Reflexivity

on the European Court of Auditors’ Special Report No 5/2005 : Interpretation expenditure incurred by the Parliament, the Commission and the Council (2006/2001(INI))
The European Parliament,
- having regard to the European Court of Auditors’ Special report No 5/2005: Interpretation expenditure incurred by the Parliament, the Commission and the Council, together with the institutions’ replies(1),
- having regard to Article 248(4), second subparagraph, Article 276(3) and Article 280(5) of the EC Treaty,
- having regard to Rule 45 of its Rules of Procedure,
- having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control (A6-0261/2006),
Respect for multilingualism
1. Considers that multilingualism is one of the key features of the European Union, which highlights cultural and linguistic diversity and ensures equal treatment of EU citizens;
2. Considers that multilingualism guarantees citizens’ right to communicate with the EU institutions in any of its official languages, thus enabling them to exercise their right of democratic control;
3. Considers that the linguistic services of the EU institutions facilitate communication, and that, in so doing, the institutions remain open to the citizens of Europe;
4. Considers that the total cost of all the linguistic services of the EU institutions, translation and interpretation combined, represent merely 1 % of the total EU budget;
5. Considers that its Rules of Procedure stipulate that Members may speak in the official language of their choice and that interpretation into the other languages is provided; considers that, in addition, the use of official languages is governed by its ‘Code of Conduct on Multilingualism’, updated in 2004;
6. Considers that multilingualism is an expression of the EU’s cultural diversity, which must be preserved, and that, therefore, while the increasing number of official languages calls for pragmatic solutions in the preparatory work within the institutions, multilingualism must be guaranteed to ensure the legitimacy and diversity of the European Union;
With regard to all institutions
7. Welcomes with satisfaction the high quality of interpretation in the EU institutions; is furthermore of the opinion that the high quality of interpretation must be continuously evaluated and guaranteed;
8. Notes that the overall cost of interpretation in 2003 was EUR 57 000 000 as regards the European Parliament and EUR 106 000 000 as regards the Council, the Commission, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and some agencies;
9. Is, however, very concerned that in 2003 approximately 16% (EUR 25 900 000) of the total interpretation costs of EUR 163 000 000 represented costs for services supplied but not used and for stand-by arrangements;
10. Is of the opinion that the Parliament, the Council and the Commission should endeavour to reduce ‘implicit or explicit stand-by duty’, these arrangements accounting for EUR 18 000 000 spent on interpretation services supplied but not used; notes that reserve interpreters should be available for ad hoc meetings with a short request time;
11. Calls on its administration, the Council and the Commission to improve inter-institutional cooperation;
12. Calls on the Parliament and Commission interpretation services, in order to be more efficient, to exchange interpreters and create mixed interpretation teams, and to make possible the use of available interpreters where and when they are requested in order to meet real needs;
13. Calls on the institutions to encourage and facilitate the use of ‘local interpreters’, language combination allowing, and stresses that national administrative provisions must not be an obstacle; notes that a high quality of interpretation must be guaranteed;14. Considers that the Parliament and the Commission should establish an overview on the official/free-lance ratio per language in time for the 2006 discharge;
15. Calls on the Commission to reinforce, in coordination with other institutions, cooperation with Member States in training interpreters from their respective countries;
16. Calls on the EU institutions to renegotiate the agreement with the Auxiliary Conference Interpreters (ACI) with regard to travel arrangements, remuneration, inter-institutional cooperation and administrative simplification;
17. Notes the high share of travel and accommodation costs; urges meeting organisers and interpretation services to reduce travel and accommodation costs; calls for better coordination, planning and organisation of travel and accommodation arrangements;
With regard to the Parliament
18. Expects its administration to provide estimates of the average total daily cost of ACIs and permanent interpreters in time for the 2005 discharge report;
19. Notes that the full cost for an interpretation day is almost 30% higher in Parliament than in the Council or the Commission, one reason being that very few local interpreters can be used during Strasbourg sessions, which increases Parliament’s interpretation costs in Strasbourg by 13 %;
20. Notes its refusal to take part in an evaluation with a view to creating an inter-institutional office providing interpretation service to all EU institutions, this having been considered by the Bureau on 4 September 2005, as incompatible with the interests of Parliament;
21. Calls on its administration to continue to establish meaningful ’session reports’, i.e. reports from the head of an interpretation team about the active and passive use of languages during group, committee and delegation meetings, and report back on its findings in time for the 2005 discharge procedure;
22. Urges its administration to raise Members’ awareness of interpretation costs; asks if it makes best possible use of the language profiles of Members; stresses that this should not lead to a ranking of official EU languages;
23. Recalls that, pursuant to Article 1 of the Code of Conduct on Multilingualism of 19 April 2004, resources should be allocated taking into consideration the users’ real needs;
24. Calls on its administration to study how the Council’s ‘request system’, the Council of Europe’s internal billing system, or UNESCO’s quota system for interpretation could be used by the Parliament;
25. Notes that in 2003, it spent EUR 4 000 000 on interpretation services made available but not used due to late requests or cancellations; asks that last-minute cancellations and last-minute requests be discouraged; furthermore calls on the interpretation services to be more flexible in their service planning and request system;
26. Calls on its responsible bodies to adapt its calendar of committee, group and plenary session weeks in order to achieve a better balance between needs and resources available;
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27. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the European Court of Auditors.
(1)
OJ C 291, 23.11.2005, p. 1.

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Phillipe, our tour guide, said “Belgium is surrealistic” in reference to the language alliance of the German-speaking population in the east with the French-speakers of the south. Belgium, he explained, is “a small country with complicated problems.” The majority language speakers of Dutch are the Flemish in the north. I will need to devote a single blog entry concerning what I have learned about these language dynamics to date – I think I have enough to sketch an outline of the main discourses. (We’ll see!)
Meanwhile, I put most of my energy towards my new colleagues. What a fascinating lot! You may guess I gravitated toward Colin (”metaheuristics”) and Jared (”neurogenesis”) immediately. Colin’s description of metaheuristics as a huge simplified abstraction of simple rules applied to a population which then generates complex interactions put me immediately in mind of Asimov’s “human conglomerate.” Jared’s work on bird brains led to a comment that there are now two known areas of the brain that produce new cells throughout life: the subverticular zone (responsible for smell) and a region above the hippocampus engaged with memory. What better start to this research project than optimization forces and new cells in the brain?
Bill, who is here to teach about the color line in American literature, said there is no other approach for addressing matters of race/ism than “to start with the present and proceed to the past.” (I want to take his class!) He really got me excited later, inquiring about this blog (!), when he described the inevitability of a diurnal narrative structure emerging with and without the writer’s conscious intentions. Yes! Indeed this is what I have grasped (over five long years and a lot of nudging from friends to present my thinking in a more organized fashion) and – hopefully – put into deliberate motion with the three new categories linkable from the cutesy flash animation (above). How much force/creation can be generated is a function of participation/response (so it seems to me). I am in agreement with Bill that one can only begin with the present. I am hopeful the past can help us learn how to make choices toward more preferred futures (presuming some agreement can be forged on a vision).
Vanja and I compared notes concerning our respective “Institutional Review Boards” processes in order to receive authorization for “human subjects research.” I received varying advice on approaching the Members of the European Parliament. One person is convinced response rates will be low. :-/ Jen suggested I follow ‘chains’ of connections by developing each contact slowly and deliberately. Meanwhile, I’m still hoping to find people to translate a few more of the initial invitations so that I can approach MEPs in their official national language. It’s just a hunch (as is most of this action research project), but I’m thinking I might up the percentage of interest just a nib by making this gesture. We’ll see!
Zac “The Architect”, Cathleen, and Kathy “The Medievalist” had an interesting conversation about the differences between studying the work of live persons (or those who lived recently enough that people who knew them in person are still alive) and studying those long dead. Is it really true that one can define clearer boundaries about a past subject than about a more current one? I’m not sure. I do know that I’m grappling with the liveliness of my own subject , its “superfluidity” to use Zac’s term, and have struggled to impose a boundary of location and membership (the European Parliament and its current Members), as well as to define the locus of study on MEPs discourses concerning the choices they make in terms of which language to speak, when and why, and how the attitudes revealed or exposed by these discourses establish a certain frame of reference in relation to interpretation. What is/are those frames, and how do they establish behavioral rituals that instruct (by example), thus limiting and enabling potentials of communication across cultural/linguistic differences?
Cathy’s artist of study, Marcel Broodthaers, kinda seems like a guy right up my alley (not necessarily an ally – so many people read my business card mistakenly! I guess ally is either not much in favor or largely unused.) He is famous among Belgians for his mussel pottery. Cathy described how some of his work “pretends to teach” and that he interspersed text in his work in an anti-modernist way . . . there was something she said about his use of space that I’d like to understand better. Later, on the tour, Phillipe explained that symmetry in buildings was a feature to emerge during the Renaissance in the 16th century. It had never occurred to me before that symmetry was not always a desirable geometry, or at least a frame of reference anchoring artistic deviations!
We’re all waiting to witness Alyssa in action, meanwhile I was reminded of the incredible cello performance I saw in Northampton some years ago – dang, can’t find a blogpost about it! – when they surrounded us with forty or more cellos and played deep and low like whale song. Still gives me shivers! Finally, Caitlin has also carved out a language-related project. I may even have a lead for her!
When I got home yesterday evening, my host and I had a long conversation about the day and all its learnings, ending with a bit of collaborative poetry:

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. . . dental floss!

Emiko was rough, I’m telling you – give someone a little bit of insight into a weakness and whoosh a professional dental staff (see last paragraph) goes for it all!

I do have the best dentist in the world. “Nice haircut,” Tom says, “What’s it called?” “Forty-five.” Then we cut him loose with the drill. Oh my. Yes yes we had targeted three of the front teeth with ancient fillings, all yellowing out and icky. He expanded to five just cuz he got on a roll. Rebecca was a great help. “We’ve got to reduce the signs of aging!”

Honest? I am not sure anything I do is going to fool the folks I’m going to meet during upcoming parliamentary adventures: they’ll peg me soon enough as from some other social class. (Which one could be an open question!)

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Work on optical illusions show how the distance from which one views a face alters the expression you think you’re seeing. Some constructions are creepy!
I’m intrigued with the function of distance. Part of what me and my committee need to sketch out is the scope of the lens I’ll use in exploring the practice of simultaneous interpretation at the European Parliament. Since each of our relative distances from the object of study differ, establishing a reasonable range might be a challenge.

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They did give me exactly what I needed during my prospectus defense, even though a hazing frenzy seemed to build as we spoke. Perhaps I still give off the vibe that being clubbed with a two-by-four is the only way to get my attention.
I had meant to mention my science fiction mind at the beginning of the presentation – not that they aren’t already aware (!), but to highlight the challenge of fitting my perceptions into academic boxes. Science fiction was the first wholistic knowledge system that I encountered, followed by fantasy. The frame of a person being randomly at a juncture in time and space from which things unfold seems, as near as I can tell, to be the deepest level of neuronic organization in my brain: cognition overlays the rhizomic net.
They want me to fix the time/space of the study in accordance with pre-established knowledge. This is the tricky one. The other feedback about clarifying and expanding the details of methodology is useful and productive: although I have confidence that I will successfully navigate whatever happens during the fieldwork process, anticipating the possibilities (a series of “if-then” imaginings) can only help. Most of this nitty-gritty I have intended to do in August anyway; now I just need to organize it sensibly for them as well.
The crux of the matter seems to be a concern that I won’t deliver something that they expect, emphasis on lack of surprise. We are entering into a contract, and my conformity to the terms of the deal is demanded. The conservative bent of academia weighs heavily here, and the question of whose authority is in play is, in fact, the very point of the entire exercise. What else is voice if not the ability to put words into action? I clamber through my own extraordinarily limited exposure to this world, (this lifeworld?), taking in so much: not “feeling” as in mere emotion, but sensory perception. English lacks common vocabulary to distinguish among types of “feeling,” hence I am often in trouble/at risk of conflation.
Not only that, I’m not so keen on reifying institutionalized authority of any kind. So, for instance, in this moment of spacetime, I do a Google search (gasp!) to see if there’s anything out there right now that complements the notions I have in mind. Nice! So what that I can’t translate the text of Blommaert’s rejoinder; or that the “lifeworld” reference I found has to do with computer science – these two references say what I intend:

“The concept of a lifeworld will not appear as a specific mathematical entity in our formalism. The intuition, however, is this: while there is an objective material environment, the agent does not directly deal with all of this environment’s complexity. Instead it deals with a functional environment that is projected from the material environment. That projection is possible because of various conventions and invariants that are stably present in the environment or actively maintained by the agent.”

Such an eclectic, synergistic mode of knowledge construction is anathema to the stable march of paradigmatic knowledge sanctioned by universities. How, why can I trust the authority of these authors? What if they “got it wrong” and I, foolish and naive that I am, perpetuate the error?
Now we’re into morality.
Granted, I have not always understood the nuances or sophistication of certain ideas at particular times. So what? I have understood others. Yes, I am not always as clear as seems desirable – not only to others, to me, too – and (!) clarity is also an interactive accomplishment. The challenges presented by my committee carve edges into the frame of what this study will actually become.
What environment is being actively maintained by discourses about simultaneous interpreting in the European Parliament? What stable conventions and invariants are currently present? Which functional environments are being projected? My role in the projections of Members of Parliament and EP Interpreters matters just as much as their role in mine: this is what makes the proposed research action and process-based. Nonetheless, all that swirl does have a center: a contractually fixed point-of-reference in the practice of simultaneous interpretation.

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