Unlike consecutive interpretation, in which the interpreter facilitates a conversation between two persons and intervenes during pauses, conference interpretation has its own requirements and faces specific challenges which, if not addressed properly agenzia interpretariato, can derail a conference and strip it of its value and benefits for participants.
The requirements and challenges that I will address here are, in order of increasing difficulty: the equipment – the degree of preparation required from the interpreter – the alertness of the interpreter – the word flow and lastly, fatigue.
No conference interpretation is possible without a minimum of equipment. This equipment typically includes a booth of about 9’x4′ housing the interpreters, a central console equipped with two microphones and two headsets, infrared transmitters strategically placed in the room and a certain number of headsets for the audience. The interpreters receive their feed through their central console and headsets. They provide the interpretation in their microphone and their voice is carried through the infrared transmitters to the headsets in the audience. A technician installs and dismantles the system and oversees its operation during the proceedings.
This arrangement is well suited for large conferences. It is also very versatile since it can, through a system called “relay mode”, accommodate as many languages as needed. Most conferences involve just two languages and require only one booth. However, the relay mode, if activated, can in theory handle an infinite number of languages provided that an appropriate number of booths and of course, interpreters, are available.
On the other hand, the portable system is the low cost option. It neither requires a booth, nor infrared transmitters or a technician. Simply put, the interpreters are in the audience whispering their translation in a small handheld microphone and their voices are carried directly into the headsets of people in the room. While this low cost system affords easily mobility from room to room (for example the visit of a facility), it is taxing to the interpreters who, without the benefit of a soundproof booth, sometimes struggle to hear the speaker because of the interference of their own whispering.
It has been my observation in my twenty years as a conference interpreter that clients rarely provide timely and adequate preparation material. I remember having been sent by agencies to conferences without having the fuzziest idea of what it was about apart from a vague clue derived from the conference title. Conference interpreters must not only be well versed in a wide array of subjects stemming from accounting to medical, to engineering, to sustainable development just to name a few, but must also be able to improvise in the heat of the action. Interpreters may not have your preparation material because somebody upstream may not have done her job properly, but they cannot walk out because too much of the conference’s outcome depends on their performance and, if they fail to live up to expectations, it is they who will be on the line and nobody else.
In addition to being able to switch hats at a moment’s notice, the conference interpreter must be extraordinarily alert. Unlike the consecutive interpreter, conference interpreters do not have the option of asking the speaker to repeat. They must go along regardless of the pace of the speaker, find the right word or a close synonym at once lest falling behind and letting the audience down and all the while keeping one’s composure to avoid premature fatigue. These are all heavy burdens on the shoulders of all but the most experienced conference interpreters.
I just touched on the pace of the speaker, what I called the wordflow. Speakers are often as nervous as the interpreters. Their boss may be around, they may not be used to standing at a rostrum facing a large crowd. They may sometimes fumble on their words but more often, they seek safe harbour by nervously reading a text. Properly interpreting a person who is reading a text is nearly asking the impossible from the interpreters because persons reading a text usually read it too fast. I have yet to meet a person reading slower than he or she speaks. If this were not challenging enough, interpreting from a read text superimposes a second mental task over the first task of interpreting from one language to another: the interpreters must convert a written language (the text) into a spoken language (the interpretation).
I also alluded to fatigue. It should now be plain to my distinguished reader that fatigue quickly becomes a factor. One may notice that I used the plural form when referring to interpreters. This is because interpreters work in tandem and sometimes in teams of three, relaying each other every half hour. As said, they must be alert, but the environment in which they work, namely a small and often hot enclosed space without air circulation, is not quite conducive to creative thinking and endurance.