Interpreter Stress

Last week an old friend coaxed me out of retirement to give a couple of classes to his conference interpreting students. (They're in a Master in Conference Interpretation programme at a private Spanish university, the Universidad Europea.) A lively bunch, they got around to discussing with me the differences between interpreting and written translation.

The first thing they all mentioned was of course the medium: voice. (We didn't touch on sign language.) Cultivating a clear voice – and for simultaneous, especially a pleasant microphone voice – is important for Professional Interpreters but people don’t expect it of Natural Interpreters. So it’s beyond the scope of this blog, except to mention that there’s an article full of good advice about it by an experienced voice coach in the latest issue of The Linguist (see References).

The next thing on which there was general agreement was stress. This surprised me a little, coming from such young and untried interpreters, but it’s been a topic of discussion among Professional Interpreters for a long time. The International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) commissioned a Workload Study on interpreter stress and burnout which was completed in 2001 (see References):

“Undeniably interpreters face unrelenting stress. What form does it take? Should we consider it friend or foe? Can we control it; even make an ally of it?
"The data placed simultaneous interpretation in the category of high stress professions and... the data points to psychological and physiological costs. The factors most frequently mentioned as stressful by those participating in the study are difficulties to do with text and delivery (speed, read texts, strong accents, lack of background material and preparation time) and booth discomfort."

I would rank the causes of psychological stress as follows.

First speed. The Expert Written Translator may average 2,500 words a working day, which would be equivalent to about 400 words an hour. Any interpreter is expected to translate at a normal speaking rate of, say, 100 words per minute. It's amazing that translating can be done at this speed even by untrained interpreters, though they're allowed to ask a speaker to go more slowly.

Concentration. The interpreter listens to the speaker, but is no ordinary listener. The ordinary listener can skip what is difficult to understand, can afford at least a moment of inattention. The Expert Interpreter can't afford to miss anything. The Natural Interpreter has the luxury of at least being able to interrupt the speaker in order to do short consecutive; the Expert Interpreter must keep going. The mental effort required explains why conference interpreters, if they work to rule, change over every half hour or so. Longer stretches are possible but exhausting (though I've known conference interpreters go on alone for a whole day and court interpreters often have to do so).

Restricted resources. The written translator has a wealth of reference material to draw on, and even more so in this era of the internet. Although an occasional glance a dictionary or a scribbled note from a colleague may sometimes be possible, and Natural Interpreters have the possibility of asking speakers for clarification and even assistance, for 99% of the time the Expert Interpreters must rely on what's inside their own heads.

No opportunity for correction.The first version is the final version. Expert Written Translators can, indeed should, review their drafts and improve them, removing perceived errors. They can thereby reach a level of expression that is beyond the reach of Expert Interpreters, whose first thoughts are also their last. Natural Interpreters and sometimes Liaison Interpreters have more scope for "I think they mean... but perhaps it's... Let me check." However, they can't do a lot of it and remain coherent.

Public performance. Conference interpreting, and some of its extensions like interpreting for TV, are a performing art. Today the Expert Interpreter may be acoustically scrutinised, and on occasion criticised, by audiences of millions. It's the kind of scrutiny that actors and public speakers must endure, and student interpreters need to have a 'baptism of fire' of it as part of their training. It's also one reason most Professional Written Translators don't want to do interpreting; they prefer to work semi-anonymously at their quiet desks..

Researchers on Language Brokering have posited yet another kind of stress which affects that kind of Natural Interpreter, namely acculturative stress: "responding to competing demands of two cultural worlds on a daily basis" (see References).

The physiological stress level has been measured by objective indicators in conference interpreters:

"The physiological data collected was blood pressure, heart rate and salivary cortisol levels in a sample of 48 interpreters who wore monitors over a 24 hour period."

This was the kind of stress that forced me to give up conference interpreting permanently after a serious illness.

What can interpreters do to relieve stress?

• Practice Transcendental Meditation (I did) or some other form of ‘yoga‘.
• Smoke. Out of fashion socially. But there was a time, terminating around 1980, when conference interpreters smoked, even chain-smoked, in the booth. There’s an old United Nations video that shows it unabashed (see References).
• Take all necessary measures to stay fit. My cardiologist says that mental stress never killed anybody who was in good shape physically.

After so much that sounds negative, is there a good side to interpreter stress? In the late 1960s, I happened to be working at the University of Montreal directly under the offices of a great pioneer of research on stress, Hans Selye (see References). I learnt from one his lectures that stress is a normal condition, not something to be afraid of. There's a noteworthy finding in the AIIC study:

"No correlation was found between the physiological indices and performance levels."

But to take it a step further, perhaps the stress is necessary for the topmost level of performance, as in other performing arts. The AIIC study didn't include adrenalin levels.

References

• Sandy Walsh. Release the voice within. The Linguist, June/July 2013, pp. 10-11. You can read it here.
• Jennifer Mackintosh. The AIIC workload study - executive summary. 2003. Click here.
• Hans Selye. The Wikipedia article about him is here. 
• Robert S. Weisskirch and Sylvia Alatorre Alva. Language brokering and the acculturation of Latino children. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 24, 2002. Full text here.
• United Nations Organization. Other Voices. New York: United Nations Film Services, c1975. 27 mins. Although it's old, this is still a classic introduction for students and the general public. I have it on CD if anybody wants a copy. 

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Telepresence Options

One Hundred Years of Ronjat

Parents and other family with bilingual children must have noticed since time immemorial that their children could translate. However, the first study of the phenomenon by a trained linguist was published just a century ago this year in French. It was Le développement du langage observé chez un enfant bilingue (Language Development as Observed in a Bilingual Child) by the Franco-Swiss linguist Jules Ronjat.

Ronjat was French but he taught at the University of Geneva. He was therefore a contemporay there of the great Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, but there's no indication that they knew one another.

Ronjat’s speciality wasn't child language but the study of Occitan, a Romance language still spoken in Southern France and in Catalonia. Indeed it doesn't appear that he ever published again on the subject of child language. We owe this pioneer work, therefore, to the chance circumstance of his having a bilingual child himself.

The child was his son Louis. Louis Ronjat was born in 1908 at Vienne, on the River Rhône in France, and observed by his father from birth until fourth year. Louis considered himself trilingual, because besides fluent French and German he also knew a little Franco-Provençal (which is closely related to Occitan).

It was not only the first study but the first longitudinal case study of language development in a bilingual child. Its focus is on phonetics, which was a flourishing area of linguistics at the time. However, it contains many interesting examples of translation and related phenomena (e.g. bilingual lexical pairing) produced by Louis at an early age. Louis acquired French and German simultaneously from his parents, their families and their household. His mother was German speaking. Ronjat and his wife followed the one person one language (OPOL) principle, which Ronjat had learnt from fellow linguist and child language observer Maurice Grammont (see references). The method requires that each parent speak only their own language with the child; the rationale being that infants associate languages with the people who speak them and that OPOL therefore helps them keep their two languages separate. In the same spirit, the Ronjats abstained from making Louis translate for them; therefore his translations were as spontaneous as possible. There was a good deal of personal communication between Ronjat and Grammont, but the latter didn't mention translation.

The translation data begins with Louis' earliest translations, at  1 year 9 months, preceded by even earlier 'pretranslation' phenomena like pairing words with the same meaning in his two languages. It continues until, by four years old, he was performing language brokering within the family circle, and Ronjat says of him at that age,

“Son habileté de traducteur… est… remarquable quand il s’agit de trouver une équivalence d’idiotismes… Ce n’est point de la lexicographie courante, mais de l’excellente stylistique instinctive. (He shows remarkable skill as a translator when it comes to finding equivalents for idioms… it is far more than everyday lexicography, it is excellent intuitive stylistics.” (p. 95)

An appendix links Louis’ language development to his general cognitive development.

I'm trying to see what can be done to make the book available again outside the libraries.

References

• Jules [Antoine] Ronjat (University of Geneva), 1864-1925. Le développement du langage observé chez un enfant bilingue. Supplementary dissertation for Doctorat ès Lettres, Faculté des Lettres, Université de Paris. Paris: Champion, 1913. 155 p. Édouard Champion was a celebrated publisher and bibliophile. He died in 1938 but his publishing house lives on.
• Maurice Grammont. Observations sur le langage des enfants (Remarks on Child Language), Paris, Klincksieck, 1902. By coincidence, Klincksieck now owns Champion.

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 I first learnt about Ronjat from a reference in a paper by the Canadian educational psychologist Merrill Swain. Then I was extremely lucky: I found a copy of it almost next door to me in the library of the University of Montreal. It hadn't been borrowed for over 20 years. It was probably there because the U of M was already established as a French-speaking university when the book was published and because, being Jesuit, it had a good linguistics department. Later I was able to acquire a copy of my own from a second-hand bookseller. It bears an inscription in Ronjat's own hand, "Bien cordial souvenir (With best wishes) – Jules Ronjat," but I don't know who he sent it to. The image above is from my copy.

Critical Link Community Interpreting Conference, Toronto, June 17-21

Last call for the 7th Critical Link International Conference on Community Interpreting, Toronto, June 17-21.

This is the latest in the leading conference series of its sector. The theme this time is Global Awakening: Global Practices in Community Interpreting. The website is here.

I'm scheduled to give a five-minute introductory talk. No, I won't be there, alas. Too far. Pre-recorded.

Technology and the Expert Translator

In what follows, translating refers to written translation. Interpreting is another story.

Once upon a time, Expert Translators only needed two pieces of technology. One was the time-honoured paper dictionary, and the other was a typewriter (preferably an IBM Selectric with its interchangeable print balls). Indeed, in the 1970s and 1980s I visited several countries where even Professional Translators were still writing out their translations in longhand. Perhaps the first really useful modern technological novelty was the photocopier.

Then came computers.

First came word processors. In the beginning only for English, but then extending (and still extending) to other languages. In the 80s I came across an Arabic processor (very clunky) for the first time in Amman, and an Inuktituk one in Canada. In the following decade, the world of communications was transformed by the internet.

The above, however, were universal tools that translators used along with other writers and office workers. How about more dedicated tools designed specifically for translators? The first breakthrough was the computer-stored multilingual term banks; in Canada and Europe from about 1970 onwards. Computer stored but still very labour intensive. The second wave was that of translation memories using bitext (see Terms below), which were invented at the end of the 1980s. Then people got the idea of linking them along with the above-mentioned universal tools into what we called translator workstations.

  

More recently, the workstation components have been fully integrated and marketed as computer-assisted translation (CAT) software suites. The best known of them is Trados (www.trados.com). It includes terminology management, translation memory building and other functions. Many employers now require their staff translators and freelance contractors to know how to use it.

Translation memory is also changing bilingual lexicography. Linguee (www.linguee.com) is now the dictionary I most often turn to, and it‘s based on translation memory. Also it’s a dictionary that requires the judgement of an Expert or Advanced Native Translator.

For me, the turning point had come already in 1976. It was in that year that we introduced a Computers and Translation course into the undergraduate translation programme at the University of Ottawa. A Canadian first. My colleagues agreed to it only on condition that it be an optional course. But by 1980, at the request of the students themselves, it became compulsory.

Nowadays conferences and seminars on translation technology have become all the rage in translation studies. It’s impossible to keep up with the innovations and assess them all. That‘s why Jost Zetzsche‘s Tool Box Newsletter (see References) is so useful. He wrote recently,

“Someone asked me last week: Do you still always come up with enough material for your newsletter? The answer is I don't have to: the material comes to me. If there was enough to cover in translation technology 219 editions ago, there is certainly more than enough today.”

All this is leading up to the following:

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Expert Translator is knowledge of the technological tools available and how to use some of the most advanced ones. The Natural Translator doesn’t need them and may not even be aware they exist. The Advanced Native Translator is likely to have become acquainted with the most basic ones.

Notice that for once I'm saying something prescriptive; the reality is that Expert Translators, even Professional ones, often fall short of the ideal, especially the older ones.

  

Terms

• Bitext: a computer-stored source text and its translation keyed to one another in such a way that retrieving a segment in either of them automatically retrieves also the corresponding segment in the other.
• Translation memory: a collection of bitexts, typically compiled by computer. Some of them are augmented on the fly as the translator works.

References

• Jost Zetzsche. The Tool Box Newsletter. Blog. The Basic Edition is free on the internet. The Premium Edition costs $25 a year. Website here. Jost is co-author of Found in Translation, reviewed a few weeks ago on this blog. To find the review, enter jost in the Search box on the right.
• Brian Harris. Bi-text [sic], a new concept in translation theory. Language Monthly (Nottingham, UK) no. 54, pages 8-10, 1988. Language Monthly has long since ceased publication, but there are copies of it in the British Library and the Library of Congress.

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96-character interchangeable type balls for IBM Selectric typewriters. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Literary Native Translators

Translated by Joan Pinkham

Julie McDonough Dolmaya teaches translating and translation studies at university level in Toronto. She has a blog, which has recently been mostly about her teaching innovations. This week, however, there’s something different: an obituary of a distinguished American literary translator, Joan Pinkham.

Joan was best known internationally as the English translator for the French historian Henri Troyat, but in Canada for her translation of Les Nègres Blance d’Amérique (The White Niggers of America) by Quebec nationalist writer Pierre Vallières. What makes the obituary outstanding is that Julie had the good fortune to be able to interview her towards the end of her life, and the interview, which Julie transcribes for us, is full of glimpses into the joys and tribulations of a literary Professional Translator. Anyway, read it all here on Julie’s blog.

I draw attention to it on this blog for one particular passage in the interview. It’s where Joan states categorically,

“As a translator, I am basically self-taught [my emphasis]. At the time I was in school, there were no official academic programmes in translation in the U.S. (or none that I was aware of). Courses at the British Institute in Paris and at Middlebury College in Vermont — they were called “Stylistics” – were invaluable but insufficient for my purposes. So I studied on my own, reading such books as I could find, preparing translations of Maupassant and comparing mine to the many different printed versions, learning much from the bilingual documents that constantly came across my desk at UN.”

This means that she started out as a Native Translator, albeit an Advanced Native Translator. (For more on these terms, enter essential definitions in the Search box.) She became an Expert Translator by working at it on her own and by the publication of her books. (The Literary Translators’ Association of Canada accepts one published book as a sufficient qualification for admission.) Hers was the typical developmental profile of literary translators. Like all bilinguals, they can already translate. They hone their craft by reading and by practising their writing skills, not by going to school. If they have academic qualifications, those are usually in literature.

YI Guidance Pack

The Hampshire Young Interpreter Scheme (YI) has been featured in several recent posts on this blog. I’ve praised it as significant for bilingual education, but don’t just take my word for it: it won a European Award for Languages in 2010 and was a finalist for the MJ Local Government Achievement Awards in 2012. Ofsted, the official body for inspecting UK schools, has declared that

“Those pupils who act as young interpreters make an outstanding contribution of enabling those pupils speaking little English and their parents or carers to take full part in all school activities.“

Now the YI Guidance Pack for teachers has reached me in Valencia.

The Pack is a well-organised, stimulating and suggestive aid for teachers in schools that have a considerable proportion of immigrant students speaking languages other than the dominant language of the country. It's attractively designed and illustrated. It comes with a DVD that contains some good videos. Pupils also have access to Moodle, a free e-learning internet software platform.

Interpreting is treated as a serious practical activity, not as a game or pastime. The mode of interpreting is dialogue interpreting in a community interpreting setting. Here’s what the Pack has to say about preparation:

• You should prepare by finding out what the meeting is about by talking to the person leading the interview.
• You should also research some words that may be of use.
• You should ensure that the location is private and rearrange the seats so everyone is equal.
• You should introduce all parties.  

Good advice for adult interpreters too.

  

And here are some of the "golden rules" in the Interpreting Check-List:

• Put all the information across.
•  Keep neutral and avoid taking sides, avoid giving your opinion.
•  Listen and show attention, stay focused, stick to the point.
•  Respect cultural issues.
•  Be patient, be polite.
•  Know your boundaries.

The Guidance deals with a point that troubles some people when they hear about such young people interpreting, that of their having access to confidential information. It says,

“They should consider [the need for] confidentiality, but point out that as students they should not be asked to interpret in situations where confidentiality might be an issue.”

 Be it noted that confidentiality is among the rules of interpreting that are mentioned by students themselves.

  

How about recruitment and selection? Most of the pupils considered are already fluently bilingual or multilingual and have previously been ‘new arrivals’ themselves; and all must be “good role models in terms of their use of English,” which I take to mean that they speak something close to ‘standard’ English’ as taught in schools. But there is provision too for second-language learners “nominated by the Modern Foreign Languages departments in secondary schools.” In addition, they should demonstrate “a good knowledge of school routines, systems and activities,“ which takes care of some of the extra-linguistic needs. For the rest, the qualities sought are personality ones: “patient, good listeners, good communicators, responsible, etc.”  What is not tested or questioned is their ability to translate. It is assumed that they have it intuitively as bilinguals, and also that it will improve with some training. Both assumptions accord with the Natural Translation Hypothesis (click here for more.)

As one would expect from experienced teachers, there are lots of Role Play Scenarios, Interpreting Scenarios, Resource Sheets and the like. There are sections on selecting pupils to participate, on organising the training sessions and on what can be expected from ‘graduates’.

  

The DVD videos include a tribute from a head teacher and advice from a professional interpreter, an example of good interpreting by a student and also one of bad interpreting by an adult. This last is hilarious. It’s in the folder of Good and bad interpreting situations.

  

If you’d like to get hold of the Pack, go to the website http://www3.hants.gov.uk/education/ema/ema-resource.htm, then to the tab Downloads and Packs, and there you’ll find a link to an order form. The price is 38 pounds including postage and tax.

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Source: Shirley Community Nursery & Primary School, Cambridge, UK

How Native and Expert Interpreters Can Work Together

Both Professional Expert Translators and Non-professional Native Translators have their place; work can be divided appropriately between them and they can be coordinated advantageously. This is neatly illustrated by a report that’s just come in from Canada. It’s about preparations for the International Children’s Games, but in this case the translators aren’t children.

Throughout the text, translator is used for interpreter, a common usage among lay people, even newspaper reporters.

“As Windsor and Essex County [an area on the Canada-USA border opposite Detroit] get ready to welcome the world on Aug. 14, there is still a lot of work to be done. A big part of that is recruiting and training volunteers to make sure the International Children's Games run smoothly. That job is about to get a bit easier, thanks to a $56,000 Trillium Foundation grant which will be used by the Multicultural Council to recruit a translation team of 250 members.

"‘Our community is making every effort to expand on the concept of translation ambassadors by ensuring each of our delegations will have a translator at these games,’ said Nora Romero, host committee member and sponsorship chair. ‘The grant will allow us to identify, recruit and train volunteers.’

“Romero said the funding will be used in three different ways. First, there will be certified translators [i.e., Professional Experts] whose job will be to work with the athletes and the media for interviews. Second, translators will be available to work with students in the various residences. And third, the translation team will be able to provide directions and guidance to friends and families of the athletes.

"This will be a great opportunity for some of our new Canadians [the Canadian euphemism for immigrants] to volunteer and get involved in the Games,’ she said.”

By the time they get to the Games, all the volunteers will be Native Translators from the training they’re to receive. It won’t be advanced training. I know because I took part in a similar interpreter training programme for the Inter-American Games in Winnipeg in 1997, when 3,000 local Spanish speakers applied for 30 places in the programme. But training over 200 of them in a few months is quite an achievement and it couldn’t be done if they weren't at least Natural Translators to start with.

References

• Kelly Steele. Trillium funds translators for Children's Games. The Windsor Star, April 22, 2013. The report is here.
• For the terms Native Translator, etc., enter essential definitions in the Search box on the right.