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Summary: The present module is the result of more than twenty years of professional practice in the exercise of English-Spanish consecutive bilingual interpreting in various sectors of Cuban society and at the University of Matanzas Camilo Cienfuegos. The module deals with the problem of handling and developing short-term, mid-term and long-term memory during the bilingual interpreting and intercultural communicatoin process as a precondition necesary to cope with the demands of understanding, reformulating and re-expressing the intended sense of the message uttered by a speaker. Various problem situations are analyzed, exercises are presented and useful suggestions are given for students and practitioners of this professional field of intercultural communication.
From words to ideas
Bilingual consecutive interpreting is one of the variants of the oral bilingual interpreting process. It is performed by the professional interpreter in situations where the speaker utters speech chunks of various length, which are interrupted so as to provide the interpreter with the possibility to render from the source into the target language. Bilingual consecutive interpreting thus differs from simultaneous interpreting in the fact that the former calls for a CONSCIOULSY SELECTIVE AND FULLY ACTIVATED MID-TERM AND LONG TERM MEMORY, while the latter demands a more MECHANICAL OR REPETITIVE ON-THE-SPOT MEMORY. Bilingual consecutive interpreting is typical in intercultural communiaticative situations like, for example: lectures, presentations, public addresses, and the like. Since bilingual consecutive interpreting is one of the oral variants of translation, it is mainly based on an operational work memory. Now, the interpreter´s work memory is not a uniform device that proceeds homogeneously for all situations and contexts. In fact, work memory is divided into three types of memory: SHORT TERM, MID-TERM AND LONG TERM MEMORY. SHORT-TERM MEMORY: is the kind of memory process that can literally recall the full linguistic dimension of events at the lexical level: That is, when interpreters use this kind of memory, they are able to memorize all the words used in a chunk. Unfortunately, this kind of memory can only be used for short sentences and non complex ideas.
COMPREHENSION FROM THE SOURCE LANGUAGE PLUS REFORMULATION AS A MENTAL PROCESS ALLOWS FOR REEXPRESSION IN THE TARGET LANGUAGE, WHICH CLOSES THE INTERPRETING CYCLE
In order to understand Interpreting properly, it is important to realize that it is an invisible, mental process of language and thought processing, which implies various abilities and knowledge mastery, namely:
It is the initial, first type of memory the interpreter-to-be is connected with, but not at all the most useful for her or him, as said before. Short-term memory is useful and confortable to use when the consecutive interpreting process takes place in an informal cozzy atmosphere, with very short chunks being uttered and without conceptual o communicational complications. As clearly seen, its validity in the professional interpreting process is extremely limited and its operational capacity beyond the limits already established is very much reduced.
It is the kind of memory needed to work with rather small chunks of speech when the consecutive interpreting process takes place in a close-to-speaker interactive situation. The speaker is well-aware of the need to receive feedback or is conscious of the difficulties involved in the consecutive interpreting process and is willing to help in the process. This kind of memory is useful but does not always respond to the predominant variant of consecutive interpreting situations.
It is, in fact, the predominantly needed kind of memory during the bilingual consecutive interpreting process. This is so due to two main factors, namely: 1) The speakers are more prone to finishing their line of thought without interruptions, including subordinate ideas, derivative thoughts, etc, than to favor the interpreter´s confortable rendering by constantly chunking their speech in public situations. 2) It is preferable that rather long chunks are uttered, thus favouring the expression of full ideas, since public speeches are mainly social communication instances with political, economic, soiocultural, or scientific transcendence. So the social communication event as such implies the observance of certain communicatively aesthetic requierements for the public figures to make their appearances. We interpreters are well aware of our modest and service role in those instances, and it would not be a communicatively professional attitude to try to impersonate a starring role that is not proper to the intercultural communicatior´s role and function. Assisting the interperter to cope with the demands of long-term memory retention and competence are a number of techniques like, for example, note-taking. However, the basic and most essential trainning the interpreter needs in theses cases lies in her or his ability to learn "how to listen to the speaker´s utterance intelligently" and "how to mentally process that already listened content through the phases of comprehension, reformulation and, finally, re-expression. The key point here is "how to induce the interpreter´s memory to learn how to listen properly so as to retain a long utterance from the part of a speaker". And that´s precisely the key point in the present module.
Perhaps the key point here would be "how to move from the predominance of the effortless short-term memory into the demands and challenges of long-term memory and into memory retention of long ideas in a foreign language? In order to properly answer this question we still have to go deeper into the basic features of bilingual consecutive interpeting as an oral kind of utterance, as well as into its process of perception (listening) comprehension, reformuilation and re-expression.
Oral speech produced on the spot is always as unpredictable as the communicative behaviour of the speaker to produce it. In this connection, during my lessons at the University of Matanzas, I always prefer to call my students attention to the similarity between the professional context of an interpreter and that of a lonely trooper landing on unknown territory. And I frequently play with the comparison: "Always get ready for the worst: to find it, face it and beat it". "Trust yourself first and foremost" . "Control your nerves by thinking no matter how difficult things might seem, there is not any other possibility but victory and that depends on your capacity, inuition and immediate action".
Oral speech produced on the spot for interpreting purposes needs to be understood immediately, since it should equally be rendered with that velocity in time. This reality implies that mental processing of discourse needs to be effective and precise. Communicative circumstances on the spot generaly do not adamit the npossibility of any prolonguewd or consultation lapse, or of repetitions, which when requested are considered as a show of poor professional competence on the part of the bilingual consecutive interpreter.
Oral speech produced on the spot is equally evanescent; this implies that although ideas may be remembered for a long time,their exact physical structure (linguistic shaping) vanishes from human memory seconds after being produced, unless it is recorded in writing or in any other technological recording device. This constitutes the main challenge for mid and, above all, for long-term memory improvement during the profesional interpreting process from a source language and culture into another target language and culture. This is precisely, then, the key element to be treated as a cognitive nucleus during the development of the present module.
Since long-term memory is the paradigm for maximum difficulty during the bilingual consecutive interpreting process, the following analysis in the present module will concentrate on its teaching-learning (and metacognitive development) process.
FIRST of all, LONG TERM-MEMORY IS NEEDED BECAUSE OF THE EXISTENCE OF LENGTHY CHUNKS. Otherwise, it would not be an issue at all. Long chunks of speech and discourse are evident when the speaker needs to complete a logical interrelated line of thought, as part of one single idea that extends through various interrelated words and phrases, thus forming a complex sentence or thoughtful unit.
"El incontrolado desarrollo de los productos químicos y otros desperdicios durante los últimos treinta y tantos años, hace muy complicado hoy día el proceso de saneamiento ambiental en amplia escala en todas la latitudes del globo terráqueo, sobre todo si se toma en cuenta la cierta falta de estrategias suficientemente conscientizadas por muchos gobiernos y otros decisores locales al respecto."
Having such a comprehension of KEY IDEAS or IDEATIC MUCLEI in mind, the interpreter can now "redress" his equivalent English speech while reformulating the whole idea into Enlgish...Observe that LONG -TERM MEMORY has "learned to rest while working at the same time". It focuses on essential aspects, and then later, its recreation in the specific lexical-syntactical forms of target language rests mor at the decision and creativity of the interpreter. In this way we might have a good Enlgish version like this:
SPANISH ORIGINAL: "El incontrolado desarrollo de los productos químicos y otros desperdicios durante los últimos treinta y tantos años, hace muy complicado hoy día el proceso de saneamiento ambiental en amplia escala en todas la latitudes del globo terráqueo, sobre todo si se toma en cuenta la cierta falta de estrategias suficientemente conscientizadas por muchos gobiernos y otros decisores locales al respecto"
"Lack of control in chemical production has made it very difficult to provide for environmental health, mainly due to the absence of committed strategies on the part of local decision-makers."
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This work is licensed by Jorge Luis Rodríguez Morell under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 2.0), and is an Open Educational Resource.
Last edited by Jorge Luis Rodríguez Morell on Dec 23, 2008 11:18 am US/Central.
