Obra ressenyada: Jesús BAIGORRI, Interpreters at the United Nations: A History. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2004

Matthews, John

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Quaderns. Revista de traducció 12, 2005 255-277RESSENYESThough the institution itself may havetemporarily lost its pivotal role in worldaffairs, having been side-tracked (when notsimply ignored) in favour of unilateralismas a means of solving the world’s problems,the UN still has the aura of the internationalorganisation par excellence from aninterpreter’s standpoint, even though it haslong been superseded by the EuropeanUnion as an employer of interpreters.This book takes up the story ofinterpreting at the UN where the sameauthor’s previous study (La interpretaciónde conferencias: El nacimiento de unaprofesión, Comares, 2000) leaves off, andprovides a generally well-researched, oftenintriguing and sometimes surprising behind-the-scenes account of how interpreting hasevolved in the UN since the organizationcame into being.Chapter 1 is an introductory chapter onhow the UN became the multilingualinstitution it currently is. There is an accountof the struggle to maintain French as anofficial language (a «close run thing» if everthere was one) and the recruiting ofinterpreters in the fledgling UN. Chapter 2tells the story of the early years, providingthumb-nail sketches of the first generationof legendary, nigh-on mythical, interpreters,plus a blow-by-blow account of the runningbattle between defenders of consecutiveand the (then) new-fangled modality ofsimultaneous during the transition periodbetween the two modes. Chapter 3 takes alook at the so-called «second generation»,and the transition period from interpretingas a «marvel» to interpreting as a«profession»; it also describes the rise ofinterpreting schools and their effect onrecruiting at the UN. Interesting too is theaccount of the growing concern for decentworking conditions, as evidenced in the firstmedical report on interpreter health and the1974 «strike». Chapter 4 talks about the newgenerations of interpreters and the growinginfluence of the schools on interpreter intakein the UN. The chapter entitled «Conclusions»is in fact a review chapter of the book as awhole, while also containing remarks aboutthe conference interpreter of today andtomorrow (issues of remote interpreting andthe growth of English as a lingua franca ininternational meetings).Within the larger scope of the UN as awhole, Baigorri provides a candid picture oflegendary interpreters and shows the veryhuman side of their nature — interpretersBAIGORRI, JesúsInterpreters at the United Nations: A History.Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2004. 181 p. Translated fromSpanish by Anne Barr.possessed of hubris and pettiness in equalmeasure — witness the last-ditch attempt onthe part of the consecutivistes (even resortingto sabotage of technical equipment inmeetings) to prevent simultaneous interpretingfrom getting a foothold in the UN.But above all this, the great irony of thewhole story of interpreters at the UN is thatthe first generation (unselected anduntrained), looked down on the secondgeneration (selected but untrained) who inturn treated the following generations (bothselected and trained) with the same disdainmeted out to themselves.And as a final irony, the interest inBuddhism shown by some of the earlierinterpreters has been «dumbed down» todoing crosswords (in the booth?) in a typicalprofile provided by the author of latergenerations of UN interpreters.The original was written in Spanish, andit must be said that the English translationdoes it a disservice. Perhaps there was aweof the master, and no courage to straybeyond the confines of literalness. But theend result cannot be considered to be good.To begin with, the literal translation ofthe first person plural Spanish academic«nosotros» (similar to the royal «we» forEnglish readers) is translated literally as «we»throughout the book —giving rising to thefalse impression for the uninitiated that thereare several authors— all my colleaguesshown parts of the book thought that this wasindeed the case. And surely there is a betterway of translating diplomates manqués than«diplomats who flubbed it»? The underlyingSpanish shines —nay, beams— through oneach page, and that is a great pity.John MatthewsUniversitat Autònoma de BarcelonaFacultat d’Interpretació id’Interpretació256 Quaderns. Revista de traducció 12, 2005 RessenyesBAIGORRI JALÓN, Jesús (dir.); ALONSO ARAGUÁS, Icíar; PASCUAL OLAGUÍBEL, MarinaMateriales para interpretación consecutiva y simultánea (alemán, francés e inglés) I(Format CD-Rom), Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2004.Aquest CD-Rom es presenta com un suporta la iniciació a la interpretació consecutiva isimultània; correspon, per tant, a les assig-natures troncals de tercer curs Tècniquesd’Interpretació Consecutiva (TIC) i Tèc-niques d’Interpretació Simultània (TIS). Lainiciativa, segons indica el fulletó informa-tiu, va sorgir del professorat del departamentde Traducció i Interpretació de la Universitatde Salamanca i va rebre suport financer de laJunta de Castella i Lleó; alhora, amb la meto-dologia emprada al CD-Rom els autorsreflecteixen com s’ensenyen les becerolesde l’ofici d’intèrpret.A l’Estat espanyol és, que sapiguem, elprimer material àudio comercialitzat per ferpràctiques d’interpretació en tres llengües—de fet, per exemple, ja n’existeixen desde fa almenys tres anys com a material d’úsintern per a professorat i alumnes al depar-tament del qual jo mateixa formo part. Seriainteressant que d’ara endavant sortissin a lallum altres projectes en la mateixa línia, denivells més avançats o bé que incloguessindiferents modalitats d’interpretació. Se’nsanuncia que aquest CD és només un punt departida (al qual seguiran un d’«intermedi» iun d’«avançat»).El CD-Rom té com a primer elementdel menú una exhaustiva presentació, ambuna definició d’interpretació (I) per part deJean Delisle, seguida dels fonaments meto-dològics (II) i d’una bibliografia (III). Lapart II és una justificació excel·lent raona-da de com s’ha d’ensenyar —i aprendre—la interpretació: així, recalca la idea no gaireassimilada que «la interpretació es pot ense-nyar i aprendre», i justifica la metodologiaprogressiva, la varietat i la importància dela pràctica real. Segueix a la presentació una

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