Ep. 8 – TCI: Connected to Content

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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 the Content of Interpretation

So today’s episode is about connecting to the content of what it is that we are interpreting, remembering that this kind of construct came from teaching interpreting, there is a challenge when teaching pre service interpreters about the relationship between language and words and content, that it’s not just a matter of changing words into other words into another language. It’s about actually understanding the entire content of what is happening in its totality, as well as the words that are being used to convey that, as well as all the other things.

So, you know, there’s some research that would suggest that 70% of communication isn’t even verbal or isn’t even language related. So it’s not the words we use or the signs we use. It’s intonation, body language, pauses, all of those kinds of things, eye contact.

The Importance of Context and Subtext

All right, so as I’ve been transcribing these, I say ‘so; a lot, I’m going to work on that as we are thinking about connecting with the content of the scenario, we think about the connection that we made to context in our last episode, and that within that container of context, this content has different meaning.

So I’m sure that you have worked in situations where they use words that you think you know, but they don’t mean what you think they mean because of the particular context that you’re in. I remember early in my career interpreting for an architect architectural engineering course where they were talking about bid estimates and those kinds of things, and they used all kinds of words that I thought I knew, but they did not mean that in that setting or in that context, right?

So there’s, there is definitely a relationship between all of these connections and the consumers, the context and the content itself, obviously are a significant part of that.

Tools for Connecting with Content

f we think about the DCS constructs and EIPI So environmental, interpersonal, para linguistic and intrapersonal demands. The content is largely held within that interpersonal kind of component of identifying demands. It’s what the people are actually saying to each other. But there’s also a subtext that can also be happening. So there could be a larger context, like we talked about last time, that’s in influencing the content of what’s happening in the moment itself. And so being prepared and connecting with that is about connecting with the context and the consumers. And then also, what are we here to do today?

Preparation and Language Practice

A couple of tools that I have used with students that I find really, really powerful in terms of connecting with the content. Is Daniel Gill’s effort model that is also connected to the gravitational model of language availability. So just the idea of, do I have the language vocabulary constructs understanding readily accessible in my brain in order for me to access and use them as resources during this interpreting. I also think that this particular connecting with content, if we think about pre assignment controls, is also where preparation happens. So do I have access to the actual lingo? Vernacular ways, the grammatical structures, the ways these people talk, and what they mean when they say those things. Do I have access to that? And can I prime the pump, so to speak, in my brain to get those things at the forefront. So see, I gotta get I gotta work on those.

So connecting with content is significant, because if we’re disconnected from the content and we are merely throwing words across a language barrier, we’re missing the mark. Now we can all think of the exception to this, where we’re in situations that use such unique tech related kinds of vernacular that we literally can just throw you words and that the parties involved are able to understand what’s going on. So I can think about like tech meetings, or I remember interpreting early on in my career for a financial aid advisor. And in those staff meetings, there’s various screens that they have to access in order to get information about students and stuff. And each of those screens has like a weird to me, lettered name, so like the SGF 432, seven screen or whatever, right? But these people had come up with ways of saying those as if they were words, so they would pronounce them in some way. And I remember thinking like, what is happening? I don’t understand anything that’s happening. But once I understood that it was the name of a screen, and I could try to decipher, like, these are the sounds that I think I’m hearing, then we could get to the point where we could understand what screen we were talking about.

So there certainly are exceptions to this. And I wouldn’t even say exceptions. I would say different ways we would connect with the content.

Disclosing Limitations and Ensuring Fidelity

So if I’m connecting with the content in a situation where I am not going to understand the constructs or the deep meaning there, but I can certainly code so that people have access to it, that I’m connecting with that content at a very maybe lexical, maybe even phonological level, like I’m just listening for the sounds that sound like things that could give cues to the other person, right? So it’s not that I’m not connecting to the content, it’s that I’m connecting it to it in a different way. I have to make sense of it in a parsing way, rather than a holistic way.

But primarily the work that we do as interpreters is connecting in a holistic way to the best of our abilities. There’s obviously nuance and depth of meaning that we’re going to miss because we’re not a part of the group, we’re not a part of the context. We didn’t create the content. We’re not learned in the content, all of those kinds of things. But there are certainly tools we can use. And I think the gravitational model is a great tool. Obviously, I think doing an EIPI analysis is a great tool, and preparation is a great tool.

Now, when you’re in an assignment and you’re needing to connect with the content. I think there’s a number of tools at our disposal. For example, having visuals at your disposal quite easily, in your visual line of sight, with a team member, or on your lap, having written out things that you might have to reference, knowing what kinds of questions to ask. So asking, for example, in that financial aid meeting early on in my career, knowing to ask, what are the letters you’re saying, versus, can you say that again? Because them saying it again is not going to be helpful. So saying, what are the letters of the screen, or can you spell the name of the screen, something like that, so that I know kind of what I’m actually asking, so that we can get clarity.

I think it’s also important to consider warm up and language practice and play as we think about connecting with the content. So if you’ve done direct preparation, and you’re headed in, maybe driving to the assignment, just doing some verbal and signed, if your languages are signed or verbal, in both of your languages, practice with the terminology. It’s one thing to recognize it and know it on a piece of paper. It’s a different thing to actually have those words come out of your mouth or off of your hands. So just saying some of the things out loud, pronouncing the names, practicing fingerspelling some of the names or some of the terminology. Those are some of the other ways that you can connect to the content.

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 what question do I want to answer about this episode? I think it’s going to be about care. And I don’t know if that’s just the theme of these first few episodes, but I care deeply about access. I care deeply about people being able to be themselves and represent themselves as they see fit. So I want to do, I want to be faithful in that representation, and that requires me to have a working knowledge of the content that is going to be coming forward, or to be able to say, I don’t actually know the content of this thing so I can remember. I can remember interpreting for a job interview in an area that I was completely unfamiliar with, and I had done preparation to the best of my ability. I think there was, if I’m remembering it correctly, there was some lack of information about what I was walking into, but I do remember, because I was struggling to connect with the content and represent that Well, I chose to disclose to them that I don’t know these English words, and so please don’t use my limited vocabulary as an indication of whether this person is able, is aware, able, qualified or competent in this content area, so I’m going to explain to you what I’m seeing. I don’t know the English words for those things, and so I don’t want that to be used against this person. And we were able to then have a great conversation where actually the interviewer was able to ask some questions that elicited knowledge in a way that didn’t have to be lingo based, which was a nice accommodation for me as the interpreter, but they’re connecting with the content to the best of our abilities, and then also disclosing when there are limitations to that is an important part of fidelity, I think, in our work and being faithful to the goals of the consumers involved, as well as faithful to the content itself. So I think that, as I was talking about this, I think it was mostly my care that was being activated around people put time and energy into developing content, or into there’s reasons that they’re meeting so that content actually matters in really significant ways that shape the future of their relationship, shape the way a company might move forward, shape all kinds of things, and I don’t want to be a barrier to that. So those are some of my thoughts, and 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