FORUM / Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction / International Journal of Interpretation and Translation, 2003
L’opposition entre traduction ‘libre’ et traduction littérale traverse la traductologie depuis se... more L’opposition entre traduction ‘libre’ et traduction littérale traverse la traductologie depuis ses débuts; l’école du sens fait de la traduction par le sens son cheval de bataille. La séparation imparfaite des langues dans le lexique multilingue et les conditions difficiles de l’interprétation simultanée supposent à la fois des dangers (l’interférence) et des voies à exploiter grâce à la multiplication des possibilités de formulation autorisées par l’apport cognitif du contexte. Les contraintes de capacité de traitement rendent probable un recours plus ou moins intensif de l’interprète à des correspondences lexicales apprises, allant bien au-delà des seuls termes techniques, pouvant être insérées de façon quasi automatique. La métaphore connexioniste permet de modéliser le choix de modes parallèles de traitement (construction logique, recherche conceptuelle ou recours direct à une correspondance lexicale) qui s’offrent à chaque détour de la chaîne parlée, tandis que les spécificités...
Translation has recently been analysed in the terms of modern cognitive-pragmatic theory (relevan... more Translation has recently been analysed in the terms of modern cognitive-pragmatic theory (relevance theory) as an interlingual interpretive use of language (Gutt, 1991/2000). But Gutt's account primarily addresses the principles and processes of text or written translation, where the displacement in time and place between the original communicator, the translator and her readers requires the translator to reconstruct the original informative intention, project the original and target addressees' cognitive environment, and craft a stimulus according to the degree of interpretive resemblance sought. By contrast, oral translation, in particular simultaneous interpreting (SI), is performed in live situations in which the interpreter shares most of the manifest cognitive environment with the participants and is thus better able to project and control the contexts in which her addressees will process her utterances. Since the condition of simultaneity severely constrains the simultaneous interpreter's choice of stimulus, she relies heavily on this access to immediate context and her audience's inferential abilities. Text translators need time to project context and choose their stimuli, while in SI, access to live contexts compensates for temporal constraints. The paper concludes with a discussion on prospects for exploring patterns and possible biases in interlingual text and oral communication on this basis.
The question of why simultaneous interpreting merits our interest needs to be asked a priori beca... more The question of why simultaneous interpreting merits our interest needs to be asked a priori because after sixty years of providing a vital daily service to the international community, the activity remains an arcane field of study. This status of the discipline is probably due in equal parts to the occult, not-quite-respectable odour of translation generally, and to the extreme difficulty of capturing SI for research. Translation is often regarded, particularly by monolingual speakers of dominant languages, as an irritating necessary evil. When sacred texts have had to be translated to evangelical ends, the translations have never quite acquired the status of holy writ; translations of legal documents gain equal status with the original when multiple official languages are constitutionally recognised, but then they are explicitly not to be considered translations. In the folk view of language as encoding thoughts, or as inextricably bound to them, a translation can never be more th...
Simultaneous Interpretation: A cognitive-pragmatic analysis
Simultaneous interpretation is among the most complex of human cognitive/linguistic activities. T... more Simultaneous interpretation is among the most complex of human cognitive/linguistic activities. This study, which will interest practitioners and trainers as well as linguists, draws more on linguistics-based theories of cognition in communication (cognitive semantics and pragmatics) than on the traditional information-processing approaches of cognitive psychology, and shows SI to be a valuable source of data on language and cognition.Starting from semantic representations of input and output in samples of professional SI from Chinese and German into English, the analysis explains the classic phenomena – anticipation, restoration of the implicit-explicit balance, and communicative re-packaging (‘re-ostension’) of the discourse – in terms of an intermediate cognitive model in working memory, allowing a more unitary view of resource management in the SI task. Relevance-theoretic analysis of the input discourse reveals rich pragmatic information guiding the construction of the appropri...
Review of Hlavac & Xu (2020): Chinese–English interpreting and intercultural communication
In interpreter training, and to evaluate quality, we need to know what is easy or difficult in di... more In interpreter training, and to evaluate quality, we need to know what is easy or difficult in different conditions and situations. This implies some underlying model of how basic cognitive faculties cooperate and are trained to do the task. (The presence in our brains of an evolved module for translation or simultaneous interpreting is unlikely). In this discussion paper I will (i) try to show that the analysis of simultaneous interpreting into composite sub-tasks is neither particularly productive nor unequivocally justified by the psycholinguistics or expertise literature; (ii) argue for a different kind of 'componential' analysis of interpreting, as a skill involving a coordinated and enhanced use of existing basic faculties rather than as a composite of subtasks; (iii) suggest briefly how this applies to teaching; and (iv) outline a tentative research orientation aimed at deducing discourse-related difficulty by focusing on the ease or otherwise of forming clear interme...
In interpreter training, and to evaluate quality, we need to know what is easy or difficult in di... more In interpreter training, and to evaluate quality, we need to know what is easy or difficult in different conditions and situations. This implies some underlying model of how basic cognitive faculties cooperate and are trained to do the task. (The presence in our brains of an evolved module for translation or simultaneous interpreting is unlikely). In this discussion paper I will (i) try to show that the analysis of simultaneous interpreting into composite sub-tasks is neither particularly productive nor unequivocally justified by the psycholinguistics or expertise literature; (ii) argue for a different kind of 'componential' analysis of interpreting, as a skill involving a coordinated and enhanced use of existing basic faculties rather than as a composite of subtasks; (iii) suggest briefly how this applies to teaching; and (iv) outline a tentative research orientation aimed at deducing discourse-related difficulty by focusing on the ease or otherwise of forming clear interme...
Interpreting research (IR) has so far yielded 'no major discoveries or applications' for professi... more Interpreting research (IR) has so far yielded 'no major discoveries or applications' for professional practice (Gile 2001). Today, with access to new and larger corpora and advances in analytic techniques, research on authentic data, and in 'ecovalid' conditions, is developing fast, but conclusions will necessarily remain tentative for the foreseeable future, and uptake by professionals indirect at best. However, IR has helped to conceptualise and model interpreting to pedagogical effect. Currently, therefore, the most direct route for interpreting research and theory to benefit professional practice is still through training, initial or remedial. Changing markets are posing several new challenges to interpreter training: multilingualism, shifts in language demand and distribution (with more demand for work into B), increased pressure to accept fast, 'multimedia', recited and remote input, and the need to rejuvenate an aging profession. An effective pedagogy adapted to contemporary and future conditions must (i) reset objectives by 'working back' from a realistic picture of the balance between client expectations, inherent constraints, and the potential of expertise, as derived from research on authentic data and situations; (ii) tap rich seams of relevant theory in cognition and communicative interaction that have been relatively neglected in the past; and (iii) take the pedagogical challenge seriously, with more attention to such aspects as progression, simulation, usable feedback, consistent and credible evaluation and testing, and putting ourselves in the student's (and later, the client's) place.
Si l’accès à la profession d’interprète de conférence passe obligatoirement par la maîtrise de la... more Si l’accès à la profession d’interprète de conférence passe obligatoirement par la maîtrise de la simultanée, les conditions de son exercice sont de plus en plus exigeantes : rapidité, technicité, mélange des genres (lecture de textes, Powerpoint etc.), retour vers le B quasiment obligatoire dans certaines combinaisons. Les écoles doivent donc à la fois veiller à la rigueur de la préparation et de la sélection des étudiants les plus aptes et proposer une formation progressive et intensive préparant aux réalités du marché actuel. Il est décrit une suite d’exercices supervisés pour une formation à la simultanée en trois temps : coordination, (ii) expérimentation et recherche d’un style individuel (ensemble cohérent de stratégies), enfin (iii) consolidation par la pratique sur des discours diversifiés en simulant des conditions de plus en plus réalistes. La validation empirique des pédagogies de l’interprétation étant difficile, les formateurs sont invités à expérimenter ces exercices ...
Interpreting China, interpreting Chinese
Interpreting International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting, 2009
Review of “Teaching and mapping the processes of translating and interpreting: Outlooks on empirical research” by Sonja Tirkkonen-Condit and Riitta Jääskeläinen (eds.)
Target International Journal of Translation Studies, 2002
Pragmatic analysis as a methodology: A reply to Gile's review of Setton (1999). Author's reply
Target International Journal of Translation Studies, 2002
A few years ago I proposed a new ‘cognitive-pragmatic’ approach to understanding simultaneous int... more A few years ago I proposed a new ‘cognitive-pragmatic’ approach to understanding simultaneous interpretation (Setton 1999) which has, gratifyingly, been acknowledged in several reviews, including one in these pages (Target13:1 (2001, 177–183). The editor has kindly let me use it as an opportunity to clear up some misunderstandings, respond to some stimulating challenges, and try to develop some recent ideas on how to operationalise the paradigm.
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Papers by Robin Setton