I had to ask my partner in crime about this. Strong Minor Bridge The Brilliant explains:
"Ordibehesht is a month in the Persian calendar, and 1386 is the current year (2007 in our Gregorian era). And Ordibehesht overlaps parts of our April and May. Ordibehesht ends on May 21 - so that's "the end of Ordibehesht 1386."
Yes, I'm still trying to get to Iran and isn't it cool they use a solar calendar? :-)
Olivier set up an online forum for Research in Interpreting Studies: Resources for researchers working in the field of interpreting studies. Let's see if it goes anywhere - feel free to join!
We were welcomed to the country by a member of an Aboriginal group native to the Parramatta area, the Darug. She shared some of her story, sang a song and then was joined by a cousin she called brother for a duet (guitar and didgeridoo). He finished with a solo called “The Hitchhiker,” leaving us in the cab of a tractor-trailer truck driving into the sunset.
The speakers were all passionate about the need for quality and high standards in community interpreting, as well as the need for adequate funding and training. Sandra Hale, Chair of this Critical Link Congress (which has drawn more than 500 delegates, the largest in history) made a nice parallel between the Critical Link and Parramatta. This is the first time the conference has been held in the southern hemisphere, and Parramatta is where the landmark first reconciliation conference the Darug and European settlers was held in 1805.
Professor John Ingleson provided a stellar local idiom: "teaching my grandmother to suck eggs." This morning I met Catherine, a New Zealand Sign Language interpreter, who explained the phrase means teaching someone something obvious, that they already well know how to do. Who would have guessed! (By the way, New Zealand Sign Language became an official national language of the country nearly one year ago: historic!)
The keynote given by Stepan Kerkyasharian was informative and compelling, particularly on the themes of quality of interpretation, adequate funding, and concerns of ethics. In particular, he spoke passionately about interpreter neutrality: that we are "not the guardians of the interests of one party or the other." This is in some contrast to Christopher's talk yesterday about minority language users desire to know that interpreters are working "on behalf of the community" instead of merely in the service of interpreting.
I was interested that both Australian speakers' first comments were in honor of the indigenous people of the land. I've not experienced such recognition in the US unless at an event of, by, and for American Indians or at certain progressive lesbian events. Neat!
I walked to the Opening Ceremony at The Roxy with (Spanish-English interpreters) Nancy, Carmen, Elizabeth and Ron (the token husband). After snarfing down an orange juice and some canapes, I turned in: an early evening.
Claudia Angelelli asked this during the workshop "Program quality in interpreter education." I like it. :-)
According to the list of participants, there are people here from more than thirty countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, England/UK, Finland, France, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, and the US. Who knows how many languages!
Sydney reminds me of two places, in different ways: first, Hawai’i – the feel of the air, perhaps a faint olfactory recognition, and the presence of palm trees; second, Istanbul – riding the train and looking out on blue sky and the curve of coast along the bay. Walking along a broad pedestrian way toward the conference hotel this morning, I recalled Brussels, even Madrid. Of course there are distinctions, but my American sensibilities take in the similarity of pace and priorities in contrast with the hurry-burry hustle-bustle never-slow-down-and-take-a-break rush of typical days in the States.
I went to the wrong room for the pre-conference (!) but it was fortuitous in one regard: a discursive theme around shifting from linguistic (information-based) transmission-type interpreting to more something else appears to be underway. For instance, Angelelli discussed how interpreting training programs tend to do well in three areas: information-processing, linguistics, and professional conduct; while not yet doing well in the areas of interpersonal communication, setting-specific features, and socio-cultural factors in the intercultural communication process. This was also a theme of the pre-conference (I caught the last half): “Beyond the linguistic conduit” by Izabel Arocha, one of whose final recommendations is that interpreter training programs need to implement "a practice framework instead of a linguist framework."
After lunch (where Helena instigated a last-minute move from the Rockabilly to the Quake, she's also responsible for hooking me up with "the young man" in Marsden), I caught the last ten minutes of Christopher Stone's presentation on "Collective notions of quality of Interpreting: Insights from the British deaf community." As usual he was crisp in delivery and sharp with time management, not to mention being a strong ally. Chris fielded some complicated questions very well, discussing how much more of a "global identity" deaf persons have with deaf people from other parts of the world, and how the UK is fortunate to have so many well-traveled deaf people who can generally establish some level of communication with deaf refugees with unfamiliar signing.
The main point of Christopher's talk was on consumer choice in selecting interpreters (and how this has been diminished by processes of institutionalization - governmental legislation). Jemina Napier (who presented in the first workshop with Angelelli and others), noted the frequency of this emphasis on consumer perception of interpreting services through the conference program. :-)
Hanneke Bot in her presentation, "Quality in interpreting as a shared responsibility," presented a fascinating comparison of three interpreters with different styles in a mental health setting. Her point is to illustrate how necessary it is for the users of interpreting services to participate in repair and be knowledgeable of and responsive to the characteristics of an interpreted situation. She listed four things all USERS need to be aware of and act upon:
1. management of turn-taking
2. the equivalency problem (she quotes Pollard, 2005:265 - a great quote I've seen before about consumers responding to the choices (judgment) of the interpreter, not to any "original" utterance)
3. encourage the interpreter to ask questions (!!!)
4. ask questions and use repair
The main source of communication breakdown was lack of repair - an element that is common to all language-based interaction: even without an interpreter we misspeak, repeat ourselves, add, clarify, and alter things we've said. This should be an integral part of the interpreting process that everyone present, users and interpreters, need to exercise. (Good stuff, Maynard!)
Meanwhile, I’ve seen some LSF (French Sign Language) which seemed almost comprehensible (!) and met a few deaf women and interpreters from Canada (some using ASL as well). I’ve watched some BSL and Auslan from a distance – that two-handed alphabet really throws me off. :-)
For instance, carefully looking at the travel zones to be sure that the week pass I bought (for all trains, ferries, and buses) actually goes all the way out to my hotel! (Not quite, argh! Seems the only way to upgrade it is to go all the way back to the airport!???!) So, my six a.m. decision-making after a twenty-two hour journey is not so hot. :-/
Going on the SBS tour, however, was an excellent idea. :-) They broadcast in sixty-eight languages, which puts them in a class by themselves. They use the phrase “mini-UN”: perhaps this is true in terms of written translation? Yet, it seemed to me that the daily production of so many different language group voices is much closer to the language regime of the European Parliament. SBS does television and radio, with radio described as “the mother of the organization” and subtitling as “the key” to delivering the organization’s charter, which is to “bring the world to Australia.”
Two aspects of the visit captured me: the parallels between subtitling and sign language interpretation, and meeting with Francis Lee, Head of the Cantonese Program for SBS Radio (Sydney).
I have never thought deeply about subtitling as a craft. What struck me today is the challenge of coordinating the written text with the rest of the visual imagery. For instance, coordinating chunks of text with the matching scene is similar to what sign language interpreters do by minimizing visual noise and identifying speakers. Additionally, there are huge challenges in timing and the need to manage - even weed out - various sound inputs: such as overlaps in speaking (turn-taking dynamics), recomposition to work within differential time constraints (it takes longer to read text than to hear speech; just as simultaneous interpreting requires processing time), and having to create sense (meaning) even when speakers utter something extemporaneously that actually doesn’t make sense (all interpreters must do this, not just sign language interpreters).
The SBS also does closed-captioning – only in English – for the Australian Deaf Community. I wanted to ask if they combine closed-captioning with subtitling but the moment did not arise. The presentation was educational concerning the intent to be verbatim and neither give more information than the average non-deaf television watcher would receive nor less; to be cautious of condescension but aware of cues that would be obvious to a hearing (non-deaf) person but not accessible at the same time to a deaf person, such as recognizing George W. Bush’s voice before an image of him appeared visually.
After tea, I tagged along with a few folk who work into Arabic, including Arda (English, Armenian, and Arabic), to check out the Arabic language group’s desk for radio. As luck would have it, there was no one there. :-( Most of the group went downstairs to subtitling but, on a whim, I joined Diana to visit the Cantonese and Mandarin desk. What a happy turn of events! Francis has been fulltime at SBS for fourteen years, prior to that he was an engineer. He entertained my attempt to link homomorphisms to repeating dynamics in social interaction, “That is very abstract!” he said, smiling. Guilty as charged! I picked up a copy of his bilingual (Chinese/English) book on “English Idioms: under the lucky stars”, which I am eager to read and share with a few friends (yes, George, I’m talking about you!)
Diana (who doesn’t need business cards because she already has so much work with Mandarin!) spent most of the time talking with Martin (?), after awhile Francis introduced me to Jennifer, a part-timer. I learned from her that access to spoken language as well as signed language interpretation appears to be a widespread practice in Australia, although underused either because people do not realize the service is available or “trust their friends more.” Seems that the law is much more progressive here than in the US or even most European countries, as she said interpreters are not only available for court proceedings, but also medical (“even private doctors”) and educational (if parents want to find out how their children are doing in school, for instance). Anyway, Jennifer said of Francis, “Life comes your way,” while talking about how he manages to pull in subs when he needs them. I like that saying. :-) The Cantonese desk runs nine, hour-long television show per week. They draw most of their material from English sources and create the shows themselves. The shows are done live with some pre-recorded segments.
I met some nice “Critical Link” people during and just after, including Emmanuelle (researching pragmatics in court interpreting), Gaëlle (an administrative type, hmmmm!), and Helena (who I’ll have to tease next time). Arda introduced me to Micaela (?) over tea; we had an interesting talk about Sign Languages). By the way and talk about serendipity! – the folks at SBS had placed stacks of two volumes near the cakes and cookies for our perusal: their annual report and (go figure!) a report, Connecting Diversity, by Ien Ang and Greg Noble (who was also at the Crossroads conference)! (There are two more co-authors, Jeff Brand and Jason Sternberg.) I glanced through it already and it looks sharp – high production value (not surprising) and fascinating information on media use across language groups and generations in Australia.
I like when these things happen!
I had the most phenomenal conversation with a team interpreter recently, which carried into revelations during my next working gig with another peer.
The topic was the moving around (while interpreting) instead of sitting-in-one-place experiment that I've been doing for the past year and a half. I was able to do this with a very experienced interpreter who had never done it before: she discussed her resistance to standing and following the turn-taking of non-deaf interlocutors, while acknowledging that at least one source of her resistance was never having done it before, admitting, "this is not a good reason not to do it!"
Before she agreed to do it, she asked the opinion of the deaf interlocutor, who responded, "it would be nice" for us to physically move to be near the actual speaker. We did note some periodic confusion as the deaf person looked to see which one of us was "on", especially when the turn-taking jumped from one side of the room to the other. (My team and I experimented with moving together, in order to preserve the ability to whisperfeed, but wound up dividing the room: one of us sticking more-or-less to one half-circle and the other one to the other half-circle of participants.) My own guess is that
a) this is a matter of the deaf person's visual practice and breaking old habits (of looking to a stationary, fixed location for the interpretation) and/or
b) an area for skills development in the team to indicate when the teams switch (because this occurs more frequently than the standard 20-30 minute blocks of time).
What this means is that both members of the team really are "on" all the time, and feeding does not happen in the usual way. (Getting support from one's team has been the most common complaint from colleagues that have tried this style with me). An effect of all of this is an actual shift in the philosophy of communication governing the delivery of interpreting services. Instead of privileging the transmission model - which insists that accuracy of message is the highest value (hence, why a team is necessary to monitor and "guarantee the accuracy of the message"); physically moving to follow the flow of the actual turn-taking privileges the identity-enactment model of communication, described by James W. Carey as "the ritual model." (Much more detail: Communication as Culture.)
My teammate was not only game to try out this new system, but thoughtful about what this change did to our work as a team. She concluded, "it changes the distribution of tasks in the team." Later that week, I worked with another interpreter who was reluctant to change. As I watched her sit and work, I realized I have not actually been in this situation for some time (all my other teammates and the interlocutors involved have been willing to humor me, smile). My ideas about how sitting (as the interpreter in an interactive group) stops the flow were completely confirmed, especially after having considered how the functions change from the mode of sitting close for backup and moving around to physically mirror the dynamics of the communication process.
I will need to do some focused research to confirm my hunch, but my mind jumped to what seems to me an inevitable conclusion: by fixing a stationary location for communication to be filtered through (sitting in one place to interpret many different voices), sign language interpreters establish a visual object of worship. The deaf gaze is restricted, confined to the narrow (sacred?) space established by the interpreter's management of the communication process.
This is power.
