Remerciez-le!

Remerciez @Admin pour avoir partagé cet document gratuitement, de la manière la plus simple, en partageant sur les réseaux sociaux.

Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l'Univ

Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l'Université de Montréal, l'Université Laval et l'Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. Érudit offre des services d'édition numérique de documents scientifiques depuis 1998. Pour communiquer avec les responsables d'Érudit : erudit@umontreal.ca Article Alessandra Riccardi Meta : journal des traducteurs / Meta: Translators' Journal, vol. 50, n° 2, 2005, p. 753-767. Pour citer la version numérique de cet article, utiliser l'adresse suivante : http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/011016ar Note : les règles d'écriture des références bibliographiques peuvent varier selon les différents domaines du savoir. Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d'auteur. L'utilisation des services d'Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d'utilisation que vous pouvez consulter à l'URI http://www.erudit.org/documentation/eruditPolitiqueUtilisation.pdf Document téléchargé le 21 September 2010 06:04 "On the Evolution of Interpreting Strategies in Simultaneous Interpreting" On the Evolution of Interpreting Strategies in Simultaneous Interpreting alessandra riccardi University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy riccardi@sslmit.units.it RÉSUMÉ L’interprétation simultanée est une compétence procédurale dont le développement peut être observé à travers les changements intervenant sur le plan des compétences implicites et des connaissances explicites. C’est une activité ciblée qui peut être analysée sur la base des stratégies utilisées par l’interprète au service d’une intention de commu- nication. D’abord pendant ses études et ensuite au cours de sa carrière professionnelle, l’interprète développe, renforce et continue à perfectionner un comportement stratégi- que individuel fondé sur des stratégies qu’il introduit consciemment ou inconsciem- ment. Les stratégies sont considérées comme un instrument utile non seulement pour décrire le processus de l’interprétation mais également les aspects didactiques, per- mettant d’orienter les études vers le développement d’automatismes spécifiques pour l’interprétation simultanée. ABSTRACT This paper examines simultaneous interpreting (SI) from the viewpoint of procedural competence, whose evolution may be followed and monitored through the changes in- tervening within implicit and explicit tasks performed. As a goal-oriented communicative activity, SI may be analysed through the strategies applied to achieve the communicative goal. The interpreter, first during his studies and then throughout his career, develops and constantly refines a strategic behaviour integrating conscious and unconscious strategies. Strategies are a dynamic concept, useful not only for the description of pro- cess-oriented aspects of SI, but also as a teaching tool orienting the study and for devis- ing exercises that help automatize specific interpreting solutions. MOTS-CLÉS/KEYWORDS interpreting strategies, implicit competence, procedural knowledge, simultaneous inter- preting 1. Introduction Half a century ago, in the 1950s, the first manuals and articles on conference inter- preting appeared (Herbert 1952, Rozan, 1956). At that time, the first generation of modern interpreters must have felt the urge to collect and systematize their experi- ence and knowledge of consecutive and simultaneous interpreting, gained working experience within international organizations for many years and passed it on to future generations of interpreters. Since there was an increasing demand for and interest in the profession, the time was ripe for recoding in written form what they had already been teaching orally in interpreting classes. The publications of those years signalize, moreover, a change in attitude of interpreters. Conference interpreting is no longer merely considered an implicit competence, a skill – difficult to explain and Meta, L, 2, 2005 754 Meta, L, 2, 2005 put into words and whose teaching is even more difficult, if not impossible – but also a declarative knowledge, rising into consciousness that can, therefore, be verbalized. This shift can be illustrated as a move away from the standpoint “interpreters are born, not made” towards the acknowledgement that conference interpreting is a skill that can be taught. The first articles and manuals entail detailed descriptions of the profession and its different modalities, learning advice and methods, but also prescriptive comments exemplified with personal anecdotes about how to tackle the tasks of consecutive and simultaneous interpreting. The basic principles outlined emphasize – in addition to the importance of language proficiency which was the conditio sine qua non – that interpreting is more than simply transferring words from one language into another, first of all it is understanding the meaning, the sense of what is being said before delivering it into the target language. To concentrate on the message, the interpreter has to be well acquainted with the topic at hand and integrated in the communica- tive setting, to exploit not only the verbal information, but all other information implicit in the event. This position was further accentuated by the Paris School cul- minating in the théorie du sens. Rem tene, verba sequentur, take care of the sense and the message will take care of itself, Cato’s quotation could be the motto inspiring the activity of the first generation of interpreters, consecutive interpreters who had developed new skills to become, sometimes reluctantly, simultaneous interpreters. Actually they were first of all lan- guage experts and by necessity had adapted their language competence, world and professional knowledge to the new environment they were working in. The excellent mastery of their mother tongue and foreign languages together with their back- ground knowledge and the working conditions had shown them, from the very beginning, that the most important objective within a conference or a meeting was to establish communication between the participants, to make the message flow in the most effective manner under given circumstances. This may be achieved in different ways and especially, to preserve idiomaticity in the target language and avoid interferences from the source text, without adhering too closely to source text- structures. Their intuition was difficult to transmit in interpreting classes where students had rarely acquired their language skills in natural conversational, but rather in formal, settings and had little functional practice so they tended to translate word for word because they were uncertain about the meaning of the source text. To change students’ translating behaviour trainers would repeatedly stress the impor- tance of understanding the message and not rely solely on the words heard. Fifty years later, the social, professional and teaching environments have changed, of course. The constant evolution of the profession, new modalities, together with the mushrooming of conference interpreting programs have led to an increasing number of students willing to become conference interpreters, but who nonetheless show the same weaknesses as in the past, often lacking the necessary background with respect to language proficiency and world knowledge, also because their personality traits may not be suited to the job. Consequently, trainers, as hap- pened in the past, are facing interpreting classes with students possessing very differ- entiated patterns of foreign language acquisition and proficiency, either because selection is not always possible or because entrance tests do not ensure a comparable level of language competence and aptitude among the new student population. In addition, an active foreign language exercises such a great fascination that students will not give up this challenge easily to concentrate exclusively on passive languages. They will struggle very hard to attain sufficient mastery to be able to interpret into their active language, even though the path may be very long to achieve a fluent and faithful rendering of the source message in a foreign language. Selecting text-types and communicative settings may reduce the scope of the task; nevertheless, the amount of knowledge and competence required to reach a fluent output in the B language is formidable. The task may not appear worthwhile with respect to the time and effort required to reach it. Later on, once their studies are finished, they may end up inter- preting simultaneously only into their A language or they may change professions, but even then, the rigorous discipline they have undergone to attain their linguistic, communicative and interpreting skills will result in competence they can always draw upon, albeit in different social and professional environments. While the basic principles of simultaneous and consecutive interpreting have remained consistent through the decades, teaching methods have evolved incorpo- rating results and insight from other disciplines and adapted to the changing work- ing environment. Nowadays, not only are new interpreting forms rapidly gaining ground, but also requested language combinations differ from the past, the most striking example being the EU institutions, before and after enlargement. Conference interpreting trainers in Italy, and likely elsewhere too, are confronted with the challenge of applying teaching methods that will lead to the acquisition of interpreting skills in the most efficient way within the prescribed time. Together with constant updating, the objective is to conceive a method applicable to different domains or topics, although in most cases language skills and encyclopaedic knowl- edge will not be up to the mark. To this end, an understanding of how the processes underlying SI are developed and acquired is essential, because it offers explanations of what is happening and what must be concentrated on during training. The strategies applied to achieve the communicative goal intrinsic to simultaneous interpreting are useful in this respect, because, while showing the relation between the original dis- course and the interpreted text, they can indicate what interpreting solutions have been applied by the interpreter, taking uploads/Litterature/ evolution-of-interpreting-strategies.pdf