Respeaking conferences

1. Respeakingconferences Vera Arma UniversityofNaples Federico II

2. (Intralingual) Respeaking • product (ex. real time subtitling for conference audience, be the audience deaf or not) • process (ex. real time reporting)

3. ConferenceRespeaking • Before: preparing for the conference • During: respeaking the conference • After: carrying out post-conference operations 

4. Preparingfor the conference • Topic: general /specialized • Stakeholders: speakers, president of the session, audience, other interpreters, others • Where: big hall, small meeting room, auditorium, etc. 

5. Preparingfor the conferenceTopic(s) • Collecting information about the topic background knowldge •     papers, documents, electronic resources •     talking with expert context-specific knowledge • collecting the papers from the speakers of the conference (subtitling before the conference ?) • Training the software • Introducing new vocabulary • Dictating sentences to have the software used to typical phrases and names • Disambiguating possible homonyms and similar words 

6. Preparingfor the conferenceStakeholders • Collecting information about the speakers • who they are (full names, male or females, etc.) • how they speak (pace of delivery, typical words used, etc.) • their background and how they deal with the topics covered  • Thinking about the audience: • hearing audience: special need ? • deaf or hard of hearing audience: • more likely to need shorter and more structured sentences (reformulation and summary exercises are of great help)

7. Preparingfor the conferenceWhere ? • Where • Ideal location for respeaking • Hall (be it big or small) with a separate area (booth or similar) for the respeaker(s)booth or similar • Using  stenomask • Managing to organize the technical equipment needed 

8. During the conference / 1 • Respeakers do it better (?) • Working alone or in pair • Max. time allowed for each respeaking session  • Technical equipment • Own laptop (s) usually connected to a projector • Switch button to switch from one laptop to the other • Printed or electronic material to check spelling

9. During the conference / 2 • Conference parts • words of welcome and thanks (useful to have some sentences prepared, and the full list of participants dictated or printed).  introductions • presentations (prepared or impromptu speech) • discussions (Q&A session)  • Linguistic choices • which language for which audience • spoken / written language vs subtitles • reformulation /simplification • balancing neutrality and interpretation 

10. During the conference / 3 • Technical considerations • décalage (depending on the software and the respeaker) • risk to overlap vital parts of the presentation (slides, videos and similar) • breathing and pausing (subtitling vs reporting, readability, enjoyment of subtitles)  • Editorial choices • big size fonts • italic or capital letters • names of the speakers 

11. During the conference / 4 • Stressful situations  • errors on the screen (made by the respeaker or the software) • fast delivery pace of the speakers • incorrect audiosetup • few or no help from the other respeaker in case of problems • subtitling from an interpreted speech • correcting the speaker's mistakes 

12. After the conference • Collecting feedback from the audience • Saving subtitles to produce a full report of the conference (post-correction) • Subitling vs real time reporting 

13. Thanks ! vera.arma@gmail.com respeaking@gmail.com