In our previous blogs, we have stressed the importance of fostering relationships with your colleagues and clients alike. Today, we will explore some best practices for working and collaborating with clients and colleagues as an ASL interpreter.
Collaboration- be it with other interpreters or your clients- is vital to being an interpreter. As a professional, you need to work with a vastly diverse group of people. In your interactions with them, you must display respect toward them and their work, compassion, and understanding.
Successful collaborations with your colleagues and clients ensure a smooth flow of work, and thus, better results in your work. To achieve this, you must create a space based on shared understanding.
Below, we share some tips on working effectively with your colleagues and clients.
Tips for collaborating with colleagues as an interpreter
As an interpreter, you can get comfortable relying solely on yourself and working in isolation. However, sooner or later, you will be presented with an opportunity to collaborate with your fellow interpreters. If you grab such opportunities and do it right, you will learn to see just how beneficial collaborating can be.
Here are some ways you can effectively work with other interpreters in the industry:
Be supportive
One obvious way to maintain a healthy working relationship with other interpreters is by maintaining solidarity. A common mistake many interpreters make is to consider their contemporaries as their competition. This unhealthy way of viewing other professionals can hamper your professional growth.
Instead, view them as people who you can offer help to and receive help from. For instance, when you have a request for interpreting that you can’t take on, you can pass it on to a fellow interpreter you know. Who knows when you might need their favor?
When you come across as a supportive colleague, you will naturally start building better relationships with other interpreters. Even though this might not be your original intention, you will find that when you’re supportive of others, you’ll receive the same support in return.
Consider mentorship and feedback
Collaborating with other interpreters is a surefire way of honing your professional skills. If you want to improve your work, you can ask others with more experience or expertise for their feedback or if they’re willing to offer you mentorship. Similarly, if you have the experience or expertise to offer feedback and mentorship to others, do so.
This exchange can deepen the trust among colleagues while contributing to the professional growth of all the parties involved.
Grow together
Another helpful way to collaborate with other interpreters is to focus on growing together as professionals. You can hold each other accountable for your respective career goals. Having someone who checks in on your progress can motivate you to keep pursuing your goals. Further, if you have shared goals, you can take workshops or classes together. Fostering a relationship based on mutual growth can help you improve your skills quickly.
Tips for working with clients as an interpreter
ALT Text: A professional shaking hands with a client
Whether you work as a freelancer or are part of an agency like the Unspoken Language Services, collaborating with clients is a non-negotiable part of being an interpreter.
Working in tandem with your clients is a surefire way to succeed in your interpreting career. Below are some tips on how you can best serve your clients.
Gain clarity
The first step to ensuring a successful working relationship with your clients is gaining clarity about the client’s goals, objectives, and expectations. To interpret effectively, you must know details about the client’s business, the event for which interpreting is needed, and the language proficiency of all parties involved, among other things.
These details can help you strategize the most effective way to interpret. It can also help you prepare for your interpreting job in advance.
Three ways to gain clarity from your clients:
- Request a brief regarding the interpreting project
- Have a discussion with the client about things you don’t understand
- Ask the client to share any relevant material in advance, if any
Don’t shy away from asking questions. Since these details can affect the quality of your interpretation, most clients would happily oblige to your request for any/more information.
Maintain confidentiality
ASL interpreters aid clients with a smooth flow of communication by serving as a link between the Deaf person/s and the hearing person/s. In the process, they become privy to information that might be highly confidential.
When clients choose to work with interpreters, they place a lot of trust in the professional to not breach this confidentiality. Some clients might choose to make interpreters sign confidentiality agreements. Others might verbally relay the need for maintaining discretion. Whereas, some clients might not bring it up at all.
Irrespective of whether the need for maintaining confidentiality is explicitly mentioned or not, or whether the information is sensitive or not, it is your duty as an interpreter to not disclose any information to others; this includes material and information shared pre-interpretation and contents of communication shared during the interpretation.
Maintain the essence of the message
Your primary role as an interpreter is accurately translating the spoken word into English and vice versa. While doing so, you might have to interpret messages that you don’t agree with. Or, during interpretation, the conversation might get heated, and harsh words might be exchanged.
In such cases, you might be tempted to alter the message to make it less harsh or to make it align with your thoughts. However, doing so would mean crossing a boundary as an interpreter.
Generally speaking, these are some things you mustn’t do if you want to maintain the essence of the message:
- Alter the message
- Assume you know what is best
- Omit any part of the communication
A successful interpreter can accurately relay the message without letting personal biases affect them. Remember, you only serve as a medium for communication, and you shouldn’t actively participate in it.
Conclusion
Summing up, being respectful and understanding is key to effectively working and collaborating with colleagues and clients.
Unspoken Language Services follows a humanistic approach to interpreting and is looking for ASL interpreters with a penchant for fostering meaningful relationships with clients and colleagues alike. To know more about becoming an Unspoken Interpreter, contact us.
Thumbnail Credit: Photo by RDNE Stock Project
