The Interpreters Division hope you are having a great time at the annual conference here in Miami!
We already posted a list of the sessions specialized in Interpreting. But interpreting related sessions are found in all other tracks too. Consider these sessions if you’re looking to dig deeper into interpreting:
P-1 | The Role of Translation and Interpreting in United Nations Peace Missions Israel Souza Júnior (Thursday, 11:15am-12:15pm; All Levels; Presented in: English) Brazil is a significant participant in international relations due to its successful history of participation in United Nations peacekeeping missions. Over the last 67 years, Brazilian soldiers have been to the Balkans, Suez, Mozambique, Angola, East Timor, and Haiti. But it was in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, created in 2004, when it became officially necessary to provide translation and interpreting services for the Brazilian contingent in the theater of operations. Attendees will gain a better understanding of the present role of military translators and interpreters supporting the peace process worldwide. |
S-1 | “Yes, I Touched Her Down There”: Interpreting for Victims and Sex Offenders Alvaro Vergara-Mery (Thursday, 11:15am-12:15pm; Advanced; Presented in: English and Spanish) Attendees will be invited to participate in various scenarios that delineate the difficult task of interpreting for victims of sexual abuse and sex offenders. This session will help experienced interpreters apply effective techniques (from specific terminology to emotional reactions) to cope with the raw nature of these encounters, maintain accuracy, and preserve impartiality and the clinical importance of the session. This is an advanced-level training with examples in English and Spanish. |
ET-1 | Best Practices for Online Translation and Interpreting Courses Cristina Silva (Thursday, 11:15am-12:15pm; Advanced; Presented in: English) The current translation and interpreting market has many in-person and online course offerings. Online courses have become interesting models for both digital natives and digital immigrants. This session is based on the speaker’s experience at three U.S. universities. Topics will include planning short and long programs, techniques and activities, learning platforms, and the teacher-student relationship. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn about practical activities for online courses in translation and interpreting. |
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Interpreters Division Annual Meeting
12:30 PM – 1:00 PM
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ET-2 | The First Generation of Conference Interpreters Trained Online: What Can They Teach Us? Sheyla Carvalho (Thursday, 2:00pm-3:00pm; All Levels; Presented in: English) In 2011, the speaker adapted the face-to-face conference interpreting training program she had first developed for her company in 2000, and designed a new, fully online training course on conference interpreting. Since 2000, the online course has improved based on input from students and changes in technology. This session will analyze data provided from interviews and surveys undertaken with the speaker’s former online students (specifically those who graduated two to five years ago). Students were asked about the impact of online training on their professional careers, with a view toward improving online education for interpreters. |
SL-1 | Early History of Simultaneous Interpreting in the USSR and in the West (Susana Greiss Lecture) Sergei Chernov (Thursday, 3:30pm-4:30pm; All Levels; Presented in: English) This session will focus on the speaker’s research into the invention and early adoption of simultaneous interpreting (SI) in the West and the USSR, based on recently discovered archival documents detailing the independent inventions of SI in 1925 by Edward Filene in the West and Dr. V.Z. Epshtein in the USSR. These inventions led to the development of SI systems and their first full-scale use in Moscow and Geneva in 1928. |
J-3 | Deposition Interpreting Workshop Izumi Suzuki (Thursday, 3:30pm-4:30pm; All Levels; Presented in: English and Japanese) The speaker will first explain what a deposition is and how it is different from court interpreting. Attendees will then be invited to take part in a role-playing exercise involving a deposition scenario in which volunteers will try to interpret for attorneys and a deponent. Attendees will learn about the ethics and responsibilities of an interpreter in a deposition, as well as necessary vocabulary and expressions that are often used. |
S-16 | Improving Translation and Interpreting Services in School Districts Monica Villalobos (Thursday, 3:30pm-4:30pm; Intermediate; Presented in: Spanish) CHANGE: Moved from Saturday 3:30pm to Thursday 3:30pmThis session will highlight the roles of translators and interpreters in the schools, along with the importance of qualified staff. Other topics will include the steps and techniques for delivering professional interpreting/translation, avoiding grammatical, spelling, and syntactical errors, and an overview of the interpreting process during special education meetings. The interpreter’s code of ethics will also be reviewed. We will also discuss cultural differences and offer solutions, approaches, and a common ground to better serve bilingual and English as a second language students and parents. |
P-4 | An Overview of the Interpreting Profession Giovanna Lester (Friday, 10:00am-11:00am; All Levels; Presented in: Brazilian Portuguese) This session will offer an introduction to interpreting and the principles that govern the profession and the market in general. The speaker will touch on the history of the profession in Brazil. Find out where interpreting is used, the methods and tools available to interpreters, how technology has affected and will continue to affect the profession, and the rights and responsibilities of interpreters. This session should help individuals who are interested in the profession to better evaluate their skills. |
K-1 | Conference Interpreting Explained: Challenges, Strategies, and Skills (English>Korean) Miryoung Sohn (Friday, 2:00pm-3:00pm; Advanced; Presented in: Korean) English>Korean conference interpreters face unique challenges due to the linguistic and cultural differences between English and Korean and the diversity of English-speaking countries. Moreover, the widespread use of video conferencing has introduced a series of new challenges for conference interpreters. Based on her experience as a professional conference interpreter and an institutional trainer for more than 20 years, the speaker will discuss/analyze these challenges and suggest a number of critical strategies using a rich array of real-life examples. |
ET-4 | New Approaches in Directionality for Teaching Long Consecutive Leire Carbonell-Agüero and Cas Shulman Mora (Friday, 3:30pm-4:30pm; Advanced; Presented in: English) Spanish interpreting students at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey have traditionally received instruction during all four semesters of their consecutive interpreting training in two distinct unidirectional classes, each taught by a native speaker of the target language. While this pedagogical model has been used for at least the past two decades at the Monterey Institute, the speakers have long posited that a bidirectional teaching model might provide interpreting students with significant additional benefits. The mechanics of the bidirectional class experiment and the associated outcomes will be discussed during this session. |
MED-5 | Interpreting for Patients with HIV/AIDS: Sharing Experiences and Educational Concepts Thais Miller (Friday, 3:30pm-4:30pm; Advanced; Presented in: English) This session will offer insight into working with patients who have HIV and AIDS, told from the perspective of a medical interpreter who specializes in this field. The incidence of infection among Spanish-speaking patients and the spread of the disease will be covered, in addition to the differences between HIV and AIDS and the types of medicine that are available currently to patients. Special topics will include how pregnant patients with HIV are treated, the ways different psychiatric conditions are managed for HIV/AIDS patients, specific challenges for transgender patients, and how transplants are dealt with for patients with this disease. |
TI-2 | The ASTM International Translation and Interpreting Standards: Updated Alan Melby and Helen Eby (Saturday, 8:30am-9:30am; Advanced; Presented in: English) CHANGE: Moved from Thursday 2:00pm to Saturday 8:30amThe first version of the ASTM International translation standard was published in 2006. A partial revision was published in 2014. Now it is being revised from top to bottom to reflect the current status of the translation industry. The panelists will describe how this standard can be used for client education, project management, and developing structured translation specifications. Attendees will learn how they can get involved in the revision of this standard and vote on it. |
S-9 | Technical Translation and Interpreting for International Organizations Daniel Tamayo (Saturday, 8:30am-9:30am; Advanced; Presented in: English and Spanish) Multilingualism is a core principle of major international organizations. Translating or interpreting the material these organizations produce is crucial to their operation. The speaker will discuss practical solutions to major translation and interpreting challenges that translators and interpreters face in this highly specialized field. Attendees will have a chance to translate technical texts from organizations that operate within the United Nations framework. |
A-3 | Court Interpreting and Legal Terminology for Arabic Interpreters Amine El Fajri (Saturday, 10:00am-11:00am; All Levels; Presented in: English and Arabic) In this session, attendees will be introduced to court interpreting and will learn some legal terms commonly used during criminal court proceedings, their meanings, and target-language renditions. Throughout this session, examples will be given in Arabic and a glossary of terms will be used. |
N-2 | Compassion Fatigue: Risk Factors and Prevention for Interpreters John Richard Stokbak Sciaba (Saturday, 11:15am-12:15pm; All Levels; Presented in: English) Interpreters, especially community interpreters, may fall victim to compassion fatigue. What are the most important risk factors and how can they be avoided? The speaker will draw on both literature and some of his personal experiences, including interpreting for a Norwegian terrorist trial and other court cases involving heinous crimes, as well as health sector interpreting. Survival strategies will be presented. |
C-3 | Translation: The Building Block for Interpreting (or Vice Versa) Pency Tsai and Di Wu (Saturday, 11:15am-12:15pm; Beginner; Presented in: English and Mandarin) The panelists will examine the many ways in which the practices of translation and interpreting interact and support each other. Chinese interpreters will discuss the difficult (and often funny) situations they have faced during assignments and how they handled them. This session will offer tips and take-away techniques for entry-level interpreters and translators. |
MED-9 | NEW SESSION The Demographic Field Worker as an Interpreter Clarissa Surek-Clark (Saturday, 11:15am-12:15pm; Intermediate; Presented in: English) Verbal autopsy is a widely known method used for epidemiological and vital registry purposes by demographic surveillance sites throughout the developing world. While the interview may be conducted in local languages, the information collected in the survey instrument is often in English or other colonial languages. Based on field work conducted in a variety of sites in Sub-Saharan Africa, this session will focus on the role of the field worker as an interpreter, including the challenges faced and the solutions that are applicable to medical interpreters. |
S-13 | “I Haven’t Had My Sex Reassignment Surgery Yet”: Interpreting for Gender-Non-Conforming Patients Alvaro Vergara-Mery (Saturday, 11:15am-12:15pm; Advanced; Presented in: English and Spanish) Interpreting for gender non-conforming patients presents significant challenges, especially in languages like Spanish where words have a gender. Medical interpreters will learn to use special techniques and interventions to convey the original meaning in its full sense so that the clinical importance of the session is preserved. This session will include real-life scenarios that address the difficulties of finding specific and appropriate terminology applicable to this population. The importance of remaining sensitive to the patient’s gender identity will also be addressed. This is an advanced-level training with examples in English and Spanish. |
LAW-1 | Interpreting Slang and Taboo Language for the Courts, Part I Alfonso Villaseñor (Saturday, 2:00pm-3:00pm; All Levels; Presented in: English and Spanish) CHANGE: Moved from Thursday 3:30pm to Saturday 2:00pmThis session will examine numerous issues associated with the equivalent interpretation of slang and taboo expressions from Mexican Spanish into English in a courtroom setting. The complexity and occasional raw nature of this type of language can pose technical challenges for court interpreters that extend far beyond the mere understanding of terminology. Moreover, the prevalence of Mexican Spanish in U.S. courts makes it particularly relevant compared to other versions of the language. Interpreters need to recognize the importance of achieving adequate proficiency in the lower registers of both languages. |
MED-8 | Interpreting in Mental Health Settings: Strategies for Success Sasha Carrillo (Saturday, 3:30pm-4:30pm; Advanced; Presented in: English) Within the specialized context of mental health interpreting, interpreters perform best when they prepare appropriately for the interpreting session, seamlessly manage flow and clarification, as well as exercise a keen sense of self-awareness during the encounter. This session is intended for advanced medical/health care interpreters who wish to consider additional strategies to incorporate into their interpreting practice. Attendees will gain a better understanding of the challenges and rewards of interpreting in mental health settings. |
LAW-5 | NEW SESSION Interpreting Slang and Taboo Language for the Courts, Part II Alfonso Villaseñor (Saturday, 3:30pm-4:30pm; All Levels; Presented in: English and Spanish) See abstract for LAW-1: Interpreting Slang and Taboo Language for the Courts, Part I. |