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THE

COMMUNITY

INTERPRETER

An International Textbook

Marjory A. Bancroft, MA, Sofía García-Beyaert, MA, Katharine Allen, MA, Giovanna Carriero-Contreras, Denis Socarrás-Estrada, MA

Dedication

For community interpreters, who give voice, dignity and humanity to so many individuals around the world.

To our families, who have supported us during our work—even when they missed us.

Contents

• Ethics and Standards ................................................................................................................... Glossary ....................................................................................................................................vii
• Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNITY INTERPRETING ...................
• Learning Objectives...................................................................................................................
• Introduction ..............................................................................................................................
• Section 1.1: The Profession of Community Interpreting ............................................................
• Section 1.2: Interpreter Credentials ...........................................................................................
• Section 1.3: Ethics and Standards for Community Interpreters .................................................
• Section 1.4: Application of Ethical Principles ............................................................................
• Section 1.5: Applying Ethical Principles ....................................................................................
• Section 1.6: Reflective Practice ................................................................................................
• Chapter 2 INTERPRETING PROTOCOLS AND SKILLS ..................................
• Learning Objectives.................................................................................................................
• Introduction ............................................................................................................................
• Section 2.1: Stages of the Encounter........................................................................................
• Section 2.2: Four Protocols for Community Interpreting ........................................................
• Section 2.3: Memory Skills......................................................................................................
• Section 2.4: Message Transfer Skills .........................................................................................
• Section 2.5: Modes, Summarization and Mode Switching .......................................................
• Section 2.6: Note-taking for Community Interpreting ............................................................
• Chapter 3 STRATEGIC MEDIATION .................................................................
• Learning Objectives.................................................................................................................
• Introduction ............................................................................................................................
• Section 3.1: Unconscious Bias .................................................................................................
• Section 3.2: Deciding When to Intervene................................................................................ TABLE OF CONTENTS
• Section 3.3: Scripts for Mediation ...........................................................................................
• Section 3.4: The Strategic Mediation Model ............................................................................
• Section 3.5: Cultural Competence and Strategic Mediation ....................................................
• Section 3.6: Culturally Responsive Mediation .........................................................................
• Chapter 4 PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY..............................................................
• Learning Objectives.................................................................................................................
• Introduction ............................................................................................................................
• Section 4.1: Professional Identity and the Community Interpreter ..........................................
• Section 4.2: Professional Practice .............................................................................................
• Section 4.3: Legal Interpreting ................................................................................................
• Section 4.4: Emerging Specializations......................................................................................
• Section 4.5: Preparing Terminology .........................................................................................
• Section 4.6: Remote Interpreting.............................................................................................
• Chapter 5 THE ROLE OF THE COMMUNITY INTERPRETER .......................
• Learning Objectives.................................................................................................................
• Introduction ............................................................................................................................
• Section 5.1: Communicative Autonomy and the Role of the Community Interpreter .............
• Section 5.2: Interpreting and Mediation ..................................................................................
• Section 5.3: Advocacy and the Community Interpreter ...........................................................
• Section 5.4: Standards of Practice ............................................................................................
• Section 5.5: Self Care and Personal Wellness ...........................................................................
• Section 5.6: Professional Development and Continuing Education .........................................
• Bibliography............................................................................................................................

PREFACE

How to use this textbook

Community interpreting is a young profession. In many countries around the world, it has developed at high speed. Today, there is an urgent need for clear guidance for trainers and instructors of community interpreters, and for interpreters themselves, who may lack access to quality training.

This textbook represents the first publication of its kind: a textbook designed for community interpreters who practice in different countries around the world. The book can be used:

• As a training manual to guide short programs.
• As a textbook for use in universities, colleges and other institutions of higher education.
• For self study.
• To support the development or delivery of online training programs for interpreters.

Together with a companion workbook, entitled The Community Interpreter®: An International Workbook of Activities and Role Plays, this textbook can be used to create and deliver an entry-level program for community interpreters in almost any country.

Each country, of course, has diverse professional practices: one textbook cannot claim to address the unique professional work environment of community interpreters in all nations. This book does, however, purport to tackle many of the most persistent challenges in the field and proposes practical, easy-to-implement strategies based on the highest professional standards. It also guides interpreters on how to develop problem-solving skills and use decision-making tools that they can apply almost anywhere.

Thus, the authors hope that interpreters and trainers in the field will find valuable tools, models, strategies, techniques and decision-making guidance in this book that will help them adapt its content to their local context. Every situation in community interpreting is unique. The best solution to each challenge will also be unique. This book is intended to focus on solutions that make sense in the local context while supporting, at each stage, the right of the participants in the interpreted encounter to have control of, and take responsibility for, their own communication, a concept referred to here as “communicative autonomy,” which is a fundamental principle for this textbook.

A special note about legal interpreting and this textbook

Community interpreting supports the access of immigrants and refugees, indigenous populations and the Deaf and hard of hearing to basic and often vital community services. As a profession, it includes sub-specializations such as medical, educational, social services and faith-based interpreting. Whether or not legal interpreting is considered to be part of community interpreting is a controversial question.

In practice, both within and across countries, it is often unclear whether legal interpreting should be considered part of community interpreting. For example, in the United States legal interpreters base their conduct on ethics, standards, protocols, requirements, best practices and professional cultures that are quite different from those for community interpreters. Yet in Canada, legal interpreters are expected to follow the same national standards of practice for community interpreters that medical and social services interpreters follow (HIN, 2007).

Preface

i

ETHICS AND STANDARDS

for The Community Interpreter

®

An International Training Tool

by Sofía García-Beyaert, Marjory A. Bancroft, Katharine Allen,

Giovanna Carriero-Contreras, Denis Socarrás-Estrada

The Community Interpreter’s Pledge

A pledge is a commitment. The following pledge for community interpreters captures key ethical principles for the profession and involves a conscious intention to take action.

“As a community interpreter, I will support the COMMUNICATIVE AUTONOMY of the parties I interpret for. To help them maintain responsibility for and control over their own communication, I will:

Ethical Principles and Standards of Practice

The Community Interpreter’s Pledge above lists the eight ethical principles that this document addresses. For each ethical principle there is an explanation of the principle itself, a commentary section, a set of standards of practice that show how the community interpreter can adhere to and support each ethical principle, and two examples of situations showing how each standard could guide the interpreter’s conduct in real life.

The Community Interpreter’s Pledge

Learning

Objective 1.

After completing this section, you will be able to:

• Explore the concept, meaning and application of “reflective practice” for community interpreters.

Overview

Why reflective practice matters

“Reflective practice” is critical to your success. It will help you become a professional interpreter and maintain a high skill level. Reflective practice refers to the process of examining your work experiences critically to identify the lessons learned to improve your professional performance. Does that process sound simple? It is, yet it is incredibly important. Many professions have integrated reflective practice into their training and continuing education programs.

The ability to analyze your performance to identify specific areas where you need improvement is essential if you want to enhance your skills. Getting feedback from your peers can be a second powerful tool for getting a better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. Finally you can also learn from the experience of your colleagues. Focusing on these three skills sets, this section will give you the tools to help you assess and improve your own performance.

Reflective practice and the community interpreter

Why reflective practice matters

Since the majority of community interpreters do not have a chance to pursue a university interpreting degree, or even a long training, many learn their skills on the job. Most are adult learners. Adults learn differently than children in a classroom setting. How adults learn, and how to teach them most effectively, can be distilled into several key points (Tusting & Barton, 2003; Bancroft, 2014). Most adults:

• Want knowledge related to their experience and real lives.
• Are more self-directed than children: they can learn on their own.
• Can reflect on their own learning process.
• Learn best by doing and from real-life experiences.

In addition, adult learners tend to reflect on their own experiences and view them from different perspectives.

1.6 Reflective Practice

Self-examination

How do we analyze our performance and give ourselves useful feedback? First, it is helpful to step back a moment and realize how we observe ourselves. Some of us are incredibly self-critical, while others prefer to see only our best points. When we give ourselves feedback on our professional performance, for example, by listening to a recording of our own interpreting, the key is to maintain neutrality, objectivity and balance. We are balanced when we do not feel either the desire to be perfect or disappointment at our mistakes but instead can focus on what we actually did and what to do better.

It is part of human nature to dislike criticizing our own performance, and especially when we do so during training programs: with others listening to our performance, we tend to want to justify our decisions. People drawn to language-related professions are often perfectionists.

In this context, “smart failure” is an interesting concept: making errors is necessary to develop skills. There are many ways to incorporate reflective learning into your practice. For the solo interpreter, getting into the habit of regularly recording yourself and listening to your interpreting is perhaps the single most accessible and effective strategy—but even better is recording yourself on video.

That said, not all of us like the sound of our own voice on a recording, much less watching ourselves on video. It can make us feel self-conscious and uncomfortable, which is why many of us avoid ever getting into this habit. Overcoming that obstacle is one of the simplest, most important steps you can take to support your interpreting practice. The rest of this section provides concrete guidelines for how to integrate reflective practice into your interpreting.

Constructive feedback

Why constructive feedback is essential

Interpreting is a skill that needs constant practice, refining, and learning. It also requires complex cognitive processes to function well. Interpreting is fundamentally a public- speaking and performance skill. If you cannot deliver your interpretation smoothly and intelligibly, it makes no difference if you are accurate, because no one will understand you clearly.

Community interpreters need concrete, specific strategies that allow them to observe all those cognitive processes as well as their public-speaking skills so they can improve them. These techniques can be of great service to you. Integrating reflective practice into your learning journey as an interpreter from the start will shorten the time it takes you to master the core skills and go further.

One of the best ways to achieve reflective practice for community interpreters is through constructive feedback. Learning proper constructive feedback techniques will allow you to evaluate your own performance and do the same for others. Knowing how to receive such feedback from others is just as important.

Self-examination

Constructive feedback

Decision-making is a complex process that requires the orchestration of multiple neural systems… [It] is believed to involve areas of the brain involved in emotion (e.g., amygdala…) and memory (e.g., hippocampus). (Gupta, Koscik, Bechara, & Tranel, 2011)

As we mentioned in Chapter 1, about half your work as a community interpreter depends on your interpreting skills. The other half involves effective decision making. Both are important. In general, community interpreters need to work on enhancing accuracy by focusing on their message transfer skills. This section will introduce you to strategies that will enhance your accuracy.

Three message transfer skills

Anticipating

Why anticipation matters

You are interpreting for a patient who is talking about symptoms, such as a headache, earache and sore throat. You know from experience that the nurse is going to ask how long this problem has been going on. You are pretty sure that the patient, instead of giving a direct answer, will tell the nurse a story, discuss some family matter or say anything except a simple answer such as “three days,” the kind of answer the nurse expects.

Knowing roughly what the nurse will say, and being emotionally prepared for her frustration, will help you to be more accurate. You will be ready to handle the verb tenses she might use. You know what the patient might answer, based on your past experience. That knowledge gives you time to plan a strategy. For example, when the patient goes on for three paragraphs instead of answering the question, will you:

• Simply interpret what the patient says? (Acceptable option.)
• Ask the patient to get to the point? (Unacceptable option.)
• Tell the nurse, “She doesn’t really understand you.” (Unacceptable option.)
• Explain to the patient, “In this healthcare system, you should give a direct answer to a direct question or providers can get annoyed.” (Unacceptable option.)

If you are curious about why these options are labeled acceptable or unacceptable, see Chapter 3. Meantime, by planning mentally in advance, you can maintain accuracy and plan how to handle your own impatience or emotions.

How anticipating works

Anticipating as applied to interpreting means that you can foresee what is probably about to happen or be said (at least roughly), then plan for it. For linguistic accuracy, interpreters anticipate the word or phrase to come that will complete an expression or sentence, which helps you to interpret accurately in a way that is easy to understand. For decision making, if you know what is about to be said, you can plan whether or not to intervene and what kind of mediation to perform if you do. From a linguistic perspective, this technique is helpful when taking notes for consecutive interpreting (see Section 2.6) and also when using simultaneous mode. The ability to anticipate what will come next can be trained; it can also come from experience.

Anticipating

For example, a first-time encounter interpreting for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be difficult to anticipate unless you have done excellent preparation, but after interpreting for a few MRI exams, you can anticipate much of what will be said from experience.

Anticipation benefits

Anticipating can help you to:

• Improve your focus.
• Respond in a timely manner.
• Calculate quickly.
• Make appropriate decisions.
• Multitask without errors.
• Remember concepts.
• Be more articulate and smooth in your delivery.

The last point is important. A number of providers complain they cannot easily understand interpreters. Some of this problem is due to interpreters’ accents and foreign intonations, but often it is due to choppy or poor delivery. Smooth delivery nearly always makes it easier for service users and providers to understand you.

Easy patterns to be anticipated

Learn to anticipate the following patterns you might encounter daily:

• Common collocations (words often spoken or written together, e.g., “consent form”)
• Grammar (the usual tenses, noun endings, syntax, etc.)
• Phrasal verbs (e.g., “fill out,” “hand in,” “turn away”)
• Idioms (e.g., “He’s feeling blue” can refer to someone who is sad or depressed)
• Dates (different order in different languages, which can be a problem when sight translating: in the Czech Republic, for example, 18.6 would mean June 18)
• Series of similar or related words (synonyms, etc.)
• Proper nouns (names of people, places or things, e.g., Memorial Hospital)

The Risks of Anticipation in Medical Interpreting Interpreters should train and learn this skill, including medical interpreters. Many medical encounters follow set routines that become easy to learn over time, especially in such common specialties as pediatrics, prenatal and family medicine.

But be careful of overconfidence that could lead to mistakes and subsequent backtracking and self-corrections, which could affect the quality of your interpreting. Or you might not even notice your mistake, which could have serious medical consequences. Every medical case is unique, despite common patterns. Of course, the same can be true in other settings, but not always with such serious potential consequences.

Before the encounter

1. Get your pens, notepad and terminology resources ready. o
2. Analyze what the session is about to help you prepare and focus. o

At the beginning of the encounter

3. Scan the room to make a decision about which unobtrusive position to adopt. o
4. Smile and use body language to create rapport and show empathy. o
5. Use a calm, firm voice to help establish trust, credibility and professionalism. o
6. Give a professional introduction to establish clear parameters for the session. o
7. Listen to and analyze the service user’s language and regionalisms. o
8. Discriminate other surrounding noise. o

While interpreting

9. Engage in active listening. o
10. Read body language (eye cues, hand gestures, leg positions, etc.). o
11. Use imagery to aid in retention. o
12. Replicate or take into account the speakers’ tones, volumes and gestures. o
13. Reorganize and reformulate the message based on meaning (not the words). o
14. Remember to use direct speech (first person). o
15. Deliver the message in the target language in a clear, understandable voice. o
16. Become aware of, assess and do not act on your own biases. o
17. Avoid eye contact while interpreting. o
18. Take notes as needed; recognize and interpret from notes. o
19. Maintain objectivity, detachment and regard for safety. o
20. Maintain utmost accuracy. o
21. Engage in problem solving and decision making as needed. o
22. Switch to indirect speech (third person) if direct speech is problematic. o
23. Read body language and contextual cues (without making eye contact). o
24. Monitor your output. o
25. Intervene to correct yourself, if necessary. o
26. Manage turn taking. o
27. Maintain impartiality. o
28. Identify communication barriers. As needed, plan how to address them. o
29. Intervene only if the consequences of a miscommunication are serious. o
30. Switch back smoothly to interpreting after mediating. o
31. Maintain transparency: report even your own interventions. o
32. Avoid side conversations. o
33. Check a dictionary, glossary or other resource, if necessary. o
34. Switch modes as needed. o
35. Assess whether or not to perform a sight translation, if so requested. o
36. Change position as needed. o

After the session

37. Leave the room whenever the provider leaves. o
38. Avoid being alone with the service user, if possible. o
39. Debrief with the provider (if possible) if the session left an emotional impact. o
40. Practice self care strategies, as needed. o

THE COMMUNITY INTERPRETER’S CHECKLIST

The more you can identify strategies that help you analyze what you are hearing, the better you will be able to convert what you hear into the target language.

Four steps for basic message analysis

Your goal is to find words, concepts and structures that are equivalents of the original message in a target language. This section offers you a basic introduction to the concept of message analysis within the pragmatic framework of four steps:

• Listen to the message.
• Extract the meaning.
• Find equivalent target-language concepts to reformulate the message.
• Assess the rendered message.

An example of message analysis

Let’s say a service user states, “I threw up the whole week long” to a therapist. You listen to the message and notice that “I threw up” (vomited) and “the whole week long” are two pieces of meaning that do not make literal sense put together in this context. You realize this problem is due to cultural linguistic meaning: in the patient’s country and language, “I threw up” does not always refer to literal vomiting. It can mean, “I was so upset I couldn’t eat, and every time I tried to, the food wouldn’t go down because I was too stressed.” You then search for equivalents in English. You decide to say “all week” (very close to the original) but you convert “I threw up” into three possible reformulations:

1. “I was too stressed to eat.”
2. “I was too stressed to keep food down.”
3. “I was so stressed I couldn’t swallow a bite.”

Now you have to choose the rendition that feels most accurate in this context. You decide to deliver the message in an anxious tone of voice (to replicate the speaker’s tone) by saying, “I was too stressed all week to eat.”

Afterward, you evaluate the message for accuracy. If you change your mind about the option you chose, you can correct yourself by saying to both parties, “The interpreter should have said just now that the patient stated, ‘I was so stressed all week I couldn’t keep food down.’” Or, instead, you could intervene to suggest that the provider ask the patient to clarify the meaning of “I threw up all week long.” Either strategy might work well, depending on the context and situation.

Intent

Is the speaker angry or upset? Did she intend to say something bigoted or unkind (“Do your people always act that way?”) or was she just being insensitive? The meaning of a simple message, such as Sure! can be quite different, depending on whether the speaker is sarcastic, angry, sad or resigned. You, the interpreter, will have to decode the intent from the context, body language (including facial expressions), tone of voice and other factors. All of them affect how you understand and interpret the message.

Other aspects

Other aspects of language and communication that influence your understanding of a message include regionalisms, communication styles, the register, literal and figurative language, idiomatic meaning, power dynamics and cultural references.

Step 2: Extract the meaning

Whether the message is long or short, you may need to break it down into smaller parts or chunks of meaning in order to be able to accurately render it. Consider the sentence, “Although your PAP test was normal, since the colposcopy showed CIS, I’m recommending a cone biopsy be done to find out what’s really going on.” Here are a few examples of breaking that message down:

“Although your PAP test was normal...”

Do you know what a PAP test is? If not, find out (request a clarification, consult a dictionary or a device, etc.). What does “normal” mean here?

“…the colposcopy showed CIS…”

Here are two somewhat complex medical terms, one of which indicates cancer—CIS or carcinoma in situ, a diagnosis that the patient may or may not already know. Cancer is a “big” diagnosis, yet CIS is not as serious as most cancers.

“…so I’m recommending a cone biopsy be done to find out what’s going on.”

A doctor’s recommendation is the beginning of a negotiation in much of Western medicine. This recommendation contains yet another medical term that the patient might or might not know.

Step 3: Find equivalent target-language concepts to reformulate

the message

The medical terms

Let’s return to the example above:

• Do the names for the three medical terms (PAP test, colposcopy and CIS) exist in the target language?
• If you left a country 20 years ago, perhaps they do exist there now. - Do you have a bilingual medical glossary resource to consult?
• Would the patient understand these terms if you interpreted them literally or would the patient understand better if you (a) kept the English name for the terms, (b) requested a clarification from the doctor and/or (c) used both the English and the target-language term when you interpret? (Answer: we recommend option (c) if you have concerns about the patient’s ability to understand.)
• If you know that CIS refers to cancer, but suspect the patient does not, how will that concern affect your interpretation?

Sentence structures

English often uses a passive sentence structure (e.g., “recommend that a cone biopsy be done”), a common structure in English, if not in most other languages. Common sentence structure equivalents are something to study and practice so that you don’t waste time and mental energy reformulating them. The question of equivalent sentence structures to capture meaning can be particularly important in sight translation because written texts tend to have more complex sentence structures than speech.

Lose the words, find the meaning

Focusing on words will slow you down; focusing on chunks of meaning will speed you up. You are also less likely to panic and get “hung up” on the individual words.

Step 4: Assess the rendered message

You have made your decision. You rendered the message. Now what?

The part that comes next is natural, almost reflexive. As you listen to your own interpreting (at least, in consecutive mode), you are aware of what you render. Part of you scans the message for accuracy, which is your number one concern. If you make a mistake, a warning message flashes in your mind, perhaps unconsciously. You can do a better job if you monitor your interpreting consciously to assess whether your rendition and delivery:

- Maintains the register. If the original message was delivered in scholarly, formal, informal, colloquial or slangy phrasing, maintain the equivalent register. - Captures the diction. Did your diction (word choice) include the right words and phrases to convey the same style of communication and the impact of a message? - Conveys the affect, intent and tone. Your reformulated message should reveal the emotional expressivity of the speaker or signer. - Prioritizes the key components of the message. Some languages put stress on key words or word order, diction, tone of voice, etc. to highlight important parts of a message.