IW 177: Interview Allyson Morgan Part 1: Keep Germany but Save the Wales - Cultural Communication

Not another meeting!

We need to know how the other half lives, our clients that is. We know that understanding the language is not enough. But do we know what parts of the dynamic situation we need to know?

Allyson Morgan speaks with me about the eight dimensions of Cultural Mapping in this interview. In part 1 she gives us her story and how it evolved into understanding cultural mapping.

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Transcript

IW 177: Interview Allyson Morgan Part 1: Keep Germany but Save the Wales - Cultural Communication

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[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 Tim

Let's start talking... interpreting.

[ROCK INTRO MUSIC ENDS]

00:00:34 Tim

And now the quote of the day by American author Dave Barry.

00:00:40 Tim

“If you had to identify in one word the reason why the human race has not achieved and never will achieve its full potential that word would be… meetings.”

00:00:54 Tim

Today we discuss communication culture. As interpreters we need to understand our clients hearing and Deaf, and most of the time we think we must focus on the Deaf community more and understand that culture more and we forget about the wide spectrum of cultural differences and communication techniques and methods that our clients have.

00:01:22 Tim

Today we speak with an expert about culture and communication within the business world, and we'll start to discuss how that applies to everyday communication.

00:01:36 Tim

This is an introduction to something called cultural mapping, and we'll get into that even deeper in the second part of this interview.

00:01:46 Tim

So, let's get started.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:01:52 Tim

Today we get to have a conversation with a wonderful person that I've met who is not a sign language interpreter nor a spoken language interpreter, but her experience, I believe, will give us some more insight into what we do as interpreters every day.

00:02:09 Tim

She has a strong background in human resources, working with many businesses globally partnering with leaders to develop and design programs that help enrich the lives of the employees, the teams having an impact in transforming businesses to be able to work with such a diverse menagerie of people in their workforce, what does that have to do with interpreting? Well, let's find out. Welcome to the podcast, Allison Morgan. It's good to have you here.

00:02:44 Allyson

Hi, Tim. Thank you very much for inviting me on the podcast I'm really, really pleased to be here.

00:02:48 Tim

I'm happy to see you again. We did have a wonderful conversation when we first met, and we've had a few since then. There's just a perspective that you brought to our conversation that I thought meshes really well with sign language interpreting what we do cognitively, many times without thinking about it, and it has to do a lot with communication.

00:03:11 Tim

But before we get into that nitty gritty detailly stuff, let's talk about you first and see how that has brought you to where we are in the conversation today. Tell us about yourself. Where are you from and how did you eventually get to Germany.

00:03:30 Allyson

Wow, how much time have you got? [both laughing]

00:03:34 Tim

Well, I have all the time in the world. I'm not sure about the listeners at the moment. But go right ahead.

00:03:40 Allyson

…not to bore people. OK, so I'm from Wales in the UK. I live, I've lived now in Germany for 27 years. So, a long time. How did I get to Germany? I studied politics and languages in London. So I went from a very small town, well, not so small, Cardiff, to London was a massive leap. 

00:03:59 Allyson

And then as part of the my studies I did a year out, so six months in France, 6 months in Germany, thought I was going to love France and not so much love Germany, but it was the other way round. [Tim: huh] I arrived in Germany, and they just loved it for the first time my life, I felt like I really belonged in a very international group of friends. I fell in love and then came back. After I finished my studies, I came back to Germany. I have been ever since.

00:04:25 Allyson

So, I've had two children, through marriage and still here.

00:04:30 Tim

What was different? Why did you think you were going to love France and then found out that you actually loved Germany?

00:04:37 Allyson

Well, very interesting. What I didn't realize at the time is I had a, umm, a bias towards (a negative bias) towards Germany and a positive bias towards France. I love the French language. I had more contact with France. Germany was kind of still an unknown entity to me, but I think it was a combination of many things.

00:04:58 Allyson

I think I, I found a love of the language, but not just that I really had this connection with people from al-, although I'd met different people in, in France too. I've been very much in kind of an expats community and when I went to Germany and met many expats there…

00:05:18 Allyson

And it was a really immersive experience in an international student experience. I got back from university and my professor looking at me one day and said, “My God, Allison, I think you've had a small revolution gone on your head, right? When you - since you were away.” [Tim chuckling] And I…

00:05:34 Allyson

And he was right, something shifted inside me when I was in Germany.

00:05:37 Allyson

I felt this, for the first time in my life, this is where I, what I wanna be doing. I wanna be surrounded by diverse people. It, it er... It brought out the best of me. And I think that lasting experience last lasting feeling coupled together with the fact that I fell in love, and he was in in Stuttgart in Germany meant that I wanted to go back to Germany.

00:06:00 Tim

When you're coming to France and to Germany, you're bringing with you your, your own baggage, right, of where you're from. So, did you immediately fit in with the expat community because of that, or did you want to distance yourself from them at first? Or how did that playout?

00:06:20 Allyson

So, when I went to France, I having native speakers was like a crutch for me? So, it kind of, it nurtured me, it helped me, but I didn't develop. I didn't expand my horizons because I still, still stayed in my comfort zone because I was surrounded by English speakers.

00:06:39 Allyson

But when I went to Germany…

00:06:42 Allyson

It took me a while because I was still quite shy back then.

00:06:45 Allyson

But I had to I, I, you have to adjust the way you speak, the way you communicate with people, because now you're, you have new friends whose language is not English and you're no longer communicating in your comfort language, but you’re communicating in German.

00:07:00 Allyson

Which automatically shifts you, you shift gear because you become more emphatic, to become more understanding, you become more inclusive. You don't have those cultural contexts.

00:07:12 Allyson

Which you can use like humor, things you grew up with. You're a, you're in a complete new territory. You’re all finding your own way, and because you using a, a common language, it wasn't our native language we all developed together and this bound us. And I still have friends from that time because of that.

00:07:32 Allyson

Because it was such an exciting, but also scary time as well. Right, when you, when you communicate the language, is not your native language.

00:07:40 Allyson

So, you have to be more understanding. We all kind of, “not clung together”, we all like, we really… It was like a real circle of friends, tight circle friends and that I think that experience – propelled me in my development and that's why I thought, OK, so why I want to go back to Germany.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:08:01 Tim

It's almost as though you feel when you're using a different language, you feel like your personality is different to a certain degree, or you feel as though you cannot be yourself. I think that's one of the fears in the beginning is that I don't have the vocabulary to express myself, the way I normally would express, like you said, humor or sarcasm, the nuances of the culture that you can bring. You can't do those references to, say, a movie or a book or something in your culture that everybody knows. This means this. You can't use those phrases.

00:08:40 Tim

And it changes how you communicate.

00:08:44 Tim

That's a weird feeling.

00:08:46 Tim

I remember learning American Sign Language. I always wondered.

00:08:51 Tim

I don't know if I'm gonna be as funny as I normally am. I remember thinking that when I was younger, right? [chuckles at himself]

00:08:57 Allyson

Yeah.

00:08:58 Tim

So, it's interesting that you shifted a little bit in Germany. Do you think that because you were experiencing that together with others trying to use the second language or that other language that made you feel more bonded to Germany than to France?

00:09:16 Allyson

Uh, yeah, I think at the beginning that was it. Like maybe it wasn't Germany per se, but we did have that in common because we were experiencing that in German. It's also a sense of vulnerability, right. And it's difficult to make yourself vulnerable. But here I was forced to make myself vulnerable because now I'm talking in a different language. People I don't know. And we're finding our way together.

00:09:36 Allyson

With time you have to like grow into it. So, at the beginning, like you said, the beginning, you have a different personality.

00:09:40 Allyson

You’re not sure how much you can reveal of yourself, or if you can do it in a different language. And then with time, time when you meet the right people, you realize, OK, we're all speaking a different language, but automatically you you kind of flower because you're becoming somebody new and they're becoming somebody new. It's a wonderful experience. And with time then you have your own jokes. Right?

00:10:02 Allyson

You have new jokes that have nothing to do with the cultural contexts.

00:10:04 Allyson

But they're your jokes. They're your group of friends’ jokes. [Tim: Mm-hmm] Which we still have, we still laugh at those jokes now after 20…, oh gosh, more, that's now it's longer - 1996. That's like nearly 30 years. [Tim: yeah] And we still laugh at those jokes now when I meet up with those friends.

00:10:21 Allyson

I remember going back to the UK after the year abroad, I felt different. It was one of those times in my life. I went into a new phase.

00:10:29 Allyson

I don't think I was even that aware of it, because when you're younger, you probably don't question it. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:10:34 Allyson

But yes, so I definitely knew I wanted to come back to Germany not just because of the person I fell in love with, but also because of the experience I wanted to recapture that.

00:10:43 Tim

Yeah, it's a unique experience. I know we say “expats”, but we're kind of in between immigrants or perhaps we are immigrants. [Allyson: Yeah] And, you know, living and working in another country, that that's an immigrant. [Allyson: Mm-hmm]

00:10:58 Tim

That does seem to change us. I remember going back to the States and seeing my family, my friends, and I was seeing them with different glasses on. [Allyson: Absolutely] The things that they were laughing at or, or they thought was funny… wasn't quite the same for me anymore.

00:11:17 Tim

Not, not all of it, mind you. There's still that strong bond between those close friends and close family.

00:11:25 Tim

But for some of the I would say “acquaintances” that I had before were definitely not as close. We were not having the connections that we did when I was in the US.

00:11:37 Tim

I think we see the world differently.

00:11:40 Allyson

That's exactly how I would describe it, and it's interesting now because we'll come onto this in a minute.

00:11:45 Allyson

I didn't realize at the time. But I was looking…

00:11:48 Allyson

…I was zooming out and looking not just through my own cultural lens anymore, without even being aware of. I knew that I saw life differently, and I remember thinking time and having much more understanding and empathy for immigrants in the UK.

00:12:03 Allyson

OK, because I knew – I mean my not compare my experience with somebody fleeing Afghanistan or Iraq, no way. Of course not. Absolutely. But there is a common thread there from someone coming to a new culture, new language and having to think on your feet, having to really like, navigate a new cultural order that you're not part of it or didn't grow up in. And I think that's what, what it gives you when you go back home, and things have changed. Of course, things change, but you do look at life through a, a broader cultural lens, and that is a huge gift. Huge gift.

00:12:41 Tim

Yeah. Growing up in our own countries, we learn the history. We learn the positives, the negatives, the food, the signage on the roads, the signage on the storefronts, all of those things. We learned the etiquette, and then we're lifted into another country, and we have all of that with us.

00:13:01 Tim

And now it's not quite as important to us… [Allyson: Mm-hmm] for living.

00:13:08 Tim

It's part of us. We can't get rid of it. The importance and the priority of those things in our lives kind of start to go down the list because it's all about living, isn't it? It's all about being in the society you're in, the community you're in. And that takes different skill sets or different knowledge sets to use.

00:13:27 Tim

For you going to Germany, we can forget about France [Allyson bursts out laughing] for now. For now. [Allyson: vive la France] [both laughing]

00:13:37 Tim

Thinking about those things that you had from academia, from work, from life…

00:13:44 Tim

What challenges or difficulties did you first see and notice that they were difficulties or barriers?

00:13:53 Tim

What were the ones that you saw and the ones that you didn't see but were still there and you found out later that it was a thing?

00:14:01 Allyson

One of the biggest cultural differences I found in Germany when I first arrived in 1996, was, it sounds banal, “opening hours”. So, at that time when I first arrived in Germany, shops were closed at 5:00 pm.

00:14:14 Allyson

And they would close at 12:00 pm on a Saturday.

00:14:16 Allyson

So, life was much slower. I studied in London, where pace of life was very fast, very frantic. Everything was open. And then I think when I, I think it's Sunday open hours had just happened. I think in the UK when I left, but it was 24/7. It was a 24/7 life. It was…

00:14:34 Allyson

There was a bit of a shutdown in the evening, 8:00 pm, but really there was a fast pace of life. In Germany it was much slower. So as students who would get up on a Saturday morning and have to rush to the supermarket to get food. They'd be looking at and saying, “OK. Why are you here? You're 5 (min) to 12:00 pm.”

00:14:49 Allyson

We were like, “We’re sorry” rushing and getting the food, wine and all the all the stuff for the party. That, I remember thinking. Well, OK, life is much slower here. Much - people take their time. People like have Sundays off the day of rest and stuff.

00:15:03 Allyson

Queuing was a big thing. In the UK we queue, as a school child no, but as an adult you, you, you learn that etiquette that you, we queue. And in Germany it's not a thing. It's not really, they don't really queue, it’s more of a bargy-bargy you know “let’s get in”.

00:15:16 Allyson

That was the first things that… The pace of life and the queueing.

00:15:22 Allyson

And the hidden thing, which I didn't realize until much long-, much later in life, was the, the more direct form of communication and direct given of feedback, which I think I, I know I, I encountered as very brusque.

00:15:40 Allyson

And of course, even when I first arrived, [Tim: Mm-hmm] I didn't really understand it.

00:15:46 Allyson

I wasn't insulted, wasn't put off by it. But I did find it [sighs] very difficult for me.

00:15:51 Allyson

I didn't really question it until much later on.

00:15:54 Tim

How did you get around it?

00:15:56 Allyson

I think I was always a bit on edge, [both chuckle] didn't know what to do with it. I mean, I kind of, kind of laughed it off, you know me. You know. There was, there was definitely a disconnect between me and the Germans I worked with. The brusqueness of them and the kind of, [I] mean, [they] probably thought I was a…

00:16:14 Allyson

I don't know.

00:16:15 Allyson

They probably thought “the woman is not even being serious”.

00:16:16 Allyson

Cause I would’ve kinda laughed it off, but not really deal with it, not really understand it.

00:16:22 Allyson

Not until late- much, much, much later on… did I understand this is just part of the culture.

00:16:27 Allyson

“Don't take it personally, Allison.”

00:16:29 Tim

Yeah, and this was not just in business, but everywhere.

00:16:34 Allyson

Yeah, everywhere. Everywhere. Brusqueness. Curtness. I mean, we're not as friendly as the people in the US, in the, in the UK.

00:16:43 Allyson

Really, we're not that kind of, you know, “hi. How are you?” We're not like that, but there's much easiness to talk to people. It's polite. I don't know whether it's a good thing, to be honest, you, Tim, because sometimes let's see how it is, you know? But I'm... I was used to this politeness, this smiling and not really saying what you meant. [Tim: Mm-hmm] 

00:17:00 Allyson

And in Germany it was kind of a culture shock to have people tell you, OK, not to mince any words, just tell you, “OK. This is how it is and this is why I think.”

00:17:10 Allyson

I wasn't prepared for it.

00:17:13 Tim

Yeah. Does that make business meetings much shorter?

00:17:15 Allyson

Very efficient. Yeah. You need to be efficient. And I mean, I think it depends where you work. If we could fast forward now, [Tim: Mm-hmm] now I understand it. Yeah. They want to get to the point in a meeting. Let's get to the point. Let's say what we want, let's say what we need, which is, I mean, I know it now, it's OK.

00:17:32 Allyson

I'm still a small talk person. I don't really... You know, whatever. I'm still gonna ask how you are, that kind of…

00:17:37 Allyson

You kind of read the room better, which I think at the time when I was younger, I probably waffled on a lot and tried to make that connection with the small talk and wasn't aware of people, probably giving me the signal. “OK, Allison, let's get to work.” And I think that was a disconnect when I was younger. Now that I understand it, I still try, but I can read the room. If I see: “OK. There's no, they're not really interested. Not that they're not interested. OK. They just want to get to the point” then I leave it.

00:18:04 Tim

How does that correlate to, say, teamwork?

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC STARTS]

00:18:08 Tim

Here's an awkward moment for our break. So, take this moment to click on the links in the show notes to Buy Me A Coffee support this podcast to support other interpreters throughout the world. Thank you. Now let's awkwardly jump back in.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC ENDS]

00:18:24 Tim

I mean, if you have like a project in a business and there's a team of five, for example, how do they handle that? Is there one person of the team that controls the meeting, or do they work together on an even level or how does it quickly go through?

00:18:43 Allyson

Well, it depends on how culturally aware people are, right? I mean, I discovered it in a few meetings. I've had it work in global teams where the dominant group…

00:18:55 Allyson

So, it depends on who, who set the meeting. They're the ones to really to steer the way a meeting is being held - with… And if they're not culturally aware then that can lead to also lots of misunderstandings and frustration on the side of others.

00:19:13 Allyson

Yeah, I can give you an answer, but don't if it makes sense to the to the listeners. If I can give you an answer with my knowledge now. But how I've seen it happen is two different things. [Tim: That sounds good.] Let me answer that by giving you 2 examples. One example of a team that's culturally aware and a team is not so cultural aware.

00:19:33 Allyson

Let's do the one that's not culturally aware first. [Tim: OK]

00:19:36 Allyson

So, the one that's called not culturally aware is... It's very like, you know, our experiences too that the person set up the meeting is the one that's going to dominate the meeting and the one that’s gonna navigate the meeting.

00:19:46 Allyson

And not really be aware of how other cultures like to work or expect to work. So, for example, if you've got a team of five people, 5 different cultures, then, if you're not culturally aware, then you'll go into this team meeting only looking through your own cultural lens. So, you'll have your own way of holding a meeting, and you'll expect other people to join that meeting and participate in that meeting in the same way that you expected.

00:20:16 Allyson

It's no fault, everybody does it. How can you know how to, to react differently to other people? So, in that way, there's a high probability of a lot of misunderstanding, miscommunication, frustration and maybe in the long term, less efficient teamwork.

00:20:34 Allyson

If, on the other hand, you have a team where people are more culturally aware and then even the person who has organized a meeting will go into that meeting, zooming out and not looking through his own cultural lens or her own cultural lens. So, will not have their expectation that everybody reacts or participate in the meeting the same way as them.

00:20:54 Allyson

The team with low cultural awareness, this is very likely to lead to misunderstanding, miscommunication and maybe in the long term less team efficiency and why? 

00:21:04 Allyson

Because the people in this team, they all expect, the team, all expect all the others to receive the information, to act to, to participate in the meeting just like them.

00:21:19 Allyson

So, there could be a disconnection. Whereas in a team meeting with this more cultural awareness, people already go into the team meeting aware of the cultural differences and looking through broader cultural lens.

00:21:35 Allyson

They may even talk about the differences which then obviously leads to less miscommunication, less misunderstanding, and also in the long term more efficiency and more of a trustful team spirit.

00:21:49 Allyson

So, there is, there are two ways of doing it. I've seen both ways.

00:21:53 Tim

So, using those two examples, I'm thinking about it also from the point of view of the first time these two get together. I'm envisioning that both meetings might be even a little bit longer than it normally would be.

00:22:09 Tim

With the meeting, without any cultural understanding, that one would take longer, have a lot of frustration. Their second meeting would also be longer, still some frustration and probably a little bit of bitterness because “uh, not another meeting with these people”, right? That kind of viewpoint.

00:22:30 Tim

Whereas the other one would take a little bit longer because you're starting to set the stage for understanding each other, talking a little bit about that so that you are not stepping on someone's toes.

00:22:43 Tim

And trying to be aware and making sure that everyone understands, and everyone is clear, all of that kind of interaction going on. But I would think the next series of meetings would go even more efficiently because they've already set that foundation of clarity of understanding and who's coming from what perspective.

00:23:07 Tim

But is that true? That's just my thoughts.

00:23:09 Allyson

Yeah, it's absolutely true, and especially it's also trust between the team members because they feel understood.

00:23:16 Allyson

So, you're right with the first group, it could take longer. If there's introduction rounds and stuff, which is important, but it's the way you work really makes a big difference. And so, for these people, they may be just still like single players in a team. 

00:23:32 Allyson

So, because they don't have that connection first meeting, OK, you just getting to know each other. You come out of the meeting feeling a bit, “OK. OK. What was that? Who are these people I'm even working with?” [Tim: Mm-hmm] You can imagine if there was a real important project we had to really work closely together with that disconnect. Next meeting. OK. We still don't feel connected. OK? It might get better after 7, 6, 7, 8 meetings.

00:23:56 Allyson

But you've wasted a lot of time because didn't discuss those things at the beginning. Where's the second meeting? If there's awareness because we're all aware, right? When you have a meeting with somebody to have a meeting with somebody from Germany, I know that they come from a different culture than me. [Tim: Mm-hmm]

00:24:08 Allyson

But to actually understand, OK, how does this person approach work?

00:24:16 Allyson

It's a huge benefit because then I'm not taking… Like for example, we said earlier about me taking things personally. So, if this person doesn't want small talk and cuts me off and, and wants to be efficient. Then if I'm not aware of this is not a personal thing, this is just the culture, and they really just want to get to the point. Then I'm feeling. I'm really feeling quite insulted. I'm not motivated to speak to this person. Maybe I will avoid an extra meeting with this person, whereas if I'm aware of it.

00:24:47 Allyson

And I think also talking about it saying, OK, don't take it personally. It's OK with small talk, but I really like to get to the point.

00:24:54 Allyson

On the other hand, they're the person has to understand that I like small talk. [Tim: Mm-hmm] So, you know, it's like a give and take, right. And then also if you're working global teams, it's really important to establish your own company culture, because if you have a company with teams from like 8 different countries…

00:25:11 Allyson

Let's establish a culture. Let's have a mutual understanding of how we work so everybody feels included so we can all be ourselves. We know that person who doesn't like small talk will miss the first 5 minutes of the meeting. That's OK. They're not really interested in this small talk. We don't take a personally, we just say, “OK, thanks for joining us 5 minutes late. We understand. We completely understand. Let’s get to work.”

00:25:34 Allyson

It's about talking about it and then setting your own, creating your own foundation, creating your own company culture.

00:25:39 Allyson

Because at the end of the day, what do businesses want? They want us to work efficiently.

00:25:45 Allyson

They want us to collaborate together. And that, obviously, the more you can collaborate, the more diverse perspectives you have, the better result you're going to get.

00:25:53 Tim

So, I'm thinking of all the reasons, perhaps behind those cultural differences, and I may be totally off here, but.

00:26:00 Tim

If a culture is used to working late hours just because we've gotta get the project done, I'm gonna come in early. I'm gonna stay late, but then you have a culture who's like, “No. Let's get everything done in the working hours. It's 4:00. It's 5:00. I'm done.”

00:26:16 Tim

Those two mindsets can easily clash.

00:26:20 Tim

Because one feels like, well, I'm doing all the work, and the other one says I need time for me and my family and life. [Allyson: Mm-hmm] And I did all the work. I just did it quicker. I didn't stop and say hello to Bob at the coffee place. [Allyson chuckles] Maybe that's the reason why we have a lot of small talk in the American culture is that we are working long hours.

00:26:43 Tim

And so, we take the time to relax and connect with the other people on a personal level, small talk. And because we don't have that “me” time and that. I don't know which is better.

00:26:54 Allyson

Well, I think that comes down to the you can take for example two cultures. Again, you can compare the German culture with the US culture. And the US culture is business is personal.

00:27:05 Allyson

So, you have a real, a mix, the boundaries between personal and business are much more fluid than they are in Germany where it's, you know, this is business. We don't, we don't mix business. But for example, when I started working in Germany, German companies, I'd worked in the UK companies we don't, we don't have these after work drinks like we do in, in, in the UK. 

00:27:27 Allyson

In the UK you go to the pub, after work with your colleagues, you know. I don’t know what it’s like since COVID, maybe it's changed.

00:27:33 Allyson

But then it was, ah well, let’s just go for a drink with our colleagues – that bonding session.

00:27:37 Allyson

I saw that you came to work in Germany. There was none of that. After work drinks with your colleagues, which we do in the UK as a kind of bonding way of getting to know your colleagues, so you can trust your colleagues better. And I think in some cultures they just don't have that. For them, there's a real line between the business and personal life, you know.

00:27:55 Allyson

We keep it separate.

00:27:56 Allyson

So, like you said, they don't have all that small talk because for them coming to work is: Let's go to work. Let's do our job. Let's go home.

00:28:03 Allyson

But I do think that, the, you're right, those examples where people were cultures work very late and there's cultures where they don't. So those two cultures can, can work together harmoniously as long as there’s open communication about why it is because you never know. They could be cultures where it's expected by their team lead that they work after hours.

00:28:25 Allyson

And some team leads say no, we can't expect every team lead to be the same. So, that colleagues have to talk about it openly then OK, my team lead doesn't mind if I go home at 3, you know? But hey, maybe I can. I can log on a bit early tomorrow and help you with some emails. Or maybe, you know, if you've got lots of things do, maybe I can take some tasks on for you, you know, in my time.

00:28:45 Allyson

It's about talking about it. You have to communicate those differences rather than let them fester and then that affects the work.

00:28:55 Tim

Yeah. Did you see how language can affect this same interaction when you've got multiple cultures and you're all using either the same language or perhaps using interpreters, how does the dynamic then change?

00:29:09 Allyson

Well, yeah, mostly. If you work in a big company. English is the company language and so you have to work in, in English. It's important that you adapt your language for non-native speakers, right? That's really important. I mean not talk down. You don't have to simplify your language so much.

00:29:24 Tim

There's not a lot of yelling and slow talking then? [Allyson bursting out laughing]

00:29:31 Allyson

[Tim chuckling] No, no, no. But you have to, you have to be aware of your vocabulary that you're using, right? Especially when you're talking, when you’re put in your team. I've been in teams for, for global teams or I'm, I'm the only native speaker and we're all speaking my language. So, I have to be aware. Not that I'm a, you know, I'm a linguist, but I have to be aware of how I'm speaking and maybe not use humour which is difficult for me to suppress it because that could be misunderstood. So yeah, you have to be aware of the language. Yeah.

00:29:59 Allyson

You find a common language in a team, right? If you show understanding and empathy, then you build your own language. You build your own kind of insider jokes and it's a process. I think you just have to be aware of it. You have to watch out for your vocabulary.

00:30:16 Allyson

You’re not using too, so flowery language or there's lots of catch phrases or sayings that people just don't get.

00:30:23 Allyson

Be respectful.

00:30:25 Tim

Yeah. From an interpreter standpoint, we think about the cultural aspects like the backgrounds of the people. However, usually the context is the same culture, the same main culture, you might say. But whenever we work with multicultural groups, but we're still using the same, say, English and a signed language we still try to think of those things.

00:30:47 Tim

But they're, I think less obvious and less of a obstacle from what we've been discussing. [Allyson: yeah] It's good for interpreters to understand that there's a layer that many times in our own countries, we don't think about this. There may be, like immigrants like ourselves, who are not native speakers, who have different cultures.

00:31:09 Tim

They use a different language in their own home and therefore I like to say a communication culture is different. [Allyson: Mm-hmm] 

00:31:16 Tim

And one thing you and I talked about was something called cultural mapping. That's a neat way for interpreters to start understanding and process the cultural differences that we have to include in our interpretation. So, tell me a little bit about that. What where does cultural mapping come from? How did you start using it and how can it help?

00:31:42 Allyson

OK, so there's a fantastic book. Sometimes you read a book which kind of create another shift which is amazing and this is a book called the Culture Map by Erin Meyer, who's a U.S. citizen, who lives in France.

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00:32:02 Tim

Don’t worry we'll get back to that point about the book in next week's episode. Now let's recap what we talked about today. We all go through life with different stages where we learn where we realize that we have grown, or we have changed, our perspective on life has changed.

00:32:24 Tim

Those experiences as an interpreter help us realize those cues, those moments, when the meaning has changed from what we thought it was, because we can now see the world from different eyes, from different ways, from different angles, from different backgrounds that we've experienced in our work in our lives.

00:32:47 Tim

Allison has helped us see through a non-interpreter’s eyes what it feels like to have that shift to walk through a stage in life and grow, learning more about her path helps us see what our clients might be going through and gives us a little hint that maybe what they mean is not what we think they mean.

00:33:10 Tim

We have to remember not everyone shares the cultural background, the language background, the fluency, or even the norms of communication that we do. While next week we get in depth into cultural mapping, I can't wait to finish this discussion.

00:33:29 Tim

Until then, keep calm, keep interpreting the meetings. I'll see you next week. Take care now.

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