As the new Assistant Professor of French Traductology and Translation, Dr. Irem Ayan challenges the normative expectation of true “neutrality” among translators through her research on the emotional labour of conference interpreters.
“There is a strong normative expectation in professional codes of ethics that interpreters must be neutral. If they fail to be neutral, then they fail as professionals. My research challenges this normative expectation and theoretical view.”
Can you describe your research interests?
My research and teaching interests include translation and interpreting theory and practice, gender studies, as well as the sociology and (auto)ethnography of translation and interpreting. I am interested in how interpreters adjust their behaviours and utterances to display a socially and institutionally-approved performance. I also investigate how race and gender dynamics influence the way interpreters perform in line with the (contradictory) norms of professional practice. Fictional representations of translators and interpreters have also become a recent interest of research for me.
Can you describe your book manuscript The Emotional Labour of Conference Interpreting: Gender, Alienation and Sabotage?
There is a strong normative expectation in professional codes of ethics that interpreters must be neutral. If they fail to be neutral, then they fail as professionals. My research challenges this normative expectation and theoretical view by exploring how interpreters assume another “I” by performing various forms of emotional labour.
During the act of interpreting, interpreters strive to negotiate a neutral-seeming role by constantly calibrating their performance according to the needs and requirements of the situation in which they function. They are trained to display a performance which conforms to a specific set of rules and norms prescribing neutrality, impartiality, and loyalty—and requiring them to adjust their words and behaviours properly to attain the expected professional standards. Assuming, or trying to assume a stance of neutrality while becoming the voice of the speaker might create a tension, and requires some mental and emotional work on the part of the interpreter.
“In some cases, interpreters may have to suppress or hide their own personal thoughts and ideologies to perform this imposed neutrality.”
Interpreters sell their voices for someone else’s benefit, speaking through their speakers’ first person “I”. In other words, they are paid for transforming the thoughts and words that are not originally theirs into the target language by creating the analogous meaning and feeling of the source language.
In some cases, they may have to suppress or hide their own personal thoughts and ideologies to perform this imposed neutrality, as it was recently the case for the group of Indigenous interpreters who translated the Pope’s visit to Canada. In others, they may find themselves having to deal with unreasonable and abominable situations such as gender-based discrimination, mistreatment, exploitation, and harassment of various kinds, as emerged in my interviews with 21 conference interpreters between March and August 2018.
How does this impact interpreters’ sense of identity?
Despite its prestige, conference interpreting is still work, and work can be alienating. Selling their voices for their clients’ benefit by conforming to the unrealistic norms of professional practice imposed on them can trigger interpreters’ feelings of frustration, self-doubt, and aversion to their roles, as well as to what they say along with their speakers.
In order to cope with their feelings of being reduced to objects, non-humans, and working machines—and the negative consequences of performing a form of emotional labour to keep their professional stance intact (especially in contexts in which they have to interpret utterances with which they did not agree)—interpreters revealed in my interviews their secrets of breaking the norms of professional practice for their professional survival and personal pleasure through various acts of sabotage, such as declining clients’ offers, quitting in the middle of an assignment, and punishing and demeaning their speakers in situ.
These instances influence the way interpreters perform their task, and require a form of feeling management on the part of the interpreter. The underlying causes of such issues lie in the unequal power relations embedded in interpreters’ work.
What is your career background?
I have an MA in Conference Interpreting from Institut libre Marie Haps (currently part of the newly founded Louvain School of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Louvain) in Brussels, Belgium. As a student-interpreter in Brussels, I had the opportunity to do internships at a few international organizations to practice simultaneous interpreting such as the European Parliament, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and Eurocontrol (The European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation). I also worked as a subtitle translator for the 13th Brussels Short Film Festival.
As a professional interpreter, I have experience in both in-house and freelance interpreting. I was a staff interpreter at the Foreign Relations Department of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality for one year. Since 2011, I have worked in various freelance assignments and projects which took place in a number of countries including Turkey, Belgium, France, Italy, Senegal, and the United States. Before moving to Vancouver, I provided interpreting services for the Turkish Mission at the United Nations in New York where I interpreted for various Heads of State, ministers, and actors in meetings and events covering a variety of topics such as climate change, sustainability, gender equality and women’s empowerment.
