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Lingwistyka Stosowana nr 2: 2010 181
Małgorzata TRYUK University of Warsaw
Strategies in Interpreting. Issues, Controversies,
Solutions
Introduction
In her seminal paper Shlesinger (2000: 4) observes that the basic rule in inter- preting studies is to „find the optimal balance between the intuitive and the sci- entific, the controllable and the ecologically valid, the definite and the viable, the task-specific and the psychologically universal”. Adhering to this rule seems hard when studying one of the most crucial concepts in interpreting, namely the concept of strategy. It is extremely difficult to define the concept of strategy from a theoreti- cal (description of interpreting process), practical (performing interpreting task), or didactic point of view (teaching how to solve interpreting problems). We lack understanding of the explicit distinctive features of strategy, characteristic of inter- preting. In many studies strategies are commonly referred to as methods or tactics chosen by the interpreter while performing his/her task. Frequently it is stated that strategic decisions are difficult to recognize because they are a part of the adopted „interpreting style” as notes Riccardi (2003: 263). Strategies are also determined by the way knowledge and interpreting skills or competences have been assimilated. Strategies can be a criterion of the interpreter’s experience: an expert in interpreting will use a different strategy than a novice or an inexperienced interpreter (Moser- Mercer, 1997). The concept of a strategy in interpreting is ambiguous. This ambiguity and the multiplicity of approaches of dealing with strategies are indicated by Scott-Tenent, Gonzalez Davies and Rodriguez Torras (2000: 108) who claim that strategy means detecting a translation or interpreting problem and then applying an adequate solu- tion. They observe that strategy is often confused with a range of other terms spe- cific to translation or interpreting studies. When strategy is considered as transla- tion method it means first and foremost a plan of processing the whole source text. Strategy considered as a procedure is a technique applied to individual text seg- ments which convey elements of meaning. Strategy may be confused with transla- tion skills or competence. Finally strategy may be seen as a norm while interpret- ing: it is not only the reaching of the goal but also reaching it „in some optimal
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way”. High quality of interpreting as perceived by the receivers may be such a goal. Observing this confusion of terms and approaches, Zabalbeascoa (2000: 119-122) proposes the following definitions of the above mentioned concepts:
- a method is a way of doing something in accordance with a predefined plan; it is less sensitive to contingencies than a strategy; translation method refers to global characteristics of the product and is used in product-oriented studies to refer to one or more translational criteria;
- a strategy is a specific pattern of behaviour aimed at solving a problem or at- taining a goal; it is any conscious action intended to enhance the translator’s perfor- mance for a given task, in terms of efficiency and effectiveness; in translation and interpreting, we can distinguish strategies specific in text or speech comprehension and production;
- a technique is an ability, an acquired skill to be applied according to a pre- scribed method or procedure (like a way of playing a musical instrument or of painting); the concept of translation techniques comes from a prospective and pre- scriptive approach, which involves looking at the source text and deciding which its constituent parts are for the purpose of translation, and then considering the most convenient way of rendering each unit. Also, as Tomaszkiewicz (2004) states, strategy means overall proceedings of the translator/interpreter with reference to a certain text; it should be differentiated from technique which means proceedings with reference to specific elements of the source text with the purpose of achieving equivalence. Hence, technique is an individual decision, a way of solving a problem in relation to a specific interpreting unit, or an existing problem at the level of interpreting unit. We deal with inter- preting techniques when an original text is too dense and abounds in information or when the speaker uses terminology unknown to the interpreter, or the speaker speaks too fast or with a foreign accent, and, as a result, the interpreter may have problems with distinguishing interpreting units.
Strategies in interpreting
In interpreting, strategy means such interpreter’s behaviour that enables him to make the complex mental effort resulting from simultaneous listening and speak- ing when both source and target texts are produced only once, as a rule without any possibility to listen again. In addition the interpreter cannot verify nor even self- correct his/her performance. The whole interpreting operation is conducted under time pressure and stress. Strategies, as overall interpreter’s behaviour, always ap- pear, although they can be realized to a different extent, depending on the interpret- er’s professional experience. For a large group of researchers, strategy is an optimal operation, either conscious or automatic, it is a decision-taking action or sequence of actions aimed at solving an interpreting problem (Moser-Mercer, 1997).
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from target text-oriented strategies, encompassing:
- regaining information,
- décalage ,
- expansion and compression,
- presentation (pauses, intonation, style). Moreover, the author distinguishes emergency and general strategies. In one of her studies concerning strategies, Riccardi (1998: 177-178) draws at- tention to the following interpreting strategies:
- anticipation,
- least commitment strategy allowing the interpreter to avoid one-way solu- tions,
- clause transformation strategy
- and chunk strategy. Kohn and Kalina (1996) propose a distinction between speech perception and speech production strategies. Perception strategies include knowledge activation, anticipation, chunking and stalling. In order to complete mental patterns with in- formation, the interpreter refers to both inferring strategy, i.e. inference, and memo- rizing and monitoring strategies. At the stage of speech production, the interpreter may, among others, apply adaptation, neutralisation or avoidance strategy. S/he may also reformulate or transcode chunks in the source language (SL), chunk them again, compress, generalize or add something on the basis of context. The interpret- er may also employ emergency strategies or compensation strategies. Emergency strategies are based on the surface structure of the utterance in SL and encompass e.g. transcoding and compression (condensation). Compensation strategies cover omission, approximation, filtration, producing incomplete sentences, and substitu- tion. Moser-Mercer (1997: 258–259) reduces strategies to declarative or procedural knowledge used by the interpreter either consciously or unconsciously to solve an interpreting problem. Thus the author suggests the following distinction:
- comprehension strategies distinguishing between crucial and minor informa- tion,
- planning strategies activated at the stage of comprehending at all linguistic levels,
- monitoring strategies enabling the analysis and synthesis of information. Moreover, the author suggests distinguishing two additional strategies, namely learning strategy and interpreting workload managing strategy. Gran (1998) emphasises that the most important during interpreting are refor- mulation strategies, which she considers as creative and individual and which in- clude paraphrasing or reconstructing on the basis of the interpreter’s knowledge as well as individual strategies characteristic of a given person (e.g. paralinguistic resources such as intonation). The relation between strategies and the quality of the product of interpreting is stressed by Riccardi (2003: 257). Quality in interpreting is a derivative of strate- gic behaviour adopted by the interpreter at the stage of comprehension, planning
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and production. Therefore, the classification of strategies suggested by Riccardi includes the above mentioned stages of interpreting. Strategies applied at the production stage are analyzed in the studies of numer- ous contemporary interpreting researchers. For instance, Gile (1995) presents the emergency strategy called „coping tactics” used when the interpreter’s processing capacity is overloaded or the knowledge base is inadequate to cope with the inter- preting situation. The coping tactics presented by the author are to be used in accor- dance with the rule of maximum information, minimum interference and maximum communication. Riccardi (2005: 764) demonstrates that strategies should encom- pass all levels of language production and perception and refer to:
- divided attention and décalage,
- the activation of the relevant knowledge of a subject matter,
- selection of information,
- the choice between different options of the TL for interpreting syntactic struc- tures of the SL,
- rapid switch from form-based interpreting when confronted with numbers, technical terms, proper names back to meaning-based interpreting. Riccardi (2005: 764-765) not only presents comprehension and production strat- egies but also suggests distinguishing general and emergency strategies, previously described by Kohn and Kalina (1996). According to the author, comprehension strategies include: anticipation, chunking, selection of information and stalling. Production strategies include compression, expansion, approximation, generalisa- tion, morphosyntactic transformations and use of elements of prosody, e. g. pauses and intonation. As regards general strategies, these are mainly décalage and moni- toring of the produced communication, while emergency strategies are e.g. dele- tion, transcoding and parallel reformulation. This makes altogether 15 strategies. According to the author, „if strategies are to be a viable tool for pointing out the transfer mechanisms intervening during the simultaneous interpreting process and the results achieved, then, of course, categories will be open and can host numerous other strategies, depending on the kind of interpreting solution examined.” (Ric- cardi, 2005: 765). Knowledge-based strategies constitute another group of strategies. Riccardi (1996, 1998, 2005) uses the expert-novice paradigm, depicting skill-based and knowledge based strategies connected with the work style of experienced interpret- ers (experts) and novices. A skill means that the interpreter uses certain stereotypic and standard solutions while the application of knowledge requires conscious, ana- lytical processing. All the authors discussed so far claim that all strategies are to some extent co- dependent. If one of the strategies is not properly activated, then it will be necessary to compensate for it using another strategy. It is noteworthy that, while interpreting, the interpreter uses a „super-strategy”, i.e. monitoring strategy, to assess proper ap- plication of other single strategies. From the above it appears that there is no unanimity in presenting a list of strate- gies, which would undoubtedly be of importance at least for didactics in interpret-
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anticipation is a strategy by which the receiver (the interpreter) formulates hypoth- eses about yet unspoken speech parts. Those hypotheses may prove to be false, nevertheless, they activate cognitive processes in the receiver’s brain, directing the processes of comprehending the message. Anticipation allows a reconstruction of the message elements, which the hearer fails to receive because of a lack of atten- tion, lower concentration or other interference. Anticipation is a complex process, functioning on every linguistic level: phonol- ogy, morphology, syntax, semantics, and is possible because of the phenomenon of redundancy, i.e. excess information, which facilitates perception and increases the probability of conveying the message effectively. Redundancy enables the receiver to formulate a hypothesis about an utterance and compare it with the models stored in memory, where the patterns of linguistic behaviour, updated by perception, are coded. The context of the utterance allowing for unequivocal comprehension of linguistic elements plays a vital role in the process of anticipating. By applying the anticipation strategy, the receiver (either a monolingual hearer or a bilingual inter- preter) activates the bottom-up mechanism, where perception starts from processing the acoustic, then lexical, syntactic, and semantic features. S/he also activates the top-down mechanisms, where s/he formulates hypotheses, based on her/his knowl- edge and expectation, concerning the message. The more extensive the linguistic experience, the more effective the anticipation is. In conference interpreting comprehension of a message in SL proceeds simulta- neously with production of a message in TL. Due to the simultaneity of mental pro- cesses, the interpreter has to comprehend the message in the shortest possible time, and anticipation is the main factor contributing to this. In simultaneous interpreting this means predicting by the interpreter, the elements appearing after a given ele- ment, on the basis of frequency of occurrence of such element in comparable situ- ations. Anticipation, thus, allows the interpreter to shorten the time of interpreting by decreasing the amount of information processed and enabling more effective use of the processing abilities. In models whose aim is to explain the process of interpreting, anticipation occu- pies a special position. In the interpretive theory developed by Seleskovitch (1978), anticipation is a sine qua non condition of simultaneous interpreting. According to this approach, anticipation is based upon two kinds of knowledge: extralinguis- tic and linguistic. As a result, the author distinguishes linguistic (semantic) and extralinguistic (situational) anticipation. Linguistic anticipation is conditioned by knowledge of certain lexicon and grammatical rules, while extralinguistic anticipa- tion results from the knowledge of both subject matter and communicative situation. Also Lederer (1981) distinguishes two types of anticipation: linguistic and cogni- tive. Linguistic anticipation, where knowledge of language plays an important role, consists in predicting by the interpreter the meaning of the next chunk before s/he hears it. A source of cognitive anticipation is the interpreter’s cognitive memory. To compensate for insufficient cognitive knowledge, the interpreter frequently resorts to linguistic knowledge. Such operation is obviously impossible when the interpret- er is not familiar with the speaker’s terminology and style. Moreover, the speaker’s
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regional or foreign accent, type of text (written, improvised) and speech style (e.g. literary), significantly affect the possibilities of using anticipation. The cognitive model of interpreting developed by Moser-Mercer (1977) and based on processing information places anticipation as one of the stages of perception of speech. In the effort model described by Gile (1995), anticipation contributes to maintaining a bal- ance between listening, analysis, production and memory. In Setton’s (1999) cogni- tive-pragmatic approach, anticipation is considered as one of the central operations in simultaneous interpreting. Nevertheless, it was Chernov (1979, 1994) who to the greatest extent presented the role of anticipation. Chernov’s model explains the process of probabilistic prediction and anticipating synthesis. These two mecha- nisms are the two sides of anticipation resulting from redundancy characterizing all utterances. Redundancy indicates the repetition of certain linguistic features. It also emphasizes co-dependence of linguistic elements, which means that utterances are formed in accordance with certain rules. Chernov is particularly interested in se- mantic redundancy which he considers the most important element of anticipation. Redundancy can be objective and subjective and is the only factor responsible for predicting in simultaneous interpreting. Prosodic, grammatical, semantic features as well as meaning are subjects of anticipation. Chernov’s (1994) model assumes the parallel functioning of the mechanism of anticipation at all stages simultaneously, multiple transformations of information and interaction between individual levels. Interaction starts before the moment of utterance. If the interpreter knows the speaker, then s/he starts general probabilistic predicting concerning the situation, which is to follow. In such a case anticipation occurs on a higher level and corresponds to top-down processing. Then, the process of probabilistic anticipation proceeds at the level of sound ( bottom-up processing), as well as at syntactic and semantic levels. If the interpreter does not know the speaker, and her/his contextual and situational knowledge is scarce, then proba- bilistic anticipation begins at the level of sound. During speech perception, inter- action between all levels occurs, and the interpreter creates a general plan of the whole speech, or its fragment. The interpreter’s attention is focused on her/his own utterance. Alternatively, i.e. when it is difficult for the interpreter to comprehend the message, her/his attention is focused on the utterance in SL. The interpreter’s attention is focused mainly on semantic components being new information carri- ers. Simultaneous interpreting is based on inference during interpreting. The model suggested by Chernov (1979, 1996) demonstrates inferences occurring during in- terpreting. They depend on the degree of mastering the SL by the interpreter, his cognitive knowledge, situational knowledge, and knowledge of the sender. Accord- ing to Chernov, there are four types of inference: linguistic, cognitive, situational and pragmatic. Linguistic inferences may result from the verbal form of the mes- sage, its linguistic meaning, and reference elements of semantic discourse structure. Cognitive inference is used when semantic components of the utterance (or its part) heard by the interpreter, interact with previous knowledge. The interpreter’s previ- ous knowledge facilitates anticipation of next utterance, which increases during the
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and of shorter length, i.e. to render the information volume of the SL text with the optimum degree of compression. The basic operations for achieving compres- sion are: omissions, substitutions and encapsulations. They can be employed in simultaneous interpreting with much greater ease and to a much higher extent than in any other type of translation as the oral form requires condensed structure of the text and the use of prosody, the use of non-verbal elements conveying se- mantic information, and the interpreted utterance fulfils only the communicative and informative function. Alexieva (1983: 234 –237) distinguishes three types of compression:
- compression dependent upon the linguistic context and the specific features of the TL text as an oral text, of which examples are: omission, substitution and encapsulation caused by the presence or absence of anaphora,
- compression dependent upon the spoken medium of SI, i.e. omissions of utte- rances describing the speech act itself, omission of semantic components, clusters of components or whole predications indicated by prosodic features,
- compression dependent upon the role of the elements of the communicative situation., i.e. the role of the elements of the communicative situation as indicators of omitted portions of the SL text, and the channel capacity of the receiver of the TL text. Also Dam (1993) shows that in the case where the interpreter is not able to note down the whole utterance in the reception stage or to memorize the message, compression should be recommended as a strategy since it allows the transmission of the meaning. Condensation consists of the pronominal or lexical substitution, omission of elements expressing propositional context (known and redundant), omission of elements expressing non-propositional content (phatic and metalin- guistic function), and finally omission of expressions of attitude (Dam 1993: 300- 310). Condensation can proceed on different levels and cover various operations performed by the interpreter, mainly substitutions and deletions. Sunnari (1995) describes similar results and shows a synthetic dimension of such a strategy and its importance for fluent interpreting characterized by high quality. Condensation consists in formulating concise and synthetic utterances, and deleting superfluous words. By applying certain mental operations (referred to as macrorules) to the SL message (referred to as microstructure) during comprehension phase, the interpreter should construct macrostructure of what s/he hears. The macrorules activated dur- ing interpreting are as follows: selection (where particularly important or relevant micropropositions are adopted into the macrostructure), deletion (where particu- larly important or relevant micropropositions are deleted from the microstructure), generalization (where a set of propositions is merged into one generalizing proposi- tion), and construction (where a microproposition can be constructed from several micropropositions that mutually imply it).
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Notation
The third strategy specific in interpreting is note-taking that allows for overcom- ing the limitations of the interpreter’s short-term memory. It is a characteristic strat- egy for text production. While taking notes, the interpreter simultaneously listens and analyzes the original text, and notes down information using a specific code of graphic signs. Note-taking in interpreting should not be mistaken with shorthand writing. For many interpreting researchers, this specific method of note-taking (Ro- zan, 1956, Minjar-Belorutchev, 1969, or Matyssek, 1989) is treated as a technique to be taught during consecutive interpreting training. Note-taking allows the inter- preter to store information and then use it during reproduction. It constitutes a proof of individual acquisition of knowledge. Ilg and Lambert (1996: 78) point out that notation supports memory and enhances the listening process. They claim that dur- ing training students are taught how to process aurally presented information and how to complement this process with the appropriate note-taking technique. It is noteworthy that the notes do not replace the process of interpreting itself. The inter- preter does not note down the whole utterance or sentences. Neither does s/he cha- otically put down accidental words or graphic signs, which only a cryptographist would be able to decode. Nevertheless, notes reflect the record of a logical whole built up around key information, coherence, connections, etc. While note-taking, the interpreter listens carefully and decides what should be noted down. The notes are made for single and immediate use. It is impossible to use them to draw up a protocol or a report. The interpreter using the notes has to rely first and foremost on his memory. While taking notes, the interpreter is at the same time conscious of the fact that s/he listens to (and comprehends) the message in one language, and then he has to produce the message in another language. It seems that due to these features of notation it can be viewed as specific strategy applied by the interpreter to complete the task of consecutive interpreting. It is an auxiliary strategy sup- porting listening process and communication comprehension. The strategic aspect of note-taking in consecutive interpreting means that the interpreter consciously knows that note-taking helps to overcome an interpreting problem, i.e. memory’s shortcomings during listening and processing a message in a source language. Thus the interpreter knows why to note in order to render a message in a target language. This strategic dimension of note-taking must not be confused with the knowledge and the use of note-taking following rules: what to note, when to note, how to note, in what form to note (by using symbols, drawings, abbreviations, etc.), in what language to note and finally how to read the notes. As Ilg and Lambert (1996: 86) point out when note-taking techniques are appropriately used by the interpreter, the notation strategy may enhance the comprehension process and contribute to a suc- cessful performance of the interpreter.
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STRATEGIES IN INTERPRETING. ISSUES, CONTROVERSIES, SOLUTIONS
It is extremely difficult to define the concept of interpreting strategies from a theoretical (des- cription of interpreting process), practical (performing interpreting task) or didactic point of view (teaching how to solve interpreting problems). We are as yet unable to explicitly distinguish the featu- res of such strategies that are characteristic of interpreting. In many studies strategies are commonly referred to as methods, tactics, competences or norms in interpreting. The aim of the article is to pre- sent different classifications and taxonomies of interpreting strategies and to propose three strategies specific in interpreting, i.e. anticipation strategy which allows the interpreter to achieve simultaneous listening and speaking, condensation strategy which facilitates working under time pressure, while conveying complete information, and notation strategy which supports the interpreter’s short-term memory. Key words: anticipation, condensation, consecutive interpreting, notation, note-taking, simulta- neous interpreting, strategy, technique
