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There I was, mostly devoid of any pragmatic career notion, an avid second-language learner, returning to Spain to embark on a master’s degree in Spanish language and literature. Aside from a junior-year-abroad program that provided one of the initial experiential components of my education, my connection to the discipline was mostly academic. I had participated in early immersion programs in elementary school and junior high and a fine, challenging high school language program—and then Madrid. It was stateside in my final undergraduate semester, however, that I got my first taste of translation and interpreting, the seminal event that occurred almost by accident. My senior seminar project was the staging of a Spanish play, one week in the original Spanish and the next in a translated English version. Since there was no suitable English text I was thrust into the role of translator. The play was a quirky absurdist offering, and its colloquial, contemporary flavor lent itself to a fluid translation in rather short order. I was amazed by the naturalness of my rendition and the relatively painless process that it entailed. After all, I was an undergraduate with only a limited degree of fluency in the target language.
Back in Madrid, I completed the master’s program. After that the only thing that truly captivated me was to go on for the PhD. I thought that I could continue to learn Spanish in depth, acquire a bit of classroom teaching experience, and continue my translation and interpreting activities beyond the academy. At this point in the mid-seventies, I also needed to choose a location that would satisfy my dual callings. And so I chose to head to Nueva York, which indeed was a pre-Internet land of multilingual and multifaceted opportunity.
Not only did my graduate school offer specific instruction in translation, it also allowed me to pursue a literary translation for my doctoral dissertation and four to five years’ worth of immersion in classes and reading without which my present-day working knowledge of Spanish would be truly impoverished and deficient. Yet my retreat into the ivory tower was not complete or monastic. After all, there was Nueva York beyond the stacks, and frugality aside, I still needed some part-time income.
I was fortunate and grateful that my financial aid packages did not hustle me into the preceptor–teaching assistant role until the very last year of graduate school. Instead, a compelling assortment of work-study positions situated me beyond the academy and very much into the translation and interpreting arenas. One such job had me as the in-house translator of an off-Broadway bilingual theater, a position that led to the staging of two productions that I had translated from Spanish to English. Another position had me working for an international arts management agency that necessitated not only my Spanish skills but also my French. And another was of a cloak sans dagger nature, where I was sent out undercover into the field posing as a Latin American to investigate consumer fraud for an international regulatory agency. From the above opportunities, there are two elements to highlight. First, my doctoral student status was viewed, for the most part, with distinction and doubtlessly contributed to my employability as well as my ability to competently undertake these translation and interpreting assignments. Second, these work-study internships were enormously helpful in establishing my professional experience and determining my suitability for this line of future employment. A university’s work-study or part-time employment office is an excellent resource for lining up that initial bilingual and/or translation and interpreting placement that can enhance one’s credentials with professional experience and test one’s endurance and potential for job satisfaction.
I was also fortunate in that, beyond the leads and opportunities from the work-study office, there was, at times, a rather robust job market for translation and interpreting work advertised in the New York Times. Today, the Web site CareerPath.com compiles classified advertising from about fifty major American newspapers as well as from the International Herald Tribune (see the list of Web resources at the end of this essay). During the hard-copy era of the late seventies and early eighties, the classifieds of the New York Times led to my employment as a bilingual lexicographer, Spanish drama critic, and translator and interpreter for the federal government. Moreover, by this time the results of personal networking were snowballing into a freelance translation and interpreting practice.
When my PhD was finally conferred, I experienced some credential backlash outside the academy. I hope it was not my demeanor that caused potential employers to cast stereotypical aspersions, such as esoteric absentmindedness, intellectual effeteness, or overqualified boredom. From a pragmatic standpoint, let us not succumb to this hackneyed character assassination of PhDs. Our advanced degrees distinguish us from ninety-nine percent of the general population. Our breadth of knowledge; our organizational, research, editorial, and communication skills; and our tenacious passion for knowledge are professional attributes with far-reaching applications. Our wide-ranging knowledge and facility of communication are stocks of the trade that surely cannot be diminished or undervalued, especially in the translation and interpreting arena. And conversely, many academic departments of foreign languages now value the PhD who can bring practical, discipline-related experience into the classroom. I rather suspect that more pragmatic concerns have come to the fore—namely, what livelihoods can our graduates expect to undertake for professional and economic fulfillment, and who can adequately train and mentor these individuals?
With the PhD in hand, a full-time appointment in the academy eluded me for almost eight years. Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise that allowed me to explore other avenues of employment. The translation and interpreting route was sporadic, as it still can be for those who do not hold full-time staff positions with some organization. I have always kept active in the field, however, and have been especially eager to undertake new projects piecemeal that deal with new subject areas: architecture, sociology, politics, consumer studies, immigration, and shipbuilding.
Finally, persistence paid off in the higher education search, and I was offered a position that required a move to Washington, DC, and the acquisition of near-native proficiency in a new language: American Sign Language. I was ecstatic about the opportunity, not only for the appointment and the possibility of gaining fluency in ASL, to which I had some exposure as a child with a deaf aunt and uncle, but also because the nation’s capital was a prime locale for translation and interpreting pursuits. Indeed, the federal agency for which I had begun contracting in the mid-eighties was disposed to my transfer to Washington as well.
Another nine years passed, and my dual existence as academician and translator-interpreter was filled with extreme professional and personal satisfaction on many levels. But a bit of downsizing here, a bit of program reduction there, and a bit of cost saving all around led to a denial of tenure. In Washington, I was lucky enough to have a client and employer network in place in order to expand the translation and interpreting practice into a full-time occupation, but I felt something lacking. I knew I should attempt to return to the classroom as soon as possible. And with some more persistence and even greater luck, I moved to western Colorado to begin the 1998–99 academic year in another tenure-track position in Spanish.
Not unlike a member of other institutions that seek academicians with practical experience beyond the ivory tower, my new college was looking for someone who could help to establish a Spanish major with translation and interpreting offerings along with fulfilling other general undergraduate duties. While I currently reside in a community of only 125,000 people, there are six practicing interpreters and translators, a Social Security office, a county detention facility, two major hospitals, county and state courts, and a federal court where a magistrate presides. Some local businesses and industry have an occasional need for translation and interpreting services, as do litigants engaged in civil matters. I am also connected telephonically to private agencies in Washington, DC, and Portland, Oregon, and I continue to work as a linguist for the federal government, although only telephonically. All in all, I feel quite satisfied at present in that I am continuing to practice what I teach.
The purpose of the foregoing narrative rqqqeacute;sumqqqeacute; is not self-aggrandizement, self-examination, or self-effacement. Rather, I hope that this testimonial will serve as a bit of encouragement for other foreign language PhDs who are similarly straddling careers or who are in pursuit of other careers. For the balance of this essay, however, I would like to offer some specific advice about the translation and interpreting arena as well as training and employment prospects.
In the first place, it is not only practical but probably also essential to separate translation from interpreting. While the two share in the prerequisite of a near-native, broad command of two or more languages, the end products are different. Translation is the rendering of either verbal or written source material from one language into a written equivalent in a different target language. Interpreting is the oral rendition of either a verbal or a written source from a different language. In sign languages, of course, the designation visual is used in place of verbal. I would have liked to incorporate Department of Labor definitions for these occupations, but sadly enough, our numbers are too limited to even merit a vocational category, let alone labor projections, from that federal agency. While the progressive state of California does not list either translator or interpreter in its “Labor Market Information” tables from 1997, a subsequent job prospects Web site does offer a link to another very informative and detailed site about the career of court interpreter.
Let us take a look at the current state of affairs in the translation arena. First, however, I feel compelled to address the caveat served up to me and others on the first day of my first translation class: “Translation, especially literary translation, is an avocation, not a vocation.” Jack Child, the author of Introduction to Spanish Translation, advances the warning in gentler terms: “Ideally, you should enjoy and respect the text you are translating, and feel that your effort will result in other readers enjoying (or profiting from) the text as well. In the real world the translator’s motivation is frequently money, although few people make a living exclusively as translators” (45). I take issue with these admonitions, which characterize the translation field and by extension interpreting in terms as bleak as the ones often applied to the foreign language academic market. While the field is not as robust as some high-tech sectors, there has been some growth as of late. The globalization of commerce, the diverse linguistic complexion of national demographics, and the elevated socioeconomic status of certain linguistic groups necessarily make the translation and interpreting field a linchpin for general expansion.
For full-time positions in translation, the federal government is the most likely employer. Given the vagaries of the federal budget process and the political and bureaucratic whims of the Office of Personnel Management, any predictions about which federal agency might be hiring and when would be an exercise in futility. I do recommend constant surveillance of the USA Jobs Web site, which posts all current federal job opportunities. One can fine-tune the search with keywords such as translator, interpreter, linguist, or language specialist, and most weeks some opportunity is likely to surface.
The federal agencies and departments that normally staff full-time translators include, in alphabetical order, the Armed Forces, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Commerce Department, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the National Security Agency, and the State Department. The above-mentioned Web site should be a comprehensive source for any possible opening, although one might wish to check with the individual department or agency’s Web site for more detailed information.
The application process is usually lengthy and laborious, and persistence in follow-up and submission to drug, polygraph, and background examinations may be required because of the sensitive nature of some positions. Annual remuneration is normally adequate, and the comprehensive employment benefits are even more so. Education and experience are factored in to calculate the entry-level salary step, and for individuals who have completed the PhD, a higher placement is usually automatic, which would mean entry at the GS–12 level or annual compensation currently at the mid- to upper-forty-thousand-dollar level.
Other potential international employers include the United Nations and UNESCO, the World Bank, and the Organization of American States (OAS). But full-time openings are rare and require multilingual competence, whereas the federal government often only seeks bilinguals. In fact, the OAS recently posted some concursos (or hiring competitions) for three senior translator positions and one interpreter position, all of which required superior skills in Portuguese, French, Spanish, and English and which, according to a fellow translator, were the first full-time linguist postings for the OAS in nearly twenty years. In line with other multinational entities, these international agencies are also sensitive to bottom-line and personnel cost issues. Consequently, they either contract directly with freelancers on a per job basis or subcontract through private translation agencies. This trend is also in vogue in the federal government and might serve the career aspirant well in that, minimally, it can ensure the proverbial foot in the door.
The translator (and interpreter) who does freelance or piecemeal work or even subcontracts is more the norm than the exception. Even scarier in a sense today is the advent of the virtual translation agency, where single projects are posted on Web sites and individual translators and sometimes other agencies bid for the job. Through the instantaneous miracles of document attachments and downloading, translators can e-mail a printer-ready rendition to a client halfway around the world. Phraseology databases, specialty software, and localization applications are also attempting to automate the translation process, although the end products are usually crude and require the human touch for refinement, cohesion, intelligibility, and quality assurance. To remain competitive, the freelance translator needs to posses or have access to cutting-edge, high-cost technological implements that naturally require constant upgrading lest they become obsolete.
When I seek the advice of a veteran translator on pricing a particular job, his response has always been, “whatever the market will bear.” Sadly, with this phenomenon of global bidding, translation rates are heading downward. So much for a free-market economy from the service provider’s perspective. Individual translators used to be able to command a minimum of 8qqqcent; a word for a final draft, nontechnical, standard delivery project and more than 25qqqcent; a word for a technical, rush job. Lately, I have seen this range settle between 5qqqcent; and 15qqqcent; a word. Clearly, we are working harder and longer to retain our earning power.
To help translators establish their prowess and employability, the American Translators Association (ATA) offers a series of certification examinations that test not only for basic linguistic competence but also for directionality strength—that is, whether one translates equally well from Spanish to English and from English to Spanish. As a general rule, translators are stronger in rendering source material into their native tongue. Yet there are plenty of truly bilingual sorts out there who possess bidirectional or multidirectional skills. In any event, ATA certification is a credential worth pursuing.
A consortium of several federal government departments and agencies also has a battery of certification exams currently in place that are loosely patterned on the guidelines of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. While these exams are concerned mostly with verbal or expressive ability, the federal battery also tests reading and oral comprehension, as well as written expression in both source and target languages. Yes, native speakers of English will in most cases be required to prove their native-language abilities through examination, and curiously, many a well-educated native speaker will fail to attain the highest level on the exam. For most federal government linguist positions, either full-time or contractual, professional fluency in English as well as the specific target language is required.
During the late eighties, several of these federal agencies set up informational and recruiting booths at the annual MLA conventions. Over the past four or five years, I have noted their absence. While the hiring needs of Uncle Sam do fluctuate, I wonder if there was insufficient interest among our members to warrant continued recruiting efforts at our annual gatherings. In any case, there are still opportunities with Uncle Sam for translation and interpreting types that are only a mouse click away.
The interpreting arena also offers and in many instances requires a series of certifications for the career aspirant. While most of these certifications are tied into local court jurisdictions and are mostly legal in nature, they are among the only interpreting certification examinations offered on a regular basis and are widely recognized beyond the confines of the legal profession. There is a standardization movement underway sponsored by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), which administers certification exams in about twenty states. The state of California for many years has offered its own certification examination, but it may soon join the NCSC consortium. California also offers a medical interpreter certification examination, to my knowledge the only one of its kind in the country.
In addition to passing the various components of the NCSC examination, candidates for certification must also complete an orientation workshop offered by the individual states that covers court procedures, interpreting ethics, and interpreting techniques. The NCSC exams cover the three modalities of simultaneous, consecutive, and sight interpreting. In simultaneous interpreting, the target language rendition is given at the same time the source material is spoken. In consecutive interpreting, the target language rendition is given immediately after the source speaker delivers a passage of up to 150 words. In sight interpreting, or sight translation, the source material is written and is rendered into the target language orally. Memorization, both short-term and long-term, and note-taking skills are essential for the interpreter and constantly need to be developed and practiced.
Through the University of Arizona, the federal government also offers every two years a judicial interpreter certification examination that tests the three modalities discussed above. Additionally, the test includes a prequalifying written component for English and a specific foreign language that is general in nature and very similar to the verbal section of the college entrance SAT exam: vocabulary synonyms and antonyms, usage, grammar, and reading comprehension. The entire test is extremely rigorous with only a two- to ten-percent pass rate for all components. The federal interpreter certification is widely regarded as the ultimate credential in the interpreting field.
Occasionally, the Department of State offers proficiency exams for both interpreters and translators. While administered only sporadically and not formally considered as certification examinations, they are indeed very acceptable credentials in the private arena and, of course, are prerequisites for either contractual or full-time employment with the State Department.
Other avenues of professional interpreting include conference interpreting and voice-overs and dubbing. In the first, sound equipment such as wireless microphones and headsets is often used so that renditions can be delivered simultaneously by a number of interpreters to an audience requiring delivery into multiple languages. Through these gadgets, the proceedings flow without interruption, and the various linguistic demands of the audience are satisfied. Summarizing, editing, and paraphrasing are also characteristics of conference interpreting—quite the opposite of legal interpreting, where verbatim accuracy, diction level, and register must always be preserved. With regard to voice-overs and dubbing, the act of interpreting is sometimes scripted and sometimes extemporaneous. For both, the sought-after trait is the public speaking voice par excellence, which should not be minimized in the other realms of professional interpreting either.
Compensation varies quite a bit by jurisdiction or locale and depends as well on whether the employer is a federal, state, municipal, international, or private sector entity. Colleagues indicate that the range is presently between $25 and $100 an hour. Some employers allow for preparation or study time so that an interpreter can acquire and nail down specific vocabulary for more technical or focused assignments. As with translation, full-time positions are indeed rare in the interpreting field. And much like musicians, interpreters must continually practice to ensure that they are at the top of their game or virtuosity.
From a pragmatic standpoint, I am focusing more time and energy now on interpreting pursuits. The hourly remuneration rate is higher on average, and I also prefer the human and interactive element inherent in live or face-to-face interpreting. I must admit, however, that I can become quite passionate about a literary translation project, where I take comfort in lingering over words and phrases and honing the written translation to a state of near perfection.
Since receiving my PhD in Spanish and becoming ever more serious about translation and interpreting, I have often revisited the classroom in the role of student. There are some wonderful translation and interpreting continuing education courses and programs offered throughout the United States, particularly those at the University of Arizona, the University of California, San Diego, and the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Presently, the state of California requires continuing education credits for its certified interpreters, and its many colleges, universities, and community colleges do offer courses year-round to that end.
There are some undergraduate certificate programs in translation and interpreting, but this is really master’s-level work that requires extreme bilingual competence at the outset, which is a rarity among our undergraduates, especially those who are recent second-language learners. Three master’s-level programs worth considering are those at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and the University of Charleston and the program at Georgetown University, which focuses primarily on conference interpreting.
But when all is said and done and all the coursework and apprenticeships are completed, students of translation and interpreting might feel somewhat deficient. That is to say, of course, that one is only truly bilingual when one is also bicultural. A nativelike understanding or appreciation for any specific culture enables linguistic mastery. Cultural values and norms are often intrinsic and explicit in any given language and must be thoroughly understood and compared before a rendition into another language and culture can be reliably offered. When actual immersion or insertion into different native cultures and languages is not possible, complementary activities such as reading, viewing, and listening are required. The complexity or subject matter of a book, program, song, or chat-room exchange is not crucial. What is essential, however, is that interpreters or translators maintain continual contact with any and all aspects of their working languages.
Another way to keep in step both professionally and personally is through involvement in some of the various organizations dedicated to translators and interpreters. Through various conferences, workshops, newsletters, and Web sites, translation and interpreting professionals and students can network with one another and obtain vital practical information. Several organizations that may prove helpful include the American Translators Association and its Washington chapter, the National Capital Area Translators Association; the National Association of Judicial Interpreters and Translators; the American Literary Translators Association; and the California Court Interpreters Association.
I suppose I should consider myself extremely lucky. Now, almost twenty years after the commemorative toss of my tasseled cap into the sobering, springtime Manhattan sky, I can still point with pride to the direct relevance of my graduate degrees in foreign language and literature to my sources of subsistence and solvency. I am still in academe despite deplorable employment statistics. I am still working with language, grammar, literature, and culture. And I am still able to weave my skills and talents for translation and interpreting in and out of the academy and into the general marketplace.
At the end of last semester, after all the final exams were graded and the final marks computed and entered, I had to rush off to the courthouse to interpret proceedings for suspected drug traffickers, child molesters, and drunk drivers. Recently, I worked on a homicide case for which the public defender had me traipsing through a dairy in search of reticent nonnationals who might be compelled to talk about the murder. And then I translated a poem by Pablo Neruda for a friend who is a poet herself, and then there was the man who needed certified translations of his divorce decree so that he could send for his new mail-order bride from Peru. I look forward to the start of next term and the eager, enlightened faces in my Spanish classes. But I am also eager to resume my jailhouse visits, in which an alleged perpetrator might nod or smile with a glimmer of comprehension, or my visits to the courtroom, where the judge will understand a plea of mercy in a defendant’s own words. Indeed, I am a lucky guy.
The author is Assistant Professor of Foreign Language in the Department of Language, Literature, and Communications at Mesa State College. This article is based on his presentation at the 1999 MLA convention in Chicago, Illinois.
"Data on the Job Market." Modern Language Association. 13 Sept. 1999 http://www.mla.org/JilData_98.htm.
"Labor Market Information." Occupational Projections—California. State of California. 17 Dec. 1999 http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/ occguide/TRANSLAT.HTM.
State of California Employment Development Department
http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/occguide/TRANSLAT.HTM
State of California Court Interpreters Program
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/courtinterpreters/
http://www.lai.com/lai/companion.html
National Center for State Courts
http://www.ncsc.dni.us
The National Center for Interpretation Testing, Research, and Policy at the University of Arizona
http://w3.arizona.edu/~ncitrp/
University of Charleston
http://univchas.cofc.edu/programs/legal-int.html
Monterey Institute of International Studies
http://www.miis.edu/
Georgetown University
http://www.georgetown.edu/departments/translation/
The National Center for Interpretation Testing, Research, and Policy at the University of Arizona
http://w3.arizona.edu/~ncitrp/
Classified ads from United States newspapers
http://new.careerpath.com/
United States Office of Personnel Management
http://www.usajobs.opm.gov/
Aquarius Directory of Translators and Interpreters
(virtual translation agency)
http://acquarius.net/index.cfm
The California Court Interpreters Association
http://www.ccia.org
The National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators
http://najit.org
American Translators Association
http://www.atanet.org
American Literary Translators Association
http://www.utdallas.edu/research/cts/alta.htm
© 2000 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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