Translation and Interpretation (T&I) Skills for Speakers of Diverse Languages--Theory and Practical Skills as Presented by a Veteran Spanish-English Texas Licensed Court Interpreter

The presenter, a highly experienced Licensed Court Interpreter, has been a language specialist (professional educator, translation & interpretation professional) since the 1980s. BA is in Modern Languages from The Citadel; Ph.D. in Foreign Language Education from The University of Texas at Austin. He has taught EFL and Spanish in Taiwan since 2006 and holds Taiwanese Ministry Of Education Assistant Professor License #036823. He has over a decade of experience as the Interpreter of Record in a variety of venues. These include workers compensation cases at GY Investigations and Legal Services; a wide variety of criminal and civil cases in the courts of Bexar County, Texas; various misdemeanor cases at the Municipal Court in Austin; and many cases at other Texas courts.

The presenter has trained and mentored a large number of aspiring T&I (Translation and Interpretation) professionals in Texas and Taiwan, many of whom have gone on to achieve tremendous degrees of success as T&I experts in their own right. He has even taught many students whose languages he did not know. In this presentation, the attendees will receive a thorough orientation on such mainstay T&I theories and principles as language register, décalage, dynamic equivalence, and others that are part and parcel of T&I work. Attendees will also leave with some basic skills that they can apply in various venues.

The presenter is Licensed Court Interpreter # 315 (Spanish-English, Texas, Master designation), retired from the courts of Bexar County (San Antonio, Texas, USA). Schooling includes Court and Medical Interpreting at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (since renamed) and Levels 6 and 8 Certificates in the Spanish Language from the San Antonio, Texas branch of the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). As a US Army officer, he was called on to interpret in Panama and Honduras.