會議口譯指南
If the organisers have taken the troubles to send you documents, study them, in all your working languages. You will find that minutes of past meetings or the proceedings of earlier congresses are the most useful but don’t hesitate also to use Encyclopaedias and basis text books for beginners. An interpreter needs to have as good a knowledge of the terrain as an `infantry-man` before going into the battle. Prepare your own multilingual glossary for the meeting. Note the terms specific to that particular group or topic, a Management Committee in one context may be Steering Group in another. Be prepared to share your glossaries with the other members of the team. Never be a terminology “freeloader”, relying on others to do the work.
In compiling glossaries, whether on a computer or manually, make sure that you have a logical system for sorting terms (e.g. by subject, organisation, committee, etc.) in alphabetic order for each language and which enables you to identify terms with the organisation that uses them in that particular way. If you decide to buy a computer, consult the AIIC computer working group (GRIP) on proven software and hardware.
Briefings, even very short ones before a session, can be a valuable addition to your preparation for a difficult technical meeting. They can also enhance the professional image of the interpreter. A well organised briefing, i. e. one attended by experts, preferably covering the working languages of the conference, and the interpreters, who have studied the conference papers and relevant textbooks in advance, can greatly improve interpretation performance. Experts usually appreciate informed questions and in the course of explaining the significance of a term, a process, etc. they develop a much better understanding of interpreters’ needs and much greater confidence in the interpreters’ ability to do the job satisfactorily.
III. TEAMWORK IN THE BOOTH
The only people who must be on time for a meeting are the interpreters. A group of delegates may habitually arrive late, but the day you do, you may find that they arrived on time and are waiting for you. Interpreters should be there 15 minutes before the scheduled starting time, to check wheth
