Roles of Interpreters in a Multilingual Multicultural Society

JAIS

Keynote Speech (JAIS 2006)

Roles of Interpreters in a Multilingual Multicultural Society(Perspectives on Interpretation: Experiences of a Participant-Observer, 1939-2005)

A Keynote Speech given at the 7th Annual Conference of JAIS
in Tokyo, September 23, 2006
byDr. Etilvia Arjona-Tseng2005 J. F. Caillé Medalist PanamaWe are gathered here today on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of thefounding of the Japan Association of Interpretation Studies. In Panama, my native

country, seven is a very lucky number and always marks a most auspicious occasion. For
example, we think that is the age when a person reaches the ability to reason properly. Your
impressive and constant membership growth during these past years suggests that you arewell on your way to sustainable development and that many persons in Japan havereasoned wisely on the importance that an association such as JAIS may have for our
profession.
Today, I will try to bring to your attention some thoughts that have been with me ever since
I was approached about a year ago in Tampere and asked if I would consider joining you inthis celebration. I immediately said I would be very glad to come because, nor only do I
have very fond memories of all my trips to this beautiful country; I have very personalreasons to celebrate your success.
It is a great honor to be asked by one’s colleagues to share with them insights about the
profession one has practiced and loves, and, for me, this honor stirs, as well, deep memories
of events in my formerly active professional life. With your forbearance then, it will be froma very personal and true life perspective that I will present to you my own listing of theEtilvia Arjona-Tseng, "Roles of Interpreters in a Multilingual Multicultural Society -- Perspectives on
Interpretation: Experiences of a Participant-Observer, 1939-2005."
Interpretation Studies, No. 6, December 2006, Pages 1-13.
(c) 2006 by the Japan Association for Interpretation Studies

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many roles that a natural interpreter may be called upon to fulfill in a multi-lingual, multi­
cultural society.
The Japan Association of Interpretation Studies is many things that are dear to me. In several
ways it is a dream come true:•

it is an organization that has defined itself as a grouping of persons interested in theacademic aspects of our profession; and, if nothing else, I pride myself in being
someone who has long struggled to open Academia’s doors to interpretation studies.

•

JAIS is an association that aims to promote the scientific and multidisciplinary researchof our activity;•and I strongly believe that without such research, our field cannot become a bona fide
profession.

•

JAIS is an organization dedicated to promoting the education of interpreters;•

something we all know is an essential factor in the professionalization of an occupation
or trade; and, as if this were not enough,•

JAIS is an association that wants to contribute to the better social understanding andacceptance of our profession – an aspiration we all hold dear.

In the early 1980s, when I founded, with similar goals and objectives, the Translators andInterpreters Educational Society in California, the strongest persecution ensued and my efforts
were considered and labeled subversive. The time was not ripe then for an academic andscientific organization and TIES could not muster up the required collegial support. TIES
could not survive the test of time for I had to leave the United States to come to Taiwan andfound its Graduate Institute for Translation and Interpretation Studies (GITIS). So, it is witha very special feeling of satisfaction that I come here today to participate in your celebration.
My deeply felt thanks to the JAIS Board of Directors for this invitation; and for theopportunity to discuss with you some experience-based perspectives that are frequent foodfor thought for this now aging gardener.
The theme chosen for this Conference enjoins us to examine the role of interpreters in multi­
lingual, multi-cultural societies. This is not an easy task --- 4 of the 5 key words in the title
lack generally agreed upon definitions:•

we don’t all agree on exactly what characterizes a person’s role or defines his or her social
behavior,•

society is unsure about what an interpreter does – or how interpretation is done,2Roles of Interpreters in a Multilingual Multicultural Society•

how are we to define a multi-lingual person, if we have yet to define a language as such?,•and, the term multi-cultural certainly tests our ability to circumscribe all that which we
can call cultural!

Many, many centuries ago, a colleague of ours was asked what it meant to be multi-lingual.
I have always loved his reply; used to discuss its meaning with my students in Monterey
and they chose it as the motto for Concordiat, the student association they created. Ennius,
our long-gone colleague, defined his multi-lingualism and multi-culturalism by stating:Tria corda habere--I have three heart,
I have three souls,
since I speak Greek and know Oscan and Latin.
You will ask me, what roles was multi-lingual, multi-cultural Ennius called upon to fulfill in thosedays? Ennius is famous for being an agent of change, an innovator – a proponent of new waysof doing things. In his case, a new way of writing poetry in Latin.
Ennius was a teacher of Greek to prominent Romans. As such, he wielded great power andwas influential in bringing new knowledge into another culture. He was for many nowfamous Romans a window into the alien and unknown Greek culture. Ennius was, then, aninterpreter, a translator, a communicator, an agent of change, a mediator and bridge
between Greeks and Romans of his time.
Let me provide you with a different perspective on multi-lingualism and multi-culturalism –one that touches me personally. I was born into a multi-lingual family, which caused myIrish grandmother to request of my mother the promise that her only grandchild would be
educated in an English-speaking school system.
Upon hearing this, I am told, my Chinese grandfather, who spoke four Western languages,
remarked: My poor child, she will not know to which world she belongs…
How very right he was!
I am sure anyone who has grown up straddling at least two languages and two cultures willagree with my grandfather. Those who have to learn another language envy us, who have3Interpretation Studies, No. 6: 2006

been called a-lingual --- and we, in turn, envy their monolingual assurance, their perceived
true mastery of one language. We envy the very fact that when joining AIIC acquired
bilinguals have no doubt about which language to declare as their A or B languages. For us,
such a simple choice may even require traumatic decisions.
Brian Harris in Canada has studied alinguals and classified some of us as natural interpreters –persons whose role has been, to a large extent, brought upon them by family circumstancesor happenstance. Many interpreters who are native speakers of sign languages will tell youthat this has been their case. Their congenital bilingualism forced them to assume the role ofnatural interpreters for the non-bilingual or non-hearing members of their family orcommunity. Their biculturalism established them as cultural informants between the
speaking and the hearing impaired communities. Society, then, imposes upon the multi­
lingual, multi-cultural person many roles.
But what happens in the academic world? It was upon entering the peculiar culture of
Academia that I, as a professional, was thrusted, from the very beginning, into the manyroles that I want to present to you today.
Let’s focus for a while on how interpretation schools or programs handle multi-lingualism
and multi-culturalism. And let’s start with the most important persons in the educational
process: the students!
Who is a likely candidate for the role of student in a T&I school? What do admissions
officers and many teachers think that a person who speaks more than one language should
study? -- Translation or interpretation, of course! Never mind the ability factor! Never mind
if the person likes or dislikes the field of study! -- Such was my case at the University ofGeneva.
The university admissions officer heard my English and immediately determined that myplace was in the recently founded School of Interpreters. She quickly stipulated that
graduation from this school would be a pre-requisite for admission to any other School or
Faculty at that University. Little did I know, then, to what extent she was changing, anddefining, my life’s work!
Mind you, her decision was based only on the fact that she liked the sound of my English!
To her, knowing the language was a sufficient criterion for admission to the School of4Roles of Interpreters in a Multilingual Multicultural SocietyInterpreters. And yet, in the West, schools of interpretation studies have routinely found outthat students who have studied languages do not necessarily make good candidates for T&I
studies. Fortunately for me, my background was in science -- I had never studied, formally,
any language.
So, we should examine and define very carefully what constitutes appropriate and required
aptitude for entry into our schools and programs. This is not a trivial question for, after all, aperson’s professional future and a whole lifetime of work may be at stake.
But what happens when we go beyond the admissions office and examine the institution? – forexample, what happens when an institution has decided it wants or needs to establish a T&I
program or school? What do they look for in the person they need to hire? I like to think that,today, institutions are very careful about how they go about establishing T&I programs – yet,
I know that, what I will describe to you as my own experiences are still true for the mostpart. This is especially the case in countries that lack a centralized system of higher
education where ministries of education strictly regulate the university system or define
university faculty status.
In 1968, we had a revolution in Panama, my native country. Soon afterwards, I had to close
my publishing business and decided to look for a job at the state university. I walked into
the University of Panama wanting to teach graphic arts; about an hour later, I walked out
having been designated the new director and creator of the second graduate-level programthat university was willing to establish!
Why the urgency? Panama was preparing to battle the United States for the Panama Canaland its position needed to be translated and interpreted into other languages. Hence, theneed to train translators and interpreters had become a national priority.
I told the Dean not to worry; I would be back in half an hour with a model curriculum fortraining translators and interpreters! I can still see the look and the smile in his face in mymind’s eye! Ah… the enthusiasm of youth and ignorance! – forty-two years later I am still
struggling to find that model curriculum!
Did anyone ask me if I could assume all the roles that were required for the job that was
being offered? Definitely not! Did anyone ask me if I knew anything about Academia, its

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closed and fixed culture, or its way of doing things? Of course not! What is more, absolutely
no explanation whatsoever, or induction into the academic culture system, was ever offered!
Because I was born into a multi-lingual, multi-cultural family, I became multi-lingual, multi­
cultural; because I was a natural multi-lingual, I was assigned the role of student in the
Geneva school; because I was a graduate of that school, I was now thrown into the role ofdirector and creator of a graduate level program. Three years later, because I had directedthat program in Panama, I was offered the deanship of the school in Monterey – two days
into my informal and brief touristic visit there.
Only upon arrival in Monterey to assume the deanship, was I informed of a departmentwide student strike that had resulted from a complete fiasco with a curricular design that
centered on language and international studies. I found out, then, why I had been offered
the job so expeditiously!
I was told to do whatever was needed to satisfy the students, and I was given two weeks toestablish a Mandarin program and find, in 1974, a professional interpreter who would cometo Monterey (then considered to be in the middle of nowhere) and teach Mandarin-English
T&I. Did anyone ask whether I could do this? Not at all! – the assumption was that myimpressive looking diploma was a magic wand that made me omniscient.
How many roles does a person charged with such responsibilities have to juggle? Whatknowledge and skills did I find out were essential to those important roles? Before I evenattempt to answer this question, please remember the following: the mere fact that you haveassumed the role of instructor, the very fact that you have been appointed a faculty member
in a T&I program, defines you as a potential administrator, a potential policy and decisionmaker, an academic and professional Jack-of-all-trades.
What is more, the mere fact that you have held the role of student in such a program, canplace you in such positions. You would be surprised at how many alumni and former
students end up in Academia as teachers in T&I programs! In most cases, professional
qualifications will besolicited – but, rarely, is knowledge or experience in Academia

required. We know this perspective is changing – but the road ahead is still a steep one.
To me, the most important roles that an interpreter fulfills when entering Academia either asa faculty member or as an administrator, are being an insider, a role model, a benchmarker, aguide, a counselor, a gatekeeper and a mentor.

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Why is being an insider first and foremost? Because you cannot teach what you do not knowor what you have not experienced! It is inside knowledge about professional practice thatprovides you with the tools, knowledge and skills you need to effectively fulfill your role asa teacher of interpretation. It was the Geneva school experience and professional practicethat saved my skin back then – it provided the insight on lesson planning, curriculum andprogram design, testing, and ideas about what a future practitioner needed to know andmaster. And it provided ties to a network of former classmates that found for me, in two
week’s time, the Mandarin teacher I needed!
Why do I say being a role model is important? and, what does this imply?A model can be defined
as an example to follow or imitate – therefore, being a role model implies, for me, that theteacher of interpretation be someone with experience, with real life practice, professional
insights, and, high values. The teacher of interpretation is someone the students can imitate.
Why is this teacher a benchmarker? Because students need a point of reference; they must beable to measure up to some quality criterion and - it is the teacher’s responsibility to set andprovide students a point of reference with respect to professional performance.
Why a guide? a teacher helps students form opinions; a teacher advises, shows the way,
directs and positions students vis-à-vis professional norms, practice, and the workplace’s
ways of doing things.
Why a gatekeeper? Because interpreters are responsible for controlling access to professional
practice. As professionals it is our responsibility to define what differentiates interpretationfrom any other form of multi-lingual activity. It is our responsibility to ensure that those
granted entry into the profession meet, at the very least, minimal standards of performance.
We are, after all, accountable to the workplace for quality service.
As I was fond to tell the raters who participated with me in the U. S. federal certification
program: you are the profession’s gatekeepers – you are the ones who decide whether an
examinee is ready to work, tomorrow, in federal court – if you were a defendant, would you
trust this person with your life, liberty and possessions? If so, then, this person has met thestandards established for certification as a federal court interpreter.
Why do teachers have a role as counselors? The most trying and demanding role that I had tofulfill as a Dean or a T&I teacher, was that of being a counselor to my students. Without a7

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doubt , it was the most draining! T&I students, I know, are full of insecurities. The
demanding cognitive task student interpreters are required to perform and master is clearlyout-of-the-ordinary. Humans do not normally go about doing several things at the sametime – while mindful of two different linguistic and cultural systems!
This extra-ordinary demand upon the student interpreter manifests itself frequently in selfdoubts and much emotional stress. All this becomes compounded by the fact that theinterpretation classroom is a place where the student faces constant critique and corrections– something we all find very hard to digest or even to get used to. Natural bilingual,bicultural students, especially, are severely affected by T&I studies because deeply rooted
doubts emerge and they find themselves having to face difficult personal identity decisions.
I strongly believe that T&I programs should include, in their staff, trained counselors andthat T&I faculty members should be given some training in basic counseling techniques.
Last but not least, why do interpreters play the role of mentors? – especially in academic settings.
Because we broker entry to possible jobs! We promote our colleagues before the job market.
As instructional colleagues, senior T&I instructors often mentor novice instructors and muchprogress is achieved this way.
Until now, we have examined the roles that society and Academia imposes on us. Insofar as
academic roles are concerned, the focus has been on teacher/student relationship. How
about those institution-based roles that pertain to a teacher/program dichotomy?
The interpreter who is a faculty member is going to be called upon, institutionally, to wear
many hats: master teacher, curriculum specialist, expert in testing development, program
evaluator, performance assessor, and, of course, such a person must be somehow
comfortable with and knowledgeable of instructional technology and the use of electronicand AV equipment. The list is almost endless.
When discussing an analogous list, a teacher of mine at Stanford told us not to worry
because we were all experts. By the time we had become doctoral students, we had spentaround 18 years in classrooms and therefore had first-hand knowledge and opinions about
all these tasks. He was right! What he meant was that we all have very well-formed opinions
about how such tasks should be done.
I don’t want to imply or leave you with the impression that formal training in education
science or pedagogy is a sine qua non for teaching interpretation. We all know master8

Roles of Interpreters in a Multilingual Multicultural Society

teachers of interpretation that are superb natural teachers – and yet they lack a day offormal or structured pedagogical training. I do want to point out that master teachers,
pedagogically trained or not, all share a common trait: long-standing introspection about theactivity they are attempting to pass on to younger generations.
However, I must stress the fact that formal studies in education-related fields will become anecessity -- if you want to seriously dedicate your life to teaching, to research, to writing
scientific papers, to breaking new ground. The difference between the pedagogically trained
and the un-trained teacher lies in that the trained teacher knows how to use establishedscientific knowledge and theory as tools to aid his or her creativity and work.
Is such additional knowledge necessary for accomplishing your role of interpretation teacher? This
was a decision I had to make at Monterey. While directing the Panama and Monterey
programs, I needed to be a Jack-of-all trades – an expert in every imaginable educational,
administrative and professional task -- and yet I had never had any formal studies inpedagogy or previous experience in higher education.
I had to solve problems for languages I did not know; and make teachers of translation andinterpretation out of persons who could only offer exceptional linguistic or language
expertise. I myself had no knowledge of the Academic culture and its ways of doing things.
Prior to Stanford, I did not even know the difference between one educational term or
another! This did not seem to hinder one iota my performance or efficiency.
But -- on several memorable occasions, this ignorance cost me dearly – and markedly
changed the future course of my future life. I had going for me, my professional studies andinterpreter experience in Geneva. But multi-culturalism was my spinal column -- as was mylifelong role as a natural interpreter – these were the pillars and filters that really guided myattempts at program design, methods development, standard-setting, and problem-solving,
among others.
And then, in 1976, Drs. David Gerver and Wallace Sinaiko convened the landmark
Symposium on Language, Communication and Interpretation in Venice, Italy. The United
Nations had been paralyzed by a costly interpreter strike and NATO had invited the few
teachers of interpretation that then existed to come meet with human factors researchers,sociolinguists, psychologists, and experts on multi-lingualism, such as Drs. Wallace Lambertand John Carroll.

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A veritable who’s who of spoken and sign language interpreter teachers was invited toparticipate in Venice. The goal: establish a cross-disciplinary network and aninterdisciplinary research agenda for the 1980s.
I was young, naive, and very cocky then! I thought I knew what interpretation training was
all about – after all, without considering, or knowing, the difference between education andtraining, I had already designed and directed two graduate programs. Two hours into the
Venice Symposium evidenced, for me, the enormous depth of my ignorance -- as a whole
new world of multi-disciplinary knowledge opened before me.
Ennius was with me when it was time to deliver my own paper and I confidently defined aninterpreter as an intercultural communicator, proudly described the new Monterey program,postulated the need to train interpreters as intercultural communicators, and announced
that from then on the basic core degree granted in Monterey would be a Masters inIntercultural Communication. Shock waves went through the established European interpreter
crowd present. They did not hesitate to express their anger and to ask how dare I use acommunication-cum-culture based definition for the interpretation task: Interpretation had
to do with language -- not culture! Not communication! Any interpreter knew that! Could I
please get that through my ignorant American head!
One interpreter present was among the few who came to my defense in the ensuing heateddebate and a lifelong standing friendship was born: Dr. Mitsuko Saito-Fukunaga assured me
I was not hallucinating and described for me the efforts she was carrying out, with a similar
perspective, in Japan. Therefore, once again, I must thank the JAIS board of directors for
inviting me and asking me to speak today, precisely, about multi-culturalism -- thus givingme this opportunity to pay tribute to a special colleague.
Venice, for me, meant the first links with the Far East and with the world of sign language
interpretation, a group of interpreters that also defined interpretation as culture andcommunication-bound endeavors. Venice meant becoming a doctoral student at Sanford insearch of the knowledge I had glimpsed at and now wanted to possess.
Much has changed in our profession since the early 1960s when I was a student, the 70s
when I was creating schools and programs, and the 80s when I was busy as an activist
promoting the creation of professional organizations or as an advocate before the US
Congress defending the rights of the non-English speaking minorities.

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I ask you: How much change has really occurred? The French remind us that the more thingschange, the more they remain the same. So let’s end by examining our role as professionals,
with special attention to the role of profession’s overseer that JAIS has assumed and the future
I see in the Asia Pacific region.
At this moment in time, when we have entered somewhat of an interregnum period between
the XX and the XXI centuries, what can be said of our role as professionals? When we say “I
am a professional interpreter?” is this just wishful thinking? How close are we to meeting
established societal requirements for a profession? Has professionalization truly taken place?
When two disciplinary worlds meet, what takes place?
Theorists have proposed that when such meetings take place, each discipline (side orprofession) enters a so-called negotiation process in search of a jointly negotiated compromise
agenda. The ensuing give-and-take gives birth to an agreed-upon agenda that satisfies bothsides and which becomes the implementation agenda. The agendas (or platforms) that one or
the other side defends are constituted by beliefs and values that are dear to each side. These
beliefs and values can be visualized as planks which give structure and support to theplatform or agenda under discussion or debate.
The Japan Association of Interpretation Studies, by its very vision and charter, has assumed
an especially important role as overseer of a professional closure platform in Japan andpromoter of the professionalization planks in this country. But it seems to me, JAIS has
assumed responsibility for two platforms: a professional one and an academic one. The
importance of these JAIS roles cannot be underestimated – especially if we consider
emerging conditions in the Asia Pacific region.
Most professional interpretation programs or schools recognized as such by our profession
have been modeled after the Geneva and the Sorbonne schools. Experiences in these schools
were based, for the most part, on praxis germane to Western languages, situations andneeds. A plethora of established teaching methods, ways of learning and teaching, etc. alloriginated in assumptions that may not be valid or true at this end of the world.
I know that my perspective on admissions requirements, level of language mastery,
curricular structures, and over-all curricular planning needed for GITIS markedly changed
after my experience there. I can truly say that all of my design and planning perspective

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changed -- and were broadened and enriched -- after experiencing first-hand the needs ofthe Eastern interpretation world.
You all know better than I do the profound differences in language structures that exists
between Western and Eastern languages -- a trait you share with our sign language
interpretation colleagues. This fact alone, seems to me, may be reason enough to examinewith different eyes and new perspective theoretical assumptions, the traditional lesson,
exercises, and instructional design structures we currently use. My long talks with Saito-san,clearly pointed out the how and wherefor of professional entry in this country and why it soevolved. In this case, it may be wise not to follow the known advise of monkey see, monkey
do! So, to me, in promoting the development of an Eastern school of interpretation studies,
JAIS will be facilitating new knowledge that can only enrich our profession as a whole.
I did some research preparing for this keynote. In particular, I examined published writings
during the past ten years. In my opinion, an interesting role emerges: I have called this therole that state regulation is having on the graduate training of interpreters who have obviously
made a commitment to an academic career.
Seems to me that, contrary to the trend in the West, where spoken language interpreters areseeking doctorates offered by T&I schools; the Eastern interpreter is seeking doctoral
credentials outside disciplinary lines (in sociolinguistics, second language acquisition,higher education, economics, anthropology, among other disciplines). This is particularly
evident when one examines the background of presenters at the 2003 conference in Seoul.
Nothing could be more promising for our profession because we need teachers andresearchers with multi-disciplinary expertise. Only then will findings be credible in otherdisciplines and within society in general. And this, as we all know, is an essential and sinequa non step in the professionalization process of any occupation.
I hope that when you gather to celebrate JAIS’ second decade, as much progress will be
discussed then as has been evident during this, its initial period of activity. My thoughts andwell wishes will always be with you.
Thank you.

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Dr. Etilvia Maria Arjona-Tseng obtained her Master's degree from the Rochester Institute ofTechnology, New York. She holds post-graduate degrees from the School of Interpretation,
Geneva, Switzerland, the State University of Mons, Belgium, and specialization certificates fromthe Université de Dijon and Université Besançon, France. She obtained her Ph.D. at the Schoolof Education of Stanford University, Stanford, California. Dr. Arjona served as the Dean ofTranslation and Interpretation Department of the Monterey Institute of International Studies inMonterey, California, and held different positions at the State University of New York,
Binghamton, Florida International University, Montclair State College, New Jersey, Fu Jen
Catholic University in China, Hawaii University in Manoa, Hawaii, and many otherinternational organizations. She is an Authorized Public Interpreter in the Republic of Panama
and a Certified Federal Court Interpreter by the Administrative Office of US Courts,
Washington, D.C. Her numerous publications concern mainly Translator and Interpreter
training and testing. Dr. Arjona can be reached at : <targum@sinfo.net.>

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