Science Tourism: Max Planck Institute

Munich

Ok, maybe it isn’t quite as exciting as the Large Hadron Collider, but I stood in the very office where Heisenberg worked. I tried to absorb any lingering quantum waves that might collapse as particles (in the form of a brilliant idea) in my mind. I did actually have a new thought about the dissertation today, a title … Read more...

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

Stockholm
Limits and Perspectives
on Dialogism in Mikhail Bakhtin

I think that’s what he said.

My memory is sketchy on the exact word, but the principle had something to do with a kind of misrepresentation. I think! It looks cruel written down but in the complexity of the moment I did not feel it unkindly, rather as a caution. We … Read more...

what I am trying to do

Stockholm
Conference: Perspectives and Limits
of Dialogism in Mikhail Bakhtin

I had to invent the presentation proposal many months ago . . . I’ve highlighted the phrases in bold that speak most directly to the shaping of the actual presentation.

Novelizing Social Interaction:
Language and Simultaneous Interpretation

This presentation conjectures an extension of Bakhtin’s exposition of language via the novel … Read more...

Limits and Possibilities

What forces blow me back to these shores I cannot say. Nearly five years ago the first conception of what has become my dissertation project was born – right here in the halls of the Aula Magna at Stockholm University! – during an international conference on community interpreting, Critical Link Read more...

What are we trying to close?

Antwerpen
Aptitude for Interpreting

“That’s a cheap shot!” The ethical and fine Prince of Significant Findings, was not completely flattered that I followed his choice of beer. He continued, “Follow my paradigm!” Oy, I thought to myself, wincing just a bit even though I knew full well that he was teasing, we’re in it now. Not long before … Read more...

Yes, but can you interpret?

Antwerpen
Conference: Aptitude for Interpreting

Imagine my surprise upon entering the lobby at Lessius University and witnessing a conversation in American Sign Language! My brain has been so otherwise-occupied that it never once crossed my mind that

    a) anyone other than European spoken language trainers/researchers would attend or that

    b) I might actually know people!

It was absolutely delightful to … Read more...

We are all guilty here

online discussion forum

Language is a force.
Language names, and by naming, it calls into being. This is how social reality is constructed and maintained. I think it is an effect of quantum mechanics, but smarter minds than mine are needed to make the connections in a compelling scientific manner.
Last fall I wrote a post on some dynamics Read more...

What meanings are we making?

de-briefing
two talks at Heriot Watt
by Stephanie Jo Kent

In addition to the transmission of information, the larger and deepest purpose of simultaneous interpretation is to generate and maintain common culture among people from different cultures.

As hoped, the opportunity to present on my dissertation fieldwork in-progress forced my brain to synthesize the trends and patterns that I have … Read more...

An Outsider in the Maelstrom

European Parliament
Strasbourg
drafted 10 February 2009

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 … Read more...

everything as prologue

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 … Read more...