I’ve just come back from two conferences dealing with two different subjects. The first was an event hosted by a private insurance company. Most of the presentations there were just the regular kind of speeches you would expect at a conference like this. There was one speaker though who at one point in his presentation suggested that his company was “lucky” (he actually used that word) because their client had died just “in time” for them not to be obliged to make any payments to the insured person’s family (they were talking about life insurances). He even smiled when he said that.
He then added a few more remarks I personally found quite irreverent but, of course, I had to translate them as they were and I also had to make sure he got “his message” across the way he intended it. This meant that I had to ensure that I sounded just as unconcerned by the usage of his words as he obviously was. I think I managed to do so, even though I somewhat struggled with myself.
During the discussion that followed the presentation of that person he was attacked by some other participants for the words he had used. I felt that I was inclined to agree with their arguments and yet I had to make sure that my own standpoint does not influence the way I interpret their comments.
Basically, I belong to the “school of interpreters” that think that an interpreter needs to stay as close to the orginal as possible, which means that I use the same tone (be it aggressive or not), the same level of (im-)politeness as the speaker. There are other interpreters who think that no matter what happens you have to make sure that you remain neutral and this may require some “softening” of the original. I totally disagree with that.
There is only one exception to this rule for me: If it is absolutely clear to me that the speaker offends somebody without intending or wishing to do so. Let’s say there is a negotiation going on and I know that my client wants to sign a contract. All of a sudden, he says something which I know his future partner will find very offensive (this mostly happens when people try to make jokes without understanding the cultural background of their interlocutor). In cases like this I will first try to talk to my client about my concerns and if he insists I’ll translate his words exactly as he said them. Of course, you can only do that during consecutive interpreting. In the case of simultaneous interpreting I don’t have that chance to talk to my client or any other speaker for that matter.
The second conference was a meeting of the European employees’ council of an international company. The management tried to explain the reasons for outsourcing, shutdowns and the major increase in the number of temporary workers. During that discussion one member of the board was actually complaining about the “drastic increase” in wages in China, arguing that (including incidental costs such as depreciation etc.) the hourly wage had now reached an “incredible” (his words) 2.5 US dollars per hour.
Again it was kind of hard for me to interpret that sentence in a way that would faithfully reflect the “indignation” of that member of the board. I do believe that I managed to make sure he got his message across though. As a matter of fact the heated discussion that ensued was kind of proof of that, I guess.
Another member of the board was praising the King of Morocco for his supposedly democratic rule calling the King a true democrat and Morocco a stable democracy with extremely favourable “working conditions” (which basically meant that the company was almost given free hand as to the implementation of its own regulations). The Spanish delegate of the employees’ council then asked the board member to please stop calling the King a democrat because doing so would be the same as saying Angela Merkel is Mother Theresa.
I must say that I really liked the Spanish guy because he was very outspoken and obviously tried to fight for the rights of the people he was representing. But again, my job is to just translate what people say, to make sure that those listening to me get the same sense of anger, indignation, joy or whatever feeling they would have gotten had they understood the original.
Having said this, however, I must admit that as a human being I certainly do side with some people while I wholeheartedly disagree with others. As long as this does not in any way affect the outcome of my interpreting work, this is also OK. Making sure that I remain professional and not allowing any of my personal feelings to get in the way of my work is one of the greatest challenges for me as an interpreter and at the same time one of the most intriguing aspects of my job.
I guess it is somewhat similar to what an actor does when he plays a certain role, just with different consequences. When I lend my voice to a speaker I need to be aware of the power of words and the fact that I’m merely a mouthpiece.
Since I work as a freelancer I have more freedom as to the conferences I choose to work at than those colleagues of mine who are employed by private companies or a public institution. There are certain people I would never work for and there have been cases in the past where I refused to interpret for people because I would never want to be associated with them or their “messages”. So far this only concerned representatives of certain “weltanschauungen” (I guess you can use that word in English as well) or political groups. I know some may argue that these people also have a right to be heard and - with some notable exceptions - I’d agree on that. But there is no law requiring me to work for them and as I see it I don’t have any moral obligation to do so either. Besides, those people always find somebody to do the job.
Some of my colleagues argue that my point of view to some extent reflects a lack of professionalism, while I consider it my right to simply refuse a job. Anyway, I just wanted to point out that as an interpreter you are not only faced with linguistic challenges (which in themselves can be quite intimidating from time to time) but also other challenges prospective interpreters might not always think of.
