Ep. 7 – TCI: Connected to Context

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Hi. Welcome to the connected interpreter podcast, where we will explore ways of staying connected to ourselves in our work, acknowledging the impact of our practices and continue to grow as practice professionals. I’m Amanda Smith, an interpreter, educator, coach and creative, and I’d love to discuss the puzzles of interpreting the complexities of human interaction and the power we have within ourselves to make a difference. So today’s episode is specifically about connecting with ourselves and both from a personal and a professional standpoint. And so as you go into listening to this, I want you to think about the following reflective prompts. So:

• what if anything is sparking your care for yourself, the work and others?
• Do you feel moved to take any action? And if so, what and when will you do it?
• What questions arise?
• What insights and connections do you see to yourself and your work? So those are the questions to keep in mind.
• I will answer a few of them at the end as well, and let’s go ahead and get started.

Connecting with Context in Interpreting

Connecting with the context again, if we go back to demand control schema again, and the environmental, interpersonal, para, linguistic and intra personal aspects of interpreting the EIPI analysis of what’s happening, connecting with with the context really largely falls in the arena of a DCS analysis. So the idea of, can we even know what is happening here? And Robyn Dean often talks about Rest’s four component model, or Dean Pollard both talk about it, but Rest’s four component for component model having to do with moral sensitivity. This, this particular particular component would be about moral sensitivity, the idea of, can we even acknowledge, can we even name, can we even describe? Can we even see what is going on around us? So I’m again going to tie this back to arriving to the context, arriving to the physical location, which is largely the E kind of component of the EIPI analysis, and arriving to that place from a grounded, stable, solid place, you have connected with yourself. You have connected with your grounding. You have connected with your place here. You have chosen to hold space for what’s going to occur here, and now you’re engaging with the environment.

The Importance of Physical Surroundings in Interpreter Education

So the controls that can be employed in this space or in this connection with the context is really giving you pre the opportunity to just take it in, just see what it is. Don’t arrive to places so late, if you can help it, that you can’t get a sense of the surroundings, that you can’t get a sense of what’s happening in this place, who the people are, who the players are, where the furniture is, what’s happening, where the you know, sight lines, that sort of thing. So being connected to yourself allows you to look at this space without being needy or demanding of it, it just is, and then seeing how that fits with the process that needs to transpire from here. So this isn’t a particularly long episode or complicated episode. I think it is one of the connection areas that we tend to do pretty well in Interpreter Education and in our practice as interpreters the physical surroundings. So we’ll talk about that a little bit more.

Navigating Different Environments and Contexts

All right. So physical surroundings, I think one of the challenges, and why this came up as a kind of an element of teaching interpreting, is that a lot of the things that we do in teaching interpreting is is theoretical, right? We’re in a classroom setting, and even if we’re doing a role play, and even if we have actual consumers in the space with us, it’s still contrived. It’s still not the actual space in which we would work.

And so it’s really important for a. Um, me, when I am teaching to show a picture of this is the environment that you would be in. And that only goes so far, because if you haven’t had an experience of being in a space like that, then you’re not necessarily going to know the things that will become relevant. You might theoretically be able to understand the idea of, I need to think about sight lines, or you might theoretically need to be able to understand the idea of temperature or escape routes or exit routes, but you won’t really know until you’re actually there.

So we practice this connecting with the context, because it’s a practice that needs to happen in a theoretical realm until you get the actual experience under your belt. So connecting with the context, again, as I mentioned previously, is largely naming what it is, right? Am I in a courtroom and am I in a classroom and I am I in a VRI call where I’m actually in my own office, but on remote video. And then what are the circumstances of the other people on the call, and what are their contexts looking like, and the context impacts us as individuals as well. So things like temperature for me, largely things like ambient noise or distracting noises. So some things I can let go of, like, if an air conditioner runs, you know, regularly, I can kind of get that into my channel of kind of white noise. But then there might also be circumstances where, like, I can’t hear what’s happening because the air conditioner kicked on and it’s right by my head, but the speaker is, you know, across the room, given sidelines, that sort of thing, right?

So connecting with the context is also not just a pre assignment activity, which is largely what we tend to think of it as. And I would, I would argue largely it is right, but it’s also something that you have to continually engage with. You have to continually be connecting with the context, right? So if, for example, a teacher starts passing out papers, well, I need to engage and connect with that part of the context. Because not only are people papers circulating the room, people are moving in different ways. People are distracted, including consumers. All the consumers are distracted. Then people get the actual paper and they want to look at the paper right. So that’s going to affect sight lines and so. So connecting with my context is an ongoing thing. When anything changes in that context, if somebody enters the room, if somebody exits the room, if the lights get turned off to watch a movie or to look at an overhead or slides or, you know, that sort of thing. So there’s a constant need for me to be connected to the context and how it is impacting my ability to do my job. And again, this is largely handled, or largely, I think, addressed through an EIPI analysis of what is happening in the room. And then as the interaction unfolds, there are more kind of nuances to it.

From there, I would argue that being connected to yourself and the ways that you are reading the room are an important aspect of being connected to the context, because, again, our nervous systems and our brains are constantly asking The question, Am I safe? Is it safe here, right? So whether we’re thinking that or not, our body is and there might be elements in that room that lead to our inner fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or might lead to some other things. So I can think of, for example, I am sensitive to perfumes and smells, kind of in any smells, they can trigger migraines for me, but they also just are really uncomfortable and can cause, you know, just disorientation, kinds of things, right? So if that’s in my environment, I’m going to need to be aware of that other people are very, very, I guess I would say, sensitive to particular lighting, kinds of things, like if there’s a flickering light, if there’s a you know, what are the lights? Called, neat fluorescent lighting, you know, those kinds of things, right? And so knowing how those things interface with our own nervous systems and the way that our bodies are wired is also really important, because we need to be able to foresee these things as well as respond to them if and when they happen.

So that is connecting to contexts. I’m curious your kind of take on it. I think I’m, well, let me, let me answer that as we, as we kind of close this up.

Conclusion

And again, I want to, I want you to think about anything that might have sparked your care if you feel moved to action questions that arise, what insights and connections you’re making. I’d love to hear from you about those insights ahas and questions. So feel free to reach out to me at arsmithstudios@gmail.com and you can also sign up for my very intermittent newsletter at arsmithstudios.com and click on the newsletter button in the upper right hand corner. So let me go back and answer some of these questions.

Amanda’s Musings on this Episode

So now I’m going to go back and I’m going to answer the question, what questions arise? Which is the same one I answered last time, but that’s okay. I’m really curious what your experience is with environments, with contexts. The other part of contexts that I didn’t necessarily address there because I was talking about the physical context is the kind of Gestalt context, right? So, is this a staff meeting of people who’ve been working together for, you know, 20 years? Is this a job interview? Is this, right? So, like, there’s kind of a, is it the 12th in a 12th class in a 15 week class of school? You know, where does this kind of fall in the context that has been created by these people, as well as the physical environment. But I’m curious what you notice about those kinds of things, because I think it feels intuitive and simple to me, not simple, easy, but straightforward. But I wonder if that’s because I haven’t really put enough words around it yet. It just is something that, on the gut level, is apparent to me. So yeah, I’m really curious what your engagement is with context, how you connect with them. And again, this physical context of that E component and then the i component as well, having to do with what’s the relationship between these people, but also this space that has been created. So not just their discrete relationships, but like, if you’re in the 12th week of a 15 week class, there’s a lot of context that has been developed and created by that point of inside jokes, callbacks, those kinds of things that occur. And so, yeah, I’m real curious, real curious. So those are my thoughts. I’m super curious what yours are.

So those are my answers to two of the questions, and I’m super curious to hear yours.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai