Quality in Interpreting

A Study of Interpreting Skills from the

Perspective of Interpreting Process
By Jing Ma

I. Introduction
Interpreting as a modern profession has established its status in the
international communities. Interpreters help people overcome languages
barriers, dispel their suspicion and serve as a bridge in intercultural
communication. But, to finish all these tasks, an interpreter should possess
special talents and skills and therefore interpreting skills have become one of the
hot issues that received wide attention. Also, based on the analysis of
interpreting process and all aspects of the teaching of it, the experts, at home
and abroad, are generally convinced that it is the prime task and ultimate
objective of teaching interpretation to train abilities and skills. Liu Miqing (1999)
states that the sooner one gets aware of the significance of the interpretative
skills training, the sooner he/she will be good at interpretation. Yet research on
interpretation in our country is still at the primary stage, and no systematic
theories have been established to show interpreters and those want-to-be
interpreters what kind of skills they must possess and how to possess necessary
skills effectively. In this case, the current thesis will probe into the issue of
interpreting skills from the perspective of interpreting process.
A. The Perception Procedure
There are mainly two ways for the interpreter to perceive the message: one is
auditory perception and the other is visual perception. In this procedure, factors
that will influence the quality of the interpretation include the interpreter’s
listening ability, and the setting. Compared with the general listening, listening
in interpreting is a more complicated and difficult process. The setting, temporal
and physical conditions, in which communication takes place also play an
important role in the interpretation process. Time constraints for speakers at
conferences often lead them to deliver their message at a furious pace. Noisy
listening conditions make the reception of the communicating message difficult
both for intended receptors and for the interpreter.

B. The Decoding Procedure

The decoding procedure follows in an almost indiscernible instance, during
which the interpreter processes the information stored in the “perceptual
auditory storage” and extracts necessary information from both linguistic and
non-linguistic codes. It is where the message is born. In this procedure, factors
that will influence the quality of the interpretation include the source,
particularly the speaker, the interpreter’s linguistic competence and his
background knowledge, which includes the knowledge of the world and
knowledge of the subject under discussion.

C. The Recording Procedure

In this procedure, the interpreter’s memory plays a crucial role, and is a decisive
factor in whether this procedure is successful or not or at least in how much the
interpreter can get from the source’s speech. A supplementary way of securing
this procedure is note-taking, which seems to be more important in consecutive
interpretation. Recording must be based on comprehension, and it is two folded,
mental and written. According to Bao Gang (1998), there are three kinds of
memories in human being's information processing system, known as sensory
store (perception), short term store (working memory) and long term store
(permanent memory) (p.146). Among these three kinds of memories, working
memory plays an important part in our work especially in interpreting, but short
memory is severely limited in size, it can only hold approximately seven plus or
minus two information units. Obviously, we cannot solely depend on our brain
and memory while interpreting. Instead we should make good use of notes to
help enlarge each unit and help record information as much and accurate as
possible. From the above analysis, it can be concluded that recording stage in
interpreting process must be fulfilled with the combination of effective mental
memorization and necessary notes.

D. The Encoding Procedure

This procedure includes the activation of the target language (TL) elements found
in the long-term memory, as well as syntactic and semantic word processing and
word-string processing according to the TL syntactic and semantic information
stored in long-term memory. The result is a paraphrase in TL of the source
language message. As long as the interpreter successfully accomplishes the first
three procedures, factors that take effect on this procedure include the
interpreter’s second language proficiency, his master of various kinds of
translation skills, and the intended receptors. E. The Expressing Procedure
Expression is the terminal procedure in the process of interpretation. Although
sound and effective expression can only be realized on the basis of successful
fulfillment of the first four procedures , expression itself directly influences the
final output and result, thus of great significance. It is without doubt that the
preceding procedures are the decisive factors for the success of the last
procedure. However, there are still some points that the interpreter must pay
attention in terms of the way of expressing. The interpreter’s voice should be
loud enough for everybody to hear, and it should be smooth and even, and the
pitch should be appropriate. The interpreter’s pronunciation of words should at
least be good and constant, if not standard British or American English.
II. BASIC INTERPRETING SKILLS
A. Listening Skills

1. Anticipation
Anticipation is an important means that helps the interpreter to relieve the on-
line memory load so that the processing capacity can be preserved for other
efforts. From the aspect of language knowledge, anticipation can be generated
from three levels, namely, the grammatical, syntactic and contextual levels. At
the grammatical level, anticipation can be activated by taking care of some
signals offering clues for predicting what may come next to follow up such
signals. Generally speaking, the signals will lead to set phrases and expressions.
At the syntactic level, within a sentence, the meaning can sometimes be
anticipated thanks to the presence of conjunctions which usually imply certain
logic relationship between different parts of the sentences, such as although,
therefore, etc. At the contextual level, the anticipation will be further expanded
into a combination of several sentences or several paragraphs, which can be
made based on the vocabulary, grammar rules, fixed phrases and idioms and
the logical relations within the context. The most important point is that all the
anticipations are based on the topic-specific knowledge because all the meaning
of the language comes from the combination of grammatical meaning and
context meaning.
2. Improve psychological preparation
Effective listening is very important for comprehending the discourse. However,
it is quite possible that the interpreters will get nervous when they are listening
to the speaker’s speech. As a matter of fact, getting nervous is inevitable for
anyone who is going to interpret. While listening to the speaker, they should have
a clear understanding of their identity and try to compose themselves as soon as
possible before doing the interpreting job. The interpreters should set up
confidence and enhance spirit to overcome difficulties. The interpreters should
learn to listen effectively. To listen effectively needs attention and concentration.
Concentrating properly does not mean adopting a certain posture, frowning and
straining with clenched fist, and it means to focus on the speaker’s speeches.
When interpreters hear an idea that is not immediately clear to them, or miss an
idea in the heat of the moment, the interpreters should keep calm and
cautiously. At this time, the interpreters learn to continually fill in gaps as they
listen, refer back on what they have already understood and understand difficult
and unclear points by listening effectively to what is said.
3. Use redundancy in listening training
Interpreting work requires concentrated or discriminative listening, also known
as active listening, which means avoiding all distractions and learning to be alert.
The redundancy present in speech is a great advantage for the interpreters. In
other words, they should learn to distinguish useful information from redundant
information, and only concentrate their attention on the essential information.
Besides following the speaker’s line of thought and catching the main idea,
interpreters should also try to detect his/her attitude, mood and tone,
recognizing special stylistic characteristics and rhetorical strategies used by him.
These can provide non-linguistic information for the interpreter, thus forming
the proper context for his speech, which might provide some hints for the
interpreter in case he fails to catch one word or two during listening.
4. Use the expert or booth mate’s help
In consecutive interpreting, when an interpreter runs into comprehension
problems, he may run to experts on site for help. Although the credibility of the
interpreter may be reduced, this tactic can save the interpreter from
misunderstanding and the serious problems in reconstruction. In simultaneous
interpreting, there are theoretically at least two interpreters in the booth at all
times. One is active, while the other is passive. The passive colleague, who can
devote full attention to listening, has a better chance of understanding difficult
speech segment than the active interpreter, who has to share his attention into
listening comprehension, short-term memory and reconstruction. Moreover, the
passive interpreter has enough time to consult a glossary of other documents,
and then give the information to the active interpreter, in writing or by
murmuring.
5. Consult document during interpreting
An interpreter can also look for solution in documents, especially when there is
no help from experts present or from the passive colleague available. This tactic
may be time-consuming and requires much processing capacity, but finding an
important word in a document that had been read and marked before the
conference can be very fast.

B. Decoding Skills

1. Cultivate familiarity with English pronunciations and dialects

As interpretation must be done orally, all the contents of interpretation soon fade
away, interpreters should understand all the things the moment speeches come
out. And owing to different geographic situation, cultural background and
educational standard, people’s pronunciation, intonation, wording and way of
talking differ from each other. It is important to know the rule of pronunciation
of source language and the feature of oral English. And sometimes interpreters
have to work for non-native speakers, for example, Japanese, African, etc. Their
pronunciations are generally hard to understand with the influence of their
mother tongue. Familiarity with different accents and dialects which is one of
the symbols of senior interpreters can give some clues for interpreters during the
course of interpretation so that they can fulfill interpreting tasks better. As non-
native English speakers are trained in different places and organizations which
have different pronunciation standards, and moreover, speeches made in
international conferences often embodied features of Arabic, Nigerian and Spain
English. Therefore, interpreters have to get themselves familiar with the diversity
of English pronunciation and dialect.
2. Master a well-knit vocabulary system
Here, vocabulary includes not only ordinary words that can be found in
dictionary, but also newly adopted words, abbreviations, slang and jargons.
Nowadays, abbreviations are popular and common in the oral styles like oral
communication and conference interpretations. The wide use of abbreviations
had posed high requirements on interpreters. Except for the existence of
abbreviations, English slang and jargons are hard nuts to crack to understand
an English speech. Slang, an informal language, is often used in some informal
situations, but they do appear in some non-official meetings and conferences.
Almost every interpreting assignment will challenge the interpreter with a
complete new glossary of a certain field or discipline. Although understanding of
special terms will not guarantee a successful interpretation, failure to do so will
undoubtedly put an interpreter into a dilemma. As an interpreter is a generalist,
to master a well-knit vocabulary is only the first step of accumulating
background information.
3. Smooth shift of sentence structures between source language and target
language
Theoretically, interpreters tend to have good command of languages and they
know most syntax rules and sentence structures, but practically, “language
specificity” often disturbs their thinking. Take English and Chinese as examples,
attributives are pre-posed in Chinese, this is what linguists called “left-
branching”, while in English attributive clauses are often post-posed and “right-
branching”.
4. Form logical analysis
Logical analysis can help facilitate comprehension, so it is necessary and
important to train interpreter a logical analyzer. There are several ways to form
logical analysis in interpretation. The first one is cognitive analyzing, in which
interpreters relate the speaker’ speech to their own knowing and understanding.
The second one is analyzing according to position, in which interpreters make
analysis based on their positions. Each interpreter has his own views and
judgment on certain things and remarks. These views and judgment can be
helpful to understand the involving issues more deeply and accurately and easier
to remember. But what worth mentioning is that no matter what attitude the
interpreter has, his views cannot be revealed in the interpretation, for
interpreters must interpret all the things in an objective, neutral manner,
otherwise misinterpretation will occur.
5. Gradual Accumulation of ELK
Interpreting is a communication process that demands the interpreter have not
only linguistic knowledge-phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics and texts which
enables him to receive aural messages, but also extra-linguistic or encyclopedic
knowledge (ELK) to help pave the way to efficient oral communication.
Extra-linguistic knowledge can be classified into three subcategories:
knowledge of specific subject matter, knowledge of different interpreting situations
and knowledge of cultural background. Subject knowledge refers to the basic
knowledge for a particular field under discussion. Situational knowledge is also
known as contextual knowledge which includes the background of speakers and
audience, general information about the situation and some ideas of the working
environment.
However, unlike linguistic knowledge, extra-linguistic language is much more
subjective and dynamic. It can be pre-existing, for it is the knowledge which the
interpreter has before he accepts a certain assignment and it can also be the
knowledge which the interpreter takes from the context and the communicative
situation. A good interpreter should be imbued with the spirit of the people who
speak the language he is working with, familiar with their tradition, and closely
acquainted with those literary works which have influenced the language. He
should also appreciate their sense of humor, know the outstanding names of
their history, sense the nuances of their styles as well as other euphemisms that
may have lost their original meanings in part or in whole. To some extent, the
interpreter could be regarded as a cultural bridge between people who are
unfamiliar with each other’s language and culture.

C. Recording Skills
In this procedure, the interpreter’s memory plays a crucial role, and is a decisive
factor in whether this procedure is successful or not or at least in how much the
interpreter can get from the source’s speech. A supplementary way of securing
this procedure is note-taking, which seems to be more important in consecutive
interpretation.
1. Visualizing memorization
Visualizing memorization is to visualize what the speaker is saying, for example,
to form a picture or certain scene to accentuate memory. Such pictures and
scenes are called situational models which are built on the basis of special or
consequential relationship of contexts and thus acquire the longest time to be
remembered. Visualizing memorization is to visualize what the speaker is saying,
for example, to form a picture or certain scene to accentuate memory. Such
pictures and scenes are called situational models which are built on the basis of
special or consequential relationship of contexts and thus acquire the longest
time to be remembered. The result of experiments showed that the capacity of
memory of viewed pictures and image is much larger than that of words and
speech. If interpreters can store the information of source speech as a single or
a series of situational models rather than just words and sentences, they can
memorize relatively more information with fewer symbols.
2. Outlining memorization
Interpretation is an oral communicative activity with strong purposes and be
influenced by differed situations and discourses. Generally, each interpreting
activity is focused on one or more clear topics and each speaker will keep
consistence on the given topics. All these make outlining memorization possible.
Interpreters can make full use of the structure and main ideas of source
language speech to outline the contents. In the outline or framework, what the
interpreter memorized are the key points and the relationship among them.
Later, the interpreter can use this outline or framework to activate relevant
information in long term memory included. This skill is so useful that all the
information can be completely generalized suitable for speeches to make
arguments or introduction.
3. Reasoning memorization
Psychological and psycholinguistic experiments show that information is stored
in form of abstract network. Reasoning memorization requires interpreters to
make good use of the relationship among different information to combine bigger
information units. This way of memorization is suitable for those boring speeches
without good consistence.
4. Chunking
Chunking is a proven effective way to enlarge the short term store (STS) capacity
in interpreting in that it allows interpreters to handle more information at one
time. By recoiling the information held in STS with the activation of relevant
information in long term store (LTS), new meaningful larger units of information
that are familiar to interpreters are formed.
One way is to chunk the words into grammatical constituents such as nouns
and verb phrases, thereby reducing the storage burden to perhaps two or three
constituents. Chunking in interpreting is a process during which interpreters
actively analyze, summarize and reorganize the messages of the speech. The
external representation of chunking is to extract the key words from various
layers of sense.
The key words can be either from the original speech or generated by
interpreters to best summarize the intended meaning of a specific layer. In doing
so, the memorization of a whole paragraph becomes the memorization of several
key words.
However, the collective use of key words cannot represent that full
message intended in the speech since there do exist logical links between
different layers of meaning as between different chunks. Interpreters must,
therefore, search for or generate the logical links during the chunking process
besides extracting or generating the key words of messages. Key words are the
pearls in a memory necklace while logical links are the thread that links the
pearls. Together, they form the meaning structure of the full messages contained
in speech. During the memorizing stage, interpreters mainly memorize the key
words and logical links while in the recalling stage, they have to reactive them
as the correspondent clues of the speech and then make out the sense of the
speech they are going to interpret.

5. Note-taking skills
The success of interpretation is determined largely by interpreters’
comprehensive recording capability. As there is a limit of human memory, so the
recording capability includes “necessary note-taking” besides the mental
recording of information in human mind. The notes taken for the purpose of
interpretation are different from those written down by means of stenography.
According to Li Kuiliu (1994), stenography is used to settle the contradiction
between speech speed and recording speed, and it is the transformation between
different ways of expression and involves only one language in its process while
interpreters take notes to reveal original sense instead of original speech itself.
Stenography needs great amount of attention and psychological concentration,
however, interpreters must spare large portion of attention to realize the smooth
comprehension and re-expression. What interpreters need to jot down in notes
is words or symbols that can convey the important messages, clearly to recognize
and can be told efficiently.
Generally speaking, interpreters should bring a pad of appropriate size with
them which is easy to look through. And in order to make the notes convenient
to be read out, the contents written down in each line should not be too much
to avoid the occurrence of misunderstandings and misinterpretation. Space
should be left after each phrase or sense group and diagonals must be added
after each sentence, and when a comparative long paragraph is over, a line can
be drawn to make the note clearer and help interpreters find the right place to
start and finish interpreting units.
It is advisable that an interpreter should take notes vertically so as to break
the sentences into sense units for easy digestion. Ladder structure pattern can
vividly embody the logic order of the speaker. Taking notes in this way can help
the interpreter follow the speaker’s trace of thoughts. Thus he can perform the
interpretation task more efficiently.
As far as the contents of the notes are concerned, first of all, what should be
kept in the notes is the main idea of the original text. Secondly, it is words used
to link or separate ideas like “and”, “or”, “but”, etc. Thirdly, it is the point of view
of the original text. Fourthly, the tense should be taken into consideration.
And finally, it is contents such as numbers, dates, proper nouns, lists, etc. It
should be emphasized that what should be recorded in one’s notes is not the
actual words used in the original text, but its information. For example, numbers
are very important in note-taking and they must be recorded accurately.
However, what these numbers refer to is more important than these numbers.
Taking notes can help the interpreter remember the details and long sentences
of a speech.
However, in practicing note taking, many people will meet a dilemma, that is,
sometimes taking notes will take away their focus, too. The only way to break
through the bottleneck in note-taking training is to keep on practicing and learn
to strike a balance. Good notes are always simple and easy, thus taking away
the least focus possible. Interpreters should not take notes for notes’ sake. An
interpreter may use either source language or target language or both in taking
notes. He may choose the language that comes to his mind as the easiest or most
appropriate one.

D. Re-expression Skills
1. Timely adjustment
Zhang Weiwei (1999) has asserted that interpreters can follow the principle of
syntactic linearity during interpreting. It means that the interpreters follow the
order of the source language, segmenting the input sentences into sense groups,
concepts or information units and then naturally linking them together by some
techniques so as to interpret the original meaning of the whole discourse.
2. Adding information
Due to the difference in culture and habits, sometimes, interpreters need add
some words or change the sentence structure to express the speaker’s meaning.
3. Reconstructing the segmental information in context
When the interpreter fails to hear or understand certain segmental information
in the discourse, he can try to reconstruct it with the help of the context. His
knowledge of language, his understanding of the subject and the situation he is
in may also help him to reconstruct. If it is successful, the reconstruction can
result in full recovery of the information.
However, since we need to allocate time and processing capacity on
reconstruction, which may increase time pressure on the interpreter,
reconstruction from the context can be used if needed, but it should not be
considered as a highly priority tactic.
4. Reformulation
Due to the limitation of one’s processing capacity, it is quite possible that the
interpreter may miss some information when the information density is too high
for him to cope with. On such occasions, the interpreter may reformulate the
main idea in a general way. Though the accuracy of the discourse decreases, the
audience can still get a whole picture of what the speaker has said. If the
interpreter understands the meaning of the terms used in SL, but can hardly
find the equivalent words in the TL, they can use paraphrasing or explaining
method to get the meaning across.
5. Paraphrasing and explaining
For the so-called checkmates, it’s impossible to find out an equal in TL in a short
time, and the equal is not enough to make the audience understand the meaning
of the source speech, in this case, paraphrasing and explaining are necessary.
In paraphrasing, the interpreters should obey the following rules:
a. They should not omit the facts given in the original text.
b. They should not change or alternate facts stated in the original text.
c. They should not slant attitude, stance, point of view, and tone that are stated
explicitly in the original message.
Here are some paraphrasing tactics:
a. Changing the parts-of speech.
b. Changing the sentence structure.
c. Breaking up the long sentence into several short ones.
6. Reproducing the sound heard in the SL speech

When the interpreter comes across a proper noun or technical term which he
cannot recognize, he may reproduce the sound as heard. If the audience knows
that term or proper noun, they may recognize it at once.
In conclusion, this section introduces some useful techniques that can be
adopted in interpreting. Bearing these tactics in mind, the interpreter may tackle
the problems in a more skillful way. However, these tactics cannot be overused,
since they achieve successful reformulation at the sacrifice of overlooking some
information.
References
[1] Bao Gang. (1998). Introduction to Interpreting Studies. Beijing: Tourism
Education Publishing House.
[2] Eugene A. Nida. (2001). Contexts in Translation. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign
Language Education Press.
[3] Guo Lanying. (2007). Studies on Interpretation and Interpreters Training.
Beijing: Science Press.
[4] Li Kuiliu. (1994). Interpretation: Theory and Practice Language and
Communication. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and
Research Press.
[5] Liu Miqing. (1999). Theory of Translation. Beijing: China Translation &
Publishing Corporation.
[6] Li Yingying. (2005). Memory Mechanism and Memory Training in Interpreting.
Ph.D. dissertation, Shanghai International
Studies University.
[7] Yang Chunhui. (2004). The Information Processing in Oral Interpretation.
Ph.D. dissertation, Central China Normal University.
[8] Zhang Weiwei. (1999). English-Chinese Simultaneous Interpretation. Beijing:
China Translation & Publishing Corporation