
- •Introduction
- •Chapter 1: Theory of Interpretation
- •1.1. Background of interpretation theory (it)
- •1.2. First translation of the Bible as a milestone in the history of interpretation and the development of world civilization. A bit of later history of interpretation
- •1.3. Deciphering the inscriptions on the Rosetta stone
- •1.4. A brief history of interpretation in the 20th Century
- •Chapter 2: Interpretation and Contemporary Life
- •2.1. XX century as a “golden age” of interpretation
- •2.2. Conference interpreting, professional training and diplomatic interpretation in XX century
- •2.3. Stagnation in economy – boom of interpretation
- •2.4. Interpretation in the new millennium
- •2.5. The very beginning of simultaneous interpretation
- •Chapter 3: Problems of Translating Idioms
- •3.1. Knowing idioms is the way to speak like a native
- •3.2. Grammatical nature of idioms
- •3.3. Etymology of idioms
- •3.4. How to learn idioms and practice them
- •Chapter 4: Levels and Components of Interpretation. Interpreter’s Challenges. Conference Interpreting
- •4.1. Communication during two-way interpretation
- •I nterpreter
- •4.2. Two levels of interpretation
- •4.3. Triad of interpretation process
- •4.4. Specifics and situations in interpreting process
- •4.5. Factor of time
- •Chapter 5: Precision and Basis Information, Their Distinctions and Importance for Interpretation Adequacy
- •5.1. Constituents of precision and basis information
- •5.2. Rendering pi in the process of interpretation
- •5.3. Undesirable situations of two-way interpretation. Interpretation pitfalls and traps – how to avoid them
- •Chapter 6: Characteristic peculiarities of professional interpretation
- •6.1. Intellectual requirements
- •6.2. Requirements to interpretation adequacy
- •6.3. Memory and interpretation
- •Chapter 7: Analysis and Synthesis during Interpretation Process
- •7.1. Two stages of interpretation process
- •7.2. Understanding and extraction of meaningful units
- •7.3. Hearing and the types of noises
- •7.4. Guess and intuition
- •7.5. To see a speaker
- •7.6. Automatism of synthesis
- •7.7. Complicated is simpler
- •7.8. Interpretation typology
- •7.9. Constituents of training interpretation
- •7.10. Constituents of real interpretation and ways of achieving adequacy
- •7.11. Subtypes of professional interpretation
- •Chapter 8: Ability to Hear as the Basic Requirement to Understanding
- •8.1. Hearing
- •8.2. The language of the original speech
- •8.3. The country of the speaker
- •8.4. The case of the speaker who uses a foreign language
- •8.5. Accents
- •8.6. Provincialisms
- •8.7. Subject matter
- •8.8. General culture
- •Chapter 9: Basic Types of Professional Two-way Interpretation (pti)
- •9.1. Dialogue translation
- •9.2. Informal two-way interpretation without note-making
- •9.3. Official two-way interpreting without note-taking (Liaison formal interpreting)
- •9.5. Consecutive discourse interpreting
- •Chapter 10: Combined Types of Interpretation
- •10.1. Sight translation
- •10.2. Sight translation with the help of dictaphone
- •10.3. Cinema/video/tv-translation
- •10.4. Cinema/video/tv-translation without preparation
- •10.5. Cinema/video/tv-translation with preliminary preparation
- •Chapter 11: Specialized Interpretation
- •11.1. Details of working in different spheres of professional communication
- •11.2. Forms of initial voice information (for all genres)
- •11.3. General-political informational (diplomatic) discourse/dialogue interpreting
- •11.4. Phraseology in interpretation
- •Chapter 12: Specialized Interpretation (Continued)
- •12.1. Scientific and technical translation (performances, seminars, lectures, reports)
- •12.2. Special terminological abbreviations
- •12.3. Scientific-popular translation (lecture, conversation, etc.)
- •Chapter 13: Specialized Interpretation (Continued)
- •13.1. Judicial two-way interpreting
- •13.2. Sermon (religious genre)
- •13.3. Art criticism genre (lecture, excursion, report)
- •Chapter 14: Language, Speech and Presentation Skills
- •14.1. Culture of language and speech
- •14.2. Culture of language and general culture
- •14.3. Literary language norm
- •14.4. External culture of speech in the process of interpretation
- •14.5. Some recommendations
- •14.6. Typical mistakes in the process of interpretation
- •14.7. Interpretation Traps. Pitfalls and gaffes in grammar, style and lexis
- •14.8. Paradoxical mistakes. Paralysis by analysis
- •Chapter 15: Theory of Interpreter’s Note-Taking
- •15.1. General ideas
- •15.2. Type of notes
- •15.3. Logical analysis
- •15.4. Language of the notes
- •15.5. Symbols and Abbreviations
- •Chapter 16: Theory of Interpreter’s Note-Taking (Continued)
- •16.1. Interrelation of ideas
- •16.2. Preparation
- •16.3. Rearrangement of the speech
- •16.4. Poetry
- •Список літератури
6.3. Memory and interpretation
Everybody needs good memory but interpreters need it especially, first of all – those who are specialized in consecutive interpretation. The use of note-taking facilitates our life greatly, but still highly developed memory or just the ability to keep in head for some time the things necessary for a given moment – is helpful for our work.
Explanative model of memory is the process of acquiring, storing and using information, which includes a number of successive stages of processing.
Information is perceived by one (or several at a time) of five sense organs and for a short period of time is kept in sensory form.
This first memory block is called sensory register, each of sense organs having their own sensory register. It serves for a short-term retention of the data received. Our ear perceives the word pronounced and in the ear sensory register all nuances of the word heard are fixed: sequence of sounds, sound pitch, volume, pronunciation feathers, intonation, etc.
At the same time pattern recognition (розпізнавання образів) takes place: information kept in sensory register can freely correspond with the information accumulated in the past. The image or pattern is considered recognized if one manages to establish correspondence of its sensory characteristics to some notions or ideas (concepts). Thus, recognition process is close to naming any notion.
Short-term memory (короткочасна пам’ять) is the second block of information processing and is often called basic (primary) or scratch (working memory), and operational memory. This type of memory is of a special importance for the interpretation. Here the information is kept for a few seconds, but not a sensory form now. As opposed from the previous block the material can remain in short-term memory any time thanks to repetition and transition of information into long-term memory. Without repetition the information is lost, as if it dissolves.
Process of forgetting. There is no consensus of opinion yet regarding the mechanisms of forgetting. Some people think that the traces gradually fade away, others – that they are “blocked up”, displaced by the following elements.
What is the essence of limitations, imposed on our activity by short-term memory?:
a) time when the unit of information (bit) can be retained in short-term memory without repetition, is limited (for verbal element – 30 seconds).
b) number of stimuli – units of information, which can be simultaneously retained in short-term memory with the help of repetition is limited.
The volume of short-term memory of an average adult is known to equal 7+2, i.e. it may vary from five to nine elements (say, seven letters, words, pictures, etc., not connected with each other in meaning). At the same time one can remember much more, if they (letters, words, pictures, etc.) are put together into familiar words or semantic fields (associations). The volume of the information unit itself can vary considerably from the whole phrase to a page.
Long-term memory is the third block of storing information. The part of material from short-term memory is moved into deeper levels – into long-term memory, where information can be kept without time limits and where a huge amount of the most versatile information – everything we know about surrounding world, is contained. The ability of our memory immediately to find the necessary things is just amazing! This block is studied the worst: it is not known yet, who all the received information is coded and how forgetting occurs. Some scholars think that in the course of time the traces fade away, other experts state, that our memory keeps all the material, and forgetting is only incapability to retrieve the information needed. Therefore we may maintain that input is absolute, output is relative.
In the process of interpretation the main thing is not to remember (it almost always happens naturally) but in time and quickly retrieve and process the data received, producing a ready result.