March 14, 2009 • 11:42 am
It goes without saying that academic referencing is paramount in helping a reader identify important resources that would otherwise remain unexplored. Yet it may sometimes be employed deceitfully to substantiate weak or irrelevant points and perhaps show deference to some specific milieus, often the ones to which the author belongs.
The interesting article linked below focuses on the interpreting field, although it probably could be extended to others.
The author? Daniel Gile (who else?)
Use and Misuse of Literature in Interpreting Research
Filed under: Interpretation, Linguistics, Translation
Mnemonic systems such as the one developed by Cicero centuries ago would come in very handy to consecutive interpreters when traditional note-taking is not feasible. In interpreting for the media, for example, spontaneity is appreciated and scribbling is generally considered inappropriate.
A more modern approach would involve the use of a digital voice recorder, as already discussed in this same Blog and previously in some SCIC Newsletters (see Simultaneous/Consecutive Mode).
One of the oldest mnemonic systems is the method of loci [LOW-sye]. A “locus” is a location, “loci” is the plural. The Method of Loci uses locations of a familiar place (imagined in memory) as a framework for memory retrieval.
To use the method of loci, you associate items you wish to remember later with locations of a familiar room, building, or street. Then, to retrieve the information, you mentally “stroll down memory lane” and visualize the same locations. If the method works, the information you stored in various locations will come back with the memory of the location. To be effective, one must usually visualize an object “doing something” or interacting in some way with the objects at a particular location.
Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Interpretation , Cicero, consecutive interpreting, Loci, Mnemonic system
Following some very constructive feedback from colleagues I am planning a major overhaul in the structure of the course. Other comments are more than welcomed!
>> Multimedia Interpreting Course
Be sure you have a headset plugged in, as you will hear the original speaker in the RIGHT ear and the interpreter in the LEFT one.
Filed under: Interpretation , alessio iacovoni, Interpreting, Multimedia Interpreting Course, simultaneous
An optimal segmentation of the source message is by far a simultaneous interpreter’s most important resource to avert the risk of falling behind a fast speaker, of missing some important information or overloading short term memory.
While this may not come as a novelty, few interpreters will be aware that they can learn to master this technique through an apparently unrelated discipline: subtitling.
Here is a brief excerpt from a very informative article that I recently came across in the Translation Journal.
Segmentation at the highest nodes: Subtitled text should appear segmented at the highest syntactic nodes possible. This means that each subtitle flash should ideally contain one complete sentence. In cases where the sentence cannot fit in a single-line subtitle and has to continue over a second line or even over a new subtitle flash, the segmentation on each of the lines should be arranged to coincide with the highest syntactic node possible. For example, before we segment the phrase:
“The destruction of the city was inevitable.” (44 characters),
we first have to think of its syntactic tree as follows:
A segmentation on the fifth node (N5) would create the two-line subtitle
“The destruction of the
city was inevitable.”
A segmentation on the second node (N2) would create the two-line subtitle
“The destruction of the city
was inevitable.”
Out of the two segmentations, it is the second that flows as more readable. This occurs because the higher the node, the greater the grouping of the semantic load and the more complete the piece of information presented to the brain. When we segment a sentence, we force the brain to pause its linguistic processing for a while, until the eyes trace the next piece of linguistic information. In cases where segmentation is inevitable, therefore, we should try to force this pause on the brain at a point where the semantic load has already managed to convey a satisfactorily complete piece of information.
(From A Proposed Set of Subtitling Standards in Europe , by Fotios Karamitroglou)
Filed under: Interpretation , Fotios Karamitroglou, Interpreting, segmentation, simultaneous, subtitling
January 28, 2009 • 11:00 am
The following is a link to a glossary I have produced over the past twelve years of work in the interpreting business. Please feel free to make any comments, suggestions or point to possible inaccuracies.
Conference Terminology Glossary
Filed under: Interpretation , conference terminology glossary
Here is a link to an internet site with a wealth of totally free conference interpreting resources. Although it is aimed at students, it has a wealth of material that is equally useful for teachers and seasoned interpreters. I am particularly fond of the excerpts of some of the works of Daniel Gile, but there are many other interesting items, including detailed exercises for both simultaneous and consecutive interpreting.
Filed under: Interpretation , Interpretation, interpreter, simultaneous, training
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