Interpreting Impoliteness: Interpreters’ Voices (original) (raw)
Related papers
2017
Interpreters in the public sector in Norway interpret in a variety of institutional encounters, and the interpreters evaluate the majority of these encounters as polite. However, some encounters are evaluated as impolite, and they pose challenges when it comes to interpreting impoliteness. This issue raises the question of whether interpreters should take a stance on their own evaluation of impoliteness and whether they should interfere in communication. In order to find out more about how interpreters cope with this challenge, in 2014 a survey was sent to all interpreters registered in the Norwegian Register of Interpreters. The survey data were analyzed within the theoretical framework of impoliteness theory using the notion of moral order as an explanatory tool in a close reading of interpreters’ answers. The analysis shows that interpreters reported using a variety of strategies for interpreting impoliteness, including omissions and downtoning. However, the interpreters also gave examples of individual strategies for coping with impoliteness, such as interrupting and postponing interpreting. These strategies border behavioral strategies and conflict with the Norwegian ethical guidelines for interpreting. In light of the ethical guidelines and actual practice, mapping and discussing different strategies used by interpreters might heighten interpreters’ and interpreter-users’ awareness of the role impoliteness can play in institutional interpreter– mediated encounters.
Impoliteness - a challenge to interpreters' professionalism
This article examines interpreters’ perceptions of impoliteness in interpreter-mediated interactions in public sector settings in Norway. The analysis is based on a survey conducted in June 2014, involving 28 interpreters from/to Bosnian/Croatian/ Montenegrin/Serbian and Norwegian. The analytical method is based on the theory of impoliteness and the rapport management model. The study has a discursive, data-driven and bottom-up approach. The study is motivated by challenges described by interpreting students who already work as interpreters in the public sector in Norway. These students repeatedly reported to their teachers two types of challenges with “impoliteness”. The first challenge concerns their own experiences with impoliteness from public service users, public service employees, or both. The other type of challenge concerns the very act of interpreting impoliteness. Even though the Guidelines for best practices in interpreting, which define the interpreter’s role and function, address these issues indirectly, interpreters express a need for more specific knowledge and guidance. As no research has been conducted on impoliteness in interpreter-mediated dialogues in the public sector in Norway, a pilot project was set up in order to describe and analyze the phenomenon, as seen from interpreters’ points of view. This article concentrates on the following research questions: How widespread is impoliteness in interpreter-mediated interaction in public sector settings, according to interpreters?, How do interpreters define and exemplify impoliteness? and What strategies do interpreters use for interpreting impoliteness? The findings suggest that impoliteness in the public sector is more widespread than the author expected. The notion of “conflictive talk” playing a central role in various discourses is supported by interpreters’ examples of impoliteness in interpreter-mediated encounters. Interpreters’ examples indicate that impoliteness may create ambiguity on different levels and that being able to cope with it is crucial for doing a good job as an interpreter. Impoliteness is more than swearwords. It is context dependent – whether something is impolite depends on a participant’s evaluation of the situation. Impoliteness is experienced in a number of ways, and the consequences for interpreters of not managing impoliteness range from hurt feelings to a halt in communication. Interpreters use different interpreting strategies while interpreting impoliteness – from interpreting what is being said, to reporting that impolite language is being uttered, to ignoring impoliteness altogether. These strategies can have a direct influence on the outcome of interpreter-mediated institutional dialogues. Insight into interpreters’ as well as the other communication participants’ concerns leads to the next step: developing and systemizing strategies that can help them cope better with these work-related challenges.
When interpreter users in the public sector, such as doctors, judges, lawyers, teachers and child welfare officers lack a common language with users of their services, they need the help of an interpreter in order to carry out their duties. Such institutional dialogues are often fraught with communication difficulties. It seems that the mere presence of an immigrant moves the attention unduly away from general communication problems to cultural differences or poor interpretation, often overshadowing the public service employee's role. The Directorate of Integration and Diversity (IMDi), responsible for interpreting in the public sector in Norway, conducted five surveys on how public servants in Norway communicate via interpreters. One of the main findings from the surveys, that public servants need to learn more about how to communicate via interpreters, led to an allocation of funds to a development project called 'Communication via interpreter for public service employees' (2011-2012). The aim was to develop an introductory course for all public servants in Norway on how to communicate via an interpreter. In this article I briefly described the background and content of this development project paying particular attention to the contributions by the course participants who actively participated in developing the course. I also started a discussion about the phases identified in the participants' self-awareness process: 1. Understanding the imbalance of power in institutional dialogues 2. Understanding the intersection between interpreters' and public servants' areas of expertise and 3. Taking back the responsibility for communication in institutional dialogues. Based on real-life examples from the Norwegian public sector, this article showed the importance of delineating clearer boundaries between the interpreter's and the interpreter user's areas of responsibility/expertise in order to facilitate communication in institutional dialogues.
The Changing Role of the Interpreter: Contextualising Norms, Ethics and Quality Standards
The Changing Role of the Interpreter: Contextualising Norms, Ethics and Quality Standards, Marta Biagini, Michael S. Boyd & Claudia Monacelli (Eds.), Routledge, 2017
This volume provides a critical examination of quality in the interpreting profession by deconstructing the complex relationship between professional norms and ethical considerations in a variety of sociocultural contexts. Over the past two decades, the profession has compelled scholars and practitioners to take into account numerous factors concerning the provision and fulfilment of interpreting. Building on ideas that began to take shape during an international conference on interpreter-mediated interactions, commemorating Miriam Shlesinger, held in Rome in 2013, the book explores some of these issues by looking at the notion of quality through inter-preters' self-awareness of norms at work across a variety of professional settings, contextualising norms and quality in relation to ethical behaviour in everyday practice. Contributions from top researchers in the field create a comprehensive picture of the dynamic role of the interpreter as it has evolved, with key topics revisited by the addition of new contributions from established scholars in the field, fostering discussion and further reflection on important issues in the field of interpreting. This volume will be key reading for scholars, researchers and graduate students in interpreting and translation studies, pragmatics, discourse analysis and multilingualism.