Chuchotage

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Do you need an interpreter to accompany a guest during a congress, a conference, or a presentation in a language that they do not know? The guest is going to be seated among the audience, but there are not enough international guests to justify the use of a simultaneous interpreting system with a booth?

The solution may be chuchotage, also known as whispered interpretation.

Italian-English Chuchotage in Rome for the former Bosnian Prime Minister Hasan Muratović at INTERSOS NGO 10/25/2012 – Interpreter Silvia Cicciomessere
Italian-English Chuchotage in Rome for the former Bosnian Prime Minister Hasan Muratović at INTERSOS NGO 10/25/2012 – Interpreter Silvia Cicciomessere

Chuchotage is a kind of interpretation in which the interpreter accompanies the foreign guest and whispers the translation in their ear.

If the client is one of the conference speakers, the interpreter alternates chuchotage and consecutive interpreting.  Consecutive mode is used while the foreign guest is speaking to the audience, whereas chuchotage is used when all the other participants are speaking, to allow the foreign guest to understand their speech.

If the foreign guest is not on the stage but among the audience, the interpreter sits next to (or behind) the guest, whispering the translation of the whole conference in their ear.

Consequently, chuchotage may be defined as a whispered simultaneous interpretation, however it differs from simultaneous mode because it does not require the interpreters’ booths, allowing expenses reduction for the interpreting service. Obviously, chuchotage only allows the interpreter to translate for one or two guests at a time. As a consequence, this technique may only be chosen when a limited number of guests need the interpretation service.

To watch me at work in a documentary film for which I performed a chuchotage service with English, Spanish, and French, click on the following link. I appear at minute 52:48 as chuchotage interpreter for Arouna Kandé during his visit to the Pope.

To request a whispered interpreting service in Rome in Italian, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French, please contact info@speakando.net or phone +39 333 68 41 604. Availability to travel all around Italy and Europe.

Silvia Cicciomessere

AITI Associate Translator
Master’s Degree in Conference Interpreting