The “inner speech” of the interpreter
In the process of perception and understanding the sense of the SL messages there exists another mechanism – the so-called “inner speech” of the interpreter [Жинкин 1982: 92-93], which functions as an intermediary language between the SL message and rendering of it into the TL.
Practice shows that this mechanism is subconsciously always “present” in interpreting and is confined first to “translation” of the SL message into the inner speech of the interpreter and only then – to rendering of the message by the appropriate means of the TL. In other words, it means that, having perceived the SL message, the interpreter “unpacks” its sense by “translating” the message first from the source language into the source language (“what did the speaker had in mind?”) by “browsing” through a set of synonyms and choosing the appropriate one and by selecting the necessary translation transformation. Having done that, the interpreter “fills in” his inner speech by the material of the target language (“what and how I would say this as an interpreter).
All that has been said above means that interpreting undergoes three stages before the translated message is actually pronounced by the interpreter:
PERCEPTION OF THE SL MESSAGE
CONVERSION INTO THE “INNER
SPEECH” AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE SENSE
CHOOSING THE OPTION IN THE
TL
Let’s illustrate the above considerations by example of the speech of Mr B.Oliynyk at the Plenary Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg (1999):
І все ж змушений зазначити, що у висновках шановних доповідачів та в Резолюції та Рекомендаціях відчувається певна незбалансованість у позитивах та негативах. Останнім надається, як на мене, перевага за рахунок перших.
These utterances, if converted into the “inner speech” of the interpreter and then “materialised” in Ukrainian, may obtain the following form:
Я все ж змушений зазначити, що у висновках шановних доповідачів та в Резолюції та Рекомендаціях Асамблеї відчувається брак збалансованості між позитивними та негативними оцінками ситуації в Україні. Негативні оцінки, як на мне, переважають над позитивними.
After such conversion the interpreter finally understands the sense of the message and is in a position to start interpreting which may result in the following product:
And still I have to underscore that there is a certain imbalance between positive and negative assessments of the situation in Ukraine in the conclusions by highly esteemed Rapporteurs and in the Resolution and Recommendations of the Assembly. To my mind, negative assessments prevail over the positive ones.
It’s worth mentioning that in interpreting the Ukrainian message into English certain expansion of semantic content is observed, i.e. a number of additional words (marked by underlining) is used for the listener (recipient) to understand the message better.