Tag Archives for court interpreting

Let me introduce myself – the interpreter’s introduction

Vector handshake

Vector handshake (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

When you arrive at a meeting where you will interpret, you will have to introduce yourself. Well, maybe not if you’re part of the staff at an international institution, then you’ll just slip into your booth and do your job. But in all other contexts you will have to tell somebody who you are and what you’re doing there. So how do you go about it?

 

When I arrive at a more conference-like meeting I will just see the person responsible for the interpreters and a short: “I’m Elisabet Tiselius, Swedish booth”, will do. The only thing they’re interested in is that we are there and ready to start working. If there’s a particular tricky terminology or concept you may go and see your delegate and ask for clarification or explanation, but otherwise you sit tight and wait for the meeting to start. Continue reading →

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Reading tips

So many good and interesting blog posts to read this week that I just have to pass them on. First of all read Bootheando’s post on Sibel Edmonds. If you don’t read Spanish scroll down and watch the video.

Then Rainy London Translations has a really interesting and above all funny post on Interpreting Wars, survival tips for the booth.

The Interpreter Diaries continues her postings on becoming an interpeter and interpreting training. Now the time has come to deal with “The aptitude test.”

The Liaison Interpreter has a post on fees (it’s form last week but still worth reading) that largely inspired my own post on the same topic.

Unprofessional Translations turns 82 (years! not blogposts) this week and celebrates with a post on translation and aging. Many happy returns, and thank you for all the interesting posts.

And finally, in Swedish and a few weeks old, the Swedish community interpreter Tolken (just as me), who writes about the Assange court proceedings and the critical comments that the interpreting has gotten there. One of the reasons that Assange can claim that the Swedish rule of law is toothless, is that he has not gotten proper access to translated documents and qualified interpreters.

Interpreters’ responsibility

On May 12, 2008 Eric Camayd-Freixas interpreted at hearings of almost 400 illegal immigrants who were arrested in a raid at a meat plant in Potsville. After the hearings he decided to breach his professional secrecy and circulated a 14-page long account of the hearings in which he points out all the irregularities that were committed by the authorities. You can read more about this here. I have always admired so called whistle blowers. It is a very delicate and difficult task to stand up and point out irregularities if you are part of an organisation or system which the interpreter in this case definitely was. However, an interpreter’s professional secrecy is absolutely crucial to the profession. In an ideal world we would have debriefing sessions for interpreters. That would create a possibility for interpreters to share their experiences without breaking the professional secrecy and in extreme cases like the one of Mr. Camayd-Freixas he would not be left alone with the very important decision he had to take, i.e. denouncing authorities. Sometimes we end up in difficult situation due to agencies, I have for instance interpreted a pedophilia case eight-months-pregnant, sometimes missions that seemed totally straight forward end up in a very complicated situation, like when the defense lawyer decided to make the interpreter look like an ignorant in order to make the witness less credible (the defense lawyer actually apologized at the end of the day). We carry all sorts of similar experiences that we cannot share in order not to breach our professional secrecy.

In South Africa after apartheid a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established. The aim of the TRC was that everyone who had committed a crime during apartheid was free to witness in front of the TRC and ask for pardon. The witness was recorded and the person then granted pardon. People who were directly or indirectly victims were often present at the hearings and everything was interpreted simultaneously into the 13 official South African languages. This process was very fruitful for the restarting of South Africa, but the ones who suffered very much during this process were the interpreters. It became so difficult for them to bear all these dreadful stories that a special debriefing program had to be organized. “I am the filter that all pain is sifted through” said one of the interpreters in for the TRC. Their work has become a theatre performance that has been touring world wide. Should you come across it I strongly recommend that you see it.