Personality: A synergy of traits impacting on interpreter performance
Karen Bontempo, PhD candidate, Macquarie University, Australia
Karen Bontempo is a practicing Auslan/English interpreter, with 20 years experience in the field. Her academic qualifications are in psychology, linguistics and education. She is currently a PhD (Linguistics) candidate at Macquarie University, where she is a member of the Centre for Translation and Interpreting Research, the Applied Linguistics in Language and Education Research Centre, and the Sign Language Linguistics Group.
Karen has had a long association with ASLIA at both state and national level and currently chairs their national Interpreter Trainers’ Network. Karen has taught on the Diploma of Interpreting at the Central Institute of Technology in WA for the past 14 years. She is on the editorial board of the Sign Language Translator and Interpreter journal and the International Journal of Interpreter Education, and she has published work regarding her research interests in interpreter aptitude; skills gaps of interpreters; and personality as a predictor of job performance.
Abstract:
For many years psychologists contended that general cognitive ability was the only reliable predictor of success in an occupation. Over the past 25 years this view has shifted somewhat, with research now demonstrating a meaningful link between an individual’s disposition and their performance - both in a program of study, and in the workplace. General mental ability is no longer considered the only influential predictor of occupational performance, with the relationship between personality and job performance now acknowledged to also be a key consideration.
Occupational screening for vocational suitability occurs in other professions, particularly those where the psychological demands of the position are quite high, and in jobs that require significant public trust. Such demands are true of the task of interpreting, where the management of stressful conditions and cognitive load are paramount to effective interpreter performance; and we are entrusted with the responsibility of working in the messy midst of people’s day-to-day communication events, often in sensitive circumstances. There is an intuitive understanding that an individual’s disposition may well be germane to consider before choosing such a challenging “people-oriented” career. Thus far, however, interpreter education programs and employers of interpreters have eschewed personality screening, and any serious contemplation of dispositional traits that may impact on interpreter performance - on training courses, or in the workplace.
This paper will describe recent research that has been published, informing our understanding of the correlation between personality and interpreter performance, and will outline disposition factors presently being investigated by researchers that might indicate aptitude for interpreting. In addition, the preliminary findings of a current large-scale international research study on interpreter disposition being conducted by a research team from Macquarie University, Australia and Eastern Kentucky University, USA, will be revealed to conference delegates. Such findings regarding personality and interpreter performance and aptitude for interpreting will have implications for interpreter educators; trainers; mentors; interpreter education program administrators; service managers; and employers of interpreters; as well as being of considerable interest to practitioners themselves.
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