The role of interactional expertise in interpreting: the case of technology
transfer in the steel industry
Rodrigo Ribeiro
Centre for the Study of Knowledge Expertise and Science (KES), School of Social Sciences,
Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3WT, U.K.
RibeiroR@Cardiff.ac.uk
Department of Production Engineering, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Rua Engenheiro
Senna Freire 612, Belo Horizonte, CEP: 30360-660, Minas Gerais, Brazil
RibeiroR@dep.ufmg.br
ABSTRACT
I analyse the case of three Japanese-Portuguese interpreters who have given support to
technology transfer from a steel company in Japan to one in Brazil for more than 30
years. Their job requires them to be ‘interactional experts’ in steel-making. The
Japanese-Portuguese interpreters are immersed in more than the language of steelmaking as their job involves a great deal of ‘physical contiguity’ with steel-making
practice.
Physical contiguity undoubtedly makes the acquisition of interactional
expertise easier. This draws attention to the lack of empirical work on the exact way
that the physical and the linguistic interact in the acquisition of interactional expertise,
or any other kind of expertise.
Keywords: interactional expertise, technology transfer, interpreting, physical
contiguity, linguistic socialization
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1. Introduction1
The work of the Japanese-Portuguese interpreters described here is part of a 50 yearlong technology transfer between Japanese and Brazilian companies. The interpreters
have learned to talk about areas of the steel industry and steel-making process with
confidence even though they are unable to contribute to steel-making. Using Collins
and Evans’ terminology, the interpreters have acquired ‘interactional expertise’ in
steel-making but not ‘contributory expertise’.2
I am going to use the term ‘physical contiguity’ to describe proximity to the
practices of a domain that falls short of active involvement or ‘hands on’ experience.
For example, in addition to their decades-long mediation in technical discussions of
solutions to technical problems, the interpreters witnessed the assembly of machines
and plant start-ups and watched as tests were made and tolerances were adjusted.
‘Physical contiguity’ stands between purely ‘linguistic socialization’ and
‘physical immersion’ – the latter meaning ‘hands on experience.’3 The case seems to
show that even when someone is exposed to the physical practices of a domain in
every way short of hands-on involvement their resulting expertise is still interactional
rather than contributory. Physical contiguity does, however, facilitate the development
of the specialized language. This draws attention to the fact that most of the cases of
acquisition of interactional expertise discussed in the literature do rely on physical
contiguity as well as linguistic socialization. Though the idea that interactional
1
I am grateful to Harry Collins – both as my supervisor and the Editor of the Special Issue – for the
hard time he gave me in respect of earlier drafts of this paper. The paper also benefited from the
comments of the external and internal referees, Robert Crease and Rob Evans, and of the participants of
the KES meetings. I am also indebted to the Japanese-Portuguese Interpreters, who kindly accepted to
share their lives and professional experiences with me, and to Sara Delamont for helping me with the
translations from Portuguese into English. This research was funded by CAPES Foundation, Brazil and
received financial support from the Brazilian Company for the fieldwork. Any person or institution that
publishes anything that mentions, discusses, broadens or contradicts the content of this paper, is kindly
requested to send me the references in order to make the process of discussion and generation of
knowledge dynamic, thus offering contributions and increasing the opportunities for the growth of the
parties involved and/or related areas of knowledge.
2
See Collins and Evans (2002).
3
See, respectively, Collins (2004a: 127) and Collins and Evans (2007: 61).
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expertise is in principle attainable through linguistic socialisation alone is useful for
describing the underlying concept, it remains to establish the point empirically.
I start by describing Collins and Evans’ typology of expertises and how they
are acquired.4 I then outline the nature of steel industry technology, the history of
cooperation between the Japanese and Brazilian companies, and the job of the
interpreters. The way the interpreters acquired interactional expertise is then analyzed.
2. Types of expertise and their acquisition
The five types of specialist expertise described by Collins and Evans can be divided
into two groups. The first group comprises the three cases – ‘beer-mat knowledge’,
‘popular understanding’ and ‘primary source knowledge’ – in which one would
acquire the knowledge of a specialist domain without interacting with its practitioners.
This is achieved through the use of ubiquitous expertises, such as ‘reading or
listening’5. In contrast, the only way to develop the remaining two highest levels of
expertise is immersion in the culture of full-blown practitioners. This immersion is
divided into two types: ‘linguistic socialization’ and ‘physical immersion’.6
‘Linguistic socialization’ leads to interactional expertise, defined as ‘the ability
to master the language of a specialist domain in the absence of practical competence’.
‘Physical immersion’, on the other hand, leads to contributory expertise, which is
‘what you need to do an activity with competence’.7 Collins argues that the reason
why ‘interactional expertise’ has been neglected for so long is the polarity created
between ‘formalists’ and ‘informalists’.8 The latter took the extreme position that one
could only master a language through full immersion in ‘the entire form-of-life of a
domain [i.e. which includes practice]’ in order to deny the ‘formalist’ view of
4
This typology was first introduced in Collins and Evans (2004), and is dealt in detail in Collins and
Evans (2007). Henceforward, when I refer simply to ‘Collins and Evans’ with no date it will imply
Collins and Evans (2004, 2007).
5
See Collins and Evans (2007: 19). ‘Popular understanding’, for instance, ‘can be gained by gathering
information about a scientific field from the mass media and popular books’ (Collins and Evans, 2004:
7). These types of expertise are not the focus here.
6
7
8
See, respectively, Collins (2004a: 127) and Collins and Evans (2007: 61).
See Collins and Evans (2007: 16) for the definition of both concepts.
See Collins (2004a).
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language as sets of propositions. 9 The mistake of the informalists was to think that
only practice would allow one to acquire the tacit knowledge needed to speak the
language of a domain. It is now argued that one can acquire the tacit knowledge of a
specialist language without the practice.10 Nevertheless, ‘linguistic socialisation is
very far from feeding with discrete propositions; the language learned as a result of
linguistic socialisation is as loaded with tacit knowledge, Wittgensteinian rules, and
ability to make intuitive judgments, as any native language’.11
In practice, as already mentioned, interactional expertise is usually acquired
through more than purely linguistic socialisation. I will illustrate the role of physical
contiguity to the steel-making process in the development of the interpreters’
competences. First, however, we need some popular understanding of the areas of
steel-making under discussion and some beer-mat knowledge of the interpreters’
backgrounds.
3. The steel industry: areas and technology12
Figure 1 illustrates the three main operational areas of an integrated steelworks:
reduction, steelmaking, and rolling. In the reduction process, coke and sinter (suitably
prepared ore) are reduced in the blast furnace to unrefined pig iron. In the steelmaking
plant, the pig iron is further refined and mixed with other materials depending on the
type and grade of steel desired which varies according to application. For example,
steels used for making the outside panels of automobiles must have good formability
and generally lower mechanical resistance than steel used in structural parts; for the
latter impact and fatigue resistance are more important than formability.
In the
steelmaking area the two main pieces of equipment are the converter, where the pig
iron is transformed into steel by removing some of the carbon and introducing other
additives, and the slab caster, which produces slabs from molten steel.
The slabs that come from the casting plant then enter hot rolling mill, following
different paths. For instance, if the client is the ship industry, the slabs go to the heavy
9
See Collins (2004a: 126). As Collins (2004a: 126) explains the argument, ‘“Those formalists”, we [the
informalists] say, “mistakenly think that you can strip knowledge out of experts’ heads and encodify it
in propositions’.
10
See Collins and Evans (2002) and Collins (2004a).
11
See Collins and Evans (2007: 88-89).
12
I am grateful to a specialist – who preferred to be anonymized – for help with technical details.
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plate mill whereas in the case of the automobile industry the slabs go to the hot strip
mill (e.g. for wheels) or to the cold rolling mill (e.g. for automotive panels).
Figure 1 – An overview of the steel production and some of its final applications 13
The quality of a steel depends on both its chemical composition and the way it is
processed -- finishing temperature, cooling rate, coiling temperature and so forth. The
Department of Metallurgy is responsible for quality design at the Brazilian Company
with additional studies undertaken by the Research and Development Department
(R&D). Thus, metallurgy and R&D are the two areas which require the broadest and
deepest technical understanding.
4. The setting of the interpreters’ work, the fieldwork and the research
subjects
The history of technology transfer between the Brazilian and Japanese companies
began with a nine-year period (1957-1966) in which various Japanese specialists
13
This description is based on the Brazilian steelworks, but does not cover all of its production lines,
equipment, final products and applications.
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designed the Brazilian steelworks, manufactured its main equipment, and gave
technical support during its construction and start-up.14 They then ran its commercial
operation for five years before handing over to the Brazilians. The period 1966-to date
is characterized by paid contracts for technology transfer. These include technical
support in Brazil and training in Japan. The first such agreement was signed just after
the Brazilian engineers began to manage the steelworks’ operations (1966) and lasted
for approximately 10 years. Since then, as each contract ended a new one has been put
in place. The last one was signed in 2004 and is expected to finish in April 2009. The
first nine-year period saw a total of 241,080 man-days of Japanese technical assistance
provided to Brazil, while, up to 2003, the second, post-1966, period called for 33,829
man-days.15
From the beginning communication between the Japanese specialists and
Brazilians has been facilitated by Japanese immigrants and Nisei (children of
immigrants) hired by the Brazilian company. Although some of the immigrants and
Nisei were engineers, the majority did not have a degree. They either started to work
as interpreters or as operators, foremen, or clerical assistants.
In 2004, I conducted lengthy interviews in Brazil with three of the interpreters
(J, B and JB). None of these had any experience or knowledge of the steel industry
before being hired to work in the Brazilian plant. Each worked in administrative areas
before or in the middle of their careers as interpreters.16 For each case, Table 1 shows
the period they worked as clerical staff and as an interpreter.
J learned Japanese by living and studying in Japan whereas B and JB were
brought up in Japanese families belonging to Japanese colonies in Brazil. They all
learned Portuguese by living in Brazil, while B and JB also went to Portuguesemedium schools.
IDENTITY
PERIOD AS CLERICAL STAFF
PERIOD AS INTERPRETER
J
4 years
38 years
B
6 years
29 years
14
Most of this description is based on Ribeiro (2003).
15
Excluding training carried out in Japan.
16
None of the clerical work undertaken by the interpreters enabled them to gain contributory expertise
in the areas they interpret for.
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JB
5 years
24 years
Table 1: Experience of interpreters discussed in this paper (up to 2004)
When J was hired in May 1962, he knew neither Portuguese nor the steel
industry. His first task was to classify the Japanese designs of the blast furnace plant –
which was still under construction. Meanwhile, workers were hired for the operation
of the blast furnace which was about to begin operations. Subsequently, J was
assigned to translate all the material (e.g. standards and manuals) for the training of
the Brazilian operators in regard to the blast furnace operation.
Working with the designs was the first part of J’s familiarisation with the
Japanese technical terms for the equipment and with some of the processes involved in
the production of pig iron. All the queries he had were initially answered by Japanese
specialists. The process of translation then began to familiarise J with Portuguese. For
instance, all the translated material was checked by the Brazilian engineers. Their
many revisions and correction helped J to start learning what we might call ‘blast
furnace Portuguese’ along with something about the functioning and operation of the
plant. Nevertheless, J felt that this was not enough and asked the Japanese specialists
to lend him technical books. These books were written in Japanese and discussion
related to them was again carried out with the Japanese specialists. In addition to this,
by the end of the first technology transfer period, J had witnessed the construction and
start-up of two blast furnace plants which provided him with a rare opportunity to
increase his technical understanding. He said that at the end of this period: ‘with some
exaggeration, even closing my eyes, I knew [what was going on]. This knowledge of
the area facilitated future interpreting a lot’.
From 1967 to 1975, J worked as an interpreter for the Japanese technical
advisers that were coming to the blast furnace plant in accordance with the technology
transfer contracts characteristic of the second period.17 During the first ten-year
technology transfer contract the Japanese group comprised eight specialists who were
rotated every six months.18 For eight years, J and another interpreter were the means
17
Before that, J worked 1.5 years writing up reports for material and production control in the blast
furnace. He referred to this as an ‘administrative [job]’, a ‘simple routine’, which did not help in his
future role as interpreter.
18
The period of stay of the Japanese groups in Brazil changed with time.
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by which the Japanese advisers and Brazilians could communicate with each other in
order to solve technical problems and discuss improvements in the blast furnace. In
1976, J became the coordinator of the `Group of Interpreters’ of the Brazilian
Company. As the coordinator, he began to interpret in the much more difficult field of
metallurgy. Since then, he has interpreted and translated for all areas of the steelworks,
including the administrative ones.
B has a similar history to Interpreter J. Hired in 1969, B worked as a member of
the clerical staff in the Inspection Certificate Sector of the Brazilian Company for
nearly 6 years, before becoming an interpreter. He was in charge of typing the results
of the mechanical and metallographic tests on each batch of steel into a certificate
intended for a specific client. Punching keys on a typewriter was a mechanical job but
it introduced him to the steel industry. For instance, when first reading an inspection
certificate, B could not understand the meaning of terms such as ‘yield point’ and
‘tensile strength’. Fortunately B’s office was in the same building as the testing
laboratories: ‘it was close and I had colleagues over there … sometimes, working on
the night shift … [you] feel sleepy, then I went there … to see what they were doing,
to talk to them, to see the tests’ (Interpreter).
The experience of watching and talking led B to begin to understand that
international standards meant that each type and grade of steel must have certain
mechanical properties which are measured by its physical parameters.19 The quality of
a type/grade of steel is, then, given by the range of values within which the results of
the laboratory tests for pre-specified physical parameters must fall. All this knowledge
has proved to be relevant when B came to work as an interpreter:
‘This [experience at the Inspection Certificate Sector] has helped me to enjoy
the metallurgical side [of the steel industry]. Discussion about quality, quality
design. When you talk about quality design this is very much part of it; this
issue of mechanical properties. It is the foundation. So, when someone says
‘mechanical property’ [in the technology transfer meetings], as I have this
knowledge, it facilitates a lot. When [they] say [about] a quality, it comes [to
19
For instance, the Interstitial Free Steel (IF Steel) parameters are: steel yield strength, tensile strength,
elongation, Lankford Coefficient, planar anisotropy and hardening coefficient (Pereira and Meyer,
2003).
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my mind] oh, this quality, isn’t it? I already know, say, the tensile strength,
yield point… [It was all] about these parameters, that I already knew.
In 1975, B was transferred to the Group of Interpreters. For one-and-a-half
years B supported the Japanese advisers and the Brazilians in charge of the
construction and start-up of the conventional casting (which differs from the current
practice), the converter belonging to Steelmaking Plant II, and the plate mill. There
was one interpreter for each adviser in the conventional casting and in the plate mill,
and one to two in the steel-making plant, so B established a very close relationship
with the Japanese advisers. His interpreting work led B to learn some of the Japanese
technical terms and their counterpart in Portuguese simultaneously with increasing his
technical knowledge. B continued to give support to these plants for approximately
six months. By the end of 1977, B was sent to interpret in the area of instrumentation
and, since then, he has also supported technology transfer in all the areas of the
steelworks.20
JB’s professional history differs from the others’ insofar as he started out
working as an interpreter. Nevertheless, he had no previous knowledge of the industry:
‘both the Japanese and Portuguese [steel industry languages] were German for me’.
Hired in 1975, JB first supported Japanese advisers in the electrical part of the
steelmaking plant. For one and a half years, he had the chance to witness the start-up
of the continuous casting machine and also translated some material in the area of
electrics; problems were solved by Brazilian engineers or Japanese advisers. JB then
worked in the coke plant from 1977 to 1979, which called for learning about another
area: ‘I was working with electrics and then I was sent to work with refractory. I knew
nothing … then, it started all over again [long suffering tone].’ In the following five
years JB worked in the Group of Interpreters, when he had the chance to interpret for
the areas of steelmaking, coke, blast furnace, cold and hot rolling mills and forging.
20
An interesting aspect of B’s language proficiency is that his knowledge of Japanese is mostly oral. As
he was not educated in Japanese, he cannot read day-by-day Japanese fluently and finds it very difficult
when asked to translate written Japanese into Portuguese. Things are better when B is to translate within
the technical sub-set of Japanese he is used to. In the areas he is not acquainted with, he first translates
word by word and then tries to make sense of it which, he says, is very difficult: ‘perhaps I can even
read, but I will not understand, as it happens with anyone who does not understand a field [about which
he or she is reading]’.
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A break in JB’s career happened from 1984 to 1989, when he worked in the
administrative area of the cold rolling mill. JB’s desk was in the room where the
Technical Unit of the plant was located. This enabled him to listen to many technical
discussions in regard to product defects, production problems, and the attempts to
solve them. During his free time, JB used to go to the shop floor in order to understand
the processes and the problems he had heard about. Problems were taken up with the
operators, foremen, or the Technical Unit engineers. As a result of this experience, the
cold rolling mill plant is the area in which JB feels most comfortable when
interpreting. In 1985, JB returned to the Group of Interpreters and continued to
interpret for all the areas of the Brazilian steelworks.
My account is based on interviews with the three interpreters but all the
quotations are taken from the account of Interpreter B because he provided the most
detailed and complete account of his work and its demands. Similar views were
provided by J and JB but they were more dispersed throughout the interviews.
Nevertheless, many of the issues raised by B – such as the importance of witnessing
plant start-ups – can be found in J and JB’s biographies. The overall points made here
are also backed up by the many interviews I conducted in the wider study of which
this is a part. The empirical points of the paper were reconfirmed by a respondent
validation with interpreters J and B – JB had retired and moved to Japan – as well as
with other two interpreters of the Brazilian Company who do the same work. After
reading aloud all the sections with the empirical findings and discussions, I asked for
their assessment. The four interpreters unanimously agreed that the account faithfully
represents their experience.
5. A closer look at the development and role of interactional expertise
The interpreters say that the first thing they must learn are the ‘technical terms’, for
equipment, processes, and activities. Knowing the names for things is not enough for
the purposes of interpreting, however. To interpret, the meaning of terms has also to
be understood; the purpose of the equipment, the processes, and the way they are
interconnected must be grasped. Thus the interpreters are particularly happy about an
occasion when they were invited by a Brazilian engineer to attend a technical seminar
in one of the operational plants. They thought this type of invitation should be the rule.
On the other hand, all three interpreters have gone through the experience of hearing
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some of the participants at meetings tell them that: ‘you do not have to understand
what I am talking about, just to interpret’. Interpreter B explained:
‘I cannot translate that which I cannot understand. [Our main role] is to make it
possible for each side to communicate with each other. We are in the middle.
This is what an interpreter is for. Otherwise there would be no need [for
interpreters with technical knowledge].’
B added that an interpreter without technical knowledge would be as bad as no
interpreter at all: ‘they might as well [be left to] talk to each other directly [in their
own languages], and neither would understand anything anyway [laughter].’
Watching and interpreting as the machinery for the plant was first assembled
and then watching and interpreting during the start-up period proved of immense value
for B in gaining technical understanding and fluency. As the interpreter explains, the
start-up period provides the opportunity to learn new things alongside the new
operators, who are also learning.
‘The best thing is to witness the beginning of operations, the assembly … We
learn a lot. … We see the equipment, see how it works. [We] watch the
beginning of the operations, the adjustment of the equipment. We get to know
the equipment, the operations, almost from the first steps, the A, B, C. … Thus
we learn. Why? The operators are also starting. So, it is easy to understand as
well. [You] start with the basics and keep improving. And see the equipment
very closely. ... Let’s say... there is a problem with a machine. Then we have to
be inside, to go inside the machine. Once [the machine is] in operation you do
not have access to it. … [In addition] problems happen more often at the
beginning, thus [we have] more opportunities, opportunities of really getting
there, there inside, don’t we? To solve the problems. ...’
To understand how machines work facilitates, in turn, the understanding of some
practices of the domain. In what follows, B describes how entering inside a continuous
casting machine (indicated by the dashed lozenge in Figure 1 and enlarged in Figure
2), helped him to understand some tasks related to the machine set-up.
‘We talk[ed] about [the importance of the] start-up because, for instance,
machinery for continuous casting. … At that time, alignment, spacing between
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the rolls, it was done manually, [the worker] had to go inside the machine.21 So,
I went inside the machine with the foreman. This helps you to see how it is
inside, how things work inside. Why the rolls must be very well adjusted, how
you adjust a roller. Spacing, alignment, how this is done. Because if you do not
know, if you have never seen [how it is done], [the participants in the technical
meetings] simply say “to change the spacing”. At the moment [of interpreting],
you say ‘spacing’, ‘alignment’, but you… it does not come to your mind … this
image. How this is done, what it means, how important it is.’
Figure 2 – Schematic drawing of a continuous casting machine showing
the rolls that guide the steel as the slab is formed
Interpreter B went on, showing the link between understanding the practices of the
domain and learning the specialist language:
‘As I said about entering the machine. I entered with the foreman, following the
operator who does the adjustment, following the Japanese adviser who was
giving the instructions – to interpret the instructions. But I have never done the
21
‘Roll’ is a technical term of the steel industry; in common English usage the term would be `roller.’
12/21
spacing alignment, ‘hands on’ experience, as they say. I watched the guy doing
it, [assessing] the instructions, how it should be done…’
Ribeiro: What specific aspects of the experience inside the machine are
important [for interpreting in technical areas]?
‘Because then, later on, when we discuss the alignment standard or spacing
standard … when someone says ‘Look, you have to align with tolerance of zero
point something’… I can see in my mind’s eye the image of how this alignment
should be performed, which tools are going to be used, the importance of the
job, why he has to do it, the difficulties [of doing it]… If you only know [about
alignment] in theory, [if you have] never seen it done … [For instance] the
person says ‘alignment’, but what kind of alignment? … There are many types
of alignment. To align a railway track, to align a wall (laughs). It is very
different. So, when you know the process, have seen and know [the phenomena],
[the] ‘alignment’ already comes to your mind. It is that alignment. … [You]
know what it is about. So, you are not, as I always say, lost in the conversation.
… It is not that I will … give tips [in technical meetings]. But [the fact is that] I
am participating in the conversation, I know what it is about. Then, it is much
easier for us to interpret.’ (stress added)
In discussing this matter further, I asked B what he thought he would have
missed if he had not had the experience of seeing the alignment process.
‘OK. Well, first, theoretically, I would not know, [I] would not even have an
idea of what this would be. [It would be] simply a word, in certain ways, even a
vague word for me. Because I would not know – I would not know what this is.
[I] cannot even imagine.’
I pressed him further saying that a teacher would then explain how alignment
works and would even show some drawings:
‘Yes, but it does not give an idea. … [you] can make a drawing but you do not…
You will have a vague knowledge, you will imagine. Imagine. Only imagine.’
Interpreter J mentioned other ‘common words’, which they would have
difficulty understanding and interpreting without technical knowledge. For instance,
‘liner’ is a plate which is used to avoid wear and tear, but when participants say it, the
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question is ‘which liner’, in which equipment? The same applies to ‘standard’,
‘pattern’, ‘control’, and ‘design.’
Witnessing the history of technology implementation, improvements, and
development also added to the interpreters’ technical understanding.
‘In the beginning [of operations] there is always – generally – more problems …
it is through problems that we learn (laughs) … It happens many times that the
design has ... to be partially changed ... “No, this part is really not good. I must
modify [it]”. Sometimes [someone] sees it [the part] but sees it already modified.
Now, why did it have to be modified? We got to know. [If you had not seen it
modified you would not] know [that] there was this problem.’
Indeed, knowledge of technological evolution even put the interactional experts
in a position to retrieve information about past events.
Ribeiro: When you deal with novices [from the Brazilian company] … do you
add information to what the Japanese has said in order to explain better?
‘Sometimes … For instance, if it is [something to do with] the company’s
history. A novice sometimes knows nothing. I believe I have this knowledge ...’
Ribeiro: And how about the technical part? Does it happen that you say “no,
what he [the Japanese adviser] is [really] talking is about such and such
equipment [not what you think]”?
‘Yes, yes, I say [that].’
I asked the interpreter to discuss the times when he adds technical content to
what the Japanese expert has said and when he might do this.
‘When I am sure [about it] (laughs). … [For instance], it happens that the
Japanese talk about a piece of equipment that the guy has not had the
opportunity to see … Or even one that was used in the past and does not exist
any more, but that was important for the evolution, for the development until the
current equipment evolved, for instance.’
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Finally, the knowledge that sustains the interpreters’ interactional expertise
helps to smooth technical interactions.
‘Sometimes [the participants of the meetings] forget that there is an interpreter
[and talk uninterruptedly] (laughs). ... [Then it is important] to know the subject
– to have [at least] a notion. Why? The two are specialists. We stand between
two specialists. … [When] we have the knowledge we can enable them to talk
between themselves as if they were talking [directly] to each other. There is no
need [for them] to explain the subject or to speak in a simpler way, as if they
were talking to a lay person. … I will be able to transmit what [one] guy is
talking to the other because I understand ... So, for sure, when we master a
subject, we gain speed and efficiency in interpreting. If I do not … understand,
the guy will say something and I will ask: ‘What is that? [I will have to ask him
to] explain what it is so I can transmit it. [This is] because, if I am to interpret
word by word, it does not make sense sometimes. It can even … backfire.’
We can contrast the cases where technical interpretation does work with ones
where it is more difficult. These occur when the interpreters do not have the technical
knowledge and, consequently, fluency in the (specialist) language – interactional
expertise. One example is interpreting in meetings that deal with technology transfer
in regard to environmental laws. B says that Japanese and Brazilian laws are complex
and there are some very specific terms. Unlikely the operational areas, there is a lot of
room for different interpretations, which impairs his ability to do good work.
‘There are nuances that we cannot notice .... Nuances inside the phrase. The
phrase is so subtle that I cannot interpret properly. [I cannot] understand.
Understand what that phrase really means. It is not like mathematics in which
two plus two are four … [In law] there is a margin for two plus two to be five.
… [When we] go to a piece of equipment and the guy says “it is this”, that’s it.
There is no way that other [guy] will arrive and think that it is not. “No, it is not
like that, it is this way”. There is only one way. [But in] these [environmental]
regulations, these terms, there are a lot of things that give a margin for
interpretation … Now, who has written [it], with what purpose, what thought
[lies behind it], [I] do not [know].’
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The problem is that the ‘operational’ areas are also very complex, also have a
lot of specific terms, and the technical language is certainly amenable to different
interpretations. For instance, B could narrow down the possible uses of ‘alignment’
because of his technical knowledge. The same is true in regard to his understanding of
the ‘purpose’ of ‘spacing’ and how it was done.
Interestingly, as we see, the importance of understanding for interpreting in
technical areas is forgotten by the interpreter when he offers his explanation of the
problems thrown up by the field of law. The interpreter then talks of language as
something abstract, not something the meaning of which can be understood only by
understanding the practice which it describes.22 The interpreter says: ‘Perhaps [my
difficulty in interpreting in the field of law] is due to the deficiency in my Portuguese
– of my knowledge of the Portuguese language itself – of the terms’ – even though the
interpreter knows well that more knowledge of Portuguese would not solve a problem
of interpreting in a technical area.23 What seems to be going on here is that the
interpreter is `buying in’ to the formal model of language as described in the
beginning of this paper.
The interpreter knows from his technical interpreting
experience that the formal model of language does not work but falls back on the
model to explain his deficiencies in the field of law. This shows the grip that the
formal model has on our imaginations when we are not reflecting carefully on either
our practice or on a philosophical analysis of what it is to know a language.
The interpreters also placed a lot of emphasis on being able to see the things
which they had to discuss in the course of interpretation.24
‘Exactly [I can recollect what was said in the areas I know]. Why? It seems a
joke, but there are two entrances and one exit. Things can enter here [pointing to
22
Talking about the introduction of a new concept in a specialist language – the medical language –
Winch (1995 [1958]: 123) points out that ‘To give an account of the meaning of a word is to describe
how it is used; and to describe how it is used is to describe the social intercourse into which it enters’.
23
JB said that there were few occasions in which the Japanese advisers were unwilling to repeat and
explain what they had just said. They ordered him to pass on what he had heard, as if interpreting was
just a problem of vocabulary or dictionary-type of knowledge.
24
Schilhab (2008 – this volume) argues that in some cases the human brain treats the experiences of
seeing and practicing similarly.
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his eyes] or here [pointing to his ears]. What enters here [through the eyes] does
not go out here [pointing to his mouth but is retained]. What enters here [through
the ears] gets out here [mouth and is lost – laughter]. What enters through [the
eyes] stays in the mind.’
They found it harder to learn to interpret in areas where there was nothing to see
such as informatics, electrical maintenance, and research. But, as they do interpret in
these areas, I probed B on this issue and he said that in such cases he found it harder to
memorize and he forgot what he had learned much quicker. ‘Isn’t there that Japanese
saying? “It is better to see once than hear one hundred times”.’25
6. Conclusion
The case of the Japanese-Portuguese interpreters demonstrates that to learn a specialist
language means learning more than words; it means learning interactional expertise.
Technical knowledge and specialist language fluency – interactional expertise – are
intertwined and change in concert as experience grows. Thus, abstract utterances that
meant nothing at the beginning of the immersion start to gain their full significance as
time goes by: ‘When I give support to those who research physical metallurgy,
something more profound [is going on], it is very complicated (laughs). Then [things]
change, the concepts also change according to the experience that we keep on
acquiring.’26
The case also shows, if it was not obvious, that the acquisition of interactional
expertise is helped by having as much experience as possible of the physical activities
and materials and processes of the domain. It is in fact the case that even though the
principle of interactional expertise has been expounded in terms of immersion solely
in the language, in every case described, except perhaps that of Madeleine, a
considerable degree of physical contiguity was involved.27
Even in the case of
Madeleine, Selinger as well as Selinger and Mix argue that more physical involvement
25
There may, however, be people who are especially good at thinking abstractly and who would find it
less of a disadvantage to learn through immersion in the discourse without actually seeing anything
going on.
26
This point is also present in Shrager’s description of how he became a molecular biologist (2008 –
this volume, diary entry 20000709).
27
I have in mind the cases described in Collins (2004a), Collins, Evans, Ribeiro and Hall (2006), and
Collins and Evans (2007). The case of Madeleine is first discussed in Collins (2004a).
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was involved than Collins implies.28 Physical contiguity is also present in some
recently described analyses which turn on interactional expertise such as learning
about tuna fishing, becoming an AIDS activist, knowing each other’s sub-fields in
gravitational wave physics and other sciences.29
There is still much interesting work to be done exploring just how much
physical contiguity aids the acquisition of interactional expertise and, indeed, whether
the principle of mastering a language through linguistic immersion alone corresponds
to anything that could be achieved in practice. Of course, since in almost every
practical situation one could imagine a degree of physical contiguity will be sought out
since it makes life so much easier, the question of principle is more one of
philosophical than practical interest – a philosophical interest that does, however, bear
upon the question of the necessity of the embodiment of computers.30 On the other
hand, the case of the pre-lingually deaf clearly shows that physical contiguity, or even
full physical immersion in a domain, cannot produce linguistic fluency in the absence
of linguistic socialization.31
The Japanese-Portuguese interpreters were maximally linguistically socialized
as well as experiencing a great deal of physical contiguity with their subject – short of
full-blown hands-on experience. None of them became contributory experts, however
– they remained interactional experts at best. On the other hand, it is the very fact that
the interpreters are interactional experts that enables them to enhance and smooth
knowledge transfer between steel industry specialists.
28
The ‘embodiment debate’ in regard to interactional expertise started with Collins (2004a), followed
by Selinger and Mix’s critique (2004) and Collins’ (2004b) answer to that. Another round is found in
Selinger, Dreyfus, and Collins (2008 – this volume).
29
The first of the following four cases are described by Jenkins (2008 – this volume), while the
remaining – including the AIDS activists (Epstein, 1995) – are taken as examples of the workings of
interactional experts by Collins, Evans and Gorman (2008 – this volume).
30
See Dreyfus (1996), Collins (1996, 2000).
31
See Collins (2004a).
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