Lourdes De Rioja

International Interpreting Services

Quality in conference interpreting

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Conference interpreting is not an exact science and providing a quality service is a fundamental institutional and individual objective. But what do we mean by the word quality? Who defines it and how? Is there alignment between the expectations and standards of practitioners and those of our clients?

Without providing definitive answers, this talk aims to spark debate and encourage reflection on how interpreting services are assessed and how we can preserve our sanity and motivation in a fast-paced, demanding environment.

The talk covers the differing needs of users of interpretation and contrasts these with the needs of interpreters, who are often left frustrated by the obstacles seemingly put between them and their ability to provide a level of quality they would like to. As well as working with clients, meeting organisers and all those involved in the success of a multilingual meeting, suggestions are made about maintaining resilience and accepting both the constraints  and the opportunities institutional interpreting can offer.

Alison GRAVES is Director at DG LINC, European Parliament

Interpreting from mother tongue into English

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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.

The Consequences of Fully Remote Interpretation on Interpreter Interaction and Cooperation : A threat to professional cohesion?

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Remote interpreting has become more prevalent, notably since the Covid pandemic restrictions. Previous studies of remote interpreting have tended to focus on working conditions for interpreters, notably poor auditive input, and the risk of deteriorating quality of output, both significant concerns. This article takes a different approach, considering the impact of full remote interpreting (interpreters working in isolation from home or another site) on professional identity and what the author describes as “professional cohesion” (compliance with a shared set of norms and adherence to shared beliefs, creating a feeling of belonging to and identification with the profession).

The underlying hypothesis of the article is that simultaneous interpreting facilitated or even triggered the emergence of conference interpreting as a modern profession. This statement is in one way uncontroversial, as SI undoubtedly led to the increase in interpreted events and in the number of languages interpreted, thus accompanying the development of a multilingual institutional architecture. However, the author’s conviction is that it also created greater proximity with peers, with the formation of interpreter teams and communities. This helped to shape and consolidate informal professional attributes, such as a set of self-beliefs and norms. There is here a tension between the beginning of a trend towards the greater distancing of interpreters from meetings and the greater proximity to other interpreters.

The article considers the ways in which interpreters interact in the booth space and in related spaces of the conference venue, including of course mutual assistance but also mutual face-saving techniques and reinforcement of shared values and beliefs.

The use of remote interpreting involving interpreter home-working (i.e. full remote) marks a sharp break with on-site teamwork, rendering some forms of cooperation difficult. The article considers how this might impact interpreter interaction and professional cohesion. Examples are given of actual meetings, either on-site or in full remote mode. It attempts to identify trends and patterns in interpreter exchanges in each. Preliminary observations indicate a notable reduction in some forms of interaction and cooperation, with a strong focus on practical arrangements such as handover and turn times. This is in sharp contrast with the very rich exchanges of the on-site meetings. The declared intention of the article is to open a new angle on the impact of remote interpreting on interpreters and the profession.

Clare Donovan, professional interpreter, trainer at ESIT and researcher.

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