3.5. Reading Back Notes

It may seem strange to even mention how to read back notes. However, interpreter should be aware of the risk of communicating less well because of looking too much at their notes and not enough at their audience. This risk is particularly great if the interpreter takes relatively complete notes. Interpreters, like public speakers, must learn the art of glancing down at their notes to remind them of what they are to say next and then delivering that part of the text while looking at the audience. The clearer the notes, both in content and lay-out, the easier this will be.. And the clearer the ideas in the interpreter's mind, the more cursory the glances down at the notes can be.

There is a specific technique that interpreters can try to develop, and which can be compared to a pianist reading music while playing but not sight-reading. The pianist who has practised a piece is in a similar situation to the consecutive interpreter: essentially they know what they want to play but the sheet-music is there to remind them. The pianist looks at the opening bars and then starts playing, and continues reading ahead of the notes they are playing, their eyes on the music always being a little ahead of their fingers on the keyboard. Similarly the interpreter should look at the first page of their notes then start speaking while looking up at their audience. As the interpreter moves towards the end of the passage they have looked at, they glance down at their notes again to read the next passage. In other words they do not wait until they finished one passage to look again at their notes, which would mean that the interpretation would become jerky, reading then speaking, reading then speaking. Rather the interpreter, while still talking, is already reading ahead, preparing the next passage, thus providing for a smooth, uninterrupted and efficient interpretation.

3.6. Teaching and Practicing of Note-Taking.

Considering that effective note-taking is one of the major prerequisites for quality interpretation, the nuance of note-taking skills should then be regarded as a separate skill to be trained and developed throughout the interpretation curriculum (training course). [50:311].

3.6.1. Teaching Note-Taking to Students

Acquisition of a good note-taking technique is one of the main abilities a trainee-interpreter has to develop. Although some authors argue that it is hardly possible to teach note-taking systematically and others simply ignore the problem, most consider – rightly, in our opinion, that in the early stages of interpreter training much time and effort must be dedicated to this aspect.

John Henderson in his article “Note-Taking for Consecutive Interpreting” pays special attention to the problems of teaching interpreting, particularly consecutive interpreting and note-taking skills, to the students of linguistic institutes and trainee-interpreters. In what follows, some of Henderson’s reflections on the topic will be cited:

“More specifically on the question of note-taking, the tutor will first explore the nature of the process: the place of short-term memory, the principles discussed above (here Henderson means the seven principles of note-taking techniques, first described by Jean-Francois Rozan, and listed in this investigation in the section related to the history of development of an interpreter’s note-taking); the note-pad itself and the physical limitations of notation at speed. To discourage a common initial tendency to make excessively detailed notes, remarks must from the start be delivered at 'normal' speed (though this is a somewhat elastic term; a better phrase is perhaps 'natural delivery', avoiding any temptation to speak at dictation speed). In this way the first principle to note ideas rather than words is in effect forced upon the student.” [40:112].

In terms of teaching method, Henderson is of opinion that “there seem to be two possible methods, and the most effective system is one which combines both. Method (a) consists of working from smaller to larger semantic groups: words, phrases, sentences and eventually paragraphs. This is useful preliminary work and helps in mastering basics, but will not of itself bring the student to grasp and record the salient ideas and the relationships between them in a more extended speech.

Method (b) amounts in effect to throwing the student at the deep end: having offered the principles and a few examples, the tutor will from a very early stage require the student to note (and reproduce) quite lengthy passages containing several ideas. In this way the student will go beyond the simple mechanics of notation and experience for the first time the peculiarly lonely sensations of the interpreter, faced with the evident difficulties of his craft and entirely dependent on his own resources. Method (a) is of severely limited value and, except for an occasional refresher exercise, can be phased out at an early stage. Method (b) is effective provided one starts with material which in more relaxed circumstances would be fully within the student's comprehension.

The level of criticism and tutorial advice should also be graded: initially students will produce only the gist of a speech, but should immediately be encouraged to add detail, reconstructed from notes and memory, and eventually to give due consideration to questions of style and the faithful recreation of the spirit of the original. Method (b) evidently requires the student to go through a number of complex mental processes in a short time…

As students progress, the tutor can intensify the difficulty in a number of ways – register, lexis, accent, quality of the speaker, speed, etc. – but initially conditions must be the best possible in terms of clarity, audibility and comprehensibility, precisely so that the students can achieve high standards of interpretation from the start. In short, one must as quickly as possible move beyond the piecemeal approach, not only by running through (a) and (b) concurrently but by stress importance of page layout in conveying information ('verticalism' and 'décalage') just as much as symbols and abbreviations.

None of these processes is particularly easy to accomplish, though it helps if students are aware of the advantages to be derived from practicing and mastering them. The issue is further complicated by the evident differences between individuals as regards memory and the need for more or less detailed notes. [40:113].