The Strategies in

Interpreting

LECTURE 2
 Plan of the Lecture
1. Introduction
2. Interpreting Problems
3. Strategies in Interpreting
Translation vs Interpreting
 6 major types of interpreting:

Consecutive Interpreting; Simultaneous Interpreting;

Escort/Travel Interpreting On-Demand Phone Interpreting;

Scheduled Phone/Over-the-Phone
Whisper Interpreting;
Interpreting;
 Factors:
1. Environmental (factors specific to the assignment
setting, e.g., roles of the consumers, terminology
specific to the setting, physical surroundings)

2. Interpersonal (factors specific to the interaction of the participants, e.g.,

cultural differences, power dynamics, alignment issues, differences in
funds of information)

3. Paralinguistic (factors specific to the expressive skills of the deaf and

hearing consumers, e.g., style, pace, volume, accent, clarity of the
linguistic forms that the interpreter hears and sees)

4. Intrapersonal (factors specific to the physiological and psychological

state of the interpreter, e.g., fatigue, physical reactions, distracting
thoughts or feelings)
 The interpreting problems
1. Listening and
2. Note-Taking *
Understanding

Lack of understanding of the source speech

Lack of understanding of the source
Numbers speech
Lack of common sense Speed of delivery of the source
Speed of delivery of the source speech speech
Unfamiliarity with the topic Information density
Sound problems
Length of the source speech Lack of practice
Information density Numbers
Lack of practice
Lack of attention/concentration 4. Expressing and
Reformulating

3. Decoding Notes *
Lack of understanding of the source
speech
Unable to understand their own Feeling nervous
notes Lack of confidence
Lack of restitution speed Unclear notes *
Lack of connectors Overuse of connectors
Unclear notes Problems expressing themselves
Memory problems
According to Nord, problems are
objective difficulties that all
translators need to resolve during
a given task, regardless of their
level of competence and formal
working conditions.
 Strategies in Interpreting
Strategy is a method that is used deliberately to prevent or solve potential
problems in interpreting or to enhance interpreting performance.

The concept of strategy was first introduced in the field of translation by Hönig and
Kussmaul, who defined translation strategies as processes which lead to an optimum
solution to a translation problem.

Hurtado defines translation strategies as the individual

procedures, both conscious and unconscious, verbal and non-
verbal, used by the translator to solve the problems
encountered in the course of the translation process,
depending on the specific requirements involved. He states
that translation strategies may be linguistic, extralinguistic,
instrumental or pragmatic.

Riccardi states that simultaneous interpreting can be considered a problem­solving

activity. The difficulty arises from the original speech, while the solution occurs in
the interpreted speech, and the strategies consist in the mechanisms and decisions
that take place between the problem and its solution.
 Data collection

Think-Aloud Protocols: The translator (or translation

student) expresses their mental processes while
translating. Some noteworthy studies along these
lines include those by Lörscher and Kiraly.
Camtasia and Proxy: These software allow the
translation process to be recorded and to view the
steps taken by the translator, namely, corrections,
consulting document sources and modifications.
The software Translog, in addition to recording
the translation process, also provides time statistics,
pauses by the translator, behaviour, etc. Thus it is
possible to obtain data in a more natural setting.
The eye­tracking systems: record eye movements of
the translator across the screen.
 Wolfgang Lörscher
«A translation strategy is a conscious and individual process
used to solve a translation problem». Therefore, translation
strategies are individual; they entail an element of planning,
pursue certain objectives and are associated with a series of
actions taken in the pursuit of achieving those objectives.

He organizes strategies into three global strategies:

• propose preliminary solutions to problems (explore);

• literally repeat source or target text segments that have already been
captured or verbalized (control);

• recoup segments and reformulate them (paraphrase).

He also underlines the wide variety of strategies used. In other words, different
strategies are used by different subjects to deal with the same problem.
However, he only considers translation problems of a lexical, syntactic or lexico­
syntactic nature.
 Daniel Gile’s Effort Model

Basic Ideas:

“interpretation requires some sort of mental

‘energy’ that is only available in limited supply”;

interpretation “takes up almost all of this mental

energy, and sometimes requires more than is
available, at which times performance
deteriorates”
 Effort Model

Listening and Analysis Memory Effort

Effort

Production Effort Coordination Effort

I=L+M+P+C
 Alessandra Riccardi
General Specific
strategies strategies
applicable to all language applicable to the individual
combinations language pairs in question
She distinguishes between:
• Comprehension strategies generally include anticipation, segmentation,
selection of information, stalling or waiting;
• Production strategies consist of compression, expansion, approxima­tion
strategies, generalization, use of linguistic open­ed forms,
morphosyntactic transformation and the use of prosodic elements,
such as pauses and intonation;
• Overall strategies include décalage and monitoring;
• Emergency strategies may include, for example, the omission of text
segments, transcoding and parallel reformulation.
 Skill-Based Strategies

Skill-based strategies may be defined as all those

strategies governed by stored patterns of automatic
responses whose application is triggered by the
recognition of a well-known stimulus within the
communicative event.
They are the result of procedural knowledge and
have been internalized and automatized by the
interpreter.
They may come into play at all levels – pragmatic,
semantic, textual or morphological – and are closely
dependent on the interpreter’s knowledge
organization and SI experience.
 Knowledge-Based Strategies

Knowledge-based strategies are the other group

of strategies employed during SI; they differ
from skilled-based strategies because their
activation is the result of conscious analytical
processes.

They come into play when actions must be

planned on-line, because no automatic response
is found or because something has caused a
momentary memory overload.
 What was the Did you
What did you
Situation problem due solve the Problems Strategies
do?
to? problem?
I didn’t get the I find it “very” I said: “the
percentage of hard to get remainder”
birds the numbers because I had Yes Numbers Generalisation
mentioned in right, it takes grasped the
the speech. more effort. other two.
I worked more
Inability to
Lack of note- quickly and Lack of note-
note down all Not very
taking noted down taking Omission
the well
practice what I really practice
information.
was sure of.
The ideas don’t
Lack of Tried to apply Lack of Used common
hang together Sometimes
connectors logic connectors sense
coherently.
I didn’t I concentrated
understand the Lack of on the I didn’t
More or less Summarise
proposal of the knowledge elements I did understand.
WTO. understand.
I couldn’t I think I
think of the I noted it down changed the Problems of
“Worshipped” Paraphrase
Spanish in English. sense too equivalence
equivalent. much.
Difficulty Relied more on
recognizing Illegible my memory I’m working Unclear
Memory
some writing and less on my on it. notes
concepts. notes.
General Strategies
Preparation is the strategy that is applied before the process of
interpreting.

Study the topic

Read some additional
sources
Background
knowledge
Glossary

Get the speech material before the conference starts

Gain familiarity with the subject matter to be discussed
Attend a meeting in advance to understand procedural rules
and terms
Compression is understood as the economy of speech
signals that are required to render the same amount of
information. Compression is possible due to the natural
redundancy of speech and is widely used in simultaneous
interpreting, especially when the speaker speaks fast.
However, if the speaker speaks slowly, the excessive
compression may result in the unnatural pauses, which
make listeners believe that interpreter does not translate
everything.
 Types of compression
Syllabic
compression Syntactic compression
a) When I entered the
e.g. state for room, I saw that he
держава, kit for was standing there. -
набір Lexical and semantic
Я увійшов у кімнату. compression
Він стояв там. (Generalization)
складний for
sophisticated b) I saw that he was
sanding there - I saw e.g. nuclear tests in
him standing there. the atmosphere, in
c) I saw him standing the outer space and
there - I saw him under water
there. ядерні випробування у
d) the United States of трьох середовищах
America - the US.
 Expansion (addition)

A technique of interpreting opposite to compression and leads to increasing

redundancy the message which is sometimes necessary to provide clarification
or explanation.

e.g. Тараса Шевченка було поховано у Каневі. - Taras Shevchenko, a great

Ukrainian poet, was buried in Kaniv.

In principle, interpreters have no right to add anything «extra» to what was said
by the source speaker because legislation provides that, as interpreters, they
bear responsibility for the equivalence of translation and not for the content of
the messages.
 Explanation: Using explanation or superordinates to replace words
not knowing equivalence.

Taking advantage of cohesive and coherent devices in the SL. These

are the logical bridges (parallel constructions), verbal bridges
(linking words), words or phrases that link ideas between sentences

e.g. Most scientists find it unbelievable. I cannot agree with them. -

Хоч більшість науковців вважають це неймовірним, та я не можу
погодитись з ними.

Inference (using common sense). In case the part of the sentence

was hard to hear or understand, the interpreter may try to guess its
ending using their logic.
Anticipation is an important technique of
interpreting, which becomes possible due to the
natural redundancy of speech and its patterned
character. Human mind records certain patterns
of the past experience, which are «activated»
each time a person appears to be in a similar
situation. Thus, when a person hears the
beginning of a certain phrase or word, they are
able to anticipate the ending of it.

The game is not worth of … (candle);

Protection of human … (rights).

Still interpreters should be very careful with their anticipation: Microsoft

may be followed not by Windows, but Office or Teams.
 Frustrated expectancy effect (ефект обманеного очікування)
is often used by speakers in telling jokes and anecdotes:
e.g. не плюй у криницю - … вилетить, не спіймаєш! (instead
of знадобиться води напиться)
In such cases interpreters should never translate a joke until the
speaker finishes it.
 Omission (skipping) is a strategy of omitting some words,
numerals or phrases that are of a little value in the information
flow of the message. It is also about leaving out the inferable
parts, summary and comments, or where the interpreter believed
to be confusing to listeners if translated:
The treaty was pronounced null and void. - Договір було визнано
недійсним (анульовано).

Substitution is the replacement of notional words by deictic

pronouns:
The issue of illegal immigration was raised many times by the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. - Це
питання неодноразово піднімалося ОБСЄ.
Summary translation: Instead of following every sentence
and every tiny piece of information closely, the interpreter
made a summary of what the speaker has just said. This
usually should be a summary of very long segment, and a
summary of two or three sentences talking about one same
idea is usually the longest one that may be considered
acceptable.

Gradually adjusting interpreting sense-making: When

there are some ambiguous parts, the interpreter would
choose to interpret more than one possible sense at first,
while gradually clarifying what was not clear at the
beginning.
 Goal-oriented categories of
Comprehension
strategies
strategies:
Global strategies:
Text production
segmentation of strategies: memorizing the
input
input
anticipation restructuring adapting one’s
inferencing paraphrasing mental model
accessing condensing or monitoring
previously expanding one’s own
stored information output for
knowledge the use of deficiencies but
building prosodic or also that of the
relations non-verbal text producer
between stored features for coherence
and new
and repairing
information
errors
Fast Speeches. Strategies:
1. Request the speaker
to slow down.
2. The interpreter
speeds up.
3. Summarization.
4. Termination of
service.
Strategy is a method that is used deliberately to prevent or solve potential problems
in interpreting or to enhance interpreting performance.

Alessandra Riccardi: general vs specific strategies. Comprehension, production,

overall and emergence strategies.

Skill-based vs knowledge-based strategies.

General strategies: preparation, compression, expansion, explanation, taking

advantage of cohesive and coherent devices in the SL, inference, anticipation,
substitution, omission, summary translation, gradually adjusting interpreting
sense-making.

Goal-oriented categories: comprehension strategies, text production strategies and

global strategies