away from unreal interpreting.
Down there at ground level, there is an acceleration to the idea that working for less is the new norm. It's no longer an idea. It is. Precarity is cool. Eat instant noodles while watching culinary broadcasts on TV. I have been researching that UK affair of the Ministry of Justice over there outsourcing delivery of legal interpreters like pizzas to a private company. Commodification of language services, that was pushed by over-the-phone interpreting companies, is reaching fastfood dynamics. Lean, always in, 30 sec guaranteed before you have your interpreter ready to deliver in a situation devoid of context. Who cares about context, an other passé, déjà-vu word that sucks? If only it could be moved to China.
It's messy over there in the UK. You have seemingly many entities voicing over the net, wordily clashing with that private outsourcer, all in scattered manners that dilutes the potential of counter arguing. But of course, there must be another option to counter arguing, which is to say and act negatively, to say no working less for less, no to even working more for less, despite the fact that there will be for sure someone accepting the job for less.
It is my understanding that a top class legal terp in the UK going to a job location is being paid 22 pounds per hour of service, flat rate, no costs coverage. Just imagine you go by car 1 hour away and back home to spend a half-day business timeframe for 22 pounds flat.
I quit telephone interpreting a few years ago for the same very reasons. What is taking place over there is already, or will take place close to home soon, unless you are a real interpreter, right?
Someone emailed me last week, stealth mode, that is, inquiring for my availability for a few short sessions end of this month. Useless exchanges of mails were prompted to try and know in order: the setting, the duration, the context, the kind of people attending. This was some French businessman, grown-up for sure, mailing from Tokyo. I suggested we could talk over the phone instead of this stupid, unbusiness like, time consuming method. He asked for fees. I offered a rebate on half-days. He asked for hour based. I said no, and invited him to look deeper into the Tokyo market. He would without any doubt find someone agreeing to work more for less, although working more is not a guarantee. Of course, all this mail based until the end. He didn't react to my suggestion we talk. Talking is the new fear, or is it?
If you can offer working less for less, don't accept anything. Don't interpret for a world president. Stop the precarity is cool in disguise. Don't read their counter arguments. Communicate instead in lateral mode with colleagues. Don't just gawk watching TED presentations. Listening is not a conversation.
If you can't say no, consider moving away from unreal interpreting.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
What's cooking?
I am planning to start cooking lessons in Tokyo sometimes in Spring when it gets warmer. I was pushed by several friends over the years to engage into this and always declined. Now they will have to sponsor me in a way. Many pictures are yellowish because of the mood in the kitchen, a very woody, European environment circa 1970s. Most are taken during dinner fixing with an iPhone. We have to set up that #IntJC session on managing many hats with confidence. There must be recipes for this too. Tell me your opinion. Food doesn't email well in attachment. Sorry about that.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Discussing Liaison Interpreting over Google+
This is a repost of a note I wrote within the #IntJC circle over Google+.
I would like to think and especially test implement a limited session of discussion using the video conferencing Hangouts function in Google+. There is a limitation of 10 seats and you need a camera with your PC. And you need of course to be registered over Google+.
The framework would be like this: 1 hour maximum, focused on one specific professional subject articulated around 3 keypoints. The first subject that comes to my mind is Liaison Interpreting and the various takes on what it refers to.
If someone involved in liaison interpreting is interested to give it a try, contact me back. The minimum number of participants would be 3. Your comments are welcome.
Of course, this kind of initiative can be taken by anyone as no leadership is needed and #IntJC is not an organization as you all know.
I would like to think and especially test implement a limited session of discussion using the video conferencing Hangouts function in Google+. There is a limitation of 10 seats and you need a camera with your PC. And you need of course to be registered over Google+.
The framework would be like this: 1 hour maximum, focused on one specific professional subject articulated around 3 keypoints. The first subject that comes to my mind is Liaison Interpreting and the various takes on what it refers to.
If someone involved in liaison interpreting is interested to give it a try, contact me back. The minimum number of participants would be 3. Your comments are welcome.
Of course, this kind of initiative can be taken by anyone as no leadership is needed and #IntJC is not an organization as you all know.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)