A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE IS A …. GLORIOUS THING?

By Claire HaymesBlog

OR A Brit attempts gratitude for the language life.

Before I bring our profession (and my reputation!) into disrepute, this article is not advocating a “wing it” approach. Solid, broad, deep and ever-fresh language skills, plus in-depth research and insight on any number of substantive topics is essential to our field. That, my friends, is not in question. In fact, anyone who knows me would be calling for an intervention or suspecting AI-interference, if I were to suggest otherwise. But that is not the topic of this little reflection.

This is a celebration of the richness and diversity of insight that we gain – whether willingly or not! – in the course of our work. The quick but intense immersion into someone else’s world, field, shoes, plight, dilemmas and passions. Language work as insight and richness for life.

In my experience, there is no text/assignment/conversation, or term even, that does not somehow change us. That does not inform and expand on the next context and the next. And even the next. And the opportunity to experience the power of language to connect two people, two entities, two cultures – to humanise the other – to let people truly hear one another and be heard, well, I count that as the privilege of a lifetime.

This is not going to be the high-powered super-focused post on how to get jobs and influence people. It is, I hope, a mellow moment to encourage all of us to appreciate the fulsome randomness of the linguist’s life. The unique privilege of being a contributory part in human flourishing. That is no small thing. Understanding the gift it is to others. Understanding the gift it is to ourselves.

We are often most successful as translators, interpreters, editors, when we leave no trace, when our role is invisible.  But, I would suggest, that the mark it leaves on us is indelible and long-lasting.

So, what do I mean by a ‘little knowledge’?

To some extent the current recommendation to specialize feels like the luxury that I didn’t have when starting out. In some ways, my first job was the best job I’ll ever have, but goodness was it a “fast learn”. Within a week of joining the BMZ[1] as a staff translator and interpreter, I was on a Bundeswehr plane headed to Tel Aviv, gas mask in hand. The breathtaking diversity of topics, challenges and contexts continued for many years on several continents. Development aid famously ranges from rural loans to hydropower, from government negotiations and press conferences to guided tours round slum redevelopment projects, from closed door meetings with presidents to rural village assemblies with party-style karaoke moments. To say there is no one topic day in and day out is an understatement.

Clearly, briefing books were prepared and duly studied, but conversations on the ground in any number of locations could take turns that no-one can prepare you for. Interpreters perhaps expect this kind of mode more so than translators, but our reality is that the fast-learn, think-on-your-feet insight and ability serves us all well in whatever roles we assume. As an in-house translator and interpreter there are of course constants of voice and policy even as the subject matter varies. As a freelancer the ability to pivot that voice and messaging to several clients and topics is invaluable.

In those early years, my world and world view expanded rapidly before my very eyes. But even in my student years, it was Germany where I woke up to difference, where I was – sometimes abruptly, sometimes gradually – schooled in new ways of seeing a fresh perspective on the world and on myself. Whether it was confronting head on the impact of my own country’s colonial actions and crimes in India, East Africa or the Middle East; responding to the pressing directness of a Catholic nun’s questioning about the context I’d come from and the position I might take on this or that; gatherings where I was the sole female present and saw for the first time how gender had had so little influence on my world but halted the flourishing of so many women in other places; finding my own voice and confidence in Vieraugengespräche and knowing what could and could not be said outside them; the great levelling experience of being entrusted with the words of kings and labourers, microloan recipients and presidents, village bakers and corporate leaders; or simply the joys of observing German joy at Monty Python and reggae.

This “little knowledge” for a given encounter or moment quickly got absorbed in my case as a life experience, a moment forever remembered, a topic to be explored later. Sometimes these topics we are tasked to learn align with our own interests and hobbies and sometimes they most certainly do not.  Sometimes they lead to personal epiphanies and development. Professional travel in any and all of the former British colonies shone a harsh light for me on the absence of those topics on school curriculums or indeed any public discourse I’d ever been exposed to back in Britain at that time (and perhaps even still to an extremely limited extent, I’d add…). And sometimes lead to encounters that will forever change you and challenge you: Aleppo and Gaza fall into that category.

Let me pause here to say that for anyone who already gets the gist and is up for a “game”– one that might get your own reflections whirring – feel free to jump to the end. Go ahead, I won’t tell.

That “little” but strategic knowledge is a powerful and generally positive thing. Though clearly the initiation into translating and interpreting the unpleasant, the uncomfortable, the precarious, the ethically challenging can, of course, weigh heavily. Conversations and texts that seemed to promise progress and breakthroughs can torment the mind when years later the same issues are being discussed, but the opposite of progress has been made. I welcome the emphasis placed recently by the ATA and others on recognising and addressing the mental health toll of our work. We invest in the parties and the messaging, it cannot fail to sometimes leave us feeling raw and alone, wondering if no-one else can see the egregious failure to communicate.

And what do I mean by a ‘glorious thing’?

I suppose the process for me with these niche topics has been to research, grasp, apply and move on – changed or unchanged. And I would suggest that this process serves us well in many roles. Every freelancer has to quickly assess their ability to respond to a new assignment – to be able to assess rapidly but thoroughly whether it’s your field, whether it’s your register, whether it’s best referred on or whether the research it takes is within your ability and capacity to acquire in time. Knowing when to pass a job on to a colleague or pull in expert help is crucial. Being both a quick learner and a strong advocate for long-term expertise is not contradictory – you can be and do both. But self-knowledge and awareness of your limits and your strengths I would say is essential. I love my colleagues who can take on the IT, the technical and the hardcore financial that would not sit well with Yours Truly. And I hope that they know they can place the music, the visual arts, the museums, the development aid, the refugee advocacy, the international politics, and a whole lot more, with me.

Being able to acquire a “little” knowledge fully and strategically is also empowering. I have forever been grateful of the confidence that this combination of solid skills, intense subject research and challenging environments gave to me early and often. Finding that confident voice to interrupt, disrupt and intervene when you know full well what has to be said and done is invaluable, in both private and professional life. The confidence of owning your expertise and knowing how and when to use it is something seldom celebrated, but actually invaluable.

The persuasive confidence needed to have an entire team upturn their messaging because no, you know that it really is not going to land the way they think it will land in the target country. The confidence to intervene to correct a misunderstanding that will otherwise divert a conversation. The confidence to push back on messaging that is not fit for purpose and be able to explain why. The confidence to ensure the wisdom of the less powerful is heard amid the loud opining of the powerful…this is the confidence that comes from this slyly, swiftly, intensively, strategically or almost randomly acquired “little knowledge” that we should never underestimate.

Relocations and different seasons of life have meant I could never have maintained a strict linear view of life and work, even if I’d wanted to. So, look away now if you need a logical beginning, middle and end. A sense of different contexts, all powered by curiosity for the new and appreciation for the existing, have kept me sane and active over many a hurdle and change. I have ‘language’ to thank for that. In current work, I love acquiring new insights, new apps, new techniques and technologies, but also love how the new always calls on that little niche knowledge and the ability to pivot expertly that began a long time ago. I love the tasks that honour the complex conversation, the seemingly unsolvable, the difficult questions, the disruptive objections. I am old enough to have seen a thousand different labels applied to what we do and to have stepped into a whole host of different roles. I’m not about to debate the relevance or effectiveness of different labels or titles, but whether it be as translator, interpreter, facilitator, advisor, editor, researcher, event planner, cultural advisor, and trend observer, well, to me the language life is three-dimensional, five-senses living. The power of engaging, listening, articulating, connecting, hearing and telling the stories seems almost to be the very essence of being. Having the skills to let your clients and their audiences see one another as real and grounded and relevant. I have to say that the varied set of roles and responsibilities over the years has actually left me eager to learn more rather than slumping into any sense of ‘been there, done that’.

As you’ll see from my list of topics and places below, I’ve had the privilege to facilitate communication across many linguistic and cultural divides. I would claim however that our skills also make us able to spot and mitigate other barriers to communication, say across generations. It is more than distressing in any number of current conflicts or political divides to see how parties fail to engage in connective, meaningful and transformative conversation. Or perhaps do not engage precisely because they know it would make all the difference.

As I enter a new season, again, I want to be open to the conversation, looking for the new and the curious, keeping my fast learner skills sharp and ready to go in-depth for the sake of a polished product and clear message. I am here for it all: the complexity and the non-neat boxes, the messaging that humanizes and builds up the other, the power to clarify and release, the immersion in the world and words of another, the opportunity to flourish and be absorbed and changed by it all.

Let’s celebrate the profession that means you are “never done” learning, creating, exploring or discovering that glorious “little knowledge”. The profession that challenges you and changes you and uniquely lets you view, and sometimes show others, the world through different eyes.

So, here’s the game.

These are some of the more engaging topics I’ve had the privilege to translate/interpret/navigate in my life as linguist so far. See if you can match them with the locations I was in when they came up.

And if you really want some fun, find the ONE topic that I should never have taken on, and will never venture to tackle ever again. And that’s non-negotiable.

The prize? Maybe the memory jog it gives you to make and savour your own list.

TOPICS: Human trafficking prevention • tea harvesting • UN relocation bids • royal etiquette • marketing focus groups • entartete Kunst • Anime storylines • the British as the bad guys • the power of the baobab tree • clergy titles and hierarchies • airport safety equipment • karaoke as a community builder • myth and legend falling on deaf ears • colonial theft • the Bismillah • Coptic hagiography and tradition • police weapons training • the rules of baseball • gold leaf application  • management assessment tools • microloans as gender-based empowerment • hydroelectric power • health benefits of red wine • mosque rituals • refugee rights • sewage and water • peanut oil in food aid • online trust and safety • railway maintenance • toilet breaks as social justice • genocide remembrance • composer homes and biographies • US electoral funding • the knotty transatlantic complexities of “holiday” • album blurbs • statelessness • ritual clothing and weaponry • taxonomic conundrums • cognac distillation • where the Life of Brian and reggae meet • post-apartheid South Africa • local impact of architectural preservation • slave labour • land mines and agriculture • passports and permits as power • runway lighting • women’s income generation • conversion stories  •  dam construction • ceremonial tree planting • donor targeting in higher education • the think-tank circuit • corporate reparations • recusal minutiae • Byzantine art • life in informal settlements • heads of state as human beings • end-of-life care • planning a UN headquarters layout • shoe production lines • Buddhism and geography • the power of a whistle

LOCATIONS:

Bonn • Bangkok • Washington, DC • Oxford • Laos • Cambodia • India • Gaza • Ethiopia • Eritrea • Kenya • Uganda • Chequers •  West Bank • Jaipur •  Sri Lanka • Tanzania • Alexandra, VA • Egypt • Dudley • Bath • Jordan • Yemen • Phnom Penh • New York City • Addis Abeba • Salt Lake City • Delhi • San Francisco • Ramallah • Bethlehem • Rothenburg ob der Tauber • Aleppo •  Boston • Jakarta • Agra • Jerusalem • Nepal • Islamabad • Axum • Luang Prabang • Meteora • Bath • Andros  • Asmara  • South Dakota • Hamburg  • Münster  • Paris  • Berlin • Athens  • Cupertino • Damascus •

Answers potentially available upon request. Good conversation though always welcome. So, do connect.

[1] Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung, the German government’s international aid ministry.