ABSTRACT
“Translators are self-critical; interpreters are self-confident.” Simultaneous conference interpreting was first thrust in the public eye during the Nuremberg War Trials of 1945–1946. While it was born much earlier in a meeting of the International Labour Organisation in Paris, Nuremberg is where interpreting suddenly came to public notice. Despite the growth in attempts to talk about interpreting in more helpful ways, including a very successful TED-Ed video on how interpreters do their work and a viral video on how interpreters do their jobs, a quick browse round most interpreter websites show a similar picture to the one found in Ebru Diriker’s work. Interpreting Public Relations hasn’t been great because it didn’t really need to be. It is important to understand the commercial and political implications of the picture of great interpreting as being the art of changing nothing or being invisible.
