Interpreting Workshop: Words and Music
Mr Emmanuel Cochard (Conference Interpreter), Mr Jean Sévery (University of Malaya, Malaysia) & Associate Professor Dr Toshiko Yamaguchi (University of Malaya, Malaysia)
This workshop aims to provide participants with first-hand experience of interpretation, with special focus on conference interpretation. After presenting the different kinds of interpreting, what must be done before an interpretation session (booth material, preparation, vocabulary list, collaboration with partner) and in the heat of the action (eye contact, sign language, adaptation to the length of each intervention and to difficulty level – accent and speed of speaker), we shall briefly review the techniques appropriate for each type of interpreting event.
Following this introduction to practical interpreting, we propose a variety of activities aiming to raise awareness of what is communication, selective listening, concentration, and rendering a message by respecting the speaker’s opinion (and not one’s own).
Participants in this workshop will acquire skills in the art of listening and rendering a message accurately, choosing the right information from among a multiplicity of contradictory data, picking up relevant facts and figures to forward the meaning of the speaker’s message, and how not to end up either shutting their mouth in awe, or murdering their neighbor because of a total lack of communicative skills.
Remark: It is not necessary to speak several languages to attend the workshop.