Mentoring – a place to go for further skills development; sharing of experiences in the interpreting field; and, release of empathetic pain. I personally go to my mentor as a safe place to ask questions that I can sometimes feel I can’t ask anyone else – “Did I interpret that correctly?” Dean and Pollard (2001) refer to this as ‘inner noise’. These real or perceived skill inadequacies need to be dealt with otherwise, according to Heller, Stansfield, Stark and Langholtz (1986) cited in Dean and Pollard (2001), it is the most commonly cited source of stress. Whilst I recognise that additional training can also help to develop and improve the skills of an interpreter, it is not the same as having a one to one meeting with someone who is paid to focus on your skills and needs, rather than trying to share their time with an entire class.

Mentoring has provided me a way of discussing demands interpreters can experience in an assignment and how I can explore ways to control some of these demands. Lee and Llewellyn-Jones (2011) refer to this as ‘interaction management’. These are interventions or behaviours that the interpreter uses to manage the interaction in an assignment; these are specific things the interpreter feels they need to do to make sure the interpretation is not impeded (Lee and Llewellyn-Jones 2011). These interventions could be things such as asking for repetition of the speaker, or to turn down the heating in a room because it was getting too hot. Having a mentor is also a release of empathetic pain that I may have experienced from interpreting assignments. Without a mentor I have no release for any negative emotions I may be feeling about an assignment. Emotions can develop inside of me which could potentially have an impact on my ability to interpret in situations which I am consciously and unconsciously sensitive (Harvey 2003).

In my view, interpreters should obtain mentors that have undertaken formal training. Being able to give constructive feedback can be challenging for some people. In particular, giving advice to a friend can be skewed by the blurred lines between a friend and a mentor – with training these boundaries can become clearer. In addition to this, it is important mentors know how to encourage interpreters to self-reflect so that they can make decisions for themselves, rather than mentors telling them what to do. The most important thing is who the interpreter chooses to be their mentor Block (2013). In particular Block (2013) emphasises the importance of having someone who has years of experiences, rather than how many credentials they have gained. Therefore, it is important the interpreter thinks carefully about the person they want to discuss their issues with and whom they will be happy to take advice from!

In addition to the above, having a mentor could help not only the mentee but also the deaf community. This is because those interpreters with little experience can be assisted by mentors to develop a higher level of competency at a faster pace (www.rid.org). According to the Registry of Interpreter for the Deaf (RID) Standard Practice paper ‘Mentoring’ those interpreters who provide mentoring, experience greater job satisfaction increasing the likelihood that they will remain in the profession long term, therefore making more interpreter available for consumers.

I personally really value the benefits of meeting my mentor on a regular basis and feel it is a great way to look at how I can put the theory I learned at university and on other training courses into practice. This, I believe, can be gained by those interpreters who have been in the field of interpreting for many years and have been trained as mentors. As with many things, theory can sometimes take you only so far, is it not the ‘doing’ and self-reflecting and learning from others that can take us further?

References:

• Block, K (2013) ‘Mentorship: Sign Language Interpreters Embrace Your Elders’ [on-line] Street Leverage, June, last accessed on 4^th January 2014, at URL http://www.streetleverage.com/2-13/6/mentorship-sign-language-interpreters-embrace-your-elders/;
• Dean, R.K. and Pollard, R.Q. (2001) ‘Application of Demand-Control Theory to Sign Language Interpreting: Implications for Stress and Interpreter Training. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 6 (1) : 1-14;
• Harvey, M.A. (2003) ‘Shielding Yourself From the Perils of Empathy: The Case of Sign Language Interpreters’ Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 8 (2): 207-213
• Lee, R.G and Llewellyn-Jones, P (2011) ‘Revisiting Role: Arguing for a Multi-Dimensional Analysis of Interpreter Behaviour’ [on-line]last accessed on 5^th January 2014 at URL: http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/5031/1/Lee%20and%20L-J%202011.pdf

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