Understand diversity in interpreting: Military Interpreting, Conference Interpreting, Diplomatic Interpreting, Media or Broadcast Interpreting, Tele or Remote Interpreting

Where the representatives of different linguistic and cultural communities came together with the aim of establishing and cultivating political relations, they will have relied on mediators practicing what is usually called diplomatic interpreting. When relations turned sour, or maybe before they were even pursued, armed conflict would have necessitated mediated communication in a military setting. Such military interpreting, as in talks with allies, truce negotiations or the interrogation of prisoners, thus bears a historical relation to the diplomatic kind.

In an early sociological analysis, R. Bruce W. Anderson modeled the prototypical constellation of interpreting as ‘three-party interaction’ with a (bilingual) interpreter assuming the pivotal mediating role between two (monolingual) clients. This is commonly referred to as bilateral interpreting or dialogue interpreting. While the former foregrounds the (bi) directionality of mediation (» 1.4.3), the latter highlights the mode of communicative exchange. Either term is closely associated, if not synonymous, with what was previously introduced as ‘liaison interpreting’. All of these terms are in contrast with interpreting in multilateral communication, as in conferences attended by delegates and representatives of various nations and institutions, hence conference interpreting.

Military Conflict

Documentation of the presence and participation of interpreters in military contexts is relatively scant before the twentieth century. Interpreters are mentioned in passing, often nameless and in the form of scattered accounts, in the retelling of a certain moment or event in a particular conflict. Since the First and the Second World Wars, more publications and archived material have become available, including oral histories, written memoirs and military histories in which interpreters feature.

The specific role of military interpreters has varied, given the different types of warfare and the different motivations and rationales for the employment of the instruments of war in specific conflicts. Each war is driven by different historical conditions and thus engenders different kinds of relationships between combatants, communities and national (or nationalist) agencies. The Second World War stands out by many measures of scale, not least the number of countries and languages – and interpreters – involved. Subsequent decades saw the proxy wars of the Cold War, such as Korea and Vietnam. The recent asymmetric wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been characterized under the rubrics of insurgency/counter-insurgency and terrorism/counter-terrorism, and the intervening conflicts in Bosnia and Rwanda have variously been called territorial conflicts, genocide or campaigns of ethnic cleansing. In the twenty-first century, the growth of information technologies has made intelligence a more fundamental element in warfare than was ever previously the case. This has inevitably enhanced the importance of interpreters, situating them at the heart not only of critical intelligence mining but also of much expanded print and on-line news and related media.

Despite important differences, three interrelated issues with respect to the task(s) of the interpreter in conflict zones may be said to remain constant across time and space: the instability of interpreters’ identity and positionality (allegiance) in the conduct of war; the role of institutional affiliations in the expression of interpreters’ agency; and the protection of interpreters’ security. Each of these factors discloses further issues of relevance to the underlying ethical, social and political concerns of interpreters and the military alike.

Research on military interpreting examines these concerns and the challenges interpreters face when working in violent conflict situations. Over the past two decades in particular, studies from a number of different disciplinary vantage points, including historical, cultural, sociological, discursive, and geopolitical perspectives, have revealed the complex demands on interpreters in theatres of war and the multi-faceted role they must be prepared to play.

Conference Interpreting

In its broadest sense, conference interpreting can be defined as the rendering of speeches delivered in one language into another at formal and informal conferences and in conferencelike settings, in either the simultaneous or the consecutive mode. As this definition suggests, the term ‘conference interpreting’ actually refers to a setting where various modes of interpreting may be used. These settings typically include international conferences, multilateral meetings (particularly in institutions such as the EU and the UN), and workshops, but they also extend to official dinners, press conferences, parliamentary sessions, international tribunals, and even university lecture halls and church services.

Conference interpreting has traditionally been closely associated with spoken languages, but, of course, interpreting in conference-like settings is also, and increasingly, done in signed languages – mostly ‘spoken to signed’, but also vice versa, between signed languages, or from written text or captions into a signed language (Turner 2007). The recent opening up of the International Association of Conference Interpreters, to sign language interpreters reflects this growing recognition. Not only are sign language interpreters increasingly present in conference settings, but they also work primarily in the simultaneous mode, as do most conference interpreters today. Indeed, the prevalent – and often exclusive – use of simultaneous interpreting (SI) in conferences has made this mode all but synonymous with conference interpreting. It is, however, useful to distinguish between SI as a mode of interpreting (which has been a primary object of research, particularly in the framework of cognitive approaches), and conference interpreting as a professional domain.

The beginnings of conference interpreting date back to the multilateral negotiations that took place at the end of World War I and conferences held by the League of Nations and ILO, where interpreters worked consecutively. consecutive interpreting remained the predominant mode of conference interpreting until the mid-twentieth century, although SI had been successfully developed and tested in the late 1920s. The use of SI at the Nuremberg trial and the proliferation of international organizations and conferences in the aftermath of World War II led to the most rapid and robust institutionalization process in history for interpreting.

Diplomatic

The term ‘diplomatic interpreting’ is often taken to refer to the manner in which language barriers have been overcome in meetings of heads of state and dignitaries over the centuries and up to the present day.

Diplomacy is one of the oldest settings in which interpreting has been practiced. In Europe, Latin was the common diplomatic language from the Middle Ages, to be replaced later by French until the end of World War I, and the twenty-first century has seen the emergence of English As a Lingua Franca on a global scale. Nevertheless, there have always been diplomatic encounters requiring linguistic intermediaries. We know very little, however, about who these may have been, and how they performed their task. Among the few interpreters to have left their mark in history is La MALINCHE, who acted for Cortés during the conquest of the Aztec Empire. Mention should also be made of the dragomans officiating in contacts at the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire.

The status of the interpreter in diplomatic encounters has varied. In some African countries, as he spoke immediately after the King, the interpreter traditionally had a privileged position in society and wielded considerable power The interpreters trained by the European powers (France and the Hapsburg monarchy in particular) for dealing with the Ottoman Empire could gradually move to ambassadorial rank, and even today diplomatic staff in many countries (such as China) begin their careers as interpreters.

Diplomatic interpreting is a very specialized field. It requires the same skills needed to interpret in other fields, plus other technical, cultural, ethical and diplomatic knowledge and abilities, and self-confidence, courage, stress control, and refraining from showing personal emotions and opinions. It includes a broad range of elements and factors that make communication possible at presidential level, ministries, international organizations, and international military organizations.

In modern Practice

Interpreting for heads of state and government and high-ranking national representatives is usually organized by the ministries of foreign affairs, which recruit freelance interpreters as required and may also maintain a staff of permanent interpreters.

When two dignitaries meet, quite frequently only one of them will have an interpreter. The interpreter will work both ways, often in consecutive, or in a sort of semi-simultaneous ‘voice-over’ mode: The interpreter speaks almost at the same time as the person being interpreted, loudly enough to be heard by the listener and those accompanying him, but not too loud so as not to distract the person speaking. The latter must be consulted beforehand, because it is not easy to follow one’s train of thought with someone else (the interpreter) speaking at the same time.

When two interpreters are present, each is normally responsible for rendering his or her principal’s message in the other language. For example, a US State Department interpreter will render the US President’s remarks in French for the President of France, whose reply will then be interpreted into English by his own interpreter. In practice, however, they will often switch language direction, with each side’s interpreter whispering for his principal. This saves time, although there can be problems for the aides, since it is hard to ‘whisper’ to several people at once. Such an arrangement evidently implies that either side has full confidence in the other interpreter’s professionalism and reliability.

When an interpreter accompanies a dignitary on a foreign visit, s/he will be expected to officiate in a multitude of situations: speeches, impromptu or otherwise, press conferences (along with a host interpreter if it is a joint press conference held in simultaneous, for instance), informal press briefings, TV interviews, after-dinner speeches, etc., requiring full mastery of all the facets of professional conference interpreting.

Broadcast and Media

Media interpreting refers to a very broad and diversified category of mediated cross language communication, within the wider field of audiovisual translation. In early contributions to the literature, the terms ‘media interpreting’, ‘broadcast interpreting’ and ‘TV interpreting’ are equally common, seemingly designating the same concept, although ‘TV interpreting’ specifies the medium more restrictively and is thus the least inclusive of the three. Less frequently used alternatives are ‘live voice-over’ and ‘telecast simultaneous interpreting’. Media interpreting and TV interpreting have now become established as the most common terms, with the former encompassing all interpreting activities (in spoken or signed languages) performed in broadcast mass media, such as radio and TV, as well as newer types of electronic media transmission, such as webcasting.

An interpreting type whose linkage to the intra-social sphere is less obvious is media interpreting, or broadcast interpreting (often focused on TV interpreting), which is essentially designed to make foreign-language broadcasting content accessible to media users within the socio-cultural community. Since spoken-language media interpreting, often from English, usually involves personalities and content from the international sphere, media interpreting appears as rather a hybrid form on the inter- to intra-social continuum. On the other hand, the community dimension of the media setting is fully evident when one considers broadcast interpreting into signed languages. By the same token, court interpreting can also be located in the international sphere, as in the case of war crimes tribunals.

The origins of media interpreting can be traced back to the 1930s, when André Kaminker reportedly interpreted Hitler’s first speech at Nuremberg for the national French radio network. Today, media interpreting as a professional domain is more conspicuous and broadly established in some countries than others.

Examples include the Franco-German channel ARTE in particular, and Japanese television in general, where news interpreting for channels such as BBC World or CNN, as well as the national public broadcaster NHK, has been practiced regularly for decades. A variety of interpreting arrangements in the mass media have also been described for the Spanish context.

No less uneven than the situation of media interpreting in spoken languages is the use of signed language interpreting in TV broadcasts. Important work in this domain has been done in the UK with similar efforts being made also by Chinese interpreting scholar’s Other ways of making broadcast content accessible to deaf viewers, such as closed-captioning, live subtitling and programs with deaf presenters or a deaf interpreter also remain important alternatives.

Most interpreting on television is performed in simultaneous mode, to the extent that media interpreting is typically understood to mean live ‘voice-over’ SI. consecutive interpreting is usually performed as ‘short consecutive’ without taking notes, most notably in talk shows, where the interpreter sits next to the guest, simultaneously whispering the translation of the host’s questions in his/her ear, and subsequently interpreting the guest’s answer aloud in consecutive mode. As regards SI, an important distinction can be made between SI on site, or in presential, and SI in absentia (Falbo 2012). The former entails the physical presence of the interpreter (or at least of his/her voice) together with the primary interlocutors. The latter refers to all those instances in which interpreters do not share the same physical and contextual location – or even time zone – with the primary participants. The choice of interpreting mode therefore depends on the type of interaction and TV genre, which have a direct impact on interpreters’ working conditions.

Tele- or Remote

The term ‘remote interpreting’ (RI) refers to the use of communication technology for gaining access to an interpreter who is in another room, building, city or country and who is linked to the primary participants by telephone or videoconference. RI by telephone is nowadays often called telephone interpreting or over-the-phone interpreting. RI by videoconference is often simply called remote interpreting when it refers to spoken-language interpreting. In signed language interpreting, the term video remote interpreting has become established. RI is best described as a modality or method of delivery. It has been used for simultaneous interpreting, consecutive interpreting and dialogue interpreting. This entry focuses on RI by videoconference in spoken-language interpreting. The development of RI was originally driven by supranational multilingual institutions, which were interested in RI as a way of overcoming the linguistic and logistical challenges they faced. RI has sparked debate and raised questions regarding feasibility and interpreters’ working conditions, but it has also been linked to questions of efficiency and sustainability. Whilst uptake in supranational institutions has been relatively slow, there is a growing demand for RI in legal and healthcare settings.

Technology has been important for different interpreting settings and modes. The term ‘telephone interpreting’ refers to the use of technology to give one or more participants in interaction access to an interpreter, via a telephone or teleconference call. Telephone interpreting, also known as over-the-phone interpreting, is a form of remote interpreting, with the interpreter located in a different place from the communicating parties. Since remote interpreting is now commonly associated with interpreting by videoconference as a special form of teleconferencing), Braun (2015) proposes the term ‘telephone based interpreting’ to refer to interpreter-mediated telephone calls and remote interpreting via telephone, as distinct from ‘videoconference-based interpreting’, which subsumes remote interpreting via videoconference and interpreter-mediated videoconferencing. Telephone interpreting is mostly used for dialogue interpreting in consecutive mode, especially in community interpreting settings. Due to the limitations of the technology used, telephone interpreting between spoken languages is not possible in the simultaneous mode. Where a signed language is involved, however, simultaneous interpreting is possible, and this form of telephone interpreting, involving an audio-visual link, is known as video relay service.

In legal settings RI has been used to cope with a shortage of qualified interpreters, a lack of time and the short duration of many assignments, which make the interpreter’s travel and physical presence particularly uneconomical. The practice of RI in this field goes back to the 1980s, when RI by telephone was introduced in the US. Over time, this has gradually been replaced by video RI. A well-known example is the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida, which introduced a central video interpreting hub in 2007. The interpreters’ workstations in the hub are configured to allow a combination of consecutive and simultaneous interpreting. The Metropolitan Police Service in London introduced RI in 2011, with interpreters working in consecutive mode from centralized hubs linked to London police stations. The European Directive on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings (2010/64/EU) explicitly refers to the possibility of using RI, which is likely to increase its use in legal proceedings in European countries.

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