June 2005 Archives

David Krueger forwarded info on health care interpreting to the VermontDeaf listserv.

This comes right as I get ready to wind up the final week of research with European Parliament interpreters and - after RID - gear up for the plunge into community interpreting for the Turkish community in Germany.

Did someone say, segue? :-)

I finally found a bottle of Reisling to belatedly celebrate my birthday.

Had a nice chat with the salesclerk in the wine shop in Ghent, who also recommended a fab place for lunch. I'm stuffed to the gills! My mind is also still full to the brim from another confab with Prof Blommaert. We've got hypotheses and research questions out the wazoo! :-)

gave me a private mini-concert en route to Paris on my trip from Toulouse back to Antwerp. Now here’s a guy living in the moment! :-) We talked about celestials and terrestrials, transforming the energy of disappointment to peaceful and productive purposes, and respecting different vibes, all in the context of The Fourth World War.

June 28! Hopefully we'll get some party reports...

Jean Jensen-Shields passes this birthday greeting on to Sam (the old fart!):

"I miss you tons, and , one day, I hope to get out there for a visit.

Love to Sam, Jean"

Started feeling good and bammo, took a silly risk and hurt my foot trying to jump a ditch where I couldn't determine the pitch of the ground beneath the foliage on the other side. I knew there was a chance I could hurt my ankle (luckily my ankle is fine), but I jumped on the whim of taking a chance with my luck. So there! replies the universe!

But, I still say, with the Neville Brothers, "We must be fearless!"

No time to explore now, but this websiteprominently features a link for accessibility.

Brian took me to lunch yesterday inside the walled city of The Castle on the Miraculous Mountain. Being here is a miracle. Brian is irrepressible despite pain and sundry challenges. His own home is lovely. On clear days, one can see the Pyrenees.

Met Jean Marc on the train to Gaillac, who told me about the local village pleasures and the sunflowers: “Last week they were not blooming and now they are; it’s the right moment.”

Found the reference I was looking for after emailing for help. I still need help, but at least I can be more specific now!

Not your traditional bed and breakfast, the Doempke's do you one better, bed and Supper! At least, if you're around when they eat you're welcome to join them. This house hosts the largest residential door I've ever seen: perfectly symbolic.

I went to Lilia's presentation in Amsterdam yesterday. It was great - I learned a lot that was totally new to me (both from the presentation and from conversations afterwards) and I learned how typical most of my goals and ambitions are for this blog. :-)

One of the more intriguing conversations I had afterwards was with one of the faculty of the Virtual Studio, which is the group that sponsored the talk. Katie (from UCSD, knows at least two of our professors) pegged the presentation style, ethnographically, as "confessional."

The notion of an enclosed space in which to confess brings to mind Matt's question about the space/place constructed by a network of blogs/bloggers - "where" is it, and "what" is it as a research object similar to or different from other electronic media? He expanded: "How are blogs constituted differently than other types of media, electronic media – is it the absence of topic, forum, space – a spaceless place? Where the private becomes public? How does blog constitute a space or a place? And what does that have to do with the work or the identities you’re trying to capture?" Tangent: Matt is also faculty at the Virtual Studio, a research organization, similar to the place Lilia works - they get to do research of their own choice - within, no doubt, the scope of the particular organization. Awesome!

COMUNICADO DEL COMITÉ CLANDESTINO REVOLUCIONARIO INDÍGENA-
COMANDANCIA GENERAL DEL EJÉRCITO ZAPATISTA DE LIBERACIÓN NACIONAL.
MÉXICO.

JUNE 19, 2005

TO THE PEOPLE OF MÉXICO:
TO THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD:

HERMANOS Y HERMANAS:

FROM THIS DAY FORWARD, EL EJÉRCITO ZAPATISTA DE LIBERACIÓN NACIONAL HAS
DECREED, IN ALL OF REBEL TERRITORY, A

FULL RED ALERT.

BASED ON THIS, WE COMMUNICATE TO YOU THE FOLLOWING:

FIRST.- THAT AT THIS TIME WE ARE CARRYING OUT THE CLOSURE OF THE
CARACOLES AND THE OFFICES OF THE JUNTAS DE BUEN GOBIERNO IN THE
ZAPATISTA COMMUNITIES OF OVENTIK, LA REALIDAD, LA GARRUCHA, MORELIA AND
ROBERTO BARRIOS, AS WELL AS ALL OF THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE AUTHORITIES
IN EACH OF THE MUNICIPIOS AUTÓNOMOS REBELDES ZAPATISTAS.

"Witches didn't fear much, Miss Tick had said, but what the powerful ones were afraid of, even if they didn't talk about it, was what they called 'going to the bad'. It was too easy to slip into careless little cruelties because you had power and other people hadn't, too easy to think that other people didn't matter much, too easy to think that ideas like right and wrong didn't apply to you. At the end of that road was you dribbling and cackling to yourself all alone in a gingerbread house, growing warts on your nose" (19-20).

"It's always surprising to be reminded that while you're watching and thinking about people, all knowing and superior, they're watching and thinking about you, right back at you" (348-349).

A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett

Granny Weatherwax is pretty cool too. :-)

I had to find the exact right spot to finish reading A Hat Full of Sky, by Terry Pratchett. My first clue I was en route was this woman; next I saw the castleguarded by Lange Wapper. Riding up the ramp and through the castle's courtyard, I found myself on an overlook of the Schelde River. With the city as my backdrop and the river in front, I read the last four chapters.

"The future happened." (346&347)

I've been inspired lately. First, of course, credit must go to Burckhard who offered me the use of his daughter's bicycle (only with permission!) as soon as I arrived in Bruxelles. Then, Bill actually got me ON one in Strasbourg last time and that was really what I needed - to remember the feeling of it. I've since biked almost every day, including my long ride Saturday to Tervuren to explore the Africa Museum, and another long ride yesterday with Andras just to have a long ride. :-) (Perhaps he'll comment on our route???!)

I'm a bit behind the times but today is catching up day. (Which must be done before I start the *serious* writing; I'm a wee bit nervous about it, so this is good for warming-up, eh? Not to mention procrastination.) :-)

Andras has been my weekend hero. He took me to the outdoor bar scene two weekends ago - Place de.... - where they have heaters on the sidewalk so one can sit outside in just about all kinds of weather. It was definitely a happening place, with cafes situated on all four corners and plenty of folk passing through scoping and being scoped by those settled comfortably down.

Did I mention that the Hobbit House is in Hoboken?

This afternoon was a flute and guitar concert. I confess, my favorites were the guitar solos by Louis Ignatius Gall: Rumores de la caleta and Malaguena. However, with that said, all the musicians played evocatively. My emotions went on quite a ride! :-)

Could it really happen? Some momentuum builds...Bush pressed to answer `Downing Street Memo' questions.

A list of recent press and internet coverage.

The document in question may be viewable for a fee.

It’s taken me this long to see it, but I do think there is a generational difference that is identifiable roughly along lines of experience as an interpreter. It’s more clear between those who’ve maintained a long career at the Parliament and those who are near the beginning, but there’s also overlap between the more experienced interpreters who worked for many years within their own countries before coming to Parliament and those who are EP veterans. The most basic way it’s shown up is in their explanations about getting here, to work at the Parliament. Older interpreters tend to describe a happenstance series of events, while younger interpreters describe academic and career trajectories. I’ll have to revisit the transcripts to see if this holds, but I think that few of the younger/newer interpreters describe their relationship to language, whereas almost all of the older/experienced interpreters bring it up spontaneously. At the least, my cumulative impression is that the language element receives varying degrees of emphasis. This orientation to/relationship with language might be a condition of possibility for certain kinds of subjectivity…hmm, it also may be an effect of globalization trends – particularly the spread of capitalism. In the cyclical way institutionalization works, these may be two sides of the same coin, and that “coin” may be a particular process of professionalization.

The challenge, then, is to identify the nodes of autonomy in these positions: where they overlap and diverge from each other as coherent perceptions (if not actually worldviews).

This must be one of the most medieval towns in existence.

It was the right thing for me to do after meeting with Prof. Blommaert (dare I be all-familiar-like and call him Jan?!) yesterday. It let my brain cool (!) after so many pieces and intuitions of this research project were validated....it felt ... penultimate? It's not the peak, but it gave me the sense I am really "on" to something (not just my imagination!), and encouraged me to keep the faith. :-) Anyway, my brain was basically blank so it's just as well I didn't need to do anything particularly intellectual. :-)

Take the boat tour when you go! Best way to see a big chunk of the town.

I've been getting the emails as mediated by Tony Galt but didn't realize they actually have their own web site.

that Professor Blommaert is going to be at DeXus 3.0? No, of course not! I'm thinking I should retract the "Why Bother" (Deaf - ASL/English interpreter) poster proposal and re-submit something about European Parliament interpreters. The question is if I can pull it together by then, but of course it would be ridiculous not to figure it out and take advantage of that opportunity.

...I make new friends and new enemies," said Shirley last night. She was referring to me as the friend and the waiters as enemies. They were definitely glaring at her. "They work but they don't think!"

Shirley caught my attention because I thought she was signing to someone. Actually, she was having quite an animated conversation with herself. :-) I thought she might be deaf, until she approached me and spoke in French. When I replied in English, she switched, no problem.

Am going to go on Tuesday, why not?

Went to the presenter's blog, Mathmagenic, and found this. I like it. :-) Maybe love is something one can grow into even after infatuation fades and the shock of pain and imperfection wreaks havoc?

I was plied with food and drink last night, an awesome spicy pasta and the smoothest white port (Portuguese: Aguilar) I've ever tasted. :-)

At the last instant Peter asked, "Are you a structuralist?" Now - what kind of question is that to end an evening with?!! As I attempted to explain my belief in the relevance of structure with some caveats regarding the inevitability of determination....that change is possible with intent, constancy of focus, and a bit of co-construction, the tram arrived. "Changing personal structure is the hardest of all," says he, as I start running to board the two-car sucker that went all the way to the far end of the platform before stopping.

Well, yeah! :-) The hardest, and maybe the most meaningful? An interpreting analogy, maybe individual change is the pivot for social change?

Unlikely. :-) But my prof thinks I'm up to something (this has happened before, btw!) She was "struck by the approach" of "involving your informants by sharing your analyses/engaging in participatory methods...so early."

The question is, does sharing my thoughts on the blog "help" or "hinder" the research effort?

On my way to the Hobbit House. Arriving in a building like this, how could one not think of magic? :-)

by Amitav Ghosh

Why this book, The Hungry Tide? The back cover implied transnationalism and class issues. When I actually began to read it a week after the purchase, I was surprised to learn one of the main protagonists is an interpreter. !!! The story pulled me along, both because of Amitav Ghosh’s lyrical writing and because so many elements in the book speak to areas of interest to me: dolphins, communication/relationships across difference, dreams that predict the future, phenomenology, languages, interpretation, even a contextual analogy for problematic moments. Government, institutionalization, the economy all figure in as well, so I was not disappointed in my original estimation, in fact, I can hardly imagine it could have been more engaging than it was!

“…there’s no one else who knows how to speak to both of them – to her and to him. It’s you who stands between them: whatever they say to each other will go through your ears and your lips. But for you neither of them will know what is in the mind of the other. Their words will be in your hands you can make them mean what you will” (257).

"I would produce my secret treasure, a present sent to me by a former student - a map of the sea-floor, made by geologists. In the reversed relief of this map [the students] would see with their own eyes that the Ganga does not come to an end after it flows into the Bay of Bengal. It joins with the Brahmaputra in scouring a long, clearly marked channel along the floor of the bay. The map would reveal to them what is otherwise hidden under water: and this is that the course of this underwater river exceeds by far the length of the river's overland channel.
'Look, comrades, look,' I would say. 'This map shows that in geology, as in myth, there is a visible Ganga and a hidden Ganga: one flows on land and one beneath the water. Put them together and you have what is by hard the greatest of the earth's rivers' (181).

The Hungry Tide, by Amitav Ghosh

“…she sensed that this project would consume all those years and more: it was the work of a lifetime. . . . here it was – and she stumbled on it by chance, exactly when things seemed to be going wrong. . . . at least she could see what it was about, how it happened that an idea floated unexpectedly into your mind and you knew in an instant that this was an errand that would detain you for the rest of your life. . . . it was true that whatever came of it would not revolutionize the sciences, or even a minor branch of them, but it was also true that if she were able to go through with it – even a part of it – it would be as fine a piece of descriptive science as any. It would be enough; as an alibi for a life, it would do; she would not need to apologize for how she had spent her time on this earth” (126-127).

“She imagined the [dolphins] circling drowsily, listening to echoes pinging through the water, painting pictures in three dimensions – images that only they could decode. The thought of experiencing your surroundings in that way never failed to fascinate her: the idea that to ‘see’ was also to ‘speak’ to others of your kind, where simply to exist was to communicate. . . .” (159).

For when I gain a bit more sophistication than appearances currently hide. http://www.socialtext.net/loicwiki/index.cgi

posted in Air-l-aoir.org Digest, Vol 11, Issue 13

I've been given a number of leads on publications regarding interpreting:

From the description, I thought I was on my way to The Shire yesterday: a house “totally covered in ivy and Virginia creeper” with “green round windows.” I had no idea the magic that was in store. I received so many gifts!

First, the show: a musically accompanied oral telling of Uit Spelevaren, from Camera Obscura by Hildebrand. Note: Hildebrand is the pseudonym for Nicolaas Beets, and there are few web pages in English! Most are in Dutch. ”Figuren uit de oude doos: afgestoft en in een proper en modieus kleedje gestoken. Wie kent ze niet? Hildebrand, de familier Stastok, Koosje van Naslaan, Dolf van Brammen en anderen. Pieter Stastok is waaratje verliefd. Hildebrand wil zijn neef een handje helpen. De bende gaat uit, niet met de trein, maar meet een schuitje …” I thought I did well to catch some of the names. :-) Amazingly, I didn’t feel any diminishment in pleasure for not knowing Flemish. No doubt it would have enhanced my appreciation, but this way I concentrated on the sounds – they were marvelous!

My only point of reference is Peter and the Wolf, and I did have a brief stretch close to the beginning when I thought this was the story. However it didn’t take too long to realize the rhythms and moods weren’t right. The character of the girl didn’t come across as a sleazy old wolf. :-) (And I was wondering how Annaleen was going to pull off all the different instruments!) It was later explained to me that a piece of 19th century petit bourgeois literature was chosen especially because it was written at the time of the bass clarinet’s entry into the orchestra – allowing Anneleen to compose and show off her talents (bass clarinet, clarinet, foot pedals and laptop mixer). She will perform this for her Master’s defense this upcoming Friday; Raf will expand his oral art to shadow play (the makeshift facilities didn’t allow for the curtain and light effects that will emulate the technique of camera obscura).

I have no doubt it will be spectacular. Note this article on the phenomenology of vision applied to film: Cinema and Embodied Affect.

And this, my friends, was only the beginning of the day!

So much for one day’s worth of glee at find a wireless connection! No doubt if I’d been able to settle in at Gare Nord yesterday I’d have missed the entire day. Instead, I got a good two hour bicycle tour of the city. I’d wager it was thorough, as I kept getting turned around and disoriented. :-) I did, however, find the great Sint Goedele Cathedral here in Bruxelles. I rounded a curve and its twin towers loomed stunningly above some trees. As the rest of it came into view it took my breath: it is as intricately carved as the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Strasbourg. What a sight that one was – I was orienting to its topmost tower for a rendezvous, but nothing prepared me for its appearance when I turned the corner and there it was. There was something about the evening twilight that gave it a rosy glow – it was both sharply defined and soft, somehow. Strange to think of it that way, given its pinnarets, peaks, and steeples, but it was so. I’d hoped to get back to take a picture of it in that light but no such luck. I did take pictures of the Cathedral today, having succumbed to someone’s request for me to post some pictures here. I’m working on it!

Today, I'm off to Antwerp.

I went back to Gare Nord today to do more wireless work/, and all the restaurants are closed – midday Saturday! Which means no power. :-( Quickly Googling via battery, I thought ”Aha! Schumann! Very busy, there will be open restaurants there!” Not. This is reminiscent of arriving in Brattleboro 12 years ago and finding only a McDonald’s open for an 8 pm dinner! Not. Schumann was as quiet as Gare Nord.

Well, the video feed froze periodically and the audio skipped out here n' there but finally I got through to Sam and we had a little chat. He looked good, except he said his energy has been low lately. The sleepyhead has often been staying in bed until noon! Hmmmm, I won't reveal the details of my European sleep schedule, suffice it to say Sam and I may not be that different. *grin*

What am I going to say about Strasbourg Week 2? I may be too earnest for my own good! Interpreters use humor in many ways – to discharge stress, express cynicism, and enact intimacy. I’m not sure of the extent to which interpreters from each nationality do this – it is a characteristic of co-interpreter banter (from the same booth, especially) more than the one-on-one interviews with me, but most interpreters have used humor during the interviews to varying degrees.

OHMYGOSH Jan Blommaert is only a short train ride away at Ghent University!

It's time to start looking seriously for housing in Germany for July and August - particularly in Mannheim and Berlin.

Anyone who knows anyone who could possibly put me up or direct me to longer term, inexpensive accommodations will receive my eternal gratitude. :-)

These are the questions which previous interviews suggest. They may yield empirical evidence for the kinds of issues raised by Blommaert about mobility, resources, indexicality, pretextualization, and entextualization (or variations thereof):

Orienting:
1. Where – which settings/contexts – do you interpret the most?
2. Which do you like the least/most?
3. Which are most/least challenging and how does this correlate with your enjoyment of the work?

Some day, when research isn´t the most consuming thing in my life, participating in something like The Peoria Prize for Creativity could be fun. Cool, anyway to see the first round winners - who produced a global, realtime musical performance via the worldwide web.

~from the AirL listserv.

Scott asks:

Have y'all seen this??

scott

I told my host family last night that I’d been able to move my thinking forward in terms of the kinds of questions to ask interpreters going into the week in Strasbourg. Helena asked how. It’s actually still a bit vague in my own mind, so perhaps I can write out loud and gain clarity. I’ll use Van Manen as my reference point, because the notion of phenomenology - interpreter’s consciousness and their awareness of self/other consciousness - is a move that the discourse enables. (This reflective writing doubles as a note-taking exercise clarifying my phenomenological research methodology.)

Dutch sign on Europe’s wall is posted on openDemocracy.net. Reactions to the French no last weekend were mixed among interpreters, ranging from barely suppressed glee to outright disappointment. Only a few, however, had truly dire predictions for the future of the EU, and none felt it would affect their working conditions in any way. Most expressed varying degrees of optimism that the "no" would trigger some serious reflection among officials and MEPs away from pure economics toward the social, and only a few felt it would be nearly impossible to forge agreement again. Those who were close to the negotiating process say they already saw how difficult it was and how many compromises were made on many sides...

Did I say all this before?! I feel that I did, but if so I can't locate it right now. Was talking with someone earlier today about brain stretching and overload - clearly my sense of having adjusted was premature! :-)

Has (re)organized an online list of papers on consciousness and related topics.

“Even if language forms are similar or identical, the way in which they get inserted in social actions may differ significantly and, consequently, there may be huge differences in what these (similar or identical) forms do in real societies” (italics in original, Blommaert, 71).

I think interpreters know this. It may be intuitive knowledge, esoteric rather than empirical. Occasionally there is a story told as a heuristic, but more often it is something interpreters describe as a feeling: when they know they’ve done a good job for instance, because they’ve elicited the same response in the receivers of the interpreted message as those who received in the same language as the speaker. In other words, the function of the message has been delivered, as measured by its effect...?...or by the internal (subjective) self-assessment of equivalence? (And would the latter be necessarily "less" than the former?)

The rest is a melange -

"The scope of problematization prevailing in the Anglo-American debate about the canon seems to be too predictable and limited as a conceptual framework for a serious historical research (rather than “critique”) into processes of canon formation. Revolving around the question of cultural values, this discourse fails to exceed the limits of the same reductive, normative conception of “high” culture (in the sense of the body of select artifacts), which it basically aspires to challenge."