We have a momentary lull at the MCI this week. The Year One students have finished their Transition Exams. The Year Two students will take their Exit Exams the week of May 25. But in the meantime, they are off on study visits. Our EN, ES, FR, and PT students are in Washington at the Organization of American States, while our AR, RU, and ZH students are in Montreal at the International Civil Aviation Organization. In short, I found myself suddenly able to catch my breath after what has been an intense academic year.
I had a moment to cast my mind back over all we have learned since September. If I were asked what the biggest lesson was to come out of the last nine months of interpreter training, I would most definitely say “going visual in consecutive note-taking”.
In an earlier blog post, we shared a demonstration of consecutive note-taking “Qjinti style”. In the demonstration, Qjinti ably shows how a visually oriented analysis of a source speech can lead to a very strong consecutive interpretation. But a visual approach here at Glendon did not begin and end with this demo. Instead, Qjinti’s example set the tone in our program. As a result, we’ve all been pushing ourselves to make more and better use of visual techniques.
Let me now give you two examples.
1. Picture-in-Picture to Save Time
A few weeks back, we were fortunate enough to welcome Dr. Anton Antonov to Glendon. Dr. Antonov is an expert on Japanese and Korean historical and comparative linguistics, and we took advantage of his presence on campus to have him give some speeches to the MCI students. Dr. Antonov was able to deliver the speech in a variety of languages, and we took full advantage of this ability to get multiple students interpreting in multiple directions.
In one of his speeches, Dr. Antonov was describing how kanji (i.e., Chinese characters, known in Chinese as hànzì) came to be used in Japan as a writing system. At first, he noted, people in Japan were using kanji to write in Chinese. But over time, the characters were gradually used to represent the Japanese language. We know this, Dr. Antonov pointed out, because scholars have studied objects bearing inscriptions that were found in Japan.
To note this part of the speech, I wrote
- “experts (the abbreviation ‘exp.’ plus the degree symbol to indicate a person)
- study (the arrow with the dotted line) in the past (the arrow moving up and pointing to the left)”
- an object (a vase) that has Chinese writing on it (the character ⽂ or “wén” — one of the few I’ve incorporated into my note-taking, thanks to my Mandarin students — means “written language”).
- the slash (which I use to indicate that the thing to the right modifies the thing to the left), plus a short form for “Japan”.
would have given this back in an interpretation by saying, “Scholars have studied artifacts with Chinese inscriptions found in Japan.”
Qjinti Oblitas took a look at what I had done. She then asked, “Why wouldn’t you actually draw the object on the island of Japan?” In essence, she was asking me to produce a “picture-in-picture”, the way that a Blu-ray disc allows you to watch the director of a movie providing commentary on it. Following her advice, I redid my notes, with an oversimplified drawing of the main island in the Japanese archipelago, Honshu. It took a fraction of a second, and it was instantly evocative, in a way that my word-based “Jpn” was not.
Now, I imagine that some of you out there may find yourself saying, “Andrew, this particular part of the speech lent itself well to a visual depiction.” You would of course be right. But truth be told, I now find myself using this picture-in-picture approach with more abstract concepts as well. For example, it came in handy recently when one of our students gave a speech on “Immigration in the US”.
2. A Diagram to Capture Data Clearly
In this speech from the SCIC Speech Repository, my colleague, Helen Campbell, discusses climate change. Of course, her mention of photographs of polar bears stranded on ice floes practically calls out for a visual representation. It’s a bit of a no-brainer, really. But an image-based approach is helpful for other parts of the speech as well. This is notably true when the speaker begins to give us a few data points.
For example, when Helen starts to describe the cold weather experienced in North America in recent years, she notes that “[In the winter of 13-14] the average temperature was one degree below the 20th century average.”
I have watched about 10-12 students interpret this speech, and if they try to get this point down in their notes using a word-based approach, they always introduce an error into their interpretation. For instance, I have heard students say that “the average temperature in North America was -20 degrees” or that “the temperature in 2013-2014 was around 1 degree”, neither of which was right.
Stop for a moment and imagine you were a scientist writing up this finding for publication. You could try to describe it in words. But undoubtedly the best way to get your point across would be with a diagram. Complicated relationships between data points can often be relayed clearly with a graph, bar chart, or some other depiction. The same holds true for this speech.
When I noted this speech, I heard Helen say “…the average temperature”, and I knew we were likely to then hear a few data points. I resisted the urge to write. Instead, I forced myself to take a deep breath in so that I would listen intently. When I understood the idea, I found myself drawing a little graph. Its most prominent features were two lines:
- The average temperature in the 20th century; and
- The average temperature in 2013-2014.
Now, Helen says all this very quickly. And this point is part of a list that includes other items (“eastern half… plunged in ice”, “90% of Great Lakes… froze over”). So your diagram might not be as elaborate as mine. But you would certainly have time to draw the basic “L” of the graph, the two lines, and the difference of 1 degree. It would likely be enough to jog your memory and to allow you to give the information back correctly.
The point here is that visual note-taking is a powerful technique for analysis. It allows you to note ideas down more quickly, and it also allows you to interpret information more accurately. Experiment with visual note-taking in your consecutive interpretations, and let us know what you think!