THE CIRIN BULLETIN
Conference
Interpreting Research
Information Network
An independent network for the
dissemination of information on
conference interpreting
research (CIR)
__________________________________________________________________
BULLETIN n°34
June 2007
Editor: Daniel Gile
Contributors to
this issue:
Andrew Kay-fan
CHEUNG (AC), Nadja Grbc (NG), Ivana Čenková (IC), John Kearns (JK),
Heike
Lamberger-Felber (HL), Minhua LIU (ML), Margus Puusepp (MP), Sonja Pöllabauer (SP),
Gun-Viol Vik-Tuovinen (GVVT), Binhua WANG (BW)
Editorial address:
D. Gile, 46, rue d'Alembert,
92190 Meudon, France
tel/fax +33 1 45 34 83 84
e-mail: daniel.gile@yahoo.com
Web site: http://www.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 may also be written or adapted from the original text
by D.Gile, who takes responsibility for the comments and for potential errors
introduced by him.
* *
*
Welcome to Binhua Wang from
Also note in this issue:
- The interesting special issue of Meta (51:2)
on translation and interpreting in
- The large number of contributions from
- The list of diploma theses from
It is
also becoming clear that the increasing number of studies on Community
Interpreting corresponds to a powerful trend. This is probably a very good
thing, as researchers into community interpreting are addressing practical
issues which are far more important for society than those addressed in CIR. On
the other hand, this expansion of research into community interpreting is
likely to be associated with gradual fading of research into conference
interpreting and with new paradigms. For reasons explained previously, the
CIRIN network does not cover community interpreting. However, the Recent
Publications section on the website of the European Society for Translation
Studies www.est-translationstudies.org
lists some interesting studies. Linguistica Antverpiensia 5(2006),
guest-edited by Erik Hertog and Bart van
der Veer as reported in the June 2007 page of the Recent Publications page of
EST, deserves special attention.
Daniel
Gile
Ahrens,
Barbara. 2006.
Structure und prominence in Simultanverdolmetschungen. In Heine et al.
(eds). 175-194.
Albl-Mikasa, Michaela. 2006. Reduction
and expansion in notation texts. In Heine et al. 195-214.
Blaauw, Johan. 2006.
Interpreting with Limited Training: Experiences in the Interpreting of Academic
Lectures at the
* A particularly interesting experience. It seems that
in this environment of a bilingual South-African university (Afrikaans and
English) where interpreting quality was an important requirement, novices (in
interpreting) with good knowledge of the discipline did very well after limited
training. Food for thought.
Carsten, Svetlana. 2006. New
Challenges for Interpreting Schools. Translation
* An interesting discussion of economic considerations
in the British academic landscape and its implications on the recruitment and
situation of students in T/I programs in the
Chen, Xiaochun. 2006. The loss
of cultural information in interpreting and the compensational model (in
Chinese). Journal of
* This article analyses the reasons of the loss of
cultural information in interpreting from the macro, micro, and textual
perspectives, and makers a further discussion on how to compensate the loss of
cultural information in interpreting to the maximum extent in the stages of the
cultivation of cultural awareness, knowledge acquisition, comprehension and
reformulation. (BW)
Cho, Junmo and Park,
Hae-Kyeong.
* Interesting and
useful, not only for Asian students (and professional interpreters): learners
of foreign language who did not live as children in environments where their B
language is spoken tend to transfer phonological features of their native
language onto their B language. This may make their pronunciation difficult to
understand to users of their interpreting services into that B language. Hence
a rationale in favour of specific pronunciation training. The authors
illustrate the problems through a comparative analysis of the Korean and
English phonological systems.
Choi, Jungwha. 2005. Qualité et préparation de
l’interprétation. Evolution des méthodes de préparation et rôle de l’Internet. Meta
50: 4 (CD supplement).
Choi, Jungwha.
Choi, Jungwha. 2006.
Interpreting Neologisms used in
* The author
reviews recent neologisms in Korean. The New Vocabularies Reports of the
National Institute of Korean Language for 2003 and 2004 list more than 600 new
lexical items for each of these years, about 2/3 of which are general and the
remaining technical. The illustrations offered are explained with a
roman-character transcript, the Korean written form, the meaning of each part
of the term and the meaning of the new combination. Not interpreting-specific.
Interesting for those who are interested in the formation of neologisms and
those would like to know more about the morphology of Korean words.
Choi, Jung Yoon.
2006. Metacognitive Evaluation Method in Consecutive Interpretation for Novice
Learners.
* Basically,
ideas on how to teach students to evaluate their own performance in the
classroom.
Dam, Helle & Jan Engberg.
2006. Assessing accuracy in consecutive interpreting: a comparison of semantic
network analyses and intuitive assessments. In Heine et al. 215-234.
Darwish, Ali. 2006. Standards
of simultaneous interpreting in live satellite broadcasts. Translation Watch
Quarterly 2:2.55-88.
* The author stresses that simultaneous interpreting
in the Arab World only started in the 1990s, that Standard Arabic presents
serious problems to many simultaneous interpreters, that many of them translate
literally, something which may ascribed at least partly to the strong Arab
tradition of translating from the Qur’an. He says that prefabricated language
makes up a large portion of the linguistic stock and that the success of
interpreting is governed by the interpreter’s ability to pre-align fabricated
linguistic data and bridge the distance between the two languages, cultures and
communication situations through such alignment (p. 60-61).
Darwish
proposes a model of translation anchored in ‘optimality theory’ with rules
according to which the primary option is literal translation; if this fails, a
shift to the operative level is warranted; if the operative level is
unsuccessful, the interpretive level is required. (p.61).
On p.69,
Darwish claims that “unlike other forms of simultaneous interpreting, such as
conference interpreting, Telecast Simultaneous Interpreting is seldom scripted.
Given the ad hoc nature of most programs, TSI interpreters are increasingly
under pressure to respond to live adlibbed discourse. This increases the
potential for errors and other performance anomalies and reduces the quality of
output to unacceptable levels…” (!).
Darwish
refers to a study comparing delivery modes at Aljazeera and the Lebanese
Broadcasting Corporation, but with scarcely any methodological detail. His
findings are summed up sketchily. He makes a few points such as the presence of
unnatural intonation in Aljazeera interpreters’ performance and errors and
infelicities in extracts reproduced in the paper.
Déjean, Karla. 2006. Les douze commandements de la formation d’interprètes de conférence. Forum
4 :2. 217-232.
De Laet,
Frans & Raymond Vanden Plas.
2005. La traduction à vue en interprétation simultanée: quelle opérationnalité
ambitionner?
* In this somewhat prescriptive paper, the authors
argue that due to worsening working conditions for interpreters in
international organizations and the fact that most speakers now read at full
speed papers which may be given to interpreters at the last minute only, sight
translation training could be used to improve the student interpreters’
relevant skills.
Du, Zhengming & Meng, Xiangchun.
2006. ‘Waiting’ in SI: an issue open to question (in Chinese). Journal of
* The management of EVS in SI is a crucial factor
exerting substantial influence on the interpreter’s mentality, his felt
workload and ultimately, performance. However, systematic yet concrete and
elaborate studies of such a factor with its involved problems are still lacking
in spite of the flourishing research. In fact, some biased and possibly
misleading conceptions still exist in this regard, such as the proposition of
the so-called ‘waiting’ as a technique. On the basis of a discussion of the
relationship between EVS and other factors related to the interpreter’s
performance in SI, this paper analyzes the infeasibility of ‘waiting’ and then
proposes that the interpreter should comprehensively use all practical
techniques to avoid ‘waiting’ and win over time, with the understanding that
this helps to reduce his psychological pressure and the relative workload, which
in turn helps to improve the overall SI quality and enhance the conference
participants’ satisfaction. (BW)
Funayama, Chuta. 2007. Enhancing
Mental Processes in Simultaneous Interpreting Training. The Interpreter and
Translator Trainer 1:1. 97-116
* Trainees in interpreting courses tend to be
concerned more about superficial linguistic expressions than the message, or
what is conveyed by those expressions. This tendency stands out particularly in
the mode of simultaneous interpreting (SI). This paper discusses the way we
could direct our trainees’ attention to the mental work needed for SI, based on
a model which puts concepts, not lexical forms, at the centre of its schematic
description. The model applied here gives on-line tracking of the concepts built,
modified, and reconstructed during SI practice, which means that any unit of
source language (SL) expression should be recorded and analyzed in terms of
concepts. This model provides us with a new type of instruction tool as well as
more detailed insight into specific components of SL comprehension and its
rendering in the target language.
Furuyama, N.,
Nobe, S., Someya, Y., Sekine, K., Suzuki, M., Hayashi, K.
* A sequel to the
paper published in Interpretation Studies 5.
Kalina, Sylvia. 2006. Zur Dokumentation von Maβnahmen der
Qualitätssicherung beim Konferenzdolmetschen. In Heine et al.
253-268.
Kim, Hye-Rim.
2006. Strategy to Block Interference from the Source Language (cognate signifiants)
in Korean-Chinese interpretation.
* Another interesting paper (see Cho and Park above)
which shows potential (and effective) lexical interference between Chinese and
Korean due to morphological similarities in their lexicons - the phenomenon is
similar to that associated with false cognates in European languages, with the
added visual component introduced by Chinese characters and their often
ideographic function. The “strategy to block interference” proposed by the
author seems to be nothing but the deverbalization strategy advocated by ESIT,
re-named “designification” here. The author does cite Seleskovitch, but does
not make it clear enough that such deverbalization was very central to
Seleskovitch’s approach to interpreting, and perhaps that “designification” is
based on Seleskovitch’s teaching
Kohn, K. & M. Albl-Mikasa.
2002. Note-taking in consecutive interpreting. On the
reconstruction of an individualised language. Linguistica Antverpiensia
1. 257-272.
Kondo, Masaomi.
2006. Multiple Layers of Meaning – Toward a Deepening of the “Sense” Theory of
Interpreting. Interpretation Studies 6. 175-182.
Lee, Taehyung.
* This paper
compares under naturalistic conditions the interpreting performance of two
groups of interpreters who interpreted the same 7 speeches, one group live, and
the other group when the speeches were re-broadcast a few hours later. While
the author does not specify this in the paper, the interpreters in the delayed
condition probably have had time to listen to the speech at least once before
interpreting it. Temporal parameters, including the number of syllables,
speaking time, the ratio of actual speaking time to total duration of
interpreting, length of pauses between sentences and within sentences in the
target-language versions versus the original were very similar in both
conditions. The author notes in particular the correlation between the length
of sentences in the source speech and the length of sentences in the target speech,
which suggests that interpreters are strongly influenced by the form of
sentences in the original speech, presumably because of cognitive pressure. On
the whole, correlations between the Speaker’s and the Interpreter’s parameters
are stronger in the delayed condition than in the live condition, perhaps
because in the delayed condition, interpreters were more in control, having had
an opportunity to listen to the speech prior to interpreting. Another
interesting point was that accuracy as measured by the proportion of sentences
in the original which were interpreted was 65.5% for the live condition and
78.7% in the delayed condition. On the whole, the quality of delayed
interpreting seems to have been higher in several aspects, which suggests that
preparation is indeed useful.
Lee, Yun-Hyang. 2005.
Self-assessment as an autonomous learning tool in an interpretation classroom.
* The author asked 23 students in the Korean-English
program of a 2 year graduate school of translation and interpreting to take
home recordings of interpreting exercises they did in class and to assess them
on the basis of a set of criteria pooled together under meaning, language use
and delivery. All students found the exercise useful. The students’ comments
are analyzed.
Li, Ling. 2006. Importance of discourse
markers in conference interpretation and the related interpreting strategies
(in Chinese). Journal of
* Discourse markers play an important role in discourse
coherence. It is obvious that discourse markers can make logics of the
discourse more explicit, but their ultimate goal is to help the listener
understand the intention of the speaker with less effort so as to facilitate
the smooth process of communication. Therefore, discourse markers may help the
interpreters grasp and reproduce the main ideas of the speakers immediately and
accurately and thus improve the quality of conference interpretation. Some
strategies can be employed to translate discourse markers in conference
interpretation such as adding, omitting, retaining and changing the discourse
markers in the original speeches. (BW)
Lim, Hyang-Ok.
Liu, Minhua. 2005. From
descriptive translation studies to constructivism: researching and teaching
interpretation (in Chinese). Journal of the National Institute for
Compilation and Translation 33:4. 42-50.
* The author discusses why interpreting research and
interpreter training have often not benefited from each other and suggest
interdisciplinary work, the establishment of a descriptive branch of
interpreting studies, a constructivist position in training and action
research.
More
specifically, she advocates engaging student interpreters in doing actual
interpreting as opposed to skill-component training so that they can learn how
to solve problems in their original, authentic, complex and rich contexts.
She
also says that half a century of interpreter training has not benefited
interpreting research because of a prescriptive approach which was adopted
without sufficient attention being allotted to the learning process itself, and
recommends the establishment of a descriptive branch in interpreting studies to
reverse the long prescriptive character of interpreter training.
With
respect to research, she says that interpreting scholars often borrow concepts
or tools from other fields without truly understanding the underlying
fundamentals. She believes interpreting studies should be more humble and open
to effective interdisciplinarity.
Ma, Xia. 2006. Interpreting: the process of
variation, negotiation and adaptation (in Chinese). Chinese Translators
Journal 27:3.53-58.
* This paper aims to explore the dynamic context of
interpreting process from the perspective of pragmatics, based on the
variability, negotiability and adaptability in terms of the property of
language according to Adaptation Theory. It first shows that interpretation is
a complicated communicative activity, changed with the dynamic contextual
process, when achieving the interpretation between the source and target
language’s fidelity. Based upon these analyses, this paper then continues to discuss
the contextual factors on how to make choice of linguistic use from a variable
range of possibilities in the process of interpreting, with its emphasis on how
the interpreter should adapt to the meta-pragmatic awareness. (BW)
Puusepp, Margus. 2006.
Interpretation-related quality expectations of Estonian conference
participants. Baltic Horizons n°6(105), December 2006. 84-95.
* A questionnaire
was distributed to participants at three training seminars on EU law and
institutions for Estonian civil servants. A total of 39 questionnaires were
returned from the three groups. Respondents were asked about the general role
and performance of interpreters and about quality components (inter alia as
“irritants”) with a request to rate their importance on a rate of 1 (maximum)
to 4. Among the findings, there was high inter-individual and inter-group
variability, and terminology seems to be perceived as important.
Pyoun, Hewon. 2006. Pourquoi enseigner
l’interprétation simultanée avec texte en anglais – cas d’étude entre le
français et le coréen.
* This paper is
to my knowledge the first to address the case where speakers use one language
and display written documents in another language. In the case of Korean
interpreters, speakers may speak French or Korean but use English powerpoint
presentations, which is problematic not only because some interpreters in the
French-Korean combination do not have strong English, but also because the task
then involves processing of discourse in 3 languages, not 2, simultaneously.
The author observed problems in such an interpreting exercise and found that
there were more errors and omissions than in more traditional interpreting
exercises with only two languages.
Ren, Wen & Jiang, Lihua.
2006. Reinterpreting the interpreters’ role: a discourse analytical perspective
(in Chinese). Chinese Translators Journal 27:2. 61-66.
* Abstract: Taking an interdisciplinary approach and
drawing in particular from theories of discourse analysis, the co-authors of
this paper propose to view the interpreter-mediated conversation as a discourse
process in which the primary interlocutors coming from two different
language/cultural systems interact face-to-face with each other through an
interpreter. Seen from such a perspective, an interpreter can manage the flow
of talk by adopting appropriate discourse strategies and, together with the
primary interlocutors, may even influence the direction and outcome of the
interaction. This understanding poses a challenge to some widely circulating
notions about the interpreter, such as her need to possess a “microphone
personality” or to render herself “invisible”. (BW)
Tohyama, Hitomi
& Matsubara, Shigeki. 2006. An analysis of simultaneous interpreters’
strategies for following the source speech, focusing on the ear-voice span and
the timing of the start of interpreting (in Japanese). Interpretation
Studies 6. 113-128.
* Based on a
corpus stored at
Tryuk, Małgorzata. 2000.
Tłumaczenie ustne i pamięć [Interpreting and Memory]. In
Setkowicz, Anna O nauczaniu przekładu [On Teaching Translation],
Warsaw: Polskie Towarzystwo Tłumaczy Ekonomicznych, Prawniczych i
Sądowych (TEPiS), 108-119.
* The
complex nature of memory and applications of its various components in
interpreting activities constitute the subject of this paper. The author first
demonstrates several established views on the stages of the interpreting
process and the core mechanisms of sense memorization in the process of
translator and interpreter training, and then proceeds to discuss cognitive
studies on mental processes and memory. Since memory is essential in the
training process, its testing techniques are briefly commented on.
Moser-Mercer’s models of working memory and general memory are discussed. There
is also a clear presentation of how the memory model functions during the
simultaneous interpreting process, how particular aspects of short-term and
long-term memory affect the interpreter’s performance, and what kind of
didactic hints on memory training exercises can be provided. The article
concludes with three samples of the author’s studies conducted on remembering
native Polish utterances in French interpreting by fourth and fifth year
students at the
Wallmach, Kim. 2006. ‘Pressure
players’ or ‘choke artists’? How do Zulu simultaneous interpreters handle the
pressure of interpreting in a legislative context? Language Matters
35:1. 179-200.
Wang, Binhua. 2007. From
Interpreting Competence to Interpreter Competence – A Tentative Model for
Objective Assessment of Interpreting (in Chinese), Journal of Guangdong
University of Foreign Studies 2007:3. 32-40
* Abstract:
This article is a tentative exploration into the
objective assessment of interpreting. Utilizing Bachman’s testing theory, the
author blueprints the goals, contents, and modes of different types of
interpreting assessment, with the focus on the differentiation of interpreting
competence and interpreter competence in test designing. Case studies are
presented concerning the four representative interpreting major entrance tests
as well as the three representative interpreters’ credential tests in
Wang, Jinbo & Wang, Yan.
2006. Interpreting textbooks in
* In line with the characteristics of interpreting and
of interpreting textbooks, this paper examines and evaluates 31 English/Chinese
interpreting textbooks. It argues that most of the textbooks concerned are
theoretically weak and leave something to be desired in terms of methodological
rigor, material authenticity, and thematic and discourse diversity. It
concludes that in the context of the growing importance of interpreting in
contemporary
Yeh, Shu-Pai, & Liu, Minhua.
*Abstract
The purpose
of this paper is to report findings from a pilot study under a research project
commissioned by the National Institute for Compilation and Translation. The
study was designed to explore the possibility of using scoring rubrics to
evaluate interpretation performance.
Holistic
scoring based on multiple criteria is one of the most common methods used to
evaluate interpretation performance. Descriptions for each of the criteria,
however, are often lacking or unclear, and thus up to individual raters to
determine. As many interpretation evaluations are done on site under time
constraints, raters may make hasty decisions based largely on subjective
personal preferences, which can easily lead to large variance, affecting the
test’s fairness and objectivity.
The
test in the pilot study was on consecutive interpretation from English into
Mandarin. Four first-year graduate students undergoing T&I training and
seven fourth-year English majors participated in the study. Fidelity and
intelligibility were selected as the two criteria for independent scoring by
each rater off site after the test. Three pairs of raters were invited and
trained on the use of two scoring rubrics, one for each criterion, developed by
the research team. Pair 1 scored fidelity against the recording of the source
speeches, while Pair 2 scored fidelity against the recording of reference model
interpretations of the source speeches, and Pair 3 scored intelligibility based
on each participant’s interpretations of the source speeches. The study
intended to: (1) determine the test’s reliability and validity; (2) compare the
methods used by Pair 1 and 2; and (3) explore the correlation between fidelity
and intelligibility. Statistical methods were used to analyze the scores. The
raters’ comments and suggestions concerning the development of a prototype test
and evaluation procedure were also collected.
The
study showed high inter-rater reliability for both Pair 1 and Pair 2, with the
latter being slightly higher. Pair 3 showed only moderate inter-rater
reliability, which might be a result of the small sample population. Test
validity was established as graduate students significantly outperformed
undergraduates. Fidelity and intelligibility seemed to be two independent
criteria. (ML)
Zhang Ling. 2006. The
impact of omission on SI (in Chinese). Chinese Translators Journal 27:4.
43-48.
* This paper is a tentative study on how omission
tends to affect SI. Omission has often been regarded as an error in qualitative
assessment of SI. Recently, however, it has been argued that in
interpreter-mediated bilingual communication, the ‘saying it all’ strategy may
not be successful, nor could it even be practical. Drawing from its author’s
personal experiences in interpreting, which confirm that a one-hundred-percent
reproduction in SI is neither possible nor necessary, the paper looks into the
positive role which omission can possibly play in SI. It introduces the ‘effort
model’ of cognition in order to explain why omission is desirable. In response
to relevant research questions, the author carries out an observational study
to find out under what circumstances omission is applied. Concerns about
possible loss of information as a result of omission are also addressed. In
conclusion, the author suggests that we take omission for an effective SI
strategy, integrate it in SI training and, ultimately, apply it in the
practices of SI. (BW)
Zhang, Peipei & Ren, Jingsheng.
2006. Measuring faithfulness in interpretation performance (in Chinese). Chinese
Science & Technology Translators Journal 19: 59-61.
* Based on the results of previous researches, this
paper argues that faithfulness is one of the most important parameters and the
reliability of information units plays an important role in interpretation
performance evaluation. It proposes a formula to gauge faithfulness of
interpretation, which may help to make the evaluation method more scientific,
objective and feasible. (BW)
Zhang, Wei. 2006. Memory
and interpreting: a cognitive analysis (in Chinese). Chinese Translators
Journal 27:6.47-53.
* Memory enjoys a close and complex relationship with
interpreting and is one of the fundamental elements in the understanding of
interpretation. Looking closely into a survey designed to find out how Chinese
practitioners and students of interpretation tend to think about memory’s role
in their profession, this paper calls attention to the defects of previous
empirical researchers on memory and interpreting, and supplies a new and more
objective set of data for further studies of the relationship in question. (BW)
Zhang, Wei & Wang Kefei.
2007. Studies of interpreting and working memory (in Chinese). Foreign
Languages and Their Teaching. 2007:1.43-47.
* Memory is one of the fundamental elements in successful
interpreting exerting great influence on interpreting quality. This paper
focuses on the relationship between SI and working memory, showing the
significant effect of both volume of working memory and coordinating power of
working memory on interpreting quality, and the more practical effect of other
interpreting related skills and strategies. By analyzing the existing problems
in interpreting research, the authors hold that working memory in interpreting
can be furthered by improving research design as well as adopting
interdisciplinary approaches. (BW)
THESES
Benhaddou,
Adil. 2002. Video
conference and interpretation. Mémoire de DEA. Université de Mons Hainault.
Chiu, Yu-Hsien. 2006. Assessing
input difficulty in interpretation: An experiment of English to Chinese
consecutive interpretation. Unpublished MA thesis, Fu Jen University,
Taiwan.
* Abstract
Assessing input
difficulty is an essential issue to interpretation training and test development.
The purpose of this study is to use several quantitative approaches, including
readability formulas, propositional density, density of new arguments and
expert judgment, to assess the difficulty level of input materials. Readability
formulas were used to measure lexical and syntactic difficulty, while
propositional density and density of new arguments were used to estimate the
semantic or conceptual complexity. Expert judgment was helpful in exploring
other aspects of input difficulty.
Three English
texts were chosen as input materials. The difficulty level of these input
materials was judged by using the above-mentioned approaches and analyzed for
correlation with the performance of English to Chinese consecutive
interpretation. Four first-year graduate students and seven undergraduate
seniors participated in the study. There were two independent variables: three
English input materials (text) and two groups of participants with different
levels of interpretation expertise (group). The dependent variable was the
scores of participants’ interpretation performance, based on propositional
accuracy as well as scores of fidelity and intelligibility based on 5-point
scales.
The major
findings of the study are as follows:
1.
None of the difficulty levels assessed by the four
approaches correlated with participants’ interpretation scores. However,
propositional density and expert judgment seemed to show some possible
relationship with the interpretation scores.
2.
A significant main effect of “group” was observed,
with significantly better performance by the graduate students.
3.
The impact of input difficulty on interpretation
performance varied according to participants’ level of expertise, showing
graduate students’ performance less affected by input difficulty than that of
undergraduates. (ML)
Ďoubalová, Jana. 2007. Culture
and interpreting (Cultural differences and their influence on interpreting into
the native language and into the foreign active language). (in Czech). MA
thesis,
* A study on the relations between culture and
interpreting and on the effect of cultural differences on interpreting
strategies when translating names and institutional concepts in the EU context.
Building on Newmark’s, Gile’s and Jones’s models, a number of strategies are
listed. Detailed analysis of authentic interpretation at the European
Parliament validated these strategies. Since in that environment, there is
relative cultural unity, differences in the relative frequencies of strategies
when working into A or B are probably due to the interpreting process itself
rather than to cultural differences. (IC)
Dufrane, Luc. 2005. L’expression des émotions en
interprétation simultanée. Elaboration d’un outil d’investigation. Mémoire
de licence (?). Université de Mons Hainault.
Podhajská, Kvĕta. 2007. Time Lag in Simultaneous
Interpretation from English into Czech and its Dependence on Text Type. MA
thesis,
* This work, a follow-up to an earlier thesis by
Pavličková (2004) on French-into-Czech simultaneous interpreting, focuses
on the links between a spontaneous vs. read speech and time lag in simultaneous
interpreting. Twelve students and recent graduates of interpreting took part in
the experiment. The hypothesis which assumes a shorter time lag when
interpreting the read text was corroborated. A further finding is that time lag
is also influenced by the individual approach of the interpreter. (IC)
Diploma theses on conference
interpreting, Department of Translation Studies, Karl-Franzens Universität
Graz, 2003-2007 (NG, HL, SP)
* Other diploma theses, which have to do with other
types of interpreting, are listed on the EST website www.est-translationstudies.org
, under Recent Publications for the month of May
Borovsak, Petra. 2005. Dolmetscher in den
slowenischen Medien. Allgemeiner Überblick über die Situation der
Mediendolmetscher in Slowenien. Diploma thesis, Karl-Franzens
Universität Graz.
* An overview of the situation of media interpreting
in
Eder, Sigrid. 2003. Die Bedeutung des visuellen
Inputs für Simultandolmetschen. Diploma thesis, Karl-Franzens Universität
Graz.
Gattringer, Claudia. 2005. Die Rolle
der Kohäsion für das Simultandolmetschen. Diploma thesis, Karl-Franzens
Universität Graz.
Lieleg, Beatrix. 2003. Relevanz der
antizipatorischen Kompetenz in der Theorie und Praxis der Dolmetschditatik.
Diploma thesis, Karl-Franzens Universität Graz.
Messner, Lieselotte. 2006. Qualitätsbeurteilungen
von Simultandolmetschungen. Fehlertypologien und Beurteilungsinstrumente.
Diploma thesis, Karl-Franzens Universität Graz.
Moazedi. Laura. 2006. Persönlichkeitsunterschiede von
angehenden Übersetzerinnen und Dolmetscherinnen. Klischee oder Wirklichkeit?
Diploma thesis, Karl-Franzens Universität Graz.
* Personality study among students in Graz
Morascher, Arnold. 2004. The
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Rolle und Status des Dolmetschers und
Übersetzers im US-amerikanischen und europäischen Spielfilm ab 1990. Diploma
thesis, Karl-Franzens Universität Graz.
* Representation of interpreters in films.
Reinmüller, Gerrit. 2003. Dolmetschen für
die EU. Qualitätsanforderungen beim Simultandolmetschen im Gemeinsamen
Konferenz- und Dolmetschdienst der Europäischen Kommission. Diploma thesis,
Karl-Franzens Universität Graz.
* Small-scale survey
Reithofer, Karin. 2003. Haben
RednerInnen immer Recht? Dolmetschen von defekten Texten. Diploma thesis,
Karl-Franzens Universität Graz.
* Experiment
Schneider, Julia. 2007. Die
Quantifizierung von Interferenzen beim Simultandolmetschen mit Text. Eine
Pilotstudie. Diploma thesis, Karl-Franzens Universität Graz.
Wilhelm, Christine. 2005. Unterrichtsmethoden
beim Simultandolmetschen. Diploma thesis, Karl-Franzens Universität Graz.
* Qualitative study (interviews)
Zwischenberger, Cornelia. 2005. Qualitative
Anforderungen an freiberufliche KonferenzdolmetscherInnen. Diploma
thesis, Karl-Franzens Universität Graz.
* Survey
MA theses from the Graduate
Institute of Translation and Interpretation of
Chang, Ho-Ching. 2001. The influence
of language proficiency and sight translation training toward sight translation
performance (in Chinese). Unpublished MA thesis,
Abstract
This research probes into the influence of subjects’ different
language proficiency and sight translation training toward their sight
translation performances, so as to learn more about sight translation and how
to improve its training. The evaluation criteria in this research are: 1)
fidelity, which is divided into miss-interpretation, omissions, and unnatural
Chinese; 2) sight translation chunking, which includes chunk-moving, and
chunk-connection; 3) delivery, which covers backtracks, fillers, pauses, and
time. The major findings are: 1) sight translation training, with the help of
high language proficiency, makes the best ST performance; 2) language
proficiency has more influence on ST performance than ST training; 3) language
proficiency should be the prerequisite of ST training.
Chen, Yue-Chen. 2005. Personality
traits and job satisfaction of freelance interpreters in
Abstract
As a new profession in
Fan, Damien. 2004. Legal
issues in interpretation services: A Copyright Act perspective (in
Chinese). Unpublished MA thesis,
Abstract
Freelance interpreters often find themselves in
disputes with clients who wish to record the interpreters’
works. Interpreters consider interpreting to be a mode of communication
occurring within a specific context, which optimizes the effectiveness of the
interpretation only when used in that certain context. Therefore interpreters
hope that clients will not use their interpretation in any other forms and
contexts. In addition, interpreters see their works as intellectual
properties protected by copyright laws, and consider recording as infringement
of their copyrights. However, some clients still insist on recording, and
claim that they have the right to do so, in addition to using the
recordings. This research analyses the legal relationships among the
speaker, the interpreter, and the client from the perspective of the Copyright
Act. The research indicates that the interpreter’s work is a derivative
work, protected as an independent work. The relationship between the
interpreter and the client should be governed by Article XXII, i.e. the
commissioning party and the commissioned person. In order to avoid
disputes and protect the rights of both parties, the interpreter and client
should stipulate in a contractual form the assignment of authorship and
economic rights, the reservation of moral rights, the purpose of commission,
and the scope of use.
Hong, Hsiao-Wen. 2001. The
influence of interpretation training on simultaneous interpretation performance
(in Chinese). Unpublished MA thesis,
Abstract
This study evaluates the influence of SI training
based on the corpus data collected from the speech production by trained and
untrained interpreters. The assessment includes not only the content-based
criteria, i.e. completeness, accuracy and fidelity, but also speech delivery.
Quantitative and qualitative analysis are both attempted to disclose a better
picture of the truth. The major findings of this study are: (1) Trained
interpreters showed only a marginal advantage over untrained interpreters in
terms of completeness and accuracy. In fluency, however, a noticeable gap is
found between trained and untrained interpreters as the subjects with
interpretation training tend to deliver their interpretations much more
smoothly without excessive disruptions. (2) Variance within the same group,
however, is much greater than difference between groups, especially for
untrained interpreters. (3) A striking similarity is observed between groups in
omission types, error types and types of speech disruptions. According to the
research findings in this study, the effect of interpretation training is not
strong in completeness or accuracy but in fluency.
Hou, Hui-Ju. 2004. Sight
translation from Chinese into English: The selection of the main verb phrase(s)
and the translation of non-main verb phrases (in Chinese). Unpublished MA
thesis,
Abstract
Chinese and English are very different in terms of
verb usage. A Chinese sentence may contain two or more verbs that have no
inflections, while an English sentence usually contains one predicated verb
(the main verb) only. This study aims to find out which of the verbs in a
Chinese complex predicate would be chosen as the predicate verb in sight
translation into English, and how other verbs in the construction would be
translated. A Chinese opening speech is used as the source text, and the
experiment is divided into two parts: a main verb selection and the actual
sight translation. The verb in the main clause of a Chinese complex
predicate is often identified as the main verb used to construct an English
sentence, whereas the translation of the other verbs in the construction
depends on their relation to the main verb or other English grammar
requirements. The size of translation units may affect the selection of
the main verb. However, in actual sight translation, the first
non-prepositional verb in a Chinese sentence is often translated into English
as a predicated verb. The line between Chinese verbs and prepositions is
sometimes unclear. Nevertheless, it becomes clearer during sight translation
into English. Written materials are often used in sight translation
classes, which provides a good opportunity to introduce Chinese-English
contrastive studies into ST teaching.
Jen, Yu-Mei. 2005. Directionality
in simultaneous interpretation: A reassessment. Unpublished MA thesis,
Abstract
This study discussed SI directionality by examining
the validity of the claim that interpreting into A language was a
better/standard direction. Two approaches were taken: literature review and Internet
survey. On the part of literature review, aside from the fact that the
ambiguity of the existing language terms that necessarily involved in the
discussion of directionality deserved more research attention, some of the
major arguments for supporting A-B and B-A were reviewed respectively. Other
previous empirical studies also revealed important clues which might turn out
to be factors that determined SI directionality in quite independently of the
interpreter’s working languages being native or non-native, as identified by
this study. It was highly likely that SI directionality was an issue that had
gone beyond the discussion of native vs. non-native languages. On the other
hand, the Internet survey results showed that interpreting into A language as
the standard direction was a well-noted idea in the field but few respondents
actually gave their support to its strict practice mostly out of the concern
for market reality.
Lee, Pey-Chih.
Abstract
This study examines students’ notes in relations to
their speech production throughout the training course in graduate level
Translation and Interpretation programs. This study takes content completeness
as the only criterion for the evaluation of the 12 student subjects’ notes and
delivery. Major findings of this paper include: 1) regardless of years of
training, students rely heavily on their notes in speech production; 2)
training has more effect on students’ notes than on speech production in terms
of bringing their performance closer together; 3) senior students demonstrate
better capability in coordinating their notes and working memory in that they
tend to deliver fuller of their incomplete or missing notes; while junior
students tend to translate their complete notes incompletely or even
incorrectly, showing that their information processing before the act of
note-taking is not deep enough. However, due to the small sample size and the
fact that this experiment was done only once, it is not clear whether the
progress in note-taking demonstrated by students comes from the good training
program design, or it is simply the result of experience and practice.
Liao, Hsing-Hsien. 2004. Quality
standards and training for television news interpreting: From the perspective
of television news translators and interpreters (in Chinese). Unpublished
MA thesis,
Abstract
Need for television interpreting has increased since
the Gulf War of 1991. Breaking news in other parts of the world has also
generated greater demand for use of television interpreting services. As
television interpreting is considered to be a highly difficult type of
interpreting, it is important to establish a standard for quality in television
interpreting, and to determine if special training is required to provide
quality television interpreting services. There have been many empirical
studies and discussions about live television interpreting, most of which
approach television interpreting from the perspective of users, i.e. television
audiences. This study intends to explore views of quality and hiring decisions
from the perspective of television news translators and interpreters. A
questionnaire survey of 11 television news translators and interpreters shows
that (1) Television news stations prefer in-house translators to professional
interpreters for breaking news interpreting. (2) Training of interpreting is
recommended for potential television news interpreters. (3) Special training
focusing on television interpreting should be offered by educational
institutions. The study also shows that working experience and training in
interpreting affect the views of quality and hiring decision in television
interpreting. The study also presents lists of quality standards and training
curriculum from the perspective of television news translators and
interpreters.