CANADIAN FORCES LANGUAGE SCHOOL

1. CANADIAN FORCES LANGUAGE SCHOOL BASIC INTERPRETING TECHNIQUES FOR SPECIFIC MILITARY PURPOSES ESCORT INTERPRETING IN THE MILITARY FIELDJana Vasilj-Begovic, M.A. B.A. B.Ed. Foreign Language Standards Officer

2. SCOPE OF PRESENTATION • COURSE BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE • COURSE OBJECTIVES • COURSE CONTENT • TRAINING OUTCOMES AND LIMITATIONS

3. COURSE BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE NEEDS ANALYSIS • Gap in Training in LCA Programme • Task Force Afghanistan Deployments

4. COURSE DESIGN • BASED ON BOOK “INTERPRETATION” – TECHNIQUES AND EXERCISES BY JAMES NOLAN, former Deputy Director, Interpretation, Meetings and Publications Division, United Nations • Adapted for military escort interpreting in the field and Pashtu language • Easily adaptable to other language combinations • Five-day course (theory and practice)

5. COURSE OBJECTIVES • To convey an understanding of what interpretation is • To develop attentive listening skills • To improve dual tasking capability • To expand working memory • To make cultural adjustments • To become more efficient in note-taking • To achieve the ability to interpret consecutively passages of up to 50 words (to be tested at the end of the course).

6. COURSE CONTENT • Basic Interpreting Pointers • Segmentation • Re-formulation • Connections • Note-taking • Style and Tone • Untranslatability • Figures of Speech • Numbers • Practice • Guidelines

7. BASIC INTERPRETING POINTERS • Deliver the message • Meaning is contextual • Silence is golden • When is “close” close enough • Brevity is the soul of wit • Never panic • Use all your tools • Pacing • Don’t correct yourself unnecessarily • There’s more than one way to ….

8. COURSE CONTENT • Segmentation Dividing Text into Units of Meaning • Reformulation Putting it Differently • Connections Paying Attention to Connections • Note Taking Developing a System of Note Taking and Use of Symbols

9. Note Taking vlu £ = ¥ all '93 but in '94 ¥ > £ Pres Afg: un-dev was src of polt vlnce Pres: Cttee reprt was ♪* to ears! The search will cover the 3-floor building with the red tile roof and the 2-floor grey building with the black asphalt roof. Notes: 3F B RT 2f G BA

10. COURSE CONTENT • Style and Tone Changing Style and Tone of Speech According to Situation Examples: • The financial sources available are insufficient. • There is not enough money. • We’re broke. “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” “Frankly my dear, that is the least of my concerns.”

11. COURSE CONTENT • Untranslatability Dealing with Problems of Untranslatability • Figures of Speech Recognizing Figures of Speech and Avoiding Literal Translation

12. UNTRANSLATABILITY/FIGURES OF SPEECH/IDIOMS Time and tide wait for no man. Let’s not delay To shoot from the hip To react instinctively Every cloud has a silver lining Even bad events bring something good They are the salt of the earth Valuable, honest,

13. COURSE CONTENT • Numbers Interpreting numbers correctly Examples: 52.3 percent of children were vaccinated 500 boxes of 20 mm rounds of mortar ammunition”

14. COURSE CONTENT • The Role of the Interpreter • Always strive to give an accurate, faithful and complete interpretation. • Always conduct yourself in a professional manner. In particular, show respect towards all parties involved in the situation. Be tactful, discreet, culturally sensitive, detached, and firm when necessary, as well as clear. • Be as unobtrusive as possible. A good interpreter should enable the parties to communicate, “as if he were not there”.

15. COURSE CONTENT • Guidelines of Conduct • Know who your assigned Canadian Forces (CF) Point of Contact is.Never advance in front of your CF/ISAF team or become separated from it for any reason.Always request (if time permits) a Pre-Meeting Brief with the highest ranking CF/ISAF member to include:a.Define the aim of the meeting • b.Identify special Western vocabulary or concepts • c.Tell the CF/ISAF leader if there are special cultural awareness sensitivities connected to this meeting

16. COURSE CONTENT Practice – Scripted and Semi-Scripted Scenarios Example: A Canadian officer visits a shepherd who has information about an ammunition dump concealed by the Taliban. Instructions to the military person playing the role of the Canadian officer: after polite introductions, ask the shepherd to describe to you what he saw and how to find it. Instructions to the Pashto resource person playing the shepherd: Say that while you were herding your sheep through the hills south-east of your village last week, you noticed a cave at the foot of a cliff and, out of curiosity, took a look inside. You saw an old Soviet-era anti-aircraft gun, two heavy machineguns of the kind you have seen mounted on armoured vehicles, a pile of rocket propelled grenades and some land mines. Give a long and somewhat complicated description of how to get to the cave, including descriptions of landmarks (rocks, bushes, creek beds, etc.) which you use by memory to get to that location, which is a place where your sheep can find a water-hole. Say that you are now afraid to go near the place because there might be Taliban around.

17. TRAINING OUTCOMES AND LIMITATIONS • Training neither produces interpreters nor has that objective as its goal. • Most interpreters speak English at Level 2, and are able to interpret at Level 2 (IAW ILR)

18. ILR DESCRIPTION OF INTERPRETATION LEVELS Able to transfer information with some accuracy. The individual may be able to function when exchanges are short, involve subject matters that are routine, and discourse that is repetitive or predictable. May require repetition and clarification. The individual may report only speech content instead of the speaker’s own words. Expression in the target language may be frequently faulty.

19. TRAINING OUTCOMES AND LIMITATIONS • Limited proficiency in English • Lack of ability to interpret in formal settings, and transfer not only the message but the style, and level of speech formality. • Insufficient knowledge of military terminology

20. CONCLUSIONS • Trainees perceive training as extremely beneficial • Skill expected to improve with extensive practice in the field • Interpreters share knowledge and advice with new interpreters upon return, and facilitate with training

21. MISINTERPRETATIONS YOU ARE FIRED! YOU ARE BURNT! I AM NEITHER OPEN OR CLOSED TO THIS CHAIR. THIS JOB DOES NOT MATTER TO ME ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. AFFECTION LUST

22. ESCORT INTERPRETING THANK YOU! Questions!