The United Nations Department of Global Communications (DGC) promotes global awareness and paintings of the United Nations.
Thirteen July: When the coronavirus pandemic paralyzed New York City, UN interpreters encountered major problems: their booths and apparatus were no longer accessible. house.
This story, featuring portraits produced remotely through UN Photo, shows how those professionals have responded to the demanding new situations that COVID-19 has added to their already overwhelming paintings of offering simultaneous interpretation in six official UN languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French. , Russian and Russian. Spanish.
On Friday, March 13, Konstantine Orlov, head of the Russian Interpretation Section, held her last face-to-face assembly at UN headquarters before the pandemic led to the lockout of the Big Apple. The following Monday, March 16, “we all ran away from home,” he said.
“We found ourselves in our apartments wondering how to continue carrying out our tasks and contributing to multilingualism,” said Véronique Vandegans, Head of the French Interpretation Section. “However, it has temporarily become transparent that we can simply adapt and interpret remotely, with the right equipment, testing and training. “
To comply with local fitness advisories, UN headquarters has since remained closed to the public and cancelled face-to-face meetings, with the top staff working from home. Alternatively, Member States hold meetings virtually, without interpretation. The UN Secretariat is preparing for a gradual return of staff to UN facilities, with Phase 1 of the UN plan scheduled to begin on 20 July, with delegates expected to meet mainly online.
During phase zero, United Nations interpreters are experimenting with other modes of remote interpretation, under the direction of a functioning organization established with new tactics to provide the Organization’s interpretation service.
“Currently, meetings are held in one language,” said Adrian Delgado, senior interpreter for the Spanish Interpretation Section. “Attempts are being made, with some success, to re-establish multilingual meetings. “
Multilingualism plays a key role in intergovernmental negotiations, which “are the center and soul of the United Nations,” Delgado said.
Ms. Vandegans explained that the concepts were more productive expressed in the speaker’s native language. “The speakers attach great importance to the conveyance of all the nuances inherent in foreign diplomacy. The enthusiasm of Member States to have interpreters in the booth again, even virtually, illustrates the importance of multilingualism. “
Uncharted waters for interpreters and delegates
Working from home is uncharted territory for UN interpreters.
A main challenge is to locate a suitable position in your home. Even under optimal conditions, a house is not up to a confined booth, where interpreters can reach the maximum point of concentration required during their work.
“In the beginning, I prepared my workspace by evicting my children and husband from the apartment to create the quiet environment I needed,” Vandegans said. As calm as you can imagine while mom works. “
Children, pets and songbirds are great additions to a home, but also to a virtual booth, she said, adding that listening to young people from delegates in remote meetings makes her feel relieved: “We’re all in the same boat. “
For Qiyun Zhang, head of the Chinese interpretation section, the new organization is simpler. “Luckily, my children are older and don’t live with me. “He works from his office, which gives him a quiet and cozy atmosphere.
Lana Ayyad, head of the Arabic interpretation section, turned her home’s guest room into an office. He bought himself a table and chair and “even drilled a hole in the wall to connect the Ethernet cable from my router to me in the guest room. “. “
Martin Pickles, an interpreter with the English Interpretation Section, works at his dining table, he said, because “it’s preferably located for the modem and gives plenty of space for paper and documents. “
Mr. Orlov feels fortunate to have a spacious house. Her favorite place is a north-facing, breezy room, the wall adorned with her son’s formative years of work.
Mr. Delgado is in the process of remodeling his small room to use as a “home interpretation booth. “
Distractions and sound quality
Even so, they face distractions, such as noise from neighbors, deliveries, incoming phone calls, and the wind blowing into the river. Grocery shopping, cooking, washing dishes, and other family chores are now part of her planned painting activities.
Another challenge is getting the right appliance with the right specifications, adding hardware and software, and ensuring seamless web connectivity. This is vital not only for interpreters but also for delegates. For messages to be conveyed accurately, stakeholders in any virtual assembly must do their part.
Interpreters emphasize that the quality of the performance is intrinsically related to the quality of the original. If a speaker does not have a proper microphone or delivers a speech temporarily while the youth play in the background, even the most productive interpreter will not be able to serve. as optimally.
“The audio quality needs to be crisp so the words are heard clearly,” Ayyad said. “For example, you don’t need an interpreter to confuse ‘may’ and ‘can’t. ‘
In their profession, the margin for error is narrow, the interpreters explained, hoping member states will work hard to improve the new operating system, which they say will never be as smart and transparent as the face-to-face service. -Face-to-face meetings.
Coordination “in a second”
United Nations interpreters paint in pairs or in groups of 3 in a booth. However, they paint alone at home.
“In a general situation, the coordination between the 3 team was good,” Zhang said. “However, in a virtual environment, we don’t see others. “
Orlov added, “Home acting is an absolutely new skill that wants to be acquired and developed. “
Delgado noted that “working from home greatly reduces the detail of procedure visualization and the ability to visualize in a split moment with cabin members. “
Ayyad explained that if one interpreter is live, the other is helping with documents and statements. When they pass the microphone to another, they make a touch of eyes or some kind of signal. If a colleague at the microphone misses a number or term, others scribble on a piece of paper to show the colleague. “Working in dispersed mode robs us of that teamwork,” he said.
Pickles agreed: “Acting is a team race and we rely heavily on others as friends and cockpit partners. “
Despite all those challenges, six-language organizations have developed tactics for talking to each other, such as using organizational chats or apps in the order of shifts, which goes first, at the time and third on the microphone, and how to update a colleague. in case of a sudden disconnection, Zhang said.
Delgado noted, however, that due to poor soundproofing, unreliable networks, and inconsistent audio or video transmissions, “the most productive attempt to recreate an environment conducive to home interpretation will be the second most productive option. “
The interpreters are also part of a larger team, consisting of speakers, sound technicians, various secretariat staff members of the various committees and agencies they serve, and delegates.
“Remote control makes this incredibly difficult,” Zhang said, noting that coordination beyond their language sets is a challenge that still needs to be overcome.
Multitasking and risk
In a general booth, UN convention attendees hand out copies of written statements to interpreters, who now have to monitor screens to follow the meeting, view the agenda, check the list of speakers and access statements online, while keeping an eye on WhatsApp feeds. “It requires a lot of multitasking,” Vandegans said.
The new mode of interpretation may also be accompanied by unforeseen health risks, such as immediate hearing loss. Remote interpreting is more stressful because interpreters have to concentrate on several things simultaneously, adding the motion procedure, messaging in the organization’s chats, and making sure the microphone is on or off.
However, there has been fundamental progress. ” Although still in its infancy, remote interpreting will soon be a well-established modality for attending meetings,” said Mr. Delgado.
Placement mode
In addition to operating from home, interpreters also rehearse to run the co-location setup, in which interpreters paint from their booths at UN headquarters, while most participants virtually register for the assembly.
“We had been contemplating remote interpreting arrangements for a few months before COVID, but this is more similar to the context of meetings held remotely while interpreters are running from booths at UN headquarters,” Ayyad says.
So far, interpreters have tested this mode at a high-level occasion on funding for progression on 28 May and at an assembly commemorating the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Charter of the United Nations on 26 June. Due to physical distancing requirements, the interpreter has been assigned an individual booth.
On 10 July, they tested a combination of “co-location” and “work from home” modes at scale at the High-Level Political Forum, and assembly participants joined virtually.
New normal
If there is a positive side to the disruption that the crisis has brought to interpreters, it is that they now have a business continuity plan, with new modalities to deal with other scenarios.
“We will return with a new skill set (remote interpretation) that can be useful for business continuity in long-term unforeseen circumstances,” Mr. Pickles said.
During the lockdown era and beyond, demand for them has declined. However, interpreters used the extra time they had to improve their skills and attend education courses on new interpreting platforms.
“We also made substantive paintings that we didn’t have time to do together in general circumstances, namely building glossaries on topics and ranking our clients’ positions on key issues discussed at the UN,” Zhang said.
As a result of the advent of remote interpreting, interpreters will eventually see relief at their official meetings and events away from Headquarters.
“It saddens me because a big part of my job was having the opportunity to leave the booth and travel to other cities to attend meetings and meet new people and colleagues at other duty stations and missions,” Ayyad said.
Despite the task they carry out with mechanical precision, interpreters are human beings charged with emotions. “Working from home makes me feel pretty lonely,” M. said. Orlov. No’t wait to go back to his cabin.
Note: On 14 July, the Security Council held its first face-to-face meeting in 4 months, with interpretation into the six official languages.
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