THE CIRIN BULLETIN

Conference Interpreting Research

Information Network

An independent network for the dissemination of information on

conference interpreting research (CIR)

 

__________________________________________________________________

 

BULLETIN n°30

June 2005

Editor: Daniel Gile

Contributors to this issue:

Aymil Doğan (AD), Clare Donovan (CD), Yves Gambier (YG),

 Hande Ersöz (HE), Minhua Liu  (ML), Margus Puusepp (MP)

 

 

Editorial address:

D. Gile, 46, rue d'Alembert, 92190 Meudon, France

tel/fax 00 33 1 45 34 83 84

e-mail: daniel.gile@laposte.net

Web site: http://cirinandgile.com

 

 

   This Bulletin aims at contributing to the dissemination of information on conference interpreting research (CIR) and at providing useful information to members of the CIR community worldwide. It is intended to achieve maximum coverage of research into this sub-field of interpreting, and only occasionally refers to research and publications in other sub-fields. The Bulletin is published twice a year, in December and June. For further information and electronic or paper copies of early issues (the last issue is available on the Web site at any time), please contact D. Gile.

                Note: the mini-abstracts are followed by the initials of the contributors who sent in the information, but the text is either written or adapted from the original text by D.Gile, who takes responsibility for the comments and for potential errors introduced by him.

*       *       *

 

EDITORIAL

 

Miriam Shlesinger has kindly offered to act as a Node for Israel. A nice present for the 30th issue of this Bulletin.

No recent graduation theses and MA theses were reported by regular contributors for this issue, perhaps due to late vivas this year. The theses listed in the relevant section were found in a list of references in a recent paper. This may be a good opportunity to recall that CIRIN operates on a zero budget and cannot buy books or journal subscriptions on a regular basis (though I am happy to thank Gérard Ilg for several generous contributions over the past 15 years). Neither can it count on the editor’s university library, where very little is found on interpreting. The information provided here comes from texts the editor reads in his own research work and, more importantly, from other contributors, who are always named (see above). All readers who have information about research activity and publications on conference interpreting are invited to take advantage of this information vehicle to make their work and the work of others known to the community at large.

Among the most prominent topics in this issue, along with training, note directionality, with a more pragmatic attitude than in the past on the part of West-European authors. There is also an increasing number of contributions from authors from Asian countries. One further trend is the increasing number of studies with reflections or empirical research on a wider range of interpreting branches, including community interpreting and film interpreting (Interpreting 7:1, edited by conference interpreters Franz Pöchhacker and Miriam Shlesinger, is a good example of such endeavours; so is the latest issue of Tsuuyakukenkyuu / Interpretation Studies, which incorporates papers on various types of interpreting and even translation). These changes, which bring into the discussion more viewpoints and more data, are welcome. The editorial policy of CIRIN remains conference-interpreting oriented in an effort to provide good coverage of the field, but bibliographical items on public service interpreting and other types of interpreting have been and will continue to be posted on the Web site of the European Society for Translation Studies (EST) at www.est-translationstudies.org .

            On the theoretical side, the growing popularity of pragmatics and Relevance Theory is a clear trend. It is particularly conspicuous in the Japanese journal Tsuuyakukenkyuu / Interpretation Studies.

 

D.G.

 

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

 

ARTICLES

 

 

Adams, Christine. 2004. What is a B Language? Towards a Working Definition and Selection Criteria. In EMCI Workshop proceedings. 20-26.

 

Ahn, In-Kyoung. 2005. Pedagogical Considerations of Perspective Coherence Problems in Simultaneous Interpreting as a Result of Linguistic Structure, Illustrated by German-Korean Examples. Meta 50:2. 696-712.

 

Ahrens, Barbara. 2005. Prosodic phenomena in simultaneous interpreting. Interpreting 7:1. 51-76.

 

Besson, Chantal, Daria Graf, Insa Hartung, Barbara Kropfhäusser, Séverine Voisard. 2005. The Importance of Non-verbal Communication in Professional Interpretation. Communicate, March-April 2005. www.aiic.net/comunity/print/default.cfm/page1662

 

Chachibaia, N.G. 2001. Problems of Simultaneous Interpreting of Scientific Discussion. In S.Cunico (ed.) Training translators and Interpreters in the New Millennium. Portsmouth 17-th March 2001 Conference proceedings.

 

Choi, Jung-Yoon. 2004. A Metacognitive Approach to Evaluating Consecutive Interpretation for Novice Learners. Conference Interpretation and Translation 6:2.169-185.

* The author argues in favour of self-assessment by students in what amounts to a process-oriented approach.

 

Choi, Jungwha. 2004. Preparing for an international conference. (in Korean). Conference Interpretation and Translation 6:2.187-206

* The results of a questionnaire on the practice of conference preparation by interpreters.

 

Christoffels, Ingrid & Annette de Groot. 2004. Components of SI: Comparing Interpreting with shadowing and paraphrasing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 7:3. 227-240.

* In these two authors’ work, “interpreting” is to be taken as a laboratory exercise with formal similarity to professional interpreting.

 

Christoffels, Ingrid, Annette de Groot & Lourens Waldorp. 2003. Basic skills in a complex task: A graphical model relating memory and lexical retrieval to simultaneous interpreting. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 6:3. 201-211.

 

 

Chung, Hyejin & Lee, Taehyung. 2004. Undergraduate level interpreter training using a multi-media language laboratory. (in Korean). Conference Interpretation and Translation 6:2.127-150.

* On the use of language laboratories equipment for preparatory training of undergraduate students in consecutive interpreting, language enhancement and sight translation.

 

Déjean Le Féal, Karla. 2002. L’interprétation simultanée en B. Les principes. In EMCI Workshop proceedings. 27-29.

 

Déjean Le Féal, Karla. 2005. Can and Should Interpretation into a Second Language be Taught? In Godijns & Hinderdael. 167-194.

 

Diriker, Ebru. 2005. Presenting Simultaneous Interpreting: Discourse of the Turkish Media, 1988-2003. Communicate, March-April 2005.www.aiic.net/comunity/print/default.cfm/page1742

* A discussion of the way simultaneous interpreting is presented in the Turkish press. A revised version of a paper published in the Interpreters’ Newsletter n°12 (2003).

 

Doğan, Aymil. 2000. Konferans Çevirilerinde de Çeviri Dillerin Dili. (Translation is the Language of Languages as Described by Akşit Göktürk Even in Conference Interpreting). Litera. İstanbul:Çantay. 59-69.

* Abstract: This paper is presented in the conference organized to commemorate Turkish translation studies scholar Akşit Göktürk, basing the arguments on quotations from him, stating that the principles he highlighted or put forth for translation also apply to conference interpreting.

 

Doğan, Aymil. 2000. İspanya’da Bir Çeviri Konferansının Ardından. (After a Conference on

Translation and Interpretation in Spain). Mediterraneo 2. İstanbul: Çantay. 83-92.

* Abstract: In this paper, after a conference on translation and interpretation in Universidad Europea de Madrid-UEM, the evaluations and recollections of the writer as to the organization, the new trends in translation and interpretation regarding the papers delivered, personal opinions on interpreting in practice, human, language and life style factors in different cultures are presented.

 

Donovan, Clare. 2002. Training interpreters: improving a B language. Claritas. 8. 9-20. (Universidade Catolica de São Pãolo).

 

Donovan, Clare. 2002. User expectations. In EMCI Workshop proceedings. 1-13.

* By far the most interesting paper in the EMCI document. Donovan conducted a series of structured interviews of about 10 minutes with conference participants at OECD Headquarters meetings in Paris over a period of 15 months (January 2002 to April 2003) either during or just after the meeting. Donovan is aware of methodological pitfalls associated with an interpreter interviewing delegates about interpreting quality and endeavoured to reduce bias. She did not introduce herself as an interpreter, but said that the survey was being conducted by the conference service. Some of her interesting findings are listed below:

- 9 respondents (24%) used interpreting because it is too tiring to listen to a foreign language all day. It seems that they use interpreting form comfort, even if they can get by without it.

- Respondents felt able to judge the accuracy of the target language rendition by comparing notes with colleagues, on the basis of the coherence of the information served to them, of the interpreter’s tone, by the terminological accuracy of interpreting, etc.

- Most of them seemed to take the interpreter’s accuracy for granted

- Incorrect terminology was a frequently cited source of irritation and an indicator of lack of genuine understanding by the interpreter

- In no case did an interviewee mention spontaneously correct pronunciation or accent of other formal elements of discourse

- There was no indication that delegates had preferences as to directionality

- Any prior disappointing experience with interpreting seemed to cause long-term damage in terms of loss of confidence

 

Donovan, Clare. 2004. European Masters Project Group: Teaching simultaneous interpretation into a B language. Preliminary findings. Interpreting 6:2, 205-216.

* A report on a topical and controversial issue in interpreting and interpreter training by a senior instructor at ESIT. Donovan explains that The European consortium EMCI (European Masters in Conference Interpreting) accepts “retour” interpreting (into one’s non-native language) as a fact and has been discussing issues around associated training requirements. She reports that in a survey conducted in Paris at some 30 events at which interpreters worked into English and French (see her 2002 EMCI Workshop paper), delegates did not perceive directionality as a quality issue. She then discusses selection and training methods.

 

Donovan, Clare. 2005. Teaching Simultaneous Interpretation into B : A Challenge for Responsible Interpreter Training. In Godijns & Hinderdael. 147-165.

 

Durieux, Christine & Jean Vivier. 2004. Pragmatique de l'interprétation de conférence: discours spontané vs discours lu. In Fleischmann et al, 2004. 731-749.

* An intriguing paper by Durieux, a translation scholar, and Vivier, a cognitive psychologist, on the difference between read and adlibbed speeches in conference interpreting. The authors claim that no scientific research has been done on the subject so far, and Déjean Le Féal's work, which is quoted twice, is made to appear as largely intuitive and speculative. From the way the paper is written, and in particular with the absence of any reference to other research on interpreting but numerous references to cognitive psychologists and with other comments, the reader is made to understand that little if any research on other aspects of interpreting has been done so far, and that this paper is a precursor to such research. It is not clear whether the authors are unaware of the existing literature or whether they deliberately decided to ignore it. As to their own contribution, it is a case study with 3 interpreters, one an expert double-A interpreter, one a beginner working from A into B and one beginner working from B into A, who interpreted one read speech and one adlibbed speech. In each case, they counted (it is not clear how) the number of "information elements" and the number of "pragmatic elements" in the source speech and target speeches, and compared the experts' and the beginners' performance. They found that there are considerably more pragmatic elements per minute in the adlibbed speech. They also found that in the read speech, the expert interpreter managed to reformulate 82% of the information elements and added many pragmatic elements, practically doubling the number found in the source speech. Both beginners reformulated less than half of the information elements and none of the pragmatic elements. In the adlibbed speech, the expert reformulates all information elements, while the beginners reformulate 56% of them, and the expert adds pragmatic elements while the beginners lose many of them. The paper ends with reflection on the interpreting task in terms of attention and concentration in a dual task concept and on the role of working memory in interpreting, again with no reference to previous work done on the subject. One is left wondering about the peer-reviewing system which resulted in this paper being published as it was.

 

Funayama, Chuta. 2004. Conceptualization  Processes in Simultaneous Interpretation. Tsuuyakukenkyuu/ Interpretation Studies 4.1-13.

* Within a Relevance Theory framework, Funayama posits than when encountered in source speeches, lexical items trigger “lexical tags” and then “conceptual tags” in an attempt to understand conceptualization in interpreting.

 

Gile, Daniel. 2004. Issues in research into conference interpreting. In Kittel et al. Vol I. 767-779.

* Article n°83, in the Section on interpreting of the TS Encyclopedia. Written about 7 years ago. Perhaps not quite out-of-date as regards fundamental issues.

 

Gile, Daniel. 2005. Teaching conference interpreting: a contribution. In Tennent, Martha (ed). Training for the New Millenium. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 127-151.

* A synopsis of fundamental issues in conference interpreter training.

 

Gile, Daniel. 2005. La recherche sur les processus traductionnels et la formation en interprétation de conférence. Meta 50:2. 713-726.

 

Gile, Daniel. 2005. Directionality in conference interpreting: a cognitive view. In Godijns & Hinderdael. 9-26.

 

Hönig, Hans. 2002. Piece of Cake – or Hard to Take? Objective Grades of Difficulty of Speeches Used in Interpreting Training. In EMCI Workshop proceedings. 38-50.

* An interesting attempt to identify factors which make speeches used for training more or less difficult: read or adlibbed, with or without an introductory statement at the beginning, type of cohesion, speed of delivery, visual aids, numbers, etc. There is no doubt that all these factors are relevant. But how relevant? Experimental validation of the model would have been welcome.

 

Iglesias Fernández, Emilia. 2005. Bidirectionality in Interpreter Training in Spanish Universities: An Empirical Study. In Godijns & Hinderdael. 101-125.

* The author’s conducted a large questionnaire and interview-base survey on Spanish interpreter training programs which included questions about “retour” (into B) interpreting. The main message which comes through the results is that trainers, most of whom are practicing interpreters themselves, believe that more training into B should be offered.  

 

Kalina, Sylvia. 2004. Es gilt das gesprochene Wort, Wege der Qualitätsforschung im Dolmetschen. In Fleischmann et al. 2004. 751-761,

 

Kalina, Sylvia. 2005. Quality Assurance for Interpreting Processes. Meta 50:2. 769-784.

 

Kalina, Sylvia. 2005. Quality in the Interpreting Process: What Can be Measured and How? In Godijns & Hinderdael. 27-46.

 

Kim, Seon-ah. 2004. The verb ‘ha-’ in Korean-Chinese Interpretation and Translation: Focused on ‘Sino-Korean word+ha-’ (in Korean). Conference Interpretation and Translation 6:2.3-22.

* A linguistic study of a particular language-pair specific phenomenon.

 

Kremer, Benoît. 2005. Réflexions d’un praticien sur une étape de la formation des interprètes de conférence: approche méthodologique et pédagogique. Meta 50:2. 785-794.

* A presentation of three didactic exercises for beginning student interpreters. The first is “Contextualisation”, which consists essentially in presenting to them short sentences or newspaper headlines and asking them to evoke as much knowledge as possible from their memory to put them in the proper context. The second is “Hierarchization”: various pieces of information including details are presented to students, who are asked to determine a hierarchy between them. The third is “Visualization”: single words and sentences are presented to students who are required to seek in their imagination concrete images to represent them.

 

Kutz, Wladimir. 2004. Zum Gegenstand der Translatologie aus dolmetschwissenschaflicher Sicht. In Fleischmann et al. 763-784.

 

Láng, Zsuzsa. 2002. Language enhancement for interpreting into B. In EMCI Workshop proceedings. 57-59.

 

Lim, Hyang-Ok. 2004. Revisiting the Role of Interpreters. Conference Interpretation and Translation 6:2.81-96.

* A general discussion of the role of interpreters in simultaneous vs. consecutive vs. liaison interpreting vs. community interpreting. Inter alia, the author makes the interesting point that clients may expect interpreters to do more than just say what they said in the source language, and that such situations are not taught in interpreter training programs.

 

Lim, Hyang-Ok. 2005. Meeting Students’ Expectations. Forum 3:1.175-204.

* A survey of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Graduation School of Interpretation and Translation 1st year and 2nd year students. Fairly general. According to the author, “one of the main areas of concern is that the number of male students compared to that of female students is very small. The status of interpreters cannot be enhanced if the only people involved in the profession are women.” Interestingly, although students consider that the image of interpreters in Korean society is positive, none of the female students wanted their husbands to be interpreters, more than half of the respondents did not wish their children to become interpreters, and on the whole, students were not sure they wanted to make interpreting a life-long career.

 

Martin, Anne. 2005. Interpreting from A to B: A Spanish Case Study. In Godijns & Hinderdael. 83-99.

* A survey involving ten professional interpreters working in Southern Spain and asking them about their feelings concerning work into B with respect to accent, comprehension, fatigue, conference preparation etc. From the author’s report of answers to individual questions, it is difficult to draw clear conclusions, which in itself would be interesting, were it not for the fact that the questionnaires were “anonymous”, but were either given personally to the interpreters or sent to them by email, which leads to some doubts as to the validity of the answers - as noted by the author herself.

 

Mead, Peter. 2005. Directionality and Fluency: An Experimental Study of Pausing in Consecutive Interpretation into English and Italian. In Godijns & Hinderdael. 127-146.

* In an experimental study of pauses in consecutive interpreting, Mead looked inter alia at their length and at the reasons to which interpreters attributed them. With respect to directionality, he found that pauses in English, the participants’ B language, were significantly longer than in Italian, their A language. He also found that they attributed them more frequently to non-linguistic factors when working into A, perhaps because production into A was felt as less problematic.

 

Minns, Philip. 2002. Language Interpreting into B. Some conclusions gathered from experience. In EMCI Workshop proceedings. 35-37.

* Straightforward, practical advice by an experienced ESIT interpreter and interpreter trainer. The following two ideas expressed in his paper are particularly noteworthy in view of his ESIT background:

- Spectacular progress can be made through pronunciation drills when students have specific problems in pronouncing their B language

- Students learning to interpret into B should be encouraged to develop a store of stock phrases and expressions which run through all types of discourse.

  At first glance, this latter advice may seem to be in contradiction with ESIT’s “Theory of Sense” principles, but it is not: as has been stressed by Gérard Ilg for many years, paying attention to language availability frees processing capacity for analysis and “deverbalisation”.

 

Mizuno, Akira. 2005. Process Model for Simultaneous Interpreting and Working Memory. Meta 50:2. 739-752.

* A theoretical paper, which proposes Cowan’s embedded model of working memory as a basis for a process model of simultaneous interpreting.

 

Moser-Mercer, Barbara. 2005. The Teaching of Simultaneous Interpreting: The first 60 years (1929-1989). Forum 3:1. 205-225.

* A very general overview. No mention of the teaching of simultaneous interpreting in Asian countries during the period covered.

 

Moser-Mercer, Barbara. 2005. Remote Interpreting: Issues of Multi-Sensory Integration in a Multilingual Task. Meta 50:2. 727-738.

 

Mouzourakis, Panayotis. 2005. How do we interpret? Communicate, March-April 2005. www.aiic.net/comunity/print/default.cfm/page1739

 

Padilla, Presentación. 2005. Cognitive Implications of the English-Spanish Direction for the Quality and the Training of Simultaneous Interpreting. In Godijns & Hinderdael. 47-62.

 

Petite, Christelle. 2005. Evidence of repair mechanisms in simultaneous interpreting. Interpreting 7:1. 27-49.

* This is apparently a summary of Petite’s doctoral dissertation (listed in the doctoral dissertations section further down). Extracts of 10 minutes’ duration of work of 8 professional conference interpreters, including the author, was recorded at 4 different international conferences and scrutinized for repairs. She found 171 repairs in her 80 minutes’ recordings, that is, a bit over 2 repairs every minute, with high inter-interpreter variability. Petite offers a categorization by triggering factors and a discussion of such repairs, inter alia in terms of their cost in processing capacity in the general framework of the Effort Models. Interestingly, she notes that some unnecessary repairs are done at considerable cognitive cost and lead to loss of other speech segments, and that repairs often come in clusters. From her analysis, she concludes that ample evidence is provided to show the interpreters are not simply repairing errors, but sometimes seek to improve the “appropriateness” of their utterances.

 

Pöchhacker, Franz. 2005. From Operation to Action: Process-Orientation in Interpreting Studies. Meta 50:2. 682-695.

 

Pyoun, Hyewon. 2004. A case study on the evaluation of AB interpretation according to different teacher profiles. (in Korean). Conference Interpretation and Translation 6:2.207-224.

* The paper shows the differences in interpretation evaluation criteria in the classroom depending on the teacher’s experience and language combination.

 

Rejšková, Jana. 2002. Teaching experience of simultaneous into B. In EMCI Workshop proceedings. 30-34.

 

Riccardi, Alessandra. 2005. On the Evolution of Interpreting Strategies in Simultaneous Interpreting. Meta 50:2. 753-767.

 

Russo, Mariachiara. 2005. Simultaneous film interpreting and users’ feedback. Interpreting 7:1.1-26.

* A report and discussion of two surveys of users’ perception of film interpreting at two international film festivals. Paola Guardini’s 1995 survey concerned 6 interpreters working from English into Italian. Mariaclara Palazzini Finetti’s 2000 survey concerned 8 interpreting trainees working from Spanish into Italian. Questionnaires included questions about both the respondents’ reactions to interpreting performance and general preferences about interpreting. Samples were quite large, 100 (a return rate of 50%) in Guardini’s survey, and 95 (a return rate of close to 40%) in Palazzini Finetti’s survey. Some interesting/intriguing findings: Respondents were generally satisfied with the quality of interpreting; students received a higher percentage of “excellent” (the highest mark in a 5 point scale) than professionals; for the professionals’ performance, the assessment of general quality was higher than the assessment of individual quality components; students were less generous than film critics and other professionals in their evaluations. This paper includes a review of earlier studies on film interpreting.

 

 

Seel, Olaf-Immanuel. 2005. Non-Verbal Means as Culture-Specific Determinants that Favour Directionality into the Foreign Language in Simultaneous Interpreting. In Godijns & Hinderdael. 63-82.

* This theoretical discussion of directionality focuses on the role of non-verbal components of discourse which, the author argues, tip the scale in favour of working into one’s B language. The underlying rationale is (apparently) the idea that interpreters working from a B language do not necessarily have excellent knowledge of the source culture and are therefore not in a position to take advantage of non-verbal clues as completely and as rapidly as interpreting working from an A language. The contribution of this paper resides in the attention devoted to non-verbal components. The problem is, as is the case of many theoretical discussions of theories and models in translation and interpreting, that no quantitative assessment of the relative importance of each component, in this case non-verbal components in the overall configuration, is offered. What is the relative weight of alleged comprehension deficits associated with working from a non-native language as opposed to the cost of less than perfect mastery of the B language when working from a native language? To what extent do circumstances such as the distance between the booth and the speaker, the degree to which the relevant culture uses visible non-verbal components in communication, the extent to which such non-verbal component are culture-specific in the relevant field and in the relevant speeches, etc. I (D.Gile) suspect that variability in many relevant parameters is such that it is very difficult to predict context-independent superiority of one direction over the other. Arguments presented by authors who defend either direction are equally valid, but no theoretical discussion so far has proved convincing.

 

Sun, Yaling & Liu, Minhua. 2004. Speech features of television interpreting and their effects on the audience [in Chinese]. Mass Communication Research. 81. 43-83.

* Simultaneous interpreting involves multitasking that can easily overload the interpreter’s cognitive resources and result in undesirable speech features such as false starts, slip of the tongue, unnatural pauses, and an unsteady speech rate in the interpretation output. These imperfections are sometimes unavoidable and can be considered characteristic of simultaneous interpretation output. This study investigates whether these speech features in simultaneous interpreting affect the TV audience. An experiment was conducted using the live broadcast of the 1992 U.S. Presidential Debate with its Mandarin Chinese interpretation as a stimulus. It is found that the elimination of some of the undesirable speech features of simultaneous interpretation enhanced audience gratification and willingness to watch. (ML)

 

Sunnari, Mariana. 2002. Aptitude tests & selection criteria for interpreting students. In EMCI Workshop proceedings. 23-26.

 

Szabari, Krisztina. 2005. Interpreting into the B language. In EMCI  Workshop Proceedings .12-19.

 

Tanaka, Miyuki. 2004. Current Pedagogical Issues in Teaching Interpreting at the Undergraduate Level. Tsuuyakukenkyuu/ Interpretation Studies 4. 63-82.

* A fairly detailed report on an interpreting class within a general English studies program at University with respect to the specific exercises, the literature used, the students’ needs, didactic issues.

 

Tsuruta, Chikako, Yoshiaki Sato & Kiyoshi Kawahara. 2004. Lexical Selection in Interpreting - A Theoretical Account (In Japanese). Tsuuyakukenkyuu/ Interpretation Studies 4.15-40.

* A paper which looks at basic English vocabulary words – which, they say, tend to be more polysemous than terms from specialized vocabulary – and at their translation in Japanese in actual conference speeches.

 

Tyruk, Małgorzata. 2002. Le perfectionnement linguistique pour les interprètes vers la langue B. In EMCI Worshop proceedings. 51-56.

 

Viaggio, Sergio. 2005. How Should We Interpret? A counterpoint to Panayotis Mouzourakis’ article. Communicate, AIIC webzine, Summer 2005, www.aiic.net/Viewpage.cfm/page1788

 

Watanabe, Tomie. 2004. Pragmatic Approaches of Interpreters in Ten Cases from real settings. (in Japanese). Tsuuyakukenkyuu/ Interpretation Studies 4. 41-62.

* In a pragmatics and Relevance Theory approach, ten extracts from actual English-Japanese interpreting are discussed with reference to coherence between given and new information and to the interpreter’s autonomy versus obligation.

 

THESES

 

Bevilacqua, L. 2003. Posizione del verbo nelle lingue germaniche e interpretazione simultanea. Unpublished thesis, University of Trieste.

 

Ferrusso, P. 2002. Interpretazione simultanea con e senza l’ausilio del testo scritto: uno studio sperimentale. Unpublished thesis, University of Trieste.

 

Messner, C. 2000. Interpretazione consecutive e interpretazione simultanea: confronto e analisi delle strategie interpretative. Unpublished thesis, University of Trieste.

 

 

DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS

Chang, Chia-chien. 2005. Directionality in Chinese/English simultaneous interpreting: Impact on performance and strategy use. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Texas at Austin.

* This study aimed to explore professional Chinese/English interpreters’ experience of simultaneous interpreting in different language directions, focusing specifically on the impact of language direction on performance and strategy use. Ten professional Chinese/English interpreters were asked to interpret two speeches from English into Mandarin Chinese, and two speeches from Mandarin Chinese into English, each followed with a stimulated retrospective interview. Of the ten interpreters, seven reported dominance in Chinese and three reported either being dominant in English or having equal abilities in Chinese and English. The products of their interpreting, their linguistic outputs, were analyzed using a propositional analysis of the semantic content and an error analysis of the linguistic quality. The processes of their simultaneous interpreting were explored through qualitative analysis of their stimulated retrospective interviews. Through a grounded theory approach, a model was constructed showing how interpreters’ experience of simultaneous interpreting in different directions was determined by a myriad of factors, including contextual factors, personal factors, and interpreting norms. Results of this study indicate that professional interpreters who must regularly interpret simultaneously in both directions may develop strategic approaches to cope with the different demands of A-to-B and B-to-A interpreting. The difference in their performances seems not only to be a result of the asymmetry between their A and B language proficiency, but also a result of their metacognitive awareness of the limits of their language abilities, the strategies available to them, their audience’s expectations and other norms they believe apply to their performance, as well as the discourse structures of their working languages. The present data suggest professional interpreters may again behave differently from student interpreters when it comes to simultaneous interpreting in different directions. This study not only sheds light on the differences in performance and strategy use between interpreters working with different language directions, but also can contribute to the design of more effective interpreting pedagogy. (ML)

 

Doğan, Aymil. 1995. Simultane Tıp Çevirisi Eğitiminde Bellek Destekleyici Anahtar Sözcük Yönteminin Etkililik Derecesi (Effect of Mnemonic Keyword Method in the Training of Simultaneous Medical Interpreting). Doctoral dissertation. Hacettepe University.188 pages.

Note: the author asked for this abstract to be published in the CIRIN Bulletin this year in spite of the fact the dissertation was completed 10 years ago – DG

* Abstract: Medical terms of Greek and Latin origin pose difficulties at perception, recalling and output (pronunciation) levels for the trainees of interpreting, leading them into high level of stress and resulting in unsuccessful interpreting performance. The effect of Mnemonic Keyword Method is investigated to overcome these difficulties. The study was conducted experimentally on 40 senior students attending Hacettepe University, Translation and Interpretation Department. Recalling the Turkish equivalence and pronunciation of morphemes, processing 3 words of three- or four-morpheme combinations in each sentence (arranged regarding the short term memory capacity) during the interpreting process, transfer and retention effects and interpreting performance were the parameters investigated on control and experiment groups on a pretest-posttest-retest design. One-way analysis of variance results indicated that the method was effective in remembering the Turkish equivalences of the morphemes, processing and correctly pronouncing words of multimorpheme combinations during the interpreting, correct rendition of the interpretation of sentences of medical content. In addition significant transfer effects and retention levels were maintained. Furthermore, an open-ended questionnaire at the end of the whole process revealed favourable affective outcomes in the subjects.  It is noteworthy that this study was the first doctoral dissertation conducted on interpreting in Turkey.

 

Petite, Christelle. 2004. Repair mechanisms in simultaneous interpreting. A corpus-based analysis of interpreters’ deployment of processing resources (English/French/German). Unpublished PhD thesis, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.

 

 

BOOKS AND UNPUBLISHED PROCEEDINGS

 

EMCI (European Masters in Conference Interpreting). 2002. Proceedings of EMCI Workshop Paris 2002: Teaching simultaneous interpretation into a B language. Paris: ESIT.

* The unpublished proceedings of a workshop on directionality in training. A collection of short to very short papers, mostly prescriptive and somewhat repetitive. Among the more interesting papers, Donovan’s report on her survey stands out (see the comments in the Articles’ Section). Readers interested in these proceedings can write to Christophe.Nicolau-Bergeret (Christophe.Nicolau-Bergeret@univ-paris3.fr) or to Clare Donovan (Clare.Donovan@univ-paris3.fr).

 

Chernov, Ghelly. 2004. Inference and Anticipation in Simultaneous Interpreting. A probability-prediction model. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

* This book, edited by Adelina Ivanova-Hild and Robin Setton, is an excellent initiative. Chernov’s research in the 1970s was very influential in the USSR and East-European countries and remained so for a long time. In contrast to the rather prescriptive, somewhat idealistic, interpreter-centred paradigm which prevailed in the West at that time, Chernov’s ideas addressed the fundamental cognitive pressure of simultaneous interpreting and sought inspiration from and cooperation with researchers from other disciplines, in particular psycholinguistics. Chernov’s theory and views are presented in this book, with interesting comments by the two editors (in particular in the editors’ insightful “critical foreword”, on pages IX to XXII). My one substantial reservation about the book is associated with the fact that it does not provide a clear separation between Chernov’s theories and research from the 1970s and later adaptation (a cryptic reference is made to the “Russian edition of this book” in a footnote on page XX, and Chernov himself refers to his 1987 book Introduction to Simultaneous Interpreting in Russian on page XXIII, but from the references to far more recent studies in the body of the text, it is clear that this is an updated version rather than a translation). This is somewhat unfortunate, because it makes less salient the strength of his original contribution.

 

Doğan, Aymil. 2003. Sözlü Çeviri: Çalışmaları ve Uygulamaları (Interpreting : Studies and Practices). Ankara: Hacettepe Doktorlar Yayınevi, 193 pages.

 

* Abstract: Sözlü Çeviri: Çalýþmalarý ve Uygulamalarý” (“Interpreting: Studies and Practices”) is the first book in Turkey written on interpreting. It is in Turkish, targeting readers who want to know about interpreting, especially students of translation and interpretation departments of different languages. It provides a comprehensive overview to interpreting, encompassing its emergence and development throughout the history in the world, including Ottomans and mainly the Turkish Republic. It refers to types of interpreting, to related associations, to working conditions, to qualities of an interpreting student and an interpreter, to implications for interpreter training, to cognitive aspects and strategies to follow during the process. The book emphasizes that a teacher of interpreting at a university must be the person bringing the three aspects of interpreting together, namely teaching, practicing and researching. Personal market experience as an interpreter is essential for the teacher of interpreting to be able to provide adequate training. In addition, multidisciplinary research will both nurture and be nurtured by the teaching and practicing environment. (AD)

 

Fleischmann, Eberhard, Peter A. Schmitt, Gerd Wotjak (eds). 2004. Translationskompetenz. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 24.

 

Godijns, R & M. Hinderdael (eds). 2005. Directionality in Interpreting. The ‘Retour’ or the Native? Gent: Communication & Cognition.

* A collective volume on directionality in interpreting. 9 papers (see in the Articles section). The initiative is interesting. A few empirical studies.

 

Kittel, Harald, Armin Paul Frank, Norbert Greiner, Theo Hermans, Werner Koller, José Lambert. 2004. Übersetzung Translation Traduction. Ein internationals Handbuch zur Übersetzungsforchung An International Encyclopedia of Translation Studies - encyclopédie Internationale de la recherche sur la traduction. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. Volume I.

 

Klautz, Ulrich. 2000. Handbuch Didaktik des Übersetzens und Dolmetschens. München: Iudicium.

 

Pradas Marcia, Macarena. 2004. La fluidez y sus pausas: enfoque desde la interpretación de conferencias. Granada: Editorial Comares.

* Based on the author’s doctoral dissertation.

 

Rozan, Jean-François. 2002 [1956]. (eds. Gillies, Andrew and Waliczek, Bartosz). Note-taking in Consecutive Interpreting. Notatki w tłumaczeniu konsekutywnym. Krakow: Tertium.

 * A Polish translation of this classical handbook on note-taking principles and techniques.

 

Viaggio, Sergio. 2004. Teoría general de la mediación interlingüe. Alicante: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alicante.

 

 

REVIEWS

 

Ahrens, Barbara. 2005. Review of Collados Aís, Fernández Sánchez & Gile (eds). 2003. La evaluación de la calidad en interpretación: Investigación, and of Collados Aís, Fernández

Sánchez & Gile (eds). 2003. La evaluación de la calidad en interpretación: Docencia y profesión. Interpreting 7:1. 133-141.

 

Garzone, Giuliana. 2004. Review of Pöchhacker. Introducing Interpreting Studies. London and New York: Routledge. Interpreting 6:2. 243-248.

 

Gile, Daniel. 2004. Review of Garzone, Mead and Viezzi. 2002. Perspectives on Interpreting. Interpreting 6:2, 235-238.

 

Gile, Daniel. 2005. Review of Baigorrí-Jalón, Jesús. 2004. Interpreters at the United Nations: A History. Translated from Spanish by Anne Barr. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. The Journal of Specialised Translation 3. January 2005. (www.jostrans.org/issue03toc.htm). 109-110.  

 

Liu, Minhua. 2005. Review of Cai, Xiaohong (ed). 2002. Kouyi yanjiu xin tan: Xin fangfa, xin guannian, xin qushi (Recent research into interpreting: New methods, concepts and trends). Hong Kong, Maison d’éditions Quaille. Interpreting 7:1. 146-155.

* A particularly informative and interesting review, which gives readers an insight into interpreting research in China through a description and analysis of the contents of this book written in Chinese.

 

Mason, Ian. 2004. Review of Garzone and Viezzi 2002. Interpreting in the 21st Century. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Interpreting 6:2, 230-235.

 

Matthews, John. 2005. Review of Pöchhacker, Franz. 2004. Introducing Interpreting Studies. London/New York: Routledge. The Journal of Specialised Translation 3. January 2005. (www.jostrans.org/issue03toc.htm). 113-114.

 

Sawyer, David. 2004. Review of Kautz Ulrich. 2000. Handbuch Didaktik des Übersetzens und Dolmetschens. Interpreting 6:2, 217-222,

 

Tsuruta, Chikako. 2004. Review of Pöchhacker, Franz. 2004. Introducing Interpreting Studies. London and New York: Routledge. Tsuuyakukenkyuu/ Interpretation Studies 4.181-182. (in Japanese)

 

Viaggio, Sergio. 2005. Review of Baigorrí-Jalón, Jesús. 2004. Interpreters at the United Nations: A History. Translated from Spanish by Anne Barr. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad

de Salamanca. Interpreting 7:1. 141-146.

 

 

 


Present Nodes

 

Nodes are local institutional or individual members who represent CIRIN in their respective geographical area. Members volunteer to become Nodes; they cease to operate as such at any time after notifying headquarters in Paris of their intention.

 

For Argentina: Silvia Veronica Lang, Coletta 373 2804, Campana,  Provincia de Buenos Aires

For Australia: JC Lloyd-Southwell, Department of Language and International Studies, Faculty of Language, Education and Community Services, RMIT University, Melbourne - Telephone (03) 9527- 4160 or mobile 0414-614-022, e-mail:  hewittandlloyd@bigpond.com

For Austria: Franz Pöchhacker, Center for Translation Studies, University of Vienna, Gymnasiumstr. 50,  A-1190 Wien - e-mail: Franz.Poechhacker@univie.ac.at

For Belgium: Erik Hertog,  Lessius Hogeschool, St.-Andriesstraat 2, 2000 Antwerp Tel: 32 3 206 04 91 (ext. 264)  Fax: 32 3 206 04 99 - e-mail: erik.hertog@lessius-ho.be 

For Canada: Stephen Capaldo, Interpretation and Translation Service, Legislative Offices, Room 3657, Whitney Block, Queen's Park, Toronto, Canada M7A 1A2  - e-mail: Capaldo@gowebway.com

For China (Beijing): Wang Lidi, School of Translation and Interpreting, Beijing Foreign Studies University, N°2, North Xisanhuan Avenue, Beijing 100081  - e-mail: sti@bfsu.edu.cn    

For the Republic of China (Taipei): Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation, National Taiwan University, N°162, Hoping E. Rd. Sec.1, Taipei (Prof. Emily Her) - e-mail: t22038@cc.ntnu.edu.tw

For Costa Rica:  Priscila Siu, Apartado 846-2350, San Francisco de Dos Rios San Jose, Costa Rica - e-mail: prissiu@sol.racsa.co.cr

For Cuba: Lourdes Arencibia, 17 No.357 (altos) esquina a G. Vedado. La Habana 4 - e-mail: lourdes@cubarte.cult.cu

For the Czech Republic: Ivana Cenkova, Charles University, Institute of Translation Studies, UTRL FF UK, Hybernska 3,       110 00 Praha 1 tel 42 02  216 195 13   fax  42 02 216 195 28   - e-mail: IVANA.CENKOVA@ff.cuni.cz

For Denmark: Helle Dam, Handelshojskolen i Aarhus, Fuglesangs Allé 4, DK-8210 Arhus V - e-mail: HD@asb.dk

For Egypt: Sania Sharawi-Lanfranchi   4, El-Saleh Ayoub, Zamalek 11 2 11, Cairo   shara11@hotmail.com

For Estonia:  Margus Puusepp,    Parna 21A-41, 50604 Tartu, Estonia.   mpuusepp@hot.ee 

For Finland: Yves Gambier, University of Turku - Centre for Translation and Interpreting, Koskenniemenkatu 4 - 20500 TURKU, Finland - yves.gambier@utu.fi

For France: Daniel Gile, 46, rue d'Alembert, 92190 Meudon - e-mail: daniel.gile@yahoo.com

For Germany: Sylvia Kalina,  Fachhochschule Köln, Fachbereich Sprachen, Mainzerstr. 5, 50678 Köln -  e-mail: Sylvia.Kalina@fh-koeln.de

For Greece: Anastasia Parianou, Ionian University, Megaro Kapodistria, 49100 Corfu - e-mail: papik1@otenet.gr

For Hong Kong: Andrew Cheung, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong  - e-mail: ctandrew@polyu.edu.hk  

For Hungary: Krisztina Bohak Szabari, Eötvös Lorand University Budapest, Zsalya u. 3, H-1141 Budapest, bohak@mail.inext.hu 

For India: Ujjal Singh Bahri, Editor, International Journal of Translation.   e-mail: bahrius@del6.vsnl.net.in 

For Ireland: Michael Cronin, School of Applied Languages, Dublin, City University, Dublin 9, Ireland -  e-mail: croninm@dcu.ie

For Israel: Miriam Shlesinger, Bar Ilan University, 12 Recanati Street, 69494 Ramat-Aviv,  Shlesm@mail.biu.ac.il

For Italy: Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori, Universita degli Studi di Trieste, Via Filzi 14, 34132 Trieste - e-mail: laurag@sslmit.univ.trieste.it

For Japan: Masaomi Kondo, Daito Bunka University, Dept. of  Economics, 1-9-1 Takashimadaira, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo, Phone: 935 1111  - e-mail: mkondo@ic.daito.ac.jp

For Mexico: CESLAA (Dra Georganne Weller), Tlaxcala 78-501, Col. Roma Sur, México, D.F. 06760 - e-mail:

georgann@avantel.net

For Peru: ASPTI - Asociación de Profesionales en Traducción e Interpretación de la Universidad Femenina del Sagrado Corazón, Calle Raymundo Carcamo 912, Urb. Santa Caline, Lima - 13

For the Philippines: Ms. Ross Alonzo, University of the Philippines. 52 Apacible St. Area 1, U.P. Diliman Campus, Quezon City 1101.

For Poland: Bartlomiejczyk, Magdalena  Univ of Silesia, Institute of English,  ul. Zytnia 10, 41-205 Sosnowiec, Poland: magdalenabartlomiejczyk@hotmail.com

For Portugal: Manuel Santiago Ribeiro, Rua da Arriaga, 8-C, PT - 1200-609 Lisboa, tel/fax 351 21 397 8832 - e-mail: msr@aiic.net

For Rumania: Doina Motas, 3, Nicolaie Iorga Str., Bucarest 1,  71117

For Russia: Elena Alikin, Perm State Technical University  elena_alikina@ecology.perm.ru

For South Africa: Martyn Swain, 1 Crown Street, Observatory 7925 Cape Town -  e-mail: sally@link.nis.za

For Spain: John MATTHEWS, Facultad de Traduccion e Interpretacion, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Edifici M, 08193 Bellaterra, Cerdanyala, Barcelona, tel/fax +34 3 580 65 45 - e-mail: jmatthews@grn.es

For Sweden: Cecilia Wadensjö, Dept. of Communication Studies, Linköping University, S-581 83 Linköping - e-mail: cecwa@tema.liu.se

For Turkey: Hande Ersöz-Demirdað, Yildiz Teknik Üniversitesi Fen- Edebiyat Fakültesi  Bati Dilleri Ofis: B1018, Davutpasa Cad no: 127,  34210 Esenler/Ýstanbul  Turkey, tel: +90 212 449 15 58   handeersoz@hotmail.com

For the United Kingdom: Udo Jörg, 132b Bravington Road, West Kilburn, London W9 3AL -  e-mail: UdoJorg@aol.com

For Uruguay: Maria Julia Sainz, Facultad de Derecho/Traductorado, Universidad de la Republica, Carlos Anaya 2662 A, 11.600 Montevideo  tel/fax (5982) 480 55 76 - e-mail: mjsainz@adinet.com.uy

 

To become a CIRIN Member, please write to D.Gile and ask for your name or the name of your organization to be added to the list. Membership entails no financial or administrative commitments, but indicates willingness to share CIR information, in particular through the Bulletin. Please report any relevant IR information (bibliographical items, research activities, etc.) to your Regional Node or directly to Paris. The Bulletin is a speedy and flexible information vehicle, but

ITS VALUE DEPENDS ON MEMBERS' CONTRIBUTIONS.