The Conference Interpreting Curriculum and the Challenges of Developing ‘Adaptive Expertise’

Dr Rebecca TiptonCentre for Translation and Intercultural Studies

University of Manchester

6th International ConferenceInnovative Information Technologies for Science, Business and Education

Vilnius, Lithuania

Amanda Clement, MPS Language and Cultural Services

EMCI: Quality Assurance Standards (2012)

‘the quality of the candidate’s interpreting

should be such that s/he can be recruited

immediately to work alongside accredited

conference interpreters in meetings in

regional and international organisations

and on the private market’ (emphasis added)

Intra-professional assessments of expertise

André Kaminker, described as:

‘…undoubtedly one of the twentieth century’s legendary figures

of interpreting. His name is associated with incredible feats of

interpreting…he is said to have been able to interpret

consecutively and with a high degree of accuracy speeches

over an hour long without taking any notes…he was able to

read a page of a telephone directory, memorise the names and

recite them in the same order’

(Longley 1968: 4, cited in Baigorrí 2004: 46).

“in many domains the assessment of

expertise is questionable because

individuals’ reputation and their levels of

training are often used as substitutes for

individuals’ level of expert performance”

Ericsson (2000/1:190)

What is an expert?

“…an expert is someone who can make

an appropriate response to a situation

that contains a degree of unpredictability”.

Sloboda (1991:154)

Vertical learning

Horizontal learning

A dialogue between ‘experts’?

Communities of Practice?

Wenger (1998, 2006)

Reflective practice: samples

• I was not sure I had prepared the topic enough and I was scared that I would not know all of the terminology.

• Although it is incumbent upon me to be aware of shifts in register and tone, it is also important that I am aware in future of the necessity of delivering a serious and lucid message.

• In the future, I will work on detaching myself from the source text in order to find out more accurate and idiomatic expression. This will also help increase the level of confidence of my client.

• Internalization of information should be prioritized at the preparation stage.

• Identifying [delegates’] different styles is difficult for me at first, which hampered the beginning of my interpreting and it did not go well. Next time I would be more prepared to face them.

• In most cases, speakers usually repeat themselves when they speak fast. Sometimes, they even make mistakes during the speech. Therefore extending EVS will help me filter information and avoid redundancy.

• A possible way to improve my glossary preparation would be to carry out background research with vigour (sic). I should try to integrate detailed research with the top-down approach to identify the relationship between all the words in my glossary.

• Being the pivot interpreter does shoulder more responsibility for other interpreters and listeners, and therefore it is all the more important to adopt some flexible interpreting strategies rather than being overwhelmed with panic.

• I was unprepared for a speaking style that I was not familiar with. One reason might be my inability of quickly identifying (sic) different text types. In order to do this (…) understanding them would be a first stage.

• When I couldn’t find an acronym in my glossary, I chose a vague expression (e.g. “a Chinese institution”) because I didn’t have enough effort (sic) to look for the word while listening to the speaker.

• This time I had the chance to do retour and I will talk about my important failure (sic) in this task.