Call this ACTION LEARNING!: December 2008 Archives

Oliver Morton is referring to galactic history, but the sentiment explains my desire for ceremony concerning the annual return of light. Over the last five years, I have intentionally cultivated this religious impulse into a celebration of human diversity: the need for solar nurturance is universal, encompassing all modes of spiritual practice and transcending every form of social and institutional division.

We human beings alive today live on the verge of the future - as this wonderful video demonstrates, "we live in exponential times." What we accomplish, and what we fail to accomplish, will set the limits for succeeding generations. A verge is "something that borders, limits, or bounds." The verge is a measurement in time.

The iconicity of the Earthrise photograph, taken by astronaut Bill Anders in 1968 (when I was five) as a proof of technological prowess and singular human interconnectedness, competes in the modern age with old, established ideologies. Our visual and visceral senses are immersed in strategic and incidental ways to inspire the gamut of human emotion. Mundane hopes, grand visions, and primal fears are inspired to motivate daily participation in the increasingly complex structures of interconnected global societies. The contemporary class values of intellectual and creative freedom require deep investment in the construction of social infrastructures that enable strong human ties across the many diversities which compose human experience and inform human wisdom.

The trick is how to institutionalize systems that enact the precious balance between control (by which I mean reliability of the system actually doing what it is directly intended to do) and democracy (by which I mean the actual freedom of individuals to pursue activities they value - see Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom).

The crucial tension, it seems to me, is a certain level of unlearning our confidence in prediction so that we develop a few more risk-taking skills. In Wouter's words from earlier today:

In everyday life, we generally do know what will happen if we turn left - we arrive at our intended destination - unless something happens, and suddenly we find ourselves in the middle of an adventure we never intended and do not necessarily want. Institutions are designed to eliminate - or at least minimize - such unexpected happenings. But by ruling out the spontaneous and sporadic, institutions also instill modes of conformity that threaten to mold us into compliant complacency. Then we - taken in aggregate as masses of indistinguishable people - are easily provoked into outrageous mobilizations including the co-production of horrifying violence - be it formal war or stealth co-optation of resources driving others to despair.

As Tumbleweed explained it the other day, we have the accumulated knowledge to predict how discourses play out over time if they are not interrupted immediately:

"First people say, 'They own the bakeries and the banks.' Then you have Kristallnacht and next thing you know we're liberating the Jews from Auschwitz."

But how does one intervene in such discourses without falling into another kind of fascism?

Merely regulating what people can/cannot say is hardly an answer; the repressed attitudes simply work themselves out in another way. Rather, we need a few mechanisms which routinely, habitually embrace the discrepancies of our differences as a matter of course. Olivia Judson argues playfully for "The Ten Days of Newton" to "embrace the discrepancy" of Newton's actual birthdate (which is different pending which calendar one uses), posing this as a new holiday to encompass all the variations currently celebrated at this time of year around the globe. She names Newton's foundational role in terms of the way we now understand our place in the universe, highlighting (among other achievements) his work with prisms. Newton proved that

The point is that we have the incredible decision-making power to invent systems composed from the vast array of imaginative potential in combination with increasing predictive competence. The question is whether we deal deeply with revealed knowledge or insist on creating new prisms (or keeping old ones) to distract us from what we already know is there. The desire for security binds the individual to institutional control, but safety (perceived and real) constantly fluxes with the organic compulsion to grow.

How many times can a person reinvent themselves? As often as necessary - if

• confidence in the relative security of life is guaranteed, the


• skills of reading the immediate for future implications are cultivated, and


• responding inter/co/pro-actively is modeled and implemented.

(I'm not promising its gonna be easy!)

The foundational premise of my dissertation research, Simultaneous Interpretation and Shared Identity in the European Parliament, is that the ways we communicate with each other influences everyone's identity: "mine" and "yours," and - when you add the relational element together, "ours."

That brief overview continues in the Index: SI squared (first round of conversations with MEPs), which includes links to research-related blog-posts in the blog-category, Parliamentary Adventures. In that blog-category, I summarize first impressions from the direct 'discourse data collection' of conversations with Members of the European Parliament.

The links indexed in this blogpost, Index: Action Learning (implementation for SI squared, part one), are theoretical and methodological in scope. They compose a blog-category named Call this Action Learning - a somewhat defiant title (!) chosen in response to a dissertation committee member who seemed frustrated that there is not one convenient pigeonhole that neatly categorizes the knowledge being strategically deployed and, hopefully, generated through this research project.

(You can also get to these categories via links in the main header, The Dissertation = Parliamentary Adventures and the lifework = Call this Action Learning.)

Early developments:

Although the quote refers to my first visit to Luxembourg, I like to think it applies to this research project, too: "it must be unforgettable!" (12 December 2008). This blogpost is about an internal training for staff of the European Parliament about "communication and its languages." I asked a question of the academic and institutional experts that was premised in a ritual view of communication, receiving responses that were a bit 'sideways' of what I had hoped for. In this blogpost, I try to explore what happened and provide more background for my central question:



Can we imagine simultaneous interpreting as a cultural practice that retains difference while creating a shared communication ritual, thus contributing to a sense of common identity?


Why such negative framing? (1 November 2008) is the main question to arise from a combination of reading about languages in the European Parliament and the first batch of conversations with Members of the European Parliament.

In road bump: asymmetrical patterns of language access (24 November 2008), I come up against the hard reality of selective access to the privileged resource of simultaneous interpretation. I explain the worry that research results will be skewed because it may be that the Members of the European Parliament who need interpreting the most are structurally-inhibited from talking with me. :-/

Trying to learn Dutch is giving me brain cramps (25 November 2008). I extrapolate to the challenges other language-learners face under different circumstances.

Immersion:

Explanations and reasons for using English abound: this is data (6 October 2008). I recognized the pressure to conform - to go with the easy, dominant flow - previously, and was still stunned by its strength. For the record (!), responses to the translations have been quite positive - it is worth all that effort! :-)

Background to Foreground (15 October 2008) explains how this research project hopes to cast new light on an aspect of daily working life in the European Parliament that is generally taken as mere routine. "Once we decide," I argue, "to keep the fact of constant, continual interpretation in mind, what matters is not the matter of interpretation itself, but the frames of reference that inform the interpretation." The blogpost continues to explicate and question my own frame/s of reference, however the main 'work' of this blogpost is to articulate the fact of tangible, material effects from the use or non-use of simultaneous interpretation.

In "Dare to Know" (Kant) (25 October 2008), I argue for the relevance of simultaneous interpretation as a site of tremendous importance by using three different texts to discuss language, interaction, and knowledge. This long post tries to show the philosophy from which I approach this research on simultaneous interpretation and shared identity: an equation I imagine as SI squared. Can the terms be sufficiently defined so as to produce a result widely agreed as valid? I borrow the standard for success proposed by Appleby, Hunt & Jacob, 1991:



"Success comes when the found knowledge can be understood, verified, or appreciated by people who in no sense share the same self-interest" (p. 9).

Their definition of success is metonymic, in my view, with the co-construction of understanding among people using different languages.

Initiation:

Over a superb lunch (26 September 2008), a wide-ranging intellectual discussion inspired musing on conditions requiring standardization in tension with the variable mix of desired and unwanted results of standardization. I assert that results of this study will "enable more efficient, efficacious, and effective use of simultaneously interpreted language as a creative resource, rather than as a perceived barrier to intercultural, inter-institutional, and interdisciplinary understanding."

I make an effort to understand the language crisis in Belgium in "the fragile, groping thread of communication" (17 September 2008 quoting Isaac Asimov).

Many positive signs accompanied my journey over the Atlantic, "...flying over a cloud" to a multi-hour layover in London prior to the last legs to another magical place in Antwerpen. (14 September 2008)

Growing enthusiasm!

I made a fledgling attempt to learn some French - la belle langue! (1 August 2008) - before arriving, not knowing that my incremental progress would be shifted - and repeated! - with Nederlands (Dutch/Flemish).

waving my light saber (11 August 2008) is a celebration of establishing links in the blogheader that (hopefully!) make it easier for people to navigate only to the blogpost in reflexivity relevant to the study of simultaneous interpretation in the European Parliament.

Discourses are not contained:

grant hurdle 41 - cleared (6 July 2008) reflects a citizenship moment that brings the privilege of international travel into sharp focus.

I think I'm pregnant! (9 July 2008) reflects a moment of optimism about creating a Facebook Group concerning the process of translating the research invitation into 23 languages as part-and-parcel of the participatory, action-learning premises of this study. I wonder if I am a node participating in an emergence of new consciousness/es.

I tease myself about challenging institutionalized authority (emphasis on the institution, not the authority) in just a few details . . . (13 July 2008). (The point was also to remember and recognize friends without whose support I would be beyond lost.)

In foreshadowing (28 July 2008), I reflect on friends' thoughtful responses at being asked to translate the research invitation into the 23 official languages of the European Parliament evokes the questions and concerns (i.e, the attitudes and worldview, perhaps even an ideology?) about language diversity and simultaneous interpretation that I intend to study.

Method is applied theory, and theory inspires method:

A colleague introduces me to Homans: The Human Group (7 June 2008) and I expound on a tension between cognitive science and communication theory.

I use my friends as sounding boards, always (and tease them at the same time) in risque (10 June 2008). My argument (explained) is that we are always engaged in "interpretation" - the presence of a simultaneous interpreter only makes the process more obvious. The problematic is to define the field of action in which SI has tangible social, cultural, political and economic effects.

The earliest formation of asking for participation in this research study: an invitation to help me gaze (24 June 2008). It concludes with the suggestion that



the most important question to ask of your interpreter is not "did you say what I mean" but "did you say what will accomplish for me the end I seek?"

Overlapping with the content category, Parliament Adventures, as the time for fieldwork approaches:

Grip of the Committee (defending the prospectus, 13 May 2008)

visual perceptions (and relative distance from the object of study, 14 May 2008)

Cast Concern Where You Will (teasing from and to friends, 21 May 2008)

my new best friend is . . . (inspiration for the name for the blog category, 22 May 2008)

The premise of my dissertation research is that the ways we communicate with each other influences everyone's identity: "mine" and "yours," and - when you add the relational element together, "ours."

The technical term from communication theory is constitutes: to constitute is to do an action that leads to something tangible. General definitions from Princeton's wordnet say that to constitute is to form, establish, or compose. The phrase I am drawn to the most as I write today is "to cause to stand" (from wiktionary). In short, constituting is a kind of making that persists into the future.

Participating in simultaneous interpretation is a basic structural component of working in the European Parliament. Using the professional inter- and cross-cultural language skills of simultaneous interpreters to communicate is a special and unique communication practice with significant implications for culture and identity. But what are these implications? That is what this research aims to discover.

First impressions based on my first conversations with Members of the European Parliament are recorded in the blog category, Parliamentary Adventures. Relevant musings about theory and methodology are recorded in the blog category, Call this Action Learning. (You can also get to these categories via links in the main header, The Dissertation = Parliamentary Adventures and the lifework = Call this Action Learning.)

First Conversations:

Why such negative framing? One of the most stark characteristics of the general discourses about simultaneous interpreting that I consider highly significant. (November 1, 2008)

another music? Some distinctions emerge concerning listening, speaking, fluencies, and desired uses of interpreters by MEPs. (November 9, 2008)

What goes unsaid . . . More depth develops as new perspectives and considerations are raised concerning MEPs' desires for using simultaneous interpretation. (December 1, 2008)

arrival:

The setting: fellow Fulbright grantees, one of my gracious hosts, and surrealistic Belgium (September 16, 2008)

The context: as evaluated in the 2005 Report and Motion on EP Interpretation (September 29, 2008)

Some seeds prior to arrival:

Grip of the Committee (defending the prospectus, May 13, 2008)

visual perceptions (and relative distance from the object of study, May 14, 2008)

Cast Concern Where You Will (teasing from and to friends, May 21, 2008)

my new best friend is . . . (inspiration for the name for the blog category, May 22, 2008)

Fog shrouded my arrival in Luxembourg, persisting through the first day. The second morning dawned grey but sparkling.

What a treat to listen through headphones to an interpretation into English of Professor Joanna Nowicki's talk on intercultural communication, or - as she prefers to label it - intercultural mediation. Her critique of 'the American way [of teaching about] intercultural communication" was quite sharp: it "becomes one dimensional very fast." She generalized about management programs that simply direct their students: "with people of this nationality, do that, with people of that nationality, do this." I am not convinced that my friends in the School of Management at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst are receiving so stark a reduction, but I am familiar with trends in my department (Communication) that could lend themselves to such simplistic categorizations. No doubt Professor Nowicki's critique applies in general, if not to every case. She also describes "the American way" as "very pragmatic," explaining that, for Americans, the results of research must be useful.

Research and the real world

Personally, I am inclined to agree with the goal of research needing to have practical use: theory alone is dancing in air. Beautiful, yes. And exclusive. Again, however, it is unclear to me how generally this categorization applies to all American research, as there is only one official pragmatist in the UMass Communication Department and the critical emphasis leans strongly toward the theoretical. Application to the real (not abstract) world receives rather short shrift. Perhaps I am a bit more European in style, as I conceptualize theory and practice as blended in actual experience. Where Professor Nowicki did nail me in my American-ness was with her characterization of American researchers of intercultural communication moving quickly to "giving advice." ☺ Uh oh!

At the end of the seminar on "Communication and its languages," I ventured to pose a question. The topics of the day reflected my skills and interests: from

• the ways human beings imitate each other in communication (taking on the body language or mannerisms of the other, as illustrated by Guy Bilodeau), to


• reframing the language of disability away from individual subjectivity to the environmental conditions that inhibit accessibility (as explained by Pirkko Mahlamäki), to the


• questions of power and distance raised by Juana Lahousse in her talk on the connections between written translation - i.e., translators - and science and knowledge).

Matters of power, distance, and the construction of knowledge are constitutive elements of simultaneous interpretation as a communication practice. The way these elements are handled by all participants in a simultaneously-interpreted communication event generate rituals which can be understood as cultural.

Participant-observation and a ritual view of communication:

In the spirit of participant-observation as a touchstone of my action research methodology, I asked if the idea I have makes any sense: Can we imagine simultaneous interpreting as a cultural practice that retains difference while creating a shared communication ritual, thus contributing to a sense of common identity? I mapped out two drafts in my notes before asking in order to be as clear and direct as possible. I considered that the interpreters would have no background on my wild notion and sought to chunk the components concisely. I was puzzled by the two responses I received. True to the dictates of the generally negative discourse about interpreting (shame on me!), my first thought involved some problem with the interpretation. The second thought was that I had transgressed - as an American outsider, I should have just kept my mouth shut. :-/ (Gauging the proper limits of social etiquette in specific instances has been a lifelong dilemma, alas!) As luck would have it, a few participants from the seminar approached me during the cocktail hour and I was able to inquire about their view.

Dialogue takes time

Aha! Of course - my formulation of identity, dialogue, and the role of language stated "identity" first, necessarily relegating "dialogue" to the background. I did not consider the cultural mediation necessary to convey "identity" as the minor objective contingent upon the major goal of "dialogue." Now, after the fact of the exchange, time joins the play. Professor Nowicki emphasized that the key to intercultural mediation (which she may have been using, at least sometimes, as a synonym for dialogue) is to maintain enough difference so as to keep interest, but not so much as to promote fear.

At the break, Lena, Mary Jo, Laura and I talked about this notion of emphasizing the relational - the links and connections between oneself and the other - as Professor Nowicki advises. We started speaking of the idea of a neutral descriptive language - wondering how such words look and feel, what they convey. Some illustrations were provided of words that offend by accident. These can be things one says simply as the word one knows while being unaware that the word has strong negative associations for others. "Comrade" used by west Germans with Germans of the former East Germany was one example. Laura relayed a story of a classmate from one of the Baltic countries rejecting writing on the chalkboard in red because "that's the color of communism." In such instances, I mused, is where the relational enters. Lena clarified with an aphorism:

Listening like a giraffe

A giraffe, goes the logic, has the largest heart of all animals on earth. Coyote (poor feller) got chosen by someone as the bad counterpart, the predator who scavenges for that which gives offense. If your heart is big enough, then you engage the relationship with the other. Even though offended, you take the time and put your energy toward not allowing the offense to define the interaction. Instead, you find another way to make a link, you find another way to pursue connection. I teased about being the one to lay that long neck out on the line . . . ! Meanwhile, listening like a hunter suggests the barbarian inside that Professor Nowicki mentioned. (Hopefully someone will provide me with the list of authors/titles so I can reference properly - and see if there are translations!)

This internal barbarian is one element of the "hot" European heart I touched with my question about identity. The shared history of Europeans with each other is not pretty, a fact still viscerally alive in the memories and consciousness of these people with whom I interact everyday as a relatively innocent American. The violences I have known are not the horrors of war; my insensitivity to the problematics of a common European identity got put on display. And yet . . . I defend the proposal, because constructing participation in simultaneous interpretation as a cultural communication practice is an activity that anticipates a shared identity in the future rather than seeking transformation in the roots of the past.

Anticipating the future

I agree wholeheartedly that I have no business meddling in the historical foundations of when, how, why and which Europeans become European. My own opinion is that engaging in those debates will keep the divisions real, rather than actually resolving them. (Which is not a full-blown endorsement for not talking about them either - it's rather that how the talking gets done matters more, in my view, than the contents of what actually gets said - at least in principle. Part of the how is that an outsider ought to steer fairly wide of the mark until invited. Unless ;-) one is an American culturally prone to giving advice!)

Speaking about the lessons and potentialities of simultaneous interpretation, however, is something I actually know a little bit about. So I hope (!) I'm not completely off my rocker suggesting that the kind of infrastructure of professional training and provision of quality services that exists for the American Deaf Community is an example of what could be created in Europe to address some of the complexities of intercultural mediation. This, afterall, is what simultaneous interpreters are professionally trained to do, and - going on the testimonies of everyone associated with simultaneous interpretation at the European Institutions, trained professionals actually do a mighty fine job of it.

I regret that I was unable to stay for the second half of Professor Nowicki's lecture, and missed Guy Bilodeau's session entirely. The primary subject of research calls. Snow began blowing shortly after the train began the journey to Brussels; it looks like it might stick. This quick first trip to Luxembourg was indeed unforgettable: from the pleasure of being allowed to attend, through all the intellectual stimulation, mutual curiosity ("Infiltration?" Me? Never!) and heartwarming hospitality. For the record, I do not believe for one minute that Clare has led a sheltered life!