Vol/51 No/1 2012FEBRUARY/MARchTheLinguist15FEATURESitself. interpreters often work in pairs in orderto cover different areas of the stadium, andalways report to the host's press officer. Weare generally the main point of contact forany foreign press who have queries or needhelp setting up equipment, transmission linesor internet connections. Media interpreting for large-scale footballtournaments requires a high level of flexibility,nerves of steel and the ability to adapt veryquickly to ever-changing circumstances, but itis a hugely satisfying experience. Sitting nextto Brazil's Manager with more than 30cameras and microphones pointing at youcan be very stressful but it is never boring.Live on airWhile interpreting the early live coverage ofthe Madeleine Mccann police inquiry for theBBc World Service, i was under suchpressure that i had heart palpitations. Whenyou are doing live television, there is verylittle warning and almost no preparation, soeven the most seasoned professional canstruggle to keep calm and collected. on my first Mccann assignment, i arrivedat the BBc studios and was rushed to setwithin minutes. i was given headphones tolisten to the first statements ever given by theportuguese police and told that they wouldgive me a feed from portugal. however, noamount of training or preparation could havecompensated for the fact that i had to listento both instructions at the same time. on one side, i could faintly hear the wordsof the portuguese police, which i was meantto be interpreting. on the other, i could hearloud background chatter coming from theroom where the press conference was takingplace. i also had a stage manager giving meinstructions on set, while the 6 o'clock newsbroadcast my voice for the whole planet tohear. My heart was racing and my handswere shaking but i somehow managed to getthrough it. in my opinion, deep breathingwas what saved the day.CAUGHT ON FILMSusie interprets forPortuguese midfielder HugoViana during the Uefa Cup Accuracy is extremely important, but moreoften than not, the media interpreter is alsoused as an 'information gate keeper' -ashield, if you like. it is expected thatjournalists will ask unwanted questions aboutplayers, tactics, contract renewals, salariesand so on, and on several occasions i havebeen told to tone down questions to avoidpublic controversy. players and managers are trained to handle the media, but shouldthey let slip a secret by mistake, theinterpreter might be instructed by the hiringpress office to alter the wording in theinterpreting, or even to leave out the juicydetail in its entirety. the client tends to see the interpreter asan ally -someone who can protect theinterviewee from unwelcome questions. it ismuch easier to refuse to answer if you do itvia a 'neutral' party. At a press conference, forinstance, a nod from the football managermay mean that the interpreter should tell thejournalists to change the topic. When i wasinterpreting for a player recently, the questionof salary came up. i translated the questionbut also discretely reminded him that we hadboth been instructed by the press officer todiffuse any money issues by saying thatsalaries were a private matter. An average football interpreting jobconsists of live interpreting for pressconferences, either seated on the main tablewith football managers and players, or in abooth, doing simultaneous interpreting forthe press and for camera feeds; interpretingindividual radio, television and printinterviews; helping out in the 'mixed zone'(where athletes meet with the media after anevent); and doing any foreign languagestadium announcements during the match. It may seem obvious, but remember to breathe! Breathing properly is the key tosuccessful public speaking: it improves focus, sharpens the mind and preventscamera shyness. . Focus on the moment. If you give enough attention to the task at hand you willforget that you are speaking on camera to, say, David Beckham or Cristiano Ronaldo. . Familiarise yourself with basic journalism skills, especially interview techniques. Signingup for short evening courses or simply reading up on the topic could go a long way.Any media knowledge will boost your confidence on high-profile assignments, and willbe a great advantage when dealing with the press. . Use industry websites. The most used site for production jobs in the UK iswww.productionbase.co.uk. Members can apply for jobs, advertise their services andaccess a vast database of production companies.Tips for newcomers

16 TheLinguistFEBRUARY/MARCH www.iol.org.ukHow Meghan Purvisused intermediary translationsto create a prizewinning modern version of 'Beowulf'The Collar, which won the 2011 TimesStephen Spender Prize for literary translation,is an excerpt from my translation of Beowulf.One of my main interests is how an audiencewould have originally related to Beowulfas apoem, and I wanted to create a similarrelationship between my translation and itsreaders. Because of this, I decided quite earlyon to present my translation in a way thatwould be recognisable to a modern readeras poetry, using a variety of modern formsand meters, rather than preserving the formof the source text. To reflect the possibility that the original texthad multiple authors, I translated it as discretepoems that, read as a collection, told theentire story of Beowulf. An unexpected aspectof the translating process was how muchtrouble I had in distancing myself from thesource text. I expected to begin producingtranslation drafts that would read, if anything,as too explicitly contemporary. Surprisingly,working directly from the source text resultedin translations that struggled to break free oftheir Old English roots. It soon became clearthat the process of transforming the sourcetext (with frequent checks to dictionaries andgrammars) into a modern structure was solaborious that it halted any artistic flow, andthat the nature of verifying words andrelationships between words meant that mytranslation echoed the source text very literally. I realised that a certain level of distancefrom the source text was essential in order toachieve the desired effect. My solution was tocreate an initial, personal translation, whichpreserved the aspects of the source text I wasinterested in speaking to, but in which artisticchoices were not the primary focus. I thenlooked over that midpoint translation in orderto decide which portions to split off intodiscrete poems, and from there I decidedwhether to use forms or meters in each ofthose individual poems. While that sequenceadded an extra step to the writing process, itwas about adding knowledge rather thanabout altering the process. With a version once removed from theoriginal, which nevertheless preserved criticalelements of its ancient context, the translatingand editing processes became much moreabout choosing between options than astruggle between what I wanted to do andwhat I felt the source text pointed me towards.That struggle, of course, was entirely internal (I might have felt that the source text wantedme to do something but it was really a choice I was making), but creating this distanceallowed me to recognise the choices I wasmaking as entirely my own.Negotiating GrendelWorking directly fromthe source text resultedin translations thatstruggled to break freeof their roots