letter cubes

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…

Kathleen Shelly penned this for The NAJIT Observer in 2012. It remains just as relevant today. Please enjoy.


– By Kathleen Shelly © 2012

A couple of weeks ago I was driving home from an interpreting assignment listening to NPR radio, as is my custom. The program was “Fresh Air,” and Terry Gross was interviewing an author named Michael Lewis on a piece of his in the magazine Vanity Fair about his experience hanging out with President Obama on a day-to-day basis. The interview was fascinating, but one thing really struck me. Mr. Lewis stated that Mr. Obama sought to avoid making decisions about everyday things so as to save his energy to make more important ones. I went online to read the article in its entirety. Here is the section referenced:

‘ “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” [Obama] said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions. It’s why shopping is so exhausting.’  (Lewis, 2012)

Wow. I couldn’t help but relate this little nugget of information to our own work. Surely there are few professions out there that require as much constant and repeated decision-making as interpreting. I continued researching this phenomenon, and came up with the following from the New York Times:

“No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It’s different from ordinary physical fatigue — you’re not consciously aware of being tired — but you’re low on mental energy. The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain… ” (Tierney, 2012)

So it’s not just the thought process of converting information from one language to another, it’s not only the intense focus or performance anxiety that cause the fatigue we all know so well, but also the constant decision-making so necessary to render an accurate version of what we are hearing into another language.

figure sitting on top of a giant question markThe decisions that we have to make in our work are far more complex than just figuring out what to wear or what to eat. Unlike when buying a car or even drafting a translation, we have no time to weigh the pros and cons. The decision has to be made right then and there, and the consequences of our decisions must be faced with equal immediacy. Talk about stress!

Now, I’m one of those people given to making snap decisions, which is a plus as far as I’m concerned. I just don’t like to shop around. Because I usually have things planned out, I know exactly what I want and exactly what I am willing to pay. I remember going into a furniture store once with my husband to buy a dining room table, chairs and hutch. We walked in, I immediately saw what I wanted (a nice simple Mission-style set that I still have), and we were out of there in forty-five minutes. My husband, who tends to want to consider all options, was aghast. “Are you absolutely sure this is what you want?” he asked. Of course I was sure. My goodness, how I hate shopping and comparing and analyzing and all that! My philosophy when it comes to decision-making is something like: “I’ve made my decision; now let’s go home.”

So in the courtroom, I am naturally disposed to make quick choices without dithering. Speaking of dithering, I’ll never forget the time I was at a simultaneous interpreting training, where I witnessed a phenomenon that left me and the other people there absolutely astonished. As we took turns interpreting what we were hearing on a tape, one young lady evinced an extraordinary ability, although perhaps not one best suited to simultaneous interpreting. For every longish word from the source language, she would give two or three selections in the target language. For example, for the word “device,” she might say: “aparato, mecanismo, dispositivo” (apparatus, mechanism, device). And so good was her diction, so rapid her delivery, that we understood every word! She simply could not make a decision as to which word was best in a given situation. The result was, of course, that she began to fall farther and farther behind, until she finally trailed off into silence. The instructor just looked at her and said, “I think you know what you need to do, don’t you?”

And so do we all. There are various strategies we can use to make the decision-making process easier and thus less fatiguing. The first and most obvious is team interpreting. When interpreting for long periods, we must absolutely take breaks from the constant need to make quick decisions and adjustments. When we can just stop the process for a bit, we are then better able to go back and take up the reins again. We can even use the time to learn from our colleagues how they handle the decision-making process and store up techniques for our own use.

Accumulating terms, expressions and glossaries is most certainly a strategy that all of us use to help with decision-making. I believe that one of the reasons that we interpreters are always so intent on finding the exact way to translate a given term, so bent on grasping terminology and “freezing” it so as to be able to produce it at will, is that we are attempting to avoid as much of the decision-making process as we can. If we have a set vocabulary we can whip out without thinking too hard about it, we can then concentrate on making the more difficult decisions.

Finally, we need to prepare for our cases as much as we possibly can to decide in advance, like a translator, which terms are the best to use in a given situation. It is, of course, ideal to be able to at least listen to the person or persons whose speech we will be interpreting, but there are always surprises, as we all know.

But I kind of like the following strategy best. Like President Obama, I need to find someone who will make the day-to-day choices for me so that I can devote my decision-making skills to my work and thus avoid degrading my ability to make decisions. I just know I would be a perfect interpreter if only I could find someone to pick out my clothes, make me breakfast, load my briefcase, feed my cats and drive me to work!

References
Sandra Beatriz Hale. 2004. The Discourse of Court Interpreting: Discourse Practices of the Law, the Witness and the Interpreter. Sydney, Australia. University of Western Sydney.

Bethany Korp-Edwards. 2012. Time for a Paradigm Shift V: Where Do We Go From Here? National Association of Judicial Interpreters and Translators Blog. Retrieved from:
https://najit.org/blog/?p=559

Michael Lewis. 2012. Obama’s Way. Vanity Fair. Retrieved from:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/10/michael-lewis-profile-barack-obama

John Tierney. 2011. Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue? The New York Times
Retrieved from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?pagewanted=all&_moc.semityn.www

Andrew Erickson, Primary Author; Nancy Festinger, Isabel Framer, Judith Kenigson Kristy, Editorial Team. 2007. Team Interpreting in the Courtroom. National Association of Judicial Interpreters and Translators Position Paper. Retrieved from:
http://www.najit.org/publications/Team%20Interpreting_052007.pdf

Holly Mikkelson. 2008. Evolving Views of the Court Interpreter’s Role: Between Scylla and Charybdis. Published in Martin, A. and Valero Garcés, C., eds. Crossing Borders in Community Interpreting: Definitions and Dilemmas. John Benjamins. Retrieved from:
http://www.acebo.com/papers/evolve.htm

Zambrano-Paff, Marjorie. 2011. The Impact of Interpreters’ Linguistic Choices in Bilingual Hearings. In SelectedProceedings of the 13th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, ed. Luis A. Ortiz-López, 190-202. Somerville, MA:Cascadilla Proceedings Project. Retrieved from: http://www.lingref.com/cpp/hls/13/paper2487.pdf


Portrait of Kathleen Shelly Kathleen Shelly is a certified court interpreter who is also passionate about translation. Her strong bilingual background stems from her upbringing. Let her introduce herself: “Since I grew up speaking both Spanish and English in South America and in the United States, I am considered a fully bilingual person, with native levels of expression in both languages. Before and during graduate school, I lived and studied for extended periods of time in a number Spanish-speaking countries, which has given me a broad knowledge of the usage and expression of the spoken language. Since graduating from Rutgers University with a double major in Spanish Literature and Latin American Studies, and obtaining my master’s degree in Latin American Literature at the Ohio State University, I have made my living exclusively through my expertise in working between both languages.

5 thoughts on “Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…”

  1. Constance Marina says:

    You are so right, Kathleen! That’s why we take the trouble to build and expand on our glossaries so that we don’t have to waste time pondering the best interpretation to use. I loved this piece. Thank you!

  2. Great article, thank you Ms Shelly.
    The idea of stashing terminology is absolutely true! And I do that, on a regular basis. In interpreting there is a large margin of mistakes…..so I practice and prepare very often.
    It is so true about shopping and the constant decision, that is one of the reason I keep it a minimum…also it is so easy to constantly shop! So many stores in Us ! And now online too!!
    Ms Shelly can you please write again, I am curious to know how do you practice? If I may suggest to please suggest: specific practice exercises so to acquire those terms and than use them in a context, for both modes, simultaneous and consecutive interpretation. What are your preferences? – How do you make the decision to which method to use, which device is best suited? I personally have hard time to decide the method and exercises, as if I wish there was an App that could come up with the practice exercises containing the stashed terminology I want to acquire.
    Maybe, some engineers, bilingual engineers, can came up with the solution of constructing an App ready to go with the terminology to acquire and practice? Furthermore, a ‘smart’ application that keeps track of the improvements and levels of rendition? Remember when we all practice to learn how to type?
    Please let me know what do you think, may that app already exist?

    Thank you !!

    1. Gio Lester says:

      Carmen, there are a few apps on the market already. My favorite is INTRAKIT. It comes with many glossaries already and you can personalize them all AND create your own – per customer, per event. I participated in the beta testing and was so happy to learn that I could create my own glossary even though Brazilian Portuguese was not offered at the time. You can have it in your cellphone, make changes to it and it will sych with your PC… CodeSwitch Media will launch the upgraded version real soon. You should be on the lookout for it.

      1. Great article, thank you Ms Shelly.
        The idea of stashing terminology is absolutely true! And I do that, on a regular basis. In interpreting there is a large margin of mistakes…..so I practice and prepare very often.
        It is so true about shopping and the constant decision, that is one of the reason I keep it a minimum…also it is so easy to constantly shop! So many stores in Us ! And now online too!!
        Ms Shelly can you please write again, I am curious to know how do you practice? If I may suggest to please suggest: specific practice exercises so to acquire those terms and than use them in a context, for both modes, simultaneous and consecutive interpretation. What are your preferences? – How do you make the decision to which method to use, which device is best suited? I personally have hard time to decide the method and exercises, as if I wish there was an App that could come up with the practice exercises containing the stashed terminology I want to acquire.
        Maybe, some engineers, bilingual engineers, can came up with the solution of constructing an App ready to go with the terminology to acquire and practice? Furthermore, a ‘smart’ application that keeps track of the improvements and levels of rendition? Remember when we all practice to learn how to type?
        Please let me know what do you think, may that app already exist?

        Thank you !!
        thank you Gio I will look into it!

  3. Patti Firth says:

    Hi, Kathleen. I am a court interpreter in N.J. (I’ve been doing it for over 15 years) and your article really made me see things in a new light. No wonder I feel exhausted so frequently! I will have to try to delegate some of my everyday decisions to my kids, if possible. Thanks for the article.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *