21st-century interpreters and digital pen technology: New contexts, new media and new modes for a new age?Training in T&I has gone a long way in the last two decades. Responding to challenges and to opportunities arising from globalization, from access to new digital technologies, and from shifts in the academic field, in the profession and in the industry, trainers have to find new ways to prepare professionals for the current “technological turn” (Cronin 2010).
Modern technology offers a myriad of new digital tools which can be used by interpreters in specific non-traditional communication situations to still manage to perform well and provide a good service. This presentation will focus on the use of digital pen technology and the new hybrid mode consec-simul. Already well-implemented in the context of recent advances in the pedagogy of interpreting training and note-taking (Orlando, 2010), digital pen technology can also be used as a means of offering a new mode of interpreting – both consecutive and simultaneous, and therefore a new service (Orlando 2014, 2015).
Findings of a recent qualitative experiment which compared interpretations in the traditional consecutive mode and interpretations in the Consec-simul mode using such digital pen technology will be briefly presented. The alternative offered by this hybrid mode, introduced by professionals as early as 1999, should be of high interest for interpreters who operate in competitive and demanding markets and wish to provide enhanced performances in various contexts.
Marc Orlando is a lecturer in Translation and Interpreting Studies and the current head of the T&I program at Monash University, Melbourne. He carries out research on the synergies between practice and research in training of T&I. His current interest is in the use of digital pen technology in interpreter education as well as in the role of translators and interpreters. He is also an active conference interpreter and translator.
