The ATA 60th Annual Conference takes place October 23-26, 2019, in Palm Springs, California. Whatever your role in the T&I Industry, ATA60 is the place where dedicated professionals come together to expand their knowledge and their network.
by Michael Schubert
What’s in a word? Precious little. We all know that we don’t translate words, or even sentences and paragraphs: We translate content, in all its context. (Worte and not Wörter, for those of you who know German.) And yet, most of us bill our services by the word. Why? And what message does this send?
The why is simple: It’s the easiest way to assess the volume of the task and provide a price in advance. And the message? To our clients, it says we are selling a commodity — the very message that, elsewhere, we keep trying to contradict. To ourselves, the message is that the faster we can translate, the more money we will earn. It incentivizes speed, not quality.
Moving away from word rates toward hourly or project-based fees better reflects how we actually work — and how we want our work to be perceived.
Note from the editors: We are taking the unusual step of presenting this interview of interpreter Susan Vo by Jonathan Goldberg in two parts, the first covering her early life and introduction to the interpreting profession, and the second covering her work as an interpreter at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. Publishing the interview in two parts also resolves the issue of length: as it stands, the text is quite a bit longer than our limits for Translorial.com articles, which we set for online readability.
While the two halves of this long interview reveal Vo’s depth as an interpreter, each can stand alone in its own right. The insights she shares in Part 2 were directly influenced by her early life. Growing up in a culture other than her own, which she knew only secondhand through her parents and other refugees, she came to understand her Vietnamese birth culture more fully by comparison with that of her adopted country (Canada). This might well have given her the perspective that made her capable of an ethical approach to persons who had done great harm: no culture is without its moral outliers.
We see the parallels between Vo’s professional life and the panel discussion about ethics in interpreting conducted by 6 experienced interpreters at the NCTA September 8 General Meeting. The panel was held in response to the impassioned discussion about the role of interpreters in crucial political meetings, sparked by the circumstances surrounding the Putin–Trump summit earlier this year. The Khmer Rouge Tribunal took place after the fact; the Helsinki summit between two world powers has portent for the future. Part 1 of this interview reveals how Vo reached an understanding of differences between cultures; Part 2 brings the past into the present and the future, emphasizing the importance of skill and ethical stance in interpreting.
You can find part 1 here. A French translation of this interview is available on Jonathan Goldberg’s blog, Le mot juste en anglais, here. → continue reading
Note from the editors: We are taking the unusual step of presenting this interview of interpreter Susan Vo by Jonathan Goldberg in two parts, the first covering her early life and introduction to the interpreting profession, and the second covering her work as an interpreter at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. Publishing the interview in two parts also resolves the issue of length: as it stands, the text is quite a bit longer than our limits for Translorial.com articles, which we set for online readability.
While the two halves of this long interview reveal Vo’s depth as an interpreter, each can stand alone in its own right. The insights she shares in Part 2 were directly influenced by her early life. Growing up in a culture other than her own, which she knew only secondhand through her parents and other refugees, she came to understand her Vietnamese birth culture more fully by comparison with that of her adopted country (Canada). This might well have given her the perspective that made her capable of an ethical approach to persons who had done great harm: no culture is without its moral outliers. → continue reading
Members of our panel (L to R): Angie Birchfield, Andrea Hofmann-Miller, Johanna Parker, Robert Finnegan, moderator Olivia Reinshagen-Hernandez, Holly Mikkelson, and NCTA Events Co-Directors Monica Lange and Fernanda Brandão-Galea.
I will never forget my first meetup with the Linguists, Translators and Interpreters from the Bay Area. I had recently moved to California and wanted to connect with colleagues in San Francisco. It was there that I first heard about NCTA. I joined the association a couple of weeks later, and I dare say it was one of the best things I have ever done. I have learned so much and met so many amazing people at NCTA’s General Meetings, workshops, and meetups. Among everything NCTA has to offer, I personally believe the General Meetings are its most generous gift.
For the September General Meeting, NCTA brought together a panel of high-level interpreters: Angie Birchfield, Johanna Parker, Holly Mikkelson, Andrea Hofmann-Miller, Robert Finnegan, and panel moderator Olivia Reinshagen-Hernandez. The topic discussed was a very important one for interpreters and translators: interpreter–client privilege, or our right to remain silent. With the Global Climate Action Summit just a few days away, a crowd was protesting on the streets of San Francisco—and the big names on our panel brought a crowd of our own to the NCTA meeting, including a group of interpreting students from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies who had driven up from Monterey. → continue reading
NCTA members can now enjoy the latest edition of Translorial in print and downloadable PDF versions, covering a variety of topics.
If you are not an NCTA member, you can join here.
Selected articles from Translorial Fall 2018, Vol. 40, No. 2: → continue reading