IW 182: Interview Jiri Janecek Part 4: Structure VS Lies - Spotlighted Invisibility

I'm not here... Why are you staring at me?

The interview of history continues. The Chamber of Czech Sign Language Interpreters revealed even more. Jiří Janeček, the founder of the Chamber, gives more insights from then and now. He shares an emotional moment of when he left the Chamber and why.

Next week is the last of this series, documenting the origins of the Chamber through the founder's eyes.

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Transcript

IW 182: Interview Jiri Janecek Part 4: Structure VS Lies - Spotlighted Invisibility

Support the Podcast!

[ROCK INTRO MUSIC STARTS]

00:00:02 Tim

Good morning, good evening, good afternoon. Wherever you are, this is the Interpreter's Workshop podcast. I'm Tim Curry, your host. Here we talk everything sign language interpreting the ins, the outs, the ups, the downs, the sideways of interpreting. If you're a student, a new interpreter, experienced interpreter, this is the place for you. If you want to know more, go to interpretersworkshop.com.

00:00:28

Let's start talking... interpreting.

[ROCK INTRO MUSIC ENDS]

00:00:34 Tim

And now, the quotes of the day.

00:00:36 Tim

The first one by Matshona Dliwayo, Canadian philosopher and entrepreneur.

00:00:44 Tim

“Excellence in obscurity is better than mediocrity in the spotlight.”

00:00:51 Tim

And the second by best-selling author from Ghana, Bernard Kelvin Clive.

00:00:57 Tim

“Step out today, not seeking to be in the spotlight, but seeking for a spot to light, be a blessing to someone.”

00:01:08 Tim

Today, we continue the conversation with Jirka Janeček from the Czech Republic, the founder of the Chamber of Czech Sign Language Interpreters.

00:01:17 Tim

Today, we learn about why he left the Chamber, some wise words about structure and its use in the interpreting process, and about how to accept our own success, and so much more, including how to understand the “spotlight”.

00:01:38 Tim

Let's get started.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:01:44 Tim

So, let's move away from the serious talk and let's go into word association.

00:01:50 Tim

Like I do every time, I will give you a phrase or a word and whatever is the first thing that pops into your mind, share that with us, whether it's a phrase, a word, a story.

00:02:02 Tim

Okay, so the first is, as usual, comfort food.

00:02:08 Jiří

Depends on the mood. [both chuckle]

00:02:15 Jiří

Sweet stuff.

00:02:18 Tim

Yeah.

00:02:18 Jiří

But that's more when I'm nervous, but really the comfort food, like a feel good that helps me to feel like at home and everything is all right.

00:02:30 Jiří

That would be what we call in Czech Republic, Spanish bird has nothing to do with Spain and with birds. [Tim chuckles]

00:02:37 Jiří

Like a meat roll from the beast that is stuffed with egg and sausage and other things.

00:02:45 Jiří

It has a great, for me, it has a great sauce, amazing sauce.

00:02:49 Tim

Yeah.

00:02:50 Jiří

Very flavorful that I like with rice.

00:02:54 Jiří

And that's something that when I have is really like, yes, that's nice.

00:03:00 Jiří

But actually, there is another response.

00:03:05 Jiří

And that is the comfort food for me is really anything that has been prepared to make me feel nice.

00:03:16 Jiří

If someone prepares the meal with intention to make me feel nice, it will make me feel nice.

00:03:24 Jiří

And if I feel that, and it has to be the member of the family.

00:03:30 Jiří

It has to be my aunt, my mom, [Tim: Yeah, yeah] you know, someone who, my grandma, someone who makes it because they know that I like it.

00:03:41 Tim

Yeah, yeah.

00:03:43 Tim

That brings back memories for me as well.

00:03:45 Tim

Okay.

00:03:47 Jiří

Next, confusing.

00:03:50 Jiří

Sign language.

00:03:52 Tim

[laughing] Why?

00:03:55 Jiří

It was a long time when it was confusing to me. [laughing too]

00:04:00 Jiří

Yeah.

00:04:01 Tim

Yeah, yeah.

00:04:02 Jiří

Confusing, but another answer, confusing to me is everything that I don't see the structure in.

00:04:11 Tim

Yeah.

00:04:12 Jiří

I need structure.

00:04:13 Jiří

The lack of structure is confusing.

00:04:16 Tim

How did you handle that when you had speakers who were rambling or going off topic or not making sense?

00:04:25 Tim

How did that affect you as an interpreter?

00:04:27 Tim

Or did you still see a structure there?

00:04:30 Jiří

I can still see the structure there.

00:04:32 Jiří

Yes.

00:04:32 Jiří

When I speak with someone or when I was working as an interpreter and so I always saw the structure.

00:04:43 Jiří

But that's something that happens to me very often when I listen to the person, even outside of interpreting.

00:04:53 Jiří

I see the pictures, I see the structure visually, and I actually do the spatial placement somehow.

00:05:04 Jiří

That was probably one of the reasons why I enjoyed really interpreting into and from sign language.

00:05:14 Jiří

For me, the spatial placement is the part of the structure.

00:05:19 Jiří

And when someone speaks, I just put those words into the space.

00:05:27 Jiří

And if I don't understand something, I just put it on a side.

00:05:31 Jiří

And then just when I know where it belongs, then I put it there.

00:05:35 Tim

Yeah.

00:05:35 Jiří

Yeah.

00:05:35 Jiří

So yeah, that's the way how I work with the structure.

00:05:41 Jiří

The lack of structure for me is more about when someone is telling me excuses or making the stuff up because the stuff that is made-up usually lack the structure.

00:05:58 Jiří

Yeah.

00:05:59 Tim

Yeah.

00:06:00 Jiří

And that's something that in general I'm finding like, this is confusing.

00:06:04 Jiří

This is what, what is it?

00:06:07 Jiří

And then usually it means that confusing means that it was made-up somehow to make an excuse or just to hide or pretend that someone knows something.

00:06:23 Jiří

Then it's confusing because they speak in a way that it lacks the structure to me.

00:06:29 Tim

Hmm, that's why I know myself, and in the US, we usually say the phrase, you know, “Make it make sense or that doesn't make sense.”

00:06:40 Tim

I guess subconsciously we're seeing the lack of structure, the lack of connection, which is a good clue that something is perhaps a lie or the truth is missing somewhere.

00:06:54 Tim

Yeah, interesting.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC STARTS]

00:06:57 Tim

I hope you enjoy these stories and for meeting new interpreters from around the world.

00:07:02 Tim

For all of this, click on the link in the show notes, buy me a coffee, and donate.

00:07:07 Tim

Support this show.

00:07:08 Tim

Thank you.

00:07:09 Tim

Now let's go back.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC ENDS]

00:07:13 Tim

I want to interrupt our word association.

00:07:15 Tim

You mentioned when you were interpreting, and I don't think we've said it yet, but you stopped interpreting somewhere around the same time I moved here, I believe, around 2006, 2007.

00:07:31 Jiří

It had two phases.

00:07:33 Tim

Okay.

00:07:34 Jiří

I stopped.

00:07:35 Jiří

First, I was a chair of the Chamber, and then I decided that I have to quit in the Chamber itself.

00:07:47 Jiří

What I underestimated is the amount of ego and personal agenda that can be involved, especially when something doesn't have a strong structure yet and it's been evolving. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:08:07 Jiří

So, from that point of view, I had a vision of the professional organization, and it was more and more about emotions, about feelings, and about creating the feeling of guilt as a way of motivation.

00:08:35 Jiří

Yeah?

00:08:36 Jiří

So, I was working a lot, but when I've heard, for example, like, “Jiří, we need five more hours of your time, a few hours of your time, that the deadline is midnight.” [Tim: hmm!]

00:08:50 Jiří

And… “But if you will do that, you will change the life of Deaf people for the whole next year.”

00:09:01 Tim

And was this the…?

00:09:02 Jiří

It was all those, the donations, the grants that you can ask for [Tim: Ah, OK.] and those things usually.

00:09:12 Tim

Was it the Deaf community telling you this, giving you this guilt?

00:09:16 Jiří

No, it was a colleagues, very close colleagues from the Chamber.

00:09:23 Tim

I see.

00:09:24 Jiří

Like the closest one, I would say. [Tim: hmm]

00:09:27 Jiří

And I realized how much I was actually manipulated to do certain things by this mechanism of feeling guilty or how nice it is going to be if we will do this and that.

00:09:42 Jiří

And with that, like, “Okay, well, I understand that you don't want to do that, but it's sad that the people will suffer because of your decision.”

00:09:53 Tim

Yeah.

00:09:54 Jiří

Yeah.

00:09:54 Jiří

“We respect that decision that you, if you really cannot.” Ya know. [Tim: hmm]

00:10:00 Jiří

And this is something that for me, it's difficult to handle and it went to the level when I could not function like that anymore.

00:10:09 Jiří

But I had such a strong relationship with the Chamber because it's important to recognize it's basically your child [Tim: Yeah] from certain point of view when you set up something like that, that I had to quit my position and to announce it in a way that it was not possible to take it back.

00:10:34 Tim

Yeah.

00:10:34 Jiří

So, I actually, at the fifth anniversary, it went to the point that I knew that I cannot handle it from, it was affecting my health, it was affecting my psyche, everything.

00:10:48 Jiří

So, I stood up there.

00:10:51 Jiří

And I had a speech, and at the end of that speech, I just said that this is my last day in a Chamber.

00:10:59 Jiří

Very emotional again.

00:11:00 Tim

Sure.

00:11:02 Jiří

Yeah.

00:11:03 Jiří

And again, that was kind of same thing.

00:11:07 Jiří

Like when efsli, they stood up and they were like, is it what happened?

00:11:12 Jiří

They were all, they were Deaf, hearing people.

00:11:17 Jiří

They were shocked – because I never ventilated those things because even if I would and ventilated them, it always turned against me somehow.

00:11:27 Tim

Yeah.

00:11:28 Jiří

Because I was the one who didn't want to have a nice stuff done and it was so, it would be so useful and all of that.

00:11:36 Jiří

So, I had to do it that way.

00:11:38 Jiří

I knew that otherwise it would again somehow destroy me.

00:11:43 Jiří

So, I was like, “Okay, I have to do it. I have to say it.”

00:11:45 Jiří

And after I said that,

00:11:47 Jiří

That was one of the biggest applausees I probably ever had, you know, from the whole audience that they were like, in a way, like it was that thing that you got that applause for everything that you had done.

00:12:03 Tim

Yeah, that recognition.

00:12:05 Jiří

Yeah, that recognition.

00:12:07 Jiří

I actually felt a lot of the lack of recognition.

00:12:12 Jiří

It started to be like a day-to-day and I think it's important for any profession to “own your successes”. [Tim: Mm-hmm] Yeah.

00:12:27 Jiří

That the one of the things that are very unhealthy is do the good stuff, but then putting it down and saying like, no, no, no, there's nothing.

00:12:40 Jiří

It's not!

00:12:41 Jiří

It's a lot of work that we do, as interpreters especially. [Tim: hmm]

00:12:47 Jiří

And it's not normal. [Tim: Yeah]

00:12:50 Jiří

Nothing of it is like normal stuff.

00:12:53 Jiří

Like, “No, you don't need to mention it. That's normal to you.”

00:12:56 Jiří

It's not!

00:12:58 Jiří

And it's important to realize that and acknowledge it.

00:13:02 Jiří

So that was a big acknowledgement that I was getting there.

00:13:06 Jiří

And yeah, so that was how I finished and I continued for a few years as an interpreter outside of the Chamber.

00:13:17 Jiří

But the Chamber was so well established that actually my job was always somehow affected by that dynamics that I was trying to leave by me resigning.

00:13:36 Jiří

Then I realized that not working anymore at the Chamber is not enough to remove myself from this unhealthy dynamics.

00:13:50 Tim

Yeah.

00:13:50 Jiří

And I think that this is going to be surprising to probably many people who will listen to it, and they are part of the Chamber, or they were part of the Chamber, because that was something that was quite well hidden.

00:14:05 Jiří

I think that actually, that's funny, that many of them heard the version of my life and my story within the Chamber that puts me to the light of me being unstable, me being not enough, or like not want to evolve, and…

00:14:29 Tim

Yeah.

00:14:31 Jiří

It's not about the particular definition of how was it, but they would see me actually as a bad guy or incapable guy.

00:14:41 Tim

Yeah.

00:14:42 Jiří

But it was a part of that whole thing, why I was removing myself, because being put into that light, even though I knew what I'm doing [Tim: Mm-hmm] and how I was doing, it was the only way how to actually survive.

00:14:58 Jiří

And yeah, probably it was kind of survival [Tim: Yeah] thing for me.

00:15:03 Jiří

But at the same time, I saw how well established everything is.

00:15:09 Jiří

So, I felt like if I'm going to remove myself, this is not going to affect what we have achieved.

00:15:19 Tim

Yeah.

00:15:19 Tim

Thank you for sharing that.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC STARTS]

00:15:21 Tim

It's Christmas.

00:15:22 Tim

It's the time of gift giving.

00:15:24 Tim

A simple way is to donate to the podcast.

00:15:27 Tim

If you haven't already, or if you have, do it again.

00:15:30 Tim

Click on the link, Buy Me A Coffee, donate to the show.

00:15:33 Tim

Thank you.

00:15:34 Tim

Now let's go back.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC ENDS]

00:15:38 Tim

It's hard to look back on, or perhaps it's easier to look back and see how things were, how it affected us easier now than at that time.

00:15:49 Tim

Once you step out of the cooking pot and actually go back to the kitchen, you can see what actually happened and how it all evolved into what it is today.

00:16:00 Jiří

And I think it's beautiful.

00:16:02 Jiří

I think it's beautiful when I see how many people are involved.

00:16:07 Jiří

The way how I understood the world functions outside of the interpreting when I entered the world of interpreting and applied to that field, that's something that now they take not for granted, but like “this is how it should be”.

00:16:27 Jiří

“This is how it is.” [Tim laughing]

00:16:29 Jiří

“This is how we do it.”

00:16:31 Jiří

“This is normal.” [Tim: Yeah]

00:16:32 Jiří

Yeah, this is normal.

00:16:33 Jiří

And it's nice to see that now it is normal. I'm very happy to see that this is normal, that the Deaf people know what they can expect from interpreter. They can stand for themselves if they are not getting it.

00:16:50 Tim

Yeah.

00:16:50 Jiří

Interpreters able to give themselves feedback, [Tim: Yeah] you know, to work and not taking it personally, but as a part of their development. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:17:03 Jiří

Yeah, it's beautiful.

00:17:05 Jiří

It's beautiful because it was way more personal, way more emotional.

00:17:10 Jiří

And I think that it's because it was inevitable to experience that part of that evolution, [Tim: Mm-hmm] because all those people who were involved in the Chamber had some history personal and professional that was not, how to say it, that it, that was not seen from any meta level that they would, they just acted automatically based on their beliefs and needs.

00:17:48 Jiří

And I believe that the big part of any profession, especially when you work with other people, and interpreting is working with not just people, but the message, the purpose, the call, the essence, you know, and understand that all of that understanding is affected by your own beliefs. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:18:14 Jiří

Yeah.

00:18:15 Jiří

Even if you – in saying that you are neutral is illusion.

00:18:19 Jiří

Yeah.

00:18:20 Jiří

We cannot be neutral because

00:18:22 Jiří

And it's not the part that we decide, it's the part how we process, even what you listen, what we can process, what gets into the brain is already like very strongly filtered. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:18:37 Jiří

And knowing that and acknowledge that and being able to see it and realize that, “Okay, probably my conclusions might be somehow affected by that, and probably are, is important part of the going well with other people and evolving as a professional.” [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:19:02 Jiří

And to the mental health and not just mental health, but the coaching and like having the supervision of my own processes that are happening inside of me is the part I think should be more and more the part of any profession and actually self-development.

00:19:22 Jiří

But then it has some extra aspects when you are in a spotlight.

00:19:29 Tim

Yeah.

00:19:29 Jiří

Yeah.

00:19:30 Jiří

Because many interpreters would say, “Oh, we are never in a spotlight. No, no, no, we are in a background.”

00:19:36 Jiří

Yeah. [Tim chuckling]

00:19:37 Jiří

Actually, not so much if you are interpreting, you are the one who hearing people see, the Deaf people see, you are there.

00:19:48 Jiří

Yeah.

00:19:49 Jiří

And having understanding what is low profile, [Tim: Yeah] that it doesn't mean that you are invisible.

00:19:55 Jiří

And just insisting because you know that you should be invisible, then it doesn't mean that you are invisible. [Tim chuckling]

00:20:03 Jiří

Especially when you tell everyone, “I'm the invisible one”. Yeah. [Tim chuckling]

00:20:10 Jiří

Then you are starting to be very seen.

00:20:13 Jiří

So, it's nice to see that now that meta level is more and more the part of the education.

00:20:19 Jiří

And, and that’s, that's great.

00:20:22 Jiří

We had to go through the portion of the time when actually now the members of the Chamber are not the members that they experience other reality than the Chamber existing.

00:20:39 Jiří

Because at that point, you take it for granted, for kind of, I don't know how to say it, the other words, but this is how it is.

00:20:49 Jiří

This is the reality. [Tim: Yeah]

00:20:51 Jiří

And I think it's the same, like, it's important to remind ourselves about the history, about the Holocaust, about the many other things that they are the part of the history.

00:21:05 Jiří

Because one of the things that is useful about it to remind ourselves, is avoid repeating it, because it's very easy to slip somehow when we are not aware that it's happening.

00:21:22 Tim

Yeah.

00:21:23 Jiří

That we are going sideways somewhere, that we are sidetracking.

00:21:28 Jiří

And it's nice to have the colleagues that they can tell you, and it's not taken personally, and it's just a part of the development. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC STARTS]

00:21:43 Tim

Some wonderful, heart-touching moments.

00:21:45 Tim

Stories about the beginning of something, the end of something, the transition and development, and the growth of the profession here in the Czech Republic.

00:21:55 Tim

There are some wonderful points that Jirka gave us.

00:21:58 Tim

One, look at the structure of things.

00:22:01 Tim

When we are interpreting, we are looking for structure.

00:22:04 Tim

We're looking for the goals.

00:22:05 Tim

We're looking for the points that someone's trying to make and how it all connects together, visually, grammatically, thematically.

00:22:15 Tim

He told us to look at our own successes, and we should celebrate those.

00:22:20 Tim

I know that sounds like a cliche, but we should acknowledge them and realize that what we do as an interpreter, is not just interpreting.

00:22:30 Tim

It's not just language.

00:22:33 Tim

It's a really difficult job that as we develop it, for people who don't know our profession, it looks “easy”.

00:22:40 Tim

It looks like we don't have any effort involved in it.

00:22:46 Tim

Jirka left Chamber after five years.

00:22:50 Tim

It took a lot of courage to start something from nothing in the middle of an upheaval of opinions, ideas, viewpoints.

00:23:01 Tim

Something new always has many different perspectives looking at it.

00:23:07 Tim

But he made the decision to have the courage to protect himself, to protect what's important.

00:23:14 Tim

But he was the first to acknowledge that after 25 years, two things, one, the Chamber was already established after five years, strong enough to continue without the leaders of the beginning.

00:23:30 Tim

And the second thing he noticed is that this year, the generation of interpreters that are in Chamber now, that new generation does not know the reality of “no” Chamber.

00:23:43 Tim

Chamber is established.

00:23:46 Tim

The professional organization is still going strong, it's evolving and developing,

00:23:51 Tim

And those ideas that it was based on, the foundation is still there.

00:23:56 Tim

It's now widespread into the fact that it's the norm, rather than something unique and different.

00:24:03 Tim

“Ughh.” And, “are we going to be able to do this?” “Can we get used to this?” “It's not the same as we used to do it.”

00:24:12 Tim

No.

00:24:12 Tim

Now it's normal.

00:24:15 Tim

It's the standard.

00:24:17 Tim

So out of all of that, a very good point is for us to remember that when we are trying something new, or when we're even interpreting, we are doing it from the vantage point of our filters.

00:24:32 Tim

We know this on a certain level, but it's good to be reminded of it, that what we see, what we think, what we say, comes from our position.

00:24:44 Tim

And it's our wonderful job to try not to let that influence the interpretation that we are getting from the source languages.

00:24:54 Tim

See, what we do is not just a normal, easy job.

00:25:00 Tim

We're that good.

00:25:01 Tim

So next week, we finish the interview with Jirka, celebrating 25 years of the Chamber of Czech Sign Language Interpreters.

00:25:11 Tim

Until then, keep calm, keep the spotlight on dim when you're interpreting.

00:25:18 Tim

I'll see you next week.

00:25:19 Tim

Take care now.

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC ENDS AT 00:25:59]