"Innovative Practice in Team Interpreting"

"Innovative practice in Team Interpreting" is a topic with a very wide-open meaning:

By interpreting into or from a sign language, we may often find ourselves in situations where you are not the only interpreter and you have to work together with other colleagues in a team. You have to cooperate and through collaboration you have to show the best interpreting performance together. A team of interpreters have the only specific aim, and all its members should work on, achieving success with collective effort.

Team work could be compared to the voyage of a boat. The boat has a specific destination which has to be reached within a time limit. Both captain and cabin crew roles are of the same importance – both of them participate on reaching a target, but each work in a very different way. The definition of roles will raise the efficiency of our work. As the boat reaches the destination, the team does not need to cooperate any longer. For the next voyage there might be a new recruited team, where the same people could participate, but they might be aiming for a different target.

During the conference we would like to present conference papers, which will deal with Innovative practice in Team Interpreting with a special interest into the sign language interpreting field.

Together we would like to discuss the following issues:

I.      General

-         In which situation is there a need for a more than one interpreter?

-       What does “team of interpreters” mean, which guidelines are useful for the recruitment of a team? Which guidelines cannot be ignored?

II.      Before the assignment

    1. Recruitment of the team and possible issues:

-         Efficiency of the team: advantages of teamwork, source of performance (?), organisation and motivating conditions

-         Team building: functions, types of teams, arguments for the team setup, effective team, role of the source (?)

-         Principles of working in a team: communication in the team, targets, priority, roles

-         Team members: selection of team members,  types and roles in the team, assembling an effective team

-         Methods of team work: team problems and solutions, creating techniques and strategies, communication within the team

    2. Team formation, crisis control during team work:

-         Forming a potential team: getting to know each other, learning how to rely and provide support.

-         Potential conflicts: position of team members, handling different opinions and working styles

-         Standardization of a new team: delegating roles within the team

-         Positions: what are the positions of the deaf and hearing interpreters on the team?

-         Languages: how does the team collaborate when working with interpreters with different spoken and signed languages?

III.      During the assignment

Cooperation which results in a sign language interpreting team:

-          Interpreting: How does the interpreting look or sound during the action, shifts in interpreting – exact time or self-contained information unit?

-          Duration: What is the duration of interpreting unit for one interpreter?

-          Logistics: What are the spatial arrangements?

-          Languages: What are the language abilities of the team members –  language differences and divergence of opinion?

-          Monitoring: Who is controlling whom and which techniques for monitoring could be used? 

IV.      After the assignment

Cooperation in the team after the interpreting session:

-          Analysis: How can you evaluate the interpreting performance?

-          Self reflection: What are possible methods for self reflection?

-          Evaluation of the team: How can the team evaluate her team work?

-          Lessons learned: How can the lessons learned be incorporated in future team work?
 

What is the situation of team interpreting in Europe?

Do you have any thought-provoking ideas for the given topic?

Do you have any possible solutions for the above listed questions?

Do you have any interesting experiences/anecdotes to share with us?
 

Let’s try to find out some co-operative possibilities at our conference in September 2006 in Prague!