March 2009 Archives

The national committee of FIDESZ, Hungarian Civic Union, approved its list of candidate members for the European Parliament on January 17, 2009. Dit is een belangrijk historisch moment omdat een Hongaarse dove persoon, Ádám Kósa, op de lijst staat en dus kandidaat is om zijn landgenoten te vertegenwoordigen. This is an important historic moment because a Hungarian deaf person, Adam Kosa, on the list and therefore a candidate for his countrymen to represent.

Doordat dhr. By mr. Ádám Kósa de nationale voorzitter is van de Hongaarse dovenorganisatie zal hij de belangen van doven en slechthorenden rechtstreeks kunnen vertegenwoordigen in het Europese Parlement. Ádám Kosa national chairman of the Hungarian organization will extinguish the interests of deaf and hard of hearing directly represented in the European Parliament. En hij kan ook een belangrijke vooruitgang te realiseren voor de hele groep van personen met een beperking in Hongarije en in gans Europa. And he may be an important step forward to realize the whole group of people with disabilities in Hungary and throughout Europe.

De Europese parlementaire verkiezingen hebben plaats op 7 juni 2009. European parliamentary elections held on June 7, 2009. De beslissing ligt in handen van de burgers van Hongarije! The decision rests in the hands of the citizens of Hungary! Fevlado en de EUD ondersteunen volledig de kandidatuur van dhr. Fevlado and EUD fully support the candidacy of Mr.. Kósa en hopen dat er een eerste Doof Europees parlementslid komt in 2009! Kosa and hope that a first Deaf MEP in 2009!

Tension was evident in the persistent background murmur while Members vigorously debated the merits of a collective stance versus individual prerogative. I was surprised that the intensity of debate over political group strategy did not draw everyone's undivided attention: at no time during the meeting did it seem that everyone was listening. At first, I thought the side conversations were preliminary to the meeting. When I realized that the meeting was fully underway, I still thought the noise would ease as more Members arrived, greeted each other, and settled in. By the time I was seated, it was a quarter-hour past the meeting's start time. Members continued to drift in over the next half-hour. Thirty-five minutes after the meeting's scheduled start (twenty minutes after my arrival), the Chair sounded the gavel decisively - with only brief effect on the chatter.

Was the insistence at pursuing other conversations instead of focusing on the debate a form of competition with the 'noise' of the issue? I muse over the possibilities . . . could the refusal to give undivided attention have been a protest against the fact of disagreement, or . . . maybe it was a signal to specific disputants? Perhaps the collective distraction was made more possible because of the heightened requirements for listening to interpretation or hearing the range of languages in use on the floor? With only one exception, it seemed that each Member spoke their national language:

Approximately:

36 minutes of Spanish = 34%
31 minutes of German = 29%
19 minutes of English = 18%<
7 minutes of Dutch = 7%
4 minutes of French = 4%
3 minutes of Italian = 3%
and possibly*
3 minutes of Greek = 3%
2 minutes of Romanian = 2%**

My first visual scan about five minutes after I settled in discerned roughly one third of the MEPs present wearing their headphones. There is no way to know the MEPs language profiles, so it isn't possible to assume that the two-thirds without headphones were either fluent in all the languages used, or disinterested, or satisfied to understand some colleagues and not others. Some time later, as more Members arrived and the debate heated up, approximately half of the MEPs present were using headphones.

How - and to what - they listen is complex:

• For the language - i.e., do I comprehend this language or do I need SI?
• For content of the speaker's message
• For evidence of loss or misrepresentation of the speaker's message

Do they also listen for other activity on the floor that is not piped through the technology? This illusion of monolingualism fascinates me - if one wears the headphones fully (both ears), then someone could be essentially unaware of the fact of so much continuous background noise: a literal tuning in to the formal task of the group at that time and a tuning out of distraction. If one wears the headphones half-on, half-off (as many do), then one has to concentrate much harder to attend to the speaker currently holding the floor. Rather than relying on the technology to filter out the noise, one has to do it oneself. In this instance, is the listener also comparing the source and target languages? Here is yet another demand on concentration.

No wonder Members say it takes one to two years for first-time colleagues to become accustomed to the system: the sensory inputs are overwhelming! Time, practice, and experience are necessary to develop the cognitive skills of deciphering the demands and charting a course through the channels competing for attention. Hence some Members describe the accommodations they must make in their own speaking style in order to be understood, and acknowledge that not everyone is able to adapt.

At the end of this day, the system of simultaneous interpretation worked marvelously. A serious battle was engaged vigorously and aggressively by several Members in two opposed camps. A longtime Member told me later, "it was the worst I've ever seen." Nearly every single speaker's turn was done in a different language and no one seemed to miss a beat. Dutch (NL, for Nederlands) was the first language I recorded and the turns went like this:

NL, DE (German, for Deutsch), NL, DE, FR (French), EN (English), FR, DE, EN, DE, EN, DE, EN, DE, ES (Spanish, for Espanol), DE, FR, EN, IT (Italian), DE, IT, FR, DE, ES, FR, DE, RO (Romanian), ES, DE, ES, FR, EN, ES, EN, DE, ES, NL, EN, FR, DE, FR, EN, FR, EN, FR, EN, FR, ES, FR, ES, FR, EN, FR, DE, FR, DE, FR, EL (Greek, a translation of their script), EN, FR, DE, ES, DE, ES, FR, EN, FR, NL, EN, FR.

There were two Chairs (or a Chair and Vice-Chair) whose voices are interspersed between turns of Members from the floor. One consistently spoke German and the other French. Most of their contributions were logistical, simply rote thank you's at the conclusion of a speaker's turn and introduction of the next speaker. These quick and habitual exchanges must be absorbed by interpreters and hardly noticed by Members - they occur much too quickly for interpreters to follow the dictates of protocol concerning working only from "B" languages into one's "A" language. They may, however, give interpreters just enough time to be signaled as to the next speaker, identify their language, and turn the microphone over to the colleague in the booth who can best work from that language. Or - alternatively - find a suitable retour language. Some of the silences I occasionally encounter while channel surfing are probably the result of switching among teammembers in the booth (who's now "on"), or seeking the colleague from another booth whose interpretation of the speaker can be used as "source."

Explaining the process of simultaneous interpretation is itself a challenge, can you imagine being in it?!

Dutch has two words for foreigner. It seems that one is a generic label (buitenlander or "alien") and the other (vreemdelingen) emphasizes - just slightly? - the strangeness of someone from another land. If I ever develop a respectable degree of fluency, I will begin to listen for the usage of these two words in conversation: what are the situational conditions that inspire one word or the other?

It would be an overstatement to describe myself as the ultimate outsider, but let's look at the facts: I'm American (for god's sake), a mere bilingual, and the wrong kind of interpreter. Just as the action component of my research project elicits surprise from persons at the site of study, their reactions hold a mirror up for me to see myself, too. Am I just a pushy American? Or am I true to form - enacting that independent "can do" attitude that is a central feature of the American character? Heavens, what is she on about?!

When I made it to Strasbourg last month, a confluence of political and emotional forces enacted through specific acts of communication battered at me, temporarily affecting my ability to concentrate. The conversations I held with Members early in the week were more scattered and less organized than usual. As I became aware of the disruptions in my ability to focus I managed to re-group and re-establish clarity of purpose for the later conversations and my first observation.

I have been at the crux of discursive forces like this before. There are different ways to represent this juncture in academic literature. I am most familiar with it as a storming phase of group development, which I envision as the clash between discourses (the momentum of past trajectories of articulated experience, perception, and understanding) and dialogue (the cooperative interaction by conscious users of these pre-existing discourses in the co-construction of a future-oriented amalgamated discourse). Edgar Allen Poe describes this metaphorically in his short story, The Maelstrom. As a huge swirling whirlpool threatens to suck all objects into void, hope for salvation emerges by careful observation of the most slowly-moving objects. Only these have a chance of avoiding the final flush through a combination of light mass and non-resistance: in human terms, by relaxation and patience.

The trick of survival in a socio-cultural maelstrom is to fix oneself to a couple of moving anchors. I know it sounds like a contradiction, but when everything is in flux, everyone is in fluid motion. In this instance (back in Strasbourg for the first time since 2005), I remembered my interpreting roots as socialized by empowered members of American Deaf Culture, reached out to friends and colleagues met in the U.S. (who, heaven help them, actually like me), and accepted with gratitude the presence of new friends who adopted me without hesitation because, "this is what we do."

Building trust is hard. I am not sure if it is harder in Europe than in the U.S.? The other day, Topi shared some of the lessons she's learning in the integration class for immigrants to Belgium. The reason she was given for Belgians' interpersonal distance - for instance, the way they do not acknowledge your presence when passing on the street - is as an outcome of having so many wars fought over this land. As an American, it is hard for me to wrap my mind around the ever-present lived history of violence across the European continent, especially within the European Parliament where it seems everyone is working very hard to get along. The threat of betrayal is, I guess, never far from mind.

I have thought a bit about "friends" and "enemies" as this research project has unfolded: the fear that I might be a bad guy, or maybe even a journalist, is a fascinating development. I am teasing with the emphasis; I understand that the matter of representation is serious. In fact, the question came up four years ago as well and I wrote about it in this post on critical or applied ethnography. With action learning, I have landed somewhere in the middle of those two methodologies, as well as extending from action research's customary fields (education largely, business next), and initiating as a solo actor hoping to engage stakeholder groups.

Update:
Now (23 March 2009), there is tentative engagement in a few directions. A number of small gestures - both visible and private - suggest the possibility that a few seeds may take root.

Vice-President Alejo Vidal-Quadras (EPP-ED, ES) said: "The single message of the campaign is about choice. It is not designed to appeal to citizens' civic duty, but to highlight that there are major policy choices confronting the EU which will impact on people's lives, that these choices are decided at European level with the Parliament playing the leading role as to which policy choice is selected and that citizens can influence the selection of these policy choices by voting in the European elections for candidates who reflect their political preferences."

We lingered as long as we possibly could at the last day's luncheon after sharing brief updates on research projects concerning European Union institutions. Not only did we have the desire "to stick with the event" (de pluckers belaven, if I got the Dutch right) but also with each other. I keep hoping that mingling will enable the spontaneous growth of new neural pathways as well as strengthen interpersonal and professional relationships.

There is incredible diversity across our projects.

I listen and wonder.

I listen explicitly for information and insights that can aid my project, and I wonder: if we were to compose an epistemic community, what expertise would compose our authoritative field? Let me be clear: this is not what we are charged with doing. Each of us is responsible for an individual project on a particular topic within a specific discipline. But if we were supposed to come up with something together, or rather - if we imagined that we do constitute a group with collective influence, what "knowledge and causal beliefs about knowledge" did we enact, and how might these cohere into "a force for change"? [Quoting Dr. Mai'a Cross as she explained the concept of an epistemic community.]

Maggie pegged me to start, which - in retrospect (from my point-of-view, grin) - was an act of strategic genius. Despite the fact that I had prepared a handout, my presentation was felt rambling and disorganized. My self-consciousness increased as one neatly-organized description after another followed in steady procession. Uncomfortable, I wondered, why is my style so different? Is "style" the best label? Does "style" adequately capture the distinction in presentation format - if there is one - or mask it? There is a stylistic component: I like to present along the same lines as I learn (backward chaining). This may be an anti-academic mode. I could, for instance, do a better job of establishing the context in order for others to grasp why the particular details I've chosen are relevant. But as soon as I have this thought I realize why I resist doing it - even to the point of being aware (not always, but sometimes) that I am deviating from what is expected, normatively, within the academic community. I resist conformity on the essential principle of communication theory as always contingent: there is no one, singular context any more than there is ever only one, singular meaning.

Here my desire to be a practitioner comes into conflict with my desire to be a scholar. The interpretive range opened up by refusing to pre-establish context enables (I hypothesize) creativity in the co-construction of shared knowledge. The conscious choice I am making is between enabling the momentum of an historical trajectory and seeking co-incidental links for a future unfolding. Rather than beginning in linear, chronological time with an overview of how the research/knowledge field has already been constructed, I choose to begin with an immediate encounter and then tack accordingly pending the live interaction as it occurs. Thus, my presentation was given within a different temporal paradigm than the presentations of my peers. An exchange with Scott crystallized (in my thinking) the different orientations to time: not only am I working on a different temporal scale (as noted by Nell a few days prior) than most of my colleagues, but I am also working in a different temporal paradigm. My analysis is projected into the future (the co-creation and maintenance of intercultural communication practices with their implicit relationships and shared identifications) rather than compared or contrasted with the relatively concurrent present or situated historical past. If I had been recording, I think there would be evidence in the tense structure of our utterances. I presented simultaneous interpretation as a powerful means for developing multilingual culture in the future and Scott argued that "it doesn't work that way" by citing what has occurred before.

This tension between what has gone before and what may come was highlighted during Dr. Carolyn Ban's presentation on public service motivation in the European Commission. In the midst of that project she is speculating about a two-way, reciprocal effect within the European Commission as a result of the 2004 Enlargement. While it is well-established that new people coming into an organization socialize to the norms of the organization, it is also true that organizations change under certain conditions - such as a change in management or an increase in size of staff, for instance, the influx of a significant number of new people, at all levels.

Dr. Ban's anecdotes and descriptions suggested to me a nice fit with the interpretive schema of critical discourse analysis that I use in my work. While the discursive and interactional trajectories of past organizational cultural practices imbue momentum (one can think of this in terms of force), new configurations in the present can alter the direction, shape, and effective impact or outcome of those energies. Some of the shifts can be attributed to direct causes, while other shifts may occur indirectly, over time, from the interaction of a variety of actors who may or may not be intending to work together toward a common goal or collective purpose.

For instance, large-scale, long-term changes like the re-organization of Europe from embattled nation-states to a transnational union may be accomplished more effectively through indirect, uncoordinated events than by intentional design. To be specific, Justin is investigating the possibility of a leapfrog effect in the legal realm as local courts bypass national courts to fight battles in the European Court of Justice. His project is geared toward recognizing and explaining processes that lead to unintended (not deliberately planned) effects. This is different than Dr. Cross's work on the defense experts working on European harmonization in internal security, although I find the two projects similar in illustrating behind-the-scenes (but not secret) processes contributing to stronger transnational political unity in effect, regardless of the status of independent national sovereignty.

The realms of law and internal security are top down mechanisms of social change. Vanja, meanwhile, is assessing the effectiveness of social policy implementation in the area of racial/ethnic discrimination. The policy is top-down, but the implementation seems (as I conceptualize it) to require lateral application. I think this is similar to Dr. Amina Merchant's analysis of the interactions of health care policy with health care delivery. Both of these projects demonstrate reciprocity between social implementation of policy and the institutionalization of policy.

The dynamic fact of reciprocity suggests parallels between the diffuse actors in these two broad fields of nondiscrimination training and health care delivery and the actors in Dr. Ban's study who are concentrated within a single - albeit very large - organization. Jen's analysis of citizen participation in processes of legislation regarding climate change will likely demonstrate reciprocity as well, although her angle seems even more laterally-oriented than either Vanja's or Dr. Merchant's projects. The contrast in relative position of the key actors in the lateral components of these research projects illustrates the point that how context is perceived varies: it is contingent upon the role or status of the actors and/or the researcher in relation to the topic. Most of the projects are explicitly engaged with the effects of action 'down'; Jen's study is more along the lines of action 'up.'

This reminds me of a conversation with Daren about the average person in Hungary, who has only felt the effect of joining the EU in negative ways, such as the shock that the small shop their family has run for generations is out of compliance with sanitation requirements.

The following passage from Bruce Benderson's, The Romanian, captures this point perfectly:

Yet not even the blessing of the old man can save Romulus - and perhaps the old man himself - from that great shift towards the West and its materialistic values that was accelerated by the fall of Communism. It's a shift that will continue as the European Union pushes eastward, until perhaps even the old man or his son finds its tentacles at his doorstep, questioning his children's health and education, suggesting better ways to till his field, frowning at his unlicensed plum brandy or grinningly promoting cartoon versions of his seasonal rituals, as designed by an ethnographer in Bucharest. (2006, p. 231)

Given the inexorability with which top-down processes are effecting daily life, it is no wonder that the European Union is having a difficult time generating citizen enthusiasm, much less any sense of common identity or sentiment, for shifting from the nation-based anchor of self-consciousness to a regional or continental shared identity. The attempt to use language policy to achieve a new kind of hybrid consciousness of particular nation and Europe-as-a-whole is premised upon the historical use of language standardization to compel bonding. By most accounts, this strategy is not accomplishing the desired result. While it is true that learning another language expands your cognitive capacities, it does not necessarily follow that you become more tolerant, wiser, and/or develop relational bonds with others who are substantially different than yourself.

It may not seem obvious that there's a connection with another Fulbright Fellow's work on public transportation, but in lauding the example of Strasbourg, Jason explained how the mayor "framed the debate" by posing the question: underground or tram?
She argued for trams on the surface because "then you change the way people interact with the city" (emphasis added). What is now a tangible exemplar came about as an outgrowth of language use (framing the debate) and interactional practice (e.g., cars left outside the city center). If I remember correctly, the original framing of the debate was a campaign strategy which resulted in the Mayor's election (or re-election). This suggests another lateral process which led in a bottom-up kind of way to the formation of city policy.

All of this effort in attempting to construct coherence among research projects and the processes under study suggest that the principles that might be most relevant to deliberately structuring a re-construction of identity may not reside in trying to impose or extend the cultivated consciousnesses of the cosmopolitan elite but rather in the modes of "translating" institutional infrastructures interactively with the middle- and working-class consciousnesses of the general populace.

and how will we cope?

"Ideas about changing the organization of society in the long run are clearly needed, quite apart from strategies for dealing with an immediate crisis. I would separate out three questions from the many that can be raised. First, do we really need some kind of "new capitalism" rather than an economic system that is not monolithic, draws on a variety of institutions chosen pragmatically, and is based on social values that we can defend ethically? Should we search for a new capitalism or for a "new world"--to use the other term mentioned at the Paris meeting--that would take a different form?"

"The most immediate failure of the market mechanism lies in the things that the market leaves undone. Smith's economic analysis went well beyond leaving everything to the invisible hand of the market mechanism. He was not only a defender of the role of the state in providing public services, such as education, and in poverty relief (along with demanding greater freedom for the indigents who received support than the Poor Laws of his day provided), he was also deeply concerned about the inequality and poverty that might survive in an otherwise successful market economy."

"Keynes can be our savior only to a very partial extent, and there is a need to look beyond him in understanding the present crisis. One economist whose current relevance has been far less recognized is Keynes's rival Arthur Cecil Pigou, who, like Keynes, was also in Cambridge, indeed also in Kings College, in Keynes's time."

"Pigou not only wrote the classic study of welfare economics, but he also pioneered the measurement of economic inequality as a major indicator for economic assessment and policy.[7] Since the suffering of the most deprived people in each economy--and in the world--demands the most urgent attention, the role of supportive cooperation between business and government cannot stop only with mutually coordinated expansion of an economy. There is a critical need for paying special attention to the underdogs of society in planning a response to the current crisis, and in going beyond measures to produce general economic expansion."

Culture(s) and discourse(s) are among the most unmanageable elements of international business. "You can't model panic." Patterns of cultural interaction and, especially, the range of interpretations of these patterns, have profound effects on the design and implementation of business plans. For instance, are differences of language a problem or a benefit? Do the homogenizing effects of using English as the language of international management outweigh the constant adaptation required by working multilingually? Discourses about simultaneous interpretation (SI) at the European Parliament (with its 23 working languages) pit danger and loss against loss and resignation. "Loss" of fluency and clarity worries professional interpreters at the European Parliament (EP) and "loss" of direct contact between interlocutors (users of interpreting services, in this case Members of the EP) seem - counterintuitively - to express anxieties about multilingualism and the possibilities for control. Understood as a practice of intercultural communication, the tensions made evident when simultaneous interpretation is used are a vital source of creativity typically overlooked because of conditioned (monolingual) preferences for using a shared language.




Contemporary social theory can help us understand participation in dialogue interpreting as a cultural form of communication. In addition to transferring information between people who do not share the same language, using an interpreter is a type of communication practice with implications for identity. The roles and norms for participating in simultaneous interpretation constitute social rituals that contribute to the maintenance of linguistic and cultural difference. To the extent that participants are aware of the significance of participation, the stronger a contribution can be made to creating more just and equitable global societies.

The first speaker at the European Commission closed his presentation with three points:

• There is need and desire for the European Union.
• Europe is constantly changing, the fact is that Europe is not static but dynamic.
• There is welcome for critics who can distinguish between the target and the way.

The goal of a unified Europe, explained the officer, is not up for debate. "How do we reach it effectively and efficiently" is, however, open for critical engagement. For instance, he posed three general areas for input: organization, structure, and behavior. Such can be discussed - at least in theory! - by outsiders. The precisely-focused College of Europe admitted four Americans last year, demonstrating the institutional intention described by Dr. Michele Chang, "to be open to non-Europeans as well." Listening to the presentations on EU institutions over the past four days, I've noticed trends in the material we've been given and also been aware of the range of reactions and engagement among the group of Fulbrighters composing the target audience. I, for instance, am attuned to rhetoric and evidence of inclusion and consideration of alternative ways of thinking - clearly in relation to my own project but also concerning which of my peers' questions garner the most active and engaged responses.

At least some of my colleagues are more inclined to question the overall vision of the European Union than I am. "I feel like I was just given the cup of koolaid," said one of my peers after the Commission presentation, A "European Moment" in EU/US Relations? The hyperbole referred specifically to the claim that development aid simply must be given (despite the fact that most international aid projects fail - certainly historically). I realized that I had accepted the Commission speaker's distinction between microsocial projects that absolutely have a tangible impact on the ground and macrosocial projects that continue (probably with some notable exceptions) to be bungled. As discussion unfolded, Nell argued that "globalization" is not a fixed destiny - or at least not in only way, along one unalterable path. "There is nothing inevitable about social processes," she said, "unlike climate change."

I eavesdropped as this conversation continued with Scott, Max, Chloe, and others. Scott has a knack for (what he himself labeled) indiscrete questions. For instance, is the neighborhood policy (ENP) simply a bone or back-up arrangement of the Common Foreign and Security Policy for those States who fail to become Members of the EU? [Note: the specific link for the CFSP yields a page without information.] Anyway, Scott described what seems to be a belief or attitude that Europe is post post-war - at least this seems pervasive among all the EU officials who have spoken to us. Maybe, I wondered to myself, maybe I am being too readily suckered by the utopian vision and all the disarming openness of these politically smooth presentations? One of the trends I mentioned noticing is how each of the presenters has cast themselves as sharing their personal view of the EU institutions, rather than delivering a canned public relations pitch.

While there may be Euro-skeptics serving as Members of the European Parliament or on the Council of Ministers, there are no skeptics on staff: Europhiles only need apply! No problem - the European Commission is the driver of the entire European Union effort, supplying a rather substantial proportion of the requisite nuts and bolts as well as significant social, legal, and economic engineering knowledge of design and implementation. These are jobs for believers. I am on board despite the counter-views of my colleagues who, it must be acknowledged, may not actually disagree with the vision but rather question its exclusivity. In fact, we may have common cause in this regard. When one fixes one's gaze on a singular target, there is always the possibility of reifying the boundaries not only of discourse (what can and cannot be said), but also of perception (what can and cannot be sensed). In other words, the path to that fixed hard target can become so commonsensical that internal contradictions and out-of-the-mainstream opportunities may barely be noticed, if they impinge upon awareness at all.

My colleagues may perceive particular selections and deselections (what I think of as an extension of Kenneth Burke's terministic screen) within their specific fields; I notice them in relation to conceptualizing the benefits and added value of simultaneous interpretation.

For instance, I asked about the use of lingua francas and/or simultaneous interpretation in negotiations with countries outside of the EU, under the European Neighborhood Project. "Let me answer the question this way," the presenter said. "When we do our evaluation plans, we write twelve reports, ten in English and two, for Tunisia and Morroco, in French." Hmmm. I wasn't asking about the written languages, rather the processes of spoken interaction. "In negotiations and emails," he continued, "these are the languages we use. With some countries it would be easier to speak Russian but they don't want to."

When I was talking with Scott later, he said people don't want to be associated with the Soviet Union, confirming what a Member of the European Parliament told me last week about his own use of Russian. "We [from eastern Europe] all know it," he explained, "but we don't use it. Unless I start speaking it and then everyone will switch."

At the College of Europe, when I asked if there are any courses/experiences training students how to use interpreters, I received a halting answer from one presenter and then a clarification from the other.

"Well uh, they are , uh so we don't have courses specializing in that area but as I said students are all, they speak more than five languages they are, they are fluent, I think they can easily do that, I don't, I've never been asked that question...." [emphasis added]
"I can add . . . I have a better idea what you're asking. We don't use interpretation services at the college. The courses are taught in English, some in French; students are expected to be fluent in both. We offer courses in European studies not in interpreting or translation."

Right.





Two characteristics of the discourse about simultaneous interpretation in the EU are the conflation with written translation and the assumption of its narrow utility. The former confusion makes sense, as the challenge of making European law equally applicable in all countries despite differences of language and culture is formidable. Not to mention that the daily organization of work must be structured around the pace at which translations of documents for dossiers in progress can be prepared. Still, the frequency with which the matter of simultaneously interpreting spontaneous human communication is assumed to be either the same as, or less important than, the matter of producing written equivalents of legal code indicates a hierarchy that might also constitute an imbalance.

The latter characteristic of discourse about simultaneous interpretation - that it has a limited, utilitarian function - is the larger concern. There is an absolute taken-for-granted quality about most people's conception of the use and value of simultaneous interpretation (SI): this is characteristic of the vast majority of conversations that I have with anybody about SI. Max helped me draw out one of the implications of this fact. He is working in Sofia, where there is a revival of traditional cultural forms - as is happening in many diverse communities, and is usually understood as a kind of backlash. Max described these group-level shifts as "a balancing dynamic" within large sociopolitical structures - which is exactly how I suggest SI operates socioculturally on the microsocial level.

Lauren shared some of her insights about simultaneous interpretation from a course she took on asylum hearings. Again - if I'm true to the ethnographic imperative - there was a bit of conflation between the processes of SI per se, and the written processes of recording (which is such a huge problem in all asylum proceedings it could be described as a lynchpin of injustice, in direct contradistinction to the ostensive motivation of fairness). Lauren jumped on the fact that interpretation is an on-going process every time we speak with anyone regardless of whether we're using the same or a different language. Most people do understand that we are always interpreting each other, of course, but this kind of knowledge tends to exist so foundationally that it requires an effort to imagine why remembering matters.

The Fulbright Commission has arranged a week of seminars for us on the European Union institutions and NATO. The first question to our first presenter, the Legal Secretary to the President of Chamber at the European Court of Justice, involved human rights. The second was from Jacob:

"Is language ever a major problem with all of the interpreters and translators?"

"Yes, of course. It is always a disadvantage if you cannot work in your own language. There are also matters of terminology. For instance, each language has their own connotations on what is 'a market'. This is also a problem."

"Are there any prominent cases of misunderstanding at the end of a case when language was the cause?"

"No, not like that."

"Not like that." In other words, just like between people speaking the same language with each other, misunderstandings get cleared up along the way. Comments about language and languages in the European Union, however, are nearly always framed in the same way. Language itself is labeled "the problem." However, this seems to me a matter of mistaking the symptom for the source: the problem (if there is one) is difference. Languages provide the means for recognizing the presence of differences in a communication event, enabling the identification of key differences, especially in the realm of culture (e.g., traditions, history, and connotations of logic or belief). Rather than being a barrier between people, different languages are the bridge - even (possibly most importantly) when the first stones in the bridge are premised upon misunderstanding rather than the automatic sharing of assumptions.

Everyone was intrigued by the simultaneous interpretation (English, French, Italian, and Slovene) during our observation of an appeal. "I think its so strange," exclaimed Jamie at one point, "how you can talk in two different languages to each other. It's hilarious! With the numbers, she asks in German, he answers in French, and they understand!" This form of multilingualism is only possible with simultaneous interpretation, a cultural communication practice that preserves difference while constituting relationship across that difference at one and the same time.

It was a treat for me to sit with Jamie in the courtroom because he knows German. "Can you hear the different fluency between them?" he asked me, comparing the defending advocate and the prosecutor from the European Commission? No, I couldn't, but his identification of structural and grammatical errors made by the prosecutor made me wonder why she made the choice to use German instead of her own national language. Could it be because the lead judge spoke German? (This is a logic popular in the European Parliament - to make the polite gesture of speaking directly in the language of the person you wish to address.) Later, someone (Colin?) suggested it was because she works for the Commission and may be under pressure to use one of the standard working languages. No one was sure of her mother tongue, but it was guessed to be Slavonic . . .

Both Mai'a and Scott commented that I seem to be working against the grain of the official EU language learning policy, which is for everyone to learn at least three languages: their mother tongue (presumably the official national language), a vehicular language - such as English, French or German, and a third language for pleasure or personal reasons. I would like to dispel this perception. I am not against language learning; never have been and never will be. I do, however, think language learning is only one way to achieve the stretching of consciousness that enables a person to interact peaceably across a wide range of cultural, religious, language-based, ideological, and socioeconomic differences. It will be decades and a generation or three before the goal of minimal trilingualism is achieved throughout Europe, and then it will only be achieved by citizens who grow up within the EU's educational system. What about everybody else?

My argument is that having only one strategy for producing a pan-European sense of identity is itself monological, and that its programmatic outcome is a kind of parallel monolingualism. The goal of being able to speak directly with those persons who know one of the same languages as you do neglects the situation of needing to communicate with those with whom you do not share a common language. There are now and will always be situations in which there is no common language; people need to know how to deal with this circumstance too - and perhaps even more urgently. I am not posing an either/or dichotomy - that would be another instance of a monologic. I am suggesting a supplementary and complementary policy based on the cultivation of a common cultural communication practice of using simultaneous interpretation.

The logic is counterintuitive because the predominant experience of the cosmopolitan elite involves a highly-technological style of simultaneous interpretation (and their own pleasure in the joys of linguistically-expanded consciousness). There is nothing wrong with the style, per se, except for some potentially limiting assumptions such as, this is the only way it can be done, or the only purposes, or the only places where it is important enough to matter. Yet it is possible to see simultaneous interpretation in three-dimensional terms. One Member of the European Parliament described it as a layer cake during a conversation last week, gesturing with both hands from top to bottom:

As we departed the courtroom today, people commented on the interpreters - how they "really got into it" as evidenced by gestures, how the gesturing varied by language, how the interpretations captured not only content but also tone. Stephanie said, "You could tell the first lawyer was irritated at the beginning of his speech and you could hear it in the interpreter's voice, too." The best moment for me was when the head judge asked the prosecutor a specific question regarding one of the points made by the defense. She responds and the judge asks again. They are both speaking German. At one point she answers before the interpretation is completed because she has understood the question directly. After three attempts, she gives a response that satisfies the judge. "Ah, that's the way you meant it."

Meaning is never as clear cut as we want it to be. Tim nailed this when we were talking about the utility of quantum mechanics to provide a metaphor for processes of making meaning. As we were talking, I said,

"We're both making meaning of this conversation."
"But is it the same meaning?" he asked.
"Exactly!" I responded, delighted. "But we assume so, and call that understanding."

Misunderstanding is also a legitimate way to begin a relationship, but we (particular in the West, see Chang, Deconstructing Communication) tend to valorize understanding. In the layer cake of communication, we are constantly selecting this layer over that one, but what if interlocutors choose different layers? If there is a pattern in the selection, we need to be able to recognize it. One way to do so is to do something similar to what Nandita is doing in molecular biology: overlaying, transcribing, and translating the DNA-RNA alphabets of different species to see what comes to the foreground.

A Member was warning his colleagues to be sensitive about budgetary issues for next year's Parliament during one of the political parties' Working Group meeting today, because of the backdrop of the global financial crisis.

Earlier today I had asked another Member if there is any relationship between simultaneous interpretation and the European heart. He asked what I meant: "the European heart, do you mean the feelings you have as a European?" I explained that I don't know what it means but I've heard people use it when I brought up certain topics.

This meeting provided interpretation in 19 of the official twenty-three languages; no Bulgarian, Danish, Gaelic or Maltese. Estonian was provided but not used during the the 55 minutes that I was present. The Chair used English. On the floor was heard

Romanian 1 minute = 2%
Italian 4 minutes = 7%
Spanish 11 minutes = 20%
German 11 minutes = 20%
English 28 minutes = 51%

Not heard: Czech, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Slovene, and Swedish.

I had the good fortune to also talk today with a Member who was in this meeting, who clarified some of the dynamics for me. There was a great deal of political maneuvering in this meeting, some "brinkmanship" that got a particular compromise through. The Member who got it through "was playing fast and loose with all of us," according to the Member I spoke with. I noted only one instance of codeswitching into English, which happened during the presentation and debate on this bill. After a rather heated exchange involving more faux "points of order" (see yesterday's entry), the Member presenting the compromise suddenly asserted, "She agrees with that!"

Categorization is always a challenge. I've been speculating about English as the language of control, but I'm also thinking of what another Member said today:

Sometimes you can't make a point in any language without using a word from another language!

We were discussing the creation and maintenance of a shared, common culture premised upon the use of different languages. This Member named several instances of "artificial invention" - when a word (often in English but not always) has no equivalent in other official languages. Several language communities actively create equivalents in their own language, such as the Greeks who came up with an artificial word for "subsidiarity." Subsidiarity might seem like an English word (originally Latin), but it became an instrumental term in the European Union jargon from a German context. Likewise, "ombudsman" came originally from Scandinavian languages, particularly Swedish.

This kind of inter-language borrowing and intra-language coinage of new vocabulary is indeed an outgrowth of the multilingual environment, but both phenomena are still premised in a logic of monolinguistic distinction. What I'm trying to do is shift attention away from the language(s) per se, to the social interaction and cultural effects of using multiple languages in the same place and time.

The committee that I observed yesterday was fascinating because it was chaired by a Swedish Member of the European Parliament who ran the meeting in Swedish except for four times when something happened. (I'm not sure how to label the "somethings" that "happened" yet.) The first quarter of an hour passed with only the Chairman's routine procedural commands. His pace was a bit more measured than the other voting times I've watched - or maybe I'm acclimating to the speed at which the Members usually dash through these necessary but tedious sessions.

I was in the meeting for 75 minutes (it was scheduled for 3.5 hours but I had other appointments). Twenty of the 23 official languages were interpreted (there was no Gaelic, Maltese, or Slovakian), and as far as I could tell all booths were working at all times. The meeting may have been webcast, so the interpreters would continue working even if the MEPs or staff who requested them were not present.

The languages heard on the floor during the hour and fifteen minutes I was there were:

Swedish 38 minutes = 50%
English 19 minutes = 24%
German 6 minutes = 7.6%
French 6 minutes = 7.6%
Portuguese 3 minutes = 3.4%
Greek 1 minute = 1.3%

Not heard on the floor during the time that I was there: Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Slovenian, or Spanish.

Here are the four things that happened, when the Chairman codeswitched from Swedish to English.

1)
15:32 "It was not carried. That was my fault." I did not hear the question or comment that elicited this response; I believe it was made on the floor without using the microphone. I do not know, therefore, whether English or another language was used. I am fairly sure that whatever was said was not widely interpreted.

2)
15:43 "Maybe [the previous speaker's comment] was not a point of order." The previous speaker had addressed the group first in Greek (I think) then codeswitched to English. 15:44 "That was also not a point of order." This was in response to another Member's agreement with the Chair that what the first Member had said was not a point of order, it was an opinion and there were different opinions in the room.

3)
15:45 "Listen to me, we have to vote ... once again . . . because for me . . . " (there was a pause, some consultation, then) . . . we had a result. We can't have two results, ok?" The Chair codeswitched back to Swedish for a minute then 15:47 "We have guests here to make short statements before the appointment. Please, some of you are very excited, I understand, but please, I need to give the floor to our guests (sound of gavel)." A vote happened in between the second and third codeswitching events; probably they are related. One might call this one event, except the vote itself was conducted in Swedish as were all the other votes.

4)
16:04 A bell sounded. The Chair said, "Yea, the other one." My sense was the bell ringing was an accident and the Chair's comment was an aside that was picked up by the microphone.

Nearly everyone had their headphones on most of the time, and with both ears. Presumably not many of the Members, staff, or guests present know Swedish.

I have different thoughts about what these observations may mean. I wrote earlier that English may be the language of control, certainly that hypothesis is supported by the timing and apparent purpose for codeswitching in this meeting.

The confusion with whether or not a revote needed to occur or not is fascinating. I think there may have been a problematic moment in the group which manifested in a combination of reactions: there was a brief silence after the electronic vote showed the numbers 21 against 19 for, then some table pounding, then the Chairman's first statement about voting again, a pause during which applause started then a second statement from the Chair against another vote. I have no idea who was engaging the Chair from the floor, or even whether the matter of re-voting (or not) started from a Member on the floor or with the electronic technology itself. It seems, though, that a breach occurred prior to the vote (two Members making "points of order" which were not actually points of order), the result was a surprise, and a further, temporary decomposition of the entire group lasted for nearly two minutes.

This is a situation when the observations of the working interpreters could add to a potentially significant construction of knowledge.