It is commonly believed that simultaneous interpretation is the pinnacle of interpreter’s craftsmanship. Is it always so in reality?
Vlad Belousov, member of the Union of translators of Russia, author of text-books and training courses for oil and gas translators and interpreters.
The topic for discussion today is hierarchy of translation and interpretation types. Is it appropriate at all? Let us figure it out. As usual, I present only my personal view that can be accepted or rejected.
Actually, translation community today has a rather preconceive opinion on types of translation and their so-called hierarchy. This opinion is mainly developed by the very translators. Despite the fact that university education in Russia provides a translator with an opportunity to perform both translation and interpretation (including consecutive, simultaneous and whisper interpreting), in real life most of translators prefer to practice one type of activities, and it is often associated with difference in payment, which is not always fair.
For some unknown to me reason simultaneous interpreters are considered as “beau monde” in translation community. Actually, I often used to hear from simultaneous interpreters such statements as: “We, simultaneous interpreters, provide exclusive services, so you cannot do without us”. Such self-assessment also often defines behavior of simultaneous interpreters, which is not always modest and adequate, and also their expectations of payment. But is such opinion justified at all?
It should be noted that every work requires efforts, and it is difficult to say who works more and better – translator, simultaneous or consecutive interpreter. We will assess each of these activities by the following criteria: competence, labor intensity, responsibility, remuneration.
Translation. You sit at home, drink coffee and translate taking your time and listening to music… Of course it is an ideal situation. Actually it happens sometimes, but very rarely, only when there are no due dates for implementation of the translation, when you are well familiar with the topic and work for the customer for a long time. But in most cases it is work under pressure of time associated with stringent self-discipline and unlimited working day.
Competence. In order to do translations, you need to not only “make friends” with the computer and know a foreign language. If we talk about technical translation, it is also required to have good knowledge of the industry, from which you received the order, rather than start studying it in the process of work, and also know and consciously use terminology of that industry. There will be no good translation without implementation of these requirements. Therefore you need to be specialized in one or several areas, rather than translate everything and anything.
Labor intensity. In the process of translation it is required to have attention, exceptional patience and assiduity. Can many people demonstrate it? I do not think so. As it has been said above, in many cases it is work under pressure requiring commitment and long time for implementation. Not often the remuneration received for the performed work corresponds to the made efforts.
Responsibility. We all remember an old saying: “What is written will stay forever”. That is what defines translator’s responsibility. Mistake of a simultaneous interpreter will be swallowed by listeners, because they cannot provide feedback, mistake of a consecutive interpreter will definitely be noticed and corrected, but mistake in translation will be seen by all and during the entire service life of the translated document. That is distribution of responsibilities by type of translation.
Remuneration. Level of payment for translations is the lowest compared to all other types of our activities. Maybe it is associated with the fact that nowadays translators are more and more replaced by machines, and we should recognize that quality of machine translation continuously grows. Most likely that in this relation technical translation will live longer than other types, however in this area machine translation is also improving.
Consecutive interpretation.Consecutive interpretation came into existence before simultaneous interpretation, and is normally used in the process of regular conversation, and also at technical meetings where accuracy of interpretation is of high significance. Inconvenience of consecutive interpretation compared to simultaneous is obvious – it is caused by pauses associated with the very interpretation, because at first the interpreter listens, and then speaks.
However when it is required to assure accuracy for understanding of terms and separate sentences, such type of interpretation is much better than simultaneous interpretation, because mistake of an interpreter or inaccuracy of interpretation may result in not only misunderstanding, but also an accident and even fatalities of people in operations. Unfortunately consecutive interpretation nowadays is being replaced with simultaneous interpretation in order to safe time, but in many cases it is not justified.
Competence. No doubt, a consecutive interpreter must have very good competence in the interpretation subject matter. Requirements to knowledge of the topic and terminology will be very high. I know many cases when interpreters were removed from events due to their incompetence. Interpreter must have very good memory allowing to transmit rather big speech volumes in a foreign language, and also be very attentive to details. It is very important for an interpreter to have both general knowledge of the industry in which he works, and specific interpretation topic, and also know how to consciously apply relevant terminology.
Labor intensity. In principle, if a consecutive interpreter is sufficiently competent in specific area, his work cannot be called difficult, at least when compared to translation. Practically all you have to do is just repeat what you hear but in a different language. After many years of work as a consecutive interpreter, I learnt how to interpret automatically, simultaneously thinking about something different, though I still cannot explain how it happens. Problems and difficulties start when the interpreter is a round peg in a square hole, knows nothing, is afraid and nervous.
Unfortunately it happens very often, because so far we do not have official industry-specific professional interpreters, but I would not refer it to difficulties of the work. There was time when I had to perform non-stop consecutive interpretation for 12-16 hours, but that was perceived like an adventure rather than exhausting labor as believed by some interpreters nowadays.
Responsibility. Definitely, responsibility level of a consecutive interpreter, particularly in technical area, is much higher than that of a simultaneous interpreter, at least because accuracy of his interpretation affects quality of making technical decisions and safety of operations and people.
Remuneration. Compared to translation, consecutive interpretation is paid rather well, though not as well as simultaneous interpretation. Probably that is why most interpreters want to work in the area of consecutive and ideally simultaneous interpretation. When negotiating an order for consecutive interpretation, simultaneous interpreters try to bring prices up to the level of simultaneous interpretation, though in my personal opinion, due to higher quality of interpretation and responsibility, at least at the current stage, consecutive interpretation should be more expensive than simultaneous.
Simultaneous interpretation. You would think – there it is, the pinnacle of craftsmanship! However it’s not so straightforward. If a simultaneous interpreter attended industry-specific training, received relevant certification and specialty, and knows the subject matter very well, then he is a master, and nobody would disagree. However the essence of the problem is that there are very few industry-specific interpreters or professionals, and huge army of simultaneous interpreters, or those who believe they are, is ready to work in any topics relying exclusively on pre-reads, which often cannot save them.
Competence. By its nature simultaneous interpretation does not imply word-for-word transmission of information. In most cases it is descriptive interpretation. Even if you communicate the general idea, it will be considered as simultaneous interpretation. Such conditions provide wiggle room for interpreters – one simultaneous interpreter picks up and communicates more information, another one speaks not much and slowly, but in any case it is simultaneous interpretation. Therefore, significant part of information is inevitably lost in the process of interpretation, but what exactly? Actually it is defined by the interpreter, often by the principle of excluding what he just does not know, rather than the principle of importance. It might seem strange, but it looks like an interpreter with much less competence in the subject matter can perform simultaneous interpretation, but will not be able to provide quality in consecutive interpretation.
Those rare simultaneous interpreters who have two educations – linguistic and industry-specific, are real professionals in their area, and rather comprise an exclusion from the above-mentioned. It is just because there are no professions of industry-specific interpreters, and they have to work in different areas, some of which they encounter for the first time at all.
Labor intensity. We should recognize that a simultaneous interpreter works in stressful conditions, at full strain of mental process. Not all of us can simultaneously listen, process information and speak. Therefore in the process of interpretation simultaneous interpreters work in pairs replacing each other after specific time intervals. Labor intensity is high, but far from always meets the expected quality results. On the other hand, it can be stated that simultaneous interpretation implies more “concentrated” efforts, therefore a consecutive interpreter can work alone for 8 hours, but simultaneous interpreters work for the same period in a pair, each for 4 hours.
Responsibility. Responsibility of simultaneous interpreter is often neutralized by descriptive nature of such type of interpretation. Of course, no charlatans will be allowed to perform such work, however a simultaneous interpreter is forgiven much more than a consecutive interpreter or a translator. At least because nobody has an opportunity to stop him and point out his mistakes.
Remuneration. Simultaneous interpretation is paid much better than all other types of work. Often a simultaneous interpreter for one hour work can earn daily rate of a translator. Let us leave alone the issue of how fair such approach can be, I can only say that a good simultaneous interpreter really deserves it, but there are very few good simultaneous interpreters.
No matter how strange it may sound opposite to the common opinion, but in our rating of professionalism simultaneous interpretation takes not the leading, but vice versa, the last third position. Consecutive interpretation is at the second position, and the first position by complexity, labor intensity and competence belongs to translation. I would like to emphasize again, that it is only my personal unofficial point of view.
