Contextualisation

“Context is key“ was one of the things we were taught at university. The principle is as simple as it is logical: if you don’t understand what you’re translating, you cannot provide a logical rendition. And even if a word is incomprehensible because it is pronounced differently or the speaker is mumbling, you can still understand what is meant due to the context!

Let me give you an example: many years ago, I had the opportunity to interpret a lecture on different types of dance at a dance congress in Düsseldorf. The two presenters were not native speakers and had a slight Russian accent. They were supposedly talking about ‘belly dancing’. However, I had read up on the programme, and there had been no mention of oriental folk dances, especially not in the context of Russian dance culture. When Tchaikovsky and his compositions came into play, it was clear that they were indeed talking about classical ‘ballet dancing’! A small, mispronounced vowel could have caused a major misunderstanding! And what would have happened if this lecture had been interpreted by an AI agent?

Unlike human interpreters, AI cannot truly understand context the way we do. After all, conveying a message is not just about translating individual words or tokens. But this is precisely where AI systems fail! AI lacks emotional intelligence. AI cannot assess redundancies, errors and slips of the tongue; it is based solely on probabilities, making mere assumptions. Professional human interpreters do not take a guess or make speculations about what a speaker might want to say. We familiarise ourselves with a topic and draw on our (common) knowledge and our experience. Because we know about the power of words. Making assumptions could lead to devastating consequences, especially in political or business environments. A single (incorrect or deliberately chosen!) word can determine the outcome of an entire meeting – nuances that an AI system cannot capture. And this is why the value of our human work as interpreters is so important.