Interpreting and Cascading Failure
Imagine a highway where a convoy of trucks are carrying important aid relief material to a disaster area. Recent snowfall has made the highway journey difficult, and with night time visibility at less than 10 meters further compounding the situation. Suddenly, one truck's tires blow out; the driver wrestles with the steering column trying to restore control to the 12 wheeled beast. He barely manages to come to a stop, when another truck rams him from behind. The trucks that did not manage to maintain a safe following distance soon cause a pile up.
Simultaneous conference interpreters are like the truck drivers trying to convey important messages. If the interpreter struggles over a sentence, failing to register and process the non stop incoming onslaught of information; then before long the audience is lost, they will have no idea what the speaker is trying to say until the interpreter recovers. The situation is like a highway vehicle pile up. An initial error upstream works it's way downstream in a cascading fashion.
Cascading errors can occur across a wide spectrum of areas. For example, the recent snow storms in Southern China led to power lines in Guizhou collapsing under their own weight, thereby causing remote villages and even whole cities to black out. In economics, the policies of the IMF in 1997 saw a lot of South East Asian countries' central banks to call in their corporate loans, ultimately leading to the financial turmoil.1
This is one reason why conference interpreters need to work in pairs. When an interpreter stumbles or runs into difficulties, her partner can intercept and rescue her. Conference organizers who recruit solo interpreters are betting the interpreter will not encounter difficulties or the speakers will speak clearly enough for interpretation. Either way, it is a risky proposition. Organizers should insist on having 2 experienced interpreters, or at least one senior interpreter along with a junior interpreter. Recruiting solo interpreters is exposing oneself to risk and inviting disaster.
1. Linked, Albert Laszlo Barabasi, Plume 2003, ISBN 0-7382-0667-9
First Published 11March 2008. Copyright of Pierre Wong.