Interpreting Eureka! The Possibilities of Plurilingualism

Presented by co-author Jeffrey A Kappen in Copenhagen, Denmark at GEM&L 2017

“Revisiting Multilingualism at Work:

New Perspectives in Language-Sensitive Research in International Business”

GEM&L, Groupe d’Etudes Management & Language, is the French Research Group on Management & Language.… Read more...

Homolingualism and the Interaction Taboo: Simultaneous Interpretation in the European Public Sphere

This case study presents conference-style simultaneous interpretation in the European Parliament as a dynamic microcosm for communicating Europe. In the enlarged EP, the regime of controlled multilingualism has been challenged by an emergent pluralingualism in which Members use multiple and mixed languages in addition to the services of simultaneous interpreters. This marks a temporal and paradigmatic shift in the larger game of languages in the European public sphere.
This case study presents conference-style simultaneous interpretation in the European Parliament as a dynamic microcosm for communicating Europe. In the enlarged EP, the regime of controlled multilingualism has been challenged by an emergent pluralingualism in which Members use multiple and mixed languages in addition to the services of simultaneous interpreters. This marks a temporal and paradigmatic shift in the larger game of languages in the European public sphere.

Going for It: Language Interpreting for a Better World

We are not compelled to continue all of the ritualized elements of simultaneous interpretation that we have inherited or even helped to build. We can learn from the trajectory of the last 70 years and make precise modifications in training, education, credentialing, and professional practice. These changes can be calibrated in order to reshape this special form of intercultural communication so that it serves the common good. By using simultaneous interpretation as an institutional mechanism for deliberately redressing systematic inequality, more safe and humane life chances can be generated for people of all classes and ways of life.
We are not compelled to continue all of the ritualized elements of simultaneous interpretation that we have inherited or even helped to build. We can learn from the trajectory of the last 70 years and make precise modifications in training, education, credentialing, and professional practice. These changes can be calibrated in order to reshape this special form of intercultural communication so that it serves the common good. By using simultaneous interpretation as an institutional mechanism for deliberately redressing systematic inequality, more safe and humane life chances can be generated for people of all classes and ways of life.

Fulbright Fellowship to the EU

grant proposal (historical)
submitted October 2007
fieldwork conducted Sept 2008-June 2009

STATEMENT OF PROPOSED STUDY OR RESEARCH
Stephanie Jo Kent, USA, Communication
Simultaneous Interpretation and Shared Identity in the European Parliament

Multilingualism is touted as a crucial component of the European Union’s (EU) merger of national/cultural identities into one political democracy, yet the skillful use of interpreters is underemphasized in … Read more...

riding on butterfly wings (transitioning)

Brussels

Sven's first :-).jpg

The miracle of the Fulbright grant fieldwork period comes to a close. I shared a last lunch & coffee with friends in the Parliament’s canteen, after spending the last two days securing support from Members for the next action research step. Then I dashed across town to the Flemish Parliament to meet Deaf member Helga Stevens and a couple … 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...

in the end…

Brussels and Strasbourg

Seventy-five Members of the European Parliament (or, in a few instances, their Assistants) expressed interest in talking with me, and I managed to arrange conversations with fifty-five of them. Nearly half of the MEPs spoke with me twice (23/55), and a handful spoke with me three times (5). If I had been able to get off … Read more...

Interpreter for a Day

webstreaming from Brussels
European Commission

The music track for the promovideo compiled from last year’s event makes me feel like I’m missing a real party!

“I tried to do it from Spanish, and
what I understood I said then in Italian.”

“I didn’t know the difference between interpretation and translation, and
I didn’t know that one is for writing and
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the other end of language rights: asylum seekers

Strasbourg

The mood this week is surprisingly calm compared with the frenzy of previous sessions building up to this final session of the Sixth Term of the European Parliament. There are many contentious issues and a huge amount of work – as always – but the hustle and buzz seems subdued.

I’ve been following a particular dossier for the past … Read more...

Redux: found by AIIC

Strasbourg

A post I wrote in February was discovered by l’AIIC (Professional Conference Interpreters Worldwide) and linked to from their Language in the News section:

Observing communication dynamics at the EP

“The technical orchestration of twenty-three languages performed by Members of the European Parliament and the cadre of Simultaneous Interpreters assigned to generate spontaneous comprehension is nearly seamless.” Read the

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