Retour is an essential component of international conference
interpretation, allowing speakers to use their mother tongue and be
interpreted into other languages.

Working into a “B” can seem a daunting task, especially at the beginning
of one’s career, and it can be a mistake to see it above all as a public
speaking competition. Rigorous analysis of the source is at the heart of all
interpreting, even when we are listening to our mother tongue. In fact,
adding a retour means turning an active language into a passive one (as
well as the reverse!), which can bring its own challenges!
Systematic use of reformulation can help keep us in control of our target
language output, liberating us from the source-language structures. In this
way, it allows us to express ourselves more freely and naturally, and helps
ward off the dangers of contamination.
We also need to use our intonation more deliberately in our “B”, to ensure
that we are giving our listeners clear signposts for meaning and intention,
rather than replicating the music or inflections of the source. We have to
de-couple our voices from the innate flow of the original.
We can strive to avoid phonetic ambiguity and potentially misleading
intonation, by isolating these components in our performance, rather than
seeking a generic, perfectionist goal of “sounding like a native” or “not
having an accent”. We can also develop retour-specific coping skills to
maintain clarity and coherence in a high-pressure environment. There are
teachable strategies for “keeping up appearances”, and not distracting our
listeners.
Ultimately, our emotional intelligence, grasp of context, and empathy, can
help us focus on the intention rather than the form of the speaker’s
communication. We can then do our best to share this knowledge in our
“B”. This self-aware intellectual honesty, one of our human strengths (and
weaknesses) is what gives us an abidingly central role in the age of
algorithmic thigmotropism.

Matthew PERRET.

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