Teaching Interpreters About Self-Care

Personal factors as well as the nature of certain assignments may negatively impact interpreters and cause stress. The authors sought to examine the various stressors that affect interpreters. They argue that if interpreters are able to identify a potential stressor early on, they may be able to address it through self-care. In the worst-case scenario, ongoing and unaddressed negative impact may result in burnout, at which stage professional assistance will be required and there may be long-term consequences. The authors propose an approach aimed at helping interpreters recognize signs of being negatively impacted, as well as teaching them self-care techniques, so as to reduce the deleterious effects of the stressors they face

The Benefits of Reflective Blogs in Language-Neutral Translator Education

Abstract: This paper is based on anonymised information taken from online blogs created by students in a translation course taught at Auckland University of Technology (AUT University) as part of their assessment. Auckland is the main destination for entry for both new migrants and refugees and is therefore the dominant region for ethnic diversity. At present, the three main interpreting and translation services in the Auckland area cater to the communicative needs of migrants and refugees representing up to 200 different languages. Students taking this course reflect to some degree the range of ethnic and linguistic communities in the greater Auckland area. Over the past years, translation and interpreting classrooms at AUT have included speakers of Chinese languages, as well as Korean, Japanese, Arabic, Farsi and Vietnamese. This type of multilingual and multicultural classroom has required the development of special language-neutral pedagogies. The current paper describes the use of reflective blogs: students were asked to translate a range of texts involving a variety of culture-specific items (Aixelá, 1996; Davies, 2003) and to use the blogs to reflect on issues identified, resources used and reviewer feedback. The material chosen for translation included a range of texts commonly encountered in public service translation settings; the blog method employed may prove to be beneficial to (student) translators working in public service settings.Resumen: Este artículo está basado en información anonimizada extraída de blogs creados por estudiantes en una asignatura de traducción en la universidad Auckland University of Technology (AUT) como parte de su evaluación. Auckland es el centro con más ingreso de emigrantes y refugiados y de esta manera es la región líder en diversidad étnica. Actualmente, los tres servicios principales de traducción e interpretación en Auckland atienden las dificultades comunicativas de emigrantes y refugiados, representando hasta 200 distintos idiomas. Los estudiantes de esta materia reflejan en cierta medida la diversidad de comunidades étnicas y lingüísticas en la región de Auckland. Durante años, por las clases de traducción e interpretación en AUT han pasado estudiantes de habla coreana, japonesa, árabe, persa, vietnamita como también de dialectos chinos. Este tipo de clase multicultural y multilingüe ha requerido el desarrollo de pedagogías especiales en idioma neutro. Este artículo describe el uso de blogs reflexivos: se le pidió a los estudiantes traducir una variedad de textos que incluían distintos elementos específico-culturales (Aixéla 1996; Davies, 2003) y utilizar sus blogs para reflexionar sobre la identificación de problemas, recursos utilizados y comentarios de crítica de revisión. El material elegido incluyó una variedad de textos que pueden ser encontrados comúnmente en contextos de servicio de traducción publica y el método de blog empleado puede ayudar a (estudiantes) traductores que desempeñan su labor en contextos de servicios públicos.