Thanks Livia! The story about the multi-party interpreting – we call it “relay interpreting” – is really interesting. I can imagine why the participants were frustrated, because one interpreter’s inability affects other interpreters’ jobs as well. English is usually used as a common language for relay interpreting in which an English-Russian interpreter, for example, interprets Russian into English for other language interpreters (e.g. English-French, English-Spanish, etc.), who then interpret the English output into their other languages for their home audience. Those tensions might have been related not just to inadequate language services but to misunderstanding that arose from distortions of meanings, which is politically costly.

My extended German-speaking family often assumes that by studying linguistics in English, I am actually studying to become an interpreter. The underlying assumption being that given I am bilingual, I must be a ‘balanced’ bilingual. Therefore, I should easily be able to interpret and translate between the two languages to such a high standard that I could surely make a career of it without further qualifications. However, as you know, this is not the case 😉

Your point about the status of language workers being determined by the status of languages in the wider society they serve resonated with me.

During my studies in Europe I did an internship with an intergovernmental organisation that regulates laws around a specific area of transport. They had in-house interpreters for the organisation’s official languages (English, German and French), and held frequent conferences attended by international delegates which required highly specialised and technical, simultaneous interpreting. During the proceedings, I would listen in via the headsets, and skip through the language channels. The skills these interpreters displayed were remarkable.
At the time, the organisation had newly introduced Russian as one of its inofficial languages in reaction to an increase in Russian-speaking nations expressing their interest to join the organisation. However, the addition of Russian was met with some reservations from the existing (predominantly European) member states. It also meant that a Russian interpreter had to be found as soon as possible. At the next conference, much to the annoyance of the organisation, a Russian-speaking nation interested in joining sent six delegates (as opposed to the usual one or two). These delegates did not seem genuinely interested, and mainly doodled on their paperwork during the conference. However, the core issue may have been that they were not provided with good enough language services. I noticed that the Russian interpreter was not keeping up with what was being discussed, and largely remained silent during the proceedings, only translating here and there. The highly specialised discourse in which this interpreter was asked to work, and his inability to live up to the job’s requirements, ultimately intensified the tensions between the member states’ delegates, and the six visiting delegates. I wish I had had more insight into the other factors (political climate, etc) that influenced these tensions, however the status of Russian, and the provision of (inadequate) language services did appear to be central here.