Dialogue Interpreting

A Guide to Interpreting in Public Services and the Community

Rebecca Tipton, Olgierda Furmanek

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317289418
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Routledge Interpreting Guides cover the key settings or domains of interpreting and equip trainee interpreters and students of interpreting with the skills needed in each area of the field. Concise, accessible and written by leading authorities, they include examples from existing interpreting practice, activities, further reading suggestions and a glossary of key terms.

Drawing on recent peer-reviewed research in interpreting studies and related disciplines, Dialogue Interpreting helps practising interpreters, students and instructors of interpreting to navigate their way through what is fast becoming the very expansive field of dialogue interpreting in more traditional domains, such as legal and medical, and in areas where new needs of language brokerage are only beginning to be identified, such as asylum, education, social care and faith.

Innovative in its approach, this guide places emphasis on collaborative dimensions in the wider institutional and organizational setting in each of the domains covered, and on understanding services in the context of local communities. The authors propose solutions to real-life problems based on knowledge of domain-specific practices and protocols, as well as inviting discussion on existing standards of practice for interpreters. Key features include:

• contextualized examples and case studies reinforced by voices from the field, such as the views of managers of language services and the publications of professional associations. These allow readers to evaluate appropriate responses in relation to their particular geo-national contexts of practice and personal experience

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• activities to support the structured development of research skills, interpreter performance and team-work. These can be used either in-class or as self-guided or collaborative learning and are supplemented by materials on the Translation Studies Portal

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• a glossary of key terms and pointers to resources for further development.

Dialogue Interpreting is an essential guide for practising interpreters and for all students of interpreting within advanced undergraduate and postgraduate/graduate programmes in Translation and Interpreting Studies, Modern Languages, Applied Linguistics and Intercultural Communication.

1 Foundations for continuing professional development

1 Introduction

This chapter explores the nature and scope of professional development for dialogue interpreters, taking account of transition points in an interpreter’s career trajectory from formal classroom learning to professional practice, and the relationship between informal or lifelong learning and continuing professional development (CPD). It places emphasis on reflective practice and collaboration as mechanisms to support structured professional development.

For early career interpreters the excitement of moving from the classroom into professional practice can sometimes be tempered by experiences that have not been encountered during initial interpreter education and for which there appear to be no readily available solutions. It is at that point when interpreters begin to confront the messy realities of human service industries that their professional identities really begin to take shape.

Idealized approaches to interpreter education, where everyone patiently waits his/her turn to speak and all parties implicitly understand the interpreter’s position are routinely challenged by service providers who thrust the interpreter into the spotlight in unanticipated ways, often due to a lack of knowledge about professional interpreting and frameworks for judging standards. Regardless of the reason, interpreters can be left feeling unsure about their role, particularly if the impartiality of service delivery that seemed so clear-cut in the classroom appears all but impossible to achieve in professional practice. How to build resilience, assertiveness and understanding of others’ perceptions and expectations are therefore key developmental issues in an interpreter’s career.¹ Even experienced interpreters find it difficult to handle different attitudes to their occupation and problem solve on the job since the highly autonomous nature of dialogue interpreting can generate uncertainties with regard to decision making and professional accountability; it is not uncommon for experienced professional interpreters to regularly question the legitimacy of their actions and approach.

Professional development involves more than maintaining and updating competencies developed in initial interpreter education; it concerns deepening understandings of the many facets of human-to-human communication in complex social, institutional and organizational systems. At all levels of experience, practitioners confront questions of what constitutes ‘professional knowledge’ and how its acquisition and use relate to the different types of activity they perform. In this regard Eraut provides a helpful distinction between knowledge types:

Although many areas of professional knowledge are dependent on some understanding of relevant public codified knowledge found in books and journals, professional knowledge is constructed through experience and its nature depends on the cumulative acquisition, selection and interpretation of that experience.

(1994: 20)

It is the vitality of interpreting and its lack of a codified knowledge base that make the role of experience central to effective professional development. How such experience is articulated, appraised and built on forms the focus of this chapter. The sections that follow provide guidance on developing a structured and critical approach to professional development in which the importance of core, developmental and domain-specific competencies development is highlighted.

2 Professional development and lifelong learning

Professional development and lifelong learning are terms familiar to the modern workplace and are sometimes considered in relation to formal and informal learning respectively. Two types of professional development are identified, each of which can be broken down further into discrete phases in the interpreter’s career trajectory.

• Initial professional development

Initial professional development usually takes place in contexts of formal or institutional learning, both online and face-to-face, and leads to certification and accreditation through examination. At this stage, the focus is placed on acquiring interpreting skills, developing advanced language competence and contextual understanding, and on understanding how these translate from the classroom to the different settings of professional practice.

• Continuing professional development

Continuing professional development (CPD) is understood in general terms as a commitment to maintain and develop core, developmental and domain-specific competencies and keep abreast of changes to the profession on an informal or formal basis throughout an individual’s career.

Megginson and Whitaker describe CPD as ‘a process by which individuals take control of their own learning and development by engaging in an ongoing process of reflection and action’ (2007: 3). It can involve participation in formal learning opportunities to maintain and acquire new skills but informal learning through experience also plays an important supplementary role.

2.1 The role of professional bodies

Professional development is primarily an individual endeavour owing to the freelance nature of most dialogue interpreting provision. In this respect, professional bodies and interpreter associations provide important sources of support and, in fact, membership is often conditional on the completion and submission of an annual record of activity (typically 30–40 hours). A cursory examination of some of the world’s leading professional bodies reveals considerable overlap in the nature and range of activities recommended:

• reading specialist publications;

• attending workshops and conferences;

• completing online tutorials;

• writing blogs and creating vlogs;

• giving presentations;

• participating in committees;

• coaching and mentoring.

However, the ability to ensure that activities are relevant, meaningful and contribute to medium- and long-term goals is often taken for granted. Without appropriate planning and personalization interpreters can feel that they are undertaking activities for the sake of the activity alone or simply to retain accreditation.

Professional development planning: Activity 1

A	Review the list of core competencies in the introduction to this guide and identify the activities recommended by professional bodies above that can help to support their development.
B	Identify the range of CPD opportunities currently available in your local area and the range of competencies they can help develop.
C	Reflect on other types of development activity (on- and offline, individual and collaborative) that can supplement the activities recommended by professional bodies.

3 Entering the profession and moving forward

3.1 Certification and standards

Initial entry to the interpreting profession typically depends on meeting a minimum set of performance standards determined by the relevant certifying and accrediting authorities,² although, as has been well documented, the lack of uniformity in this regard is a source of constant tension in public service and community interpreting. Hvlac observes that certification may be ‘specified according to general or specialised ability, or mode and context of interlingual transfer (e.g. “healthcare interpreter certification”, “telephone interpreter certification”)’ (2013: 32). This raises questions regarding levels of overall preparedness for the range of domains and settings that interpreters encounter, and underscores the importance of structured professional development. Hvlac also makes a distinction between standards understood in the narrow sense of ‘demonstrated performance’ and standards as ‘organisational and policy features’ that operate at the national and supranational level (ibid.: 34). The latter are described as ‘the procedures that practitioners and agencies must uphold to present themselves to the market as a quality-assured product’ (ibid.).

The professionalization of community interpreting has been doubtless strengthened by the development of national occupational standards. Efforts to create supranational standards have tended to focus on written translation rather than interpreting, although the situation is evolving (e.g. the recent International Standard ISO 13611 Interpreting – Guidelines for Community Interpreting). However, there is some uncertainty regarding the extent to which occupational standards serve to guide professional development, which helps to explain why competency-based approaches to interpreter education are becoming increasingly prominent.

3.2 Competency-based approaches to interpreter education and development

The list of competencies in the introduction to this guide reflects a wider trend in competency-based learning in translator and interpreter education, which is advocated, for example, by the European Masters in Translation (EMT) network under the auspices of the European Commission in relation to written translation. In general terms, the approach provides a coherent framework for education providers, students and practitioners to deal with the many facets of the occupation, from actual service delivery to effective preparation and business management.

However, competency-based approaches are not without their critics and some scholars claim that they do not train students to deal effectively with uncertainty and complexity (e.g. Kelly and Horder 2001). There is a risk that without appropriate support, interpreter practitioners may approach competency development in limited terms and, in particular, underestimate the potential of collaboration with peers and other human service professionals to support development at a more holistic level.

3.3 Complexity of competency development

Continuing professional development involves identifying areas for improvement and learning in relation to core, developmental and domain-specific competencies; the latter is typically much more challenging since initial interpreter education tends to focus only on such knowledge, skills and attitudes as the basics of pre-assignment preparation, terminological research, sight translation and whispered interpreting, interaction management, note taking and general ethical issues. Issues such as register variation in the courtroom, influencing behaviours of police officers in interviews with suspects, and the role of code-switching in child abuse interviews are examples of domain specificity that interpreters are often left to address on their own with varying levels of success. The following sections provide guidance on how to get started in the process.

4 Professional development planning: getting started

4.1 Skills audit and profiling

Professional development planning can usefully begin by taking stock of current skills and activity levels. Instead of simply reviewing a CV, creating a profile such as the one below (Figure 1.1) can provide a simple snapshot of current professional status and services offered.

Figure 1.1 Sample profile.

4.2 Profile evaluation: SWOT analysis

Once created, the profile can be evaluated by using a basic SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, oppor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Permissions
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Foundations for continuing professional development
• 2 Legal interpreting I: criminal procedures
• 3 Legal interpreting II: asylum procedures
• 4 Healthcare interpreting
• 5 Educational interpreting
• 6 Social care interpreting
• 7 Faith-related interpreting
• Concluding remarks
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Appendix 4
• Glossary
• Index