"Money talks, but sometimes it needs an interpreter," a contributor to The Economist once pointed out. As Taiwan readies itself for membership in the World Trade Organization, the role of the professional linguist is assuming ever greater importance.
Pocket-sized electronic dictionaries have been gaining increasing popularity in Taiwan. Some models not only show the translation on the screen but also "say" it, and a few of them can even handle whole sentences. Key in "The check, please," and a good electronic dictionary will utter the request in the local language, possibly in strangulated tones but nonetheless intelligibly.
At a time when interest in studying a foreign language has never been greater, the latest models are snapped up as soon as they appear on the shelves. For most users, these nifty little machines stand somewhere between a useful thing to have in your bag when traveling abroad and a quick study aid. But how does Taiwan serve those in need of more refined interpreta tion services, perhaps to clinch an important business deal or savor the nuances of a groundbreaking academic seminar?
Interpreters long ago succeeded in making themselves indispensable. They waited on kings receiving ambassadors, they accompanied emperors on foreign invasions. Missionaries did a lot for the profession. Ferdinant Verbiest (1623-1688), a Jesuit who was sent to China in the 1660s, learned Manchu during his stay and published the first Latin-Manchu grammar. In 1678, he interpreted for the Chinese side during negotiations with Russia, which led to China's first treaty with another country.
These early efforts were what are known today as consecutive interpretations, where the interpreter memorizes or take notes of what speakers say and then turns it into another language. The most common form of contemporary conference interpreting, simultaneous interpretation, is a much more modern phenomenon, one that owes its existence to the rapid development of audiotechnology. Simultaneous interpretation was first used at the Nuremberg war trials after World War II, since when it has become enormously popular, and professional interpreters in their glass-fronted booths are now regular features of international gatherings, where they are known to insiders as "think fish" who work in "aquariums."
But they came late to Taiwan. Jason Yeh, managing director of General Innovation Service, a local company that spe cializes in organizing conventions, can still recall their first appearance at the 1983 Junior Chambers of Commerce world conference in Taipei. "Most people had no idea what simultaneous interpretation was, and there were no training programs available in Taiwan," Yeh says. "The three interpreters we used had taught themselves by interpreting videotapes. They managed to get by, because not many Jaycee speakers used professional or technical terms."
For that conference, the organizers imported simultaneous-interpretation equipment, the first time this had ever been done in Taiwan. Hopes ran high, but on that occasion the expensive radio-based devices were a letdown. It was several years before things improved.
One of Yeh's most unpleasant experiences occurred at an important international convention held in Taipei in the early 1990s. As the convention organizer, he checked and double-checked everything to make sure it was working. But when the president of the ROC walked in the next morning, his security team's communications equipment jammed the system. "When all those foreign guests, wearing their earphones and expecting to hear what the president was saying, stared up at the interpreters with blank looks, I knew it was all over and there was nothing I could do about it," Yeh says. "In that moment, I learned that no matter how much manpower and money you throw at it, a multilingual meeting can so easily be wrecked."
Amateur interpreters and inadequate equipment were pretty much the norm in Taiwan until the late 1980s. In 1988, however, the China Productivity Center (CPC) started a six-month training program to nurture some local interpreting talent for the Taipei International Convention Center, which was scheduled to open the following year. (CPC is a quasi-govern ment, nonprofit organization, founded in 1955 to upgrade the island's local industries and the economy in general.) At around the same time, Fu Jen Catholic University founded its Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation Studies, Asia's first graduate program for Chinese-English interpretation and translation. Michelle Wu was one of Fu Jen's first three students. "Growing up in a diplomatic family, I was constantly faced with difficulties of communication, due to cultural and language barriers," she says. "I believed that by becoming an interpreter I could cut through the barriers and help people communi cate."
Other students signed up for a wide variety of reasons: they were attracted by media advertisements paid for by CPC and Fu Jen, they were tired of their old jobs, they were confident in their foreign language abilities, or they were after high pay and the chance to meet celebrities. Whatever their reasons, Taiwan's supply of interpreters slowly began to increase in the early 1990s. Two factors contributed to the improvement. Fu Jen graduate students and CPC trainees were winding up their courses and coming into the local market. And Taiwanese overseas students, some of whom were destined to have an impor tant impact on Taiwan's interpretation and translation scene, started to filter back from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. (See related story on page 20.)
English-Chinese interpreters were always in the majority. This is an area where Taiwan differs from most other countries. Elsewhere, "one-way interpretation" is common. It means that interpreters are required to master two foreign languages which they then translate into their mother tongue. In Taiwan, however, most interpreters master only two lan guages, one of which is Mandarin, their mother tongue, and the other English. This results in "two-way interpretation," which means that they translate the learned foreign language into Mandarin, and vice versa.
This can give rise to some interesting niche opportunities. Chris Findler, in his second year at National Taiwan Normal University's (NTNU's) graduate school, has been in Taiwan for sixteen years, pursuing his interest in Chinese language and culture. He earned a bachelor's degree from National Taiwan University's Department of History, then signed up with a local translation company where he worked for two years before enrolling with NTNU. It has been his experience that local translators do a better job of translating English into Chinese than the other way round. Since he has the advantage of being a native English speaker, Findler is looking forward to making a lucrative career out of filling the gap.
For the most part, local interpreters are now competent in English, Japanese, and Spanish. French and German are weak, both as regards the number of interpreters available and the quality of their work, necessitating the hire of professionals from abroad where these and other, less common, languages are involved.
When the first generation of formally trained interpreters entered the local market in the early 1990s, they found they were ahead of their clientele. Many enterprises refused to give them any preparatory materials. "They thought all they needed to do was to pay them and let them get on with it," Yeh says. "They didn't understand that the job was to help people communicate. The more advance information interpreters have, the better they do, and the more their clients benefit."
Facilities were also inadequate. Few designers of conference venues bothered to incorporate interpreters' booths into their layouts. If they did, the booths were often situated in the wrong place, depriving their occupants of the opportunity to see a speaker's gestures and facial expressions. In those days, some interpreters were even required to work in the back row of the conference hall instead of a booth.
But as Taiwan developed economically, the number of multilingual conferences began to increase, and demand inevita bly drove up supply. Basic interpretation courses, for long absent from any university syllabus, are now to be found in most foreign language departments, despite occasional grumblings that an undergraduate interpretation course should be treated as merely an adjunct to basic foreign language education. Every year, about a dozen Taiwanese students go abroad to the Monterey Institute of International Studies for specialist training; Chinese Culture University began providing courses simi lar to CPC's in 1995; and NTNU set up its Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation in 1996.
Entering a graduate institute is no easier today than it was ten years ago. The admission rate for both NTNU and Fu Jen runs at about 3 percent. There have been few changes in teaching methods, but students now enjoy a much better environment compared with the pioneers who had to practice with videotapes or try to get hold of a copy of a speech some diplomat had delivered at the United Nations. "The Internet changed everything," says Michelle Wu, who now lectures at NTNU. "Stu dents can get the transcript of a speech, they can get Bill Gates on the monitor, they can download his voice and just start practicing."
Today's students also get a lot more opportunities to hone their skills. Wu recalls how when she was at Fu Jen, students were not allowed to work professionally, because the school was worried about exposing them to the market before they were ready. But today, her own students can interpret at school meetings, provided there are enough preparatory materials avail able. "An interesting but frightening experience" is how Chris Findler describes that. "When translating, you can think and rethink, but when interpreting, you need to respond immediately," says Catherine Yu, Findler's classmate. "You can't stop to think, not even for a second, or the speaker goes on, and you're in big trouble."
Once the hard part is over, career choices can be difficult. Wu explains that in Taiwan's higher education system it is very difficult for anyone without a doctorate to develop a teaching career. But currently, few institutes anywhere in the world offer doctorate programs in translation and interpretation. "A typical school in Taiwan would urge you to get a Ph.D. to assist your future development," Wu says. "This means you either spend several years studying education, comparative literature, or something that hasn't got much to do with translation and interpretation, or you remain a lecturer for the rest of your teaching career."
For graduates who are not interested in teaching, the profession that awaits them can command daily fees of between NT$12,000 and $22,000 (US$385 and $710). (To set that in context, in 1999 the average monthly wage in Taiwan was approximately US$1,318.) Facilities and equipment are constantly being upgraded, too. Nick Lin is the marketing manager of Global Integrated Services, which provides conference services and rents out interpretation facilities. According to him, infrared communication devices that are impervious to interference from mobile phones or other electronic equipment have been readily available in Taiwan for the past two years. Portable soundproof booths that can easily be set up in conference venues are another welcome innovation.
The clients are maturing also. Interpreters and conference organizers nowadays no longer need to spend a lot of time explaining to a client why he should provide interpreters with preparatory materials, or why interpreters charge by the half day when they work for only thirty minutes. At the same time, as the market expands, so does the number of conferences on any topic from computer engineering to a specific aspect of medical science. "The most challenging thing about this profes sion," Wu says, "is that you never know what you're going to have to interpret."
To stay in the market and be competitive, an interpreter needs to amass as much knowledge as possible. Some have computer, medical, or other specialist backgrounds, but they still need to take all the cases that come their way. "We really can't afford to say 'I'm only going to do economics,' or, 'I'm only going to do finance,'" Michelle Wu says. "We have to be jacks-of-all-trades." And if they want to avoid becoming jacks-of-all-trades but masters of none, interpreters must spend a lot of time reading, consulting experts, or studying with tutors.
Even so, there are limits to what preparation can achieve. A concept in one language may lack an equivalent in another. For example, the word "cousin" covers a lot of ground in English, but in Chinese each of the possible family relationships has a precise term associated with it. Interpreters like to say they are doing a good job if they convey 80 percent of the content with accuracy. The parts that cannot be interpreted in the strict sense of the term need to be "fixed" by experience. "The difference between an experienced interpreter and a greenhorn is that the former can keep on 'talking' while the latter will probably dry up," Yeh says. "But the 'talking,' fluent and logical as it may sound, must be 'empty,' so that it has no effect on the original speech."
In the days when multilingual conferences were mostly concerned with trade, investment, and other economics-related topics involving only a few specialist terms, experienced interpreters could often get by without any preparation at all. Yeh notes that some of them are still stuck in that groove, even though the market has changed a lot. "They can get by as long as a conference doesn't bring up too many professional or technical terms," Yeh says. "If it does, things turn ugly. They can manage for one or two sentences, but they can't hope to make it through a whole meeting."
Besides experience, preparation, and skill, qualified interpreters also need a plentiful supply of ethics, tact, and other ambassadorial qualities. So how can a client know who is best qualified for the job, when Taiwan does not have a licensing system for translators and interpreters? A few freelancers have established international reputations, but they tend to be heavily booked months in advance. Is there anywhere else to look, apart from the yellow pages? Many people now go through professional conference organizers who can evaluate clients' needs and make appropriate suggestions. For example, simultaneous interpretation can save a lot of time, but is not always suitable. When a certain cosmetics company first came to Taiwan in 1992, it used simultaneous interpretation in many of its promotional activities, but the company soon found that its interpreters' monotonous, broadcast-like tones put a damper on presentations and killed interaction between speaker and audience. The company shifted to consecutive interpretation, where interpreters stand beside the speaker on-stage, and things improved at once.
Even with professional advice, however, choosing the right interpreter is not easy. "The circle of interpreters in Taiwan isn't very big, so we know and have worked with most of them," says Nick Lin. "We know things the average client doesn't, such as who's on the same level of experience and skill, who has a good reputation but is actually lazy, who won't work with who, and who charges reasonably."
On the other hand, it is difficult for most clients or conference participants to judge the quality of the interpretation offered because, by definition, those who need the interpreters do not understand the speaker's language, and those who understand it do not use the interpreters. Some conference organizers have sought feedback, only to withdraw when faced with this difficulty, and such evidence as there is remains anecdotal.
Last December, for example, a high-level academic conference took place in Taipei. The language of the gathering was almost exclusively English, but the rapporteur, a local resident, was provided with assistance in the shape of an interpreter who came recommended by an ROC government agency. To his surprise, the rapporteur found that his notes of the day's proceedings corresponded with the interpreter's version at almost no point. "It was in English, but virtually unintelligible," he says. "I ended up relying entirely on my own notes." This may have been an isolated instance, but there is no way of knowing. It is also fair to point out that the person may have been a much better oral interpreter than written note-taker. "He chatted well enough over lunch," the rapporteur recalls. "But he was slow."
Another story, one that has entered local folklore, concerns a speech given by Chen Shui-bian to a gathering of distin guished Sinologists while he was mayor of Taipei. The interpretation so enraged the Chinese-speaking Americans present that their protests threatened to drown out the proceedings. Another interpreter had to be substituted in mid-speech.
As more and more graduates of reputable schools fill the shoes of their less capable predecessors, such stories are likely to become the stuff of history. But one thing seems certain--this is a job that will continue to be done by human beings, with all their natural failings, for many years to come. Improvements in computer software have made the translation of written text easier, if not necessarily better. But when it comes to spoken language in a conference hall--to the moods and whims of speakers, their personal characteristics and individual emphases--interpreters are the only means of universal communication.