Interpreting: January 2005 Archives

I had a great day working today. My teammate was (is!) awesome. :-) We had the best conversation at lunch, about her workshop on discretion (which gets as much of a plug as I can give it), and a quasi-update on where I am with the research on role.

Our conversation was fascinating because it was going along just fine, full of investigatory questions and comments, and then it got tense! Why? It was right before we had to get back to work.....and then didn't come up again....but was really on my mind. Why? Was I presenting my hypotheses and tentative findings in an ethnocentric or oppressive way? It worked out that we walked to our cars together, and the moment arose for me to ask if she'd felt the conversation get tense. (Maybe it was just me?) Yes, she had noticed! And she thought it was about something she was doing! Being too questioning or too .... something (I can't recall her word - persistent, maybe).

Received some info in preparation for a job:

"This link has a nice picture that shows how wobble pairing occurs
http://www.web-books.com/MoBio/Free/Ch5C4.htm

And, we might as well cover the copolymer conundrum as part of PS2, which will be posted on blackboard within the next 24 hrs."

"The nematode genetics lab exercise"

Ah, the life! Never a dull moment!

I have received so many responses from interpreters in AIIC that I am overwhelmed!! Some folk without leads for me are writing just to say good luck (thanks!), others are writing to let me know they're trying to hook me up with someone, and others are directly involved in the specific sites where I'll be doing the research.

I believe its really going to happen!

Back to the official chain-of-command. I was thinking I'd already sent emails to them, but perhaps it was to other places? And, my request is obviously a miniscule detail amid a vast range of priorities.

Here's what's new: March 4 broadcast of "A First Review", an all-day conference on interpreting in the EU which will be webcast.

And, I have just learned that the SCIC does NOT arrange for interpreting at the Parliament's Plenaries. sigh Back to the drawing board!

Another lead trickles in. :-) This, from Elvira:

International Association of Conference Interpreters

A Chief Interpreter's View is an address from 1996 about interpreting within the UN system.

I just received acceptance to present at the next national American Sign Language interpreters convention in San Antonio!

Eileen Forestal will join me. Yippee yahooooooo!

Here's what the proposal looks like:

Making progress! Mechtild is coming through for me!!! :-)

The sites are all in German, but Norbert Z”nker is head of the German national interpreting association (BDÐ). He does conference interpreting, as does another woman who's name and email Mechtild provided.

This yellow pages link is for German-Turkish interpreting. Isn't this awesome?!!!

Also: the German sign language association and its Berlin chapter.

I just picked up Tove Skutnabb-Kangas' co-edited book on linguistic human rights...

I like her opening to her homepage, "I am what I write?" :-) There are many links to follow. (go there again!) Many Deaf education and interpreter training programs use her work.

a sociolinguistic perspective on linguistic human rights

bibliography with links re linguistic human rights

Tom Cheesman turned me on to Marilyn Martin-Jones. :-) I've yet to actually land a specific person in the Berlin area but the list of names and network of contacts keeps growing. Very exciting!

She and Tom were in contact about asylum issues with (lack of) interpreting. Tom wrote that he's been "getting heavily involved in local voluntary work with refugees (see www.hafan.org). This brings me up against the realities very sharply (sheer lack of interpreters / translators, lack of funding for such services in legal, medical and other critical contexts, huge harm done by unethical and incompetent practitioners and lack of understanding of translationissues among service providers, reliance on children, friends... Also growing reliance by organisations on telephone services which are rarely satisfactory from clients' p.o.v.). "