Lost in Interpretation: How to Be an Imperfect Interpreter

In a perfect world, we’d always understand everything we hear and see, and produce eloquent, perfectly equivalent interpretations.  In the real world, we misunderstand, misspeak, and just plain miss what was said.  Our measure as interpreters should be how well we cope with these challenges, how eloquently we can interpret with incomplete information, and how readily we can repair our errors. 

In this workshop, participants will learn how to craft an interpretation with incomplete information, how to avoid common voicing errors after missing key details, how to successfully repair voicing errors clearly and quickly, and what steps to take to (hopefully) avoid these errors from occurring.  This workshop is intended for interpreters who wish to gain confidence with voice interpreting, or who wish to learn more strategies for complex voicing work. 

Educational Objectives

• Participants will be able to list five types of interpreting omissions

• Participants will be able to list two or more specific methods of eliciting missed information from the speaker

• Participants will be able to list four causes of ineffective voicing after missing key details

• Participants will be able to state two or more strategies for repairing voicing errors

• Participants will be able to list four resources to draw upon after missing information while interpreting