Interpreting Studies Overview

Introduction

• Interpreting studies is a field within translation studies, but its position is ambiguous.
• It's an increasingly independent and diversified field of study.
• It's often considered a sub-discipline, but also on par with translation studies, and within it alongside specialized fields such as audiovisual translation.

Interpreting Studies Defined

• Interpreting studies focuses on real-time human translation in shared communicative contexts.
• Often referred to as "oral" translation, distinct from "written" translation.
• While a straightforward definition exists, complexities exist and are discussed in section 8.2.1.

Interpreting Studies Characteristics

• Interpreting studies functions as both a sub-discipline of translation studies and as an independent academic field.
• Interpreting focuses on real-time spoken or signed language translation in shared communicative contexts.
• It differs from written translation due to time constraints and the absence of opportunities for review or correction.
• It demands advanced cognitive skills, encompassing attention management and short-term memory.

Evolution and State of the Art

• Interpreting practices existed since ancient times, but the field wasn't formally recognized as an academic pursuit until the 20th century.
• Simultaneous interpreting gained prominence during the Nuremberg Trials.
• Early studies focused on mental processes, especially simultaneous interpretation.

Academic Foundations

• In the 1960s, individuals established interpreting as an academic subject.
• Otto Kade notably offered a foundation for understanding interpreting characteristics.

Pioneering Role

• Seleskovitch played a significant role in the profession and training of conference interpreters.
• The Paris School with Seleskovitch's leadership emphasized understanding meaning rather than just focusing on language elements. The approach remained a strong influence.

Increasing Depth and Breadth

• The "theory of meaning" (théorie du sens), prevalent since the early 1960s, argues that interpreting involves comprehension based on knowledge, not just translating words.
• Research expanded from conference interpreting to other domains, like community interpreting.
• Interdisciplinary collaboration, such as sociolinguistics, broadened the field.

Unity in Diversity

• Multiple theoretical perspectives exist in interpreting studies:
• Interpretive theory focused on meaning comprehension.
• Cognitive processing focused on memory and multitasking.
• Social interaction concerned the interpreter's role in communication.

Interpreting Defined as Translation

• Otto Kade (1968) defined interpreting as a form of translation, categorized in terms of:
• Original text presented only once, with no review possible.
• Target-language text produced under time pressure.
• This definition encompasses spoken and signed language interpreting, plus sight translation

Cognitive Processing

• A prominent interpreting perspective, especially for conference interpreting, is the view from cognitive science.
• Interpreters are considered an information processing system relying on working memory, long-term memory, and various cognitive skills such as anticipation, inference, and macro-processing.

Intercultural Mediation

• Interpreting can be viewed as intercultural mediation.
• It involves communicating between parties with diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, highlighting issues like purpose, role, trust, status, and power.
• Interpreters mediate between languages and cultural value systems.

Major Issues- Cognitive Processing

• Challenges related to concurrent listening, processing, and speaking.
• Managing cognitive resources like attention and memory to cope with the cognitive load from the demanding simultaneous interpreting process.

Strategies

• Strategies employed:
• Anticipation, compression of information, and syntactic restructuring.
• Dealing with constraints of high source-text presentation speed and density.
• Includes online strategies during interpreting, and off-line strategies employed before real-time interaction.

Quality Evaluation

• An interpretation's quality is evaluated on its ability to fulfill the communicative needs of the intended recipient.
• Fidelity to the source language, cohesion, fluency, and correct terminology are crucial in conference interpreting, outweighing other features like pleasant voice and native accent.

Quality Considerations

• Non-verbal elements of interpretation significantly impact assessments.
• Precise source-target equivalence is often hard for assessors to assess because of the nature of the communicative activity involved in interpretations.
• Examiners typically look for effects of quality rather than only linguistic equivalence.

Training

• The need for interpreters' competency and professional responsibility is understood to be vital and has been of major concern since Herbert's 1952 handbook.

Training Institutions/Evolution

• University-level training institutions started in the 1940s (Geneva, Heidelberg, Vienna).
• Increased demand and growing attention from professional organizations such as the United Nations, the AllC, and European institutions consolidated and institutionalized the training programs.
• Modern training programs have a European model curriculum.

Interpreting modalities and models

• Core components include: consecutive interpreting (with note-taking), simultaneous interpreting (in booths), and sight translation.
• Community interpreting training frequently differs from that of international conference interpreters, emphasizing the management of interpersonal dynamics and cultural issues over text-processing abilities.

Ethics and Role

• Ethical conduct is crucial in any profession.
• The AllC's (International Association of Conference Interpreters') 1957 Code of Professional Ethics, focused on professional secrecy.
• The RID's (Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf) 1965 Code further included principles like impartiality and faithfulness to the source message. These codes helped to define the role of interpreters in different settings.

Evolving Role

• The initial view of interpreters as "neutral conduits" has evolved.
• Contemporary perspectives view interpreters more actively as facilitators of communication.
• Including bilingual/bicultural skills and navigating between languages and cultures.

Interpreting Roles

• In spoken-language community interpreting, especially healthcare, interpreters often perform multiple roles as laid out by the pyramid model.
• Message Converter, Message Clarifier, Cultural Broker, Advocate

Court Interpreting Specifics

• In legal contexts, interpreters are expected to maintain a higher degree of literal accuracy, or "verbatim" translation. This creates tension because it may not be always effective.
• This divergence can stem from conflicting demands for smooth communication, legal system demands for neutrality, and maintaining accuracy in word-for-word translation.

Interpreter's Role and Boundaries

• Interpreter's roles and boundaries depend on the expectations of institutions.
• The roles interpreters play are shaped by expectations, as well as their own values and constraints.

Technology

• Technology has fundamentally impacted interpreting, particularly simultaneous interpreting, since the 1920s.
• Electro-acoustic systems made simultaneous interpretation possible and crucial.

History

• Interpreting gained broader professional recognition in the 20th century, but its history remains partially documented.
• Important research on simultaneous interpretation origins, the Nuremberg Trials, and German interpreting practices exist.
• More research is needed to understand the history in diverse contexts.