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Training conference interpreters
by Robin Setton

An international conference is the result of months of painstaking effort to bring together a group of people unique in their expertise, providing a brief opportunity for a concentrated exchange of opinions and information and often for vital decisions to be taken.

The interpreters responsible for communicating these concentrated messages in real time naturally need to know their languages thoroughly, but to be really 'tuned in' and understand everything that is said, language ability is not enough. Time is precious; participants often refer in abbreviated or implicit form to past meetings, agreements, current issues and so on. To follow them, interpreters must have an equivalent level of education and general knowledge and must be up-to-date with current affairs, as well as knowing enough about the specific business of the conference to make sense of the proceedings.

Conference participants from different cultures and speaking different languages present information and opinions in different ways. To make communication possible and comfortable, interpreters have to reconcile these differences in real time. Their special skill is in analysing and storing very different incoming messages and repackaging them so that not only information, but also emphasis, and style if possible, are conveyed in the target language with its own words and syntax, and its own culturally specific ways of debating, informing, convincing, praising or recommending.

In other words, an interpreter's professional competence is made up of three components: language, knowledge and rapid processing skills. Conference organisers have realised that neither the amateur polyglot, however gifted, nor the in-house expert untrained in interpretation skills can be expected to provide the smooth service required. As a result, international organisations and a few universities have developed special training programs for conference interpreters. The few good courses screen applicants carefully and certify professionals at MA level, after special training lasting from six months to two years.

Selecting trainees

The first challenge to interpreter trainers is selection. Ever year, hundreds of candidates apply to a handful of recognised schools. A dozen or so schools are recognised by the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC). Most of the candidates are graduates from language departments or universities and colleges, but some come from other professions.

Trainees must declare their 'working languages' at the outset. They must have an undisputed and confident mother tongue and at least one fluent and accurate second language. Schools try to attract mature students who have working experience or a background in law, economics or the sciences, or who come from bilingual or culturally mixed families.

The syllabus

Students are first put through various exercises in handling language and information, such as same-language paraphrase or translating texts 'at sight' after hearing them read once. Working with languages of different structures, interpreters have to be very agile with word-order and 'syntacrobatics' of this kind are central to processing skills. Other exercises train the memory which plays a far greater role than in written translation.

These exercises lead up to training in consecutive interpretation. Trainees practice interpreting short, chatty speeches by fellow students or invited speakers, commenting on each other's versions, and begin to grow familiar with the workings of their own memory. Many people can remember and recount a joke, even an elaborate story several days later. But when the subject matter is unfamiliar, or is arranged in an unexpected way, most of the information fades almost immediately. The stuff of international meetings is a mixture: some parts are easily visualised and remembered, while others - details, names, numbers, rhethorical effects or unexpected turns of logic - need to be recorded 'on the fly' in brief notes. After a few months of practice on mock speeches or videotapes, and guidance on how to divide attention between listening and note-taking, students are eventually able to render complex speeches lasting several minutes.

Simultaneous interpretation

Perhaps ninety per cent of conference interpretation is now done in 'SI' mode, through microphones and headsets. The first challenge to trainees is simply to acquire the unnatural habit of talking while continuing to listen attentively to the speaker. To get accustomed to this, they do simple neutral tasks like counting aloud, forwards and backwards, in the same or another language while listening, and must then come out and report on what the speaker was saying; or they paraphrase the speaker, summarising every few sentences 'on-line' without losing the thread of the speech.

Now the real challenges appear: the speech comes in linear form, but the two language structures are different, so that bits have to be stored and recast in a different order; some can be remembered for several seconds, like descriptions or arguments and opinions, while other items, like names and numbers, may not stick and so have to be uttered immediately. And all the while, the incoming language is tempting the interpreter to imitate its structures and forms: if he is to produce a correct and elegant version in the target language, he must resist this, constantly monitoring his own speech. Finally, after months of practice - like flying hours for a pilot - successful trainees can produce a fair version of fast spontaneous speech.

Speakers at conferences often read from prepared texts, a painful exercise when the original is tightly drafted and read in a monotone. If the text is supplied, a good interpreter can follow, within certain speed limits, but only if he has learned to 'stand away' from the written word and be ready to summarise in order not to lag behind, as the speaker may add or omit material without warning.

Special knowledge

Scientists, lawyers and others are sometimes skeptical about interpreters' ability to understand the vocabulary, the concepts, or what is really at stake, to be of any use at their conferences. How do interpreters do this? Knowledge of all kinds is part of an interpreter's stock-in-trade. Schools offer supplementary courses, such as basic concepts in economics, business and law, the anatomy of international organisations, the drafting of resolutions and treaties, voting procedures, initiation into medical or scientific jargon, and even exposure to various non-standard accents.

Trainees learn to keep abreast of events in politics, business, science and technology. University environments provide a pool of experts and lecturers invited to stimulate debates on various topics and in various languages, and 'audiences' may also be arranged.

But the real trade secret lies in preparation. However much knowledge or vocabulary interpreters may accumulate, they cannot have all of it available at all times. Interpreters must seek out and assemble relevant material for a conference, marshalling and activating half-forgotten knowledge, and get indispensable topical documentation from the organiser, in order to absorb the expressions, the issues and finally, the vocabulary specific to the event at hand.

After it is all over, the details are quickly forgotten to make room for the next assignment; but a substrate of knowledge builds up, and many interpreters gradually acquire a good grounding in areas like medicine or finance. The seasoned interpreter knows that the key to excellence lies in knowledge, and in topical information about people, rather than the linguistic dimension, which fades in importance with the years, the concern with language 'equivalent' becoming at most a secondary reflex, and even, as many would have it, an irrelevance or an illusion.