Brand the Interpreter

The Essence of Interpreting with Dr. Sofía Garcia-Beyaert

• Season 6 • Episode 101

Share episode

Unlock the secrets of interpreting with Dr. Sofía Garcia-Beyaert, a leading figure in the discipline of interpreting and a professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. Imagine the power of communicative autonomy: this is the intriguing concept we examine, revealing its profound impact on interpreters and ultimately, the families they serve.

Travel with us through Dr. Sofia's impressive 25-year journey, from the engaging world of conference interpreting to the fulfilling realm of community interpreting. A deep dive into her research unveils the absolute need for a macro-level understanding of systemic changes - you'll be astounded at the implications this has for the profession!

Finally, discover how communicative autonomy - an essential part of intercultural communication-  can empower you to bridge language barriers like never before. Dr. Garcia-Beyaert graces us with invaluable advice for those preparing for professionalization in this sector and provides a wealth of practical resources. Let's explore the rewards and challenges of being a professional interpreter and discover the essence of interpreting together, and find the inspiration to make a difference in communication worldwide.
-------------------
Resources
CHAPTER: Communicative Autonomy and the Role of the Interpreter
TEXTBOOK: The Community Interpreter – An International Textbook
CODE OF ETHICS: Ethics and Standards for The Community Interpreter – An International Training Tool
DISSERTATION: Cross-linguistic communication and public policy: the institutionalization of community interpreting
ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS: List of selected publications
INTERACTIVE TOOL EXPLAINING COMMUNICATIVE AUTONOMY: https://classes.arcos.institute/communicative-autonomy
-------------------
Other Episode Mentioned:
Communicative Equity with Dr. Dominic Ledesma
------------------
👉 Orange County Department of Education 7th Annual Interpreters and Translators Conference - September 29th and 30th - at the Hilton Orange County/Costa Mesa in Costa Mesa, California

Conference registration site link: https://link.ocde.us/ITC2023

Join them this Fall at the 2023 Interpreters and Translators Conference to continue your professional learning and networking! Registration is now open!

Share your thoughts about this episode!

Thanks for tuning in, till next time! 👋

Connect with Mireya Pérez, Host
www.brandtheinterpreter.com
Facebook
LinkedIn
Instagram

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Turn Yourself into a Booked Out Freelance Translator Podcast, a mix of both solo episodes and expert interviews. Our ideal listener is an early career, ambitious and passionate online language services provider. She is committed to professional growth and achieving success in the fiercely competitive translation in interpreting industry. She balances multiple responsibilities with resourcefulness, values, mentorship, is open to learning and investing in her professional development journey. She embraces technology and seeks to optimize workflow. Eager to connect with like-minded peers and build out her professional network, she is determined to overcome challenges and become a sought-after freelance translator. In the meantime, why not head over to wwwentrepreneurialtranslatorcom to access all our tools and resources to monetize and future-proof your freelance translation business? And don't forget to hit the plus button in Apple Podcasts or iTunes, or subscribe and Spotify to be notified when new episodes drop. For regular tips and insights, business strategy or marketing techniques straight to your inbox, please sign up at wwwentrepreneurialtranslatorcom.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back, language professionals, to another episode of the Brand the Interpreter Podcast. This is Mireya, your host, and today I am super excited to share this particular episode for two reasons. Number one, because I have gone past the 100th interview threshold, which means that I've interviewed over 100 guests on the show Not 100 episodes, because I have over 100 episodes, but there have been a lot of solo episodes and things of that nature Q&A throughout the years, but today is the 101st guest on the show that I have had the privilege of being able to interview, which means that, thanks to your support and your dedication to this particular podcast, we have been able to continue and continue inviting guests and that this podcast continues to grow. So, as usual, I want to take a moment to thank you and thank you so much for being here today and joining me. The second reason is because today's episode is quite special. Perhaps I've shared this with you before, but when I was seeking training program to adopt and train our in-house bilingual staff in the school district that were performing the duties of an interpreter, I chose a program that was entitled the Community Interpreter and in it there was a topic that fascinated me and the author of that section in that textbook of that program is joining us here today.

Speaker 2:

She is none other than Dr Garcia Bayert. Dr Garcia Bayert is a professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, where she researches and teaches interpreting to graduate and undergraduate students. She is one of the authors of the reference book the Community Interpreter, an international textbook, and has published multiple research papers in academic journals. She is the founder of Arcos Institute, which offers credit-granting, high-quality professional development opportunities for interpreters, online and in person. Her passion for this field was sparked 25 years ago, first as a conference interpreter, then as a scholar interested in advancing the community interpreting profession. For that, she conducted her doctoral research in the field of public policy. She has had the opportunity to learn from and contribute to this field through extended stays in Canada, the United States and Spain and shorter visits in Belgium, france and Switzerland.

Speaker 2:

She is always interested in learning more and from more regions, and today she joins the incredible list of guests on Brandy Interpreter and delves into the behind-the-scenes of her work, regarding a term she coined, communicative autonomy, offering us a refreshing perspective on the profession. She also shares her thoughts on the need for clarity and distinction in the academic field of interpreting, and so much more. So stay tuned and enjoy this wonderful and enriching episode. So, without further ado I can't believe I'm saying this Please welcome Dr Sophia Garcia-Beyart to the show. Dr Sophia Garcia-Beyart, it is such an honor and such a privilege to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 3:

You are very welcome. Thank you for the invitation and I'm very looking forward to this conversation.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my goodness, I'm okay girl fanning back here, but also just very much looking forward to today's conversation as well. I know how precious your time is with everything that you have going on and the fact that you squeezed in some time to allow for me and for our audience to be able to listen to your story. I just know that I am definitely grateful and appreciative of your time.

Speaker 3:

Thank you. I will not lie, life feels very hectic lately, but this is very important and again, I'm grateful that you're creating this space for all of us. So in any way I can contribute, I will be happy to.

Speaker 2:

Yes, wonderful. Thank you, I am so excited to get started. Just for clarification purposes, before we begin, I will be addressing, with all due respect, dr Sophia Garcia-Beyart as Dr Sophia, is that okay, dr Sophia?

Speaker 3:

I go by Sophia my life generally, but Dr Sophia is some space.

Speaker 2:

Yes, Thank you, Dr Sophia. Then it's a good compromise, right? So let's get started. Question number one that I always like to ask my guests here on the show has to do with your childhood. So if you would be so kind as to taking us back into your childhood and talk to us a little bit about where you grew up and potentially even sharing with us what a fond childhood memory of yours is.

Speaker 3:

Sure, I'll share a fond childhood memory and we are starting with a complex question. Already. I always say, you know, that what should be an easy question is a little complicated for me. Where are you from? Where did you grow up? Oh, multiple places.

Speaker 3:

I am half Spanish, half Belgian, so I spent a lot of time in Belgium, but I grew up mainly in Spain, but in different places in Spain as well.

Speaker 3:

So, and you know, it might be related to what ended up being my professional interest and career, so it's a little bit related, but the memory I'll share regarding, you know, a fond memory, childhood memory, I think I envision myself on my bike in Belgium, in the countryside where my grandparents lived.

Speaker 3:

I didn't have a lot of opportunities to interact with people there because my Belgian family is a French speaking family, but my grandparents retired in a Flemish speaking region of Belgium. So you know, French was already my, it was my mother tongue, but also my second language. So when I spent summers there for an entire month, month and a half, I had to find ways to entertain myself, and when I got my first bike, it was really fun to explore the countryside and find new places and new little paths every time and going through the woods and I had this sense of freedom and excitement for what was the legs little corner I was going to find and you know would discover a new little pond with ducks or a new little way of getting to this known pond. That took me through woods and you know, if I went back now it would probably be tiny and easy to cover in half a morning, but at the time it felt exciting.

Speaker 2:

That's so funny. You say that because I recall always thinking about my little trajectory from home to school and I always thought how was I walking for so long at such a young age? Right, I was worried for myself, and then one day, as an adult, we drove by Doctor. It was such a short distance, it wasn't even as long as I supposedly remembered it. So right now that you say that it's actually very true because I lived it, so that's so funny. What a beautiful memory. Thanks for sharing that.

Speaker 3:

It's funny also how perception changes right and something to always bear in mind as interpreters. Maybe we can talk about that later.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a good one. You mentioned French as being a language that was spoken in the home. How many languages were spoken, or how many languages, at least during your childhood, did you come across?

Speaker 3:

So I grew up speaking French and Spanish, but I was exposed to Dutch, the Belgian version, flemish and a version of Catalan, which is Valenciano, which is my grandparents on my dad's side. That's their language, so I never spoke it growing up, but I was exposed to it when we would visit them and that's what my cousins speak. And so four different languages in their complexities, each of them write versions of other languages, also Belgian French being different from the French that I learned at school, since I went to a French school, and so all of those subtleties, differences and trying to figure out where you fit in in that language landscape was very much of my experience growing up.

Speaker 2:

Wow, yes, how beautiful being exposed to the different languages, to the different cultural practices, all within a familiar setting which is within your family cluster. And I know that as kids we don't appreciate it as much as we do potentially later on in life, especially if it comes into play in our professional setting. When did English come into the picture?

Speaker 3:

I learned it at school, mainly high school, I mean, we had an introduction to it in middle school, I guess. But you know how it goes.

Speaker 3:

It's more like getting exposed to different sounds rather than actually being able to express a full message at middle school level. But in high school I became very interested in it. I just loved languages. It wasn't my easiest one to learn. It didn't come naturally. Pronunciation was super hard, I remember. But I enjoyed it very much and so I kept working at it. And then I had opportunities to live in the UK and Canada, and the US is where I spent the most time in an English speaking country, and so now I'm very happy to be fluent in this language.

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely. You had mentioned a love for languages and we can get a feel or a sense of how that even came to be for you. Potentially Did this love or this passion influence your academic pursuits once you were in that career path mentality.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you're always asked you know what you want to do when you grew up and I cannot say I said I want to be an interpreter. That came later and I did fall in love with interpreting activity when I had a chance to experience it. But I was not the kind of person growing up who knew exactly what they wanted to do. I had so many different interests. Probably the answer would change from day to day and I'm not sure interpreting or translation ever was in that list. But then, you know, a variety of factors and circumstances took me to the point of doing the conference interpreting specialization in my later years of my undergrad in Granada and yeah, I really enjoyed it. I fell in love with simultaneous interpreting. It just was very enjoyable, which you know sounds I don't know. Most people would think it's a big challenge and very difficult, but somehow it came. It was challenging I'm not going to say it wasn't, but it was a fun challenge.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So what marked your interest in that specific specialization? Was it someone you saw, potentially a professional that was out in the field, or something you saw? Did someone share with you their experience? Or maybe you recommended the program?

Speaker 3:

I think it was the cool thing to do when you were in translation studies. So in Europe, translation studies or in Spain in different countries in Europe it has it takes different shapes, but in Spain, translation studies is an undergrad degree and I ended up in that degree. I had considered many other things, from public relations to psychology and to economics, to all sorts of things, and decided in the end of translation and interpreting studies and you don't have an opportunity to interpreting until the second part of your degree when you're doing it. But I knew that was the cool thing I wanted to do. Why did I think it was cool? Because it was interactive and because you had challenges come up constantly, right, and I liked the challenging part of it. And I also did not like the idea of translating and being in front of my computer, or I think I'm more orally inclined than textually written. Hormones is less my thing, I think, although ironically now I write a lot you just never know.

Speaker 1:

But yeah.

Speaker 3:

I sorry I don't have simple answers. I did not do interpreting and I loved it, but it's not like I have a person that, oh, I want to be like them. It was more like, oh, this is what we do in this school. This really seems interesting to me. I want to go try it out and, oh, it's really hard. I want to keep working on it, to master it to the extent possible.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, to improve, to master it right. I can see why this would be of such interest. I do make the same connection when you identify that this is fun yet challenging, which of course creates this new realization that this particular profession is more than just knowing another language right or having fluency. It's about learning new techniques and problem solving and of course that just makes it that much more interesting. When did you begin applying your studies into the real world Meaning? When did you start your work professionally? Did you begin as a freelancer, or what was that experience like for you?

Speaker 3:

So right after I finished my degree, I had the opportunity to work immediately as a conference interpreter, which I remember, as you know very anxiety-producing experiences, but also such satisfaction at the end of the day when you realized, oh, I made it my goodness Because it's challenging, but it's also it feels even more challenging when you have been trained to achieve high quality and have been warned against everything that could go wrong. Yes, you know there's good and bad about that approach. You know you want to maintain the standards of the profession very high, but also, if it's going to be, if it's going to generate fear, then maybe it doesn't work. But somehow, you know, I got over it and I had good first experiences. And then I also had good opportunities to continue working, even though I was a newer interpreter, because I had a good language combination for the time and the place I was living in and that gave me the opportunity to want to continue developing my language skills in that language combination that was English-French.

Speaker 3:

In Southern Spain that was hosting a lot of Euro-Mediterranean meetings for countries around the Mediterranean that spoke different languages but for which English-French were the lingua francaz, and I had those languages. But working as a conference interpreter with languages that are not your mother tongue is not easy and it's even frowned upon. So, you know, french could be considered my mother tongue, but you know, I figured I need to really have very strong English skills if I want to continue with this. So those were my first experiences as an interpreter. It was conference interpreting, and very soon after I took a different route. That's what I do. That's what I do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, it's a great example, I think, of when preparation meets opportunity. So you did the schooling piece, and then it just so happened that where you lived, there were all these conferences that were taking place, that which you could leverage right. Take advantage of the fact that, hey, I just had this training and those are the languages. Let me put this into practice. What ended up happening? That you switched directions, though.

Speaker 3:

Well, I love to travel, I love to experience different cultures and I had the perfect excuse I need to have experience in a different English speaking country to come back and be even better interpreter with French and English. So I found opportunities to spend time in the US. I went to Los Angeles as a teaching assistant at Occidental College and while I was there I thought I cannot leave interpreting behind. I was the TA in the Spanish studies or Spanish department and I was teaching Spanish, doing Spanish, conversational Spanish or something like that, and I thought I cannot lose touch of interpreting. And I got in touch with a local organization that did advocacy for interpreting in healthcare and I was fascinated by the field and that's where there was a before and after and now community interpreting, healthcare interpreting, public service interpreting. With my new interest, Okay.

Speaker 2:

So I have to ask because there is in the interpreting profession you know we look at the different specializations you have the conference interpreters, which for many of us potentially we could look at. As you know, that's that very, not to say or minimize, the training that community interpreters go through is not intense, but you know the requirements are very different for conference interpreting. But of course we also know that the industry, the profession interpreting is interpreting right. And so if you look at the specializations or you know the different areas, what did you find from conference interpreting to community interpreting that were potentially those common areas, right, those areas of intersection that you felt, hey, I could bring some of this training into this specialization, if any.

Speaker 3:

I very much agree that interpreting is interpreting. I think Holly Nicholson was, if not the first one, the first one I read this sentence from on one of her publications and I quoted that before and I think I'm quoting it in a paper I'm working on that's that's going to be published soon. Maybe at the time I knew that instinctively. But it's not the commonalities among interpreting that made me want to continue with community interpreting. It's actually the drastic difference between the two fields, the level of professionalization in both fields and thinking they're both equally important. Why is one of them underdeveloped and the other one so looked up to and so developed? I want to understand this better and I want to know which piece I can contribute to lessening that difference.

Speaker 3:

And that took me to. I couldn't stay in the US. I would have liked to at the time, and so I was thinking about what do I want to go? And I go back after this year as an exchange student. I'm going back to Spain. What do I want to do? And so I thought I want to understand the systemic aspects of this and I went into a master's program. The master's program was social sciences and political sciences, so you learn the techniques to research issues in that realm, and then I specialized in public policy and within public policy, I was always obsessed with what are the systemic changes? We need to bring this to the attention of public policy, because this is clearly a matter of public concern, so we need to understand what's going on here.

Speaker 2:

And so it sounds like the seed of curiosity was planted for you, dr Sophia, in creating or at least beginning your research in systemic changes for what you just called a matter of public concern. And the nerd in me can help but just feel inspired just by listening to how your trajectory in the field was born. We often talk about that here in this podcast, about how we want to pursue those things that interest us, of focusing on finding solutions to the problems that we identify and, of course, of being inspired by hearing the stories of others and their experiences and trajectories, just like I am currently experiencing, and I'm hoping that those that are listening right now are experiencing as well.

Speaker 3:

If I may, just speaking of inspiration, it was the fact that I could see everything that had been done by this nonprofit organization, the fact that I understood that it came from policies at the federal level, that there was a grounding for initiatives to develop because there was legislation that supported that, fed, that created spaces for people to take initiatives in very locally identified needs.

Speaker 3:

Just realizing how much the profession had advanced thanks to many people's efforts in the US was an inspiration to go back to Spain and sort of analyze what are the similarities, what are the differences? Why are we so far behind? Well, for one, because our multiculturalism and our history with immigration is a very different one and the needs were getting started in the 90s for us, versus the needs were far established in North America, and by the 90s everybody was not everybody, but there were initiatives that were establishing the profession here and for us we were just getting started with diversity. So it took us much longer to identify the needs. But it was inspiration. It's looking at what's being done somewhere else and looking at what other people are doing and understanding what the different pieces are, to see what shape of a piece you can contribute, and that was definitely part of it, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yes, but we have to admit that it also takes a certain kind of individual to be able to look at things from an eagles view, or to use the terminology you often utilize in your articles, dr Sophia, being able to see things from a macro level and, in addition to that, being able to see how that affects the micro level.

Speaker 2:

So you had a vision, the bird's eye view, and identified that these situations were often affected by federal policies, for instance, so up at the top, and how that trickled down and made its way to community settings or, in your case, as you are experiencing, as a healthcare interpreter thanks to the experience with this nonprofit organization.

Speaker 2:

So I just have an appreciation for individuals that are able to see the big picture and how that connects down to, you know, the micro level setting. So individuals such as ourselves that are out in the field doing the work, because sometimes as an individual, we realize or understand that there is a problem and potentially it feels like the issue is bigger than us and that we are too small potentially to be able to propose a solution or be a part of a solution, or we simply fail to recognize how we can be a part of the solution and in your case, of course, you know, you're seeing the differences and seeing a lot of the similarities in the field when it comes to this particular specialization which, by the way, we here in the States refer to it as community interpreting, but out in Europe it is referred to as something different.

Speaker 3:

We refer to it as public service interpreting, which is fascinating in and of itself because it tells a lot about the institutional settings, or the institutional context, I should say, and in which the activity takes place. Right, yeah, you know, I've started using an umbrella term because I really want to encompass both realities and I think if we talk about interpreting in public services and community settings, it really is what we're talking about. Sometimes it happens in public services in the US, in Canada, in Spain, in other European countries, and sometimes it happens in community settings in the US, in Canada, in other European countries, in Spain. So I think neither of those are completely accurate and it's more all of it. All of it exactly.

Speaker 2:

No, I completely agree. I think that, especially for understanding the complexities in the different settings, you know, we do have to be inclusive of the different titles, I suppose, just so that we can get a broader understanding, but anyway, so if we do refer to it as community interpreting and if you're listening out, in European countries, we are also speaking about public service interpreting, of course, focusing more on this side of the world only because that's where we're, that's where we're currently in, physically right, that's where we're currently in. So let's go back, then, to actually this particular new venture of yours, because it ultimately led you to what the theme of today's conversation is going to be, and I won't mention it just yet just to keep you guys super interested still in this conversation. But let's talk about this transition.

Speaker 2:

So I know that there have been many times, at least in my experience, where I am learning something in, you know, the academic world and I cannot wait to apply it in the real world. Or if I'm, you know, with an organization, how can I apply this into the real world? What was it like for you once you started this new journey, or this new discipline, academic discipline and trying to see how you were going to be able to make that transition into actually applying some of these things. What were those things you were just so excited about? Do you recall?

Speaker 3:

You know I remember how difficult it was to convey the relevance that I was so passionate about in circles that have not experienced the need for translation and interpreting services activities.

Speaker 3:

You know, there I was in a program for political science or public policy for my doctoral studies and everybody came from those fields and I didn't, and I was just so adamant to see you know what are the tools I can learn to apply to this field of interest of mine. And also, can you not see how important this is? And it took me a long time to understand how to speak about it so that people could relate to why I was so passionate about it. And it's not that I found specific terms or just that when we say interpreting or language access, so much is encapsulated in it for us who are in this field, and it was fascinating to realize that it was sort of opaque for those who are not in this field, at least in Spain at that time. So that was a big learning point for me, realizing, oh, I'm going to have to be smart about how I talk about this so that people understand why this is important.

Speaker 2:

So what were those tools or strategies that you identified to support you in being able to convey your message to individuals that perhaps were hearing about this topic for the first time or, as you say, did not relate necessarily to it because of lack of understanding or knowledge about it? And I ask specifically for the people that are out in working in entities on their own potentially I have them in mind that are trying to convey the importance of this topic or the creation of specific policies or structures and, speaking to individuals that may not necessarily understand the importance of language access and creating systems or processes or policies in support of these services, Do you recall?

Speaker 3:

So I think you do recall, and it became the center of my research, in fact, to a certain degree, and I used the terminology or the tools the analytical tools, I would say of public policy analysis. And in public policy they talk about problem definition and about agenda setting and how problem definition has an impact on whether an issue makes it to the political agenda or not. So you know, I started reading about that, understanding how that works and problem definition for this very real social matter of public concern became the focus of my dissertation. And how do we define what we're actually talking about so that it becomes relevant for those who are not in the profession or who are not facing the need and who are at decision making levels? How do we talk about it strategically so that it can compel those who are in positions to make important decisions?

Speaker 2:

What is the title to that dissertation? Is it publicly available?

Speaker 3:

It is publicly available and I need to think about what the title is.

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay, so here's what we're going to do. So that we don't put Dr Sofia in the spot at the moment, I will include the link to that dissertation because I think many of us could absolutely put this into use in some of our organizations, if anything, at least to have a mental note of some of these approaches and be able to apply them, because, as I've shared before, I mean the solutions are always there. It's trying to centralize the resources in a place in which they're easily accessible, so now that you know about it, you can go and look for it. So go find the link in the episode notes and we promise to include it there for quick access for you. Dr, you mentioned earlier that the strategies you employed to make this topic relatable to others that are unfamiliar with it or were unfamiliar with it became the central focus of your dissertation. Would you care to share more about this particular experience?

Speaker 2:

The Orange County Department of Education is proud to host their seventh annual Interpreters and Translators Conference September 29th and 30th at the Hilton Orange County Costa Mesa in Costa Mesa, california. This conference promotes the incredible work of interpreters and translators. Bilingual persons and staff tasked with providing language access in schools and in the community Know your path. Each step matters. To ensure language access is this year's theme and main focus. Conference sessions and engagements will respond to the core belief that language access is a foundational part of an inclusive and culturally responsive educational ecosystem. Participants will delve into unique opportunities to acquire and refine their skills, learn tips and strategies to enhance their professional practices, keep up to date with the latest trends, laws and expectations, and explore the use of diverse platforms and tools that can streamline their language service efforts.

Speaker 2:

Language access is a priority in public education and, as interpreters and translators working in the K-12 system are more visible than ever, becoming a substantial part of every educational encounter, it is imperative to professionalize the field through continuous improvement, training, growth and networking. The Orange County Department of Education Language Services team is at the forefront of providing these professional learning opportunities and experiences for its interpreters, translators, bilingual staff, school administrators and community liaisons, and is committed to communicating across cultures to provide meaningful language access to their families, students and the communities they serve. Join them this fall at the 2023 interpreters and translators conference to continue your professional learning and networking. Registration is now open. So head on over to the episode notes to find out more about the interpreters and translators conference hosted by the Orange County Department of Education's Language Services division, taking place September 29th and 30th. Hope to see you there.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I mentioned before right that there was a spark of inspiration when I had that experience at a nonprofit organization in Los Angeles they worked for Orange County and I have such fond memories and if anybody who is in any way related to that organization or anybody I met at that time is listening, I just want to take the opportunity to say hi, it was a very little moment for me, so very grateful to them. But, yeah, so that was an inspiration and then, as I was doing my doctoral studies, I looked for more inspirations and also more opportunities to live in yet another country. So I ended up doing my field work in Ontario, canada. I was a visiting scholar at the University of Toronto and I was just fascinated by the societal setup in Ontario. It's a multicultural it's. You know, canada has a very different approach to multiculturalism in that it's embraced actively as a public policy approach and Ontario has more than one official language.

Speaker 3:

In Toronto at the time had more than 180 language. So that made it for a very interesting case study and I was fascinated to learn what things were like over there and to use that as a source of data and information to develop concepts and ideas on what would be an effective problem definition for what we refer to casually as what community interpreters do. Right, but like what is it and and and how do we talk about it outside of our circles? But then the US was still a. Even though I wasn't living in the US, I wasn't doing field work in the US, it was, it was still a source of inspiration. I remember taking the opportunity of one of my visits to go down to Maryland and take the licensing training for the community interpreter with cross cultural communications and that started another leg of my adventures in this field. That was incredibly enriching.

Speaker 2:

Wow, it's so interesting at times when you hear the stories of others and realize it's a small world after all. I'm actually very familiar with the community interpreter program, both as a participant and as a licensed trainer, and so that was that training program, actually, that I presented to the school district that I used to work for as the curriculum to train their educational bilingual staff. So it's just fascinating to hear how your experiences led you to this program and then you ended up as a co author of what became, for me at least, one of the most significant parts of the program's textbook. So talk to us a little bit about this part of your story.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's endearing to remember because I took this bus from New York. I think we had taken a bus to New York with a friend and I got to Maryland in the most unexpected ways. Even you know how how transportation works here. It's completely different. So I had completely different expectations and I remember getting lost from the hotel to the training facility and being completely late and feeling so terrible and so out of place, so small, and to think that if you were to tell that person on that particular day that she would be given the great honor to contribute some content to the training, she would not have believed it for a second. Yeah, after I took the training, I was very impressed myself. I could see incredible differences.

Speaker 3:

At that point I had already joined my research group in Spain. I had taught at the master's program in integral communication and I was very aware of the differences in how interpreting was taught, because of which fields of interpreting were more prominent in either side of the ocean right conference interpreting in Europe, community interpreting in the US. So the core of the trainings focused on different dimensions of the skills and interpreter needs, and that was fascinating to me. Yeah, so I wanted to bring some of that to my situation in Spain, universitat autónoma Barcelona, and I invited Marjorie. I shared with my research group and I asked the principal investigator would it be okay to invite her? What you think about it?

Speaker 3:

And it was exactly the right time.

Speaker 3:

It was the time when we were welcoming new ideas and so we invited Marjorie bankraft to come in and and provide training for us and so that we could talk about the different approaches and she could present the community interpreter as a program.

Speaker 3:

And we're having lunch or coffee or I don't remember, but Marjorie approaches me and she says you know, we would love it if you could contribute some of your ideas to the community interpreting program and we're going to be writing a new textbook for it and so would you like to participate? And I'm just so excited and so honored and thinking, wow, yeah, what a great opportunity. And what I'm envisioning is like I will send her a couple of paragraphs of a couple of my ideas. You know we collaborated for three years I think it was three years. It was years of intense collaboration with an amazing team of authors that brought incredible expertise and diversity of opinions, and just it was such a learning part of my journey in of getting deep into this field of community interpreting, and that happened at the same time as I was trying to write my dissertation and it did extend the time I took to write my dissertation.

Speaker 2:

Because in reality, it turned out to be not just a few paragraphs of contribution. What ended up happening is you end up coining a term, which we're going to get into now, and not just coining a term, but creating. You became, for me at least, that pebble that created the ripple effect, and you tasked yourself with quite a task, and that was and I quote here you tasked yourself to quote capture the essence of the interpreter's contribution in community settings. And then I repeat that again because it was so powerful when I read this you tasked yourself to capture the essence of the interpreter's contribution in community settings. Share with us your inspiration behind this particular work, dr Sofia, and walk us through this journey, because it's huge.

Speaker 3:

You don't wake up one morning with that idea, and I've actually already been talking about how it came about. In a way, it's similar to what I was doing with my dissertation. It's like how do we talk about what we're actually doing? And I was fortunate enough to be working on it. Well, it was fortunate and a challenge to be working on it, both for my dissertation, which was dealing with what's happening at the societal level, what's happening with the structures, what are the tools, what are the spaces to voice this issue at the institutional level. And then I was also looking at what is the essence for the profession, because as a group, we decided that we wanted to develop a code of ethics and standards of practice. That would be useful, that would be one of the teaching tools.

Speaker 3:

So when you, I think none of us knew how big a task that would be. I mean, we all knew it was going to be big, but we didn't know how big it would be. And somehow this fascinated me and I just became my perfectionist, wanting to exhaust all the angles which comes up once in a while, and because it was informed by what I was doing at the micro level and the micro level, and I think that was helpful to understand. We just need to get to a point where that essence is understanding that problem, or what is the problem that we're trying to solve and you need to distill it to the minimum expression so that you can use it as a source to build everything else upon. So I got to that point without really trying to I didn't task myself with it. I found myself there, I was riding my bike through woods and the woods got really dark and eventually I found a beautiful tree that had light on it. Yeah, just like your child's work, this analogy work, maybe not no absolutely.

Speaker 2:

It's like your childhood memory, I think. Right, you're riding on your bike and coming up with all kinds of different new things that you're discovering and trying to find out what's the next thing, what lies behind those trees, what lies behind that pond that you came across. So it's a beautiful analogy because actually it feels like that is the world of discovery once you start on that journey, and what ends up happening is you end up creating something that we talk about and perhaps you can help guide us through understanding this a bit further. For those that are listening and may not be relating to the micro and macro levels of this topic, what ends up happening is you create something that is understood on both levels. So it's a neutral understanding. It has this bigger essence to it which can be applied to the systemic approach, the organizational approaches, but then it's also understood at the micro level, the individual. So when I talk about reading this text, but going through the training and finding my essence, not just as an individual but as a professional, and what I am able to contribute at the time for the organization, I was able to identify as a person, never mind the profession, and as a professional, as one person, with what you coined communicative autonomy as being my essence of the work that I do in the community, which, as Daniel Meter if you're listening, daniel which I know you probably will be very, very likely one of your big fans.

Speaker 2:

By the way, she spoke about you and your work in a previous episode that was here. She's an ASL interpreter, an interpreter trainer and what I've called, or what I call, a brand ambassador of your. You know the term and the practice of communicative autonomy. She says we wanted to go beyond this facilitating communication, which sounds so simplistic, you know, for most of us, we knew that there was more to our work than that, and so when individuals such as Daniel Meter and myself, and I'm sure many, many others, come across this term, communicative autonomy, we're like this is the holy grail, this is what gives us meaning to the work that we do, because there's so much more involved, and I'd like to give you now the opportunity to help us understand you know, the micro and macro levels of what we're talking about here, the impact, I should say, in both of these levels and, of course, helping us understand what is communicative autonomy from the mouth of the person that coined the term.

Speaker 3:

Well, okay, so maybe I'll start by reading the definition that was reached after group discussion, right, because this was the result of teamwork, as I mentioned, when we did this textbook, we met so often and we all impacted each other's way of thinking of the content that we were creating. And the definition for communicative autonomy that we landed on, I will read, is the capacity of each party in an encounter to be responsible for and in control of his or her own communication. What this is trying to say is, when the interpreter is called to provide a service, the interpreter's mandate is to help people own their own communicative process, and for that the parties that are involved in that encounter need to have their own voice, and because of the language barrier, that's a challenge. So when they send messages, if the interpreter is people who love conveying those messages accurately, reliably, then the interpreter is supporting communicative autonomy. But there's also the other side. When the interpreter is making sure that the messages that are directed or expressed in the room directed to that party or expressed in the room are also conveyed, then you can truly be an owner of your communicative process. So supporting communicative autonomy is facilitated in communication, but facilitating communication could also mean having a part in that communication.

Speaker 3:

Oh, let me explain. You just misunderstood. This is what they meant. That is not supporting communicative autonomy. So in that way I wanted to find a way to express this in a more precise way. And some people will not agree with the fact that communicative autonomy is the special contribution of the community interpreting profession, but for those of us who do agree, I think it helps to have a way of naming it that is unequivocal.

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely. And two things here. With that Number one, I am a product of what communicative autonomy can do for the professional and have been able to see once I understood this as my objective, as my essence as a trained interpreter what it can do for the individuals that I am supporting or that I am servicing. So I want you to know that you're seeing firsthand a product of all that work that you're putting together as a teamwork. And another thing is with relation to being able to see the results or the fruit of that objective is the participation dynamic and that dynamic of communication, how that change, how powerful this is once we know what our objective is.

Speaker 2:

And I'm going to quote the American author, daniel H Pinkier, when it comes to autonomy, because I feel like you know, we're going to talk about a little bit further, of course, but he says control leads to compliance, autonomy leads to engagement, and engagement for me is what I saw with the families that I serviced is engaging in that conversation as an active contributor to the dialogue, as opposed to someone that's sitting on the side and just listening to what is being given to them or what they're being told. So let's dive a little deeper if you will doctor into communicative autonomy, what you found out, what you were discovering, and, of course, this is the reason why perhaps not only reason, but why a textbook of this magnitude can take up to three years to develop right. So let's dive into, if you will, what other things are important about communicative autonomy for interpreters working in community settings.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, first of all, I love how you related that quote with what you experienced and what you saw. And that's the idea, right, quite, always be aware, but sometimes and just maybe not live enough to express your でした. Every situation is different and we always need to take things on a case-by-case basis in interpreting. I will talk about it too. But it is often the case that when we allow for this exchange to happen in as direct as possible away between the parties, then their relationship is going to be different than if we behave as liaisons that have more of an imprint on the co-constructed communicative situation. So, yeah, this engagement comes from. Oh, I have agency, I am present here and I'm seen there is a language barrier, but it's being lifted and I have access to the other party and the other party has access to me because that barrier is lifted. So that's the idea behind communicative autonomy. Yeah, so I mentioned before that founding. The essence was both relevant at the institutional level and so macro and the micro level, and as we were looking at codes of ethics or looking into creating a training tool that would serve as a reference for guidelines, right Guidelines for ethics and standards for community settings in general, I looked for inspiration in codes of ethics of other professions. So I looked for codes of ethics of helping professions like therapists, nurses, social workers, and in that process I realized, okay, we are also a helping profession. We're a different helping profession. What makes us different? So that question was also answered by looking at what is the special contribution that the interpreter brings, what is the special value of community interpreting in society? Every profession contributes to a wider web of services and we are a profession that has its very own contribution. What is it? And I think that very often interpreters find themselves in situations where it's really difficult to make decisions because it becomes very confusing very fast. And I was getting very confused myself as I was reviewing codes of ethics and standards of practice within our profession that existed, that were issued by institutions around the world.

Speaker 3:

Sometimes advocacy was not only allowed but also a part of the definition of the role, and always impartiality was a part of the definition of the role. And that seemed like an inherent contradiction and I wanted to untangle that. And to be able to untangle that, I needed to know what it is that we're doing and how do we justify advocacy or how do we not justify advocacy. So in that way I feel like because that was the source looking at conceptual entanglement what is the source of looking for conceptual clarity. So I think that having clarity on what it is that you're bringing to the table provides you empowerment. It helps you understand where your agency is needed and where your agency is not only legitimate but part of your responsibility.

Speaker 3:

If you are stepping into muddy waters of what am I allowed to say, not say where do I have a voice and where not, then it's really hard to make decisions. But if you know exactly why you're there and what is it that your profession exists for, then you know how to defend your decisions when you're there to support what your profession is there to support. Maybe this sounds very conceptual, but if I face an ethical dilemma or if I face a situation where I'm being challenged by a provider because they don't allow me to finish messages when I'm trying to convey them, I'm able to tap into my professional authority in the realm that belongs to my professional authority. But if supporting communicative autonomy is part of my professional authority, then I am going to make it happen. I'm going to intervene at that point to say I need to finish my messages.

Speaker 3:

Or maybe in another situation, the provider is asking the interpreter to do something that is out of the scope of their role, and saying no is very uncomfortable, but when you have certainty of why you're saying no, it's a little easier to do that.

Speaker 3:

If you understand that the limitations in your role are actually enhancing the value that you're bringing to the table, then you feel more confident about bringing the news that it's going to be a no and you feel probably more at ease finding reasons to justify that answer. So you know it's the enhancement and it's also the limitation. It comes with limitation. Understanding that supporting communicative autonomy is the reason you're there comes with the understanding that you are limited, that if you go beyond certain activities, beyond conveying messages or intervening to be able to convey messages as efficiently and accurately as possible, then you know that you're going to run into issues with impartiality, transparency and all of these ethical tenets that are there in order to support communicative autonomy. So you use the term glue. I think that's how I thought about it too. I was looking for the perfect glue as we were working on this code of ethics.

Speaker 2:

So wonderful, yes, and so there you have it. Limitations not necessarily always falling on that, the negative connotation. It could absolutely be a positive thing, at least in this context. Right, it could absolutely help us in our role and professional authority.

Speaker 2:

There's another term for you guys having that feeling of empowerment.

Speaker 2:

I know that it's often potentially thought of as probably egotistical, but if we look at it in the way of being able to feel the confidence in our roles, of making those decisions, I think that is the greatest of the empowerment feeling is knowing that everyone is in control of their own communication, including yourself, when needing to step in which I feel like it definitely is for community interpreters, at least in my experience, a piece of the puzzle that is missing Understanding our true essence, which, again I go back to saying, I feel that communicative autonomy the term encapsulates the essence, the true essence of the role of the interpreter, but also being able to immediately see the return of investment, meaning being able to see what it actually does for the service users.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I can go on and on about how we can actually see the results immediately and what it does for us, for ourselves, but I'd like to now go back to you, dr, and talk a little bit about what has happened, the aftermath of your contribution, of course. Now you're hearing firsthand what some of the results have been. I'm a product and, like me, there are many, many, many others out there in the field now that, thanks to your work, have been able to find purpose in their professional settings. But what has happened, what has been the aftermath, and what are you currently working on, potentially?

Speaker 3:

Oh, first, of all, I think the best reward is to know that your hard work is going somewhere and if only to know that it's helped you with your interpreting and you've seen the effects on real families. It makes me super happy, and I'm always surprised to hear this. I think that maybe my co-authors for the textbook have been giving me more publicity than I'm aware of, and every time I'm in the US and I hear about these things, I'm like I'm genuinely surprised and very pleased to hear that I no longer live in the US. I live in Barcelona now, where I'm teaching at UAB, which I mentioned before, universidad Autónoma Barcelona.

Speaker 3:

I'm a professor at the School of Translation and Interpreting Studies and so I get to work on this every day, either by teaching, which I love, or doing research in community interpreting or public service interpreting, and what we are going to be working on next with my research group, miras, which stands for Mediación, interpretación Reserta en el Ambiente Social, so intercultural mediation and research in the social fields areas.

Speaker 3:

We got some funding to develop a research project in the field of medical interpreting, and it's a bigger team and we will each be able to focus on a different branch, and I'm looking forward to researching the perceptions of providers and decision makers regarding the different opportunities, the different tools that are at hand to overcome the language barrier. You know, not just the interpreter, the community interpreter or public service interpreter, but also the intercultural mediator, which is a different role, and even software tools and artificial intelligence and all of the resources that are being used actually in the medical field in different places, and we're going to be looking at that in Barcelona. So that will be a new avenue of research for us.

Speaker 2:

Amazing. Yes, so it's. You continue teaching, you continue researching and, of course, you continue contributing, because I know that you continue to write pieces and putting them out there. All you have to do is do a quick search for Dr Sofia Garcia Bayer and you'll see all the contributions that she has given to our profession. If you could give someone advice that is just starting in this field, that maybe potentially feels a little lost in what they can possibly contribute to the profession, what recommendation or advice would you would you give them?

Speaker 3:

Well, they would probably know this already, but they've chosen a beautiful profession and a profession that is full of rewards, a very human activity. You know, I think communication is the essence of what defines a human. Probably and we will see this more and more with the emergence of artificial intelligence Well, this is a whole other topic that we won't get into. I'm not, I'm not a specialist, but my, my instinct tell me that probably communication and intercultural communication might be the last bastion to be conquered by artificial intelligence, and hopefully never will. We'll see, at any rate, for new interpreters, don't ever give up your professional development.

Speaker 3:

It is so rewarding. If you maintain this curiosity, this desire to learn, this desire to keep improving, you will get the rewards, because you will see how it impacts your day to day work. And what I wish for all of us is that we very soon see those rewards also in the form of recognition of the profession, both by everybody knowing what it is that we do, but also by knowing that we will never have to struggle to get to the end of the month or that we will be comfortable like other professionals who work at similar levels of sophistication and complexity. They really get. We need that for our profession too. So the rewards are there and we need to find them everywhere they are, and probably the human aspect is is is what I would like Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, anything, dr Sophia, that you would perhaps like to see done differently in the interpreting field.

Speaker 3:

I something I would like to see change or or evolve differently in the academic field. This is a relatively new field of study and a lot of the studies are have been. There's a big variety, of course, but a lot of the studies are descriptive and exploratory and we haven't reached a point where we have clarity on how to define what's the background of the people that we are talking about, the people that are being part of the studies that we are reporting on through academic papers. And it makes a big difference whether we're talking about somebody who was trained as an intercultural mediator or somebody who was trained as an interpreter with the premise that something like communicative autonomy is their contribution, or somebody who was trained as an interpreter with the premise that they need to facilitate communication in a much broader understanding in that way, or sometimes not really clear on what it is that we are looking at. And we really need research and we need clear concepts and we need to know what it is that we're studying. And I think that will come with time and I think that every kind of mediating role has its value in the right context, but also we need to understand what kind of mediating role we're looking at. So the role of the introverts, and never ending discussion. I think we have the opportunity for much faster progress if we are able collectively to define basic understandings of what it is we're looking at. So that's one thing I would like to see in the future yeah, huge yeah.

Speaker 3:

And then and then also, you know, very often we finish academic papers talking about the limitations of our contributions, and one aspect of this way of defining the profession's contribution, anchored in this concept of communicative autonomy, is that autonomy is a cultural construct, and I just think that we need to problematize that. So, you know, we spent all this time talking about how it's helped me make sense of things, how I think it can help professionals make sense of things, and now I'm going to just deconstruct that for you at the very end and say you know, not every culture thinks that autonomy is the ultimate goal. So what does that mean? How does that have an impact on, you know, the intercultural reality that is being built when people from different backgrounds come together in new context, and I'm very aware of that being a potential limitation. It's something I haven't been able to explore. I might not be the right person to explore it either, but I think that it brings a whole new avenue for investigation.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. And discussion and further discussion and understanding that, how, how, how. Culture is absolutely embedded in these dynamics of communication. So they're not, they're not isolated topics right there. They're embedded at some point. There is these, there's these connections. And again, another topic of discussion that if, if you either lead it or are the researcher, we'd have to have you come back again and talk a little bit further about it.

Speaker 3:

You're in 20 years.

Speaker 1:

Great topics.

Speaker 2:

Well, dr Sophia Garcia Bayer, it has been an absolute honor and an absolute privilege to have had you here on the show to share some of your insights, to share your journey through this process and being able to, to contribute to the discussion in a way in which, potentially, we talked about it a lot on the show, on a on a level, on a macro level, that maybe you had not realized. I mentioned it you, your work, became the pebble and and the results of what's happening out there in the interpreting community, particularly in community interpreting, through my personal experience, is the ripple effect of that. Many years ago, when I first started in the profession, I knew that what I wanted to do, my contribution, was to be able to help others by means of being able to support them in their own communication. But I also knew that I wanted to go beyond that. I knew that I wanted to help others feel empowered, and I always thought that it was two separate components, that maybe it was my two personalities one wanted to help, you know, by direct help, by directly helping people, and the other one wanted to help them feel empowered about themselves.

Speaker 2:

And I always thought, maybe I'm supposed to be a coach when I grow up. But thanks to your work and your contribution and your research and you putting your work out there, I've come to realize that I'm exactly in the right place because through my work and through understanding the essence of my role and I've come to realize that I am actually helping empower others to be and say whatever it is that they want to say and be who they want to be, naturally regardless of the language barriers, and your work has contributed to that understanding doctors. So I just want to say thank you so very much for both your work and for sharing space here with us and sharing your story Beautiful.

Speaker 3:

And how humbling to thank you very much for sharing that. Thank you for this opportunity for this conversation. That has been an absolute pleasure for me to and see you out there in the field everybody.

Speaker 2:

What a fantastic conversation, would you agree? I feel so privileged and honored to be able to have this space to invite individuals such as Dr Garcia Bayard and every guest that has been on the show to have a one on one conversation with them, be able to pick their brains and simply find out more about them as individuals as well as professionals, and then have the privilege to turn around and share this resource freely with you. Today's conversation filled the nerd in me and has absolutely inspired me to go out and do more things that I have in mind. Remember that she left us with plenty of practical resources. I'll turn over to the episode notes to check them out. And hey, if you enjoyed this episode, remember to share it on social media and tag me. Or if you know of a colleague that would enjoy this episode, just hit that share button.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Mireya Pérez

Host