Psycho-Affective Factors in Consecutive Interpreting 3631780268, 3631783764, 3631783771, 3631783788

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Psycho-Affective Factors in Consecutive Interpreting The book presents a study into the trainee interpreters’ and certified interpreters’ subjective experience of psycho-affective factors in consecutive interpreting. In the form of four case studies, the book offers an insight in how the subjective experience of anxiety, fear, language ego/language inhibition/ language boundaries, extroversion/introversion, self-esteem, motivation and stress conditions and affects consecutive interpreting performance. What emerges from the study is that the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity is a continually operating and intricate mechanism which may impact on nearly all constituents of the consecutive interpreting process and that its potential causes may lie in virtually all – even the seemingly unimportant – aspects of the interpreting process.

The Author Marcin Walczyn ´ ski, Ph.D., is assistant professor in the Department of Translation Studies (Institute of English Studies, University of Wrocław, Poland), in-house business English trainer, certified translator and interpreter of English as well as translation and interpreting trainer. His scholarly interests include: interpreting and translation, languages for special purposes (especially business and legal English), sociolinguistics and creolistics.

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Marcin Walczyn ´ ski

Marcin Walczyn ´ ski

61

Psycho-Affective Factors in Consecutive Interpreting

ŁÓDZ ´ Studies in L anguage 61

ŁÓDZ ´ Studies in L anguage 61

Marcin Walczyn ´ ski

Psycho-Affective Factors in Consecutive Interpreting

22.04.19 22:13

Psycho-Affective Factors in Consecutive Interpreting

ŁÓDŹ STUDIES IN LANGUAGE Edited by Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk and Łukasz Bogucki



Editorial Board Piotr Cap (University of Łódź, Poland) Jorge Díaz-Cintas (University College, London, England) Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland) Wolfgang Lörscher (Universität Leipzig, Germany) Anthony McEnery (Lancaster University, England) John Newman (University of Alberta, Canada) Hans Sauer (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany) Piotr Stalmaszczyk (University of Łódź, Poland) Elżbieta Tabakowska (Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland) Marcel Thelen (Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Maastricht, The Netherlands) Gideon Toury † (Tel Aviv University, Israel)



VOLUME 61







Marcin Walczyński

Psycho-Affective Factors in Consecutive Interpreting

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available online at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. This publication was financially supported by the University of Wrocław. Reviewer: Leszek Berezowski Printed by CPI books GmbH, Leck ISSN 1437-5281 ISBN 978-3-631-78026-8 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-631-78376-4 (E-PDF) E-ISBN 978-3-631-78377-1 (EPUB) E-ISBN 978-3-631-78378-8 (MOBI) DOI 10.3726/b15361 © Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Berlin 2019 All rights reserved. Peter Lang – Berlin ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙ Oxford ∙ Warszawa ∙ Wien All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. This publication has been peer reviewed. www.peterlang.com

Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................ 13 Chapter 1: Interpreting in scholarly frameworks: definitions, models, approaches and theories ............................ 21 1.1. Defining interpreting ...................................................................................... 21 1.2. Typology of interpreting activity ................................................................ 25 1.2.1. Typology of interpreting working modes .........................................  26 1.2.2. Typology of interpreting directionalities ..........................................  31 1.2.3. Typology of interpreting channels .....................................................  33 1.2.4. Typology of interpreting professional statuses ...............................  34 1.2.5. Typology of interpreting settings .......................................................  35 1.3. Interpreting as a communicative interaction situation/event/act ........ 37 1.4. Interpreting as a cognitive activity ............................................................. 44 1.5. Interpreter and interpreter competence ..................................................... 48 1.5.1. Interpreter competence .........................................................................  48 1.5.2. Interpreter’s roles and functions .........................................................  52 1.5.3. Interpreter training: aptitude testing, curriculum and assessment ................................................................................................  56 1.6. Interpreting studies ......................................................................................... 66 1.6.1. Historical sketch of interpreting studies ...........................................  66 1.6.2. Map of interpreting studies ..................................................................  72 1.6.3. Approaches to studying interpreting: interpreting studies as an interdisciplinary research field .................................................  76 1.6.4. Interpreter as a central research object: anthropocentric interpreting studies ................................................................................  80 1.7. Chapter 1 summary ......................................................................................... 84

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Chapter 2: Consecutive interpreting as a practice and research object ...............................................................................................  87 2.1. Overview of consecutive interpreting practice and research .............  87 2.2. Typology of consecutive interpreting ......................................................  92 2.3. Consecutive interpreting process .............................................................  94 2.3.1. Selected models of the consecutive interpreting process ............  94 2.3.2. Memory in consecutive interpreting ................................................  99 2.3.3. Note-taking in consecutive interpreting .........................................  104 2.3.4. Comprehension in consecutive interpreting ..................................  110 2.3.5. Processing in consecutive interpreting ............................................  111 2.3.6. Production in consecutive interpreting ...........................................  114 2.3.7. Input variables in consecutive interpreting ....................................  117 2.3.8. Consecutive interpreting strategies ..................................................  120 2.4. Consecutive interpreter competence .......................................................  127 2.5. Consecutive interpreting training: an overview of educational practices ..........................................................................................................  131 2.6. Consecutive interpreting quality and its assessment ...........................  136 2.7. Chapter 2 summary ......................................................................................  140

Chapter 3: Selected individual psycho-affective factors in interpreting ..............................................................................  143 3.1. Defining the scope of interpreter psychology .......................................  143 3.1.1. Cognitive strand of interpreter psychology ...................................  145 3.1.2. Psycho-affective strand of interpreter psychology .......................  147 3.2. Non-psycho-affective factors in interpreting .........................................  150 3.3. Individual psycho-affective factors in interpreting ..............................  153 3.3.1. Defining basic terms and concepts: “affect” and “individual psycho-affective factors” .....................................................................  153 3.3.2. Selected individual psycho-affective factors in interpreting ......  158 3.3.2.1. Interpreter’s anxiety and its potential influence on the interpreter’s performance and output quality ..........  159

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3.3.2.2. Interpreter’s fear and its potential influence on the interpreter’s performance and output quality .................  165 3.3.2.3. Interpreter’s language ego, language boundaries and inhibition and their potential influence on the interpreter’s performance and output quality .................  168 3.3.2.4. Interpreter’s extroversion/introversion and its potential influence on the interpreter’s performance and output quality .........................................  173 3.3.2.5. Interpreter’s self-esteem (and related concepts) and its potential influence on the interpreter’s performance and output quality .........................................  180 3.3.2.6. Interpreter’s motivation and its potential influence on the interpreter’s performance and output quality ....  187 3.3.2.7. Interpreter’s experience of stress and its potential influence on the interpreter’s performance and output quality ..........................................................................  192 3.3.3. Interrelations of psycho-affective factors in interpreting ...........  198

3.4. Interpreter’s psycho-affective subcompetence ......................................  201 3.5. Chapter 3 summary ......................................................................................  203

Chapter 4: Methodological foundations of the case studies ..................................................................................................................  205 4.1. Rationale for studying the psycho-affective factors in consecutive interpreting .............................................................................  205 4.2. Overview of interpreting research methodology ..................................  207 4.3. Case study as a general framework for studying the psychoaffective factors .............................................................................................  214 4.4. Research methods used in the case studies ............................................  215 4.4.1. Research questions ...............................................................................  216 4.4.2. Case study 1, 2 and 3 methodological frameworks .......................  217 4.4.2.1. General characteristics of the data collection conditions .................................................................................  217 4.4.2.2. Input materials ........................................................................  218 4.4.2.3. Data collection methods .......................................................  219

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4.4.2.3.1. Audio-recording as a form of the observation method ..............................................  219 4.4.2.3.2. Performance transcript as a form of the observation method ..............................................  221 4.4.2.3.3. Notes as artefacts ..................................................  222 4.4.2.3.4. Retrospection and the retrospective protocol as a self-observation method .............  222 4.4.2.4. Data analysis and interpretation methods .......................  225 4.4.2.4.1. Trainee interpreters’ output error analysis ....  225 4.4.2.4.2. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ output delivery strategies ...................................  227 4.4.2.4.3. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes .....  228 4.4.2.4.4. Interpretation of the trainee interpreters’ retrospective protocol answers ..........................  228 4.4.2.4.5. Data triangulation .................................................  229 4.4.3. Case study 4 methodological framework ........................................  231 4.4.3.1. Survey as a data collection method ....................................  231 4.4.3.2. Analysis and interpretation of questionnairederived data .............................................................................  234 4.4.4. Ecological, external and internal validity of the case studies .....  236

4.5. Limitations of the case studies ..................................................................  237 4.6. Chapter 4 summary ......................................................................................  239

Chapter 5: Case study 1 – part-time undergraduate trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors in consecutive interpreting .........  241 5.1. Case study 1 methodology synopsis ........................................................  241 5.1.1. Case study 1 group description .........................................................  242 5.1.2. Case study 1 testing situation description ......................................  243 5.2. Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs ...............................  245 5.3. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ output delivery strategies ........  252 5.4. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes .............................................  257

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5.5. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ retrospective protocols against the quality of their performance: data triangulation .............  262 5.6. General observations concerning the first case study participants’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors: analysis conclusions ......................................................................  269 5.7. Chapter 5 summary ......................................................................................  270

Chapter 6: Case study 2 – regular undergraduate trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors in consecutive interpreting .........  273 6.1. Case study 2 methodology synopsis ........................................................  273 6.1.1. Case study 2 group description .........................................................  274 6.1.2. Case study 2 testing situation description ......................................  275 6.2. Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs ...............................  279 6.3. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ output delivery strategies ........  300 6.4. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes .............................................  313 6.5. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ retrospective protocols against the quality of their performance: data triangulation .............  332 6.6. General observations concerning the second case study participants’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors: analysis conclusions ......................................................................  347 6.7. Chapter 6 summary ......................................................................................  349

Chapter 7: Case study 3 – postgraduate trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors in consecutive interpreting .........  351 7.1. Case study 3 methodology synopsis ........................................................  351 7.1.1. Case study 3 group description .........................................................  352 7.1.2. Case study 3 testing situation description ......................................  354 7.2. Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs ...............................  359 7.3. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ output delivery strategies ........  389

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7.4. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes .............................................  407 7.5. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ retrospective protocols against the quality of their performance: data triangulation .............  428 7.6. General observations concerning the third case study participants’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors: analysis conclusions ......................................................................  451 7.7. Chapter 7 summary ......................................................................................  453

Chapter 8: Case study 4 – certified interpreters’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors in consecutive interpreting ..................................................................  455 8.1. Case study 4 methodology synopsis ........................................................  455 8.2. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ factual data ...............................  456 8.2.1. Certified interpreters’ age and gender .............................................  456 8.2.2. Certified interpreters’ education and professional experience ....  458 8.3. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ behavioural and attitudinal data ..............................................................................................  464 8.3.1. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ typical pre-certified consecutive interpreting feelings ......................................................  465 8.3.2. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions about their subjective experience of anxiety .......................................................  473 8.3.3. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions about their subjective experience of fear ..............................................................  482 8.3.4. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions about their subjective experience of language inhibition, language ego and language boundaries ....................................................................  489 8.3.5. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions about their subjective experience of the impact of extroversion/ introversion ............................................................................................  500 8.3.6. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions about their subjective experience of the impact of their self-esteem ............  509 8.3.7. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions about their subjective experience of the impact of their motivation .............  521

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8.3.8. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions about their subjective experience of stress ...........................................................  528 8.3.9. General observations concerning the certified interpreters’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors: analysis conclusions ..............................................................  545

8.4. Chapter 8 summary ......................................................................................  551

Conclusions, implications and paths for further research ....... 553 Book summary ......................................................................................................  553 Summary of findings ...........................................................................................  558 Answers to the research questions ..................................................................  564 Proposal of a revised model of consecutive interpreting ............................  566 Implications for consecutive interpreting training ......................................  567 Paths for further research ..................................................................................  568 Epilogue ..................................................................................................................  569

Appendix 1: Consecutive interpreting (with note-taking) performance evaluation form .................................................................  571 Appendix 2: Permission for using the data for scholarly purposes ..................................................................................................................  573 Appendix 3: Consecutive interpreting test retrospective protocol ....................................................................................................................  575 Appendix 4: The fourth case study questionnaire form .......  579 List of figures .......................................................................................................  589 List of tables .........................................................................................................  591

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List of charts ........................................................................................................  595 List of photographs .........................................................................................  599 Bibliography ........................................................................................................  601 Sources of the input materials used in Case study 1, 2 and 3 ...........................................................................................................................  553

Introduction “We all live at the mercy of our emotions. Our emotions influence and shape our desires, thoughts and behaviors and above all our destiny”. (T.P. Chia, undated) “Emotions affect the whole person, and each emotion affects the person differently”. (Izard 1991: 24)

Emotions are an inseparable part of human life – people experience them both in their private lives and in their professional endeavours. They experience emotions being in solitude as well as in other people’s company. Although some people try very hard not to be at the mercy of their emotions, they now and then fail to do so since emotions have the potential of influencing people’s thoughts and behaviours. The evaluation of emotions as positive, neutral or negative depends largely on an individual person and that is why it is true that different people respond to emotions differently. Furthermore, the perception of emotions is linked to what is sometimes known as “psycho-affective factors” which may be generally defined as people’s individual psychological properties manifesting themselves in a variety of emotional reactions and influencing very many aspects of life. Those individual psycho-affective factors have also been found to condition people’s work-related performance. Interpreters are therefore no exception in this regard for they also experience a variety of such psycho-affective factors. This book is an outcome of the author’s interest in the consecutive interpreter’s psycho-affectivity, i.e. in the influence the psycho-affective factors have on the interpreter himself/herself as well as on the consecutive interpreting process and its product – the output. What served as a motivating force for investigating such issues is the author’s own experience of working as a professional (certified) interpreter who found that some of his psycho-affective variables helped him perform consecutive interpreting better whereas others – impeded it. Moreover, the author’s observations of a variety of linguistic and extra-linguistic behaviours which trainee interpreters exhibited during consecutive interpreting training, in particular, during the in-class consecutive interpreting tests, which could have stemmed from the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors provided another incentive to investigate this intriguing issue. Examining the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity for a few years has resulted in the present book which is hoped to bridge – at least partially – the gap in the understanding of this dimension of interpreter psychology – a subfield of interpreting

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Introduction

studies which deals with the generally understood psychology of the interpreter profession. What interpreter psychology studies is two broad and complex groups of phenomena – cognition and psycho-affectivity which – albeit often studied separately  – are greatly interrelated and overlapping since they affect and accompany each other. However, while the interpreter’s cognitive dimension is fairly well studied with a continually growing body of research, the psycho-affective side seems to be underrepresented in the interpreting literature. For this reason, this study may contribute to this area of interpreting studies by offering an insight into how the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors can be reflected in consecutive interpreting performance. What is more, given the fact that interpreting scholars seem to pay definitely more attention to researching numerous aspects of simultaneous interpreting, which at present appears to be the more preferred mode performed in a variety of international contexts and settings, consecutive interpreting, which is still employed as the major interpreting form in, for instance, community interpreting or courtroom interpreting, seems to be slightly put aside in interpreting research. For this reason, this book focuses on consecutive interpreting as an equally important mode worthy of scholarly attention and thorough research. Hence, the examination presented in this volume seeks to fill the void in the studies of consecutive interpreting. This research can be described as representing the approach to interpreting studies which is sometimes known as “anthropocentric interpreting studies” since what it puts in the centre of the interpreting process is the figure of the interpreter. This study is, therefore, a good case in point illustrating the fundamental role of the interpreter in the interpreting process for it attempts at investigating the intricacies of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity or, more precisely, the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors. Anthropocentric interpreting studies may be viewed as stemming from the concept of anthropocentric translation studies in which the translator as a key element of the translation system is in the centre of scholarly attention. That is why, to that end, wherever possible and grammatically justified, the word “interpreter” is preceded with the article “the” to give this profession its due and proper recognition. Furthermore, albeit interpreting studies also covers sign interpreting, the scope of this book has been limited to spoken language interpreting and that is why the issues concerning the figure of the sign interpreter and sign interpreting at large have been left unaddressed in this research project. The entire study is based on the assumption that the interpreter’s psychoaffectivity is a continuously active, intricate and complex part of each interpreter’s psychological make-up which – because of its continuous operation and susceptibility – affects nearly all the constituent elements of the interpreting process and its outcome – the target text. Moreover, it is also assumed that the psycho-affective factors can be triggered by virtually each constituent element of the interpreting process, even the most minute one (e.g. the interpreter himself/herself, other participants of the interpreting act, the character of the source text, the setting

Introduction

15

etc.). Thus, the overall objective of this study is to investigate the selected issues of the consecutive interpreter’s psycho-affectivity. More specifically, this research aims at determining which psycho-affective factors affect the consecutive trainee interpreters’ and certified consecutive interpreters’ work, what the nature of those factors is, how they manifest themselves linguistically and extra-linguistically, whether they are somehow interrelated and whether the interpreters’ growing experience and expertise are in any way correlated with the subjective experience of those factors. To put it differently, the study is also an attempt to answer the question of whether the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors diminishes and becomes less impeding along with the interpreter’s increasing experience in performing consecutive interpreting. Therefore, four groups of interpreters – at different stages of their interpreting competence development (on the novice-expert continuum) – participated in the study. Although several models of consecutive interpreting are presented in this book, it seems that the model of consecutive interpreting (along with its efforts) devised by Daniel Gile (1995) captures perhaps most comprehensively what really happens during the act of consecutive interpreting. Moreover, consecutive interpreting viewed from Gile’s perspective is clearly divided into two phases: (1) the listening and note-taking phase and (2) the output production (reformulation) phase. The research materials collected both during the listening and note-taking phase (i.e. notes) as well as during the output production phase (i.e. outputs) and during the post-production phase (i.e. the retrospective protocol) (in the first three case studies) offer a wealth of interesting data concerning the study participants’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors. The studied psycho-affective variables are the following: anxiety, fear, language ego/language inhibition/language boundaries, extroversion/introversion, self-esteem, motivation and stress. These components of psycho-affectivity are also quite frequently studied by applied linguists with reference to language learning/ acquisition processes and since consecutive interpreting is fundamentally linked to the use of languages, those factors are also assumed to be of significance in the interpreting process. The first studied factor is anxiety which  – in this book  – is understood as people’s reactions to the subjectively perceived negative events. Unlike anxiety, fear is defined as people’s reactions to the real threat, jeopardising them in some way. Language inhibition is another psycho-affective factor examined in this book. It can be defined as people’s inhibited linguistic behaviours resulting from their awareness of the deficits in their language skills and knowledge. Language inhibition arises as a result of people’s unstable language ego and firm language boundaries. In other words, because of language inhibition, they tend not to take the risk of experimenting with language use for fear of making potential mistakes since such errors may be thought of as threatening to their fragile language ego. Likewise, extroversion and introversion viewed as two extreme dimensions of human personality with differing exponents are examined with reference to the trainee interpreters and certified interpreters engaged in the consecutive

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Introduction

interpreting process. The next psycho-affective factor is self-esteem which can be understood as people’s certain thinking, evaluation as well as feelings towards themselves, their skills, the situations in which they happen to be, the tasks which they are to perform as well as the surrounding environment. What follows is the study of motivation  – of the internal and external forces motivating people to perform some work or, as it is in this case, to perform consecutive interpreting. Finally, stress is considered to be an element of the trainee interpreters’ and certified interpreters’ psycho-affectivity and – for the purpose of this research project  – it is defined as people’s physical and physiological bodily reactions to a given situation. All of those seven psycho-affective factors are under scrutiny in the research project: firstly, they are defined and discussed at some length as psychological concepts and psycho-affective factors which may condition interpreting performance (cf. Chapter 3) and secondly, they are analysed on the basis of the data collected from four groups of interpreters: three groups of the trainee interpreters pursuing their interpreting education in various forms at the University of Wrocław, Poland, and one group of Polish certified interpreters of English. Owing to the fact that there are basically two types of research subjects – the trainee interpreters and the certified interpreters – there are two different methodologies used. Generally speaking, the study represents the qualitative approach and is organised into the format of four case studies. The first three case studies follow the same methodological organisation, an important aspect of which is data triangulation. The trainee interpreters’ linguistic, statistical, behavioural and attitudinal data were collected from several sources within the frameworks of an in-class consecutive interpreting test, which is believed to capture the broader spectrum of the studied psycho-affective phenomena. The fourth case study was carried out as a questionnaire-based survey with no linguistic data. Thus, only statistical, behavioural and attitudinal data were obtained from the certified interpreters. Moreover, the entire study also represents action research for it involves the analysis of the problems which the trainee interpreters and certified interpreters encounter in their interpreting practice. For this reason, the four case study participants assume the roles of practisearchers – interpreting practitioners who – by reflecting upon their consecutive interpreting performance and upon the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors conditioning their work – provide an insight into their real-life obstacles which they have to deal with while interpreting consecutively. Furthermore, this study is also – at least partially – associated with the grounded theory approach since it is the analysis and interpretation of the data that lead to certain conclusions, upon which a local theory related to the studied samples is offered. It means that the data analysed are not used to verify some existing theories. The book is organised into two major parts: the theoretical part which presents various aspects of interpreting and interpreting studies and the empirical part which is devoted to the analysis and interpretation of both linguistic and extralinguistic data (i.e. statistical, attitudinal and behavioural data) concerning the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors which the four groups of case

Introduction

17

study participants had while performing consecutive interpreting. Hence, the first three chapters of this study are more theoretically oriented, one chapter addresses the methodological foundations of the case studies and the remaining four chapters present the case studies. The major aim of Chapter  1 is to present interpreting, in its various forms, as a complex phenomenon of intricate nature which is examined from several perspectives within broadly understood interpreting studies. Therefore, this part of the book may be viewed as a review of interpreting studies literature. Moreover, this chapter deals with interpreting studies at large which is becoming richer and richer in different concepts, approaches and perspectives, being at the same time a continually developing and dynamically evolving subfield of translation studies. The thematic scope of Chapter  2 is narrowed down to consecutive interpreting seen both as a professional practice and as a research object. This chapter should therefore be viewed as an expanded discussion of the selected aspects of consecutive interpreting which – in this study – is the primary research object. The main concern of Chapter  3 is the psycho-affectivity of interpreters. With this end in view, the chapter presents an outline of a field of interpreting studies dealing with psychology which, for the purposes of this study, has been called “interpreter psychology”. Generally speaking, the purpose of this chapter is to introduce the theme of the psycho-affective factors and to present them from the angle of psychology and interpreting studies. The case studies discussed in the further parts of the book heavily rest on the definitions of concepts and constructs introduced in this chapter. Chapter 4 offers an insight into the methodological foundations of the case studies which form the empirical part of the book. That is why, understanding the research frameworks of the empirical studies is crucial in following the author’s argumentation and train of thought of the next parts of the volume. Chapter  5 is devoted to the discussion of the results of the analyses carried out within the frameworks of the first case study. The participants of this study were nine thirdyear part-time undergraduate students of English, majoring in interpreting whose audio-recorded outputs are examined in terms of the errors made, the interpreting strategies used, the notes taken and then juxtaposed with the data obtained from the retrospective protocol responses concerning their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors. What the outcomes of this case study bring to light is that although the students declared the subjective (mostly negative) experience of the psycho-affective factors, their psycho-affectivity does not seem to have had any substantial influence on the quality of their performance and target texts. The methodology of data collection and data analysis in Chapter  6 follows the methodological frameworks used in Chapter  5. The second case study, which Chapter 6 presents and discusses, was carried out among 21 third-year undergraduate students of English pursuing their regular study programme (with classes held from Monday to Friday). Thus, Chapter 6 presents the outcomes of the study of another group of trainee interpreters, the results of which clearly point to the influence of their psycho-affectivity on the consecutive interpreting process and product. Chapter 7 discusses the linguistic, statistical, behavioural and attitudinal

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Introduction

data obtained from 29 third case study participants – the students pursuing their postgraduate studies in translation. The results of the analyses carried out in the third case study confirm the typically negative influence of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affective variables on the manner, in which they interpreted consecutively Polish source texts into English as well as on the very target texts. For this reason, Chapter 7 offers an insight into another group of trainee interpreters whose subjective experience of the aforementioned factors appears to be even more intense than that of the previous groups. Chapter 8 presents the fourth case study carried out among a sample of 76 Polish certified interpreters of English. On the whole, this chapter offers an analysis of the respondents’ opinions on their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors supported by the textual evidence taken from the respondents’ responses. Moreover, it also demonstrates that there are quite many interrelations among those factors – that one can lead to another and that one can result from another, showing at the same time that the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity can have both a positive as well as negative impact on the interpreter, his/her performance and output quality. What is important, although this study pertains to some psychological concepts, it should be viewed more as a contribution to interpreting studies rather than to psychology since no psychological instruments were used in the examination of the psycho-affective phenomena. Instead, the subjective experience of the psychoaffective factors was examined and – in the first three case studies – accompanied by the analysis of the linguistic material collected in the form of the audio-recorded target texts generated by the trainee interpreters. Several reasons justify the scholarly affiliation of this research project to interpreting studies. First of all, the fact that it is interpreting studies that provides the major scholarly scaffolding for this research is seen in the research object  – in consecutive interpreting. Secondly, it is the consecutive trainee interpreters and certified interpreters who provided the research data on their subjective experience during the practice of consecutive interpreting. Thirdly, the outcomes of this study have some implications for interpreting practice and training. Therefore, despite the rather interdisciplinary character of the study, it can be safely situated within interpreting studies. As above-mentioned, the study is an attempt at finding the answers to several questions concerning the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors which both the trainee interpreters and certified interpreters had during the practice of consecutive interpreting. It is therefore hoped that the results of this study can turn out to be of use to both interpreting practitioners, interpreting researchers and interpreting students. What is also hoped is that this book will contribute to stirring interpreting scholars’ interest in the role of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity in interpreting as well as to initiating some more in-depth discussion of the fact that interpreters do experience a variety of emotions resulting from the psycho-affective factors while rendering their services despite the theoretical idealisations, according to which they should be emotionless, invisible and transparent interlinguistic communication mediators. As this research has shown, more often than not, interpreters are at the mercy of their emotions which

Introduction

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frequently guide their thoughts and behaviours. Therefore, the investigation into the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity and its subjective experience may be seen as an important area of inquiry which is undeniably relevant to the essence of the interpreter profession, in which, those psycho-affective phenomena occur on a regular basis.

Chapter 1: Interpreting in scholarly frameworks: definitions, models, approaches and theories Although the majority of research projects undertaken within translation studies refer to different aspects of “written” translation, interpreting (i.e. “oral” translation) is gaining ground, contributing thereby to giving more prominence to this type of linguistic activity within broadly understood translation studies. Moreover, since interpreting has recently become a more and more prolific area of this field, it is justified to speak about translation and interpreting studies rather than translation studies. This greater focus on interpreting is manifested in the increasing number of different concepts and terms which are used with reference to the phenomena involved in the process of interpreting. Chapter 1 sheds light on various understandings of different interpreting concepts and – at the same time – clarifies them and points to those definitions which are often invoked or referred to in the subsequent parts of this study. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to delve into the basic concepts of interpreting studies as they are used in the further chapters of this book.

1.1. Defining interpreting Interpreting, also referred herein to as interpretation, is a highly complex mental, psycho-affective and linguistic activity which involves the use of a multitude of skills, competences and knowledge. It is sometimes argued by laypeople that this is just the production of the output in the target language whereas this is definitely not merely the production of a message in the target language in the oral form. It seems that defining interpreting is a difficult task and  – as in the case of translation  – there are quite many different approaches to the definition of interpreting. Owing to the fact that interpreting studies is a relatively young discipline, until recently it was common to define interpreting with reference to translation, classifying it as a type of translational activity. For instance, while referring to interpreting, Jeremy Munday calls it “oral translation” (2001: 4) and only then does he use the term “interpreting”, Kirsten Malmkjær and Kevin Windle talk about “translating speech” (2011: 3) when discussing different types of interpreting and Daniel Gile (2009:  45) observes that “[w]‌hile most scholars stress that translation and interpreting essentially fulfil the same function – many especially interpreters – consider that the two are very different, even incompatible professions”. The fact that, albeit similar to a certain extent, translation and interpreting differ in quite many aspects can be easily corroborated by different

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translation/interpreting task- and process-oriented approaches that the representatives of both professions need to employ. Additionally, while translators deal with written texts and therefore need to have properly developed writing skills, interpreters work with spoken language and thus have to have properly developed speaking skills. When translators can easily refer to other sources of knowledge during the process of translation (e.g. dictionaries), interpreters do not have time for that while interpreting and that is why they are expected to have prepared for the interpretation before it takes place. Those differences also concern the decision-making process which is inherent in both translation and interpreting  – translators can have some time to think over their translation choices, or even rectify them if there is such a need, whereas interpreters work much faster and their interpreting choices cannot be so easily corrected due to the fact that they are produced “here and now” and thus in the majority of cases the interpreting output is not available later, unlike the translation which can be accessed any time. What is more, as is shown in the further parts of this study, translators and interpreters need to have different sets of skills, competences and knowledge. The fact that sometimes interpreting is approximated to translation in terms of the definitions is additionally supported by the terminology used in various languages. On the one hand, there are languages in which those two activities and their practitioners are referred to by separate names (e.g. in English: “interpreting” and “interpreter” vs. “translation” and “translator”, in Spanish: “interpretación” and “intérprete” vs. “traducción” and “traductor”). However, in some languages this distinction is not so obvious as, for instance, in French, there is the general term “traduction”, used at times as a hyperonym, and to distinguish interpreting from translation, the following terms need to be used: “interprétation” and “interprète” vs. “traduction” and “traducteur/traductrice”. Similarly, in German there is also the general term which may refer to both translation and interpreting. However, the word “Übersetzung” usually means “translation” (“Übersetzer” – “translator”) whereas the word “dolmetschen” means “to interpret” (“Dolmetscher”  – “interpreter”). As far as such languages as, for example, Polish or Russian are concerned, the type of translational activity is specified by adding the adjective standing for either “oral” or “written” because the Polish term “tłumaczenie” or the Russian word “перевод” are rather general and most often they mean written translation (in Polish: “tłumaczenie ustne” and “tłumacz ustny” vs. “tłumaczenie pisemne” and “tłumacz pisemny”, in Russian: “устный перевод” and “устный переводчик” vs. “письменный перевод” and “письменный переводчик”). Franz Pöchhacker, a renowned and widely cited professor of interpreting studies working at the University of Vienna whose contributions are included in the most important interpreting studies handbooks and encyclopaedias, in his Introducing Translation Studies (2004: 9) also seems to share the view that translation and interpreting are to some extent similar; he claims that “[i]‌nterpreting is regarded here [in his book] as translational activity, as a special form of “Translation””. Indeed, interpreting is a special form of translation and what distinguishes it from translation proper, i.e. written, is among other features

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presented above, the channel, via which the input message is transformed into the output message. When making an attempt at defining interpreting, Pöchhacker rightly observes that one of the most prominent properties of interpreting which distinguishes it from other translational activities is its immediacy as “(…) in principle, interpreting is performed “here and now” for the benefit of people who want to engage in communication across barriers of language and culture” (Pöchhacker 2004:  10). Thus, from the above quotation, it might be concluded that interpreting is a temporary linguistic activity which involves the transfer of information from one language into another by means of the oral communication channel. However, this definition seems to be reductionist in nature and rather one-faceted because it does not shed light on the high complexity of the nature of interpreting (nor does it include sign interpreting1). This drawback is also noticed by Pöchhacker who discusses a number of other approaches to the definition of interpreting, claiming that: “interpreting” need not necessarily be equated with “oral translation” or, more precisely, with the “oral rendering of spoken messages”. Doing so would exclude interpreting in signed (rather than spoken) languages (…) from our purview, and would make it difficult to account for the less typical manifestations of interpreting (…). (Pöchhacker 2004: 10)

Apart from the above-discussed definition, Pöchhacker (2011a:  9) has also characterised interpreting more comprehensively, stating the following: By definition, then, interpreting can be seen as a function between socio-cultural entities and a distinct professional profile and a service rendered in an institutional context and a set of interactional behaviors and a text comprehension and production task and a cognitive processing skill and a unique pattern of neurophysiological activity, and as such it eludes any single or uniform research model.

The above approach shows interpreting from the angle of interpreting research, stressing its various aspects, functions, contexts or participants that are subject to scientific inquiry in interpreting studies. Moreover, this definition also highlights the complex nature of interpreting, both from the social, cultural, professional, institutional or cognitive and neuropsychological points of view. Immediacy inherent in interpreting (i.e. time factor (Schäffner 2004:  1)), to which Pöchhacker referred in one of the previously presented definitions, is also stressed in the criteria distinguishing interpreting from other types of translation elaborated by Otto Kade (1968), a German interpreter and interpreting scholar, who

1 This book intentionally makes very limited (if any) reference to sign interpreting since the basis for the empirical part is spoken language interpretation material and not sign language material. Therefore, although when discussing interpreting at large, some scholars do discuss various aspects of sign interpreting as relevant to the general theory of interpreting, this practice is not maintained here.

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views interpreting as a type of translational activity meeting two criteria: (a) the input message is delivered once only with no possibility of reviewing or replaying it; (b) the output message is generated in time-limited circumstances, thus allowing for no/little correction. Accordingly, the availability of both the source and target message is limited in time. Those two criteria can also be met by sign interpreting. Commenting on this approach to interpreting, Pöchhacker says that: his [Kade’s] definition elegantly accommodates interpreting from, into or between signed languages and also accounts for such variants of interpreting as “sight translation” (…), “live subtitling” or even the on-line (written) translation of Internet chats. This vindicated the general characterization of interpreting as immediate type of translational activity, performed “in real times” for immediate use. (Pöchhacker 2004: 11)

Having those two criteria in mind, Pöchhacker (2004: 11) offers another definition of interpreting which holds that: “[i]‌nterpreting is a form of Translation in which a first and final rendition in another language is produced on the basis of a one-time presentation of an utterance in source language”. This approach strictly relies on the immediacy of input delivery and output generation. However, for this study, this definition, albeit interesting and not so much reductionist, is still insufficient as it does not cover the entire complexity of interpreting. Perhaps one of the first scholars to notice the complexity of interpreting was David Gerver who observed that interpreting is “a form of complex human information processing involving the perception, storage, retrieval, transformation, and transmission of verbal information” (1975:  119). This view, as claimed by Pöchhacker (2005: 684), “did much to establish the view of interpreting” and that “[it] is widely held in the interpreting (research) community to this day”. A more extensive definition of interpreting has been offered by James Nolan (2012: xi) who stated that: Interpretation can be defined in a nutshell as conveying understanding. Its value stems from the fact that a speaker’s meaning is best expressed in his or her native language but is best understood in the languages of the listeners. In the art of interpretation several complex interrelated processes make it possible to convey the semantic and emotive contents of a message from one language and culture into another. The complex interaction of these processes and the difficulty of coordinating them simultaneously in the oral/aural mode require alertness, sensitivity, intense concentration and mental agility.

This definition offers a broader look at the complexity of interpreting, stressing that a number of simultaneously occurring processes are involved in this activity. Thus, interpreting is viewed by Nolan as a multi-faceted activity requiring much more than just language and transfer skills. Given the above definitions and approaches, interpreting is viewed throughout this book as a complex mental activity, involving the linguistic, pragmatic, communicative, cognitive and psycho-affective processes, whose core is the linguistic transfer of meaning from one language (i.e. the source language) received in the

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form of an aural input into another language (i.e. the target language) generated in the form of an oral output, characterised by its immediacy, occurring in specific settings and under specific conditions. This definition is, arguably, more comprehensive as it refers to many characteristic features of this type of linguistic activity. First of all, it stresses that interpreters are involved in interpreting at several levels: at the linguistic level, because they have to operate their language competence and performance first to aurally comprehend the input, then to process it and finally to orally generate the output. This linguistic level thus encompasses the receptive skills in the source language necessary for input reception, the interpretative skills in one of the languages or in both of them (as professional practice shows, some interpreters process the input in their native (i.e. first, A) language whereas others prefer to do it in their foreign (i.e. second, B) language) used for input interpretation and processing and productive skills needed for generating the output orally in the target language. The pragmatic and communicative levels encompass all the pragmatic rules of communication which need to be followed for interpreting to be a successful communication act. In other words, the interpreter who should be familiar with the pragmatic rules of communication of both the source and target languages also adheres to those rules, first when listening to the input (the knowledge of those rules allows him/her to properly comprehend the source message) then processing it (in the processing phase, the interpreter decodes the meaning properly by referring to its embedding in the pragmatic context), and finally generating the oral output (the application of the pragmatic rules of communication in the target language leads to successful communication between the source speaker and the target audience). The cognitive level of the process of interpreting is related basically to processing which in turn is linked to such aspects as memory or retention while the psycho-affective one – to the interpreter’s experience of various feelings, emotions and attitudes towards the interpreter himself/herself, the participants and other elements of the interpreting process. As aforementioned, the core of interpreting is the linguistic transfer, which should be understood as the performance of the basic function of interpreting – conveying the message meaning. One of the characteristic features of interpreting is that is occurs immediately. Thus, immediacy needs to be an important element of the definition. What is more, the external factors such as the setting in which the interpreting activity is pursued and specific conditions (e.g. in the booth, in the case of conference interpreting) also matter. As emerges from the above clarification, the above definition also includes, though rather implicitly than explicitly, the fact that interpreting is actually a translational activity, in which the message meaning is converted from the source language into the target one. This definition is, therefore, adhered to in the remaining parts of the study.

1.2. Typology of interpreting activity All interpreting activities can be subdivided into several categories, depending on the adopted criterion. However, what is shared by all types of interpreting is that

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they are communication acts taking place in “the social context of interaction” (Pöchhacker 2004: 13). Those social contexts can be divided into two types: intersocial (between representatives of different linguistic backgrounds and therefore sharing no language) and intra-social (within a single community, in which a few languages may be in use) (ibid.), both of which form a kind of inter- to intra-social continuum (cf. Pöchhacker 2004:  15). When speaking about the former type of interpreting, Pöchhacker refers to, for instance, business interpreting, diplomatic interpreting or military interpreting as the examples of the inter-social contexts of interpreting because in the majority of cases, the interpreter is employed to enable communication between the speakers of different languages intending to enter into commercial or diplomatic relations or wanting to communicate on warrelated matters (i.e. ceasefire, truce etc.). Court, educational, healthcare interpreting activities are all the examples of intra-social contexts which are present in multilingual communities which strive to provide all their citizens, regardless of what mother tongue they speak, with equal access to their institutions. The intra-social settings also encompass sign language interpreting. The setting which is on the verge between inter- and intra-social is media interpreting (also known as TV or broadcast interpreting) because, as claimed by Pöchhacker (2004: 15), “[it] is essentially designed to make foreign-language broadcasting content accessible to media users within the socio-cultural community”. For instance, an English-speaking guest appearing in a broadcast on Polish TV is interpreted into Polish so that the Polish audience could understand the guest. Thus, those two social dimensions can be observed here: the inter-social setting (the foreign guest’s utterances are interpreted into the community’s native language) and the intra-social setting (a given TV channel broadcasts in a language known by the socio-cultural community). Consequently, media interpreting constitutes “a hybrid form on the inter- to intra-social continuum” (ibid.). The division into the inter- and intra-social settings can be regarded as the background of the further typological classifications of interpreting into several categories, with clearer typological criteria. The next sections present the typologies of interpreting activities with reference to some of the criteria used by Pöchhacker (2004). They involve the following: working mode, directionality, channel (i.e. technology) and professional status. One more category is added – setting – which pertains to a variety of intra- and inter-social contexts, in which interpreting is practised. Pöchhacker (ibid.) also speaks about language modality but because of the fact that this study is concerned with spoken language interpreting rather than sign language interpreting or tactile interpreting, this typology is skipped here.

1.2.1. Typology of interpreting working modes The type of a working mode is perhaps the most common criterion invoked in discussions about interpreting. As mentioned by Pöchhacker (2004), this classification was not present before the 1920s since it is then that there was a

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need to name a new working mode of interpreting, i.e. simultaneous interpreting2. Before that time, all interpreting was consecutive in nature. Before the discussion of the types of interpreting working modes, let us take a look at the term “working mode”. In this study, this term should be understood as a manner of rendering spoken language interpreting, in which there is a spoken (or written, as in the case of sight translation) source message in the source language and the spoken target rendering of the original message in the target language. Arguably, the clarification of this term is vital as it may be understood in at least two ways. First of all, some scholars, for instance, Pöchhacker (2004), claim that “language modality” refers to the type of languages which are interpreted from and into. Thus, there is the distinction between “spoken language”, “sign language” and “tactile interpreting”. Others, for example, Renée Jourdenais and Holly Mikkelson (2015: 3), speak about “modalities of interpreting”, among which there are consecutive interpreting, simultaneous interpreting, sign language interpreting or sight translation. The first type of interpreting which can be distinguished in this typology is consecutive interpreting. Generally speaking, consecutive interpreting is rendered after the original message in the source language is spoken by the speaker who then pauses his/her speech for the interpreter to interpret the already delivered original fragment or when the interpreter waits for the speaker to finish the utterance or some portion of it, takes notes and then delivers the output in the target language. To put it differently, consecutive interpreting often requires “(…) interpreters to take notes during the delivery of a speech in order to reconstitute it in a different language once the speaker had finished” (Seeber 2015a: 79). This is also what emerges from the description of consecutive interpreting provided on the website of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC). It is stated that: [In consecutive interpreting] the interpreter is in the same room as the speaker and follows their speech while taking notes before presenting their interpretation. Very

2 Some scholars claim that the beginnings of simultaneous interpreting, in the form known today, are directly linked to the Nurnberg Trials, during which this type of interpreting was allegedly used for the very first time. However, what is known today is that simultaneous interpreting was practised before but such information is scanty and inconsistent (Flerov 2013). The special equipment to interpret the live speech simultaneously was used for the first time by Edward Filene and A. Gordon-Finlay (e.g. ibid., Seeber 2015a) during a session of the League of Nations on 02 April 1925. Theirs was a system using the telephone connection (and therefore it was called “telephonic interpretation”) which was later known as “the Filene-Finlay simultaneous translator” (Flerov 2013) or “Filene-Finlay Speech Translator” (Kalina and Ziegler 2015). The opinion that simultaneous interpreting was used for the first time during the Nurnberg Trials in 1945 probably results from the fact that those trials were televised and therefore simultaneous interpreting was made visible to a wider audience for the very first time.

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Interpreting in scholarly frameworks long speeches may be broken up into parts, with interpretation after each part, but a trained interpreter is capable of consecutive interpretation of speeches several minutes long. (…) Note taking is an essential part of consecutive interpreting. It involves committing to paper the logic and structure of the statement as an aid to memory, rather than recording everything that is said. (AIIC 2011)3

“Consecutive interpreting” is therefore an umbrella term which covers a few types of interpreting activity. Thus, there is short consecutive interpreting (i.e. “short consec”), during which the interpreter relies on his/her memory and interprets the portions of the original speech, delivered in such a way that after a fragment of the source text, there is the time for interpreting it. The other type of consecutive interpreting is often labelled “classic consecutive interpreting” (i.e. “classic consec”), in which the interpreter takes some notes on what is being uttered in the source language to help him/her deliver the interpretation in the target language. As can be seen, classic consecutive interpreting involves the use of note-taking which is frequently of great help to the interpreter’s memory skills since he/she does not have to memorise minute details mentioned in the source utterance4. The next type of interpreting working mode is simultaneous interpreting. This working mode involves the speaker and the interpreter working simultaneously, which means that the target language interpretation of the original source language utterance is rendered without much delay (there is usually some delay (i.e. time lag, décalage) of a few seconds, allowing the interpreter to receive and process the input and then to produce the output). Although as argued by some scholars, simultaneous interpreting started to be practised in the 1920s and then – to a greater extent – since 1945, this type of interpreting has always been used in interlingual communication in the form of whispering (cf. later in this section). Interestingly enough, in one of the first definitions of simultaneous interpreting, its author – Jean Herbert (1952) who was himself an interpreter – claimed that: (…) simultaneous interpreting included “whispering”, whereby interpreters sitting next to a conference delegate whisper their interpretation to them; “telephonic simultaneous”, whereby interpreters listen to the original through earphones and speak their interpretation into a microphone; and “translation at sight”, whereby interpreters receive text written in one language and read it aloud in a different language (…). (Seeber 2015a: 80)

As emerges from the above-quoted definition, apart from simultaneous interpreting with special equipment, both whispering and sight translation were also regarded as types of simultaneous interpretation. In fact, they are interpreting activities

3 Source: https://aiic.net/p/4005; accessed on: 27 October 2017. 4 Due to the fact that Chapter  2 is dedicated to various aspects of consecutive interpreting, this type of interpreting will be discussed in the further part of the study in more detail.

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which involve the simultaneous linguistic transfer of meaning but due to their specific natures, they have now come to be considered fully-fledged types of interpreting and hence they are discussed separately in the further part of this subchapter. Simultaneous interpreting proper is what the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) describes in the following way: [In simultaneous interpreting] [t]‌he interpreter sits in a booth, listens to the speaker in one language through headphones, and immediately speaks their interpretation into a microphone in another language. The interpreting equipment transmits the interpretation to the headphones of listeners in the meeting room. (…) Simultaneous interpretation requires a high level of concentration, since the interpreter is doing several things at once: listening and speaking, analysing the structure of what is being said in order to present the speaker’s argument, listening to his/her own interpretation to check for slips of the tongue. Interpreters therefore take turns of about 30 minutes. (AIIC 2011)

What the above-quoted description stresses is that simultaneous interpreting, practised most often during conferences in an interpreting booth, with special equipment (headphones, microphone), is a highly complex mental activity, during which several important processes interact and occur simultaneously. The input reception (i.e. listening) and processing (also known as understanding and conversion (Herbert 1952) or comprehension and deverbalisation (Seleskovitch and Lederer (1984)) proceed at a fast pace and are immediately followed by output production (also known as delivery (Herbert 1952) or expression (Seleskovitch and Lederer (1984)). This process is not possible without the interpreter’s cognitive and psycho-affective skills related to concentration, memory, stress resistance, self-esteem, language competence, performance awareness etc. Simultaneous interpreting is quite often said to be the most difficult type of interpreting since, as rightly observed by Seeber (2015a: 82) “(…) we now have evidence suggesting that it is the real-time combination of structurally similar tasks (e.g., language comprehension and language production) that makes their execution more difficult, since they draw upon the same mental resources and thus interfere with each other (…)”. What is more, the interpreter’s fatigue which appears after something like half an hour of continuous simultaneous interpretation may contribute to the decreased quality of the output. As above-mentioned, simultaneous interpreting is practised with the use of special equipment and, more and more frequently, technology. A  typical, modern-day interpreter’s workplace includes a soundproof booth, which does not allow the extraneous sounds to distract the interpreter, headphones and a microphone. Nowadays, professional simultaneous interpreters oftentimes use portable computers or tablets within the booths as those devices help them to have access to information which may be of use. What is more, in big international institutions (e.g. the European Parliament), interpreting booths are also equipped with video monitors, thanks to which interpreters can see the speakers they interpret. Thus, interpreters are given additional visual clues

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aiding their interpreting. The fact that technology is nowadays an inseparable part of simultaneous interpreting is corroborated by the adoption of two ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) norms (ISO 2603 and ISO 4043) regarding the location, building standards, booth interior and interpreter’s facilities which built-in and mobile interpreting5 booths need to have (cf. Seeber 2015a; ISO 2017). Another working mode of interpreting is represented by whispering, also known as whispered interpreting, whispering or chuchotage. This is, in fact, a subtype of the simultaneous working mode but what differs it from simultaneous interpreting proper (i.e. with the equipment and in a booth) is that there are no special interpreting paraphernalia and the interpreter sits next to the listeners and provides interpretation for them. As observed, among others, by Pöchhacker (2004), this is not really whispering in its literal meaning but rather it is speaking sotto voce, i.e. in a low voice. What is more, sometimes it is claimed that this is rather a “primitive” form of interpreting which may be of use only in the situation in which there are few listeners (one or two) (cf. Pöchhacker 2004). The next working mode which needs to be discussed here is sight translation/ interpreting, also known as a vista translation/interpreting. However, it seems that classifying this type of translation/interpreting activity has proved to be difficult and that is why some scholars – because of the visual (i.e. written) input – classified it as translation (e.g. Lambert 1988) whereas others – focusing on the oral output – saw this activity as a type of interpreting (e.g. Gile 1995, Żmudzki 2015). What is certain, however, is that this translation/interpreting is definitely different from both consecutive and simultaneous interpreting in the input form because it is a written text so the input is visual (unlike in consecutive or simultaneous interpreting, in which the input is auditory), which is rendered orally by the interpreter. Because of the different input and output channels (i.e. visual input vs. auditory output), it is sometimes classified as a hybrid form in terms of its working mode (cf. Čeňková 2015, Chen 2015). What is more, as rightly observed by Ivana Čeňková (2015: 374): [g]‌iven the real-time processing demands, what is referred to as sight translation is more aptly defined as a form of interpreting and has indeed long been regarded as a form of simultaneous interpreting (…). Therefore, the term “sight interpreting” is much better suited to convey the essence of this mode of interpreting (…).

Some scholars go even further and claim that sight translation/interpreting is neither translation nor interpreting. For example, Monika Płużyczka (2015: 11) is of the opinion that “(…) due to the specific mental processes which occur during sight translation, it cannot be, in my opinion, classified either as interpreting or 5 Simultaneous interpreting with the use of mobile equipment – the interpreter’s headset with a microphone and listeners’ headsets – is sometimes known as bidule (Pöchhacker 2004: 277).

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translation. What is more, it cannot be regarded only as a hybrid set of certain properties of interpreting and of translation”6. Apart from sight translation/interpreting, which – as shown above – is at times classified as a hybrid type, there are also other hybrid forms which combine the elements of consecutive and simultaneous interpreting working modes. One of them is simultaneous-consecutive interpreting (i.e. “sim-consec”). In the past, this type of interpreting was used to provide simultaneously – by means of headsets – consecutive interpreting (Pöchhacker 2004) in two or more target languages. The other hybrid form is consecutive-simultaneous interpreting. As elucidated by Debra Russell and Kayoko Takeda (2015:  104)7, this mode of interpreting entails the simultaneous interpretation of a previously recorded source utterance. In this way, thanks to listening to the original utterance twice, the interpreter has a chance to comprehend the source message better and to render it more accurately. Russell and Takeda (ibid.) state that “(…) the interpretation is almost the same length as the source speech, as it is rendered simultaneously; and there is no need for intensive note-taking, benefiting those who struggle with that skill”. The only problem which they see is the one related to the use of a recorder and its improper functioning. What could be observed from the sketch of the typology of interpreting modes is that the introduction of special equipment and technology made it possible to provide interpretation in real time. This, of course, does not mean that the human effort in the equipment- and technology-aided interpreting has been decreased because the application of special devices, for instance, in simultaneous interpreting requires somewhat different, yet more complex, mental processes, making the effort made during interpretation even more strenuous than in the case of, for example, consecutive interpreting.

1.2.2. Typology of interpreting directionalities Another typology of interpreting is linked to the so-called directionality. “Directionality” should be understood as the direction in which interpreting takes place. To put it differently, it is related to working languages, to what languages are source and target. Although the interpreter should theoretically and ideally be able to understand and speak both working languages perfectly well, it is rarely so because, as observed by the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC), “[i]‌nterpreters are able to express themselves better and more fluently in

6 Translated from Polish by M.W. 7 Although Debra Russell and Kayoko Takeda refer to Pöchhacker’s name of this mode of interpreting – “simultaneous-consecutive (sim-consec)”, it seems that what they discuss is “consecutive-simultaneous” as, according to Pöchhacker (2004: 18), in this type of interpreting, the interpreter uses “(…) highly portable digital recording and playback equipment”.

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some languages than in others” (2012)8. The language which they can speak with fluency is called the interpreter’s active language whereas the one that he/she understands but does not use fluently is his/her passive language (ibid.). However, this seems to be a western tradition view for, as observed by Kilian G.  Seeber (2015a:  84), “[i]n the Soviet Union, (…) simultaneous interpreters worked primarily from their native language, based on the argument that only the native language would enable the interpreter to fully understand every nuance of the input”. The division into active and passive languages invokes the notions of an A  language, B language and C language. This differentiation into the A, B and C languages is applied mostly to interpreting services provided for international organisations like, for instance, the bodies of the European Union or the United Nations. According to the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) (2012)9, A  language is the interpreter’s mother tongue, the one that the interpreter knows best and into which interpretation takes place. Thus, this is the interpreter’s active language. B language is not the interpreter’s native language but he/she can still communicate in it fluently and effortlessly and therefore it is the interpreter’s second active language. This means that interpretation can also proceed into this language. Finally, C language is the interpreter’s passive language, from which he/she interprets as it is mostly the receptive skills in that language that the interpreter has, which means that the interpreter comprehends messages in C language and can render them in his/her A or B language. The fact that professional interpreters work into their active A or B language from their passive C language is well visible during the interpreting sessions taking place in international organisations. However, there might be two situations, in which this looks different. When there is no interpreter of a given language, then what is offered is relay interpreting, i.e. interpreting from the source language into the target language by means of the third language. In the other situation, the interpreter interprets into his/her B language – the interpreter’s foreign language – and this is known as retour interpreting. As rightly observed by Magdalena Bartłomiejczyk (2015: 109): (…) into-B interpreting is often a practical necessity in conference interpreting due to genuine market needs. This is especially visible in the European Union, where some of the newer official languages (e.g. Finnish, Hungarian, Romanian), are very rare as interpreters’ B or C languages.

In interpreting studies, directionality has been quite a controversial issue as some scholars are of the opinion that especially simultaneous interpreting should always proceed from the foreign language into the native one since, otherwise, there might be serious problems with interpreting quality, resulting from, for instance, 8 Source: https://aiic.net/p/4004; accessed on: 21 February 2018. 9 Source: https://aiic.net/p/4004; accessed on: 21 February 2018.

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greater cognitive load or source language interference. Other scholars maintain that comprehending an utterance in the interpreter’s native language makes it easier to render it in a foreign language (cf. ibid.). Summing up, directionality is an important typological criterion observed in quite many professional settings. However, what distorts the “perfect” image of interpreting from the interpreter’s B or C language into the interpreter’s A language is the real market needs which make interpreters take up the tasks of retour interpreting, i.e. into their foreign language(s).

1.2.3. Typology of interpreting channels The modern discussion of interpreting channels refers basically to the use of technology as nowadays it enables the transmission of the input and output not only through the acoustic/auditory channel but through the visual one, as well. Thus, interpreting channels can be subdivided into on-site (or in-situ) interpreting, during which the speaker, listener and interpreter are in the same place, and remote interpreting, during which the participants of the interpreting process are not in the same place. As far as in-situ interpreting is concerned, it differs depending on which mode is used. In whispering interpreting, the speaker, listener and interpreter are relatively close to one another, with the interpreter and listener being in very close proximity due to the character of this mode of interpreting. In consecutive interpreting, all of the participants of the interpreting process can also be relatively close to one another whereas in simultaneous interpreting, this does not have to be so owing to the use of the interpreting booth with specialised equipment, thanks to which the input can be transmitted to the interpreter from some distance. Likewise, the output can be transmitted to the audience thanks to the use of technical devices such as headsets. In remote interpreting, the interpreter is not present in the same place as the speaker and audience are. Instead, he/she may work in a totally different location, providing interpreting services. The basic form of remote interpreting was telephone interpreting, used for the first time by the Department of Immigration in Australia in 1973 (Ozolins 2011). However, due to the fact that nowadays this form of interpreting is also linked to videoconference interpreting, it has been postulated to refer to it as “telephone-based interpreting” – interpreting with the use of a telephone (cf. Kelly and Pöchhacker 2015). Perhaps the most frequent example of telephone interpreting is the one taking place within community interpreting (in the form of consecutively rendered dialogue interpreting)  – in hospitals, outpatients’ clinics, immigration offices etc. Another type of remote interpreting is the above-mentioned videoconference interpreting which was first performed in 1976 in the Paris headquarters of the UNESCO (Braun 2015). Unlike telephonebased interpreting, videoconference interpreting makes use of an additional visual channel, thanks to which the participants not only may listen to what is going on but they may also see it. Along with the development of technology, it has become more and more common to organise video conferences which are interpreted for

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those participants who do not speak the language(s) used. This is perhaps likely to grow in popularity as there are more and more Internet communication programs which allow users located in distant parts of the world to communicate in real time. Larger discussions, involving many speakers, can also take place on such Internet platforms so videoconference interpreting will certainly be used there, as well. Modern advancements in technology have also led to the development of automatic interpreting systems which mechanically recognise and synthesise speech. One of such developments is the Skype Translator, a module offered within the Skype communication system which allows users of different languages to communicate. It interprets a spoken utterance in the source language into a semantically relevant message in the target language in real time. Additionally, the translated message is displayed in the Skype communication window. At present, it can work in eight languages10. Generally speaking, interpreting can be performed either as an on-site activity, which is perhaps still the most common form, or as a remote one. However, there is no doubt that Sylvia Kalina and Klaus Ziegler are right in claiming that: Recent advances in information and communication technology (ICT) are even reshaping interpreting practices in a way that eliminated the needs for an interpreter’s physical presence at a given communicative event, if not doing away with human interpreters altogether (…). (Kalina and Ziegler 2015: 410).

Nevertheless, although expressed nearly fifteen years ago, which  – for modern technology development – is an era-long period, Pöchhacker’s view (2004: 22) that “[w]‌hile such machine interpreting should be within the interpreting scholar’s purview, the prospects for “fully automatic high-quality interpreting” remain doubtful at best” seems justified as it is people who are the best at deciphering the real sense, all the nuances and hidden meanings in the source language and then rendering them in the target language.

1.2.4. Typology of interpreting professional statuses This typology refers not so much to different types of interpreting but rather to different statuses of interpreters, or, in the words of Pöchhacker (2004: 22), “(…) to the level of skill and expertise with which the human agent performs the task [of interpreting]”. Stereotypically, each bilingual person should be able to interpret from and into the languages which make up that person’s bilingualism but in reality it is rarely so especially when bilingualism is understood as being a native speaker of two languages which is tantamount to having a native speaker’s command of both

10 Source:  https://www.skype.com/en/features/skype-translator/; accessed on:  21 February 2018.

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languages as well as understanding the nuances of both languages and cultures. It may be true to some extent that without any prior specialised training, some bilinguals can provide interpreting services of decent quality. What is more, Brian Harris, an interpreter and interpreting trainer as well as a scholar credited for coining the term “translatology” (the study of translation), was of the opinion that all bilingual people can translate but their translation/interpretation should be assessed not in terms of language correctness but in terms of information transfer (Harris 1977). Such interpreting, performed by bilingual interpreters who have not had any prior formal training, may be called non-professional interpreting, natural interpreting, family interpreting, informal interpreting, ad hoc interpreting, language brokering or lay interpreting (cf. Antonini 2015a). In fact, it happens quite often that such natural interpreters make communication between people of different linguistic origins possible by interpreting their conversations. Such cases can be observed, for example, in immigrant families, in which children may interpret for their parents. The interpreting activities performed by children are known collectively as child language brokering (cf. Antonini 2015b). The second category is related to professional interpreters who  – before they start their career as interpreters – undergo specialised training aimed at developing the multi-aspectual interpreting competence (e.g. language skills, interpreting skills, interactional skills, psychological skills etc.). What is more, apart from non-professional and professional interpreters, there are also semi-professional interpreters, among whom might be trainee interpreters who  – along with the development of their skills and expertise  – may ultimately become professional interpreters. As far as the professionalisation of interpreting is concerned, it is linked with five major stages (Wilensky 1964). The first stage entails selecting a given profession and performing it as a full-time job. The second stage is related to formal education in a given field. The third phase proceeds when some professional organisations start to be established. Then follows the legal protection of the profession. The fifth stage is related to developing a certain code of conduct and ethics. In the light of those five aspects, it is undoubtedly true that the present-day interpreting activity has undergone full professionalisation.

1.2.5. Typology of interpreting settings The final typology of interpreting is connected to settings  – places or social contexts, in which interpreting is performed. Two types of settings – inter-social and intra-social – have already been presented in the introduction to this section. All of the settings mentioned below can be defined as belonging to inter-social or intra-social. A few of them, as is shown below, can belong to both. What is more, interpreting activities practised within those spatial and social settings can be of different types. Some of them can be performed consecutively, some of them simultaneously, either as conference interpreting or whispering. Some of them take the form of liaison, dialogue or bilateral interpreting (i.e. non-conference interpreting,

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bi-directional, mostly consecutive, interpreting of a spontaneous face-to-face conversation between two or more people). The first setting which needs a brief mention is perhaps one of the most frequently practised types of interpreting  – business interpreting or interpreting for business. Its name clearly suggests the thematic domain it is used in. It can be practised as simultaneous interpreting, for instance, during business presentations and conferences; as chuchotage or as consecutive interpreting, for example, during business negotiations; as escort interpreting, during informal business receptions (i.e. the interpreter accompanies a businessperson during such events). Another spatial and social context, in which interpreting takes place, is related to international political contacts and diplomacy (i.e. diplomatic interpreting), during which the presence of the interpreter should guarantee the complete understanding of the interacting parties and the transfer of the entire message meanings without any obscurities. Military interpreting, along with interpreting in humanitarian settings can both be classified as interpreting in conflict zones. This again includes various forms and modes of interpreting which – in this case – takes the form of supporting war- or other disaster-affected people by providing them with means of linguistic communication in difficult situations – during war negotiations, talks related to humanitarian aid or talks with immigration officers about asylum etc. Legal, judicial or court interpreting is another spatial and social context, in which interpreting is often required although it is sometimes classified as an example of community interpreting (presented below). This type of interpreting requires special skills and expertise. In some countries, for instance, in England, there are special codes of conduct, ethics and practice for court interpreters (e.g. the Code of Practice of the Association of Police and Court Interpreters11). Like in business interpreting, courtroom interpreting activities can have different forms: consecutive interpreting, liaison interpreting or sight interpreting/translation. A special category is community interpreting, also known as public service interpreting or cultural interpreting, which is practised in a variety of places and social settings and what unites them is that this type of interpretation “(…) takes place between people who live in the same “community”, society or country but who do not share a common language” (Hale 2015a: 65). Some scholars go even further and are of the opinion that “(…) this is the most common type of interpreting in the world” (Hale 2015a:  66). As said above, all of the interpreting activities which make up community interpreting are performed in intra-social settings, i.e. within a single community. Thus, interpreters are called for help in healthcare institutions (medical or healthcare interpreting), immigration and asylum offices, courts (court interpreting), schools (educational interpreting), churches (religious interpreting) etc. 11 Source:  http://www.apciinterpreters.org.uk/apci_interpreters_code_of_practice. aspx; accessed on: 22 February 2018.

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The list of spatial and social settings in which interpreting is performed could be very long because, actually, any larger thematic domain could be taken as a field for the practice of interpreting. Therefore, as has been shown, the inter-social and intra-social settings constitute an important parameter for another typological classification of interpreting activities.

1.3. Interpreting as a communicative interaction situation/event/act Interpreting is an act of communication involving interaction between several participants who have different roles and functions. The fact that different types of interactions as well as relations are established within the activity of interpreting has drawn the interests of interpreting scholars and this has resulted in the development of several social or relational models of interpreting. However, before taking a look at the selections of those approaches presenting interpreting as communicative and interactive events, let us analyse interpreting from the perspectives of classic models of communication. One of the earliest attempts at capturing communication within the theoretical frameworks was made by Karl Bühler, a German linguist and psychologist, who observed that language is a tool (i.e. organum), by means of which some message, related to some fragments of reality, is sent in the form of some sounds (i.e. through the acoustic channel) from an addresser to an addressee (Bühler 1934/2004). It seems that this model can be easily adopted for the needs of interpreting. Then, as it appears, what can be observed is that there is the reiteration of direct one-phase communication which – in interpreting – becomes two-phased with the interpreter being the intermediary addressee (the person, to whom communication in the source language is directed) and the intermediary addresser (the person who, having converted the source message into the target one, directs it to the final addressee). What is more, in interpreting viewed from such a perspective, there are two organa  – the source and target languages. An important element of this extended model is the fact that the interaction occurring between the participants of this communicative act may be of two types which are united by the figure of the interpreter. The interpreter interacts first with the source message addresser and then with the target message addressee. Unfortunately, this model makes no direct reference to the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity which – as is shown in the further parts of this book – is of significance for the interpreting process. Karl Bühler’s model of communication applied to the process of interpreting is presented in Fig. 1 (see below). A similar model of communication, which can also be applied to the process of interpreting, was devised by Roman Jakobson, a Russian linguist. His model of a speech event includes six basic elements: addresser, context, message, contact, code and addressee and six basic language functions corresponding to those elements (i.e. emotive, referential, poetic, phatic, metalinguistic, conative) (Jakobson 1960). In interpreting, all of those elements can also be identified and some have to be added to better capture the process of interpreting. The message in the source

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Fig. 1: The adaptation of Bühler’s model of communication to interpreting (author’s own concept on the basis of Bühler 2004: 26).

language is generated by an addresser in a certain code (i.e. source language) and under certain circumstances (i.e. context) who  – thanks to the presence of the interpreter understanding both codes (source and target languages) as well as the context, in which this communication act takes place – establishes the contact with the addressee. Thus, again, the interpreter becomes the central figure in this exchange because he/she is the centre of the interaction:  the interpreter first interacts with the addresser to receive the source message and then with the addressee when generating the target utterance. However, this model also fails to capture the interpreter’s psychological aspects which are important in the interpreting process. The graphic representation of the extended model of such interpreter-mediated communication is presented is Fig. 2 (see below). Another model of interpreting as a communication act has been offered by Andrzej Kopczyński, a Polish interpreting scholar. What he observes is that the interpreter is an important participant of the communication act, “a transcoding link” who transfers the source language meaning into the target language meaning, thereby enabling communication between the sender and the hearer. Kopczyński states that: What should be stressed is that an ideal interpreter is a direct participant and an integral part of the communication act. We shall assume that an ideal interpreter replaces the formal and content units of L1 text (T1) by correspondent formal and content units in the L2 text (T2) (…).

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(…) we shall say that the interpreter has a participant function in the communication act because in such a case he almost fully replaces the speaker in that expresses all the nuances of the T1 as well as he can, overriding linguistic and cultural differences. (Kopczyński 1980: 44).

Fig. 2: The extension of Jakobson’s communication act model as applied to interpreting (author’s own concept on the basis of Jakobson 1960: 353).

Of course, Kopczyński is fully aware of the fact that “an ideal interpreter” is only a theoretical construct because it is widely known that due to the fact that the process of interpreting is such a difficult and complex cognitive task, there are some deviations such as omissions, simplifications or additions. Therefore, Kopczyński notices another important function of the interpreter – the observer function which is related to the fact that the interpreter “(…) makes various inferences about T1, making judgements, right or wrong, on what is more and what is less important in T1, and organises T2 in his own way” (Kopczyński 1980: 45). Having this in mind, Kopczyński offers his own model which, arguably, better captures the essence of the interpreting act, in which a number of factors play a role and determine whether the output is understood and, generally speaking, whether communication is successful. From the perspective of this study, of particular importance is the fact that Kopczyński’s model includes the interpreter’s psychological make-up. The adaptation of the model worked out by Andrzej Kopczyński is presented in Fig. 3 (see below). The act of interpreting as viewed by Kopczyński shows the double role of the interpreter  – both as an active participant in the act of communication as well as the observer. The interpreter participates in the act of communication by transcoding the source text into the target text. Thus, it can be stated that this function is linked to the linguistic aspect of communication. At the same time, the observer’s role, as above-mentioned, involves the assessment of what, how and when the sender utters some text as well as of the contextual embedding of the interpreting event. Therefore, this function is linked to the context (i.e. the contextual aspect of communication), in

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Fig. 3: The adaptation of Kopczyński’s model of the interpreting act (author’s own concept on the basis of Kopczyński 1980: 45).

which the interpreting act takes place, which determines the manners, in which the interpreter deals with the source text and transfers it into the target text. What might be considered novel in this model is the above-mentioned reference to the interpreter’s psychological make-up. Kopczyński rightly notices that “(…) the interpreter is a human being with his own, individual psychological makeup (…) and is prone to hesitations, omissions and additions caused by lapses of memory, mismatching etc.” (1980: 45). This observation is essential in the light of the empirical part of this study, in which it is just this sphere, or more precisely – the interpreter’s individual psychoaffective factors conditioning interpreting performance, that is analysed. An interesting set of observations concerning interpreting as a communication situation is provided by Bistra Alexieva (1997) who, while presenting a typology of interpreter-mediated events, refers to a number of the elements constituting the act of interpreting. Generally speaking, she acknowledges that there are: (…) the primary participants (Speaker and Addressee), the secondary participants (Interpreter, Organizer, Moderator), the topic discussed and the way it relates to the communicative context, the type of texts used in the communication, the spatial and temporal specificities of the communication, and the purpose of communication or goals pursued by the participants. (Alexieva 1997: 157)

Among those elements of the interpreting act, in particular between the primary and secondary participants, there occurs a great deal of interaction which involves a large network of different phenomena. Many of them are related to the cultural differences and the procedures of bridging them in the interpreting act. For instance, the aspects of the distance among the speaker, interpreter and addressee, non-verbal communication, the (in)formality of the interpreting act and its setting, turn-taking conventions, cooperation, power relations and statuses of the interpreting act participants etc. all are determined, at least partially, by the cultures

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of the interacting parties. Thus, what Alexieva seems to stress is that interpreting is, in fact, an intercultural act. What is more, she claims that “(…) the more an event is embedded in a particular culture (speaker’s, hearer’s or both), the greater the role of the interpreter as intercultural mediator and “repairer” and the more visible he or she becomes” (Alexieva 1997: 170). Thus, in Alexieva’s approach what comes to the fore is that interpreting interactions are guided by the cultural norms and conventions, which the interpreter as well as other participants of the interpreting act should adhere to to make this communication successful. However, while this model is certainly interesting, it lacks a reference to the fact that in interpreting, the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity also plays a role and can – at least to some extent – condition the success or failure of interpreter-mediated communication. The fact that the act of interpreting is an act of communication in which there is some interaction between the participants of this communication event has also been observed by Cecilia Wadensjö (1998) who extended the concept of participation framework developed by Erving Goffman  – a Canadian-American anthropologist and sociologist who was interested, among others, in human interactions. The “participation framework” is a concept used to examine different roles people play during interactions in a specific time and setting and different responsibilities they have in such interactions. Goffman (1981) came up with three basic “production formats” of a speaker: animator (i.e. the person who vocalises some utterance), author (i.e. the person who is the creator of the utterance vocalised by the animator) and principal (i.e. the person who feels that the utterance represents his/her opinions). What is more, Goffman also dealt with the other participant of the interaction – a hearer who can be classified as a ratified participant (i.e. the addressed, the unaddressed and the bystander) or non-ratified participant (i.e. overhearer and eavesdropper). The interpreting act, as viewed from the perspective of Wadensjö (1998), is an interaction, in which there are production formats (the speaker’s roles) and the reception formats (the hearer’s roles). She suggests three formats of the hearer: reporter (i.e. the participant with little responsibility for what is said and how the interaction unfolds), recapitulator (i.e. the person with greater responsibility) and responder (i.e. the person who is expected to react to what is said, that is, to assume one of the production formats). Those reception formats can be assigned to the interpreter’s role in a given interpreting act. The primary format which the interpreter can assume in the interpreting situation is perhaps that of a recapitulator since his/her task is to recapitulate in the target language what has been said in the source language. Then, the interpreter adopts one of the production formats, generating the target message, mostly as an animator. Obviously, there might be some situations, in which the other production/reception formats can be applied like, for instance, when the interpreter asks the primary addresser to repeat some utterance. Then he/she is the responder, reacting to what has just been said, and principal, asking his/her own question. It seems that the participation framework developed by Cecilia Wadensjö (1998) on the basis of the original concept of Erving Goffman (1981), can prove quite useful in analysing the interpreting act as a communicative interaction event,

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in which all participants, including the interpreter, can perform different roles. However, like the majority of the previously discussed models, it seems not to take heed of the interpreter’s psycho-affective factors which at times may determine the manner, in which the interpreter assumes different roles as well as the quality of interpreting performance. Another interesting model of the interpreting act as a communicative interaction situation has been presented by Franz Pöchhacker (2005). In his “interactant model of the situation”, he adopts the concept of “perspective”, claiming that the perspective should be understood as a subjective view of the interpreting situation, during which the interactants (i.e. the parties involved) have their own subjective assessment of what is going on in a given event. This is supplemented with the interactants’ emotionality and intentions (i.e. orientation) as well as their cultural and cognitive experience (i.e. horizon), shaped by a person’s social and cultural backgrounds which, along with that person’s knowledge, is said to form that person’s socio-culture. In the act of interpreting, the interacting parties take up different roles, depending on other elements of the interpreting situation, in particular on other participants and their expectations which are also shaped by those other participants’ perspectives. Thus, the interactant model of the situation is composed of at least three interactants (two primary participants – the addresser and the addressee, and one secondary one – the interpreter) who – within the act of interpreting – are dynamically involved in a variety of communicative behaviours determined by the communicative event. As above-mentioned, orientation includes the interactants’ emotionality so, therefore, in a way, this model refers to some aspects of the interactants’ psycho-affectivity. A typical graphic representation of a participant of the Pöchhacker’s interactant model of the interpreting situation is presented in Fig. 4. The other interacting parties correspond to the same graphic

Fig. 4: A fragment of Pöchhacker’s interactant model of the interpreting situation (source: Pöchhacker 2005: 689).

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representation and therefore the same fragment can be multiplied for each of the interpreting event participant. In general, the model of interpreting as a communicative interaction situation offered by Pöchhacker seems to combine cognitive and social aspects of the interacting parties who engage in the communicative interaction with all their socio-cultural backgrounds (horizon), emotional attitudes (orientation) and subjective judgments (assessment). As such, it shows that interpreting is a dynamic activity, during which the primary and secondary participants assume different roles and manifest different communicative behaviours which are shaped by, among others, the goal of such communication. The presentation of interpreting as a communicative interaction act cannot omit the issue of the interpreter’s (in)visibility. The concept of invisibility was first applied in translation studies by Lawrence Venuti (1995), who was of the opinion that a translation should be devoid of any signs of it being a translation and instead, it ought to be transparent. Then, the concept was borrowed by interpreting scholars who have deliberated on whether the interpreter should be merely a channel, through which the source utterance goes and is transformed into the target output, or whether the interpreter can actively participate in the interaction by contributing to the construction of the output meaning. For instance, according to the proponents of the Interpretive Theory, which holds that interpreting consists of three major phases  – understanding the sense, deverbalisation of the sense (i.e. processing the sense) and reformulation (i.e. rendering the sense in the form of the output), the interpreter should only convey the meaning of the original and therefore be invisible. However, as interpreting practice shows, this is rarely possible because interpreters usually actively participate in the communication acts shaping the target meaning. Thus, the interpreter’s invisibility may be regarded as a theoretical construct or, as Claudia V. Angelelli (2015: 215) calls it, “the myth of invisibility”. Instead, it is perhaps more justified to talk about the interpreter’s accuracy, faithfulness, impartiality or neutrality which are often referred to in various codes of interpreters’ ethics and guidelines of professional conduct. Though it is still rather imprecise, accurate interpreting can be defined as the interpretation that achieves the communicative effect which is equivalent to the effect the original message in the source language would have on the source language speakers (Seleskovitch 1968). Faithful interpretation can also be defined with reference to the communicative effect as the one carrying the meaning, intent, tone and expression of the original utterance. Impartiality and neutrality are often defined together as the interpreter’s ability to abstain from letting his/her opinions, values and beliefs influence the content and form of the oral rendering of the original meaning. This is also related to treating all participants of the interpreting act equally without showing any bias or without favouring one party over another (cf. Prunč and Setton 2015). However, in real-life circumstances, all of those properties might be sometimes difficult to abide by. For instance, in business interpreting, as rightly observed by Uldis Ozolins (2015), interpreters become partial and show loyalty to one of the parties, usually the one hiring them. What is more, Ozolins

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notices that “[p]‌articipants in business encounters are very concerned with the building of rapport and interpersonal relations as well as technical matters, and interpreters are vitally involved in building this rapport (…)” (2015: 327). In other words, interpreters actively interact, mostly for the benefit of their employers, to create a good atmosphere which will eventually lead to a deal with the other party, with whom the interpreter’s employer contacts through the mediation of the interpreter. In this, partiality and loyalty towards one of the primary participants are well visible and so is the interpreter. Another example of the interpreters who abandon their impartiality and neutrality and become visible is provided by Moira Inghilleri (2012) who states that sometimes military interpreters shift from being neutral and impartial “linguistic converters” into military-dependent conduits who start to engage in many more tasks other than interpreting such as obtaining some information, explaining some cultural issues etc. Thus, again, in this case, the interpreter is no longer invisible because he/she actively shapes the interaction and its linguistic outcome, i.e. the target output. Generally speaking, there is no doubt that interpreting is a communicative act which relies very heavily on the interaction between its primary participants – the addresser and the addressee – and the interpreter. What is more, the interpreter oftentimes plays an active role in this interaction, influencing in one way or another the final outcome of the communication act although, theoretically and ideally, he/ she should be an invisible, transparent, neutral and impartial linguistic conduit. However, both professional practice and research show that the invisibility of the interpreter is only an idealisation, a theoretical construct which is rarely found in reality, especially if the interpreting act is regarded as an act of interaction, in which the interpreter, a person having their own psychological make-up and emotional orientation, plays a variety of roles, including that of a decision-maker, not only the one of the converter of the source language into the target one.

1.4. Interpreting as a cognitive activity It has already been mentioned that interpreting is also viewed by some scholars as a complex mental activity. This approach to interpreting has resulted in the development of several models, according to which interpreting is presented as a cognitive activity; as an activity occurring in the interpreter’s mind and involving different mental processes taking place on different levels. The cognitive models, derived from cognitive psychology, have been formulated mostly with reference to simultaneous interpreting, in which source utterance comprehension, processing and target utterance production as well as the work of the different types of memory, attention and coordination of all those processes have been analysed and framed in various models. However, none of those model addresses the other side of the interpreter’s psychology – the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity. Perhaps one of the first cognitive models of interpreting was developed by David Gerver (1976) who modelled simultaneous interpreting as a set of operations which are responsible, first of all, for the comprehension and processing of

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the input and, secondly, for the generation of the output. As observed by Barbara Moser-Mercer (1994/2002), this model, along with the one devised by her herself, “(…) built upon the then fairly novel approach to psychological inquiry: the information processing approach” (1994/2002: 149). Gerver’s model is composed of short-term buffer store, which is responsible for the different phases of source utterance processing, long-term memory, output buffer and control. What is interesting, this model includes two buffers, each for a different language (i.e. the source language and the target one), which, as claimed by Šárka Timarová (2008: 12) “(…) is very modern, as it incorporates a fairly recent finding (end of the 1960s) that processing is not confined to a single channel and that information from several sources can be processed in parallel”. This model also accommodates various points, at which the interpreter makes some decisions as to whether to proceed with the next phases of input processing and output generation or to make another attempt at decoding the element of the input or to abandon it. There are some kinds of feedback loops which account for what happens if a given element of the input is discarded or accepted for further processing. Thus, Gerver’s model also pays attention to the monitoring of the output and self-corrections which do occur in simultaneous interpreting. However, as noticed by both MoserMercer (2002: 150) and Pöchhacker (2004: 279), Gerver does not pay much attention to the translation processes, i.e. to the issue of transfer. Nevertheless, his model was one of the first attempts at capturing the cognitive processes occurring in the simultaneous interpreter’s mind although, as stressed by Gerver himself, it should be treated tentatively because, in the course of time and along with the advancement of research, some of its elements “(…) can either be made more explicit or discarded in favour of more likely hypotheses” (1976: 202). As above-mentioned, Barbara Moser-Mercer (1978) has also worked out her own model of cognitive processes. Moser-Mercer views the activity of simultaneous interpreting as a sequence of input processing stages linked to the operation of long-term memory and different kinds of knowledge accumulated therein (e.g. language-related knowledge, general knowledge or contextual knowledge). An interesting aspect of this model is that the “conceptual base” takes part in the activation of some of the elements of the target language output. This model also comprises the decision points, at which input processing may proceed forward or retreat to the previous stage. Another cognitive model worth mentioning is the one developed by Ghelly Chernov (1979/2002), a Russian conference interpreter and interpreting trainer. In his model, he stresses the fact that while processing the input, the interpreter performs the function of expecting new information (i.e. rhematic information) to supplement the information that he/she already knows (i.e. thematic information). Thus, the interpreter focuses on those elements of the input which include new information which is then processed by “probability prediction”, a mechanism which is utilised at different stages of input processing. Likewise, in generating the output, the interpreter uses “the anticipatory synthesis”. Both of those mechanisms are assumed to be working at the same time in simultaneous interpreting.

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Denis Cokely (1992), a sociolinguist and sign language researcher, has also offered his own “sociolinguistically sensitive process model” of interpreting, in which he refers to various factors of sociolinguistic, cultural and psychological nature. He views the interpreting process as a sequence of mental operations (message reception, preliminary processing, short-term memory retention, semantic intent realisation, semantic equivalent determination, syntactic message formulation and message production (ibid.)), which are influenced by the above-mentioned factors. What is interesting, Cokely pays much attention to different types of knowledge stored in long-term memory which also play a role in interpreting. Marianne Lederer, a French interpreting scholar, came up with her own model of interpreting, in which she distinguishes eight mental operations (listening, language comprehension, conceptualisation, expression, situation awareness, selfmonitoring, transcoding and retrieval of some lexical items) (1981) which occur thanks to the operation of working memory12 and long-term memory. She applied the Interpretive Theory, according to which the activity of interpreting can be divided into three general phases: comprehension, deverbalisation and reformulation. Pöchhacker (2004: 98) is of the opinion that “her model of the interpreting process and its main components is rather holistic”. Similarly, Hella Kirchoff’s (1976/2002) multi-phase model is also more comprehensive and encompasses four main operations – decoding, recording, production and monitoring. Kirchoff observes that her model serves to explain certain psychological processing difficulties which might be termed as “cognitive load” or “processing capacity”. In other words, she argues that the human mind can perform several operations at the same time but their number is not infinite as is the amount of information available for processing. Thus, she contends that sometimes the interpreting output may not be perfect because of the fact that the number of cognitive decisions which the interpreter is made to make while interpreting exceeds that interpreter’s processing capacity. The concepts of cognitive load and processing capacity have laid foundations for Daniel Gile’s effort models13 (e.g. Gile 2009). Generally speaking, Gile assumes that the interpreter has a limited amount of processing capacity and that particular tasks of the interpreting activity (listening/analysis, production, memory, coordination) cannot exceed that processing capacity. Firstly developed for simultaneous interpreting, Gile’s effort models can also account for consecutive interpreting or 12 In interpreting studies, working memory is “(…) a cognitive mechanism responsible for short-term storage, maintenance and processing of information, and for executive control of cognitive processes” (Timarová 2015a: 443). It should be distinguished from sensory memory (which retains information for less than a second), short-term memory (which stores the information coming from sensory memory for up to half a minute) and long-term memory (which retains information after the information has been learned). 13 The effort model for consecutive interpreting is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 2.

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sight interpreting as well as the difficulties and problematic issues (e.g. the transfer of the source utterance which contains proper names, numerical values) which the interpreter can experience when the sum of the efforts is larger than his/her processing capacity. Another model which is worth presenting here is Robin Setton’s cognitivepragmatic process model of simultaneous interpreting, based on Relevance Theory, which is said to be a combination of other models (Setton 1999). This model assumes that the input, in the acoustic form or/and other form (e.g. gesture), is decoded against the background of the context, with the use of the interpreter’s situation and world knowledge by the mechanism called “Assembler” into particular segments and then – by means of the mechanism known as “Formulator” – formulated into the equivalent segments in the target language. Those processes are controlled and coordinated by “Executive”. Moreover, Setton (2015a: 266) observes that the understanding of processing capacity is slightly different from other models because it “(…) is seen as more elastic than in the Effort Models: with increasing expertise, knowledge schemas and a “bilingual phrasebook” of more or less directly transcodable items free up attention, and problems arise mainly when the process is forced back onto low-level, “bottom-up” operations”. This may indicate that such problems may occur at the initial phases of decoding the input. Another model of interpreting as a cognitive, or rather neurolinguistic, activity was developed by Michel Paradis (1994) who advanced the idea that in simultaneous interpreting at least four independent neuro-functional systems located in the human brain are activated. He is of the opinion that there are separate systems for the source language, for the target language, for the translation from the source language into the target language and for the translation from the target language into the source language. The difficulty of simultaneous interpreting lies then in the attempt at simultaneously activating the two languages. Paradis believes that in simultaneous interpretation, both brain hemispheres are activated:  the left hemisphere is responsible for decoding the source language whereas the right one – for constructing the meaning on the basis of the interpreter’s knowledge, context and extra-linguistic properties of the interpreting situation. This has resulted in Paradis’s dynamic model of simultaneous interpreting with eight procedures which the interpreting process involves:  echoic memory, linguistic decoding, representation of meaning, target language encoding, target language output, own output in echoic memory, linguistic decoding of own output and comparison of the input and own output meanings. This model seems quite complex and its certain aspects, like, for instance, “subset hypothesis” or “activation threshold hypothesis” (Pöchhacker 2004) would probably require more refinement and explication. One more model which deserves attention is the model worked out by Valeria Darò and Franco Fabbro (1994) who present simultaneous interpreting as a process which can proceed in two manners. In their proposal, they seem to disregard other aspects than working memory. Timarová rightly argues that “[a]‌mong the most interesting features of the model is the fact that it is very much in line with

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current thinking about memory systems” (2008: 14). Such memory system can be subdivided into two general systems of working memory and short-term memory. Additionally, in this model, there are two modules, each assigned to translation in only one direction (i.e. L1–L2 and L2–L1). Hence, the elements of the input go through working memory and then they are directed to one of the modules or to long-term memory which supplements the modules with the information needed for the generation of the target language output. On the whole, the above overview of selected cognitive models of interpreting explicitly shows that interpreting, especially its simultaneous mode, for which most of the models have been developed, is a complex mental activity which operates on a number of levels and which activates many cognitive processes. Thus, the definition of interpreting offered in Section 1.1. is well corroborated by the work of those scholars who have tried to conceptualise the process of interpreting in terms of those, sometimes quite multi-faceted and intricate, proposals. However, despite their number, what is visible in those models is that they share certain properties, like, for instance, the role of context and extra-linguistic knowledge, the general fragmentation of interpreting into stages or the role of memory. Another shared property is a visible disregard for psycho-affectivity. Nevertheless, it is perhaps true that no single model of interpreting can fully capture the nature of this activity with all its intricacies and details. Of course, it should also be borne in mind that many of those models are only theoretical concepts which have yet to be tested and verified. The experimental verification of such proposal might be in fact a rather difficult, if ever feasible, task because those models operate on what is not easily accessible – the human mind and the invisible processes occurring there. However, the wealth of those cognitive models illustrates that interpreting studies becomes a truly interdisciplinary field which is informed by other sciences, recently, most prominently by psychology, including cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics.

1.5. Interpreter and interpreter competence It has already been mentioned above that quite many laypeople think that anyone speaking two languages can be an interpreter. Interpreting research as well as professional practice both show that it is not so since a professional interpreter should be equipped with a certain set of skills, competences and knowledge (i.e. the interpreter competence), thanks to which he/she can accurately interpret and perform a variety of roles within the interpreting act. This section presents the issue of the interpreter competence as well as a selection of various roles and functions which the interpreter performs during interpreting.

1.5.1. Interpreter competence While the issue of translator competence is quite often discussed and developed within the frameworks of translation studies, the concept of the interpreter

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competence, also known as the interpreting competence14, has not been given equally much attention within interpreting studies with only several scholars delving into this topic. One of them is Franz Pöchhacker (2004:  166) who sees interpreting competence as “(…) the congruence between task demands (performance standards) and qualifications”. In other words, it is a set of skills, abilities, approaches and knowledge which are necessary for the interpreter to perform the tasks of interpreting well, professionally and ethically. A  similar view has been expressed by Sylvia Kalina (2000: 3) who claims that the interpreter competence encompasses various skills helping interpreters to professionally facilitate communication between people of divergent linguistic backgrounds. In Kalina’s words, “(…) the skills that interpreters have must enable them to provide their services in such a way that participants in a multilingual event who do not speak or understand each other’s language may nevertheless communicate successfully and that no disturbances of proceedings arise from the fact that interpreters are at work”. Kalina also offers her own definition of the interpreting competence. She says that: The competence of a professional interpreter can thus be defined as the competence to process texts within the scope of a bi- or multilingual communication situation with the aim of interlingual mediation. It is also the capability of acting and performing in a situation characterised by externally determined constraints, such as the pressure of time, lack of semantic autonomy and the potential interference between closely connected processes of production and comprehension. (Kalina 2000: 5)

Among the numerous qualities that professionally acting interpreters should demonstrate are cognitive skills (e.g. memory, fast processing), moral and ethical skills (e.g. trustworthiness, tactfulness, discretion), psycho-affective abilities (e.g. stress resistance, self-esteem, motivation), physical properties (e.g. stamina), intellectual characteristics (e.g. intelligence, language command, general knowledge, cultural knowledge, communication knowledge, expertise in a given field) or interpreting skills (e.g. transfer skills, note-taking skills, public-speaking skills) (cf. Gentile, Ozolins, Vasilakakos 1996; Keiser 1978; Kalina 2000; Pöchhacker 2004). Some scholars add some more abilities like, for instance, strategic text processing (Kalina 2000) which encompasses the skills of transferring the input as a socially conditioned interactional act, which represents the addresser’s goals, assumptions and knowledge, which the interpreter may not know, into the output. Thus, what is needed in such interpretation is the strategic processing understood as the skills of deciphering the purpose of the original utterance in order to pass it on to the addressee. To do so, the interpreter has to select proper strategies for bilingual

14 In this study, both of those terms are used interchangeably although some scholars, like, for example, Pöchhacker (2004), distinguish between them. For Pöchhacker, the interpreting competence is related to transfer, linguistic and cultural skills whereas the interpreter competence concerns the professional role that interpreters play in interpreting acts.

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activities – for understanding the input and for generating the output (ibid.) which might be collectively called “mental modelling” (i.e. “(…) segmentation of input, anticipation, inferencing, accessing previously stored knowledge, building relations between stored and new information” (Kalina 2000: 7)). What Kalina also suggests is that there is a need for the interpreter competence model “(…) encompassing the communication situation, the intentions and knowledge bases of the different actors (including the interpreters), and any conditions liable to affect the interpreted event” (Kalina 2002:  123–124). To offer some kind of interpreting quality measurement instrument and, perhaps, to respond to the above-stated need, she puts forward a proposal of the interpreter competence which encompasses a comprehensive set of skills, abilities and knowledge which are needed by the interpreter during the four phases of the interpreting process (i.e. pre-process/upstream, periprocess, in-process, post-process). Among them, she enumerates:  physical and mental properties (i.e. stress resistance, concentration), linguistic and communicative competence, transfer competence, subject knowledge, preparation skills, teamwork skills, sense of professionalism, professional ethics, task-specific abilities (e.g. input comprehension and production, knowledge of terminology used, intercultural knowledge, selection of a task-related interpreting strategy etc.) (Kalina 2002). An interesting and very comprehensive approach to the components of the interpreter competence has been offered by Michaela Albl-Mikasa, an interpreting scholar and trainer affiliated with the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, who, resting on Kalina’s division of the interpreting phases, presents the components of the interpreter competence with reference to each phase. However, she adds one more dimension – the para-process which is related to the business matters surrounding the interpreter profession (Albl-Mikasa 2012). The para-process skills include:  familiarity with business environment, professional norms and standards, willingness to learn all the time and meta-reflection (i.e. reflection on the interpreter’s role(s), skills etc.). In the pre-process phase, the interpreter competence should encompass:  proficiency in the source and target languages, terminology search and management skills, orientation in the topic/domain. In Albl-Mikasa’s model, the peri-process phase is related to the following skills: teamwork and cooperation skills, moderate degree of extroversion, professional approach to reality, intuition, some degree of empathy with the speaker(s), sensitivity to the interpreting context, tolerance to pressure or self-confidence. The in-process abilities comprise input comprehension skills, transfer skills and output production skills. Finally, at the last stage, i.e. in the post-process, Albl-Mikasa mentions terminology revision and quality control (Albl-Mikasa 2013). This model, which, as its author claims, “(…) seeks to describe interpreter competence from the vantage point of the interpreter’s living experience (…)” (Albl-Mikasa 2012: 60), presents “(…) a more tangible picture of the professional interpreter’s “haves and musthaves”” (Albl-Mikasa 2012: 61). Discussing her approach to the interpreter competence, Michaela Albl-Mikasa also refers to the temporal dimensions, i.e. when particular components of the overall interpreter competence are developed. She is of the opinion that the

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competence related to the knowledge of languages and general knowledge is acquired during the general education stage. This is then continued at the next stages. In the next phase, i.e. in interpreting training, the interpreting competence proper is built because it is then that trainee interpreters learn how to interpret and how to prepare for interpreting tasks by acquiring the domain knowledge and appropriate terminology. This competence is also further developed when trainee interpreters enter the real-life interpreting service provision sector. At this stage, they develop their business competence, which means that they learn how to act professionally while working as interpreters (Albl-Mikasa 2013). While referring specifically to intercultural competence, Katarzyna Jopkiewicz, a Polish interpreting scholar, also touches upon the issue of the interpreter competence, stressing that a professionally trained interpreter (i.e. interpreter-expert) should be equipped with cultural competence (the profound knowledge of the source and target languages, the ability to notice intercultural differences and to draw proper conclusions manifesting themselves in interpreting practice), textual competence, interpreting skills (listening skills, comprehension skills, memorisation skills, application of interpreting strategies, rhetoric skills), information search skills, familiarity with professional ethics, knowledge of the world and some routines. Although she does not speak directly about certain psychological properties of interpreters, it can be inferred from her argumentation that they are also necessary because she mentions creativity or alertness (Jopkiewicz 2013). Iwona Sikora and Marcin Walczyński present a model of the interpreter competence which is related to the interpreting services provided for and within the institutions of the European Union and therefore they call it “the European Unionrelated model of interpreter competence” (Sikora, Walczyński 2015). Apart from the typical components such as linguistic competence, thematic competence, socio-cultural competence, information-processing competence, interpersonal competence, intrapersonal competence, they add one more dimension – European perspective competence, which is related, as they argue, to “(…) the awareness of the European Union membership, the adherence to the European Union values and traditions, the adherence to the European Union standards of practice and quality norms, the realisation of the role of interpreting and interpreters in the European context” (Sikora, Walczyński 2015: 99–100). One more approach to the skills which interpreters should be equipped with is presented by the National Network for Interpreting – a British organisation of several universities offering programmes in interpreting, which from 2007 to 2013 received funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for English. At present this consortium cooperates with other professional organisations dealing with translation and interpreting. The National Network for Interpreting has devised a very broad “Interpreting Skills Map”15 encapsulating such components of the 15 Source: http://www.nationalnetworkforinterpreting.ac.uk; accessed on: 07 March 2018.

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interpreter competence as research skills, empathy, tact and diplomacy, curiosity, command of the source and target languages, public-speaking skills, the ability to grasp new ideas fast, cultural awareness, analytical skills, stamina, the ability to stay calm under pressure, general knowledge and interest in current matters, the sense of initiative, flexibility/adaptability, note-taking skills, teamwork, professionalism. As can be seen, this list is very long and comprises the majority, if not all, of the necessary qualities of a professional interpreter. Summing up the above-sketched approaches to the interpreter competence, it might be postulated that a well-trained professional interpreter should demonstrate the following sets of skills or subcompetences which – all together – make his/her interpreter competence:  linguistic subcompetence (excellent command of the source and target languages, language comprehension, processing and production skills), interpreting subcompetence (use of appropriate interpreting strategies, transfer skills, interpreting capacity compensation skills), general knowledge subcompetence (the knowledge of the world, i.e. general knowledge), cognitive subcompetence (memory skills, prolonged attention span, retrieval skills, comprehension gap bridging skills), psycho-affective subcompetence (psychological properties such as high self-esteem, self-confidence, strong motivation, strong language ego, extroversion, stress- and tension-resistance, coping tactics skills, the ability to recognise other people’s emotional states and conditions etc.), social subcompetence (team work skills, the ability to cooperate with another interpreter, clients, speakers, the ability to provide constructive non-judgmental feedback etc.), domain-related subcompetence (the knowledge of a given domain, the knowledge of domain terminology), intercultural subcompetence (the knowledge of the source and target language cultures, the knowledge of the differences between cultures and ways of reconciling them), business subcompetence (the knowledge of and adherence to business standards and norms, ways of dealing with clients etc.). A subcompetence which may be thought as of unifying all others is perhaps preparation subcompetence which would include such skills as knowledge collection skills, terminology management skills, cognitive and psychological preparation, the preparation of proper equipment, if such is required, contacting/finding another interpreter for in-booth work etc. It appears that the model presented by Michaela Albl-Mikasa addresses all of those issues and therefore it might be regarded as the one having a great applicative potential for it can be applied to real-life interpreting pursued in the market of interpreting services. What is more, the interpreter competence, defined in this way, can constitute a good point of departure for developing interpreting training curricula.

1.5.2. Interpreter’s roles and functions It has already been argued throughout this chapter that within an act of interpreting, the interpreter is made to assume different roles and perform various functions, depending on different communicative parameters such as the interpreting act participants (e.g. the primary addresser and the secondary addressee), the

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contextual embedding of the interpreting act, the theme of the utterances to be interpreted, the interpreter’s and other participants’ familiarity with the target and source cultures, the participants’ mental and psychological conditions and many more. The variety of the interpreter’s roles and functions is perhaps best visible in community interpreting, during which the interpreter makes it possible for the interacting parties to communicate in specific contextualised settings. In other words, it is during, for instance, immigration office interpreting or medical interpreting that the interpreter’s role is extended beyond the one of a communication facilitator. Such instances show that the postulated invisibility of the interpreter is rather a myth and a theoretical idealisation because sometimes the interpreter aligns, consciously or unconsciously, with one of the parties if he/she sees such a need, thereby making himself/herself visible as a full-fledged participant of the communication act. Various scholars have touched upon the issue of the interpreter’s roles within an interpreting act and, generally speaking, what is prescriptively assumed as a basic role is the already-mentioned role of a communication facilitator, an intermediary, a person who is neutral and who renders faithfully and accurately the words of the interacting parties. What is more, the interpreter’s role has been compared to the machine which only transmits messages (cf. Knapp-Potthoff and Knapp 1986). Such an approach has resulted in referring to the interpreter by means of several metaphors, some of which are quoted by Pöchhacker (2004: 147) – “faithful echo”, “channel”, “conduit”, “switching device”, “transmission belt”, “modem”, “input-output robot”, to mention a few. This, in turn, invokes the issue of the interpreter’s invisibility which, as is sometimes claimed, should be maintained throughout the interpreting act. However, professional practice shows that it is not always so and perhaps one of few contexts in which it can be seen is courtroom interpreting where the interpreter is asked to render literally the source utterance. In other settings, apart from performing the linguistic transfer, the interpreter oftentimes assumes other roles such as that of a culture broker or an advocate who clarifies cultural differences and attempts to support one of the interpreting act participants in the observable power imbalance setting with one party being institutionally stronger than the other. Such cases are observed, among others, in the interpretation provided in the context of healthcare or immigration. Hence, as rightly observed by Sonja Pöllabauer, an Austrian pragmaticist and sociolinguist, “[i]‌nterpreter role constructions oscillate on a continuum between non-involvement and active agency (even intrusiveness)” (2015: 356). This means that on the one side there is the role of a mechanical language conveyor (i.e. the invisible interpreter) and on the other – a fully involved, active, visible participant of the interpreting act – the third party (i.e. the visible interpreter). However, it might be assumed that the majority of the interpreter’s roles can be located somewhere in between those two extremes. What is more, it is also the interpreters themselves who see their role as a visible communication facilitator – a visible intermediary (cf. Angelelli 2001) who – in the course of the interpreting act – performs other functions than merely the oral rendering of the source message in the target language such as the one of

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a person responsible for building trust among the interacting parties or explaining intercultural differences and bridging them. Masaomi Kondo, Helen Tebble et al., interpreting scholars interested in, among others, intercultural communication, go as far as to claim that “the ideal role of the interpreter is to serve not only as a linguistic but also as a cultural mediator” (1997: 158). This view may be further reinforced by the data coming from Pöchhacker’s review of studies on the interpreter’s roles, in which he refers to a number of functions observed by different scholars in different settings (e.g. “institutional helper” – “a pre-diagnostic agent” in an outpatient clinic, “a co-therapist” during a speech therapy session, “a deputy officer” in police interrogations) (Pöchhacker 2004:  152) or from Pöllabauer’s outline, in which she quotes such denominations as “communication facilitator”, “helper”, “advocate”, “bi-cultural expert”, “culture broker”, “intercultural agent”, “cultural mediator” or “conciliator” (Pöllabauer 2015: 356). Thus, as above-stated, the view of the interpreter’s visibility (and not invisibility) is well confirmed by interpreting practice during which interpreters indeed play a number of roles, the most important of which is probably related to transcoding the source message into the target output (i.e. interpreting per se) but other roles are also important for the success of the communication act. An interesting set of different interpreter’s roles is presented by Walczyński (2015a). Looking at interpreting as a socially situated interaction-based activity and adopting a practical perspective, informed by his and fellow interpreters’ experience, he presents a variety of those roles and his classification includes such roles as language converter, message clarifier, culture clarifier, advocate, psychologist, confidant, assistant, problem solver, decision-maker, negotiator and educator (2015a:  325–238). What emerges from the explanation of those roles is that the interpreter is an active participant of the communication act, having the right to intervene if there is such a need. This can be exemplified, for instance, by the roles of a problem solver or decision-maker for it is sometimes the interpreter, as argued by Walczyński (ibid.), who is to make the final decision or solve a given problem. Business interpreters who are occasionally asked by their clients to solve various problems or make decisions for them or community interpreters working in immigration offices, solving the problems of the immigrants or asylum seekers, in whose case they have been called, provide good illustrations of those roles. Additionally, this classification draws attention to the interpreter’s role of a psychologist. Perhaps slightly overgeneralised, this role seems important especially in such settings in which the interpreter, by providing the interpretation services, is faced with his/her clients’ misfortunes and is usually informed about them (as a primary addressee) before he/she passes the information to his/her clients. Realising the burden of such information, the interpreter should be ready to help the clients deal with the emotional states experienced as a result of receiving the news in the target language. Walczyński states that “[t]‌he interpreters’ ability to recognise psychological states is particularly well visible during the interpreting services rendered in hospitals, immigration offices and police stations (…) where misfortunes or even personal tragedies occur on a regular basis” (2015a: 327). One

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more interesting role mentioned above is the one of a confidant, which is related to the interpreter’s access to confidential data and personal information and thus to the trust and confidence placed in the interpreter. Of course, professional practice shows that this may also be related to the question of certain partiality and alignment to the client’s needs. The discussion of the interpreter’s role cannot fail to mention that the interpreting act and the roles played by the interpreter therein may be conditioned by power relations. This means that what can be observed in interpreting is that different participants may have been vested with a different degree of power which may result from one of the three reasons. First of all, there is the power relation of the languages used. Some languages may be more prestigious than the others and therefore, the participants who speak the higher prestige language may be more powerful during an interpreting act. A good case in point is the interpretation provided, for instance, from some small community’s language into English. Obviously, with English being a real lingua franca, those speaking it, including the interpreter, may be thought of a having greater power. Then, there is the institutional character of power, which indicates that in some institutions interpreters may not enjoy great prestige. For example, in the medical setting, the interpreter is not the most important person because such are doctors and then patients. In an immigration office, the asylum seekers’ position is lower than the immigration officers’ one and the interpreter has to assume a role that conciliates between them to render the interpretation properly. However, sometimes interpreters admit that they act more for the benefit of one party, trying to help them, as is illustrated by several quotes of interpreters talking about their alignment with the weaker party, for instance, in the context of immigration office interpreting. As one interpreter admitted, seeing power imbalance, she resorted to “creative interpreting” by adding some information which – while being true and valid – was not really uttered (cf. Inghilleri 2012: 30). In interpreting for business, when a company hires an interpreter, he/she is usually expected to work for the benefit of the employer, i.e. that company, which makes this interpreter align more with the representatives of this entity. Additionally, this imbalance of institutional power is also visible in the fact that interpreters are not paid enough, their prestige is low or that their expertise and skills are at times undermined (cf. Mason 2015). Finally, there is interactional power, in which the interpreter may dominate the encounter because he/she has the bilingual skills and expertise which other participants do not possess. This has its consequences in the role adopted by the interpreter as some kind of interaction controller, encounter manager or communication coordinator who controls turntaking, formulates the output in such a way as to elicit certain responses or point the participants’ attention in a specific direction (cf. ibid.). As has been shown above, the interpreter’s role is not always easy to define for, as professional practice shows, there are actually at least several functions that the interpreter has to fulfil within a single interpreting act. This also corroborates the previously expressed view that interpreting is a complex socially situated interaction-based activity which requires a vast array of skills, subcompetences

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and knowledge from the interpreter and therefore the broadly defined interpreter competence, as presented in the previous section, should refer to a variety of roles which the interpreter has to assume in the course of his/her work. Moreover, it has also been demonstrated that maintaining complete neutrality and impartiality, or – to put it differently – the interpreter’s invisibility, is not really possible since the interpreter is quite frequently an active and full-fledged participant of the interpreting act. Hence, there is no doubt that the interpreter should be perceived as a legitimate communication participant, actively involved in creating, re-creating and co-creating the meaning, in coordinating the communication encounter, in intervening the communication flow when necessary and not as a passive, uninterested, invisible channel, conduit device or robot, as some abovecited metaphors used to describe the interpreter’s roles may suggest.

1.5.3. Interpreter training: aptitude testing, curriculum and assessment The broadly defined interpreter competence and the interpreter’s roles presented above can serve as points of departure for the discussion of selected aspects of interpreter training, also known as interpreting education, interpreter education or interpreting pedagogy. Without an overall aim of such training and its outcome (i.e. “producing” a well-educated, skilled, knowledgeable and competent interpreter ready to assume different roles), it is perhaps impossible to speak about any serious education since considering those two aspects can provide answers to the questions of what kind of professional the training can generate, by what means it can do so and on what conditions. The following issues are addressed in this section, where attention is paid mainly to interpreting aptitude, curriculum development, teaching methods and interpreting quality assessment which form the major conceptual components of interpreter training. The fact that the education of interpreters has finally been given its due attention is visible in the policies of major international organisations which make extensive use of interpreting services. Among them are the European Union and the United Nations. Thanks to their efforts, there has been an observable increase in the professional education of interpreters. The European Union with its three units providing interpreting services for the European Parliament (i.e. the Directorate-General for Logistics and Interpretation for Conferences), the European Commission (i.e. the Directorate-General for Interpretation) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (i.e. the Interpretation Directorate)16, has done much to improve the standards of interpreter training by setting up various initiatives devoted to the education of interpreters. Among them are different grants awarded to interpreter training institutions, the organisation of conferences on interpreting and interpreting education or the development of training resources which can 16 Source: http://europa.eu/interpretation/index_en.htm; accessed on: 15 March 2018.

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be used by interpreting training institutions. One of the most important projects initiated within the structures of the European Union was the establishment of the consortium of universities providing interpreting training within the frameworks of the postgraduate programme known as the European Masters in Conference Interpreting (EMCI) which at present groups 15 universities17 offering education in the field of conference interpreting18. Those universities, which collectively form the Consortium, had to meet the stringent criteria regarding the admission of candidates, curriculum, assessment and final examinations. Having done so, those higher education intuitions follow the same policies and adhere to the same standards of interpreter education which include, among others, the criteria of admission procedures, candidates’ aptitude testing, the number of teaching hours, the core curriculum components, the length of the entire training, professional practice, instructors’ profiles etc. What is important, the initiative has greatly contributed to the spread of shared good practices which are also implemented at many European universities not participating in the programme. As aforementioned, the United Nations is also engaged in providing support to interpreter training institutions. Its Interpretation Service, functioning within the organisational structure of the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management, offers a postgraduate interpreting training programme at partner universities, in which the United Nations interpreters participate by sharing their expertise, experience and best practices. Moreover, this organisation also offers internships for interpreters who have a chance to work in the real-life conditions of interpreting booths and conference rooms. Thus, they can enrich their professional skills, develop their overall interpreting competence, become familiar with the procedures and standards of interpreting for the United Nations and gain hands-on experience. They are supervised and assessed by professional interpreters with many years of experience in interpreting for the United Nations19. One more noteworthy initiative related to interpreting training is the Chinese programme in translation and interpreting (Master of Translation and Interpreting) established at numerous Chinese universities in 2007. The growing demand for professional interpreters (and translators alike) in China, whose economy is rapidly developing, contributed to the establishment of the degree programme in translator and interpreter education. The universities participating in this scheme have to follow certain policies regarding goals, curriculum, assessment, candidates’ profiles, instructors’ profiles etc. imposed by the China National Committee for

17 The only Polish university belonging to the Consortium is the University of Warsaw which – in its Institute of Applied Linguistics – offers intensive postgraduate studies in conference interpreting. 18 Source: http://www.emcinterpreting.org; accessed on: 15 March 2018. 19 Source:  http://www.un.org/depts/DGACM/interpretation.shtml; accessed on:  15 March 2018.

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Master of Translation and Interpreting Education with a view to maintaining consistency and comparability of the programmes taught (Bao 2015). Apart from the above-mentioned organisations which provide some kind of interpreter education, there are local associations and institutions offering various types of interpreting training, from postgraduate studies and certificate programmes, through non-degree programmes and short crash courses to online webinars. Interestingly enough, they focus not only on providing training for (future) interpreters but also on educating interpreter trainers and instructors. Among such organisations are, for instance, CIT – the Conference of Interpreter Trainers (based in the United States), CIUTI  – Conférence Internationale Permanente d’Instituts Universitaires de Traducteurs et Interprètes (based in Belgium), the International Association of Conference Interpreters (based in Switzerland), AIIC  – the International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (based in Argentina), the National Register of Public Service Interpreters (based in the United Kingdom), the Institute of Translation & Interpreting (based in the United States), EULITA – the European Association for Legal Interpreters and Translators (based in Belgium), the Polish Society of Sworn and Specialized Translators (based in Poland) or the Consortium for Translation Education Research (based in Poland), to name just a few. It has already been stated that one of the issues related to interpreting training is aptitude testing, which is the first step in interpreter education because, as is already known, not every person speaking a foreign language could be an interpreter for there are a myriad of skills, competences and predispositions that such a person should demonstrate. Aptitude testing, as defined by Mariachiara Russo (2014: 8), is “(…) an overall term encompassing abilities, skills and personal traits deemed necessary (according to common sense) or reliable predictors (according to scientific research) of successful interpreting training”. Thus, an aptitude test allows to screen those candidates who represent the abilities which can be further developed and perfected in the course of interpreting education, i.e. linguistic and communicative skills, general and specialised knowledge, cognitive skills, personality characteristics, physical properties (i.e. stamina and stress tolerance) or voice quality. To put it differently, aptitude testing should have a predictive value and therefore it ought to be possible to predict whether a given candidate will successfully develop into a professional interpreter. This, in turn, is related to whether the candidate is teachable and will be able to learn how to interpret. What is interesting, when discussing aptitude testing, Šárka Timarová (2015b: 17) mentions the time factor, defining it as “the time needed for acquiring the skill”. This means that candidates should also be tested in terms of their learning capabilities as they may be expected to develop the full interpreter competence in a relatively short period. Most aptitude tests are rather complex assessment instruments, in which it is sometimes quite difficult to see the connection between a given test assignment and the type of skills it has to examine (ibid.). Such tests can have different forms, depending on what kind of interpreting course the candidate is to pursue and can test different areas (cf. Russo 2014). As observed by Pöchhacker (2004), the aptitude

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test for a conference interpreting course may centre more around checking the candidates’ language proficiency and competence whereas the one for a community interpreting programme might focus on examining the candidates’ social and interactional skills as well as attitude. Thus, the aptitude test may be composed of comprehension and analysis tasks which examine the candidates’ languagerelated skills or general communicative exercises testing the candidates’ general knowledge and communicative skills. However, due to the subjective and unreliable character of such tests, they have drawn some criticism as have the aptitude tests which contain typically translational assignments. Assessing the candidates’ abilities on the basis of a translation test, during which they are to perform written translation or sight translation, has been viewed as lacking validity and not really credible. Additionally, aptitude testing focusing solely on personality qualities has again turned out to be rather fruitless in assessing the candidates’ interpreting abilities. The psychometric tests which evaluated the candidates’ fluency, comprehension and rendering skills have also been used and in this case, their validity and predictive value for the successful acquisition of interpreting skills were greater (cf. ibid.). Other types of aptitude tests were applied by, for instance, Barbara MoserMercer (1985) who organised a several-week-long single-language screening programme, during which the candidates were given some tasks (e.g. shadowing, paraphrasing, dual-tasking). The results of how well/badly the candidates did plus their language skills, stress tolerance etc. formed the basis for the final assessment of their interpreting aptitude. Nevertheless, some studies (cf. Timarová and Ungoed-Thomas 2008) have shown that the predictive value of aptitude tests should be treated with caution since it turned out that quite many candidates who did badly at such tests managed to complete their interpreter training. Timarová adds (2015b: 18) that “(…) the predictive component of admission testing is rather weak and may, in fact, screen out potentially successful candidates”. Another crucial problem concerning aptitude tests is that many of them test single skills and not the entirety of the skills, abilities and knowledge which the interpreting training candidates should demonstrate to complete such training successfully. The most common single-skill aptitude tests are those assessing the candidates’ language proficiency and they are quite easy to perform thanks to the use of many language testing instruments; however, it is rather difficult to objectively approach such issues as the candidates’ cognitive skills or psychological properties. This has also been noticed by Franz Pöchhacker who claims that: (…) [a]‌lthough standardized language grades (…) may facilitate screening for linguistic aptitude, interpreting-related entry requirements of a cognitive and affective nature remain difficult to address [and that] (…) personal qualities such as motivation, learning style, and coping with physical as well as emotional stress have not been objectively assessed in entrance examinations to date and may indeed elude any one-time selection procedure. (Pöchhacker 2004: 182)

Generally speaking, aptitude testing is a subfield of interpreter pedagogy studies with more and more contributions from interpreting scholars who design their

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own proposals of such tests and try them out. The fact that this area of inquiry has been firmly grounded within interpreting studies can be confirmed by the growing body of literature on this topic, with the seminal collection of chapters devoted to various aspects of aptitude testing edited by Franz Pöchhacker and Minhua Liu (2014). This volume shows that at present aptitude testing is additionally informed by cognitive sciences and psychology because more and more aptitude tests contain tasks examining the candidates’ soft skills or certain psychological properties which a professional interpreter should have. Another significant issue related to interpreting training is the curriculum  – its design, development and content. The first interpreter education curricula started to be developed for conference interpreting after the Second World War and included five major modules:  area-related courses, multidisciplinary courses, applied linguistics and linguistics courses, practical courses and deontology courses (cf. Arjona 1984). The trainees educated in this way were supposed to be equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to provide conference interpreting services, which were then not so much technology-dependent, in only a selected number of institutions. The upsurge in the interest in interpreter education curriculum observed in the 1980s and 1990s led to a change of how interpreter training was organised. This meant a shift in re-shaping the purpose of interpreter education into more comprehensive than specific. It was also the time that the training of conference interpreters started to be based on the scientific process-oriented approaches (i.e. mostly on behaviourism and cognitive science), according to which an interpreting event is a communication act with certain participants, who – thanks to their cognitive skills – exchange some knowledge by means of a linguistic transfer in the form of the oral rendering of the original utterance. The trainee was then viewed “(…) as a cognitive functioning individual within a social context” (Sawyer 2004: 61). This shift was perhaps also linked to the spreading belief that interpreting is not a gift but rather a learnable skill (cf. Sawyer 2015). Thanks to the scientific approach, the curriculum designers started to view interpreting education as a process. What is more, this contributed to “(…) the breakdown of composite skills into component skills and their subsequent reintegration, as well as the sequencing of learning events according to the difficulty and increasing complexity of tasks” (Sawyer 2004:  73). Additionally, those times saw an interest in community interpreting and therefore community interpreting training programmes were developed to educate professional interpreters who could interpret in such sensitive contexts as immigration or healthcare. What came to the fore was developing a variety of the interpreter’s skills – interpreting skills, linguistic skills, expertise (knowledge), cognitive skills, psychological skills and interactional skills which would meet the market criteria for attention was also paid to the institutional settings and employers of interpreters. The parties involved in developing interpreting education curricula included (and still include) not only those directly interested in pursuing and providing training, i.e. trainees and trainers, respectively, but also other entities like “(…) employer organizations, professional association and other standard-setting

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bodies that provide guidelines” (Sawyer 2015: 96). Even today it is often stressed that the information coming from outside academia  – from professional practice  – can help better organise the content and teaching methods so that graduated interpreters could easily find a job on the demanding interpreting market, having the required expertise and being familiar with the professional reality. Moreover, the establishment of some interpreting programmes, like the alreadydiscussed European Masters in Conference Interpreting, has helped to shape the thematic frameworks of interpreting education. For instance, the curriculum (or rather its frameworks) implemented by the universities belonging to the EMCI programme is composed of the following elements: interpreting theory (i.e. theoretical aspects of interpreting, interpreting research methods, interpreting models etc.), practical interpreting (i.e. preparatory exercises like voice training, public speaking, information management, ethical issues, working conditions etc.), consecutive interpreting (i.e. exercises in sight translation, memory practice, content analysis, summarising, consecutive interpretation without and with note-taking etc.), simultaneous interpreting (i.e. exercises in simultaneous interpretation along with practice of booth work techniques and team interaction) and the knowledge of the European Union and international organisations (i.e. knowledge of how the European Union and other international institutions work, what procedures and processes they use etc.)20. Other programmes have more or less similar elements – linguistic courses, domain-related courses (i.e. law, economics, business, medical issues etc.) socio-cultural background courses, interpreting courses (mostly consecutive interpreting and simultaneous interpreting; sometimes, trainees are also introduced to sight interpreting/translation as the basic form of interpreting, from which the progression to consecutive and simultaneous interpretation starts), profession- and ethics-related courses and at times the courses enriching trainees’ understanding of cognitive and psychological processes (cf. Pöchhacker 2004, Sawyer 2015). What is more, trainees are also given practice in particular settings or domains, in which they may work in the future (e.g. healthcare interpreting or legal interpreting). Notwithstanding the general agreement about the components of interpreting training curriculum, there are still some discussions about which components should prevail. Sawyer observes that: [i]‌n addition to broadening the scope of practice to include a range of settings, a balance must be struck between the role of language-specific and general instruction as well as monologism [the instructor’s voice is the dominant one and] vs. dialogism [both the instructor’s and trainees’ voices are heard] as organizing principles. Most curricula focusing on professional practice include a theory component (…) and the roles of theory and practice must be reconciled, if not integrated. (Sawyer 2015: 99)

As pointed out above, when run by higher education institutions, such programmes, while focusing mainly on practical and professional training, also offer some 20 Source: http://www.emcinterpreting.org/?q=node/13; accessed on: 19 March 2018.

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theoretical courses of academic character. One reason for that may be the fact that the majority of interpreting scholars involved in interpreter training have themselves worked as professional interpreters and the combination of professional and academic expertise allows them to view interpreting more comprehensively. This also shows that professional interpreters, equipped with the knowledge of, for instance, interpreting research methods, may wish to join academia and become interpreting trainers, following what Pöchhacker (2004: 177) calls “(…) a lasting tradition of training by apprenticeship (…)”, in which interpreting instructors, being also professional interpreters, can talk about interpreting not only in terms of theory but also in terms of practice which they know from their experience. What is interesting, while discussing the development of interpreting expertise with reference to interpreting education curriculum, some scholars have adopted the categories which reflect a given state of knowledge and skills. Sawyer (2004) quotes Barbara Moser-Mercer (2000) and Donald C. Kiraly (2000) who have done so and offered the following categories: naïve (no knowledge of interpreting whatsoever), novice (limited knowledge), apprentice (a person undergoing training), journeyman (a person with some experience who can work independently and who is thought of as ready to render interpreting services in the market), expert (a person with much experience who works independently and tackles very effortful and difficult tasks) and master (an expert who can also teach trainees). Additionally, what has been stressed on numerous occasions is that even though the major and best interpreting education programmes are provided in the context of higher education, interpreter training has always relied to a great extent on apprenticeship, which should be understood as the fact that practical skills should prevail over theoretical knowledge. However, this does not mean that such knowledge is in any way neglected or dismissed because, as justly observed by Sawyer (2004: 77), “[t]‌he need for highly developed intellectual skills and a broad education in order to interpret professionally is a received notion in the community of conference interpreters and the Interpreting Studies literature”. Apart from the curriculum content, much of interpreting literature devoted to interpreter education focuses on the organisational issues of such training, which means that such topics as the length, level or format of interpreting training are discussed. At present, it seems that the most common formats of interpreting education are either graduate master’s studies (second-cycle studies) or postgraduate studies (e.g. EMCI). As can be noticed, interpreting education is rarely offered at the lowest level of higher education and this may be in part related to the assumption that prior to interpreting training, candidates should have some background knowledge and skills of a person with higher education since there is no time during the training to develop, for instance, general knowledge of the world or basic linguistic skills. This may also mean that educating interpreters from scratch (without any basic knowledge and rudimentary skills) may not be feasible and is rarely (if ever) practised. One more issue which requires attention in the context of interpreting education is assessment (also oftentimes referred to as evaluation) which is

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inherently linked to any form of training and used for a variety of purposes: for selecting trainee interpreters (e.g. in aptitude testing), for monitoring trainee interpreters’ progress or certifying professional interpreters (Liu 2015a). What is usually assessed during interpreting training is the trainees’ performance quality. Like many concepts discussed within interpreting studies, the term “interpreting quality” is fuzzy and there is no universally accepted definition. Hence, quality may refer to various levels of interpreting performance such as delivery fluency, linguistic correctness, output fidelity, the application of proper interpreting strategies or note-taking techniques, the use of appropriate terminology, working memory, cultural adequacy of the output etc. Such an approach indicates the focus on the form-related criteria but other approaches (e.g. with the use of functional criteria like, for example, the communicative effect or general impression) have also been applied in interpreting assessment (cf. Collados Aís and García Becerra 2015a). However, measuring interpreting quality is often norm-dependent and this means that the adherence to a certain set of (linguistic, pragmatic, cultural etc.) norms is measured and those norms can be imposed either by interpreters or users (i.e. users’ expectation) (Collados Aís and García Becerra 2015b). What should also be stressed here is that interpreting scholars view quality as a complex and dynamic construct, depending on various variables such as the situational embedding, interpreting act participants, the purpose of the interpreter-mediated exchange, to name but a few. Therefore, instead of ideal/ perfect quality, it is perhaps best to speak about optimum quality  – “(…) the weighted sum of informative fidelity and presentation as a function of the nature of the message and the situation” (Collados Aís and García Becerra 2015b: 371). What is more, as rightly observed by Ángela Collados Aís and Olalla García Becerra (2015b: 369): (…) quality is not an unconditional standard that can be met at any time under any circumstances. Rather, the interpreter must reconcile the expectations and demands of often heterogeneous groups and establish priorities in the selection of one or more objectives: fidelity or intelligibility, correct language usage or precision, elegant style or complete transmission of the message (…).

The above-mentioned objectives sometimes function as the assessment criteria applied in interpreter education. However, again, there is no consensus on what parameters should be used to assess quality and a myriad of them have been proposed so far (e.g. native accent, intonation, fluency of delivery, consistency, faithfulness/fidelity, grammaticality, use of appropriate terminology, diction, style, cohesion etc.). Thus, quality is an important issue which interpreting assessment has to intrinsically address. The approach to interpreting assessment has gone through several phases, in which different criteria were used. Andrew Clifford (2005) observes that at first interpreting assessment was based on the output errors. Other approaches involved assessing interpreting performance against such parameters as exception, perfection or fitness for purpose (Grbić 2008) or users’ expectations (Kurz 2001).

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Interpreting assessment, performed as part of interpreter training, can be done in two basic ways:  the formative assessment allows to monitor trainees’ progress during the course; the summative assessment allows to state whether the trainee’s interpreting competence is developed to such an extent that he/she is able to provide high quality interpreting services. Whereas the formative assessment is characteristic of different training phases, during which trainees take the test in order to demonstrate the level of their skills learned and in order to identify the deficient areas which need further improvement (and thus to provide trainers some feedback on their trainees’ competence development), the summative one is usually administered at the end of the course and may be related to some kind of certification and is therefore used by some official bodies examining interpreters like, for instance, the Polish State Examination Board which tests the translators and interpreters wishing to become certified translators/interpreters21, the Australian National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI), the China Accreditation Test for Translators and Interpreters (CATTI) or the American Federal Court Interpreter Certification Examination (FCICE) (cf. Liu 2015b). Another form of assessment is the portfolio-based one, within the frameworks of which trainee interpreters collect their works (e.g. the recordings of their interpreting attempts) in order to document, monitor and self-assess their progress. This can also be used for peer review or for assessment done by the trainer (Pöchhacker 2004). As has been mentioned above, assessment is typically part of training and, as rightly observed by Wu (2013: 15), it “(…) refers to evaluating students’ learning outcomes, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, which normally involves assigning a mark of grade to the students’ performance”. However, to assess and grade trainees’ interpreting performance, trainers have to adopt some criteria. Moreover, interpreting test-takers should deal with relevant interpreting tasks in such a test. For instance, while referring to conference interpreting assessment, Pöchhacker (2004) discusses the task of consecutive interpreting with note-taking as well as the task of booth-based simultaneous interpreting. In community interpreting assessment, trainees are expected to perform sight translation and dialogue/liaison interpreting. In Poland, the aforementioned State Examination Board expects the certified translator/interpreter candidates to perform sight translation (from B language into A language) and consecutive interpreting (from A language into B language). What is interesting, the data concerning the parameters of such tests (i.e. types of assignments) used in different countries are to a great extent dependent on the examining bodies and it might be so that the interpreter, wishing to obtain the certified interpreter status in both countries of his/her A  and B

21 In Poland, the certified translator (i.e. tłumacz przysięgły) performs both translation and interpretation, which means that such a professional integrates both domains. Thus, the candidates must pass both the translation and interpretation tests to be granted the status of a certified translator/interpreter (cf. Chapters 4 and 8).

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languages, has to undergo two different testing procedures, involving different tasks and applying different assessment criteria. However, more data are available on interpreting assessment criteria, which, in quite many cases, include content-related issues, presentation-related aspects or general impression which may indicate a more holistic approach. Fidelity and fluency are often the most important assessment criteria though they are rather blurred measurable constructs since, as argued by Minhua Liu (2015a: 20), “(…) [t]‌hese criteria tend to be merely labelled, but not described, and raters are left to use their own judgment as to what the criteria mean, and to make a rating decision that represents no more than an overall impression of a performance (…)”. This means that examiners are given quite much freedom in using those criteria and this, in turn, may contribute to the lesser reliability of such assessment due to the examiners’ subjectivity. Error analysis (e.g. the search for lexical errors, grammatical errors, equivalence errors etc.) and output properties (e.g. style, delivery fluency, intonation etc.) are also sometimes used as the yardsticks of the interpreter’s performance quality although they seem rather problematic in view of the fact that different interpreters may use different lexical items to express a single concept and all of them can be equally semantically equivalent as well as because of the rather subjective nature of such assessment and examiners’ potentially different approaches to particular types of errors (cf. Liu 2015a, Pöchhacker 2004). Many interpreting assessment instruments rely on some scoring rubrics which are believed to decrease the level of subjectivity22 and increase both reliability and objectivity of such tests. Additionally, such instruments can provide trainee interpreters (and trainers, too) with some constructive feedback about how well/ badly they did in a test and whether their performance could be accepted as a reallife market service. To sum up this section, it is worth stating that the research into interpreter education is still developing, with more and more new insights from other than education fields of science, most prominently from psychology and cognitive science. Interestingly enough, in quite many cases, the point of departure for developing a curriculum is the definition of the interpreter competence which may vary, depending on the type of interpreting performed, training purpose or the adopted role(s) of the interpreter in the interpreting act. Only in such a way is it possible to provide training in the areas which are needed in a particular situational context because it is obvious that the skills and certain personal traits required for conference interpreting may be different from the ones needed for community interpreting. Specifying the components of the interpreter competence can also prove useful in aptitude testing which is often the first stage, at which candidates’ abilities and skills are screened in order to select those trainee interpreters who 22 One of such interpreting quality assessment instruments was developed and used in the three case studies discussed in the further parts of this book. More information about the design of this instrument is provided in Chapter 2.

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demonstrate that they are able to learn the interpreting skills in a given time span and to develop the aforementioned interpreter competence.

1.6. Interpreting studies Although so far much has been said about different concepts, ideas and approaches developed within interpreting studies, there have been no explicit references to interpreting studies as a field of scholarship which has developed from a marginal branch of translation studies into a complex and interdisciplinary field of inquiry. The following sections present the development of interpreting studies, its division into subfields as well as its interdisciplinary character which results from the fact that modern interpreting studies is informed not only by language-related sciences but also by social sciences, including sociology, cognitive sciences or psychology. However, interpreting studies is also shown as a science which contributes, to the extent to which it can, to other fields.

1.6.1. Historical sketch of interpreting studies Interpreting studies is often viewed as part of translation studies for the basic aspect of interpreting is the linguistic transfer of meaning, like in translation. Moreover, it is deeply rooted in translation studies since the first scholars who tackled the issue of interpreting were those affiliated to translation studies. Whereas translation has been studied more extensively for a relatively long period of time, the first serious studies on interpreting were pursued only in the twentieth century. The fuzzy status of interpreting studies within translation studies was aptly characterised by Miriam Shlesinger (1995: 9) who was of the opinion that interpreting studies “(…) is a (sub) discipline in the making within a discipline in the making”, claiming that this field of research is still developing and it may be subsumed under translation studies which itself is a developing research area. Although the above words were written more than twenty years ago, the question of the affinity between interpreting studies and translation studies is still valid. This is evident from the following quote: Both translation studies and interpreting studies have since [Shlesinger wrote her paper] experienced impressive growth and development, and achieved a degree of consolidation and institutional maturity. The issue of their (sub)disciplinary relationship, however, remains:  while it is widely accepted that interpreting studies has a place or “position”, within translation studies (…), the more explicit labelling of the field(s) as “translation and interpreting studies” (e.g. in the names of journals and scholarly associations) gives an impression of distinct identities. Moreover, many indicators of disciplinary status, such as professorships, textbooks, anthologies, doctoral summer schools – and encyclopedias – reinforce a sense of autonomous disciplinarily identity for interpreting studies. (Pöchhacker 2015b: 202)

As emerges from the above-quoted opinion, although it might seem that interpreting studies has achieved the status of an independent discipline, it would be difficult to

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explicitly prove that it is indeed so since both – translation studies and interpreting studies – still share many concepts, methodologies or professional issues (e.g. in Poland a certified translator is also a certified interpreter, having obligatory taken and passed the examination in both translation and interpretation). Therefore, it might be justified to still regard interpreting studies as an important, perhaps semiautonomous, subfield of translation studies. What is more, it might also be good to totally abandon the question of discipline membership since “([n]‌ot only has the field of translation studies been viewed as an “interdiscipline” (…), but research it interpreting studies has also explored so many interdisciplinary boundary areas that the question of working within or between disciplines has lost much of its importance in either field” (Pöchhacker 2015b: 202). The evolution of interpreting research and the delineation of its disciplinary boundaries are, in fact, linked to performing interpreting as a professional activity. Such a view is expressed by, among others, Franz Pöchhacker (2015b: 203) who states that: [t]‌he viability of interpreting studies as a recognized field of academic study therefore depends on a core area that has its basis in interpreting as a profession. Although current definitions of the concept of interpreting do not feature the professional status of the activity as a necessary condition, the evolution of the discipline, and the make-up of the scholarly community sustaining it, highlight the essential role of the profession of interpreting in the discipline of interpreting.

As aforementioned, the development of interpreting studies is strictly connected to the professionalisation of interpreting, with its “turning point” being the Paris Peace Conference held in 1919, during which, instead of random bilingual speakers with no interpreting training, professional interpreters working for the League of Nations were employed (Pöchhacker 2004). Responding to the growing need for professional interpreters, professional interpreting schools, including the ones founded at the universities of Heidelberg, Geneva, Paris or Vienna, were established, thereby contributing to the academisation of the interpreting profession and interpreting research. This was also paired with the foundation of professional organisations such as the aforementioned International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC), which, apart from professional issues like the development of the code of ethics, interpreting standards etc., were also involved in interpreting research. Such university-level interpreting education was, as observed by Pöchhacker (2004:  31), “(…) oriented towards professional practice and guided by academic research”, which means that although stress was put on the practical aspects of interpreter education, attention was also drawn to interpreting research which resulted in a body of literature, including master’s and doctoral dissertations, presenting numerous theoretical concepts, analyses and reflection on various aspects of interpreting. The early interpreting scholars expressed their interest in the interpreter’s skills, competences and abilities. A case in point is Jesús Sanz, a Spain-based psychologist, who in 1931 wrote about interpreting aptitude, cognitive skills and stress. In

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particular, he enumerated numerous aspects which play a role in the interpreter’s performance such as memory, intelligence, concentration, intuition, psychological properties, self-control or confidentiality (cf. Pöchhacker 2015b). However, this paper was not widely known at that time and it would still take approximately thirty years for interpreting research to focus on widely understood cognitive abilities and psycho-affectivity. As argued by Pöchhacker (2004), the first ground-breaking work on interpreting was The Interpreter’s Handbook (Manuel de l’interprète) authored by Jean Herbert (1952), an interpreting trainer and scholar working at the School of Interpreters in Geneva. Primarily of educational character, the study described conference interpreting and provided some guidance on educating such interpreters. This book, as noted by Jesús Baigorri-Jalón (2015: 183), “(…) became a seminal resource not only for his [Herbert’s] students, but for the newly emerging profession worldwide”. Of similar nature was Jean-François Rozan’s book on note-taking techniques in consecutive interpreting (1956) which has ever since been a reference manual in consecutive interpreting training. Another phase of interpreting research development occurred in the 1960s with such figures as Otto Kade, David Gerver or Danica Seleskovitch being its prominent representatives. Otto Kade, sometimes known as a pioneer of German interpreting studies, an interpreting trainer, researcher and later also a professor, working at the University of Leipzig, is credited with developing some preliminary frameworks for studying interpreting (and translation). Albeit the Leipzig School, of which Kade was a member, was primarily involved in translation studies, some papers published by its representatives turned out to be relevant to interpreting studies, as well. A good example is Otto Kade’s 1968 paper on the criteria characterising interpreting (cf. Section 1.1. above). What is more, it is just in the 1960s that the psychological aspects of interpreting again aroused scholars’ interests. Among them were Pierre Oléron and Hubert Nanpon ([1965] 2002), French psychologists, who conducted the first experimental psychological study on décalage in simultaneous interpreting, concluding that this mode of interpreting is a highly complex mental operation (Pöchhacker 2004, Pöchhacker 2015b). Ingrid Kurz completed her study on the acquisition of simultaneous interpreting skills through practice whereas David Gerver tackled the issues of the influence of interpreters’ divided attention, noise and input pace on the memory of interpreters (ibid.). Gerver was also one of the conveners of the international conference entitled “Language Interpretation and Communication” which was held in 1977 in Venice. As observed by Pöchhacker (2004: 34): “[t]‌he proceedings volume of that milestone event (Gerver and Sinaiko 1978), though long out of print, remains one of the richest and most comprehensive collections of papers on interpreting to date and the discipline’s most important “classic””. What is more, this symposium was perhaps the first event of such interdisciplinary character as it was attended by scholars representing many interpreting-related academic disciplines (e.g. linguistics, translation, psychology, sociology, anthropology, psychiatry (Moser-Mercer 2015a)).

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Danica Seleskovitch, an interpreting trainer and scholar, affiliated to the Higher School of Interpreters and Translators (ESIT) of the University of Paris III/Sorbonne Nouvelle and an executive secretary of the International Association of Conference Interpreters for several years, was one of the most prominent representatives of the Paris School of interpreting research, under whom other scholars developed as interpreting researchers (e.g. Marianne Lederer). Seleskovitch, who contributed much to establishing interpreting as an object of scientific inquiry, is also regarded as a key figure in the development of the Interpretive Theory of Translation, also known as the IT paradigm. The members of the Paris School viewed interpreting not as a linguistic transfer, transcoding or conversion but as a knowledge-based process of understanding and then re-expressing the sense of the source utterance (Pöchhacker 2015c). In this way, the core idea of this paradigm was that interpreting is the operation on the sense which the interpreter gets in the course of comprehension and which he/she then deverbalises (re-expresses) thanks to his/ her extensive background knowledge. The Interpretive Theory of Translation was applied mostly to consecutive interpreting and Seleskovitch’s major finding was that even in notes taken by interpreters, it is the sense that is noted and then used as a basis for the deverbalisation phase (Seleskovitch 1975). Marianne Lederer (1981) used the IT paradigm in her study of simultaneous interpreting. The most visible influence which the Paris School exerted on interpreting was seen in interpreter education, especially in the training of conference interpreters. Due to the fact that it was the first attempt at building a scientific paradigm for studying interpreting which gathered a group of interpreting scholars, it is sometimes referred to as “bootstrap paradigm” (Pöchhacker 2004: 69). Interpreting research was also practised in the Soviet Union by what is sometimes called “the Soviet School”. It is occasionally argued that interpreting studies in the Soviet Union developed in a different way since there was a conceptual unity in terminology – the Russian concept of “perevod” referred to both interpreting and translation, making no specific distinction between these two terms (Garbovskiy 2015). The majority of scholars representing the Soviet School focused on translation and interpreting education. For instance, Rurik K. Minyar-Beloruchev (1959), an interpreter and interpreting educator, published a study on interpreting education, in which he distinguished three main phases of interpreting: listening, understanding and retention (ibid.). The major representative of this school  – Ghelly Chernov (1987, 2004), a conference interpreter, interpreting trainer, scholar and professor – carried out studies on anticipation in simultaneous interpreting which culminated in devising a predictive model, in which new information prediction plays a crucial role. Whereas interpreting research in the previous decades manifested some preference for studying conference/simultaneous interpreting, the next decades of the twentieth century brought other types of interpreting to light. For instances, in the 1980s, legal interpreting became an object of scientific inquiry. Due to the influx of non-English-speaking immigrants, scholars also started to research community interpreting practised in different settings. This was followed by studies in natural interpreting done by bilinguals without any interpreting training. What

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could also be observed in the interpreting research of that time is the orientation towards a more scientific study which was represented in various parts of Europe by such scholars as Daniel Gile (France), Andrzej Kopczyński (Poland), Heidemarie Salevsky (Germany), Ivana Čeňková (the Czech Republic) or Barbara Moser-Mercer (Switzerland). An important event, at which it was postulated that interpreting research should be carried out empirically within some firmer frameworks (Pöchhacker 2004), was held in 1986 at the University of Trieste. This conference gave rise to what is known as “the Trieste School” of interpreting research which advocated the need for empiricism and interdisciplinarity in interpreting studies. Moreover, the Trieste School is credited with initiating the publication of The Interpreters’ Newsletter, the first journal of interpreting research. It is also at the conference in Trieste that some of its participants called for making interpreting studies “a discipline it its own right” (Pöchhacker 2004: 39). In the 1990s interpreting studies gained renewed impetus with more and more scholars voicing the need for making this area of inquiry a truly interdisciplinary field with strong academic affiliation. For instance, in 1992 the University of Vienna organised the Translation Studies Congress, at which Daniel Gile delivered his plenary lecture in which he used the term “interpretation studies” (1994) which – as he claimed – should open up and integrate other fields and which should function within broadly understood translation studies. A similar name was also used by Heidemarie Salevsky who called it “interpreting studies” (1993) and classified it as a subdiscipline of translation studies. At that time, several publishing initiatives were undertaken in order to promote interpreting research and offer some space for disseminating the outcomes of this research. One of such initiatives was the foundation of the International Interpretation Research and Theory Information Network, presently known as Conference Interpreting Research Information Network (CIRIN), by Daniel Gile. This consortium has promoted interpreting studies by, among others, publishing its Bulletin with rich bibliographic information. In the 1990s there was also an upsurge in the number of academic journals whose special issues were devoted solely to interpreting research (e.g. The Interpreters’ Newsletter, International Journal of Translation Studies, Target). In 1994 another important conference dedicated to interpreting studies was organised at the University of Turku, Finland, where its participants discussed, inter alia, the interdisciplinarity of interpreting studies, including interpreting psychology and cognitive studies, interpreter education or some aspects of the interpreting profession. In 1995, the Critical Link Conference was organised in Canada and, like the symposium in Trieste, it was programmatic in its nature. Now being already a conference series organised every three years in different countries23, then this event marked a new phase of the development of interpreting studies since its participants expressed a strong need for internationalisation and cooperation within interpreting studies. 23 The last conference, i.e. Critical Link 8 Conference, was held in 2016 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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This conference gathered interpreting scholars researching not only conference and simultaneous interpreting but also community interpreting, liaison interpreting or sign-language interpreting. Two major driving forces of that event were Holly Mikkelson and Cecilia Wadensjö. The series of Critical Link conferences gave rise to the association which in 2010 changed its name from Critical Link Canada into Critical Link International. Among the aims of the organisation are promoting community interpreting standards, fostering interpreting research or developing community interpreting education (Roberts 2015). In 1996, Barbara Moser-Mercer, in cooperation with Dominic Massaro, founded the first peer-reviewed journal – Interpreting: International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting – which published papers on various aspects of interpreting research (e.g. cognitive processes, consecutive interpreting, interpreting training etc.). The formative period of interpreting studies was concluded in 2000 with the organisation of a conference at the University of Bologna (in Forlì) which was enormously abundant in interpreting topics and, as neatly summed up by Pöchhacker (2004: 42), “(…) gave a bright finish to the formative decade of interpreting studies as a discipline”. The twenty-first century interpreting studies has seen even greater institutionalisation and academisation because new university departments of interpreting studies have been established, new interpreting education programmes have been developed, new research themes have been touched upon, new journals have been published and, generally speaking, the body of specialised literature devoted to interpreting research has been rapidly increasing. However, as noted by Pöchhacker (2004: 43), “(…) the community of interpreting scholars remains rather small, and its research output, while steady, is relatively modest”, especially when compared to translation studies. The gap in interpreting research literature has been partially filled in by such seminal works as The Interpreting Studies Reader (Pöchhacker, Shlesinger 2002), Introducing Interpreting Studies (Pöchhacker 2004), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Interpreting Studies (Pöchhacker 2015a) or The Routledge Handbook of Interpreting (Mikkelson, Jourdenais 2015). It also means that, although much effort is made to work out interpreting-specific conceptual and methodological frameworks and to make interpreting studies a discipline on its own, there is still much to be done since in most cases interpreting studies is still viewed as part of translation studies and not as a separate field. Of course, the question can be asked whether it really has to be regarded as a separate discipline to produce innovative research and generate discussion-provoking concepts and the answer seems obvious that it does not. Nevertheless, some scholars believe that interpreting studies is on its way to independence as an academic field because all the efforts so far have given “(…) ample reason to assume that the evolution of interpreting studies, in both sociology and substance, is set to continue, and the field is earning broader recognition for playing its part in the concert of academic disciplines” (Pöchhacker 2004: 44). What could be observed in the development of interpreting studies within just several decades is a number of paradigm shifts – from the IT paradigm, through the

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cognitive approach to the neurolinguistic paradigms. Other approaches pursued by interpreting scholars have been those derived from text linguistics, discourse studies, sociolinguistics, sociology or interaction studies. Furthermore, along with the paradigm shifts, the interpreting research methods have also changed and, as argued by Pöchhacker (2015c: 69), “[c]‌learly, the shift of emphasis from studying cognitive processes in the interpreter to studying interpreting processes in social institutions was associated with a greater use of social science methods (…)”, which shows that  – within slightly more than a century  – interpreting studies has evolved from marginal research activity practised only by few scholars, into a broad discipline, with many strands of research, different orientations and numerous methods used and that it both derives much from other disciplines and contributes to them, as well.

1.6.2. Map of interpreting studies Interpreting studies, as remarked before, is a relatively young field of scholarship with yet rather unstable traditions, continually developing approaches and sometimes fuzzy paradigm boundaries. Nevertheless, it has undeniably achieved the status of at least a subdiscipline of translation studies which – although inextricably interwoven with other disciplines – finds the validation of the claim for its existence in the still growing body of interpreting studies literature, in the increasing number of periodicals devoted entirely to interpreting or in the establishment of professional organisations dealing with interpreting practice and interpreting research. The disciplinary status of interpreting studies could be backed by a certain general agenda of what interpreting scholars can study within interpreting studies. This entails drawing some map of the field. A map of interpreting studies, as rightly observed by Jorma Tommola, a translation and interpreting scholar affiliated with the University of Turku (Finland): (…) must derive from a very broad conception of interpreting, giving room to the full diversity of interpreting activities with (some degree of) professional standing. Based on such a consensus regarding the subject matter as such, the map would show that the field of Interpreting Studies is “wide open” and serve as an orientation towards various landmarks and lacunae. It could help the discipline of Interpreting Studies fulfil its principal task, namely that of defining problems and generating research questions. Once it is clear how much and what there is to find out, the search for the answers can be conducted with any methods available, i.e. within any conceptual framework or paradigm and on the basis on any theory and methodology considered useful. (Tommola 1997: 85).

What Tommola implies is that a map of interpreting studies should be quite comprehensive to accommodate a vast variety of interpreting activities which can generate research problems, questions and hypotheses. In such a way, it may be then possible to tackle those research issues by putting them in appropriate methodological frameworks.

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A map of interpreting studies can be produced following the tradition of translation studies (from which interpreting studies has emerged and with which it permanently shares a close affinity) which boasts a widely recognised map of this field devised by James S. Holmes (1972/2000) and sketched graphically by Gideon Toury (1995:  10) (and therefore this map is sometimes referred to as “Holmes/ Toury map” (Munday 2001:  10)). According to this map, translation studies can be divided into “pure” and “applied” and those two categories can also be further subdivided. “Pure” translation studies includes descriptive translation studies, the aim of which is “(…) to describe the phenomena of translating and translation(s) as they manifest themselves in the world of our experience” (Holmes 1972/2000: 176) and theoretical translation studies whose aim is “(…) to establish general principles by means of which these phenomena can be explained and predicted” (ibid.) and which is further segmented into general and partial (partial translation studies contains medium-, area-, rank-, text-type-, time- and problem-restricted branches) and which may focus on translation as a product, as a process or as a function. “Applied” translation studies, as viewed by Holmes, encompasses such fields as translation training, translation aids, translation policy and translation criticism. What is interesting, in the presentation of his framework of translation studies, Holmes also makes a reference to interpreting which may be studied within a branch of theoretical translation studies as medium-restricted oral translation. Relying, at least partially, on this division, Heidemarie Salevsky (1993) attempts at building the framework of interpreting studies. Starting from the view that “(…) interpreting is a class of translation” (Salevsky 1993: 153), she divides it into the simultaneous and consecutive modes and then she tries to organise the domain of interpreting by postulating the division into three major branches: theoretical interpreting studies, applied interpreting studies and descriptive interpreting studies which is a kind of interface between the other two branches. Moreover, she further subdivides each branch into the general, special and particular classes. As she claims, “[a]‌general theory of interpreting would have to account for the universal characteristics of interpreting. By contrast, the structure of various special theories would be derived from the variable components of interpreting situations” (Salevsky 1993: 154). Those special theories concern interpreting modes, medium, language combinations, culture combination, contextual setting (which she calls “area/institution”), type and nature of text or relations between interpreting act participants (cf. ibid.). The amalgams of those special theories would constitute what she calls “particular theories”. Finally, applied interpreting studies addresses, as is the case with Holmes’s map, such issues as interpreting training, criticism and aids. An attempt at capturing the frameworks of interpreting studies has also been made by Franz Pöchhacker (2004: 23) who has proposed eight dimensions of both theoretically and empirically oriented interpreting research: (1) medium; (2) setting; (3)  mode; (4)  languages (cultures); (5)  discourse; (6)  participants; (7)  interpreter; (8)  problem. He illustrates a broad variety of different interpreting phenomena along the vertical axis which uses the aforementioned dimensions

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whereas the horizontal axis presents the parameters of those dimensions. What is clear, however, is that on the one pole of his frameworks there is conference interpreting, on the other one – community interpreting and between fall all other types. Nevertheless, Pöchhacker is wary of claiming that his approach is definite and fully comprehensive, stating that “[g]‌iven the many facets of the diverse phenomena to be covered, the diagram cannot amount to a combinatorial map of features” (2004: 25). Building a comprehensive and all-embracing map of interpreting studies is probably not feasible due to the abundance of interpreting phenomena of various nature. However, a tentative proposal of such a map, which draws on both Holmes and Toury’s map, on Salevsky’s findings as well as on Pöchhacker’s frameworks, is presented in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5: A proposal of a map of interpreting studies (author’s own concept).

The map of interpreting studies sketched in Fig.  5 presents the division of interpreting studies into three major branches:  theoretical interpreting studies, dealing with establishing a universal theory of interpreting and with partial theories related to contextually embedded interpreting, descriptive interpreting studies, which touches upon the issue of the history of interpreting and the description of interpreting practices and applied interpreting studies, which is concerned, like

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applied translation studies, with interpreting training (i.e. teaching methods, assessment and curriculum), interpreting aids (i.e. computer tools, consultation materials) and criticism (i.e. the evaluation of interpreting). A peripheral yet quite important branch has been added  – interpreter studies, which studies the interpreter both from the perspective of an individual person’s actions and behaviours (his/her psychology and performance) as well as from the perspective of the community of interpreters (collectively shared practices and professionalisation). Given that interpreting is a socially situated (i.e. contextually embedded) activity with the interpreter at its core, both of those subfields draw on sociology which in this particular case can be called interpreting sociology (or sociology of interpreting). The fact that interpreter studies has been included in the map can be justified by the central role (though sometimes not directly visible) that the interpreter plays within any interpreting act and the success or failure of interpreter-mediated communication depends – to a large extent – on the interpreter’s performance which is conditioned mostly by the interpreter’s expertise, skills (including the cognitive abilities and psychological predispositions), attitude, adopted code of practices or ethics. What is more, the interpreter belongs to a community of practice which is characterised by having some collectively shared practices as well as by professionalisation. For that reason, the interpreter is a central figure in the complex plane of interaction with other participants of the interpreting event. The above map also shows a number of interdependencies between particular branches. For instance, there are clear interdependencies among theoretical interpreting studies, descriptive interpreting studies and applied interpreting studies. The theoretical branch provides the theoretical and methodological foundations for the descriptive activity since describing interpreting activities is usually performed within some theoretical frameworks. Likewise, theory is the basis for practical applications which are studied within applied interpreting studies. On the other hand, both descriptive and applied endeavours can provide some data which may then be used for establishing, verifying, refuting or expanding a theory. Thus, all of the branches inform one another and the insights from one branch can be exploited by the other two. In a similar vein, the studies on an individual interpreter as well as on the community of interpreters can inform all of the branches by providing insights which can enrich some partial interpreting theory, contribute to a better description of a given practice and, perhaps, lead to some changes, for example, in the way interpreters are educated or interpreting activities are evaluated. Those interdependencies also point to the fact that sometimes it is not easy to establish clear boundaries between those branches and quite often one phenomenon can be studied at the interface of those branches. As presented on the map, it is possible to study interpreting within all of these branches from many angles. The objects of such studies (i.e. the contextually embedded and socially situated interpreting activities) are usually the results of the combinations of the vertical parameters (i.e. mode, medium, setting, language and culture, discourse type and participants) and the horizontal parameters (i.e. function, process, product). This matrix of interpreting research can be illustrated

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by, for instance, a descriptive study into the consecutive business interpreting act participants’ behaviours and their influence on successful interpreter-mediated communication. Thus, the major framework is provided by descriptive interpreting studies. The vertical parameter is represented by interpreting viewed as a product (i.e. successful communication) whereas the horizontal parameters are mode (i.e. consecutive interpreting), setting (i.e. business setting), discourse types (e.g. business negations) and participants (i.e. negotiating parties and the interpreter). The outcome of such a study, conducted primarily within descriptive interpreting studies, can further contribute to theoretical or applied theoretical studies. The map presented above is an attempt at capturing a great variety of interpreting activities from possibly the broadest perspective. As such, it then at least partially meets the criteria set by Jorma Tommola (1997: 85) regarding “(…) a very broad conception of interpreting, giving room to the full diversity of interpreting activities with (some degree of) professional standing”. However, although this map is thought to be quite comprehensive, it is by no means a final product. On the contrary, it should be viewed as a tentative proposal subject to further modification – to variation, expansion or even its negation if appropriate justification for doing so can be provided.

1.6.3. Approaches to studying interpreting: interpreting studies as an interdisciplinary research field In the context of interpreting studies, interdisciplinarity can be defined as a common platform of interaction between two or more disciplines. In other words, interdisciplinary interpreting studies utilises the concepts, models or methodologies which belong to other disciplines, benefitting from them as well as enriching them. The need for making interpreting research truly interdisciplinary was already expressed at the conference held in 1986 in Trieste since its aim was to foster “(…) discussion and research related to the training of conference interpreters, not only among professionals and trainers, but also by opening to cooperation with researchers from other disciplines” (Riccardi 2015a: 425). It is more or less since that time that interpreting studies has been developing within its interdisciplinary frameworks. However, before the institutional support given to interdisciplinarity in interpreting studies in the form of the Trieste Symposium, there had been only a handful of scholars who were preoccupied with researching different interpreting phenomena from interdisciplinary perspectives. For instance, Ghelly Chernov worked in cooperation with psychologists, Danica Saleskovitch carried out her studies in close collaboration with interpreters interested in interpreting research (i.e. practisearchers), David Gerver, Barbara Moser-Mercer or Daniel Gile also cooperated with scientists representing disciplines other than interpreting studies. Nevertheless, interpreting studies became of truly interdisciplinary character in the 1990s when the aforementioned practisearchers started to investigate interpreting, relying on the methods derived from anthropology, cognitive science, education, linguistics, neurolinguistics, neurophysiology, psycholinguists,

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psychology, sociology. Additionally, when more attention was paid to other forms of interpreting, not only to conference interpreting which was for long the most frequent object of research, such as community interpreting in healthcare, immigration office or court settings, the input from other disciplines (i.e. medicine, law, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, intercultural communication) was incorporated into interpreting research. Hence, Daniel Gile’s statement that “[i]‌n I[nterpreting] R[esearch], interdisciplinarity has meant the acceptance and use of [among others] cognitive psychology, neurophysiology and, more recently, text linguistics and pragmatics” (Gile 2004:  21) is justified and neatly explains interdisciplinarity in interpreting studies. It is also Gile (1988: 363) who was of the opinion that “(…) the best results [in interpreting research] require the contribution of experts in scientific disciplines such as cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics and applied linguistics”, calling for a greater integration of those fields of science into interpreting studies and believing that scholars working within those domains use more scientific methods and are more precise and logical in their inquiries than researchminded interpreters – practisearchers (Gile 1994). This view was also in line with Gile’s criticism of the Paris School, in particular of Seleskovitch’s studies which he thought of as unscientific. The development of interpreting studies would not perhaps be so impressive had it not been for the use of other sciences. Such a view is expressed by Franz Pöchhacker (2011a: 6) who claims that: [f]‌or as much as interpreting studies has staked out its claim to a parcel of academic territory of its own, within the broader field of translation studies, there is no doubt that much of its progress has been based on and derived from advances in other, more established disciplines or sub-disciplines thereof. This explains the wide array of theoretical and, no less, methodological approaches to the study of interpreting.

What is more, Pöchhacker also shows that classifying interpreting studies into one of disciplines can be quite problematic because it can be an empirical science, manifesting itself in, among others, gathering data about a given phenomenon, which is characteristic of natural sciences; it may be regarded as an interpretive science, visible in the interpretation and making sense of the spoken meanings, typical of the human sciences; it may also be seen as a social science provided interpreting is viewed as a socially situated event (cf. Pöchhacker 2011a: 14). Thus, an interpreting researcher can collect data empirically, analyse them interpretively and draw some conclusions of social nature. Therefore, Pöchhacker (2011a:  15) suggests regarding interpreting studies as “(…) an empirical-interpretive discipline closely aligned with research practices in the social sciences, and the human sciences”. The use and application of the methods, concepts, models and theories sourced from other disciplines are perhaps best visible in the number of approaches which have been developed in order to study interpreting. The most common approaches to the study of interpreting are related to psychology, especially to its branches such as cognitive psychology or neuropsychology, and psycholinguistics.

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Cognitive psychology, dealing with how people harvest and process information, and psycholinguistics, concerned with how language is acquired and exploited, were used as scaffoldings for studying interpreting, especially the phenomena of the operation of mental processes (e.g. input comprehension, processing, retrieval or output production). In such interpreting research, different research methods were used  – experimentation, introspection (i.e. subjective observation), observation, behavioural methods (i.e. analysing interpreters’ behaviour as a response to some stimulus), psychophysiological methods (i.e. analysing the interactions between interpreter’s physiology and psychology) or neurological and neuroscience methods (i.e. analysing the activity of the interpreter’s brain when performing an interpreting task; sometimes the use of the neuroscience methods is known as “neuroscience approach” (cf. Moser-Mercer 2015b)). The themes researched from the cognitive and psychological perspectives range from various aspects of the interpreter’s memory and comprehension through interpreting strategies and changes in the interpreter’s brain structures during interpreting to bilingual processing, interpreting directionality (cf. Seeber 2015b), the interpreter’s psychoaffectivity and individual psycho-affective factors (cf. Walczyński 2017a) or the interpreter’s experience of stress (cf. Korpal 2017). Another set of approaches has been developed within the frameworks of linguistics, in particular within pragmatics. Linguistically-oriented interpreting studies uses the linguistic or, more specifically, pragmatic methods to study such aspects as output quality and its semantic equivalence to the input, speech acts, implicatures, inferencing, effective communication (i.e. the Cooperative Principle), face threats (cf. Bartłomiejczyk 2016) or non-verbal communication (cf. CzubakWróbel 2017; Kopa, Walczyński 2017) in interpreting. Apart from pragmatics, sociolinguistics, which itself draws on the input of anthropology, linguistics or sociology, has also turned out to be a source of the methodological frameworks utilised in the study of interpreting phenomena. Owing to the fact that all interpreting acts are socially situated events, sociolinguistic interpreting research has a rich source of research material to study by means of sociolinguistic methods (e.g. observation of interpreting event participants, interviewing parties involved in interpreting). Hence, the research carried out in this vein touches upon such topics as turn-taking, registers used or language attitudes observed during interpreting (cf. Roy 2015). What is more, there is also corpus-based interpreting studies (cf. Shlesinger 1998) which uses the methods developed within corpus linguistics to study interpreting, that is, recording and transcribing interpreted speeches and organising them in monolingual, bilingual or multilingual corpora. Thanks to the use of interpreting corpora, such themes as interpreting strategies and norms, discourse patterns, lexical variety and density or different aspects of corpus-based interpreting training are analysed. Interpreting has also been explored from the perspective of discourse studies (i.e. discourse analytical approaches) which itself encompasses a wide array of communication-related fields (e.g. corpus linguistics, cultural anthropology, pragmatics, sociology, text linguistics). As noted by Ian Mason (2015: 112):

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[d]‌iscourse analysis offered descriptive interpreting studies a means of discovering regularities of interpreter behaviour. Moving away from the focus on cognitive approaches, it focussed on the product of language use (text, talk) as evidence of the process (discourse) and of interpreter decision-making and strategies.

Thus, using the methods developed within generally understood discourse studies (i.e. discourse analysis, conversation analysis and critical discourse analysis) such as observation, interviews, surveys, recording etc., interpreting researchers study, for example, cohesion, coherence and register shifts in the output, interpreting participation framework and footing (cf. Wadensjö 1998), the organisation of interaction and turn management within an interpreting act, the role of silence and pauses or the distribution of power in an interpreting situation. One more discipline which has provided interpreting research with its conceptual and methodological frameworks is sociology. From the sociological perspective, interpreting situations are viewed as socially situated events and interpreting itself as a social act. Two main types of sociological interpreting research can be distinguished: the social interactionist perspective, which draws attention to the interaction that takes place in an interpreting act and within which its participants, including the interpreter, can assume different roles, and the narrative perspective, which relies on the narrative theory and analyses the ways in which interpreting phenomena are presented (i.e. narrated) and how this helps people understand them. In other words, the narrative approach is used to analyse how, for instance, interpreters, their roles and actions are perceived (and thus narrated) in conflict zones or how the interpreter’s image is constructed (and then narrated) by asylum seekers whom this interpreter is to help or how the interpreter participates in developing (in)equality or in promoting (un)fairness during interpreting. Generally speaking, the sociological perspectives provide the scientific scaffoldings to the study of interpreting being both a process and a product as well as of interpreters who are the active participants of socially situated acts (cf. Inghilleri 2015). One more area in which the interdisciplinarity of interpreting studies is clearly visible is the interface of interpreting and technology. What can be observed now in translation and interpreting studies is “the technological turn”, which means that more and more translation and interpreting tasks are performed either with the use of computer technology or by computer technology itself. Although in interpreting the role of technology is yet not so huge as it is in translation (albeit it is widely used in all the equipment needed for simultaneous interpreting), it might be expected that with time its function will increase. Those who study the application of modern technology to interpreting often talk about “speech translation” or “speech-to-speech translation” (S2S) (Tan 2015:  619) and use technological, computer science and mathematical methodologies to analyse it. It is in the 1990s that speech translation studies began with the establishment of several research centres in the USA, Japan and Germany and later on in other countries. Those centres are interested in both building and researching speech-to-speech translation systems. Among the investigated themes are the general architecture

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of such systems (modules responsible for speech recognition, speech translation (i.e. interpreting) and speech synthesis), acoustic, lexical and semantic modelling of the input, decoding, machine translation or output production. Generally speaking, owing to the increasing globalisation of the world and the easiness with which people of different linguistic backgrounds can now communicate, it might be expected that such studies of the interface of technology and interpreting will proliferate, contributing in this way to more and more advanced technologies used in interpreting. As can be seen from the above presentation, modern interpreting research is already a truly interdisciplinary field as oftentimes to study various interpreting phenomena, it employs the methodological frameworks of other disciplines. Such integration of disciplines is definitely an advantage and perhaps an inherent property of modern scholarship since thanks to it, it is possible to explore interpreting phenomena from a wide array of perspectives. This, in turn, allows scholars to capture them more holistically. It can also have its consequences in real-life interpreting practices because, as is often the case, it is the interpreting research that is motivated by certain practices whereas the outcome of such studies can lead to the modification of those practices by their optimisation, improvement, replacement, extension or greater usefulness.

1.6.4. Interpreter as a central research object: anthropocentric interpreting studies The identification of a branch of interpreting studies which examines the figure of the interpreter (i.e. interpreter studies), presented in the map of interpreting studies (see Fig. 5 in Section 1.6.2.) aims at putting the interpreter and his/her activity in the centre of this study because it is the interpreter who performs the basic function – making linguistic transfer possible, and several other functions – explaining cultures, negotiating on behalf of the interpreted party, representing or supporting this party, to name but a few. It is the interpreter without whom the entire interpreting act is not possible as he/she is the major (though not always defined as being such) participant of the interpreting event. Such a view is adhered to in the empirical part of this study for it is just interpreters (or, more precisely, trainee interpreters and certified interpreters) whose activity and experiences are analysed. One way of looking at the importance of the interpreter is through the anthropocentric perspective. Anthropocentrism (also referred to as humanocentrism, human exceptionalism or human supremacy) entails looking at reality through the prism of a human being who is deemed the most important element, the entity of the highest order in the entire universe. The anthropocentric approach to the interpreter as the central figure of the interpreting process has been derived from anthropocentric linguistics or, more precisely, from anthropocentric translation studies. Because of the interest in interpreting and the interpreter, the name “anthropocentric interpreting studies” may seem more suitable for the needs of this study.

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Anthropocentric linguistics can be regarded as a certain paradigm of studying human languages created and further developed by Franciszek Grucza, one of the most prominent representatives of Polish German studies and applied linguistics, a professor of Warsaw University (Poland). Later on, the group of scholars centred around Franciszek Grucza continued the development of this approach and one of their achievements is the coinage of the term “anthropocentric linguistics”. Sambor Grucza, a scholar specialising in applied linguistics, claims that “[t]‌his name was created to highlight the fact that the central object of interest to linguistics is a particular human being, a particular speaker-hearer and this is so because the linguistic reality = language is an imminent part of that person’s mental equipment”24 (Grucza (S.) 2017: 165). The major assumption of anthropocentric linguistics is the belief that language, being itself a semantically ambiguous term, can be divided into two types:  (1) language of an individual person, i.e. an idiolect; (2)  language of a nation, like Polish or English, which is only an approximation, an ideal model. The second approach to the concept of language is not the representation of a language used in real life and in fact it is also not the common language shared by a nation. Generally speaking, it is viewed as a sum of idiolects developed by particular users (Grucza (S.) 2017). Thus, what anthropocentric linguistics studies is the genuine human languages represented by particular people because it is in their brains that those languages form part of those people’s knowledge and are externally manifested by means of speaking and writing. Language located in the human brain is not an autonomous entity as it coexists and interacts with other aspects of human existence and experience (e.g. psychological states). Moreover, it influences and is influenced by other dimensions of human experience. This is perhaps best visible in the language acquisition process, by means of which children, having been equipped with some universal language acquisition predispositions or biological-genetic potential, manifesting itself in language-generating and language-comprehending properties, develop their own genuine languages (i.e. idiolects) subject to external influences. It might therefore be argued that anthropocentric linguistics focuses on particular people and their linguistic expressions generated in specific socio-cultural conditions. The interest in anthropocentric linguistics has led to the development of several fields within, or closely linked to, this paradigm:  anthropocentric translation studies, anthropocentric glottodidactics, anthropocentric linguistics of specialised languages, anthropocentric culturology or anthropocentric communicology (ibid.). Because of the nature and disciplinary affiliation of the present study, of particular importance is anthropological translation studies, which has been refined by its author – Franciszek Grucza – for many years. Generally speaking, Franciszek 24 Translated from Polish by M.W.

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Grucza (2017: 150) claims that “(…) translation studies as a science is interested in the processes occurring in a certain system which can be called a translation system”25. What is more, he stresses that: [t]‌he central element of the translation system is undoubtedly the translator. It is on his activity, hence also on the processes taking place in him, that the major research interest of translation studies should focus. (…) The scope of its [translation studies] research crosses the scopes of research of other branches of science, in particular the scope of linguistics, text studies, psychology and physiology. However, the object of translation studies should not be regarded as a mix formed from the parts of the abovementioned research fields. As I have already mentioned, the character of the research object of translation studies is determined by the central position of the translator and the emerging connections combining other elements comprising the above-presented translation system.26 (Grucza 2017: 152)

One of the fundamental assumptions of anthropocentric translation studies is the aforementioned translation system, the central part of which is the translator, devised by Franciszek Grucza in 1981 (Żmudzki 2017). The translation system proper includes the source text, the translator and the target text whereas the extended one, which is a complete communication system, is composed of the primary addresser who produces the text in the source language which is then received by the translator whose role is two-fold in this system: he/she is the intermediary addressee and the intermediary addresser who produces (i.e. translates) the text in the target language which is then directed to the final addressee. Monika Płużyczka, a Polish translation and interpreting scholar dealing primarily with sight translation, adds that the mental processes occurring in the translator’s brain, from receiving the source text to producing an equivalent target text, as well as the basis of those processes (constituting the translator competence) are of particular interest to anthropocentric translation studies. Therefore, as Płużyczka contends, “(…) the most important task of translation studies is the explication of the translation processes taking place in the translator’s brain and of the competence allowing him/her to perform those activities”27 (Płużyczka 2015: 24). Fig. 6 (see below) presents Grucza’s extended translation system. Similarly, Jerzy Żmudzki, a Polish translation scholar whose research interests lie within the field of anthropocentric translation studies, explains that (2017: 215): [a]‌s a consequence of the anthropocentric understanding of the translation reality, what was located in the centre of this system (…) is the human being – the translator

2 5 Translated from Polish by M.W. 26 Translated from Polish by M.W. 27 Translated from Polish by M.W.

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Fig. 6: Grucza’s concept of the extended translation system (on the basis of Żmudzki 2017: 215). who is the subject of specific cognitive-communicative activities and who functions within this network of relations with other neutral objects of this system. And it is in this respect that the translator has been regarded as the main and fundamental object of translation research constituting anthropocentric translation studies as an independent scientific discipline.28

It therefore may be stated that anthropocentric translation studies examines the translator and a variety of his/her activities with regard to other elements of the translation system  – to other participants of the translation process, to the source and target languages as well as to the very process of translation and its different aspects. A  more refined version of the system was offered by Sambor Grucza (2014). His holistic model of translation studies includes the source text author, the source text, the translator (the translator’s skills and knowledge and the translator’s translation operations), the target text and the target text recipient. What is crucial is the focus on both the translator’s competence and operations he/ she performs to render the translation into the target language. In this, the models postulated by both Franciszek Grucza and Sambor Grucza resemble a prototypical interpreting situation whose focal point is the interpreter because were not for his/her presence and activity, the communication act performed by means of the interpreting process could not take place. Thus, it might be argued that the interpreter, as a central figure of the interpreting system (using the terminology derived from Grucza’s concepts), along with his/her cognitive, communicative and psychological activities (i.e. the interpreting operations), is the research object of what might be called anthropocentric interpreting studies. Furthermore, it is the interpreter’s dynamically shaped and changing relations with other elements of this interlingual and intercultural system that are also studied by anthropocentric interpreting studies. The questions defining the areas of research within anthropocentric translation studies which Franciszek Grucza asked could easily be applied to anthropocentric interpreting studies, as well. Those questions pertain to the specific translational mental properties of translators, to the specific translational properties of the texts used and produced within the translation system and to the specific translation 28 Translated from Polish by M.W.

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properties of the speakers/hearers actively participating in the translation system who are the source text authors and target text addressees as well as the communicative skills of both the translator and other participants of the translation system. All of these issues can be studied with regard to interpreting and its constituents. What is more, viewing the translation system through the prism of anthropocentric translation studies, Franciszek Grucza asks the fundamental question concerning the translator competence (Żmudzki 2017). Such a question can obviously be transferred to anthropocentric interpreting studies with relation to the interpreter competence. Likewise, the division of anthropocentric translation studies into “pure” and “applied” anthropocentric translation studies could easily be maintained in interpreting, too. Pure anthropocentric interpreting studies, like pure anthropocentric translation studies, should be concerned with describing and explaining the interpreter’s linguistic, psychological, cognitive and physiological operations underlying the interpreting process whereas applied anthropocentric interpreting studies, like applied anthropocentric translation studies, should examine and help to solve the tasks which the interpreter faces as well as the solutions which facilitate his/her work (cf. Grucza (F.) 2017, Płużyczka 2015). Generally speaking, anthropocentric interpreting studies can be viewed as a scholarly framework for studying the interpreter’s linguistic, psychological, cognitive and physiological activity since, as shown above, the figure of the interpreter occupies the central role in the interpreting process. The view that the interpreter should be the major object of inquiry is additionally attested by much research devoted just to his/her role(s), functions and activity during the interpreting process. This study will hopefully bring more evidence to substantiate the opinion that the interpreter is the focal point of the interpreting process, that his/her role is unquestionably significant and that the interpreter often does much more than merely rendering a linguistic transfer service.

1.7. Chapter 1 summary The major objective of Chapter 1 was to define various interpreting-related concepts which are used in the further parts of this book as well as to put interpreting in the frameworks of scholarly inquiry which constitute the conceptual and methodological scaffolding of the study presented in the empirical part. It was demonstrated that interpreting is a multi-faceted object of research whose proper definition is not always easy because its complexity and a cornucopia of inherent phenomena are at times challenging to be properly captured. Moreover, it was shown that interpretation can be analysed from different angles and perspectives, making interpreting studies a truly interdisciplinary subfield of translation studies, which at times aspires to the status of an independent discipline. Finally, the figure of the interpreter was emphasised throughout the chapter to accentuate the complexity of the matters he/she deals with while providing interpreting services. This was also meant to justify the opinion that interpreting is not merely a linguistic transfer

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but that it is a highly complex set of operations performed on different cognitive, psychological, physiological, social or cultural levels. Besides, this chapter has provided some evidence to the claim that speaking two languages is definitely not sufficient to be able to render professional interpreting services because to do so, a person must develop numerous skills, abilities, competences as well as expertise and knowledge.

Chapter 2: Consecutive interpreting as a practice and research object Consecutive interpreting, especially in its dialogic form (i.e. dialogue interpreting or liaison interpreting) as presented in the previous chapter, is one of the two most frequently employed forms of interpretation and although in quite many situations it has been replaced by simultaneous interpreting which allows producing the target speech much faster, it is still often the preferred mode of interpreting practised in different settings and contexts. This chapter aims at discussing the major aspects of consecutive interpreting by presenting its main properties, types and components which constitute what may generally be known as the consecutive interpreting process. It also draws attention to the consecutive interpreter competence which requires a specific set of broadly understood linguistic, intercultural, social and business skills, expertise and knowledge as well as certain psycho-affective properties and cognitive resources such as working memory or note-taking skills. Thus, the overarching objective of this chapter is to present consecutive interpreting as a practice making interlingual communication possible and as a research object generating many intriguing research questions and contributing in so doing to a better understanding of what is really the essence of consecutive interpreting as such, of the consecutive interpreting process and of the consecutive interpreter competence.

2.1. Overview of consecutive interpreting practice and research Consecutive interpreting, as indicated in Chapter  1, is an umbrella term which denotes a variety of interpreting forms. This type of interpreting was used in the ancient times by interpreters who worked for monarchs and only in the twentieth century did it start to be known as liaison interpreting or dialogue interpreting. The designation “consecutive interpreting” came into use after the 1920s to differentiate the then traditional interpreting (i.e. consecutive interpreting) from a newly developed mode – simultaneous interpreting (Andres 2015). The term “consecutive interpreting” can be explained as a name for a working mode of interpreting in which the target utterance is generated after the speaker producing the source message has finished speaking or when such a speaker has paused for the interpreter to interpret a spoken segment. The basic meaning of the adjective consecutive included in the Oxford Dictionary holds that it stands for “[f]‌ollowing each other continuously”29 so consecutive interpreting may be viewed

29 Source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/consecutive; accessed on: 15 May 2018.

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as an asynchronous production of the source and target utterances. Thus, the inherent part of the definition of consecutive interpreting is the fact that, unlike simultaneous interpreting, in which the source and target texts are produced more or less simultaneously (only with slight décalage), the production of the source message clearly precedes the production of the target message. In ideal circumstances, the interpreter starts delivering the output, having comprehended the input and knowing exactly what the output should be. Additionally, in the process of consecutive interpreting, the interpreter may ask the speakers for some clarifications, has the time to think about how to bridge the comprehension gaps in his/her understanding of the input or can monitor the physical state of both the surroundings and other parties interacting in the interpreting-mediated communication. In other words, consecutive interpreting allows the interpreter to make use of the time factor and produce the target text with the knowledge of what it is expected to be in terms of its meaning and form. Furthermore, the interpreter does not have to follow the speed of source text production and has greater control over it and over the entire interpretingmediated communication and hence, as observed by Maurizio Viezzi (2013: 380), “(…) the interpreter’s delivery is self-paced and is subject to no interference from the source text”. It means that even though the source and target languages may vary in their relative length, this exerts no significant influence on the rendering of the output in the consecutive mode whereas it may adversely affect the delivery in the simultaneous mode. What is more, of great help to consecutive interpreters are notes taken during the comprehension of the input. It is true that a fast-speaking speaker’s utterance may be difficult to take notes of but the consecutive interpreter has two types of aids:  the notes and his/her memory; the simultaneous interpreter has to rely only on his/her memory, which makes simultaneous interpretation definitely more challenging. Moreover, unlike simultaneous interpreting, consecutive interpreting allows maintaining bi-directional communication between the interacting parties because in such dialogic (or triadic) circumstances, the interpreter interprets from and into both languages. This, however, does not apply to the monologic communication, in which the interpreter interprets consecutively a speech having no real possibility to interact with the audience and typically interprets only into one language. As already indicated, consecutive interpreting was probably one of the first methods of rendering spoken foreign language utterances (next to whispering). Russell and Takeda (2015: 102) go even further and claim that “[i]‌n fact, C[onsecutive] I[nterpreting] for bilateral dialogues can be considered the prototypical act by an interpreter as a mediator of communication between parties who do not share a common language”. Moreover, apart from being employed in various commercial encounters, diplomacy, colonisation, peace negotiations or international meetings, it was also used in conference interpreting before technologically-aided simultaneous interpretation was used for the very first time in the 1920s at a session of the League of Nations. However, the design and production of the equipment for simultaneous interpreting did not mean that this mode was instantaneously

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used as the preferred type of interpreting in conference settings and that the role of consecutive interpreting was immediately diminished. At the beginning, what was used is sometimes referred to as “simultaneous successive interpretation” or “the simultaneous reading of pretranslated texts” (Gaiba 1998: 31). As explained by Ebru Diriker (2013: 364): [w]‌ith “simultaneous successive interpretation” interpretations were simultaneous with each other, but not with the original speech, since all interpreters took notes on the original speech and after the original speech ended, one of the interpreters stood up and translated consecutively into his language while the rest of his colleagues rendered the same speech into their languages from the booths. In this way, the main consecutive translation ensured accuracy and the remaining S[imultaneous] I[interpreting] renderings shortened the time for conveying the same speech to other languages. In “simultaneous reading of pretranslated texts”, on the other hand, translators translated the written speeches given to them before the session and read them at the same time as the original speech.

From the above quotation emerges that at that time it was still the consecutive mode with the use of notes that was the primary type of interpretation rendered with simultaneous interpreting being only ancillary. At that time, consecutive interpreters were highly respected and praised for their excellent command of foreign languages, good memory skills, analytical abilities, public-speaking skills and because of the fact that then they delivered their interpretations, standing on a podium, like the source language speakers, they were easily noticed by the audience who could admire this unique set of skills. That period – before the birth and more extensive use of simultaneous interpreting – is sometimes labelled as “the Golden Age of consecutive interpreting” (Russell and Takeda 2015: 102). BaigorriJalón (2014: 111) adds that “[t]‌he interwar period can be described as that of the splendor of consecutive, the mode of interpreting that was used exclusively in the international organizations, except for the tests of simultaneous”. Besides, in the early days of simultaneous interpreting, consecutive interpreting was thought to be more precise and accurate. This was evident, for instance, in the approach taken to interpreter training by Antoine Velleman, the founder of the School of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Geneva, who was initially resistant to the idea of teaching simultaneous interpreting, thinking that “(…) [it] could not equal the precision of consecutive interpreting and might therefore undermine the value of conference interpreting” (Diriker 2013:  365). The fear expressed by Velleman turned out to be at least partially unjustified and, as observed by Viezzi (2013: 380): [a]‌ s regards their effectiveness in serving their purpose, in principle there are no differences between the two [i.e. consecutive interpreting and simultaneous interpreting] – there are no reasons why one should be more precise or more reliable or guarantee higher quality than the other. Clearly the different nature of the two makes simultaneous more susceptible to a source text’s poor quality (convoluted syntax, confused presentation of concepts, excessive speed, etc.), whereas consecutive

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Consecutive interpreting as a practice and research object permits greater autonomy, for example allowing the time and the opportunity to proceed to some kind of restructuring if deemed advisable; and the interpreting fraternity tends to believe that there are text types or topics for which one mode may be better than the other. Actually, if the text to be interpreted is clear, if the speed is right, if the interpreter is well prepared and technically competent, the two modes are equally good and may indeed be equally effective.

In fact, it took ten years before simultaneous interpreting was given priority in conference interpreting training although consecutive interpreting was still taught as a course preparing trainee interpreters for simultaneous interpreting training. Nonetheless, due to the increasing need for making interlingual communication at international events possible and the verbal exchanges fast, soon simultaneous interpreting became the primary form of interpretation30, diminishing at the same time the role of consecutive interpreting to the less preferred, though still used, mode. Andres (2015:  85) goes even further and claims that “(…) consecutive interpreting is the exception rather than the rule in the work of most conference interpreters today”. Given the above statement, it would be a great exaggeration to assert that consecutive interpreting has been totally abandoned. While it is true of conference interpreting, in which the consecutive mode is nowadays used rarely, in non-conference interpretation, it is still an important mode. Moreover, in interpreter education consecutive interpreting has its own place since it is deemed to be a prerequisite ability which has to be mastered by trainee interpreters before they can proceed to simultaneous interpreting education. Therefore, consecutive interpreting is included in many interpreter education curricula31, which suggests that this mode is given due attention for a number of reasons. First of all, as already stated, it is treated as a foundation for further simultaneous interpreting training. Secondly, this form of interpretation is still employed in quite many communicative situations, with business negotiations, patient-doctor communication and courtroom interactions being prime examples of social dialogic settings in which consecutive interpreting is preferred. Thirdly, community/public service

30 In the 2012 Statistical Report of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC), it was stated that freelance interpreters worked 90% and staff interpreters – 96% of their working days in the simultaneous mode with pure consecutive interpreting being provided only on 7–8% of the working days. (Source: https:// aiic.net/page/6878/aiic-statistics-summary-of-the-2012-report/lang/1; accessed on: 16 May 2018). 31 This is also evident in the requirements concerning the curriculum of interpreter education offered within the European Masters in Conference Interpreting, according to which trainee interpreters have to undergo consecutive interpreting training and, what is more, have to pass the final examination in this type of interpretation (next to simultaneous interpreting) to complete the training and be awarded a diploma or degree.

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interpreting, an essential type of interpreting services rendered in multilingual and cosmopolitan countries with a variety of national minorities such as Great Britain or Canada, relies to a great extent on liaison/dialogue interpreting, the prominent property of which is the use of consecutive interpreting which is its default mode. Consecutive interpreting became the object of scholarly inquiry only in the 1960s. Before that time, the books on this mode of interpreting were of practical character. A good case in point is the already mentioned manual on note-taking authored by Jean-François Rozan (1956). It is just note-taking techniques that have formed the basis for one strand of research on consecutive interpreting (cf. Seleskovitch 1975, Matyssek 1989, Albl-Mikasa 2007) since it appears that notetaking is one of the fundamental stages of the classic consecutive interpreting process. Other lines of research include the cognitive issues (e.g. the role of memory, processing capacity, efforts (e.g. Gile 2009)), sociological and interactional aspects (e.g. turn-taking during the process of consecutive interpreting, power distribution in consecutive interpreting, consecutive interpreting in institutional settings, discourse management (e.g. Wadensjö 1998)), education and professionalisation facets (e.g. the consecutive interpreter competence, consecutive interpreting training, code of ethics, confidentiality), to name but a few. However, what is striking is the fact that there is relatively little research on the aspects of the interpreter’s non-verbal cues or on the role and influence of the interpreter’s psycho-affective factors on both the process and product of consecutive interpreting. Hopefully, the present study will – at least partially – fill in this gap. On the whole, consecutive interpreting is still an important mode of interpreting practised in numerous settings and contexts. Although it is no longer the primary mode employed in the settings of international conferences, it is still used, for instance, in court or medical institutions, where people of different linguistic backgrounds need to communicate. What is more, its importance is also attested by the fact that this is one of the modes (apart from sight translation/interpreting) that test tasks in the Polish certified translator/interpreter examination centre around32. However, it seems that interpreting researchers have so far preferred to focus more on simultaneous interpreting since, from a comparative perspective, there is significantly less research on consecutive interpreting, especially on the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity and its positive and/or negative influence on the quality of the output delivered. For that reason, in the further parts, this study addresses such issues.

32 Translators wishing to obtain the professional qualification of a certified translator/interpreter in Poland need to undergo a difficult testing procedure, during the oral part of which they take tests in sight translation/interpreting and consecutive interpreting as these are two most frequent types of interpreting needed and practised in Polish courts.

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2.2. Typology of consecutive interpreting Being one of the two major working modes of interpreting, consecutive interpretation can be further subdivided into two basic types:  short (i.e. “short consec”) and long (i.e. “long consec”) consecutive interpreting. As regards short consecutive interpreting, the interpreter interprets rather short fragments which are delivered in the target language following their equivalent source language counterparts. Some scholars claim that short consecutive interpreting “(…) may be regarded as the most natural and obvious form of translation, oral or otherwise, [in which] segments may range in length from a single word (…) to a few sentences” (Viezzi 2013:  378). What is more, short consecutive interpreting is typically performed in the dialogic interactions (and therefore it is sometimes referred to as liaison, dialogue or bilateral interpreting), in which people take turns when speaking, and that is why short consecutive interpretation may be characterised as aller-retour interpreting (i.e. bi-directional – from and into both A and B languages). Owing to the rather short length of source utterances, ranging from a single word to a few sentences, this type of consecutive interpreting may be performed without notetaking albeit sometimes it is advisable to do so when the interpreter has to deal, for instance, with numbers, dates or unknown names. Monologic interaction can also be interpreted by means of this mode but this happens less frequently and in such situations, long consecutive interpreting is preferred. Long consecutive interpreting can be defined as consecutive interpreting, in which the interpreter waits for the source language speaker to finish his/her speech, and then, usually on the basis of the notes taken while listening to the speaker and the memorised information, renders the speech in the target language. The lengths of such speeches can range from a few minutes to several dozen minutes but, as rightly observed by Viezzi (ibid.), “(…) the one-hour uninterrupted speeches of the League of Nations definitely belong to the past”. Because of the use of notes, long consecutive interpreting is also known as “classic consec” or “true consec” since it was perhaps the most frequently used type of interpreting before the birth of simultaneous interpretation and now it is also commonly practised in various (usually non-conference) settings ( e.g. d uring g uided t ours, w elcome speeches, press conferences etc.). What is more, what needs to be stated here is that it is just a form of long consecutive interpreting with notes, performed in a kind of monologic settings, that is the object of research presented in this study (cf. further chapters hereof, especially Chapters 5, 6 and 7). A special type of interpreting which – from the procedural perspective – can be classified as consecutive interpretation is the simultaneous-consecutive mode. This mode is used when the interpreter, having previously recorded the speech, replays it and at the same time interprets it into the target language. As Russell and Takeda (2015) contend, this mode has several advantages (e.g. the possibility to listen to the input twice or no need to take notes). Among its drawbacks are the necessity to have additional skills of operating the audio-recording device and the potential fallibility of this equipment.

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Apart from the basic two explicitly distinguished types of interpreting and one hybrid form, like interpreting at large, consecutive interpreting may be divided into several other categories, depending on the criteria adopted. For instance, if interaction is a yardstick, consecutive interpreting can be used both in what is called monologue interpreting as well as in what is called dialogue interpreting (as aforementioned, also known as liaison interpreting). In monologue interpreting, the interpreter may interpret consecutively a speech delivered by one person who does not verbally interact with other people. On the other hand, in dialogue interpreting, the interpreter can interpret a conversation – an exchange of utterances delivered by two or more people who take turns. Interestingly enough, dialogue interpreting can be seen as an overarching term since it is characterised by four prominent features, among which there is consecutive interpreting (the other three being bi-directional communication, the spontaneity of utterance production and face-to-face contact) (Mason 2009). Another parameter which can be used to differentiate between the types of consecutive interpreting is the output format in relation to the input format and hence consecutive interpretation can be either integral or abbreviated. As far as the former is concerned, the consecutive interpreter who produces the output integrally does it without any abbreviations, rendering the entire source text in the target language. The latter refers to presenting the output as a form of a summary of the original message. Integral consecutive interpreting is usually aided by notetaking whereas the abbreviated one is shorter because the interpreter relies more on his/her memory. A different typological criterion is related to the speaker’s perspective, and specifically, to his/her speaking mode. Thus, consecutive interpreting can be uninterrupted – the speaker delivers his/her full message and only afterwards does the interpreter interpret it or it can be interrupted – when the speaker pauses and in such pauses the interpreter produces the target language output. One more criterion for distinguishing various types of consecutive interpreting is related to the setting. As presented in Chapter 1, consecutive interpreting may be classified as healthcare interpreting, media interpreting, business interpreting or courtroom interpreting. What emerges from those settings is that consecutive interpreting can be performed within community/public service interpreting. What is more, as aforementioned, to some extent, it can also be provided at a conference and therefore conference interpreting may also include the consecutive interpreting mode. As can be seen from the above overview of the consecutive interpreting typology (typologies), many of its types intermingle and, in fact, one instance of consecutive interpreting can be described – depending on the adopted criterion – by several different typological labels. It also shows that the term “consecutive interpreting” covers a number of interpreting-mediated communication acts and for the purpose of presenting some generalised definition, is it perhaps best to contrast it with simultaneous interpretation and juxtapose the features which differentiate those two modes.

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2.3. Consecutive interpreting process Consecutive interpreting can be viewed as a process, during which the interpreter performs a variety of operations of different character (i.e. mental/cognitive, psychological, interactional, linguistic etc.). The outcomes of some of which can be visible (e.g. the output itself, notes taken) but most of them are invisible and take place in the interpreter’s mind. This section provides some insights into the selected characteristics of the consecutive interpreting process such as the models accounting for what the process involves, the role of memory, the role of notes and various phases of this process. Moreover, attention is also drawn to the strategies which consecutive interpreters employ in different phases of the interpreting process in order to cope with the problems which they may encounter while listening, understanding and processing the input as well as while planning and delivering the output.

2.3.1. Selected models of the consecutive interpreting process Generally speaking, the process of consecutive interpreting can be fragmented into three clearly distinguishable stages: the comprehension stage, during which the interpreter grasps the meaning of the original utterance, the processing stage, during which the interpreter processes the source utterance, and the production stage, during which the interpreter re-expresses the original message in the target language. The production of the target message is possible thanks to the operation of the interpreter’s memory which, in the case of consecutive interpreting, can be aided by the use of notes. Viewing consecutive interpreting as a threestage process has been a starting point for some interpreting scholars who have put forward their own models explaining this type of interpretation. However, because some phases of the consecutive interpreting process are not easily accessible to researchers, many of the models presented below are rather of theoretical and partially speculative nature. Some scholars have looked at consecutive interpreting from the perspective of interaction whereas others have theorised on what happens mentally at particular stages of the consecutive interpreting process, having no access to the interpreter’s mind. As far as interaction is concerned, the consecutive interpreting process can be modelled as an interactive communication taking place between the interpreter and other participants of the interpreting event. For instance, Cecilia Wadensjö (1998) worked out the participation framework, in which the consecutive (dialogue) interpreter and other participants of the interpreting act are assigned different roles depending on the contextual settings (cf. Chapter  1). Likewise, Bistra Alexieva (1997) offered a model in which the consecutive interpreter’s role changes with respect to the context. An interesting model of the consecutive interpreting was presented by Fernando Poyatos (1987/2002) who was interested in non-verbal communication encompassing the kinesics and paralanguage of the interpreter, the speaker and the listener. He observed that the process of

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consecutive interpreting performed by those three participants involves not only the verbal expression of the source meaning in the target language but also the use of paralanguage and kinesics (i.e. gestures, manners, postures). Thus, in consecutive interpreting, the meaning is expressed by means of “a functionally cohesive structure” composed of language-paralanguage-kinesics (Poyatos 1987/2002: 238). Likewise, Franz Pöchhacker (2011b: 305) draws attention to the interaction taking place within the consecutive interpreting act calling it “a communicative activity in situated interaction”. Such interaction is also linked to the use of the elements of non-verbal communication which may affect the entire interpreting process as well as the quality of the output. Among the major features of one-to-many consecutive interpreting delivered to an audience is eye contact which may not always be maintained between the interpreter and listeners since the interpreter may focus on taking notes and then on reading the notes in delivering the target text message, having therefore a limited opportunity to maintain constant eye contact with the audience. Several studies have shown (e.g. Andres 2002; Kopa, Walczyński 2017) that consecutive interpreters may resort to using various kinesics, vocalics (vocal features) or oculesics (eye contact) to alleviate, for instance, the experience of stress. What is more, gaze direction may be an important sign indicating the need for taking a turn in the consecutive interpreting-mediated communication. However, the interaction-based models of consecutive interpreting do not address the issue of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity which, as is argued in the further parts of this book, can both result from and influence the interactions occurring within a single consecutive interpreting act. To conclude, the consecutive interpreting process can also be viewed through the prism of interaction, in which its participants, apart from using the verbal communication channel, communicate by means of their body language. Aside from the models of consecutive interpreting viewed as communicative interaction, there have been several models presenting this mode of interpretation as a cognitive multiple-task activity. One of the first of such models of the consecutive interpreting process was developed by Jean Herbert (1952) who saw it as a three-phase process including (1) understanding of the source message; (2) conversion of the source content into the target language; (3) production of the message in the target language. Although Herbert did not take the mental operations (nor the psycho-affective factors) occurring at the three stages into account, his model seems to capture the basic elements of consecutive interpreting well enough. Otto Kade (1963) paid more attention to the mental processes underlying consecutive interpretation which he divided into six phases:  (1) reception of the source language in terms of sound and meaning; (2) conceptual processing and storage; (3) jotting down the content; (4) formulating the content in the target language; (5) adapting the content to the target language; (6) articulating the target message. As observed by Pöchhacker (2011b: 297), “Kade’s account puts particular emphasis on the second phase as it is the result of analytical conceptual processing that will be committed to memory and to the interpreter’s notepad”. It means that Kade might have believed that processing the source message is of vital importance as

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thanks to its proper understanding, the interpreter can both take notes and store the source text content in his/her memory. Unfortunately, it seems that Kade did not notice the important role of the interpreter’s psycho-affective factors. Danica Seleskovitch’s model of consecutive interpreting (1975) was also of more cognitive nature since she distinguished three basic elements of this process: (1) understanding the sense in the source language; (2)  deverbalising the sense; (3) expressing the sense in the target language. Essentially, such an approach, with the sense as the focal construct which is stored and processed in the interpreter’s memory as a language-free meaning and thus stripped of any linguistic forms, was the basis for developing the Interpretive Theory by the members of the Paris School. However, like in the previous models, only the cognitive side was accentuated with the psycho-affective one being unnoticed. Another model of consecutive interpreting was formulated by Hella (Helene) Kirchhoff (1979) who was interested in the consecutive interpreter’s processing of information. Therefore, she saw the information-processing work as occurring in two storage systems: in the interpreter’s memory (the cognitive storage) and in the interpreter’s notes (the material storage) which are collectively known as “parallel storage strategy”. While the two systems have clear differences, they supplement each other and that is why the interpreter can generate the output containing the information derived from the source message. In her cognitive model of consecutive interpreting, Kirchhoff also did not address the issue of the psycho-affective factors. Perhaps one of the most influential models of consecutive interpreting was developed by Daniel Gile (1995) who adopted the previously devised model of simultaneous interpreting to the consecutive mode. The set of Gile’s models is known as “the effort models” because they concentrate on the interpreter’s cognitive efforts needed to render the output. What Gile had in mind while working on those models was not offering a new theoretical approach to interpreting but rather describing the process of interpreting with a view to helping trainee interpreters understand the problems which occur not because of their insufficiently developed linguistic skills or poor knowledge or because of their fatigue but because of some kind of an inadequate supply of mental energy. That is why, as Gile (2009: 158) observed, “(…) trying to understand the reasons behind them [the errors made] seemed important, if only in order to help students understand why interpreting is so difficult and accept this as a fact of life rather than as a worrying sign of incompetence”. This interest led to the formulation of three such models – for simultaneous interpreting, for consecutive interpreting and for sight translation. The basis for constructing the models by Daniel Gile was the ascertaining of two facts. First of all, Gile believed that interpreting is possible thanks to the interpreter’s mental energy which is nevertheless limited and that the automatic cognitive operations do not consume this energy. Secondly, he thought that because interpreting is composed mostly of non-automatic cognitive operations, it is so mental energy-consuming that sometimes interpreting performance may deteriorate as the interpreter does not have a sufficient supply of this energy (Gile 2009).

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Generally speaking, in consecutive interpreting, what can be distinguished is two main phases: (1) the listening and note-taking phase and (2) the output production (reformulation) phase and eight efforts related to those phases: (1) the listening and analysis effort; (2) the memory effort; (3) the note-taking effort; (4) the first phase coordination effort; (5) the note-reading effort; (6) the speech reconstruction effort; (7) the production effort; (8) the second phase coordination effort. The first effort encompasses the comprehension activities such as recognising the speech patterns as belonging to a given language, identifying words and larger structural units or deciding on the meaning of the utterance heard. The memory effort includes the memory operations which occur when the interpreter tries to understand the original speech and thus is related to the concept of working memory which can be defined as a set of mental processes responsible for controlling and regulating the information regarding a given task. Moreover, it is characterised as the needed processing capacity with a limited storage capacity (cf. Gile 2009: 167). In the effort model of consecutive interpreting, it is viewed as the memory operations allowing the interpreter to jot down the necessary information. The note-taking and notereading efforts are related to the interpreter’s notes. In the second phase, thanks to the interpreter’s memory and notes, he/she can reconstruct the original utterance (i.e. represent the utterance mentally and plan the output speech) and proceed to the production effort which may be viewed as delivering the target language text, supplemented by self-monitoring or correcting errors. In the first phase of Gile’s effort model-based consecutive interpreting, the interpreter listens to the original utterance and analyses it (L), takes notes (N), memorises the information (M) and coordinates all those activities (C). Therefore, Gile (2009: 175) postulated the following formula: Interpreting = L + N + M + C. The second phase is composed of the following components: remembering the information necessary to deliver the output (Rem), reading the notes taken at the first stage (Read), generating the output (P) on the basis of the notes and memory and, like in the previous phase, coordinating all of those activities (C). Gile’s formula for this phase is therefore as follows: Interpreting = Rem + Read + P + C (2009: 176). Interestingly enough, Gile specifies two conditions which have to be fulfilled for interpreting to go smoothly. They are related to the interpreter’s processing capacity and hold that: “(1) at any time, the total required processing capacity for all active Efforts must not exceed the interpreter’s total available capacity, and (2) at any time, the processing capacity available for any active Effort should be sufficient for performing the corresponding task” (Gile 2015a: 136). Thus, whenever the processing capacity and mental energy are insufficient, interpreting performance suffers and errors of various types can occur. This, in turn, is related to the so-called “Tightrope Hypothesis” which holds that exceeding the interpreter’s processing capacity, which occurs quite often among interpreters due to the character of their work, results in some disruption of interpreting performance (i.e. errors, omissions etc.) caused by the so-called “problem triggers” – “factors and conditions which increase processing capacity requirements or make the interpreter more vulnerable to attention lapses and attention management errors” (ibid.). Among

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such problem triggers are names, numbers, non-standard words, non-standard pronunciation, information density, syntactic complexity etc. Although Gile does not directly state it, it might be assumed that some of the problem triggers result from the activity of the interpreter’s psycho-affective factors. For that reason, this model is regarded in the further parts of this book as the theoretical construct which serves well as a point of departure for discussing the activity of the selected psycho-affective factors. Moreover, it is a variation of this model that undergoes modification in the course of the analyses carried out within the frameworks of this interpreting research endeavour and whose revised version is offered at the end of the book. On the whole, Gile’s effort model of consecutive interpreting seems to capture the interpreter’s cognitive load and a variety of efforts needed to perform the interpreting task well. It also draws attention to the use of notes which may at least partially help the interpreter limit the processing capacity, especially in terms of the memory effort, and successfully generate the output. What is more, Carol J. Patrie (2004) is right in claiming that Gile’s model helps to focus on particular consecutive interpreter’s subskills which, when properly developed into routines (e.g. note-taking skills), can allow the interpreter to concentrate on other aspects of the consecutive interpreting process. One more model of the consecutive interpreting process which is worth discussing is the meaning-based model constructed by Debra Russell (2005). This model is centred around contextually dependent interpreter’s work. In other words, in her proposal, Russell calls for considering the contextual factors through the prism of the interpreter’s background knowledge. The process of consecutive interpreting should therefore start from the assessment of the contextual factors and the monitoring of the process. Although this is the first stage of the process, the assessment and monitoring continue throughout the entire consecutive interpreting act. Among the factors to be assessed and monitored are “(…) the relationship between the parties in the interaction, the formal and informal power structures represented, the similarities and differences in backgrounds and experiences of the participants, the emotional overlay of the interaction and the impact of the interpreter’s presence on the way the speaker (…) construct[s]‌their message” (Russell, Takeda 2015: 100). Moreover, additional contextual factors may emerge during the interpreting act and that is why the interpreter has to monitor it continually. The second phase involves the interpreter’s comprehension of the source language utterance which is performed thanks to the interpreter’s linguistic skills, background knowledge, cultural awareness, expertise and the aforesaid ability to assess and monitor contextual signals. The third phase is related to using the outcomes of the constant assessment of the contextual factors in creating the output. Then, what follows is the phase of the conceptual planning of the target utterance after which the final phase – target language output production – proceeds. This model draws attention to the contextual factors, by means of which the meaning is created. Moreover, this is perhaps one of few models which make reference to the emotional (i.e. psycho-affective) side of the interpreting act, in

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which real people – the interpreter, the speaker and the audience – with their own emotions, interact to communicate. It also demonstrates the complexity of consecutive interpreting, in which the interpreter actively participates in the creation of meaning. As demonstrated above, despite rather rich theorising about what the consecutive interpreting process is like, what phases it is composed of and what role(s) the interpreter and other participants of the interpreting act play, few models of the consecutive interpreting process directly consider the impact which the interpreter’s (and other interpreting act participants’) psycho-affectivity and, in particular, his/ her individual psycho-affective factors can have on it. Though striving to be professional and unaffected by individual factors, rarely are interpreters able to totally eliminate the effects of the activity of those psycho-affective factors. What is more, as is presented in the further parts of this study, those factors do influence nearly every stage of the consecutive interpreting process and that is why a comprehensive model of the consecutive interpreting process should not fail to encompass this rather intangible aspect. What may be tentatively postulated here is that the comprehensive model, based – at least partially – on Gile’s effort model of consecutive interpreting, may be composed of several roughly defined phases such as comprehension, memorisation, note-taking, processing, including information retrieval and mental formulation, and acoustic expression, i.e. production. All of those stages may be affected by the interpreter’s psycho-affective factors. This issue is raised after the discussion of the case studies and then a revised model of the consecutive interpreting process is presented in greater detail. At this point, however, it is worth restating that modelling the process of consecutive interpreting, especially in terms of the cognitive processes, has allowed scholars to look at its particular stages and, as evident in Gile’s model(s), at the efforts related to the cognitive load. Besides, one of the merits of such models is that they demonstrate that consecutive interpreting is indeed a complex process involving many mental operations occurring at different levels and this, in turn, can be used in interpreter education as a basis for developing proper training methods and environment.

2.3.2. Memory in consecutive interpreting The function memory plays in interpreting has been intriguing interpreting scholars for a long time. For instance, Danica Seleskovitch (1975) studied the role of note-taking and its influence on such cognitive processes as memory retention or memory retrieval, finding that notes provide important hints (i.e. are the so-called “minimal cues” (cf. Pöchhacker 2004: 124)) and make recalling the content of the source text easier. Sylvie Lambert (1989) analysed professional interpreters’ and trainee interpreters’ memory-related skills (i.e. recognition and recall) in several interpreting tasks, including consecutive interpreting, and came to the conclusion that the activity of listening performed as part of simultaneous and consecutive interpreting provided better scores in recognition and recall than the activity of shadowing. In other words, she observed that those interpreters who performed

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listening rather than shadowing were able to recognise and recall more information from their memory during both simultaneous and consecutive interpreting. Mariano García-Landa (1981) presented a model of interpreting, in which, among others, memory structures are taken into account whereas Betty M. Colonomos, in her Integrated Model of Interpreting, distinguished process skills, which, among other things, pertained to the skills of accessing short-term and long-term memory (2015). It has already been mentioned that memory plays a critical role in consecutive interpreting because thanks to it, the interpreter can acquire, retain, process and retrieve information derived from the input and transform it into the output. Agnieszka Chmiel, a Polish interpreting scholar working at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland), explains that (2015: 125): [i]‌t [memory] is especially essential in consecutive interpreting because the phase of reconstructing the content in the target language occurs at a certain time interval as regards the original text and the entire content cannot be noted down because of time constraints.33

Memory as one of the central topics of cognitive psychology can be defined as a continually occurring process of encoding, storing and retrieving information. It is triggered by some input which has to be first recognised and received by the human brain; this input is then encoded in a memory-specific form and afterwards, the second phase occurs: such information is transformed and moved either to short-term memory or long-term memory. The final stage of the operation of memory is related to the retrieval of the previously processed information (cf. Richards 2009, Strickland 2001). Human memory can be divided into three broad types: sensory memory, shortterm memory and long-term memory (Atkinson and Shiffrin 1968). As far as sensory memory is concerned, it allows people to retain information for a very limited period of time, usually for less than one second before it goes to short-term memory, where it can be held for approximately half a minute until it finally reaches longterm memory, in which it can be stored for an indefinite period. Sensory memory can be further subdivided into echoic memory, related to the perception of sounds, and iconic memory, concerned with sight (Baddeley 1997). Short-term memory is used by people every time they perform some activities (i.e. speaking, reading, writing). As some studies have demonstrated, short-time memory can store on average up to seven items (numbers, words etc.) (e.g. ibid.) and when new items appear, they replace the previous elements. To increase the capacity of short-term memory, people use “chunking” – a procedure of grouping certain items in some categories and then such categories form “chunks”. Long-term memory can also be further subdivided into two types:  explicit memory (i.e. conscious) and implicit memory (i.e. unconscious). Explicit memory 33 Translated from Polish by M.W.

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is related to declarative memory  – the memory of facts and events whereas the implicit one – to procedural memory – the memory of skills and tasks, i.e. of how to use skills to perform tasks. Declarative memory is still further categorised into episodic memory (the memory of events and experiences) and semantic memory (the memory of facts and concepts). Next to the above-presented classic division of long-term memory, it can also be divided into its sub-systems, depending on the type of memorised content (e.g. auditory long-term memory, semantic long-term memory or visual long-term memory). More in-depth studies on memory have shown that memory itself is a highly complex system and that the above divisions are rather general. Moreover, it has become evident that apart from storing the input for about 20–30 seconds, short-term memory is also responsible for handling the information which is necessary to perform a given task. María Teresa Bajo and Presentación Padilla (2015:  253) rightly observe that “(…) the concept of short-term memory has evolved and is now conceived as part of a more complex system that consciously maintains, processes and manipulates information needed for the task at hand, usually called working memory”. That is why nowadays scholars prefer to speak about working memory which interpreters exploit during their work and not about short-term memory (though it is certainly exploited by interpreters). It may be conceptualised as a set of cognitive processes, during which the interpreter stores, maintains and processes information for a short period as well as controls those activities. Timarová (2015a: 443–444) explains this in greater detail by saying that: [s]‌torage refers to simple retention of information for a few moments (such as reading a price tag and noting down the amount without looking at the tag again). Maintenance is a process of active refreshing of the information so that it is not forgotten. Processing refers to manipulation of information, such as hearing the word “dog” and mentally translating it into another language. Finally, executive control is a collection of processes which include attention management.

What is more, both short-term memory and long-term memory entail only storing information whereas working memory  – apart from information storage  – also involves the effective use of such information and the performance of various tasks, on which the interpreter’s attention must focus. Thus, working memory can be viewed “(…) both as storage and an attentional control system” (Pöchhacker 2004: 122). Working memory, as above-mentioned, is a complex system which is composed of the central executive, the phonological loop (also known as the articulatory loop), the visual-spatial scratchpad and the episodic buffer (Baddeley 2000). The central executive controls attention and coordinates all other components, which are sometimes called “slave systems”. The phonological loop is responsible for speech processing whereas the visual-spatial scratchpad coordinates the processing of visual and spatial content. The phonological loop allows people to process complex sentences by means of silent articulation. The role of the scratchpad is similar:  it enables people to create and manipulate multi-faceted images and

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other spatial content as well as to visualise some procedures which a given person may be now reading about. Interpreting scholars have come to realise that the process of consecutive interpreting relies on the use of all of the types of memory. For example, the interpreter uses short-time memory when trying to understand an unclear phonetic stimulus. When articulated silently in memory, it can be comprehended. The phonological loop is activated when the interpreter examines a string of difficult lexemes in complex sentences. As observed by Chmiel, “the mechanism of silent articulation can help the interpreter note down such words or proper names. Before the interpreter notes it down, he/she can retain it acoustically in the loop just by silent repetition”34 (2015: 127). The visual-spatial scratchpad is used for the process of visualising the content and for memorising it. It can therefore be stated that working memory allows the interpreter to recognise, receive (comprehend) and process the incoming acoustic, visual and spatial information, visualise it and later to recall and use it in rendering the output. It also enables the interpreter to pay attention to several tasks at a time. Declarative memory (a type of long-term memory), on the other hand, stores the interpreter’s background knowledge which may be of help to the interpreter when performing other tasks and which may make the entire process less effortful in terms of attention and memory. What is interesting, this view was formulated on the basis of the research carried out by Karl Anders Ericsson, a Swedish psychologist working in the USA, who has been interested in, among others, the expert performance of professional interpreters. Ericsson has studied how professional interpreters handle complex tasks in comparison to people without prior interpreting training (e.g. Ericsson 2000). What emerges from the study is that unlike non-professionals, interpreters use “long-term working memory”, which they have been developing in the course of their professional work and which is part of their declarative memory, to handle interpreting assignments and that is why in professional interpreting practice, interpreters are able to retrieve information in a rather automatised manner. Hence, it can be concluded that declarative memory is equally important in the consecutive interpreting process because its particular sub-systems (i.e. semantic memory and episodic memory) provide general as well as specialised knowledge, including, for example, specialised terminology, and the knowledge of past experiences. What is more, the skills of consecutive interpreting and note-taking are possible thanks to the interpreter’s procedural memory. The use of both working memory and longterm memory also allows the consecutive interpreter to make predictions about what will come next in the input and to jot it down when necessary. This general description of how consecutive interpreter’s memory may work must also entail the reference to note-taking which helps the interpreter handle certain elements of the input (i.e. process and then render them) such as names, dates, numbers etc. (i.e. Gile’s problem triggers (2009)) without making an unnecessary effort to memorise 34 Translated from Polish by M.W.

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them since consecutive interpreting itself is occasionally claimed to represent “(…) the deepest form of processing for the interpreter because it demands a considerable amount of sustained effort in terms of memory and attention. It entails complicated processes of decoding, comprehension, and reformulation, which should arguably lead to better recall of the interpreted message” (Bajo, Padilla 2015: 254). What is interesting, memory can also be divided into some other types which may also play a role in consecutive interpreting. For instance, the consecutive interpreter may use his/her auditory memory which is the memory of sounds. During interpreting, it may manifest itself in two forms:  short-term auditory memory, lasting for approximately 20 seconds, during which the interpreter receives some auditory source language signals and can convert them into the target language signals, and long-term auditory memory, thanks to which the interpreter is able to recall the sounds of A and B languages. Another type is autobiographical memory which may also be exploited by the consecutive interpreter. This type of memory refers to the interpreter’s auditory, sensory or visual experiences which may form part of his/her long-term memory. Eidetic (photographic) memory may be defined as “[t]‌he ability to retain a detailed visual image of a visual stimulus, which may be experienced as fixed and scannable” (Richards 2009:  134). Such memory can have its manifestation in the notes taken by the consecutive interpreter during the interpreting act. As remarked at the beginning of this section, memory is an important element of the consecutive interpreting process. This is visible, for instance, in Gile’s effort model of consecutive interpreting where one of its components is the memory effort. This model clearly shows that short-time memory (or, perhaps, working memory) is important in the first phase of the consecutive interpreting process – in the listening and analysis phase – just before information is jotted down while long-term memory is used in the second phase  – in the reformulation phase  – when the consecutive interpreter, on the basis of his/her notes and long-term memory, produces the output. Summing up, it might be argued that thanks to well-functioning working memory and well-developed long-term memory as well as the use of memoryaiding techniques such as note-taking, the consecutive interpreter can successfully deal with the information density and quantity present in the input as well as with the fast pace of the original speech. Furthermore, it might be postulated that without properly developed memory, as well as without the notes, the interpreter would probably be unable to render a several-minute-long (or longer) speech in an adequate and detailed manner since some information may be naturally lost. This is frequently the case when the speaker agrees to take pauses for the interpreter to interpret but the speaker’s fragments are rather long and information-laden. In such a case, the interpreter may experience the natural process of forgetting some minute and less important details which could otherwise be rendered in the output, mainly thanks to the notes. Such information loss could occur as a result of information displacement (cf. e.g. Waugh, Norman 1965) when the density of information is high and the interpreter, making an effort to memorise it,

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replaces it with another piece of information due to the limited storage capacity. It could also happen because of information decay over time – when the interpreter stores the information in short-time memory for too long, it simply decays (cf. e.g. Baddeley, Thompson and Buchanan 1975). The interpreter can also forget information because of the interference caused by having another type of information at the same time in short-time memory which distorts the meaning of the previous information (cf. e.g. Keppel and Underwood 1962). To counteract this information loss from the interpreter’s memory and to facilitate the interpreting process, the interpreter can take notes which aid his/her working and long-term memory, contributing to a better quality of the output. Moreover, given the fact that interpreting itself is a mentally burdensome and challenging activity, the interpreter can reduce some of the memory-related efforts by resorting to the use of notes which may provide retrieval cues or function as a method of storing information.

2.3.3. Note-taking in consecutive interpreting Note-taking is one of the most important methods used by consecutive interpreters to help them deal with a dense information load present in the source text. It is therefore often viewed as an integral part of the uninterrupted unabridged (i.e. classic) consecutive interpreting act. The essential role of note-taking in the consecutive interpreting process, especially during the phases of comprehension, processing, reformulation and production, has been stressed, for instance, by Franz Pöchhacker (2004: 124) who claims that “[i]‌nterpreters’ notes (…) serve to support memory both as external storage devices (e.g. for numbers and names) and as retrieval cues for memorised conceptual structures or patterns of sense”. This means that notes are used both as the interpreter-external manner of storing information as well as the interpreter-internal manner of evoking the memorised content by providing some hints. Some scholars call notes a semi-product of the consecutive interpreting process, the use of which may facilitate generating the consecutive interpreting product, i.e. the output (cf. Janikowski 2015). Note-taking in consecutive interpreting has been one of the research themes which, although highly respected and admired as the activity performed by the interpreter, has drawn rather an insufficient interest of interpreting scholars who studied only selected variables such as the choice of the languages used for note-taking purposes, the quantity of notes, the correlation between notes and interpreting delivery or the choice of note-taking form. In fact, the majority of the studies have adopted the product orientation towards note-taking while relatively little has been analysed from the process-oriented perspective. Among the studies pertaining, at least to some extent, to note-taking which are worth mentioning is the research project carried out by Danica Seleskovitch (1975), in which she found that consecutive interpreters used notes as the retrieval cues which helped them recall information from their memory. She also suggested that note-taking should be an automatic activity because, if otherwise, the interpreter’s attention becomes

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dispersed and therefore he/she needs to concentrate on other activities and not only on processing the input. The issue of note-taking was also touched upon by Heinz Matyssek (1989) who, apart from devising his own note-taking system, was interested in the quantity of notes taken by interpreters. In his studies, he suggested that the notes represent from 20% to 40% of the input text. Dörte Andres (2002) was interested in the differences in the manner of note-taking observed among student interpreters and professional interpreters. She found that professional interpreters demonstrated a better automation of note-taking and therefore were able to concentrate on the macro-level of the source text by processing it more holistically. Student interpreters, on the other hand, had not yet developed proper note-taking techniques and thus they were not automatic. This led to a number of problems related to focusing on particular issues of the source text (i.e. the micro-level) which, in turn, resulted in the time lag between processing and noting the information and the resultant worse quality of the output. Helle Dam (2004) and Csilla Szabó (2006) carried out some experiments on the choice of languages in note-taking. Dam, seeing that the subjects of her study varied in terms of using either target or source languages, came up with the distinction between the subjects’ A and B languages and then showed that they preferred to take notes in their A language. This study demonstrated that the selection of the language for note-taking is correlated more with the interpreter’s status of working languages than with the task-related status of the source and target languages. Szabó (2006), on the other hand, stressed that both differentiations between the source language and target language as well as between A language and B language may be responsible for the selection of the note-taking language and that the participants of her study preferred to use English (their B language) instead of Hungarian (their A language) because of the lesser complexity (i.e. shorter words, easier patterns of abbreviations etc.) of English as compared to Hungarian and, as she noted, because of the fact that their subjects had received consecutive interpreting training in English rather than in Hungarian. Interesting observations were also made by Michaela Albl-Mikasa who studied note-taking within the framework of Relevance Theory (2008). She is of the opinion that the notes taken during the process of consecutive interpreting form an abbreviated and intermediate text, on the basis of which the interpreter constructs the final text of the output, adding the necessary details which he/she collects from contextual cues. Other interesting observations were made by Marta Abuín González (2012) who demonstrated in her study that the level of expertise and experience conditions the use of either the source or target language during the note-taking process. She found that the greater expertise and experience, the more frequent use of the target language in the notes. She says that: (…) although the use of the target language was slightly higher among the advanced students than among the beginners, both groups of students tended to use the source language as the dominant language in their notes, whereas the professional

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interpreters tended to use the target language predominantly. (Abuín González 2012: 67)

The fact that the less experienced and less qualified subjects resorted to note-taking in the source language is explained by González by the yet not fully developed ability to control and manage several processes occurring during the listening phases. This, in turn, substantiated Gile’s claim (2009) that note-taking in the target language may deplete the interpreter’s processing capacity and therefore doing it in the source language may reduce the effort of note-taking at this stage, postposing at the same time the linguistic transfer processes to the reformulation phase. Another set of interesting findings was offered by Sijia Chen (2017) who studied note-taking both as a product and as a process thanks to the use of a pen recording pen strokes in note-taking and special controlling and analytical software called The Eye and Pen. Chen was interested in the professional interpreters’ cognitive load in note-taking, in their choice of form and language as well as the correlations between note-taking and interpreting performance. Despite the small number of experiment subjects (i.e. five professional interpreters), Chen’s study demonstrated that the professional interpreters participating in the study preferred to use language instead of symbols and abbreviations instead of full words, that they showed preference for using their B language (English) over using their A language (Mandarin Chinese), that note quality and quantity determine, at least to some extent, interpreting performance and that the choices interpreters make while jotting down are linked to their cognitive load: it is higher when symbols (over language), full words (over abbreviations) and A language (over B language) are used. Broadly speaking, there is a general agreement among interpreters and interpreting scholars that note-taking should help interpreters – not distract them. When notes provide sufficient information for the interpreter about the content and the structure of the input to be interpreted, they may decrease the processing capacity and help memorise, process and then reconstruct the source text in terms of its meaning and form. However, when they are improperly taken, i.e. they are not fully legible and are incomprehensible or they do not reflect the original information in the form of written cues (and this information is not stored by the interpreter in his/her memory, either), they may contribute to a significant decrease in the quality of the output rendered. Gile (2009) notices one more problem which is related to note-taking. Because of the manual character of note-taking and the relatively slow pace of hand movements, what may be occasionally observed is the time lag between receiving the information (i.e. comprehension) and noting it. Such a lag may lead to some comprehension gaps which the interpreter may experience in the consecutive interpreting process. In other words, it might happen that, because of focusing on note-taking, the interpreter may not be able to store all the information of the input either in notes or in his/her working memory and, it, in turn, can deteriorate the interpreter’s ability to reconstruct the content and form of the source text and render it accurately. However, skilled interpreters

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are able to cope with this situation by applying some specific strategies such as compression, condensation (i.e. implicitation) or explicitation. Furthermore, the adverse effect of the interpreters’ non-automation of note-taking techniques can occur. As has already been discussed above, this was described, among others, by Dörte Andres (2002) who showed that note-taking is not always fully internalised by interpreters, i.e. taking notes is not automatic and that is why it may be quite time-consuming. This can have a direct impact on the comprehension and processing of the source utterance and on the production of the target output which ultimately may not contain all the relevant information of the source text. On the other hand, some scholars have found evidence to support the claim that too much focus on note-taking is also not beneficial since what is important in consecutive interpreting is just the adequate rendering of the source text message and notes are just a method used for doing so. Such a view directly emerges from the words of Maurizio Viezzi, an Italian interpreting scholar affiliated with the University of Trieste, who, realising the importance of notes, in particular in long source texts, cautions against attaching too much importance to notes: Not overemphasizing note-taking may certainly be advisable, note-taking being, after all, just a means and not the end of the consecutive interpreting process. However, it certainly cannot be dismissed as a faux problème (Thiéry 1981) – it is hard to see how speeches lasing several minutes could be reformulated with any degree of accuracy if not adequately noted down. (Viezzi 2013: 380)

In the same vein, Nancy Schweda-Nicholson, a linguist and interpreting researcher, states that: [a]‌very common problem among elementary consecutive interpretation students is the feeling on their part that taking copious notes will ensure an accurate and complete interpretation. However, this strategy usually works in just the opposite way. Students become so involved in taking down words that they are not listening for the meaning. Consequently, when asked to interpret, the trainees often say, “I have a lot of words (notes) on my paper, but I cannot make sense of them”. (…) On the other hand, when the student interpreter takes copious notes, the interpretation very often becomes more of a reading and deciphering process than a speaking one. (SchwedaNicholson 1985: 150)

Moreover, Schweda-Nicholson adds that trainee interpreters should “listen more and write less” (ibid.) and that listening for meaning should precede noting down. In other words, jotting down a symbol, an abbreviation or a full word should follow the interpreter’s comprehension of a given idea and that its written manifestation should evoke the meaning. Likewise, Wilhelm Weber (1989), a professor of interpreting studies, observes that after too much note-taking, interpreters sometimes find it difficult to decipher what they jotted down and to render it. The above opinions were corroborated in the study carried out by Debra Russell (e.g. 2002) who analysed how court interpreters interpreted with note-taking. What surfaced was that those interpreters focused so much on taking notes that they had to ask

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for repeating the messages, thereby prolonging the entire consecutive interpreting act. As far as the very manner of taking notes is concerned, there is a general consensus concerning the freedom in selecting the type, form (language vs. symbols; complete words vs. abbreviations) and structure of those notes. To put it differently, each interpreter is at liberty to develop his/her own note-taking system which would be easy and most suitable for that interpreter. Such a system should effortlessly help the interpreter retrieve the information while producing the output. Hence, each interpreter’s note-taking system is a matter of individual preferences and, albeit note-taking is considered an important skill developed in consecutive interpreting training and further perfected in professional practice, there is no universal system. What is frequently suggested as regards notes is that “(…) good practice consists of noting the main idea, key words, and figures, and the links between them, to trigger memory during delivery” (Stern 2011:  504). Similarly, the interpreter can take notes in whatever language he/she finds more suitable although some interpreting scholars have opted either for the source language (e.g. Ilg 1988), asserting that “(…) interpreters can minimise their effort and save capacity while listening to the source speech, and perform the linguistic conversion in the production phase” (Szabó 2006: 131), for the target language (e.g. Herbert 1952), claiming that “(…) by taking notes in the T[arget]L[anguage] the interpreter can genuinely process the incoming information while listening” (ibid.) or for the mother tongue which may be neither the source nor the target (e.g. Matyssek 1989). Despite those recommendations, professional practice shows that there are interpreters who prefer to take notes only in their native or foreign language as well as those who do it in both languages. Some interpreters take notes in the source language (which, as aforementioned, does not have to be their mother tongue) whereas others in the target language. This shows that whatever choice is good as long as it leads to the generation of the adequate quality output. In consecutive interpreting training, much attention is devoted to developing trainee interpreters’ note-taking skills. This is usually done by introducing trainees, first of all, to what Przemysław Janikowski (2015: 146), a Polish interpreting scholar, calls “the control of external factors”. Among the things he mentions is the role of an appropriate spiral-bound notebook/notepad fitting in size the interpreter’s palm, of a proper writing device as well as the manner of using them both and the interpreter’s posture. Secondly, trainee interpreters are familiarised with one of the widely available systems of note-taking and then they are additionally encouraged to devise their own system. One of such note-taking systems was developed by JeanFrançois Rozan’s (1956) who recommended several principles which interpreters may adhere to while taking notes: (1) the principle of noting the idea and not the word; (2) the principle of using abbreviation rules; (3) the principle of using logical linking rules; (4) the principle of using negation markers; (5) the principle of using emphasis markers; (6) the principle of note verticality and (7) the principle of using shift rules. Furthermore, Rozan additionally suggests using twenty symbols to denote such concepts as correspondence, expression or motion (cf. Gillies 2017,

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Rozan 2002). This note-taking system can be regarded as a useful device offering the opportunity of capturing the information details in a clear and easy way, providing a kind of “conceptual skeleton” (Kade 1963) of the original speech. Another system of note-taking which is composed of a large number of symbols was developed by Heinz Matyssek (1989). His is a system which can be exploited irrespective of the language pair used in a given interpreting act because it is supposed to be independent of any language and therefore language-free. What is interesting, Pöchhacker (2011b) observes that the system nevertheless uses many symbols derived from the German language, which makes the claim of it being language-free not really valid. The application of Matyssek’s system of symbols would entail a great deal of the automation of using those symbols, which, as has been indicated above, is not an easy process. This may be one of the reasons for which not many consecutive interpreters use such a complex system of symbols, preferring less complicated approaches, like the one developed by Rozan. Moreover, it has already been stated that interpreters modify Rozan’s principles and symbols to meet their individual needs in terms of having an easy, clear, economical and effective system of information retrieval triggers or logical linking cues. Thus, it might be postulated that each interpreter’s note-taking system is different and depends on a number of factors and interpreter’s own preferences. A different approach to note-taking was taken by Tony Buzan (1995) who suggested the use of patterned note-taking. Basically, his idea was related to the manipulation of the space on paper instead of taking down information in a conventional linear top-to-bottom and left-to-right manner. Gérard Ilg and Sylvie Lambert (1996: 86–87) argue that: one of the reasons that patterned note-taking may enhance C[onsecutive] I[nterpreting] is that it breaks away from the conventional top-to-bottom and leftto-right procedures usually adopted for note-taking, thereby offering a better representation of more complex inter-relationships than would be achieved by the linear method. In other words, we may read and write in a linear fashion, but our thinking patterns do not necessarily fit that particular mode.

Noting in this way may perhaps help trainee interpreters and interpreters focus more on listening and analysing the input rather than on taking notes, as is often the case especially with consecutive interpreting students who tend to concentrate so much on notes and thus not on comprehending the source message. However, Ilg and Lambert (1996) conclude that this system of note-taking for consecutive interpreting needs further research to ascertain its real value and benefits it may bring for consecutive interpreters. As has been shown in this section, note-taking is an essential element of classic consecutive interpreting for a number of reasons. First of all, it provides the interpreter with a conceptual and structural framework of the source message and facilitates the generation of the target output. Notes can thus be regarded as the external storage devices and as some sets of retrieval cues. Secondly, the use of note-taking may be linked to decreasing the interpreter’s cognitive load related

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to memorising the input content and form and thereby to freeing some amount of the processing capacity which is needed in the process of consecutive interpreting. Thirdly, notes can also be indicative of certain mental operations occurring in the interpreter’s mind and are therefore interesting research material for interpreting scholars. Finally, the interpreter’s notes can also have the traces of the interpreter’s experience of psycho-affective factors, which is one of the issues discussed in the further parts of this study.

2.3.4. Comprehension in consecutive interpreting Comprehension may be thought of as part of broadly conceived processing, without which interpreting is not possible. It seems that this is a prerequisite for input processing for, as noted by Barbara Ahrens (2015: 283), it is “the initial processing phase”. Therefore, this phase is discussed separately here although it has to be remembered that it is an inseparable element of processing which – because of its intricacy – is oftentimes difficult to isolate from other components of the consecutive interpreting process. Comprehension may be defined as a dynamically occurring process, parallel to note-taking, during which the interpreter constructs his/her own representation of a given utterance, event, experience etc. at both the micro-processing and the macro-processing levels. The former level encompasses the mental operations of identifying and decoding the linguistic layer of the source utterance whereas the latter is connected with combining the source utterance information with the interpreter’s background knowledge and knowledge of a given communicative situation (cf. Padilla and Bajo 2015). As such an important element of the interpreting process, comprehension has frequently been included in the models of interpreting (e.g. Gile’s effort models, the Interpretive Theory). Furthermore, Padilla and Bajo capture the essence of comprehension stating that: [h]‌owever natural its accomplishment is in everyday communication, language comprehension has been found to be a highly complex phenomenon – so much so that unravelling its intricacies becomes indispensable for a fuller understanding of the interpreting process. (Padilla, Bajo 2015: 71)

One of the major components of comprehension is inferencing – deriving meaning not only from the linguistic material (i.e. not only from what sounds, words, phrases and sentences mean) but also from the extra-linguistic material (i.e. from context). Inferencing is a fundamental assumption of Relevance Theory which has provided some methodological foundations for studying the interpreting process, during which the interpreter deals with the input, resorting to the use of his/her memory, notes and the contextual embedding which can influence the proper interpretation of a given linguistic signal. Hence, comprehension is often supported by four kinds of inferences  – linguistic, cognitive, pragmatic and situational (Chernov 2004). Of course, the debate whether the interpreter can make inferences about

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the surrounding environment and interpret the source text making use of those inferences is still going on, especially in the context of the interpreter’s role(s), visibility or fidelity. In consecutive interpreting, comprehension occurs at several levels since it entails the recognition of sounds (the phonological level), words (the lexical and semantic level), structures (the syntactic and semantic level), discourse (the discursive level) and situational context (the situational level). To put it differently, comprehension necessitates developing a certain mental representation of the original text (at the above-enumerated levels) on the basis of the input. Equally important is the interpreter’s prior background knowledge and experience which he/she uses in anticipating the information coming from the input. Those two sources of information are integrated in the interpreter’s mind so as to achieve the ultimate communicative goal – rendering the original message in the target language or, simply speaking, to communicate it in a different code. Additionally, Presentación Padilla, Maria Teresa Bajo and Francisca Padilla (1999: 64) contend that during comprehension, the interpreter’s manner of listening and analysing the input is determined just by “his/her previous knowledge of the subject, the type of recipients the (…) interpreting is meant for, the circumstances that give rise to or motivate the text or discourse” and that the ultimate goal of the interpreting act determines the interpreter’s approach to comprehension because this allows to highlight those elements in the original text which are of importance. Working memory seems equally important in comprehension and, as Padilla and Bajo (2015:  73) claim, “(…) interpreters not only have more working memory capacity available, but they are also able to use these cognitive resources more efficiently”. In conclusion, the comprehension stage in consecutive interpreting is a set of processes, within which the interpreter analyses the source text, understands its meaning and supplements his/her understanding with his/her prior knowledge and contextual information. Due to the specific nature of consecutive interpreting, i.e. the simultaneity of comprehension, note-taking and the use of working memory, those processes occur continually at several linguistic and extra-linguistic levels, enabling the interpreter to get the meaning, commit it to notes and then to reformulate and produce it in the spoken form.

2.3.5. Processing in consecutive interpreting Analysing the entirety of the consecutive interpreter’s mental processes which could be collectively called processing is difficult and perhaps not feasible for several reasons. First of all, the interpreter’s mind is inaccessible to researchers directly. It is true that special research devices can be used to examine empirically some of the processes but it is not possible to research all of them. A good case in point is the use of eye-tracking technology which allows identifying the movements of the interpreter’s eyeballs and to correlate them with some mental processes. Monika Płużyczka adds that “(…) using those [eye tracking] achievements in translation [and interpreting] studies allows obtaining interesting data on our visual

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perception during translation [and interpreting] and, what follows, on the processing of information during the translation [and interpreting] activity and the mental processes involved in its execution”35 (2015: 163). Other technologies used in empirical interpreting research are, for instance, functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques (fMRI) which enable researchers to identify the activity of the interpreter’s brain in response to some stimulus. Likewise, electroencephalography (EEG) has also been used in empirical interpreting research to measure the interpreter’s brain reactions to some stimulus. A prime example of using EEG is the study on the activation of the interpreter’s brain areas depending on the direction of simultaneous interpreting (Kurz 1995). Despite the continuous efforts to examine the entirety of the mental processes involved in consecutive interpreting, especially during its processing phase, there is still much to be done in this area. Processing in consecutive interpreting starts with note-taking and continues till the end of the process. This view is corroborated, for instance, by Anna Jelec, a scholar working at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland), who claims that: [s]‌ince this type of interpreting involves the interpreter’s listening to the whole text with the simultaneous note-taking, and then rendering the text to listeners in the target language, it may be argued that content processing is a continually occurring background process.36 (Jelec 2015: 167)

In other words, it may be postulated that input information processing occurs all the time in the consecutive interpreting process because to take notes, the interpreter has to process the input whereas to render the source information in the target language, the interpreter has to process the information derived form the notes. This indicates that processing in consecutive interpreting is a dynamic process of transcoding the meaning which is possible thanks to the use of the interpreter’s notes and working memory. The processing of the input is composed of several operations such as active listening, distributing attention, comprehension (i.e. understanding the speaker’s communicative goal as well as understanding the verbal content, anticipating the information, committing information to notes), reformulating linguistically the source message, transferring the content into the target message in terms of codes (i.e. languages), condensing the meaning and generating the output. This may be supplemented by observing the non-linguistic aspects such as the interpreter’s and other interpreting act participants’ haptics (i.e. contact and touch), chronemics (i.e. verbalisations and pauses), kinesics (i.e. body movements), oculesics (i.e. eye contact), vocalics (i.e. vocal properties such as tone, timbre or speed of speech) or even olfactics (i.e. smell) provided the context of consecutive interpreting allows the interpreter to do so because being focused on

3 5 Translated from Polish by M.W. 36 Translated from Polish by M.W.

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comprehending the input by memorising and jotting down the crucial information, the interpreter may not look at the original message speaker. Processing is an important aspect of Gile’s effort model of consecutive interpreting discussed in Section 2.3.1. and is present in both phases:  in the listening and note-taking phase and in the output production phase. As regards the first phase, processing starts with analysing, memorising and writing down the input information and those operations are related to the efforts from the first phase (i.e. the listening and analysis effort, the memory effort, the note-taking effort, the first phase coordination effort). In the second phase, the interpreter combines the information from the notes and from his/her memory to build the meaning which is then produced orally in the form of the target language output. The central concept of the models devised by Gile is “processing capacity” which may be defined as some kind of mental energy needed to perform the activity of interpreting, in particular, of non-automatic operations (e.g. note-taking). Sometimes the term “attentional resources” is used to mean “processing capacity” (Gile 2009: 259). Another term which corresponds to “processing capacity” is “cognitive load” – the concept which was developed by Gile (1985) to account for the phenomenon of losing information by professional simultaneous interpreters. Cognitive load can be subdivided into several types: instantaneous load (a load at a given time) which may vary as task performance proceeds, peak load (the maximum load), accumulated load (the sum of all load types) and average load (the average value of all load types) (cf. Seeber 2015c). It seems that the term which has been preferred in interpreting studies is “processing capacity” and it is used in the explanations of Gile’s models. Gile’s model assumes that the consecutive interpreter has some mental energy at his/her disposal which is almost entirely consumed during the interpreting process because the majority of cognitive operations inherent in interpreting are nonautomatic. When there is no such mental energy available, i.e. when the processing capacity is insufficient and there is no more of it available, then the interpreter starts making errors and performs worse. Interestingly enough, like Gile (2009), Ewa Gumul and Andrzej Łyda, Polish interpreting scholars, state that the first phase of consecutive interpreting may be hindered by a high density of information present in the original message which they call “saturation” (2007: 171) or by the fast pace of the original speech. Other problems may arise when the interpreter pays too much attention to the way the original text is formulated and instead of focusing on the meaning, he/ she concentrates on particular lexemes or phrases, not being able to deverbalise the source message (i.e. to strip it of a language-specific form). The requirements of the interpreter’s processing capacity are therefore more stringent because he/ she has to divide attention among a few tasks at the same time, performing them usually under time constraints. Given the insufficient availability of the processing capacity, the interpreter’s processing may deteriorate, leading to a number of comprehension gaps and later – in the second phase – to omissions. Unlike in the first phase, when the interpreter may be confronted with the speedy production of

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the input and the need to memorise and/or take down some details, in the second phase the threats of information density are non-existent because, first of all, no new input appears and, secondly, the interpreter performs at his/her own pace when planning and delivering the output. To conclude, processing is undoubtedly an important aspect of the consecutive interpreting process which takes place continually at all of its stages. Initially, it is related to collecting and storing information in the interpreter’s working memory or/and notes, and then, it is linked with deverbalising and combining this information (as well as supplementing it with prior background knowledge) and rendering it in the target language. Proper processing throughout the entire process is a fundamental prerequisite for successful interpreting performance. Any problem of linguistic or cognitive nature encountered by the interpreter may have an undesirable effect on processing and it, in turn, can adversely affect the overall quality of the output rendered. This is also true of the activity of psycho-affective factors such as anxiety, low self-esteem, low motivation or stress which are discussed in the further parts of this study.

2.3.6. Production in consecutive interpreting Pöchhacker (2004) rightly observes that the production phase, also known as the speech/output generation phase, in interpreting has not been studied as extensively as other stages while this is an equally important, if not the most important, part of the consecutive interpreting process because it is just this stage that makes interlingual communication between the participants of the interpreting event possible thanks to the generation of the verbal output which is directed to the addressee from the addresser through the agency of the interpreter. Paweł Korpal, an interpreting scholar and trainer working at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan (Poland), confirms the importance of this phase, saying that “one may even state that the way of formulating the message by the interpreter is of key significance to the assessment of consecutive interpreting quality since the interpreting form [i.e. the way it is rendered] constitutes a kind of the interpreter’s pride”37 (2015: 185). The production phase is thus linked to the re-expression of the original message which can be accounted for in terms of three components: the conceptualisation, formulation and articulation (e.g. Levelt 1989). This indicates that production involves the transition from the interpreter’s intention to the interpreter’s articulation, or to put it differently, that it is the phase in which the message leaves the sphere of the interpreter’s mental representations of the input and enters the physical sphere in the form of sounds carrying some meaning by being verbalised by the interpreter. Other elements of consecutive interpreting production could include monitoring during target utterance delivery and self-correction.

37 Translated from Polish by M.W.

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An important issue which is relevant to the production phase in the consecutive interpreting process is the coordination of the activities accompanying the output delivery or, in other words, the distribution of attention resources to several activities at the same time. As a significant part of this phase, it was already noticed by Gile and included in his effort model as the second phase coordination effort (cf. Gile 2009). The coordination is related to two roughly distinguished types of operations performed by the interpreter in the consecutive interpreting production phase which may be called “the foreground operations” and “the background operations”. As far as the former are concerned, these are mostly the activities of expression and articulation. They come to the fore because the spoken utterance is the primary product of the consecutive interpreting process. This is perhaps also the most important aspect because the background operations, although being the preconditions of the foreground ones, are ancillary and secondary to the articulation of the output. Among the background operations are source utterance reconstruction, speech planning, note-reading or retrieving information from memory. In the production phase, they are performed in the background, i.e. in the interpreter’s mind, and hence they are usually not manifested externally, as compared to speech which is the external manifestation of the foreground operations. The coordination of the foreground and background operations is therefore significant in the delivery of the output. Among the activities to be coordinated, Peter Mead (2011), an Italian interpreting scholar, mentions note-reading. He is of the opinion that “[s]‌ince this [coordination] is the key stage in C[onsecutive] I[nterpeting] for the users who will be the ultimate judges, the ability to glance selectively and discreetly at notes during delivery is fundamental (…)”38. The importance of this aspect of production had been observed long before Mead and, for instance, Jean Herbert (1952) also discussed this issue. He postulated that notereading should precede the articulation of a given fragment of the output and that while producing it orally, the interpreter should take a glance at the next portion of notes. This duplication of attention (“dédoublement de l’attention” (Herbert 1952:  55)) is said to allow the interpreter to think for a while about the correct manner of rendering the noted and memorised concepts or about using some compensation strategies when such noted or memorised retrieval triggers are obscure. Mead, however, states that “(…) the [consecutive] interpreter may from choice or habit read ahead but is not obliged to. In other words, Herbert’s “dédoublement de l’attention” is a desirable feature which enables the accomplished professional to produce a “seamless” delivery”” (201139). A  slightly different approach to this issue was presented by Nancy Schweda-Nicholson who stressed the fact that the correct coordination of the foreground operations, which, as she believes, should proceed in a continuously cyclical manner, should lead to successful performance. The “continuous cycles” of this coordination encompass “(…) 1) looking briefly 3 8 Source: http://www.intralinea.org/archive/article/1666; accessed on: 06 June 2018. 39 Source: http://www.intralinea.org/archive/article/1666; accessed on: 06 June 2018.

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at his/her [the interpreter’s] notes which evoke the meaning and 2)  expressing that meaning while looking at the audience and maintaining good eye contact” (Schweda-Nicholson 1985: 150). Thus, she also adds one more operation to be coordinated – maintaining eye contact with listeners, which is at times difficult because of, for instance, the density of the previously taken notes and the interpreter’s focus on being very accurate or because of the hindering activity of the psychoaffective factors experienced during a given interpretation act by the interpreter. The production phase of the consecutive interpreting process is directly linked to the properties of the output such as coherence, cohesion or language register, to the interpreter’s application of different strategies (cf. Sub­chapter 2.3.8) as well as to his/her skills (e.g. public-speaking skills) or to the experience of the psychoaffective factors, including that of stress40. “Coherence” and “cohesion” are two terms which are used to talk about the quality of the target text. While “coherence” refers to the way a given consecutive interpreting rendering is related to reality and both the interpreter’s and other participants’ prior knowledge (e.g. Hatim and Mason 1997), “cohesion” is linked more to the linguistic organisation of the output and can be characterised by the use of cohesive devices like some specific words or grammatical structures (e.g. conjunctions, discourse markers etc.) which link the fragments of the target text in a logical whole. Using appropriate register in producing the output is also significant since a formal speech delivered at an international conference could not be rendered without the use of formal register in the target language. Likewise, courtroom consecutive interpreting may not be accurate without the interpreter’s use of courtroom register. Otherwise, it would certainly lead to the loss or great obscurity of the sense of the original. Furthermore, Sandra Hale aptly remarks that “[i]‌nterpreting into an inappropriate register (…) can also cause unintended offence, misunderstanding between speakers or a misrepresentation of the original speaker’s level of education, character or even age” (2015b: 339). In discussing language register in consecutive interpreting, Korpal (2015) additionally mentions the maintenance of the emotional layer of the source text in the output. When transferring the meaning and form of the original utterance, the interpreter should also strive to capture its emotional overtone and render it adequately to achieve the original speaker’s intended communicative effect. What is also important in the production stage is the way the output is delivered in terms of the interpreter’s public speaking and improvisation skills encompassing the tone of voice, intonation, fluency, improvisation (when needed)

40 The theoretical aspects of the consecutive interpreter’s psycho-affective factors are discussed in Chapter 3 while the case studies (Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8) present the outcomes of the studies on the trainee interpreters’ and certified interpreters’ subjective experience of those factors. This is the reason why this issue is left unaddressed here.

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or the use of body language. Nonetheless, the interpreter’s spoken delivery can at times be distorted by the occurrence of hesitations, silent and filled pauses (also known as “stalls” and “repairs”, respectively) and mistakes of different character despite the fact that the interpreter has at his/her disposal the readily available retrieval triggers of the input content present in his/her notes and/or memory. The occurrence of pauses, prolonged syllables, repetitions or hesitations – sometimes referred to as “disfluencies” (cf. Mead 2002) – in consecutive interpreting has been the object of several research projects. For instance, Peter Mead (2002) studied the pause time observed among professional consecutive interpreters and trainee interpreters, concluding that the latter tend to have twice as many pauses as the former. Interestingly enough, Mead is right in stating that “(…) control of these “faults” [i.e. hesitations, pauses, repetitions etc.] is also one of the linguistic skills on which fluency actually depends” (2002: 73) because the output filled with many such disfluencies can rarely be seen as fluent. The reasons for those phenomena are manifold and they may be related to the interpreter’s improper distribution of attention resources and the resultant coordination problems (e.g. between speaking and reading notes), the overloaded processing capacity (resulting in, among others, comprehension gaps or improperly taken notes), insufficient general knowledge, environmental factors, the negative activity of the psycho-affective factors, to name but a few. Within the course of education and further practice, consecutive interpreters learn not to pause, hesitate or repeat too much during the production phase since it may impact on the general assessment of the output quality. As has been demonstrated, the production phase of consecutive interpreting, like all other phases, involves an extensive set of various processes which are performed either in the background (note-reading, meaning reconstruction or speech planning) or in the foreground (expression, articulation) in a coordinated way. Therefore, successful production in consecutive interpreting depends on a number of factors, most of which are related to the interpreter’s internal (i.e. mental) and external (i.e. articulatory) operations. Other factors include the input variables (cf. Section 2.3.7) or the environmental ones like other participants of the interpreting act, setting, context etc. They all together make the consecutive interpreter the figure who is the most influential in the interpreting process and the most responsible for the output generated.

2.3.7. Input variables in consecutive interpreting The discussion of the consecutive interpreting process should also encompass the issue of input variables which may be responsible for the (un)successful generation of the output. As such, input variables should be understood as the external and internal properties of the source message and the way it is produced before it is comprehended, analysed, processed, reformulated and re-expressed by the consecutive interpreter. As stated by Pöchhacker (2004: 126), “[p]‌rior to source text processing as such is the issue of acoustic and/or visual access and perception”. It therefore may be argued that processing occurs when the interpreter receives

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acoustically and visually the source speech and the conditions of this acoustic and visual perception may trigger some problems. Among input variables, Pöchhacker (2004) enumerates sound and vision, source text author’s pronunciation characteristics, source text production pace and mode and source message complexity. The fact that there are some elements of the input, the processing of which may be effortful and problematic, was also noticed by Daniel Gile who called them “problem triggers”. In his models, he viewed problem triggers “(…) as associated with increased processing capacity requirements which may exceed available capacity or cause attention management problems, or with vulnerability to a momentary lapse of attention of speech segments with certain features” (2009: 171). Thus, input variables bring about some problems because of the interpreter’s overloaded processing capacity or uneven split of attention and, as a consequence, they all may exert an influence on the source text processing and – by extension – on the ultimate quality of the output. As regards the acoustic nature of the source text, it turns out that in consecutive interpreting, which is typically performed without any sound-improving equipment, acoustics may influence other phases of the consecutive interpreting process. Pöchhacker (2004:  127) holds that “(…) various background noises ad unsuitable positioning (…) can impair the interpreter’s perception and thus comprehension of the original speech”. And it is indeed so and such seemingly trivial matters as the physical distance between the speaker and the interpreter or too spacious a room, in which consecutive interpreting takes place, can affect the quality of the output by hindering the interpreter’s perception of the input. As far as the visual nature of the source text is concerned, it has been studied extensively with reference to simultaneous interpreting whereas research on this aspect in the consecutive mode is scarce. However, professional practice shows that when the consecutive interpreter can observe the speaker, as is often the case in consecutive interpreting, especially in dialogue interpreting, it may help him/her comprehend and process the input by providing some grounds for inferencing, which also conditions to some extent the understanding of the source text. The speaker’s pronunciation is another input variable which may obstruct the consecutive interpreting process. Pöchhacker again rightly notices that “[l]‌ike any perceptual process, the recognition of speech sounds depends on prior knowledge, and any deviation from familiar acoustic-phonetic patterns is likely to make perception more difficult for the interpreter” (2004:  128). In other words, the consecutive interpreter may find it difficult to understand non-standard pronunciation, atypical intonation patterns or uncommon rhythm which may represent a non-native accent. Nevertheless, in consecutive interpreting, especially in the interpreter-mediated face-to-face communication, this factor does not necessarily have to involve much effort on the interpreter’s side because the consecutive interpreter can ask for repeating a given fragment or for clarifying the message. This is not possible in simultaneous interpreting, in which communication is onedirectional and that is why the negative impact of accent and intonation may be more visible in the simultaneous mode.

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Another input variable which may contribute to a lower quality of the output rendered within the consecutive interpreting process is the pace and mode of source text delivery, the former also sometimes known as “delivery rate”, “input rate” or “presentation rate” (Pöchhacker 2004). Like the speaker’s pronunciation, this variable has been studied more extensively in simultaneous interpreting, in which it does impair the interpreting process, with very scanty research into its influence on the consecutive interpreter. However, any fast-speaking speaker may be asked to slow down his/her delivery, making the input more understandable for the interpreter. On the other hand, the slow rate of producing the source text may help the interpreter by allowing him/her to take more detailed notes, have more time to memorise the content or to make some predictions and inferences about what will be uttered next. Notwithstanding this, an extremely slow rate of source message delivery, additionally filled with pauses or hesitations, may have a detrimental effect on the interpreter’s comprehension since those features may disrupt the smoothness of the interpreting process. This is also what happens in any kind of speaking situation: speaking too fast may lead to greater incomprehension whereas speaking too slow in an interrupted and hesitant way may do the same. Generally speaking, the in-between (i.e. neither too fast nor too slow) rate of source message delivery, typically represented by natural speech speed (i.e. the average rate, at which people normally speak) is the most preferred pace likely to have no or a limited adverse effect on the quality of the output. Finally, the last input variable is the complexity of the source text. The said complexity concerns the information load (i.e. semantic or propositional density (Mead 2015: 191) or saturation) of the source text and is measured by word frequency, lexical variability or syntactic complexity. It is obvious that a dense source text may be more difficult for the interpreter to deal with, especially in the first phase of the consecutive interpreting process, during note-taking, since it is actually the stage which is controlled by the speaker and not by the interpreter. Moreover, Gile (2009: 192) is of the opinion that “[h]‌igh speech density is probably the most frequent source of interpreting problems”. The difficulty of processing a dense source speech may result from the fact that the input may be filled with enumerations, numbers, names, acronyms, specialised terminology or that it can be constructed in a syntactically complex way. In this case, note-taking may reduce the risk of information loss because of the presence of retrieval triggers in them. Another solution to the problem of input density which is applied by consecutive interpreters, especially in face-to-face interpreter-mediated communication, is cooperating with the speaker by asking him/her to split the dense fragments into more manageable parts to make their rendering easier to comprehend. Summing up, it may be stated that input variables may obstruct the consecutive interpreting process but, as remarked by Mead (2015: 192), “(…) their exact role and effects, individually or in combination, are difficult to gauge”. Moreover, while relatively much is known about them in simultaneous interpreting, there is still an insufficient body of research on how they impact on the consecutive interpreting process. What is, however, certain is that consecutive interpreters,

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thanks to note-taking and the clear division of the consecutive interpreting process into two phases – one with listening and note-taking and the other one with notereading and articulation  – are not so much time-constrained in the production phase and dealing with input variables may therefore be easier.

2.3.8. Consecutive interpreting strategies Nearly at all stages of the consecutive interpreting process, interpreters can experience some difficulties associated with the input variables, including the acoustic and visual working conditions, the source text speaker’s pronunciation peculiarities, source text delivery speed and mode or source text density and complexity. Other reasons leading to such problems are the interpreting situation participants’ behaviours (e.g. the issue of turn-taking or discourse management) or the individual psycho-affective factors experienced by the interpreter. To counteract the adverse effects of those phenomena, interpreters resort to exploiting certain strategies which are also sometimes referred to as tactics (e.g. Gile 2009) (“immediate decisions when facing problems” (Gile 2015b:  52)), techniques (e.g. Jones 1998) or skills (e.g. Setton 1999). In interpreting studies, the very concept of “strategy” is unclear and ambiguous. One reason for that is that the strategies are often regarded as the inherent properties of the individual interpreter’s way of working and thus not isolated as specific decisions or choices made. Hella Kirchoff (1976/2002: 114) says that “[s]‌trategies indicate which decisions must be taken in a given situation or in view of certain probabilities so as to reach a goal within a behavioural plan”. This approach is in line with what Claus Færch and Gabriele Kasper, scholars studying language acquisition and communication, view as strategies. They define them as “(…) potentially conscious plans for solving what to an individual presents itself as a problem in reaching a particular communicative goal” (1984: 47). Whether they are conscious or not is debatable and this was perhaps the reason for Daniel Gile to use the term “tactics” instead of “strategies”. He explains his choice in the following way: While in the T[ranslation]S[tudies] literature, such online decisions and actions are often called “strategies”, I  prefer to reserve that term for planned action with specific objectives (for instance conference preparation strategies) and to opt for “tactics” when referring to online decisions and actions. Also note that in contrast to usage in some other texts in the T[ranslation]S[tudies] literature, my use of the terms “tactics” and “strategies” is restricted to deliberate decisions and actions aimed at preventing or solving problems, as opposed to spontaneous, perhaps unconscious reactions. (Gile 2009: 200–201).

Despite Gile’s well-justified decision to use the term “tactics” instead of “strategies”, it seems that in interpreting studies both concepts are used interchangeably and this is also so in this section. Thus, an interpreting strategy can be defined as a set of conscious and subconscious decisions which the interpreter makes to solve the arising problems or to prevent the possible future problems when trying to

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achieve the goal of a given interpreting act (whose different aspects may become obscured for several reasons) – to make the interpreter-mediated communication possible by transferring the source speaker’s intended meaning in an accurate and adequate manner. The division of strategies into conscious and subconscious is linked to the level of their automation – if they are automatic, they are subconscious while if they are non-automatic, they result from the interpreter’s conscious decisions. Interpreting strategies can be classified in several ways, depending on the adopted criterion. For example, Pöchhacker (2004:  132) suggests that such tactics can be classified as process-oriented strategies, which are employed to minimise the efforts related with the reception, comprehension and processing of the input, and as product-oriented strategies, which interpreters use to communicate the output message to the target audience. Sylvia Kalina’s classification includes comprehension-facilitating strategies (e.g. inferencing, preparation, input segmentation) and production-oriented strategies (e.g. register adaptation, repairs) (1998). Daniel Gile (2009), on the other hand, distinguishes comprehension tactics, related to the problems occurring at the comprehension stage, preventive tactics, used when the interpreter anticipates problems, and reformulation tactics, employed during the production phase; all of those tactics are collectively known as “coping strategies”. The vast majority of research on interpreting strategies has been done mostly with reference to simultaneous interpreting (for instance, Gile’s tactics were developed for simultaneous interpretation). Nevertheless, consecutive interpreters are also made to resort to similar tactics and that is why what follows is an overview of the most frequent problem-solving techniques applied by consecutive interpreters at all stages of the interpreting process. Hence, the presentation of particular strategies follows the sequence of the consecutive interpreter’s particular operations performed in the course of each stage of the interpreting process, in which they turn out to be of help. Perhaps the basic strategy employed by consecutive interpreters before they even start the first phase of the interpreting process is preparation which some scholars (e.g. Kalina 2015a) view as a necessary and significant aspect determining quality in interpreting. While preparing for consecutive interpreting, interpreters usually become familiar with the topic and topic-related terminology. Oftentimes, the consecutive interpreter is provided with some materials, the acquaintance of which facilitates the interpretation. Interestingly enough, in notarial consecutive interpreting settings, it is a common rule that interpreters are given access to the actual documents, the signing of which requires consecutive interpreting. In such cases, what the interpreter performs is more like sight translation/interpreting than true consecutive interpretation. Similarly, community interpreters who deal with dialogue interpreting also prepare for working in such demanding environments by acquiring the knowledge of, for instance, cultural differences or specific discursive practices of the interpreting act participants. In general, appropriate preparation can reduce the interpreter’s cognitive load and release some processing capacity during the interpreting proper.

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When the comprehension phase of the consecutive interpreting process begins, the interpreter has to store in his/her memory the information about the content and form of the source text. The basic strategy applied in such a situation is therefore note-taking which, in fact, is rarely seen as a tactic and more often as a concurrent mental operation with external manifestations  – the notes taken. Commenting on this issue, Gile observes that “[t]‌hey [note-taking skills] are taught by instructors as practical techniques and are not discussed (…) as coping tactics” (2009: 215). On the other hand, however, one of the strategies helping consecutive interpreters deal with the too overloaded processing capacity is abandoning notetaking and focusing on memorising the content (Gile 2009). One of the strategies employed by consecutive interpreters at the phase of comprehension is the delaying strategy – postposing the comprehension of some element of the input with the view to dealing with it later. This use of this strategy manifests itself in the notes taken. As explained by Gile (2009: 214), “(…) the delaying tactic means leaving a blank space on paper, to be filled later – or not”. When consecutive interpreters working especially in dialogic situations have to mediate between the parties speaking different languages, they use several strategies for controlling the interaction taking place within the interpreting act if they encounter comprehension or production problems. This indicates that they can use some discourse management strategies to organise the interaction and control the turn-taking system to, for example, facilitate the comprehension of the input. When some elements of the input are unclear and consequently incomprehensible, the interpreter can use the request strategy – i.e. to request for repeating or clarifying the input information or for slowing down the input delivery speed as well as to provide some meta-comments (for instance, on the use of terminology or the speaking pace). Actually, in liaison interpreting, the interpreter can control the entire interpreting process by coordinating turn-taking and organising the entire interaction. It seems that to do so, interpreters use two types of interaction coordination strategies – verbal strategies (like the request strategy) as well as non-verbal strategies (e.g. gaze or gestures) (e.g. Davitti 2013). In comprehending the sense of the input as well as memorising and/or noting it down, the consecutive interpreter can resort to exploiting the anticipation and inferencing strategies. The former strategy, albeit used extensively in simultaneous interpreting, is also made use of in the consecutive mode. There are two approaches to the definition of anticipation: the narrow approach and the broader approach. In the first approach, the essence of anticipation involves “(…) the prediction of source text constituents not yet available for the interpreter’s output planning” (Liontou 2015: 15) or that this is “(…) is a strategy by which the receiver (the interpreter) formulates hypotheses about yet unspoken speech parts” (Tryuk 2010: 187). Viewed from this angle, anticipation refers to the prediction of linguistic elements of the source text. The broader definition of anticipation assumes that it is “(…) prediction of likely future events, by relying on experience stored in memory” (Liontou 2015: 16). For instance, the consecutive interpreter, while listening to the source message, thanks to his/her background knowledge and past experience

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stored in memory, can predict certain language-related elements which will be said and thus he/she can reduce the cognitive load because prediction facilitates memorisation and further retrieval. Małgorzata Tryuk (2010) comments that those predictions can be wrong but they trigger the cognitive operations whose general aim is to comprehend the input. Inferencing is closely linked to anticipation but the former differs from the latter in that it refers to constructing the meaning by using the words uttered supplemented by the knowledge of the contextual embedding and the perception of the visual and acoustic surrounding. Broadly speaking, anticipation is more future-oriented whereas inferencing is more present-oriented. It means that anticipation is used by consecutive interpreters to predict the next linguistic elements of the discourse whereas inference is linked more to the ongoing construction of the meaning of what has been said with reference to the actual sense expressed in the utterance and to the situational context. Nevertheless, it seems that the border between those two strategies, i.e. inferencing and the broader understanding of anticipation, employed in consecutive interpreting is rather blurred, which can be inferred from Ghelly Chernov’s classification of interferences (i.e. linguistic, cognitive, pragmatic and situational (2004)). Setton (2015b: 190) additionally says that inference “(…) support[s]‌comprehension and assist[s] the derivation of implicit sense, but also facilitate[s] the interpreting process (notably, enabling anticipation) (…)”. What can therefore be said is that inferencing encompasses anticipation since “(…) anticipation in the broader sense must be assumed to be part of any process of understanding based on prior experience and knowledge” (Liontou 2015: 16). Another strategy used now and then by consecutive interpreters is the reconstruction tactic which involves the reconstruction of a given input element such as a name, some number or a technical concept in the interpreter’s mind with the use of the interpreter’s background linguistic and extra-linguistic knowledge (Gile 2009). Fortunately, thanks to the possibility of taking notes, consecutive interpreters do not have to rely on this strategy too often. As stated several times so far, the first phase of the classic consecutive interpreting process – input reception, comprehension and processing – is typically paced by the speaker, which means that the interpreter has to accommodate his/her working mode to the manner of the speaker’s delivery as well as to the form and content of the source text. A strategy which is used at the comprehension phase is compression41. Generally speaking, input content compression (and then its expression as the output) may be understood as a strategy of reducing the 41 Different scholars treat compression differently – some prefer to see it as a contentprocessing strategy (cf. Pöchhacker 2004) while others – as a target-production strategy (cf. Kalina 2015b). This may be accounted for by the fact that input compression characteristics greatly overlap with those of output condensation/implicitation, making it impossible to specify which one of those strategies is applied at a given moment. Besides, although in this discussion a tentative distinction is made between compression and implicitation (condensation, abstracting), in reality, these two often

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irrelevant elements of the source text which has its external manifestation mainly in the interpreter’s notes. Those irrelevant elements may be of different nature and can include several levels: lexical, semantic, syntactic or conceptual. The strategy of compression is closely linked to the strategy of implicitation, also known as condensation or abstracting which manifests itself in the reduced content of the output. This indicates that the interpreter can condense the original speaker’s repetitions, irrelevant information, including digressions, hesitations or pauses and omit them in his/her output rendering. This of course does not mean that omission can be used at all times because the omissions of important information may be viewed as the interpreter’s errors. Thanks to condensation, it is estimated that the delivery of consecutive interpreting should take approximately 70%–75% of the source text production time (cf. Herbert 1952: 67) and therefore it is a recommended strategy. Kalina (2015b) suggests that interpreters use abstracting when they choose the elements of the input containing other elements, use hyperonyms (words of wider meanings)42, simplify complex syntax or replace a group of ideas from the input by a superordinate idea. As above-mentioned, condensation is a frequently used strategy but there are certain settings in which the consecutive interpreter is expected to render the input content accurately and not condense it. A  good case in point is courtroom/legal interpreting where every detail of the input may matter and that is why abstracting in consecutive courtroom interpreting is not recommended. Closely linked is the strategy of omission which some scholars tend to view as generating performance errors or competence errors (e.g. Kopczyński 1980) and others hold that omissions are the interpreter’s conscious strategic choices (e.g. Bartłomiejczyk 2006). Jemina Napier, a professor of intercultural communication, has identified five basic types of omissions, some of which are conscious strategic choices:  (1) conscious strategic omissions (the interpreter omits some information deliberately to make the rendering more relevant); (2) conscious intentional omissions (the interpreter intentionally omits some information, thereby contributing to the information loss, for he/she has not understood it or for he/she is not able to convert it into the target language); (3) conscious unintentional omissions (the interpreter consciously decides to omit some information hoping that it will be clarified in the course of the interpreting); (4) conscious receptive omissions (the interpreter omits some information because of the obscure input variable which makes it impossible to comprehend this information properly); (5)  unconscious omissions (the interpreter is not aware of omitting information) (Napier 2015). A  different typology of omissions was offered by Cecilia Wadensjö (1998) who

work together and produce the same result – the output being more concise than the input. 42 Gile (2009: 206) considers this a separate tactic of “replacing a segment with a superordinate term or a more general speech segment”.

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studied dialogue interpreting and distinguished between reduced renderings (some content of the input is obscured in the output), summarised renderings (the summary of the input, with some information omitted) and zero rendering (information loss because of no rendering at all). An interesting issue, although touched upon with reference to the simultaneous and not the consecutive mode, is raised by Gile (2009) who observes that the interpreter may decide not to reproduce an element which is thought to be offensive, inappropriate or in any way biased so as to avoid harming the parties involved. Whether the consecutive interpreter should render it or not or whether he/she should be a gate-keeper in this is a debatable issue related to the interpreter’s visibility and fidelity. One thing, however, is clear – it seems that all types of omissions are encountered in consecutive interpreting with some interpreters selecting them deliberately and others not. The phase of output production is also characterised by the occurrence of several other strategies. Instead of reducing the input, consecutive interpreters sometimes may decide to add some information which they find relevant and necessary for the better understanding of the speaker’s intended meaning. Such addition is also referred to as elaboration or explicitation  – adding certain clarifications or explanations to make the target text more explicit. Overall, it is believed that explicitation is one of the translation universals, which holds that translations as such have more cohesive devices than their source texts. This has resulted in postulating “the explicitation hypothesis” (Blum-Kulka 1986:  19). Candace Séguinot (1988: 106) accounts for explicitation in the following way: Explicitation can take three forms in a translation:  something is expressed in the translation which was not in the original, something which was implied or understood through presupposition in the source text is overtly expressed in the translation, or an element in the source text is given greater importance in the translation through focus, emphasis, or lexical choice.

Though Séguinot speaks about translation, the same applies to interpreting. It seems that consecutive interpreting offers great potential for explicitation since the interpreter relies on his/her memory and/or notes and can therefore add some elements to deliver a more accurate output. This is especially true of dialogue interpreting performed within community interpreting settings, in which the interpreter, seeing that the participants may not fully understand the output, can additionally explain it by employing the strategy of explicitation. Another strategy which is used in consecutive interpreting is transcoding which may be defined as the literal, i.e. word-for-word, rendering of the input. The use of this strategy was observed by, among others, Danica Seleskovitch (1975) who noted that certain elements of the input, such as names and numbers, are interpreted by means of their target language correspondences or by means of taking the original name from the input and using it in the output. Consecutive interpreters often transcode names, numbers or lists thanks to the fact that they can note them down. Otherwise, perhaps they would have to use some other strategies (e.g. compression, condensation or omission) since remembering an

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extensive series of names, numbers or lists of items may not be fully possible because of the limited processing capacity and the enormous memory effort it would take. Closely linked to transcoding is Gile’s strategy of sound reproduction. It involves pronouncing a technical term or any other word that the interpreter does not know in the way it is pronounced in the source language. While this strategy may be effective in simultaneous interpreting, in the consecutive mode – because of the time span lapsing from the interpreter’s reception to the interpreter’s production  – it is used very sparingly since the consecutive interpreter has some time to think about the replacement of a given lexical item and render it in a target language-specific way. Similarly, the strategy of naturalisation is also sometimes used by consecutive interpreters when they have no other means of dealing with the problem of not knowing an appropriate equivalent. In such a way, they can naturalise a source language item by adopting it to the rules of the target language. The problems consecutive interpreters experience at the production phase can also be solved by means of the repairing strategy (i.e. repairs). Any kind of spontaneous speech generated under the cognitive and time constraints is jeopardised by slips (deviations from standard pronunciation, lexicon or syntax) and when such occur in consecutive interpreting, the interpreter can repair them. This selfmonitoring, which the consecutive interpreter does while interpreting, may lead to self-correction. The self-corrections do not necessarily have to be the corrections of actual errors; they may also be attempts to express some information better, more accurately, with a more specialised equivalent. Another set of strategies is applied by consecutive interpreters to deal with the activity of psycho-affective factors such as anxiety, language inhibition or stress – all of which can be experienced at each stage of the consecutive interpreting process. Those factors, depending on the type of the consecutive interpreting task, may also affect the interpreter and, ultimately interpreting performance and quality. The strategies employed by consecutive interpreters may be collectively called psycho-affectivity management strategies. They might help interpreters decrease the adverse effect of their subjective experience of those factors and reduce the negative impact they might have on the quality of both the entire interpreting process and its product – the target text. The consecutive interpreting phase-related temporal distribution of the abovediscussed strategies is presented graphically in Fig. 7 (see below). To sum up, it can be stated that during interpreting, consecutive interpreters employ – consciously or unconsciously – a variety of interpreting strategies which are used to address specific source language comprehension-related or target language production-related problems. What is interesting, Małgorzata Tryuk, a Polish professor of interpreting studies working at the University of Warsaw (Poland), is of the opinion that “(…) while interpreting, the interpreter uses a “super-strategy”, i.e. monitoring strategy, to assess proper application of other single strategies” (2010:  185). Moreover, she states that all the strategies can be

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Fig. 7: The temporal phase-related distribution of consecutive interpreting strategies (author’s own concept).

classified as belonging to one of three basic types:  anticipation, condensation and note-taking which other authors have fragmented in many other strategies. Consecutive interpreters employ them at both stages of the interpreting process and, as Tryuk argues, their proper utilisation has been regarded as a benchmark of interpreting quality, especially of the interpreter’s performance. Thus, it may be stated that one of the distinctive features of professional consecutive interpreting is the use of the interpreting strategies which can be divided into two broad categories:  (1) compensation (coping) strategies for solving the ongoing problems occurring during the consecutive interpreting process and (2) preventive strategies used to avoid potential problems.

2.4. Consecutive interpreter competence The issue of the interpreter competence at large has been discussed in Chapter 1. In this subchapter, attention is paid to the consecutive interpreter competence since, as is demonstrated below, it differs in some respects from, for instance, the conference interpreter competence and may require a slightly different set of skills. The model of the consecutive interpreter competence relies on the componential model of the interpreter competence presented in the previous chapter. As has been stressed throughout this chapter, within the act of consecutive interpreting, the primary goal of the consecutive interpreter is to render the meaning of the source text in the target language. Therefore, the main subcompetence of such an interpreter is definitely the linguistic subcompetence which may be explained as the excellent command of both the source and target

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languages at the levels of both reception and production. Due to the fact that consecutive interpreting provided especially in the dialogic form (e.g. within community interpreting) is bi-directional – from and into both languages involved – the command of A language and B language should be ideally equally strong allowing the consecutive interpreter for an easy code-switching between those languages. However, this subcompetence also encompasses the knowledge and practical application (i.e. adherence to) of the pragmatic rules of communication in both languages. It is common knowledge that languages differ not only in their lexical, grammatical and semantic properties; they also differ in terms of their pragmatics. That is why, the consecutive interpreter has to know how to render the sense of the input in the target language form, not violating the pragmatic rules of communication. This may refer to such issues as using appropriate languagespecific greeting formulae, avoiding language biases, applying language-specific honorifics etc. Another subcompetence which the consecutive interpreter should manifest is the interpreting subcompetence. Being perhaps one of the most fundamental subcompetences, it involves most of all the transfer skills  – the ability to convert the source message into the target one. It may be achieved by developing the knowledge and practical skills of using appropriate interpreting strategies which help the interpreter to transfer the original sense and, what is more, to solve the emerging and potential problems of different nature which may occur in the process of consecutive interpretation. The interpreting subcompetence thus comprises such aspects as note-taking skills, note-reading skills or comprehension gap bridging skills (which – to a large extent – may also be subsumed into the cognitive subcompetence as they offer information retrieval cues), as well as monitoring skills, letting the consecutive interpreter monitor the entire process of interpreting and – when there is such a need – to use appropriate strategies and repair some errors. The general knowledge subcompetence is equally crucial since, as has been demonstrated above, the consecutive interpreter constructs the sense of the original not only on the basis of the linguistic input and visual and spatial cues but also on the basis of his/her general background knowledge. Closely related to this subcompetence is the domain-related subcompetence which is linked to the consecutive interpreter’s knowledge of a given domain and related specialised terminology. This subcompetence is particularly important in different types of community interpreting like medical interpreting, police interpreting or legal interpreting (cf. e.g. Maliszewski 2015), during which the consecutive interpreter has to render the original message adequately not losing any information from the input. This loss of information can occur when, for instance, the interpreter does not understand the source language specialised lexicon (e.g. medical terms, legal terms) or when he/she cannot render them in the target language by means of the target language specialised terminology. Since consecutive interpreting involves numerous cognitive operations, the consecutive interpreter is required to have developed the cognitive subcompetence.

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Short-, long- and working memory skills, prolonged attention span skills and attention division skills (e.g. simultaneous focus on comprehension and notetaking or note-reading and production) or information retrieval skills are only some of the abilities which are parts of this subcompetence. It may be argued that the improper management of the interpreter’s cognitive resources is externally manifested in the actual output deficiencies resulting in conscious intentional and unintentional as well as unconscious omissions, hesitations, pauses etc. What is more, the cognitive subcompetence is responsible for the learning skills which are indispensable in this profession. Generally speaking, the cognitive subcompetence makes it possible for the consecutive interpreter to perform the interpreting task because in any type of consecutive interpreting, there is always a need to store some input information, to divide attention or to retrieve information from the interpreter’s memory and/or the notes taken. Thus, the proper development of the interpreter’s cognitive skills should be viewed as being of paramount importance. In comparison to the cognitive aspects of the interpreter competence, the psycho-affective subcompetence has drawn interpreting scholars’ attention less frequently (with Albl-Mikasa (e.g. 2013), Bontempo and Napier (2011), Brisau, Godijns and Meuleman (1994), Colonomos (2015), Klimkowski (2015), Korpal (2017), Kurz (2003), Pöchhacker (2011c), Rosiers, Eyckmans and Bauwens (2011) or Timarová and Ungoed-Thomas (2008) being noteworthy exceptions) although, as rightly observed by Korpal (2017:  15), “(…) in recent years, one might observe that psycho-affective factors (i.e. those relating to emotions and psychological traits), such as motivation, stress resistance and personality, are gaining more and more attention from interpreting scholars and interpreting schools (…)”. However, the psycho-affective aspects, as is argued in the further parts of this book, are equally important. The ability to cope with stress and tension, self-esteem, self-confidence, motivation, extroversion/introversion or anxiety can all play a role in determining the quality of consecutive interpreting performance and its output. Therefore, the assessment of the psychological properties of the interpreting candidate tends to be part of the admission procedure aiming to select those candidates who will be psychologically apt and who will be able (to learn) to deal with the factors evoking people’s psychological responses. For consecutive interpreting is never performed in a vacuum and thus it is always a socially situated activity with at least three parties (the interpreter, the source text addresser and the target text addressee), the social subcompetence is also included in the postulated model of the consecutive interpreter competence. Among other skills, it pertains to the ability of cooperating with the interactants understood as organisation and management skills (i.e. turn-taking coordination skills, the unobtrusive yet effective skills of interrupting the speedy production of the source message or the skills of subtle signposting too fast a pace of the source utterance delivery), the ability of providing constructive feedback and meta-information, the ability of recognising the interpreter’s expected and required role/function in a given consecutive interpreting act, especially in

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sensitive contexts (e.g. healthcare interpreting, immigration office interpreting) or the ability of distancing himself/herself from the interpreted content and of being impartial. The social subcompetence is at least partially linked to the intercultural competence which requires that that consecutive interpreter have some knowledge of the interpreting act participants’ cultures, especially of the similarities and differences between them, and of the methods, by which those cultural gaps may be bridged. Again, this intercultural competence comes to the fore particularly in highly sensitive settings of community interpreting, in which people of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds have to communicate, through the agency of the interpreter, with the representative(s) of the authorities, thus recognising the unequal distribution of power (e.g. immigration office interpreting). One more subcompetence which is also a component of the consecutive interpreter competence is the business subcompetence  – a market-related component which addresses the business side of providing professional consecutive interpreting services. A  properly developed consecutive interpreter business subcompetence will thus encompass the acquaintance with and observance of business standards and practices used in consecutive interpreting, the proper identification of the settings requiring consecutive interpreting, the recognition of additional resources needed for consecutive interpreting and other businessrelated aspects of cooperating with clients (e.g. the methods of calculating the remuneration, signing agreements etc.). Finally, there is the preparation subcompetence which the consecutive interpreter activates prior to the act of interpreting when he/she collects the necessary knowledge, searches for the terminology which may prove useful, becomes familiar with the cognitive and psychological burdens which may be imposed on him/she during interpreting, deals with the business formalities etc. This subcompetence allows the interpreter to predict potential problems and to have at his/her disposal the readily available means of countering them. The graphic representation of all the subcompetences is presented in Fig.  8 (see below). The circular arrangement of the components is aimed at showing that all of the subcompetences are significant in the proposed concept of the consecutive interpreter competence and that the exploitation of most of them can take place at all the stages of the interpreting process. Arguably, the above-proposed model of the consecutive interpreter competence encompasses all of the subcompetences which are needed by professional consecutive interpreters. Although it may be stated that the presentation of the subcompetences predetermines their importance – that one is superior another, it is not really so since they should be viewed as complementary components. Besides, such a broad approach to the consecutive interpreter’s knowledge, skills and social competences allows devising a training curriculum, the adoption of which can help educate future consecutive interpreters in a highly comprehensive way.

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Fig. 8: The proposed model of the consecutive interpreter competence (author’s own concept).

2.5. Consecutive interpreting training: an overview of educational practices Any education activities regarding interpreting should be preceded by the conceptual work – thorough planning and providing answers to five major questions: (1) What kind of entry requirements have to be met by potential candidates?; (2) What is the market demand for (consecutive) interpreters and what/who does the market really need?; (3) What kind of knowledge and skills can be taught with reference to the market reality, bearing in mind that consecutive interpreting is a practical activity which is learnt mostly by experience?; (4) How can this knowledge and skills be imparted and developed?; (5) What kind of graduates will complete the training and how will they address the market needs? Obtaining the responses to the questions mentioned above can provide a picture of what the intended consecutive interpreting education should be like.

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Before the wider use of simultaneous interpreting, consecutive interpreting, next to sight translation/interpreting, was the basic mode taught in interpreting schools. For instance, after the First World War, the School of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Geneva offered training in consecutive interpreting with notetaking which the first interpreters working for the League of Nations completed (Stern 2011). Only later (after the Second World War) was more attention devoted to training in simultaneous interpreting, making it the more preferred mode of interpretation provided in international settings. Likewise, the translation and interpreting schools opened before the Second World War in Moscow, Heidelberg or Vienna offered consecutive interpreting training and the full mastery of this mode was the learning outcome. Nowadays, consecutive interpreting training is still provided within the frameworks of interpreter education but it is usually treated as a technique which needs to be developed prior to simultaneous interpreting and it serves as a basis for training in technology-aided simultaneous interpretation. This trend was followed by Danica Seleskovitch (1981) who argued that the consecutive interpreting processes could be easily transferred to simultaneous interpreting since they are basically the same in both modes. Moreover, she was of the opinion that when consecutive interpreting training precedes the simultaneous interpreting one, trainee interpreters have a chance to spot their errors and become more aware of their deficiencies and thus avoid them. Finally, she also believed that the trainee’s consecutive interpreting allows the instructor to find out whether this trainee interpreter had indeed understood the original utterance. Some scholars, however, suggest that consecutive interpreting training can be provided in parallel to simultaneous interpreting training (e.g. Longley 1978) and Sylvia Kalina (1994: 220), while agreeing that “(…) comprehension is of crucial importance to interpreting and that C[onsecutive]I[nterpreting] serves as a good preparatory exercise for S[imultaneous]I[nterpreting]”, offers a set of alternative tasks which may be a better basis for simultaneous interpreting. Ludmila Stern (2011: 503) additionally states that “(…) there are arguments in favour of teaching C[onsecutive] I[nterpreting] and S[imultaneous]I[nterpreting] in parallel, as there is no evidence that C[onsecutive]I[nterpreting] necessarily prepares students for S[imultaneous] I[nterpreting]”. Nevertheless, what can be observed in interpreter education is the prevailing approach of progression from consecutive interpreting to simultaneous interpreting which aims at developing the skills of comprehension and analysis on the basis of consecutive interpreting which are necessary for the simultaneous mode. Interestingly enough, Gérard Ilg and Sylvie Lambert go even further and offer a progression path consisting of fourteen steps. They state that: [b]‌riefly, these steps involve (1)  listening and memory exercises, (2)  shadowing, (3) dual-task training, (4) paraphrasing, (5) abstracting, (6) clozing, (7) sight translation, (8) sight interpretation, (9) processing of digits, proper names, technical words and acronyms, (10) lagging exercises, (11) anticipation exercises and (12) left- and rightear processing exercises. In other words, consecutive or simultaneous interpretation

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per se would be introduced as exercises (13) and (14) once steps (1) through (12) had been properly mastered. (Ilg, Lambert 1996: 76)

They also suggest that training in consecutive interpreting proper should not be the point of departure and that is why it should be preceded by some exercises in the trainee interpreters’ native language. They argue that “[f]‌rom a cognitive psychologist’s point of view, C[onsecutive]I[nterpreting] (…) and S[imultanous] I[nterpreting] fall at the very end of the hierarchical spectrum of complex cognitive tasks, which should only ever be attempted once other more pragmatic tasks have been mastered such as written translation, paraphrasing, sight translation, shadowing and cloze exercises” (ibid.). The consecutive-simultaneous interpreting progression is also presupposed, for instance, by the European Masters in Conference Interpreting (EMCI) programme, in which consecutive interpreting should be provided before simultaneous interpreting43. After such consecutive interpreting training, trainee interpreters “(…) shall be capable of giving a fluent and effective consecutive interpretation of a speech reflecting real professional market needs, accurately reproducing the content of the original and using appropriate terminology and register”44. Interestingly enough, it is also the performance in the consecutive mode that is often the basis for selecting candidates for the training in simultaneous interpreting (Russell, Takeda 2015). Despite the fact that consecutive interpreting, especially in its long classic form, is at present rather rarely used in conference settings and in the majority of cases simultaneous interpreters interpret long monologic utterances, consecutive interpreters are still needed in dialogue (liaison) interpreting, especially in such interpreting settings as a courtroom, an immigration office, a healthcare institution or a business company. Therefore, comprehensive consecutive interpreting training should also address consecutive interpreting in such contexts because, as it seems, they predominate in the professional work of consecutive interpreters. Moreover, consecutive interpreting is also used as a certification method. For instance, as has already been mentioned, a person wishing to become a certified translator/interpreter in Poland is obliged to pass the certified translation and interpreting examination, during which consecutive interpretation, along with sight translation/interpreting, is tested in the oral part. It indicates that consecutive interpreting can also be regarded as the target mode and not only a pedagogical means of developing competence in the simultaneous mode. Hence, regardless of the decreasing role of the consecutive mode in some settings, it is still an essential method of interpreter-mediated communication and as such should be practised within interpreting training.

4 3 Source: http://www.emcinterpreting.org; accessed on: 15 March 2018. 44 Ibid.

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A comprehensive curriculum of consecutive interpreting training should be designed in such a way that all the consecutive interpreter subcompetences can be acquired and further developed in professional practice. This can be done by paying attention to the development of knowledge and practical skills necessary to provide consecutive interpreting services. It has already been stressed several times that interpreting as such, including its consecutive mode, is most of all a hands-on activity which can be developed through practice-oriented training and practical experience. However, as observed by Stern, trainee interpreters should also be introduced to the theoretical aspects of interpreting since “(…) the knowledge of interpreting theory promotes reflective independent learning, enhances students’ progress and assists with decision-making and the maintenance of appropriate strategies and tactics (…). It also provides solutions to problems that are likely to arise” (2011: 502). The inclusion of the theoretical component is justified by professional practice since the consecutive interpreter indeed makes instant decisions, encounters various problems which he/she needs to immediately address by applying different strategies. The consecutive interpreter profession is also the one related to life-long learning and, as postulated by Ludmila Stern (ibid.), interpreting theory can foster this process. As far as the practical dimension of consecutive interpreting training is concerned, it usually involves exercises devoted to comprehension, listening, reformulation, delivery, memory, attention or note-taking and note-reading. Perhaps the most frequently practised aspect of consecutive interpreting is note-taking. Trainee interpreters are introduced to the general principles of note-taking and encouraged to develop their own systems. Moreover, trainee interpreters train their working, long-term and short-term memory since consecutive interpreting, to a great extent, relies on memorising and then retrieving information. Other cognitive operations are practised within a consecutive interpreting course, as well. Interpreting students learn how to manage their attention resources, how to supplement the information from the input with their general background knowledge or how to deal with problem triggers such as names or numbers. The training in consecutive interpreting proper, i.e. in interpreting consecutively both long speeches (using note-taking) as well as shorter portions of the input constitutes the core of consecutive interpreting training, during which different strategies are also worked out and further practised. Finally, an ideally designed consecutive interpreting curriculum should also include the practical training (e.g. in a form of psychological workshops) in the management of psycho-affective factors which often negatively influence the interpreter himself/herself, the interpreting process, interpreting performance and the output. An interesting approach to consecutive interpreting education is taken by Velia Ficchi, an Italian-English translator and interpreter, who advocates a self-directed approach to consecutive interpretation education whose aim is to develop consecutive interpreting students’ personal system which is formed on the basis of students’ errors, needs, growing experience and expertise (1999). Ficchi thus argues that “[t]‌raditional teaching methods should therefore be accompanied by

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self-learning methods where students play an active role in developing pedagogical strategies for learning consecutive interpretation” (1999: 205). Such a more autonomous approach to consecutive interpreting education can help students select teaching materials, decide upon the goals of their interpreting education, evaluate their progress and learn the skills of managing time, controlling the (negative) activity of psycho-affective factors or self-monitoring. To this end, Ficchi suggests that consecutive interpreting students should be instructed on how to develop their skills on their own by doing a variety of exercises outside the classroom. Among them may be listening to a text in order to understand its logical organisation and gist, working on their individual yet consistent note-taking systems, producing the target text (by identifying their problematic areas, like omissions, unnecessary pauses, inaccuracies, grammatical errors, and then rectifying them in another rendering). Generally speaking, in this approach interpreting students are encouraged to work out their own ways of learning how to interpret consecutively on their own. What is more, the errors made by students are considered to be a natural step in the learning process and as such they should be identified and improved. The self-directed approach may be linked to what is presently known as life-long learning, in which interpreters continually develop their skills, often resorting to the self-directed learning methods. To educate professional consecutive interpreters and to fully develop their competence, interpreting trainers use a variety of methods. Apart from those enumerated above which refer to developing trainee interpreters’ individual self-learning strategies, trainers provide students with the so-called pre-interpreting exercises which are introduced at the very beginning of consecutive interpreting training and from them follows the progression to more advanced tasks and fully-fledged consecutive interpreting. Among the pre-interpreting exercises are comprehension and analysis tasks, listening, anticipation and inferencing tasks, production tasks involving the exercises developing trainee interpreters’ maintenance of voice quality (i.e. pronunciation, intonation, fluency), their public-speaking skills or more general language-related assignments like paraphrasing, summarising, using synonyms, antonyms or hyperonyms, generalising, rounding numbers etc. An important training tool which enables trainee interpreters to find themselves in real life-like situations is scenario-based role plays which “(…) especially in dialogue interpreting, promote authenticity, credibility and diversity of expression and permit the co-constructed interaction to unfold as a unique interpersonal event” (Kadrić 2015: 360). Such exercises are particularly relevant to community interpreting, within which short consecutive interpreting is rendered. They may be of help to consecutive trainee interpreters since they may experience the difficulties which arise in such situations (e.g. power imbalance, cultural differences etc.) and apply some strategies for overcoming them. One more interesting exercise used especially in community interpreting training, in which consecutive interpreting – in its dialogic form – is the major mode of interpretation, is job shadowing which is related to observing the work of a professional interpreter and, at times, replacing him/her at some points during

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the interpreting process. Such job shadowing is a good way of experiencing the actual interpreting process, becoming familiar with the institutional settings and gaining an insight in what it really is and what it really takes to be a consecutive interpreter. On the whole, a well-designed consecutive interpreting curriculum should be based on several general assumptions. First of all, it should be preceded by some kind of aptitude testing since not every student is linguistically, cognitively and psychologically apt at interpreting. Secondly, the curriculum ought to develop trainee interpreters’ knowledge and skills which meet the market needs and demand. Thirdly, it should teach the knowledge and skills on the basis of authentic or semiauthentic materials, making the entire consecutive interpreting training as close to the real consecutive interpreting process as it is possible since decontextualised interpreting education pursued in a theoretical vacuum will be to the detriment of interpreting students who will have no opportunity of experiencing the difficulties which may emerge, for instance, in consecutive interpreting in sensitive contexts and thus of developing their own strategies and coping tactics. Fourthly, any consecutive training institution should monitor the labour market in order to observe the trends in the interpreting service sector and respond to the changes by modifying the contents of the curriculum and the teaching methods used. Finally, the curriculum should address all the subcompetences of the consecutive interpreter competence and, if it is impossible to do so, it should teach trainee interpreters how they can develop them on their own since the consecutive interpreter profession is inherently linked to life-long learning and adjusting to the constantly developing interpreting service sector, the continually evolving labour market and the dynamically changing world.

2.6. Consecutive interpreting quality and its assessment It has already been stated in Chapter 1 that quality assessment is an inseparable part of any interpreting training and that the very concept of “quality” is blurred and therefore vague. What is more, there is a question about what to measure in terms of quality: the output, the process or the interpreter’s performance. Giuliana Garzone goes even further stating that “(…) quality is the sum of several different, heterogeneous aspects, some of which involve different subjects  — interpreters, clients, users, speakers  — each with a different view and perception of quality (…)” (2002: 107). Indeed, the quality of consecutive interpreting is difficult to assess since consecutive interpreting itself is a highly complex interpreter-mediated communicative situation with the network of participants and its pragmatic, purely linguistic, interactional, cognitive and psycho-affective dimensions. Additionally, Garzone appropriately observes that measuring quality is problematic due to “(…) the inherent evanescence of the product, which is difficult to inspect and does not lend itself to repeated evaluation” (ibid.). Definitely, assessing the quality of the product of consecutive interpreting is challenging since the output fades away the moment it is uttered. Another problem is that “(…) evaluation of interpreting is

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an intuitive, to a certain extent subjective process” (Kalina 2002: 121). Quality can therefore be measured either with reference to some specific aspect (or a set of aspects) or within the frameworks of multi-faceted models comprising several categories which strive to capture different aspects of consecutive interpreting quality objectively but complete objectivity in this is perhaps impossible to maintain. One of such models was developed by Viezzi (1996) who offers a specially designed quality assessment tool with four such criteria (or goals):  equivalence, accuracy, appropriateness and usability. Viezzi understands quality as an extent, to which the four determinants are maintained (or the extent, to which the four goals are attained). As regards equivalence, Viezzi (2013) argues that although many interpreting scholars reject the usefulness of this concept and its relevance to interpreting, he is of the opinion that it is an essential criterion for the consecutive interpreter is expected to provide an equivalent target text. Therefore, he suggests that equivalence is carrying the sense of the original speech to the target utterance. Accuracy is defined as “(…) the accurate reformulation of the information content of a source text” (Viezzi 2013: 383). In other words, the output is accurate when it renders the input information in such a way that the listeners understand the communicative goal of the source text and this may involve adding, substituting or skipping some information if it turns out to be less relevant. The third determinant of consecutive interpreting quality is appropriateness which can be explained as “(…) the production of a target text overcoming cultural barriers and meeting listeners’ expectations and norms concerning texts exchanged in a given communicative situation” (Viezzi 2013: 384). It means that appropriately rendered consecutive interpreting would be the one that transfers the meaning of the original, taking the contextual embedding into consideration. Hence, in courtroom interpreting, the consecutive interpreter may decide to omit certain vulgarisms and taboo words appearing in the input, classifying them as inappropriate in the courtroom context. The fourth quality criterion adopted by Viezzi is usability. This concept concerns the output and its delivery and encompasses such aspects as coherence, cohesion, lucidity etc. What can be extrapolated from this four-determinant quality assessment is that it is the output quality that is assessed because the high quality of the output would mean that the target text is equivalent, accurate, appropriate and usable. While this model stresses the quality of the interpreting product, it seems to disregard the fact that interpreting quality is a dynamic construct constituted not only by the output itself but also by the consecutive interpreter’s performance and by other participants’ behaviours. Sylvia Kalina (2002) offers a more comprehensive model which covers both the quality of the output as well as the quality of the interpreter’s performance. From Kalina’s perspective, interpreting quality can be assessed in terms of output semantic content (with the following parameters: (1) consistency; (2) logic, coherence; (3)  completeness; (4)  accurateness; (5)  unambiguity; (6)  clarity; (7)  reliability), in terms of the interpreter’s linguistic performance (with the following benchmarks: (1) grammatical correctness; (2) adherence to target language norms; (3) comprehensibility; (4) stylistic adequacy; (5) terminological adequacy; (6) discretion and (7) lack of disturbances) and in terms of presentation (with the following

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set of criteria: (1) voice quality; (2) articulation; (3) public speaking; (4) discipline; (5) simultaneity45; (6) technical mastery; (7) conduct). Kalina additionally states that the interpreting process participants and the interactions between them should be taken heed of, as well. She also mentions the interpreter’s abilities and professional attitude which influence the general quality of the output, too. All of the factors can be assessed with reference to the four segments of the interpreting process: (1) pre-process; (2) peri-process; (3) in-process and (4) post-process. The model worked out by Kalina is interesting for several reasons. First of all, it highlights that quality can be assessed both in terms of the output and the interpreter’s performance. Secondly, it shows that some factors present at different stages of the interpreting process are interpreter-dependent and others not (like, for instance, the too speedy production of the input by the source message speaker). Thirdly, it tries to combine the factors which may affect the output quality with particular stages. Generally speaking, this model can be applied to the assessment of consecutive interpreting quality and, perhaps, can provide more data about what this quality depends on. One more model which captures several aspects of the quality of classic consecutive interpreting (disregarding the interactional dimensions for, in fact, there is little interaction in long consecutive interpreting with note-taking, during which the consecutive interpreter typically has a limited opportunity to interact with other participants of the interpreting process) has been devised by Walczyński (2017b46) for the needs of assessing quality within the frameworks of consecutive interpreting training. It focuses on two elements of the consecutive interpreting process: on the output quality and on the interpreter’s performance quality. Generally speaking, the trainee interpreter’s consecutive interpreting (with note-taking) performance evaluation form47, as it is termed, is composed of eight general quality assessment parameters: (1) equivalence (i.e. the functionalpragmatic equivalence); (2) grammar (subdivided into two categories: (2.1.) general evaluation of form, use and appropriateness; (2.2.) discourse-specific grammatical structures); (3) vocabulary (subdivided into two categories: (3.1.) general evaluation of use, collocation, variety and relevance; (3.2.) specialised vocabulary – terminology, assessed in terms of use, collocation and relevance); (4) phonetic quality (i.e. pronunciation, rhythm and intonation, language variety use consistency); (5) output delivery fluency (i.e. the occurrence of stops, pauses, hesitations etc.), (6)  style and register, (7)  notes and note-taking skills and (8)  psycho-affective

45 Sylvia Kalina developed this model for assessing the quality of both simultaneous and consecutive interpreting and that is why this criterion is included here. In the case of consecutive interpreting, perhaps, it could be replaced with note-taking/ note-reading. 46 The form discussed here and partially used in the case studies presented in Chapters 5, 6 and 7 is a modified version of the one discussed in Walczyński (2017b). 47 The form is presented in Appendix 1.

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factors (i.e. whether their negative activity is observable). Two benchmarks need clarification. The first one concerns the notes and note-taking skills. As argued by Walczyński (2017b: 129): (…) what is assessed [by means of this parameter] is not the technique, nor style of notes because each interpreter may choose whatever style, technique or language(s) used is more convenient. Thus, what is evaluated is whether the notes indeed help the trainees in the two phases of consecutive interpreting, i.e. while processing the input and then while generating the output. It may therefore be said that this is strictly related to the efforts discussed by Gile, i.e. the efforts interpreters have to make in order to render a good quality output. What is more, notes are a rich source of data related to the experience of affective factors as it has been discovered that too heavy hand-writing, paper creases or sweat stains may show the experience of, for example, anxiety or stress.

Interestingly enough, such an approach is a certain novelty considering the fact that so far there have been few (if any) studies trying to integrate the data coming from the consecutive interpreter’s notes and his/her experience of psycho-affective factors. The second parameter which needs brief explanation is the one related to psycho-affective factors. It allows identifying whether or not trainee interpreters experienced some kind of the activity of those factors, with particular focus on the negative activity because quite frequently it leads to the decrease in output quality. All of the parameters are graded by means of a three-grade system, which was adopted from Daniel Gouadec’s (2010: 273) grading policy. Grade 3 corresponds to Gouadec’s “fit-for-broadcast” and means that a given instance of consecutive interpreting could be classified as rendered by a professional interpreter due to its accuracy, efficiency and ergonomics. Grade 2 corresponds to Gouadec’s “fitfor-delivery” mark and means that a given consecutive interpretation needs some improvements but, nevertheless, could also be accepted as a professionally rendered service. Grade 0 means that a given consecutive interpretation is “rough-cut” (ibid.) since the number and gravity of deficiencies make it unacceptable as a service provided in the interpreting sector. A significant part of the form is the use of the impression and market suitability descriptors which help determine whether trainee interpreters’ renderings could be accepted in the market. Thus, there are three categories of the descriptors: (1) positive market suitability/impression of a professional for high quality output with two quality categories: (a) high quality output and (b) good quality output with only slight revisions necessary; (2) interpreting training purposes with one quality category: acceptable quality interpreting output which, nevertheless, needs more revision; (3)  negative market suitability/interpreting training purposes, divided into three quality categories: (a) meagre quality interpreting output which needs more detailed revision; (b) meagre quality interpreting output which needs major revision and (c) unacceptable quality interpreting output which, in fact, needs to

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be re-rendered. The objective of those descriptors is threefold. First of all, they provide feedback on the quality of the output with reference to the market-related quality. Secondly, they indicate the necessity to correct a given interpretation and draw attention to the need for the further practice of consecutive interpreting skills. Finally, they help both trainee interpreters as well as instructors to organise the discussion and reflection on different aspects of the consecutive interpreting rendered and of interpreting at large. The form may be used as a sole consecutive interpreting quality measuring instrument but, as the studies have shown, it may be used in combination with three other instruments  – the recording of the trainee interpreter’s consecutive rendering, the transcript of that rendering (i.e. the performance transcript) and the retrospective protocol, all of which are further discussed in Chapter 4. While showing the merits of this assessment methodology, Walczyński (2017b) highlights two disadvantages of the form. He says that conducting the form-based assessment is time-consuming since it involves several procedures (i.e. recording trainee interpreters, analysing and identifying the errors on the transcript, analysing the relevance of notes, analysing the potential influence of the psycho-affective factors, grading). The second disadvantage concerns the inherent methodological fallacies related to the psycho-affective factors: the testing situation is itself quite stressful and thus the negative activity of stress is visible; motivation as a psycho-affective factor is also visible because of the nature of grading and the trainee interpreter’s intention to pass the test. Those shortcomings, however, seem to be less relevant considering the wealth of data which can be obtained in such an assessment of consecutive interpreting quality. Overall, the issue of assessing consecutive interpreting quality is central to consecutive interpreting training since it can provide valuable feedback on both the deficiencies which need to be further addressed by the interpreter himself/herself and/or by the instructor as well as the better-developed skills/knowledge areas. This, in turn, can contribute to more comprehensive training focusing on the gaps and shortcomings in the interpreter’s particular subcompetences. Among a few different consecutive interpreting quality measuring instruments, of interest are those composed of several benchmarks which allow looking not only at the quality of the output but also at the quality of the interpreter’s performance. One of such proposal is the form designed by Walczyński which, in combination with other tools, was used for assessing the quality of consecutive interpretation rendered as part of the first three case studies discussed in greater detail in the empirical part of this book.

2.7. Chapter 2 summary The overriding objective of Chapter 2 has been to present consecutive interpreting as a practice pursued by the interpreter in order to assist people of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds in communication with one another as well as a challenging yet greatly absorbing research object. It has been demonstrated that

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consecutive interpreting is indeed a highly complex process involving many mental operations occurring at different levels. It has been shown that the notion “consecutive interpreting” is actually an umbrella term covering at least several activities which can be divided into phases. The smooth progression from phase to phase is possible thanks to the consecutive interpreter’s memory and memory-aiding notes which help the interpreter deal with some obstacles caused, for instance, by input variables. The ability to exploit proper strategies forms part of the consecutive interpreter competence which is composed of several equally important subcompetences, the development of which may take place within the frameworks of well-designed training, during which consecutive interpreting quality is assessed. However, one dimension of the consecutive interpreting process has yet to be described and it is related to the impact of individual psycho-affective factors which may exert some influence on both the process of consecutive interpreting itself, the interpreter and his/her performance as well as on its final outcome – the output. This issue is dealt with in greater detail in the next parts of this study.

Chapter 3: Selected individual psychoaffective factors in interpreting Throughout the two previous chapters, it has been stressed on numerous occasions that interpreters, including those working in the consecutive mode, are people whose psychological (i.e. cognitive and emotional) well-being is crucial for performing well and providing a good quality interpretation. This chapter explores in more detail selected aspects of what may be called “interpreter psychology”. Therefore, the first part of this chapter is devoted to delineating the research field of interpreter psychology and to defining the major psychological concepts which are often referred to in the next sections of this study. In the further part, attention is directed specifically to how individual emotional (i.e. psycho-affective) factors may condition and influence the interpreter’s performance and the resulting interpreting quality. What follows is a discussion of the psycho-affective subcompetence (a component of the consecutive interpreter competence). Hence, the general objective of this chapter is to provide the theoretical foundations concerning the individual factors of psycho-affective nature which are analysed in the empirical part of this study.

3.1. Defining the scope of interpreter psychology The map of interpreting studies presented in Sub­chapter 1.6.2. clearly shows two branches of interpreting studies: the study of interpreting as such and interpreter studies. Distinguishing interpreter studies is aimed at highlighting the central role of the interpreter in the interpreting process for it is just the interpreter without whom the entire interpreting-mediated communicative act cannot fulfil its basic aim – to make communication possible by transferring a message formulated originally in the source language into its equivalent in the target language. Moreover, as indicated in Chapter 1, the study may be deemed as part of what is known as anthropocentric interpreting studies which puts the figure of the interpreter in the very centre of the translation/interpreting system devised by Franciszek Grucza (2017). One of the subfields of interpreter studies is individual interpreter studies which examines the interpreter in terms of psychology (i.e. interpreter psychology) and in terms of performance. Although those two fields are closely interrelated and interwoven because the interpreter’s performance may be conditioned by the interpreter’s psychological states and at the same time the psycho-affective properties may be activated by some aspects of performance, of interest here is mainly interpreter psychology. However, this is not to mean that the interpreter’s performance is neglected since it is shown, especially in the empirical part of this book, that there is indeed a direct correlation between the interpreter’s psycho-affective

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side and the consecutive interpreter’s performance and its quality. Thus, discussing interpreter psychology without reference to the interpreter’s consecutive interpreting performance makes little sense since it would obscure the real picture of what happens within the interpreting process in terms of the impact various factors have on the interpreter himself/herself as well as in terms of the interpreter-dependent factors which condition the interpreting process. Defining the scope of interpreter psychology may be troublesome since – comparing to other subfields of interpreting studies – there is relatively little research in this area and therefore only tentative definitions can be provided. Thus, for the purpose of this study, “interpreter psychology” can be defined as a subfield of interpreting studies whose main concern is the cognitive and psycho-affective dimensions of the interpreter. As such, interpreter psychology may be thought of as a specialised domain of occupational psychology, sometimes also referred to as work psychology or industrial/organisational psychology, which “(…) attempts to understand and explain the behaviour and experience of people at work by applying theory and research methods from psychology” (Doyle 2003: 39). As aforementioned, the research pursued within what is called herein “interpreter psychology” can be discussed with reference to both the cognitive aspects as well as the psycho-affective ones. Those two strands are discussed below separately although by no means should such an organisation of the discussion suggest that cognition is separated from emotionality and psycho-affectivity as they do go hand in hand and interact in the interpreting process. Albeit referring specifically to the language learning process48, Jane Arnold and H.  Douglas Brown (1999: 1) are right in stating that “(…) the affective side (…) is not in opposition to the cognitive side. When both are used together, the learning process can be constructed on a firmer foundation. Neither the cognitive nor the affective has the last word, and, indeed, neither can be separated from the other”. This is also true of the interpreting process, the success of which is the result of many factors, of which highly important are the ones related to the interpreter’s skills, knowledge and attitudes or, strictly speaking, to the interpreter’s cognitive skills and psychoaffective dispositions. What is more, it seems that the above view has also been advocated by Barbara Moser-Mercer (2008) who, while referring to what is known as “performance psychology”, defined as the study of “(…) the psychological skills and knowledge necessary to facilitate and develop peak performance in a variety of real-life pursuits, such as professional skills, sports and business leadership” (Moser-Mercer 2008: 1), speaks about cognitive psychology and psycho-affective psychology (though she

48 The study of individual differences, including psycho-affective/affective factors, is one of the most thriving branches of applied linguistics, offering interesting insights into how those factors influence the learning process. Therefore, some of the ideas developed especially for the language learning process can be transferred to interpreting studies for the purpose of the examination of the interpreter’s performance.

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does not use this term). She claims that “(…) performance psychology requires integration of formal models of cognitive psychology with an understanding of stress and individual difference factors” (2008: 2). What may be inferred from her words is that both the cognitive strand and the psycho-affective one influence the interpreter’s performance. Additionally, while explaining the variety of factors conditioning performance, Moser-Mercer draws on Blumberg and Pringle’s model of factors conditioning performance (1982) which includes three components: capacity (i.e. the interpreter’s intelligence, cognitive skills, physical predisposition), willingness (i.e. the interpreter’s motivation and attitude to a given interpreting task) and opportunity (i.e. the working conditions, in which the interpreter is to work). Korpal rightly observes that the concept of the interpreter’s willingness also depends on numerous psycho-affective factors because “[t]‌he interpreter’s positive attitude to performing an interpreting task, resistance to stress and motivation to further develop their skills and learn new strategies may also have a significant influence on the quality of their performance” (2017: 86). Indeed, in the empirical part of the study, it is demonstrated that the psycho-affective factors do exert an influence on both the interpreter and his/her performance. In what follows in this chapter is, first of all, a brief discussion of the cognitivelyoriented interpreter psychology studies and then a more extensive presentation of a selection of the psycho-affective factors which may influence the interpreter and the entire interpreting process. Therefore, this chapter serves as a point of departure for the discussion of the case study outcomes presented in the next chapters.

3.1.1. Cognitive strand of interpreter psychology As far as the cognitive side of the interpreter and interpreting process is concerned, it seems that the research in this field is far more advanced than the study of the psycho-affective aspects, which is evidenced by numerous studies on the interpreter’s comprehension, working memory, attention, cognitive load or aptitude testing which regards the level of the development of cognitive skills as one of the yardsticks used to gauge interpreting training candidates’ aptitude. The cognitively-oriented studies have derived their methods mostly from psycholinguistics which, as a field of cognitive psychology, examines the processes of human language acquisition and use (de Groot, Christoffels 2015). The mode which has been extensively examined with reference to the cognitive aspects is simultaneous interpreting. However, some insights have also been gained from the cognitive study of consecutive interpreting. Some of such issues have been discussed in Chapter 2. One of the paradigms which has dominated the cognitively-oriented research on interpreting is the connectionist paradigm which assumes that the interpreter performs the task of interpreting thanks to his/her brain which, like the computer processor, collects, processes, merges and retrieves data as well allows producing the output. The brain, however, has a limited processing capacity but, because of being made of an abundant number of interconnected neurons, it can perform

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several tasks at a time. The human brain is also able to learn from a previously unknown stimulus, enlarging in this way a person’s experience (Seeber 2015b). Such an approach to interpreting has allowed scholars to analyse the simultaneity of various mental operations which are performed while the interpreter performs interpreting. Those mental operations are not readily accessible and what is pursued in such research is inferencing on the basis of the interpreter’s observable linguistic and non-linguistic behaviours or on the basis of introspection or retrospection (i.e. subjective observation). However, despite Gile’s observation that “(…) the experimental paradigm which prevails in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics is difficult to apply in interpreting research where inter-individual variability is high, recruiting multiple large samples for controlled experiments is problematic, and so are the selection and measurement of quantifiable indicators as dependent variables” (Gile 2015b: 41), it is rightly observed by Chmiel (2010) that the experimental methods have also been exploited in the cognitive strand of interpreter psychology and they provide more measurable and therefore more reliable results. The interest of interpreting scholars in the cognitive dimension of the interpreting process is not new since such scholars as David Gerver (e.g. 1976), Danica Seleskovitch (1978) or Barbara Moser (1978) looked at it from the cognitive perspective. As stated above, among the themes touched upon by interpreting scholars looking at the interpreting process from the angle of cognitive psychology are comprehension, processing, retrieval, working memory, cognitive load, processing capacity, the automation of mental operations which need to be performed by the interpreter to produce the output in an appropriate manner, the exploitations of various strategies helping the interpreter deal with, for instance, input saturation, the relation between the interpreter’s expertise and cognitive abilities (cf. Hoffman 1997) or the development of cognitive skills and their predictive value in testing the aptitude for interpreting. Many studies have confirmed that the professional interpreter’s cognitive abilities are better developed than those of other bilingual people (e.g. Padilla, Bajo, Cañas, Padilla 1995; Bajo, Padilla, Padilla 2000; Christoffels, de Groot, Kroll 2006)  or that cognitive skills may be the important determinants of interpreting aptitude (cf. Macnamara, Moore, Kegl, Conway 2011). The interest in the cognitive aspects of the interpreter’s mental operations performed during the act of interpreting has resulted in devising several cognitive models of interpreting, some of which were presented in the previous chapters. A  prominent example of such models, in which the cognitive side is greatly stressed, is Gile’s set of effort models (Gile 2009) which, although designed primarily for teaching purposes, clearly contributes to the cognitive strand of interpreter psychology by drawing attention to the multiplicity of cognitive operations inherent in the interpreting process. Interestingly enough, the contribution of cognitive psychology to interpreting studies is, according to Gile (2015b), threefold. First of all, it has provided some knowledge of the functioning of the interpreter’s mind during interpreting. In other words, it has helped to examine the interpreter’s mental operations such

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as language comprehension, language production, processing, retrieval, the use of working memory or the exploitation of different attention resources. Secondly, cognitively-oriented interpreting research has, to a great extent, relied on the research methods and tools developed within cognitive sciences. This resulted in the shift from the speculative nature of interpreting studies into the more empirical one for since the beginning of the 1980s, when cognitive psychology started to constitute a research framework for examining interpreting, interpreting scholars have realised that their thinking about various interpreting phenomena needs to be verified and supported by empirical material. Thirdly, it seems that cognitive psychology has provided interpreting studies with numerous theoretical constructs which are utilised in interpreting research. To substantiate this opinion, Gile (2015b: 58) refers to such concepts as “automation of controlled operations”, “cognitive processes”, “attentional resources”, “working memory” or “processing capacity” which, having been borrowed from psychology, have managed to make their way into interpreting studies, in particular into the subfield of interpreter psychology. Generally speaking, what can be observed at present in interpreting studies is that there is more and more research into the cognitive aspects of the interpreter and interpreting process. More and more interpreting scholars, including practisearchers (i.e. interpreters researching interpreting), work within the interdisciplinary paradigms, combining cognitive sciences with interpreting studies. Despite some inadequacies of experimental research on the cognitive aspects of interpreting like, for instance, the inadequate number of research respondents/ subjects in a given research project, the insufficient ecological validity (i.e. the experimental conditions do not fully correspond to the real working conditions of interpreters) of a particular experiment, the selection of research variables which may be measured by the reaction time, by the number of correct answers, by the interpreter’s behaviours or his/her body responses (i.e. the secretion of stress hormones, pupillary responses, brain activity, heart rate or blood pressure) and which are therefore somewhat difficult to analyse in depth (cf. Gile 2015b), it is true that thanks to the research on interpreters’ cognition much is already known about how the interpreter’s brain (and mind) which performs so many mental operations works and how the brain and mind are organised. Still, however, those issues need further research for its outcomes to be transferred into interpreting education and then into interpreting practice.

3.1.2. Psycho-affective strand of interpreter psychology The psycho-affective strand of interpreter psychology seems to be scantily researched in comparison to the cognitive aspects discussed above. This may result from the common belief that a professional approach to any occupational activity should be devoid of any emotional loads and that such a professional should not show any emotion nor act in an emotional way. In other words, it means that the psycho-affective side should not influence a professional, be it a doctor, teacher or

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interpreter, in any way. However, it turns out that interpreting, especially the one performed in highly sensitive contexts, is an emotion-laden activity. What is more, interpreters are just humans who experience a vast array of emotional states, need to have certain psychological properties and are influenced by what is known in this study as the psycho-affective factors. The rise in the interpreting scholars’ interests in the interaction among the interpreter, interpreting process and psychological factors was observed in the late 1980s and in the 1990s when interpreting research started to be informed by psychological inquiries. Gile (2015b: 47) observes that among such scholars was Barbara Moser-Mercer who was “(…) perhaps the most active promoter of interaction between interpreting researchers and psychologists, [and who] established regular collaboration with psychologists at the University of Geneva, working in particular on stress (…)”. Soon other interpreting researchers started to notice that the interpreting process depends not only on the cognitive skills of the interpreter but also on his/her other psychological factors, which until the end of the 1980s seem to have been largely ignored. As aforementioned, the psycho-affective side of the interpreter profession seems not to have been paid due attention in the past and is still an area which requires more profound studies concentrating on the psycho-affectivity of the interpreter. Thus, Korpal (2017:  89) and the authors he cites are right in stating that “(…) the significance of psycho-affective and personality factors has long been neglected in Interpreting Studies and admission testing”. Even though as early as in 1931 Jesús Sanz (1931), a Spanish psychologist studying the phenomenon of interpreting (cf. Sub­chapter 1.6.1.) – perhaps the first scholar who drew attention to interpreter psychology – observed that the interpreter’s psychological properties, i.e. cognitive and affective traits (particularly those which Pöchhacker calls “poise” (2004: 166) including resistance to stress and self-control), may play a role in delivering a good quality consecutive interpretation, it took more than fifty years for interpreting studies community to tackle the selected aspects of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity in greater depth. Even at the beginning of the 1990s, as André Brisau, Rita Godijns and Chris Meuleman (1994:  87) aptly discern, very few, if any, interpreter educating institutions paid attention to “(…) the learner [of interpreting] as a human being [with] the psychoaffective framework he brings to the tasks of learning a language”. Perhaps, they are the first interpreting scholars who attempted at building the psycholinguistic profile of a trainee interpreter as “(…) they believe[d]‌that links between cognitive/affective factors and interpreting skills to be exceedingly strong” (ibid.). Among the psychoaffective factors they mention are self-concept (i.e. how trainee interpreters perceive themselves), cognitive style (i.e. how trainee interpreters acquire, process and memorise information), real-world knowledge, anxiety, motivation and attitude, stress resistance and metacognition (i.e. how trainee interpreters assess, perceive and understand their interpreting skills and activity). What is also worth stressing is that Brisau, Godijns and Meuleman (1994) were also perhaps the first interpreting scholars who tried to combine the concept of language ego, one of

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the psycho-affective factors distinguished in applied linguistics, particularly in language acquisition studies, with interpreting. They tried to correlate trainee interpreters’ experience of this factor with their manners of delivery, especially with pronunciation and articulation which, as they argue, “have an important psychological foundation” (1994: 89). One of the scholars who saw that the psycho-affectivity of the interpreter may play a role in determining the quality of the output was Peter Mead who, in his study of disfluencies (i.e. pauses and hesitations) in consecutive interpreting, noticed that such “[p]‌roblems may also be triggered by factors outside the actual interpreting process — e.g. logical inconsistency of the notes or target speech with pre-existing general knowledge, nervous tension” (2002: 73). Thus, the influence of nervous tension on interpreting performance is certainly a research theme of the psycho-affective strand of interpreter psychology. Along with the developing community interpreter profession, there was an increase in the interest in how such interpreters deal with the emotional load present in this type of interpretation. An interesting study was carried out by Carmen Valero-Garcés, a Spanish interpreting scholar, who analysed community interpreters’ emotional stability. She is of the opinion that due to the nature of public service interpreting, trainee interpreters should be given some training in how to tackle the emotionally difficult topics, how to manage their psychological factors such as anxiety or stress or how to maintain emotional stability in this profession (2005). Emotional stability was also researched by Karen Bontempo and Jemina Napier (2011) who additionally rightly observe that whereas the cognitive factors are indeed important in the interpreter’s performance, the research on the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity is largely neglected. As regards emotional stability, they found that its level can be a good indicator of conference interpreters’ performance. What is more, they suggest that interpreting training should also include the components which would pay particular attention to the psycho-affective factors which may help trainee interpreters master the interpreting skills better. Drawing attention to the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity was also stressed by Šárka Timarová and Harry Ungoed-Thomas who, while analysing a number of admission testing instruments, noticed that the training institutions preferred to focus on testing the candidates’ hard skills and what they call “soft factors” (“personality, motivation and teachability” (2008: 42)) do not form part of the testing procedures. They are thus of the opinion that “[w]‌hile these factors are difficult to quantify, we believe that their importance for a student’s future performance warrants some kind of formal recognition in admission tests” (ibid.). To bridge this gap, Šárka Timarová and Heidi Salaets (2011) ventured into examining the role of “soft skills” such as learning styles, motivation and cognitive flexibility in testing the aptitude for interpreting. They observe that “[w]hile these skills are probably not going to be determining factors, they may contribute to the skill acquisition process (…) and may influence successful completion of a training programme” (2011:  34). It turned out that the more successful candidates were more stress

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resistant, dealt with anxiety better and were more flexible in terms of the cognitive skills. Thus, as they observe, “(…) the findings do seem to provide preliminary evidence that soft skills may indeed be important, if complementary, contributing factors of interpreting aptitude” (Timarová, Salaets 2011: 52). The role of the psycho-affective factors has also been noticed by Betty Colonomos (2015) who – in her Integrated Model of Interpreting – pays attention to the so-called “environment” which she defines as “any and all conditions that exist at the time of the interpretation” (Colonomos 2015: 5). Among the environment-related factors she enumerates those of psychological nature which are of two types: the external ones (i.e. triggered by the external circumstances) such as emotional attitude or stress as well as the internal ones (i.e. caused by the interpreter himself/herself) such as “perceived evaluation”, “bonding with speaker” (ibid.). What is more, she differentiates the internal psychological factors from the internal emotional states of the interpreter, claiming that the latter involve “reaction to speaker/topic, audience” (ibid.). This distinction may be slightly superfluous since in fact it might be difficult to distinguish between, for instance, the perceived evaluation and the reaction to the speaker. However, what is worth stressing is that the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity is taken into consideration in this model, which shows that the psycho-affective strand of interpreter psychology has been recently gaining more and more attention. This sketchy outline of the psycho-affective strand of interpreter psychology shows that only recently has the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity become the object of scholarly inquiry and that, as compared to the cognitive strand, it is still in its infancy with many topic having yet to be examined in greater detail. However, as is demonstrated in the next subchapters, there are more and more interesting research initiatives whose aim is to analyse how different psycho-affective factors contribute to the interpreter’s performance. Therefore, what follows in this chapter is a presentation of research into the selected psycho-affective factors whose linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents as well as their role(s) are then examined at length in the empirical part of this study.

3.2. Non-psycho-affective factors in interpreting It goes without saying that the interpreting process is conditioned by a panoply of factors and only several of them are of psycho-affective nature. Some of them may concern the already mentioned interpreter’s cognitive skills, others may pertain to input variables or other interpreting act participants whereas yet others may be linked to the working conditions in which the interpreter happens to work. Walczyński (2015b: 178–179) is of the opinion that: (…) in quite many situations the factors are interrelated and one may evoke another. For example, technical factors may evoke affective factors and they may in turn lead to language-related factors and/or cognitive factors which all may affect adversely the interpreting quality.

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It is thus important to present the psycho-affective factors against the broader background of other factors which may trigger off or intensify the activity of the psycho-affective ones. Therefore, before the discussion of selected psycho-affective factors, the activity of which may influence the interpreter and his/her performance, it seems vital to outline those which are of non-psycho-affective character. Walczyński (2015b) distinguishes four major groups of such non-psycho-affective agents: technical factors, language-related factors, cognitive factors and relational factors. As far as the first group of technical factors is concerned, they refer basically to interpreters’ working environment. It is especially well visible in conference interpreting where the malfunctioning technicalities can adversely affect the interpreter and ultimately the interpreting output. Such issues as faulty headsets, defective microphones or strangely functioning channel switches may indeed destroy the interpreter’s performance by interfering with his/her attention resources, impeding his/her concentration and contributing thereby to a lower quality of the output delivered. Equally important is the setting, in which a given interpreting act takes place. For instance, it might be distracting for the consecutive interpreter to perform the interpretation in a large room with poor acoustics, because of which only some portions of the source message reach the interpreter’s ears. Walczyński comments that “[t]‌he fact that such factors do affect the interpreting performance shows that in this particular type of mental and linguistic activity, even trivial aspects should not be ignored” (2015b: 180). The interpreter’s mastery of languages and their subsystems may also condition performance. If this mastery is incomplete and therefore insufficient, the interpreter may experience comprehension or production problems by finding it difficult to understand what a given fragment of the source text means or by having to make an excessive effort to pronounce some sounds, respectively. Moreover, this category of factors can also include procedural factors pertaining to both interpreting skills and linguistic abilities (e.g. turn-taking, note-taking or notereading skills). Walczyński (ibid.) holds that they may contribute to a lower quality of the output if, for instance, the consecutive interpreter cannot properly take his/ her turn because of the distortion or no clarity of the turn-taking sequence. In such a situation, the interpreter may easily forget some information of the input and therefore generate an inaccurate and not fully equivalent output. The cognitive factors have already been discussed and therefore it is only reiterated here that they as well may be responsible for the interpreter’s performance and the quality of the interpreting process and its final outcome – the output. When the interpreter finds it difficult to memorise and/or retrieve the input content, divide his/her attention resources properly, maintain an appropriate processing speed (i.e. the interpreter lags behind the original and is unable to render the entirety of the input because of a slower processing speed), switch between input comprehension and output production (in the consecutive mode) or work simultaneously listening to and analysing the source text and producing the target text (in the simultaneous mode), the quality of the output generated is definitely lower as compared to the

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output produced by the interpreter whose cognitive skills are well developed and in no way impaired. Finally, the last category of factors which may negatively influence the interpreter’s performance and target text quality includes the relational factors, i.e. “(…) factors related to different types of relations and relationships in the interpreting context” (Walczyński 2015b:  81). Essentially, they concern all the interactions which occur during an interpreting situation and may be related to showing empathy (in the community interpreting context), displaying a biased or unbiased attitude to the interpreting act participants, constructing specific power relations (i.e. power (im)balance), cooperating with the speaker and audience, to name but a few. What is more, among those factors is also the intercultural factor which comes to the fore especially in the sensitive contexts such as community interpreting in an immigration office. By disregarding certain cultural dissimilarities and reacting both to the interpreted parties and the input heard correspondingly, the interpreter may contribute to the lower quality of the interpreting process or even to the communicative failure by providing a biased and judgmental output on the basis of the input which he/she has not fully understood or has not agreed with. Owing to the fact the interpreting is a complex activity which is possible thanks to a variety of factors, some of which are interpreter-dependent (like, for instance, the interpreter’s linguistic and cognitive skills as well as his/her psycho-affective properties) and some depend on the environmental conditions, there is a growing tendency among interpreting scholars to analyse both the interpreter’s performance and the interpreting process with reference to a combination of those factors. A good case in point is the research framework offered by Catherine Chabasse and Stephanie Kader (2014: 21) that they developed mainly for studying interpreting aptitude which they define as “(…) the interaction of cognitive competences and capacities and non-cognitive personality features”. Their model includes both cognitive and linguistic factors (i.e. the command of the source and target languages, general knowledge, intercultural competence and the related skills:  production skills, comprehension skills, reasoning, memory and perceptual speed) and non-cognitive factors, such as motivation (i.e. determination and good stamina), self-management (i.e. concentration and self-management skills) and personality traits (i.e. flexibility, communicativeness, self-confidence and team-work skills) (ibid.). What is interesting in Chabasse and Kader’s model is that they also include other factors which may have an impact on the interpreter’s performance – “coincidence experiences” and “environment”. As far as the former are concerned, they should be understood as difficulties not directly related to interpreting (e.g. Korpal 2017) whereas the latter refers to the environmental factors, among which Chabasse and Kader include other people (i.e. “family”) and situational contexts (i.e. “student life”, “cultural”) (cf. Chabasse and Kader 2014: 21–22). On the whole, it seems that the interpreter’s performance is conditioned by a wide array of factors and that the non-psycho-affective ones also contribute to the success or failure of the interpreter-mediated communication. What is more

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important, however, is that those factors are frequently not readily visible and therefore not thought of as linked directly to the interpreting process. That is why, the interpreter should be able to identify them, realise their potential activity and control them so that they do not impair the interpreting process. It should also be remarked that the activity of most of those factors seems to be interconnected with the activity of both cognitive and psycho-affective factors. Some of those interconnections are discussed in greater detail in the next parts of this study.

3.3. Individual psycho-affective factors in interpreting It has already been signalled several times that individual psycho-affective factors influence the interpreter’s performance during the process of interpreting and they may be held responsible for the decreasing quality of the output. A  selection of such individual factors is presented in the next sections of this subchapter. However, the presentation of those factors is preceded by the explanation of the basic terms and concepts referred to in the further parts of this book.

3.3.1. Defining basic terms and concepts: “affect” and “individual psycho-affective factors” So far, such terms as “psycho-affective factors” or “individual factors” have been used without having been properly defined. It is therefore now time to define those terms and discuss their use in the next parts of this study. The first term which needs defining is “affect”. This notion has been viewed differently by different scholars and some of them equate affect with emotion whereas other see a difference between those two terms. Ewa Piechurska-Kuciel (2008), a Polish scholar examining foreign language anxiety, scrutinises a collection of approaches to the term “affect”. She states that there is the behavioural approach, according to which “affect” is an emotion which a person experiences and is aware of, and that there is the utilitarian approach, according to which “affect” is understood as a phenomenon of how a particular aspect of reality corresponds to a person’s needs and how it influences that person’s emotions. She also refers to other authors who are of the opinion that “affect” is a transitory positive or negative bodily response to the changing reality or the change in the individual person himself/herself. From the psychological perspective, affect is “(…) is an automatic, physiological response to a stimulus and includes a basic evaluation of the stimulus as good or bad. Startle, surprise, and stun responses are all examples of affects (affective responses)” (Reevy, Ozer, Ito 2010: 36). Affect, or more precisely, the affective domain, has also been elaborated on by a group of American educators – by David Krathwohl, Benjamin Bloom, Bertram Masia (1964) – who established a comprehensive definition which is still used as a point of reference, especially in educational sciences. They are of the opinion that the affective domain includes five levels:  the reception level (people receive some stimulus from the surrounding world), the response level (people respond to the

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stimulus), the value level (people start to assess phenomena and assign values to them, creating thereby their beliefs and attitudes), the value organisation level (those values are organised into a system of values: a system of beliefs which are organised according to some type of hierarchy) and the value system level (people are characterised by and act according to their adopted system of values which they have assimilated and integrated and which form part of their worldview) (cf. Brown 2007). Another definition of “affect” holds that “[a]‌person’s affect is the expression of emotion or feelings displayed to others through facial expressions, hand gestures, voice tone, and other emotional signs such as laughter or tears” (Strickland 2001: 19). Gretchen Reevy, Yvette Malamud Ozer and Yuri Ito (2010), American psychologists, go even further and claim that affects are the responses to some stimuli before the person starts to engage in cognitive processes. This may imply that a person experiencing some affect may not realise it nor know about it because it fades away so fast. Moreover, Reevy, Ozer and Ito are of the opinion that emotions are different from affects in that the former are composed of affects and therefore “(…) affects may be thought of as building blocks for emotions” (ibid.). Nancy L. Stein, Marc W. Hernandez and Tom Trabasso (2008), American psychologists, additionally state that emotions are linked to evaluating a given stimulus along with the circumstances and thus involve “a plan of action” (2008:  578). In other words, an affective response is a reaction to a stimulus whereas the emotional response is a phenomenon of higher order because it involves the affect, the further assessment of the situation and the emergence of some emotion. However, as indicated above, Reevy, Ozer and Ito (2010) observe that it does not have to be so since in such a case, affect can fade away before the further evaluation of the situation, the emergence of some emotion and some action undertaken by an individual person. Emotions can be therefore defined as an individual person-dependent subjective states related to a given situation. However, as argued by Pierre Livet, a French philosopher (2004: 135): [e]‌motions are not mere projections of subjective states about situations. They are at least partly objective. Regarded as dispositions, emotions refer to the tendency of individuals to respond to certain types of circumstances by exhibiting certain types of behavior. It is the properties of a given situation, when it occurs, that trigger the emotion that, among “normal” individuals, accompanies a given type of revision.

Hence, while emotions are mostly subjective and each individual person can display a different set of emotions to a given stimulus, they may be as well objective to some extent when people manifest them as a reaction to some situation. What is more, Piechurska-Kuciel discerns that the construct of “emotion” can be understood in three ways. First of all, it may mean a change in a person’s body as a result of some positive or negative stimulus; secondly, it may be viewed as a process occurring at the interface of social aspects, cognition and physiology and thirdly, it can be seen as “(…) an indirect knowledge source providing information that enables one to make decisions and learn”, i.e. being a manner of assessing the reality and referring to it (2008: 18). Regarding the terminological distinction

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between “affect” and “emotion”, Reevy, Ozer and Ito (2010:  39) note that “(…) both by experts and nonexperts, the terms affect and emotion are often used interchangeably”. This view is additionally corroborated by Graham Richards (2009: 6) who claims that “affect” is “[b]‌asically a more neutral and objective sounding synonym for “emotion”. Hence “an affective response” refers to an emotional response and “absence of affect” to lack of emotion”. In applied linguistics, in particular in language learning and teaching studies, “affect” is viewed as engaging “(…) aspects of our emotional being” (Arnold, Brown 1999: 1). Jane Arnold and H. Douglas Brown add that although some scholars further distinguish between emotions and feelings, with the former being the bodily responses to a positive or negative stimulus and the latter being the evaluations of those changes (cf. Damásio 1994), “affect” may be defined as “aspects of emotion, feeling, mood or attitude which condition behaviour” (Arnold, Brown 1999:  1). Therefore, according to the above-given definition which may be viewed as a foundation for this study, “affect” is understood as a variety of emotions, feelings, moods and attitudes which influence the interpreter’s thinking, attitude, performance and, ultimately, output. This influence can been seen as positive, strengthening the quality of the interpreter’s performance and target text production, or negative, decreasing the quality of the interpretation itself and its product. What is more, due to the fact that even psychologists tend not to differentiate between the terms “affect” and “emotion”, this practice is also used throughout this study which is more of interpreting than psychological nature and in which those terms are at times used interchangeably. Inextricably linked with the term “affect” is the term “psycho-affective factors”. Broadly speaking, “psycho-affective factors” can be understood as “individual personality traits” (Arnold, Brown 1999: 8) which are characteristic of an individual interpreter and therefore whose activity may vary from person to person (and that is why they are sometimes referred to as “psycho-affective variables”). In this study, psycho-affective factors are viewed as an individual interpreter’s or trainee interpreter’s psycho-affective properties  – emotional reactions which affect the interpreter and his/her performance in either a negative or positive manner. All psycho-affective factors can be classified into two types:  the relational factors and the individual factors. The latter include the entirety of the socio-cultural constellations, in which the interpreter happens to provide his/her interpreting services and in which he/she interacts with other participants of the interpreting act, thereby maintaining various relations and becoming involved in different transactions with other people. Among the relational factors which may contribute to the success of the interpreting act may be empathy, interpreting act transactions or cross-cultural processes. Nevertheless, although the relational factors are highly important in interpreting since interpretation is an interactional activity, in which its participants must relate to other people and interact with them to fulfil the basic goal of the interpreter-mediated communication  – to transfer the source language message into the target language message, they are given relatively little attention in this study since of interest are the individual factors which are

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interpreter-intrinsic and depend on the interpreter’s own perception of himself/ herself in the context of interpreting. As above-mentioned, the individual psycho-affective factors refer to the interpreter-intrinsic factors residing within an individual interpreter and are thus directly related to that interpreter’s personality aspects. It is believed that the manner people see themselves, the way they assess their skills, knowledge or potential to deal with a given situation can exert a positive or negative impact on the activities they become engaged in. This is also true of interpreters and the way they perceive themselves, their abilities, their expertise or their role(s). Thus, the individual psycho-affective factors discussed in the next parts of this study are: anxiety, fear, inhibition/language ego/language boundaries, extroversion/introversion, self-esteem, motivation and stress. The last one, i.e. stress, typically defined as a physiological and psychological response to some stimulus, is not so much an affective factor but because of its omnipresence in interpreting and clear links with psycho-affectivity (in particular, with anxiety), which is highlighted by scholars claiming that “(…) stress and emotion are interconnected: when one experiences an emotion, especially one of the negative emotions, a stress response ensues” (Reevy, Ozer, Ito 2010: 544), it deserves attention, as well. Moreover, it is also an individual factor in the sense that one person may find a given situation stressful while it does not have to be so for another individual. Apparently, the reasons for experiencing stress can be manifold and that is why stress could be equally well classified as a relational factor since it may result from, for instance, the quality of the interactions and relations among people participating in the interpreting act. On the basis of the various theories of emotions (cf. e.g. Gorman 2005), it may be postulated that there are at least four ways in which the psycho-affective factors operate and influence the interpreter’s behaviours. First of all, the psychoaffective factors are invoked by a stimulus and they trigger off the reaction of the body which manifests itself in some behaviour (e.g. in linguistic behaviours such as errors, omissions, hesitations, filled pauses etc.) (Fig. 9). In other words, “(…) emotions begin with the subjective feeling (fear), which in turn leads to physiological changes (increased heart rate), followed by an appropriate behaviour (running away)” (Gorman 2005: 6).

Fig. 9: The first representation of psycho-affective activity sequence (adopted from Gorman 2005: 5).

According to the second approach, the stimulus provokes a physiological response (i.e. the bodily reaction) and this, in turn induces a psycho-affective response which is then externalised by some behaviours. Explaining this pattern

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of the sequence of emotional activity (or, as in this study, psycho-affective factor activity), Phil Gorman, a British scholar interested in the interface of motivation and emotions, holds that perceived from this perspective, “(…) emotions begin with physiological changes, which cause the subjective feeling of fear” (ibid.). Fig. 10 represents this approach.

Fig. 10: The second representation of psycho-affective activity sequence (adopted from Gorman 2005: 5).

The third approach is slightly more complex since it shows that the psychoaffective factors, bodily reactions and behaviour(s) can occur at the same time, as presented in Fig. 11.

Fig. 11: The third representation of the psycho-affective activity sequence (adopted from Gorman 2005: 5).

The fourth model, presented graphically in Fig.  12 (see below), shows the psycho-affective sequence as even a more complex arrangement which not only presents the interactions among the stimulus, psycho-affective factors, behaviour and bodily reactions but additionally includes other non-psycho-affective factors (i.e. cognitive, relational etc.). Moreover, Gorman argues (2005: 6), “[a]‌ll of [those factors] will have an effect on [people’s] behaviour, in ways that are far from predictable or sequential”. It seems that this model best and most fully accounts for the correlations/relations of different aspects of the interpreting process and their effects for it has already been stated that the interpreting process is a complex communicative and interactional event, of which the interpreter is the central figure. That is why it might be postulated that the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity is influenced in many ways, the manifestations of which are often seen in the interpreter’s performance and output quality.

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Fig. 12: The fourth representation of psycho-affective activity sequence (adopted from Gorman 2005: 5).

The psycho-affective factors, like all emotions which are complex phenomena, are largely subjectively experienced by an individual person and therefore they may have different external manifestations, bodily responses and dissimilar cognitive effects. That is why, it may be postulated that their activity may contribute to differing levels of performance quality. What triggers one person’s negative emotions may contribute to another person’s positive emotions and – by extension – it may have different external manifestations. Likewise, different people react differently to the influence of the psycho-affective factors and that is why far-reaching generalisations concerning the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity may not be valid and relevant to the entire population of interpreters since they, like all humans, have typically an individualised and subjective approach to the issues of psycho-affectivity. All in all, though not easy to capture in scientific terms, the notions of “affect” and “individual psycho-affective factors” are the major concepts, defining of which was viewed necessary prior to the in-depth discussion of selected individual psycho-affective factors which – in different ways and to a different extent – may condition the behaviours of interpreters and trainee interpreters and which indeed have a profound impact on the quality of the interpreter’s performance and the final output.

3.3.2. Selected individual psycho-affective factors in interpreting This section presents the major findings related to the selected individual psychoaffective factors which may condition the behaviour(s) of interpreters and thus

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impact on interpreting performance and output quality. The factors which are discussed here are anxiety, fear, language inhibition/language ego/language boundaries, extroversion/introversion, self-esteem, motivation and stress. In applied linguistics, those factors are often analysed with reference to language learning processes but their activity is also visible in interpreting, during which the interpreter, as any human being, also experiences a number of emotional states related to his/her perception of himself/herself, the entire interpreting context or the interpreting act participants. What is more, as the study in its further parts shows, they are also experienced in interpreting training and influence trainee interpreters’ performance.

3.3.2.1. Interpreter’s anxiety and its potential influence on the interpreter’s performance and output quality Anxiety49 seems to be one of the most obstructive factors in any kind of activity. It is pervasive not only in the foreign language learning process but in interpreting training, as well. From the psychological point of view, anxiety is “an unpleasant emotional state or condition which is characterized by subjective feelings of tension, apprehension and worry, and by activation or arousal of the autonomic nervous system that accompanies these feelings” (Spielberger 1972: 19). Moreover, it is defined as “(…) an anticipatory state of active preparation for dealing with threat” (Riskind, Williams, Gessner, Chrosniak, Cortina 2000: 837) and “(…) associated with negative feelings such as uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, apprehension and tension” (Arnold, Brown 1999:  8). Some scholars view “anxiety” as “[a]‌general term roughly meaning worry and concern of a fairly intense kind” (Richards 2009: 21), “[a] reaction to a perceived threat” (Reevy, Ozer, Ito 2010: 83) or “(…) a socio-psycho-biologic phenomenon experienced as a foreboding dread or threat resulting from the individual’s appraisal of a situation and of their capacity to deal with it” (Piechurska-Kuciel 2008: 28). Anxiety can manifest itself at different levels. First of all, it is subjectively experienced as a very negative emotion which can decrease a person’s potential of performing some task or – behaviourally speaking – may make a person avoid performing it. Referring to this property of anxiety, Piechurska-Kuciel observes that: (…) anxiety involves inhibition of future active behaviours for the sake of avoidance increased risk assessment when non-threatening situations are assessed as dangerous, and defensive passivity when entering the dangerous situation is withheld (passive avoidance). (Piechurska-Kuciel 2008: 29–30)

49 In interpreting studies, “anxiety” is quite often used interchangeably with “stress”, as is rightly observed, among others, by Arnaiz-Castro and Pérez-Luzardo Díaz (2016). However, in this book, for the sake of clarity, those two terms are not used in this way and, albeit they share numerous properties and may result from one another, they are treated as two psycho-affective factors.

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What is more, anxiety can also be expressed socially when an anxious person withdraws from social relations or becomes shy. Anxiety also has its cognitive responses:  an anxious person continually thinks about the upcoming negative event, is extremely vigilant and worried. This, in turn, may result in decreased concentration or decreased information processing capacity because what becomes the priority is processing the threat and not the content information (cf. Calvo, Castillo 2001). Anxiety also has its physiological responses in a person’s body which typically starts producing the stress hormone. Moreover, the heart rate and blood pressure may increase, the breath can be faster, perspiration can increase etc. Anxiety can generate both positive and negative outcomes. As far as the positive results are concerned, they may be visible in increased motivation and this, in turn, can contribute to a better performance. However, it is the negative results that usually come to the fore. Among them are, for instance, the already-mentioned cognitive responses such as lowered processing capacity, reduced working memory, lowered level of concentration, shortened attention span, higher level of irritability or higher level of distraction. Piechurska-Kuciel (2008) also observes that people who tend to experience anxiety give priority to the anxiety-evoking information which threatens them instead of the task itself they are to deal with. When applied to interpreting, it may be stated that anxiety can impair the interpreting process at all the stages by limiting the interpreter’s processing capacity, reducing the interpreter’s working memory capabilities and lowering the interpreter’s attention span and concentration. There have been several attempts at classifying different types of anxiety. Due to the fact that of interest is anxiety which is experienced by interpreters, those types are discussed with reference to the effects they can have on the interpreter and interpreting performance. One of the typologies of anxiety is strictly related to performance. Facilitative/ beneficial anxiety is the type of anxiety, thanks to which the interpreter performs better because it arouses additional motivation to cope with the interpreting task by using the problem-solving strategies. On the other side of this typology is debilitative/debilitating/inhibitory anxiety which is observed among interpreters and trainee interpreters who perform poorly since they are unable to cope with the situation. Another type of anxiety is social anxiety which can be explained as “(…) a state of anxiety resulting from the prospect or presence of interpersonal evaluation in real or imagined social settings” (Leary 1983: 67). Given the fact that interpreting is also performed in some social setting, with its participants being people who may not be known to the interpreter, the interpreter may experience social anxiety. In other words, the interpreter who is not confident of his/her interpreting skills may become anxious in the presence of unknown people who, as the interpreter may believe, will judge him/her negatively, which might finally contribute to the meagre quality of both interpreting performance and the interpreting output. Anxiety can also be divided into state anxiety and trait anxiety. The former describes anxiety experienced by an individual as a short-lived response to some

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stimulus whereas trait anxiety is a person’s personal property, which means that this person tends to be anxious (e.g. Dörnyei 2005). In interpreting, state anxiety is perhaps more visible when the interpreter faces a challenging interpreting task while trait anxiety, being the interpreter’s constant personal feature, would probably make this person never join this profession. One more typology of anxiety – the typology which is specifically adopted in the empirical part of this study – was suggested by John Heron (1989), a British psychologist, who distinguished two general categories of anxiety: archaic anxiety and existential anxiety. Archaic anxiety is related to a person’s past experiences so what may induce the interpreter’s archaic anxiety is, for instance, the memories of the unsuccessful interpretation done some time ago. As far as existential anxiety is concerned, it is further subdivided into acceptance anxiety, orientation anxiety and performance anxiety. Walczyński (2017a: 93) explains those types in the following way: Interpreters may experience acceptance anxiety when they are anxious about whether they will be accepted and respected by, for instance, the speaker who[m]‌they have to interpret or the audience, for whom the interpreting service is rendered. Orientation anxiety is related to whether the interpreter understands what is happening. This concerns not only the comprehension of the linguistic input provided in the source language but also the entire interpreting context – who speaks when, what or when to interpret, or in the case of consecutive interpreting, what position to take, to whom to direct the interpretation etc. Performance anxiety is related to interpreters’ interpreting skills (e.g. comprehension, delivery, note-taking). Those interpreters who experience it may be uncertain about their interpreting skills (e.g. comprehension, delivery, note-taking) as well as about their linguistic skills.

When discussing performance anxiety, Ewa Piechurska-Kuciel (2008) makes an interesting point related to what is sometimes called “the impostor syndrome”. She is of the opinion that there are some people who are not certain about their skills and are thus anxious that they will perform badly or that their performance will be judged negatively by others whereas in fact, they are “(…) talented and competent individuals [who] regard themselves as inept and [who] are constantly afraid of being “exposed” (…)” (Piechurska-Kuciel 2008:  41). This may also pertain to interpreters who may be characterised by perfectionism and the highly developed level of their language inhibition and fragile language ego (cf. Subchapter 3.3.2.3.). One more typology of anxiety concerns foreign language anxiety, i.e. anxiety experienced by people who have to use a foreign language which they do not have a full mastery of. Elaine Horwitz, Michael Horwitz and Joanne Cope (1986: 128) offer the following definition of foreign language anxiety: “a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process”. Their typology comprises three categories: communication apprehension (i.e. performance anxiety, experienced when a learner has to communicate in his/her nonnative language), test anxiety (anxiety experienced when a learner is confronted

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with a testing situation and often resulting in poor performance) and fear of negative evaluation (i.e. anxiety experienced as a result of fearing criticism or opinions expressed by other people). It seems that this typology is also useful in analysing the results of the three case studies presented in the next parts of this study since they were carried out in the consecutive interpreting testing situation in a university setting. Thus, those types are also directly or indirectly referred to in the empirical part. Dolly Jesusita Young, an American professor of applied linguistics, offered (1991: 426) a typology of the sources of language anxiety which, when adapted to the interpreting circumstances, can produce six potential sources of anxiety experienced by interpreters. First of all, there might be “personal and interpersonal anxieties” resulting from the individual interpreter’s perception of the factors invoking such anxieties (e.g. self-esteem, fear of public speaking etc.). Secondly, there are the interpreter’s beliefs about his/her interpreting skills. Thirdly, there is anxiety invoked by the interpreter’s thinking about the beliefs concerning the interpreter’s interpreting skills shared by the target audience. Fourthly, anxiety can derive from the interpreter-audience transactions. Fifthly, the interpreter’s anxiety may be caused by the interpreting setting and, finally, by the interpreting testing situation, as is the case with the three case studies presented in the next parts of this study. A discussion of anxiety experienced in the context of interpreting and interpreting training may not fail to refer to what is known as “the affective filter” – a hypothetical concept devised by Stephen Krashen (e.g. 1982) to account for the insufficient language acquisition/learning. The affective filter is thought to be an affective factor-related mechanism which makes it impossible for the language input to get into a person’s language acquisition device and thus to make that person successfully learn/acquire a language. The affective filter works differently in different learners and therefore there are different results of the learning process. The affective factors which may block this learning are insufficient motivation or some emotional states, including anxiety. While trying to combine “the affective filter hypothesis” with interpreting studies, Korpal (2017: 64) aptly notices that “[v]‌iewed in the context of interpreter training, anxiety may prevent the student from acquiring new interpreting skills or make them feel unease when interpreting, especially in stress-provoking situations such as when the student is asked to perform a consecutive interpreting task in front of other students”. Thus, a great role is assigned to the interpreting trainer who should not only motivate trainee interpreters to develop their skills but also create a learning atmosphere which would foster such development. Although, as aforementioned, the research on the psycho-affective factors in interpreting is rather scanty, there has been some interesting research output concerning anxiety in interpreting. Perhaps the first attempt at combining the concept of anxiety with interpreting studies was made by Brisau, Godijns and Meuleman (1994) who, among the psycho-affective factors which should be the components of their “interpreter’s psycholinguistic profile”, included anxiety. They clearly

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realised that the interpreter’s experience of anxiety can have both positive as well as negative effects and what they postulated is that the interpreter should be made aware of the debilitating and facilitating forces of anxiety during interpreting training since the interpreter “(…) will have to deal with the butterflies that will undoubtedly hover inside him at any moment” (Brisau, Godijns and Meuleman 1994: 91). Thus, what they seem to notice is that anxiety can indeed be a psychoaffective factor which may impact on the interpreter and his/her performance. The role of anxiety in interpreting training was the theme researched by Amparo Jiménez Ivars and Daniel Pinazo Catalayud, scholars examining the interface of interpreting and psychology, affiliated to Jaume I University in Spain (2001). They observe that anxiety appears at the initial stage of interpreting training, remains during the training and reaches its climax during the final examination in consecutive interpreting. One of the sources of anxiety, as they argue, is the fear of public speaking which is an inherent part of consecutive interpreting, in particular, of its long “classic” form. They ascertain that “(…) anxiety felt just in delivering a speech in public is an emotion linked to lack of competence in public speaking” (Jiménez Ivars, Pinazo Catalayud 2001:  107). In their study, they tested three hypotheses: (1) about the relation between the fear of public speaking and anxiety; (2) about the negative relation between the fear of public speaking and consecutive interpreting performance and (3) about the negative relation between anxiety and consecutive interpreting performance. It turned out that the outcomes of their studies confirmed the first hypothesis because those trainee interpreters who were characterised by the fear of public speaking, had experienced the greatest level of anxiety. However, they add that the feeling of anxiety could have been reinforced by the testing situation. As far as the second hypothesis is concerned, it was not corroborated by the results of the study. What is more, the authors found that, contrary to other studies, their experiment may have involved the facilitative form of anxiety which boosted the trainee interpreters’ capabilities to cope with the testing situation. In the case of the third hypothesis, it was also not confirmed. Jiménez Ivars and Pinazo Catalayud say that “[a]‌possible explanation is that once the individual realizes that he or she is obliged to perform the task, fear of public speaking is put into the background and personal resources for interpreting prevail” (2001:  115). Generally speaking, their research provided some evidence to suggest that there is not necessarily a direct link between poor interpreting performance and the interpreter’s experience of anxiety although, as they caution, this conclusion could not be taken as final and definite since more research in this area is needed. Anxiety in the context of interpreting training was studied by Yung-Nan Chiang, a Taiwanese interpreting scholar and interpreter trainer. In one of the studies (2009), the scholar reported that anxiety is an inseparable part of interpreting education and that this fact served as a motivation for combining anxiety studies with interpreting studies. Chiang investigated foreign language anxiety in the Taiwanese interpreting training context and found that as many as 75% of trainee interpreters exhibited foreign language anxiety. Moreover, in a subsequent study

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(2010), Chiang also saw a positive correlation between foreign language anxiety and trait anxiety manifested by trainee interpreters. The scholar also noticed that trait anxiety did not significantly influence the grades obtained during and at the end of the course. However, foreign language anxiety was indeed related negatively to the results of the Chinese-English interpreting tests. Perhaps, the fact that speaking English (i.e. the foreign language) was practised in an interpreting class had a negative impact on the acquisition of interpreting skills assessed during and at the end of the interpreting course (Chiang 2010). In a different study, anxiety experienced by trainee interpreters was correlated with foreign language anxiety (Abed, Mohammed 2011). What Ahmed Abed and Hashem Mohammed found is that the interpretation course, and interpreting as such, triggers higher levels of anxiety than regular foreign language learning. Moreover, they also identified several sources of students’ anxiety, some of them were related to the trainee interpreter’s self-confidence, the need to extensively use cognitive skills (like, for instance, prolonged concentration, the simultaneity of listening comprehension and note-taking), working conditions, to name but a few. What they suggest is that the levels of negative anxiety can be decreased and with this end in view, they offer three implications. Firstly, the interpreting trainer should strive to help trainees overcome their experience of anxiety by providing “(…) anxiety-free classroom environments in which learners can be more effective (…) interpreters” (Abed, Mohammed 2011:  16). Secondly, they suggest technology- and internet-based learning. Finally, the re-organisation of the interpreting classroom into a more realistic one, preferably an interpreting laboratory, may help since “(…) presenting real life interpreting situations is proved to be very useful for decreasing fear of public speaking on the one hand, and increasing consequently self-confidence, on the other” (Abed, Mohammed 2011: 17). Generally speaking, while the last suggestion seems legitimate and most desirable in any interpreting training setting, the first two raise some doubts. First of all, interpreting as such is an anxiety- and stress-laden experience and it seems more justified to expose trainee interpreters to such experiences so that they could work out their own coping strategies. Secondly, there is a question in what way technology- and internet-based learning may help interpreting trainees decrease their feelings of anxiety since it appears rather doubtful that “a computer-based teaching atmosphere is found as a solvent solution for anxiety” (ibid.). Anxiety (or more precisely, motivation and anxiety) was also one of the factors examined by Timarová and Salaets (2011) in the study on self-selection and interpreting aptitude. They found that the interpreting training candidates who decided on their own to pursue an interpreting programme manifested a lower level of debilitating anxiety (and a higher level of motivation), which may be taken as a “trait highly desirable in interpreters” (Timarová and Salaets 2011: 50). However, they also concluded that the measurement of debilitating anxiety showed similar results for passing and failing students against the control group. As they note, this result is counterintuitive since it was believed that the failing students would suffer more from inhibitory anxiety than those passing ones

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(who, in another measurement, experienced higher levels of beneficial anxiety) that could have developed some coping strategies to combat the debilitating anxiety effects. Thus, the major conclusion from this study is that “[t]‌he finding that successful students are those who seem to benefit from a certain level of anxiety is very much in keeping with many trainers’ expectations” (ibid.). Another interesting research project was initiated by Patricia Arnaiz-Castro and Jessica Pérez-Luzardo Díaz (2016) who are interested in the interpreter’s anxiety and self-concept (understood as the interpreter’s own perception of himself/herself on the basis of the information provided by other people). Generally speaking, in their study, it became evident that female and younger interpreters-to-be experienced more anxiety as compared to male trainee interpreters and the older ones, respectively. Their subjects were the most anxious about in-class public performance, in-class peer competition and potential errors; their anxiety level could also be linked to the testing situation. As for self-concept, the authors found that older trainee interpreters had the higher levels of self-concept and lower levels of anxiety and, on the whole, that the lower level of self-concept may imply the higher level of anxiety. Arnaiz-Castro and Pérez-Luzardo Díaz (ibid.) also offer some pedagogical implications, among which to the fore comes the trainer’s role who should “(…) understand the need to have a non-threatening environment for students” (Arnaiz-Castro, Pérez-Luzardo Díaz 2016: 78) and therefore ought to think about such teaching methods which would not jeopardise trainee interpreters’ self-concept and thus not intensify the experience of anxiety. As demonstrated throughout this subchapter, although the research on the interpreters’ and trainee interpreters’ experience of anxiety is rather scanty, some tentative conclusions about how it affects the interpreter’s performance and output quality could be drawn. It is true that interpreting is an activity which is rarely, if ever, anxiety- and stress-free and perhaps very few interpreters would say they do not experience those two psycho-affective factors. Given the fact that anxiety can be related to the acceptance (i.e. acceptance anxiety) by the audience, to the orientation about what is going on within the interpreting act (i.e. orientation anxiety) as well as to the interpreter’s performance (i.e. performance anxiety) and his/her own appraisal of his/her skills, knowledge and capabilities (i.e. self-esteem/ self-concept/self-efficacy), anxiety is one of the most pervasive factors benefitting interpretation or – more commonly – inhibiting it. What is more, anxiety is also a psycho-affective factor which appears to work in conjunction with other such variables, which is further analysed in the empirical part of this book.

3.3.2.2. Interpreter’s fear and its potential influence on the interpreter’s performance and output quality Fear is another individual psycho-affective factor which needs discussing. While it is true that among the specialists dealing with the psycho-affective factors influencing interpreting rarely does fear occur as an easily identifiable psychoaffective variable, it seems vital to show if (and if yes – how) it may potentially

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destroy the interpreter’s performance. Moreover, because of the fact that its definition overlaps with the definition of anxiety and one is often explained with reference to another, it is worth differentiating between those two. Fear is an omnipresent affective factor both among humans as well as among other species, even the most primitive ones, since there have always been some threats to which all organisms have developed some defensive responses. Hence, it may be defined as “(…) the affect of a motivational system that attempts to protect an organism from physical harm or destruction” (Jones 2013: 100). It can be regarded as an emotional state, which emerges in a given situation and is timerestricted, or as a stable personality trait, which is typical of a person irrespective of temporal and physical context (e.g. Öhman 2008). Fear can have several manifestations. For instance, a person experiencing fear can exhibit this emotion in his/her body: the person can become quiet and motionless or jerk and jump. What is also observed is vigilance against the threat. In this way, the person’s perception is narrowed down and focused on the potential danger (Reevy, Ozer and Ito 2010). The physiological manifestations can include increased blood pressure, accelerated heart rate, increased breath; the stress hormones are secreted. Moreover, the experience of fear is often linked to the release of energy which is to help the endangered person deal with the difficult situation. Some scholars (e.g. Richards 2009) talk about several types of fear. There is, for instance, the fear of failing which characterises people who do not perform as well as they would like to or, in other words, do not maximise their skills and knowledge since they are afraid of failing. The fear of failure may have several sources, among which are introversion, inhibition, timidity or perfectionism. As observed by Richards (ibid.) the fear of failing can be noticed in the educational context so it may also be a factor affecting trainee interpreters’ performance during an in-class consecutive interpreting test. A closely related type of fear is the fear of success which again prevents people from performing to the best of their skills and knowledge. Another kind of fear is the fear of strangers which is typical of young people. However, some adults can also feel it and such adults would probably never become interpreters given the fact that this profession entails public speaking and contacts with unknown people. As aforementioned, fear is frequently linked to anxiety and those two emotions are often explained with reference to each other. Moreover, both anxiety and fear “(…) always appear in lists of the basic emotions” (Strongman 2003: 135), are both “(…) obviously overlapping, aversive, activated states centered on threat” (Öhman 2008:  710) and both “(…) involve intense negative feelings and strong bodily manifestations” (ibid.). Thus, it might be stated that what they share is that they are both the subjectively unpleasant reactions to the perceived danger which manifest themselves physiologically in more or less similar ways. However, psychologists distinguish between those two emotions claiming that there are several important differences between them. What is different is the type of stimulus, which – in the case of fear – is a clear threat whereas – in the case of anxiety – it is rather vague or, as Strongman (2003: 135) puts it, “[t]‌he origins of anxiety are unclear or uncertain to

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the person”. To put it differently, fear is caused by some objectively existing, external and real danger which – for a given person – may be an imminent threat. Anxiety, however, “(…) is a more general and diffuse. When someone is anxious, there is a dread about something that could happen or that is about to happen, or the person may not even know the source of the anxiety” (Reevy, Ozer and Ito 2010: 265). This implies that anxiety is related to uncertainty, that it is future-oriented and there is usually no imminent danger. In this regard, Öhman (2008: 710) rightly notes that “(…) anxiety is often “prestimulus” (i.e., anticipatory to [more or less real] threatening stimuli), whereas fear is “poststimulus” (i.e., elicited by a defined fear stimulus)”. What is more, some scholars (e.g. Epstein 1972) are of the opinion that fear triggers motivation to cope with the difficult situation and when such attempts at dealing with it fail, fear turns into anxiety (Öhman 2008). Therefore, Öhman (ibid.) concludes that due to the fact that fear has its origin in some danger identifiable in space and time, it is related to some coping mechanisms because this known danger has to be somehow dealt with. Anxiety, on the other hand, has an indefinite source and therefore it is difficult to apply some coping strategies to combat it. The distinction between fear and anxiety may be of significance to interpreting studies since it may allow interpreting scholars to distinguish the sources of those two affective factors. It is true that at present objectively rarely do professional interpreters experience fear since in the typical interpreting situation, there is usually no imminent danger and threat which would evoke the physiological responses. In most cases, interpreters experience anxiety which has its roots, for instance, in the interpreter’s subjectively perceived insufficient language skills or the interpreter’s way of thinking about a given interpreting act, which, objectively speaking, do not constitute the real danger. However, in very rare and extreme situations in which interpreters’ and their employers’ lives may be jeopardised (like, for instance, in military interpreting), interpreters may genuinely feel fear. This is especially true of the interpreting acts taking place in war and conflict zones, where the danger is indeed present and where interpreters’ protection is not fully provided. Other causes of conflict zone interpreters’ feelings of fear are also the past experience of violence or victimisation. Barbara Moser-Mercer (2015c: 83) rightly observes that: [a]‌s locals they [conflict zone interpreters] may themselves have experienced the narratives of beatings, torture, rape and mass murder that they are asked to interpret on a regular basis; male interpreters outnumber female interpreters in the field, whereas many victims are women (…). [Other conflict zone interpreters] (…) are themselves refugees interpreting for other refugee-applicants the experiences they themselves have had to endure; they are displaced persons who have suffered emotional and physical trauma, with no home community to support them.

This may suggest that conflict zone interpreters’ fear may stem from their previous experiences and that they have a clearly identifiable source of this emotion. In other words, their fear can be linked to some emotional trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder or vicarious trauma which occurs when the interpreter overidentifies with the interpreted parties and their traumatic experiences

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become his/hers, adversely influencing the interpreter and in this way altering the interpreter’s perception of himself/herself, his/her identity, the surrounding reality etc. (cf. Shlesinger 2015). Fear must definitely have been a frequent emotion felt by ad hoc interpreters (oftentimes themselves prisoners who, next to their mother tongues, spoke German – the major language of command, instruction and order in Nazi death camps) serving the Nazi soldiers commanding the many concentration camps which are thought to have been “(…) among the most violent settings of linguistic and other mediation activities (…)” (Tryuk, Wolf 2015: 77). The potential punishment, including death, was the origin of fear because, as is commonly known, it was undoubtedly an imminent danger which those interpreters and their fellow prisoners realised well enough. Fear was therefore ubiquitous for what those interpreters wished was to survive and that is why “(…) any sort of interpreting in whatever circumstances was subordinate to it” (Tryuk, Wolf 2015: 78). As regards fear experienced by trainee interpreters, a slightly different picture may emerge in the context of a interpreting testing situation in which they may feel some fear with the source being the test itself  – their perceived imminent threat which may endanger them in some way. What might cause their fear is the prospect of negative evaluation, criticism or rejection whose ultimate manifestation is the failing grade. Such a view of the causes of fear is in line with the psychological research carried out on the situational dimensions of people’s fears by Willem Arrindell, Mary Pickersgill, Harald Merckelbach, Angélique Ardon and Frieda Cornet (1991) who distinguished four major factors triggering it, among which there were the fear of interpersonal events and situations and the fear of public places (i.e. where other people are present) which may be responsible for trainee interpreters’ fearfulness. To sum up, it appears that albeit definitely less frequent because of no imminent danger, fear is also a psycho-affective factor which may condition the behaviour(s) of interpreters and which may influence the quality of the output. What might be difficult, however, is establishing the real causes of such fear as, owing to the overlapping physiological characteristics and close definitional affinity, they are perhaps the best indicators of what the interpreter or trainee interpreter goes through – fear or anxiety.

3.3.2.3. Interpreter’s language ego, language boundaries and inhibition and their potential influence on the interpreter’s performance and output quality “Language ego” is a concept introduced by Alexander Z. Guiora (1972), an American professor of psychology and language acquisition, as an extension of Freud’s concept of body ego50, to account for the boundaries a person has in terms of his/her (second) 50 “Body ego” is a term referring to the manner in which a given person conceptualises and represents himself/herself physically and the boundaries that he/she sets for this

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language syntax, vocabulary and pronunciation. To put it differently, language ego can be defined as “(…) the identity a person develops in reference to the language he or she speaks” (Brown 2007: 69) and as such it may be deemed responsible for a person’s incomplete or insufficient mastery of the second language, visible in that person’s linguistic performance, which may be caused by language boundaries – the limits to which a given person is able to acquire and then use the grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation of the foreign language. As argued by Guiora (1972: 144): Language, too, will have, similar to the body ego, its physical outlines and firm boundaries. Grammar and syntax are the solid structures on which speech hangs, lexis the flesh that gives it body, and pronunciation its very core.

What emerges from the above citation is that language ego is related to language boundaries which ultimately lead to language inhibition – the person’s linguistic performance may be deficient in some ways because language ego is so weak and language boundaries are so firm that they do not allow the language user to take risks in language use which could potentially result in mistakes51. Language ego and inhibition may affect different levels of language  – they may be visible in grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation. Language ego develops with time since it has been observed that children are not inhibited by their mistakes which – at a certain stage of their development – may be manifold and stem from, for instance, the rules of overgeneralisation. At some age, when children start to perceive themselves as different from others and to realise their self (i.e. ego), they want to guard their ego and that is why, as a response to negative evaluation and criticism, they develop some defensive mechanisms which strengthen their ego boundaries and thereby increase the level of their inhibition. Thus, it is true that “(…) the weaker the ego, the higher the walls of inhibition” (Arnold and Brown 1999: 10).

representation. In other words, body ego identifies a person and at the same time makes that person different from other objects existing in the world. 51 In applied linguistics, especially in language learning and acquisition studies, there is a difference between the two terms which are used interchangeably in other contexts: between “a mistake” and “an error”. According to Brown (2007: 257), “[a]‌ mistake refers to a performance error that is either a random guess or a “slip,” in that it is a failure to utilize a known system correctly”. In other words, mistakes encompass such phenomena as hesitations, lapses, occasional ungrammaticality, slips of the tongue and result not from the person’s insufficient competence but are rather the production-related imperfections. Errors are different from mistakes in that the former are the “(…) noticeable deviation[s] from the adult grammar of a native speaker [and reflect] the competence of the learner” (Brown 2007: 258). The occurrence of an error and not a mistake can only be determined when a given incorrect pattern repeats in the person’s linguistic productions, manifesting this person’s imperfect competence. However, applied linguists (cf. ibid.) notice that differentiating between mistakes and errors is difficult or sometimes even impossible. Moreover, as observed by Brown (2007: 259), there is “(…) the subjectivity of determining the

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As aforementioned, along with the increasing command of a second language, people become more inhibited and their language boundaries become more stable and less permeable. Therefore, as argued by Arnold and Brown (1999: 10), “(…) aspects of a second language may be rejected, as they do not fit into the patterns contained within the language ego boundaries”. This may explain the reason why it is so difficult for some adults to acquire different aspects of their second language and why they are afraid of making mistakes. H. Douglas Brown states that: (…) mistakes can be viewed as threats to one’s ego. They pose internal and external threats. Internally, one’s critical self and one’s performing self can be in conflict: the learner performs something “wrong” and becomes critical of his or her own mistake. Externally, learners perceive others to be critical, even judging their very person when they blunder in a second language. (Brown 2007: 160)

In other words, people tend not to make mistakes because any such imperfection is treated by them as either an internal or external threat to their ego. The internal threats affect the person’s self – any mistake is regarded by that person himself/ herself as something wrong and therefore as threatening his/her ego. The external threats come from outside the person affected and are viewed as the negative evaluation expressed by others. It has already been stated that one of the areas in which the activity of language ego and the resultant language boundaries and inhibition is the most noticeable is pronunciation which is part of the most psychologically challenging language behaviour  – of speaking52, which is the basic activity interpreters engage in. Alexander Guiora, Robert Brannon and Cecelia Dull (1972: 112) are of the opinion that speaking a foreign language involves “(…) the radical operation of learning and manipulating a new grammar and at the extreme limits of proficiency, modifying one of the basic modes of identification by the self and others, the way we sound”. In this way, what comes to the fore in language ego is pronunciation. Guiora (1972: 144–145) argues that:

difference between a mistake and an error (…)” and “[t]hat undertaking always bears with it the chance of faulty assumption on the part of a teacher or researcher”. For this reason, in this book this distinction has not been maintained since the participants of the first three case studies produced only one target text so no regularity in the occurrence of errors could be established. Moreover, it would be unfeasible to determine the nature of all imperfections detected in the audio-recorded outputs. Therefore, although they are analysed within the course of an error (and not mistake) analysis, all deficiencies, lapses and imperfections are interchangeably called mistakes or errors. Such interchangeability of those two terms has also been decided on in order to give more stylistic variation to the text of this study. 52 Alexander Guiora, Robert Brannon and Cecelia Dull distinguish four such behaviours: reading, writing, understanding and speaking (Guiora, Brannon, Dull 1972: 112).

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Pronunciation is the most salient aspect of the language ego, the hardest to penetrate (to acquire in a new language), the most difficult to lose (in one’s own). The proposition that pronunciation is indeed the very core of the language ego finds dramatic support in the observation that contrary to vocabulary, syntax, and grammar, which are all subject to serious impairment in the different speech dysfunctions, pronunciation seems to be immune to such loss. However distorted his speech may become, a native speaker will never be mistaken for a foreigner. Pronunciation is the most critical and most valuable contribution of the language ego to self-representation.

Weak language ego, firm language ego boundaries and high inhibition can also reduce the person’s ability to take risks in using the language which can be explained as the ability to experiment with language and to try out the yet not fully assimilated aspects of language as well as the readiness to be wrong (cf. Brown 2007). On the other hand, people whose language ego is strong, whose language boundaries are more permeable and who have rather little inhibition tend to speak much, not paying a great deal of attention to linguistic correctness. Instead, they focus on the success of communication even though the means used for getting the message across may be highly imperfect and far from correct. Language ego, language boundaries and inhibition can also be discussed with reference to interpreting and interpreters who – like all other people – are psychoaffective entities undergoing certain emotional states. Interpreters’ language ego may be characterised – apart from other features – by interpreters’ sense of what their command of languages is. In other words, interpreters, as highly skilled professionals engaged in providing linguistic services, are usually well aware of what their weaker linguistic skills are deficient in as well as where they have some gaps in competence. Thus, interpreters’ language boundaries are usually quite firm since they are established by the constraints in their competence. This, in turn, results in inhibition – interpreters may not decide to use certain structures, lexemes, phrases or pronunciation patterns which they may use incorrectly and which are not fully internalised and developed. Those instances of inhibition lead to the avoidance of linguistic risk-taking because otherwise the potential errors could threaten interpreters’ language ego. In fact, because of an extensive knowledge of the source and target languages and exceptional linguistic skills, interpreters are usually aware that they do make mistakes, that their language competence does not necessarily always manifest itself in performance, that their linguistic skills are far from complete and that interpreting performance is rarely perfect. Still, however, some professional interpreters tend to manifest weakened language ego, fixed language boundaries and the high level of inhibition which might result from the previous experiences or the anticipatory thinking related to the anxiety about being ridiculed or about being incomprehensible and thus not understood. In the context of interpreting training, trainee interpreters may also further shake their language ego, strengthen language boundaries and intensify inhibition, typically as a result of unconstructive negative feedback. Likewise, they may

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be reluctant to take risks in language use, especially during the testing situations, since, as has been observed by Leslie Beebe, an American professor emeritus of linguistics and education (1983: 40), “[i]‌n the classroom, these [negative] ramifications [fostering risk-taking] might include a bad grade in the course, a fail on the exam, a reproach from the teacher, a smirk from a classmate, punishment or embarrassment imposed by oneself”. To counteract this, scholars suggest creating an appropriate affective framework so that trainee interpreters could foster their language and interpreting skills without inhibition and without the fear that mistakes will have a detrimental effect on their language ego. What is then suggested is the positive reinforcement of the trainee interpreter’s language ego. As regards the research on language ego experienced by interpreters and trainee interpreters, surprisingly there have been few studies analysing the relations between interpreters’ (or trainee interpreters’) language ego, language boundaries and inhibition and the quality of interpreting performance and output. One praiseworthy exception is the study conducted by Brisau, Godijns and Meuleman (1994) who attempted to develop a psycholinguistic profile of interpreters. When discussing the linguistic parameters, they pay attention to pronunciation which, as presented earlier, may be linked to the interpreter’s language ego. They argue that in the case of interpreters who interpret into their native languages, this may not be an important factor whereas (1994:  89) “[f]‌or interpreters who work in another kind of market, one which requires them to translate into one or even two B-language, it will be of the utmost importance to acquire near-native mastery of the pronunciation of his B-language(s)”. Therefore, they suggest that such interpreters will have to eliminate the negative activity of their language ego, ego boundaries and inhibition (i.e. to strengthen language ego, weaken language boundaries and undermine their inhibition) since what is required is “posing as a Briton, a Frenchman, etc.” (1994: 90) and this is possible when interpreters can show their ability of “shedding [their] mother tongue ego and switching to a B-ego” (ibid.). One more study in which there is a passing mention of language ego as a psycho-affective variable in the context of interpreting training is the chapter authored by Alessandro Zannirato (2008), in which he tries to show different links between interpreter training and foreign language learning/acquisition as well as between language learners and trainee interpreters. Zannirato rightly observes that the activity of interpreting is rarely stress- and anxiety-free and that those two psycho-affective factors (i.e. stress and anxiety) can contribute to the decrease in performance by undermining other factors such as motivation. Moreover, developing a new language ego (for B language) in the process of interpreting training may be difficult. He claims that: In adolescence and adulthood the language ego is part of one’s self-identity, and developing a new language ego may be experienced as a threatening process, even more so if the teaching methods used in class are perceived as extremely demanding, as in the case of interpreter training techniques in an introductory curse. (Zannirato 2008: 32)

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To facilitate the process of developing interpreting skills and thereby eliminating the negative activity of weak language ego, Zannirato implicitly suggests that interpreting trainers should strive to create “a non-threatening environment for their students” (ibid.). Thus, it seems that there is a general agreement among interpreting scholars examining the interdependencies between interpreting training and the experience of the psycho-affective factors that the appropriate psycho-affective framework for interpreting training could help trainee interpreters overcome their inhibition developed as a result of language boundaries determined by their fragile language ego. All in all, it may be concluded that language ego, language boundaries and language inhibition are all interrelated and as such jointly constitute the psychoaffective factor which may contribute to the level of interpreting performance and output quality. However, due to the fact that the research on this psychoaffective variable and its impact on the interpreter’s performance is rather scanty, language ego is a theme requiring further investigation, especially in the context of interpreting education because it is just this setting that may support trainee interpreters’ development of some strategies counteracting the negative activity of their language boundaries and inhibition and boosting the development of their strong language ego. It is hoped that the empirical part of the study will at least partially bridge the gap in understanding how language ego, language boundaries and the resulting inhibition affect interpreters while they generate the target language output.

3.3.2.4. Interpreter’s extroversion/introversion and its potential influence on the interpreter’s performance and output quality Extroversion/introversion, as two types/dimensions of personality, is another individual psycho-affective factor which may contribute to the quality of the interpreter’s performance and output. What is more, in everyday life, it determines, at least to some extent, the quality and quantity of various behaviours, especially those related to interactions and contacts with other people since extrovert people are more prone to engaging in such contacts whereas introverts may be less willing and open to do so. “Personality” is a concept which denotes an entirety of a person’s psychological properties, “(…) the dynamic psychological organization that coordinates experience and action” (McCrae, Costa 2008: 162) or “the complexity of psychological systems that contribute to the unity and continuity in the individual’s conduct and experience, both as it is expressed and as it is perceived by that individual and others” (Caprara, Cervone 2000: 10) which “distinguish[es] individuals from one another, creating, at the subjective level, coherent systems of beliefs about the qualities of individuals” (Caprara, Cervone 2000: 11). However, as argued by Richards (2009: 167), in the 1990s, instead of personality, psychologists preferred to speak about individual differences which distinguish individuals from one another in terms of their psychological traits  – “discrete behaviours, or behavioural

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tendencies, commonly displayed by an individual” (Richards 2009: 249). Generally speaking, personality can be divided into two extreme types:  extroversion (or extraversion) and introversion. Those two terms, i.e. “extroversion” and “introversion”, were introduced into psychological theory by Carl Gustav Jung (cf. e.g. 1923), a Swiss psychologist, psychiatrist and scientist, who is credited with having developed what is now known as analytical psychology or Jungian psychology (Richard 2009) which, at least in part, was a critical response to Freud’s psychoanalysis. Among many novel concepts devised by Jung were “extroversion” and “introversion”. The former can be defined as “(…) the psychological orientation and direction of interests, attention and concerns towards the outside world” (Richards 2009:  81) or “(…) a collection of attributes that includes sociability, positive emotion, activity and assertiveness, excitement-seeking, and sometimes impulsiveness” (Reevy, Ozer, Ito 2010: 253). The latter is the opposite dimension, i.e. “(…) an orientation and direction of these towards one’s own feelings and ideas” (Richards 2009: 81) which “(…) is normally characterized by a hesitant, reflective, retiring nature that keeps itself to itself, shrinks from objects, is always slightly on the defensive and prefers to hide behind mistrustful scrutiny” (Jung 1992: 44). For Jung, those two terms denoted two mutually exclusive types of personality, i.e. an individual person could be characterised either as extrovert or introvert although, as he thought, people generally have both types of traits but they display a preference for one of them. On the other hand, Hans Jürgen Eysenck, a British psychologist of German origin, who further developed the theory of personality, viewed those two not as distinct types but as dimensions, claiming that people can be classified as extroverts, introverts or somewhere in between those two poles (i.e. ambiverts) since there is a continuum from extreme extroversion to extreme introversion. Moreover, Eysenck is credited with having proposed the PEN model of personality (“P” stands for “psychotism”, “E” stands for “extroversion” and “N” stands for “neuroticism”) which could account for personality types and their development. Among the three dimensions of that model, sometimes also referred to as “supertraits” or “superfactors”, are extroversion and introversion (the remaining two dimensions being psychoticism and impulse control as well as neuroticism and emotional stability). The first letters of the words “extroversion”, “psychoticism” and “neuroticism”, representing the three independent dimensions of the personality structure, gave rise to the name of the model: the PEN model of personality. The supertraits include different traits which can be manifested habitually by different behaviours. The distinction between extroversion and introversion is also present in the personality model known as Big Five personality traits or as the five-factor model (FFM), developed by Robert R.  McCrae and Paul Costa (2008), American psychologists. Their model of personality includes the following dimensions: neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness and extroversion. As regards extroversion, they view it as “[g]‌regariousness (a preference for companionship and social stimulation)” (McCrae, Costa 2008: 164) which becomes externalised in “[s] ocial skills, numerous friendships, enterprising vocational interests, participation

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in sports, club memberships” (ibid.). Other properties of extroversion would include assertiveness, stimulation- and attention-seeking, all of which may be used as the criteria characterising the quantity and quality of social encounters as well as the activity, energy and ability to experience positive emotions. Introversion is characterised by the reverse properties  – solitude, reflection and shyness. Thus, introverts have few social interactions and their levels of activity, energy and ability to experience positive energy are rather low. Interestingly enough, the characteristics of extroverts as being talkative, gregarious and outgoing and introverts as being taciturn, reserved and shy are sometimes regarded as reflecting the stereotypes because extroversion and introversion are psychological orientations which determine the sources and directions of people’s self-perception. Arnold and Brown (1999: 11) explain this saying that: Actually, extroversion has to do with the need for receiving ego enhancement, self-esteem and a sense of wholeness from other people, while introversion refers to the degree that individuals derive this sense from within themselves. Introverts can have a great inner strength of character and may show high degree of empathy (…) Consequently, they do not necessarily have the higher ego barriers characteristic of inhibition.

What the above-quoted authors have in mind is that extroversion and introversion are people’s attitudes to themselves and the sources of their positive emotions. Extroverts therefore derive the stimuli strengthening their positive affectivity from the environment whereas introverts find them in themselves. This of course does not mean that extroversion and introversion do not have their external manifestations because, as presented above, they do manifest themselves in overt behaviours, which is confirmed by the fact that several personality tests contain the questions about the overt behaviours which are used in classifying the respondents’ personalities. Moreover, when discussing the traits of extroversion and introversion viewed from the perspective of the aforementioned Eysenck’s PEN model of personality, Reevy, Ozer, Ito (2010) hold that both types have their narrower traits (i.e. the already mentioned extroverts’ features like openness, talkativeness, sociability and the introverts’ properties like preference for solitude, withdrawal, quietness) which, in turn, are accompanied by different behaviours or habitual acts – manners in which those types manifest themselves. Likewise, the five-factor model explains extroversion as a basic tendency which has characteristic adaptations, i.e. the visible aspects such as the number of friends or interests (McCrae, Costa 2008: 143). Additionally, extroversion and introversion can also be measured by the quantity of positive emotions experienced by an individual person. Those people who are classified as extroverts are claimed to experience more positive emotions and introverts  – to experience a lower level of positive emotions. As observed by Reevy, Ozer, Ito (2010: 331), this is not to suggest that introverts are more prone to negative emotions such as anger, fear or sadness – “[r]‌ather, introverts generally experience low levels of happiness, joy, excitement, and hedonistic feelings

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compared to extraverts”. What is more, it is believed that the high level of positive emotions triggers overt behaviours  – openness, assertiveness, activity or sensation-seeking while the low level leads to more hesitant, solitary and withdrawn habitual acts. Due to the fact that extroversion and introversion are two extremes of the continuum, there must be something in between. The first scholar to note that, in terms of their personalities, people cannot be classified so easily as extroverts or introverts and that there are those who exhibit some extrovert and introvert properties was Eysenck who included it in his revised version of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R) (e.g. Eysenck and Eysenck 1991) used to gauge personality traits. Ambiversion can thus be defined as an intermediate type characteristic of people who exhibit some of the properties of extroversion and some of introversion. In fact, Reevy, Ozer, Ito are right in saying that “[e]‌xtraversion and introversion are at the opposite ends on the continuum” (2010: 429) and that “[m]ost people actually fall somewhere in the middle of the continuum, and neither label – “extravert” nor “introvert” – describes these persons very well. These individuals are called ambiverts” (2010: 253). As stated above, extroversion manifests itself in positive emotions and extroverts are claimed to experience more happiness and joy which are visible in such behaviours as gregariousness, assertiveness, activity, sensation-seeking and risk-taking. What is more, extroverts are said to be more successful and more satisfied with their lives, including their professional careers. Thus, it might be postulated that this personality type predisposes people towards the interpreter profession since the interpreter’s job is often linked with numerous contacts and frequent interactions with people, openness and tolerance to others or the unpredictability of how the interpreting act may unfold and the resulting necessity to adapt to the situation. Moreover, extroverts, characterised as people with many interests who willingly respond to challenges (and therefore are more willing to face the challenges of more demanding interpreting activities, like, for instance, simultaneous interpreting), who are fast speakers, who make use of their short-term memory and who maintain greater eye contact while speaking to their listeners (than with their speakers) would potentially be better interpreters. Therefore, “an ideal interpreter”, (which is merely a theoretical construct) should be characterised by extroversion. This claim seems to have dominated the view of a perfect interpreter, which can be exemplified by the words of John Henderson who viewed an ideal interpreter as “a self-reliant, articulate extrovert, quick and intelligent, a jack of all trades and something of an actor, superficial, arrogant, liking variety and at times anxious and frustrated” (Henderson 1980:  223) or by the words of Alessandro Zannirato who rightly observes that “(…) successful interpreters have been recognized as generally being extroverted, empathetic, progressive, and having high achievement motivation” (2013: 112). Theoretically speaking, introverts displaying such traits as hesitation, reflection and timidity may not be good interpreters because interpreting is a social

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act in which interaction takes place in the form of linguistic mediation between the interpreting act parties, in which oftentimes unknown people participate and therefore a shy and withdrawn interpreter may find it tough to provide interpretation to unknown parties, let alone coordinating the interpreting event, of which the interpreter is a focal figure, thanks to whom communication is possible. Because of the dynamics of the interpreting event, introverts might find it difficult to accommodate to changes, which, in turn, can result in a lower quality of the interpreter’s performance and target text. Moreover, introverts are also known to use their long-term memory so the fast retrieval of both content and linguistic data, which is badly needed in interpreting, may not be possible. Thus, introverts may not be good interpreters. On the other hand, due to the fact that introverts are commonly characterised as being good listeners, speaking carefully and slowly (they tend to think before they speak), maintaining greater eye contact while listening to their speakers (than with their listeners), having few but profound interests and having a well-developed attention span, they may nevertheless be successful interpreters employed in some highly specific contexts, like, for instance, in the context of business liaison interpreting, where there is a limited number of interpreting act participants and where it might be suitable to speak slower on a specific topic. Of course, the construct of “an ideal interpreter” is merely theoretical and it does not mean that introverts will never become good interpreters and extroverts are always ideal interpreters. What is certain, however, is that many good interpreters are rather ambiverts, demonstrating a combination of the properties of introverts and extroverts. The interpreter’s extroversion/introversion has not been a frequent theme of interpreting research and only few scholars have made an attempt at scrutinising how interpreters’ personality impacts on the quality of their performance and target text. One of such studies was carried out by Atsuko Szuki (1988), a Japanese translation and interpreting scholar, who studied translators’ and interpreters’ aptitude. Among the properties she distinguished for interpreting aptitude by means of a personality test was the level of interpreters’ extroversion. She found that interpreters participating in her study manifested extroversion. Another worthwhile study was conducted by Nancy Schweda-Nicholson (2005) who attempted at identifying the personality types which trainee interpreters had and gauging whether the type may determine the potential success of completing interpreting education. In other words, Schweda-Nicholson ventured into examining trainee interpreters’ personality types in order to discover which personality characteristics correlate positively with the successful completion of interpreting training. She did so by means of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), an introspective protocol, created by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers (cf. Myers-Briggs, McCaulley, Quenk, Hammer 1998), which is completed by respondents to show how they react to other people and the surrounding world in terms of (1) interactions with people; (2) information collection; (3) decision-making and (4) self-control and surrounding control. The protocol measures respondents’ preference for one of the ways of perceiving

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the world53, among which there are extroversion and introversion manifesting themselves in interacting with others, being talkative, active and outgoing and having inner focus, being quiet and shy and preferring to work alone, respectively (Schweda-Nicholson 2005: 115). One of the hypotheses which SchwedaNicholson wanted to verify is that “ideal” interpreters are extroverts. In her study, it turned out that there was more or less the same number of extroverts and introverts, which in fact refuted the hypothesis. What she tried to find the explanation for this finding in is the language combinations. She says that the most common language combination in the studied group was English-FrenchSpanish and that due to the generalised friendly, open and joyous nature of Spanish and French speakers, it might be concluded that “(…) members of both the Spanish and French groups are highly Extraverted” (Schweda-Nicholson 2005: 121), which is visible in the study results. As far as the speakers of English are considered, the generalisations were not possible since some native users of English, for instance, Americans, may be viewed as more extrovert whereas others, like, for example, the British, are claimed to be more introvert. She also notes that even though there are introverted interpreters, in stress situations they tend to act the way extroverted interpreters act. Schweda-Nicholson (2005: 123) is of the opinion that: The 50% in this sample who are Introverts may act Extraverted in the workplace because of the reward attached to the outgoing behavior. As such, the general perception of all interpreters being Extraverted has perhaps been reinforced by the fact that many Introverts behave like Extraverts.

What the study revealed is that there were quite many introverts in the studied group although, as might have been anticipated, interpreters, whose professional activities rely on much speaking, would demonstrate more extroversion than introversion. Schweda Nicholson (2005: 124) explains this in the following way: The large number of Introverts in the current sample is once again unanticipated, as interpreters earn their living by talking and interacting with others. Although it was predicted that most interpreters would be Extraverts, the data clearly demonstrate that the profession attracts quiet and retiring Introverts as well. Along with additional evidence cited to this point, this result may partially derive from the fact that interpreters dwell in the mind when working.

What Schweda-Nicholson’s research showed is that both extroverts and introverts are attracted by interpreting profession. This, in turn, refutes the common

53 Other categories include “thinking (T)”/”feeling (F)”, “judging (J)”/“perceiving (P)” and “sensing (S)”/“intuition (N)”, which – along with “extroversion (E)”/“introversion (I)” give a set of 16 personality types, of which none is deemed to be “perfect”, “ideal” or “the best”.

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misconception that the only personality dimension suitable for the interpreter’s job is extroversion for it emerges that introverts can be equally good interpreters. Another study worth reporting here is the research on the personality of signed interpreters carried out by Karen Bontempo, Jemina Napier, Laurence Hayes and Vicki Brashear (2014). In their study, they sought to verify the hypothesis that “(…) more competent signed language interpreters (…) are more extroverted” (2014:  31). To do so, they applied a variety of psychometrical scales to a group of more than 2000 signed interpreters, from among whom they decided to study American and Australian respondents’ answers. The results of the study seem to be in line with what Schweda-Nicholson found for trainee interpreters. The authors conclude that American sign interpreters are somewhat more extraverted whereas Australian respondents did not show preference for extroversion. Thus, again, the common misconception that extroverts are supposed to be better interpreters was corrected as a result of this study. Interesting observations were made by Elaheh Sadeghi and Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi (2015), Iranian interpreting scholars, concerning the impact of extroversion/introversion on interpreting accuracy and on the interpreted sentence length. What emerged from study, carried out in a higher education institution among selected 30 trainee interpreters, is that both extroversion and introversion did influence interpreting accuracy. Introverted students tended to provide shorter interpreted passages which were more accurate. The extroverted ones generated longer sentences but their accuracy was slightly decreased. Sadeghi and Dastjerdi (2015) claim that extroverts displayed a tendency to interpret all the lexical items they heard, which resulted in longer sentences. Moreover, they gave more additional explanations than the introverts did. Likewise, the extroverts’ speed of delivery was faster and this triggered more errors and more omissions. Generally speaking, due to the fact that extroversion/introversion may affect the interpreter’s performance and output quality, the authors suggest testing interpreting students’ personality dimensions since they have been shown to influence accuracy. To conclude, from the point of view of professional interpreting practice and interpreting training, it may be said that extroversion is the more preferred personality dimension since it may greatly enhance the interpreter’s (or trainee interpreter’s) ability to provide high-quality interpreting services and help to counteract the unpredicted difficulties which may arise during the interpretation act. However, this is not to suggest that introversion is a personality dimension which makes it impossible for an individual to work as a professional interpreter. The research has shown that in fact the distinction between extroversion and introversion does not have to be a decisive criterion in classifying a person as a good interpreter or interpreting training candidate. This is additionally supported by the psychological studies, according to which introverts differ from extroverts not only in the direction of their interests and the source of energy but also in having a single- or double-layered personality. Some psychologists (e.g. Silverman 1993) have ascertained that while extroverts have only one personality, introverts have two  – the private self and the public self, the latter also known as “the

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persona” which comes to the fore when an introverted person is accompanied by other people and acts in public. Thus, this may prove the point that introverted interpreters are equally well eligible for providing high-quality interpreting services, wearing for that purpose their “public selves” (i.e. “the personae”).

3.3.2.5. Interpreter’s self-esteem (and related concepts) and its potential influence on the interpreter’s performance and output quality Self-esteem is another psycho-affective factor which may condition the linguistic and non-linguistic behaviours of interpreters, thereby contributing to the success or failure of interpreting performance. Self-esteem is a psychological construct which, as its name suggests, is related to the notion of “self”. “Self” is perhaps one of most focal yet troublesome psychological concepts. Richards (2009: 225) holds that “self” “(…) may loosely be defined as denoting the central unifying, or unified, core of one’s personal identity – who one really is” but he is far from claiming that this is a universally accepted definition since, as he argues, some scholars are of the opinion that people have a panoply of social “selves” which may become visible in social interactions with different people. Moreover, people’s own selves are brought to light when they are usually on their own. People’s selves can also be thought of as dynamically changing constructs which are constantly reconstituted throughout people’s entire lives. Self-esteem, which is also sometimes referred to as “self-regard”, “self-worth”, “self-concept”, “self-confidence”, “self-appraisal”, “self-image” or “self-efficacy” (cf. e.g. Habrat 2013), can therefore be defined as a person’s attitude to himself/herself and the evaluation of himself/herself or as “(…) the inevitable evaluations one makes about one’s own worth” (Arnold, Brown 1999: 12). However, what can be observed in the psychological study of self-esteem is that there have been at least three differing approaches to the definition of this notion. Christopher J.  Mruk (2006), an American psychologist whose research interests include, among others, self-esteem, discusses three such types of the definition of self-esteem. First of all, he speaks about defining self-esteem as competence. It suggests that self-esteem is related to how people implement their ambitions, desires or hopes in order to be successful and avoid failures. This also emerges from the definition of self-esteem worked out by Jennifer Crocker and Lora Park, American psychologists, who state that (2003: 291) “(…) people seek to maintain, protect, and enhance self-esteem by attempting to obtain success and avoid failure in domains on which their selfworth has been staked”. In other words, self-esteem, as approached from this perspective, is viewed as certain competent actions which lead to success and which limit the possibility of failure. The second approach discussed by Mruk (2006) is the view that self-esteem is worthiness. To put it differently, self-esteem can also be defined as a kind of attitude people have towards themselves, the evaluation of themselves and the perception of their worth or value as people. Finally, the third approach, sometimes called “the dual, two-factor or multidimensional approach” (Mruk 2006:  20), involves defining self-esteem as both competence and

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worthiness which are deemed to be two components of self-esteem. It means that people engage in various activities and make various decisions to achieve the goals which they find personally significant. They do so because it is the reflection of their worth. Such a view emerges from perhaps the first definition of self-esteem which combined competence and worthiness developed by Nathaniel Branden, a Canadian-American psychologist and expert on self-esteem, who was of the opinion that (1969:  110) “[s]‌elf-esteem has two interrelated aspects:  it entails a sense of personal efficacy and a sense of personal worth. It is the integrated sum of self-confidence and self-respect. It is the conviction that one is competent to live and worthy of living”. What conditions the level of people’s self-esteem is both a person’s own experience as well as the interactions with the external world. Thus, self-esteem can be triggered internally and externally by the way it develops in people’s early childhood when they start to form their own opinions about themselves and their worth under the influence of other people (especially those who are viewed by those children as important and worthy, i.e. parents, teachers, peers) and different events happening in their lives. What is more, being influenced by others’ negative opinions and evaluations, people internalise them and prefer to protect their fragile selves and thus, they decide not to face certain challenges fearing the failures or negative consequences. Verónica de Andrés (1999: 88), a specialist in education and psychological development, holds that children react to how other people view them and “(…) if a positive image [of them] is reflected, children will feel worthy of love and valued. On the contrary, if the image is negative, children will believe that they are rejected, unloved and unwanted, and they will act accordingly”. All of those aspects are neatly highlighted in the definition of self-esteem offered by Stanley Coopersmith, an American psychologist who is thought to have been one of the first researchers to deal with the concept of self-esteem. He states that: By self-esteem we refer to the evaluation which the individual makes and customarily maintains with regard to himself; it expresses an attitude of approval or disapproval, and indicates the extent to which an individual believes himself to be capable, significant, successful and worthy. In short, self-esteem is a personal judgement of worthiness that is expressed in the attitudes that the individual holds towards himself. (Coopersmith 1967: 4–5)

It is sometimes maintained that self-esteem is constituted by five elements: a sense of security, a sense of identity, a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose and a sense of personal competence (Reasoner 1982). Thus, to develop a person’s high self-esteem, all of those elements should be fostered already in childhood since it forms the basis for an individual’s further psychological development. If some of those elements are missing, people can demonstrate low self-esteem, judging themselves as unworthy, unimportant, unappreciated, untalented etc. This, in turn, can have repercussions in their future lives, both private and professional (including the adverse impact of trainee interpreters’ low self-esteem on the quality of their

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renderings as well as of professional interpreters’ low self-esteem on the quality of their work). Self-esteem can be divided into several categories. People can exhibit high/positive self-esteem, neutral self-esteem or low/negative self-esteem. Moreover, self-esteem can be classified as global or general self-esteem (people’s general evaluations of themselves, their general self-worth), situational self-esteem (people’s evaluation of themselves with reference to a specific situation) and task self-esteem (people’s evaluation of themselves with reference a specific task) (Arnold, Brown 1999). At times, self-esteem researchers also distinguish intermediate self-esteem which is related to certain domains like, for instance, academic competence (Habrat 2013). All the types of self-esteem can be organised into a hierarchical system which is basically composed of three levels (global self-esteem, intermediate self-esteem, situational self-esteem). However, because there is a need to include the task-related type of self-esteem, what could be suggested here is the four-level hierarchy: the highest level is occupied by global self-esteem, the upper middle level – by intermediate self-esteem, the lower middle level – by situational self-esteem and the lowest level – by task self-esteem. Sometimes the term “self-esteem” is used interchangeably with other terms: “self-concept” and “self-efficacy”. Although at first sight, those three terms have similar meanings, there are some differences. As argued by Agnieszka Habrat (2013: 244), “self-concept” is a slightly more complex construct related to “self-consistency – being consistent with oneself, and self-enhancement – the tendency to maintain positive belief about oneself”. It is also linked to the manner in which people see their competences in certain areas, including academic and nonacademic activity. Self-concept can be further subdivided into general self-concept, academic and non-academic self-concept and more specific academic self-concept. Self-efficacy, on the other hand, defines people’s views of and attitudes to their properties, skills and potentials with reference to performing a given task located within a given domain. Thus, self-efficacy is viewed as “(…) being tied to very specific tasks within a domain, more cognitive in nature and more concerned with expectancy beliefs about one’s perceived capability to perform a particular task in a specific context” (Mercer 2011: 15) or “beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments” (Bandura 1997: 3). Moreover, it is also seen as “(…) a context-specific assessment of competence to perform a specific task, a judgement of one’s capabilities to execute specific behaviours in specific situations” (Pajares and Miller 1994:  194). In fact, it is just self-efficacy that has been studied by interpreting scholars in various interpreting contexts, mostly in the context of interpreting training. What differs self-efficacy from the other two notions is the level of specificity. As explained by Habrat (2013: 245), “[w]‌hile self-esteem appears to be the most global construct, referring to the overall evaluation of one’s worth and value, self-concept renders an individual’s self-perceptions in specific domains, self-efficacy is related to specific tasks within a domain”. Therefore, in lieu of self-esteem, the psycho-affective factor analysed with reference should be self-efficacy. However, as the definitions

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of both self-concept and self-efficacy show a great overlap with the definition of self-esteem, this differentiation is abandoned in this study so as not to complicate matters and induce any confusion, especially in view of the fact that particular levels of self-esteem, i.e. intermediate self-esteem and situational/task self-esteem, correspond to self-concept and self-efficacy, respectively. The classification of self-esteem into global, situational, intermediate and task self-esteem can also be applied to interpreters who may exhibit varying levels of those four types of self-esteem. Interpreters’ global self-esteem is related to how they perceive themselves as people, whether they value themselves and their competences, whether they believe in themselves and whether they are able to pursue their desires and hopes to achieve success and avoid failures. Intermediate self-esteem can be linked to interpreters’ interpreting competence and the way they perceive their linguistic and interpreting skills. Situation self-esteem refers to the manner, in which interpreters approach a given interpreting act/situation whereas task self-esteem may concern a particular interpreting assignment. Those types of self-esteem are also of importance in interpreting training since, as claimed by Walczyński (2015b: 184): It appears that all of the [four] types should be fostered in interpreting training as the way interpreters perceive themselves and their language [and interpreting] skills, the way they approach the interpreting situation and a particular interpreting assignment can have an influence on the quality. If the level of self-esteem is low, then there are chances that interpreters will not achieve a very high quality in terms of their interpreting output.

What is more, some practising interpreters claim that without high self-esteem, especially the intermediate one, related to interpreting as a profession (which can actually be equated with self-efficacy), it might be difficult to adapt to the changing interpreting situation and improvise when there is such a need. Izak Morin, an Indonesian practitioner of interpreting, states that “[t]‌he interpreter must have an I-can-do-it-feeling. He must trust his own linguistic and non-linguistic abilities by saying to himself: “Go and Just Do It! No one is perfect at first”. This inner force will strongly encourage him to walk up on stage with full self-confidence” (Morin 200554). Likewise, Carmen Valero-Garcés (2005) stresses the importance of drawing attention to the issue of the psycho-affective factors, including self-esteem, since, for instance, community interpreters working in sensitive contexts such as healthcare institutions, immigration offices or humanitarian aid agencies, participate in the events which may exceed the limits of their emotional stability and which may bring negative consequences. Thus, a community interpreter characterised by low self-esteem may not be able to interpret accurately because of his/her fragile psychological construction related to self-esteem. 54 Source: http://translationjournal.net/journal/34interpret.htm; accessed on: 27 July 2018.

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As aforementioned, one of the aspects of self-esteem which has been studied by interpreting scholars is interpreting self-efficacy. For instance, Karen Bontempo and Jemina Napier (2011) used the concept of self-efficacy in their research on the interpreter’s emotional stability regarded as a manifestation of the interpreting competence and aptitude. One of their hypotheses was that there was a positive correlation between self-efficacy and the self-perceived interpreting competence. By means of a questionnaire distributed among Australian accredited interpreters, they found that interpreters who demonstrate higher levels of self-efficacy view their interpreting skills as better developed. In consequence, they postulate that the awareness of psychological traits, including self-efficacy, should be incorporated into interpreting training as it may enhance interpreting performance quality. David P.  Atkinson and Ineke H.  M. Crezee, New Zealand-based interpreting scholars, studied what they call “the psychological skill” of trainee interpreters, which is composed of, among others, occupational self-efficacy (2014). In their paper, they postulate that interpreting training should also encompass the issues related to trainee interpreters’ construction of psychological skills as “the explicit effort to build student confidence and create awareness among students of how their psychological skills and self-evaluations can affect their actions and choices” (Atkinson, Crezee 2014: 6). In other words, the authors are of the opinion that, for example, high levels of occupational self-efficacy, enhanced at least partially as a result of interpreting training, can make a trainee interpreter more confident and willing to engage in more difficult interpreting tasks and therefore the knowledge of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity should be taught explicitly in order to increase trainee interpreters’ metacognitive awareness of both the positive and negative impact of the psycho-affective factors and to develop some coping tactics which could reduce this negative influence. Self-efficacy was also examined by Amparo Jiménez Ivars, Daniel Pinazo Catalayud and Marta Ruiz i Forés (2014) in relation to 281 trainee interpreters’ language proficiency. As a result of their research, they concluded that self-efficacy may indeed play a positive role in interpreting performance but only among those trainee interpreters whose target language (in this case it was English) command was high. They hold that “[a]‌mong these individuals, self-efficacy adds value to performance, and, consequently, lack of it diminishes success in a significant way” (Jiménez Ivars, Pinazo Catalayud, Ruiz i Forés 2014: 175). It also turned out that those trainee interpreters whose English language competence was insufficiently developed naturally performed worse and their self-efficacy did not play any role in this. A group of scholars affiliated with the University of Zabol in Iran, i.e. Habibollah Mashhady, Moslem Fatollahi and Maryam Pourgalavi (2015), ventured into assessing whether there is any relationship between interpreting students’ self-efficacy and their consecutive interpreting note-taking skills. All of the 53 study participants had been given some instruction in note-taking skills which involved the demonstration of the application of the seven basic note-taking principles (i.e. rules of abbreviating, emphasising, linking, noting the idea, showing negation, showing shift and writing vertically) devised by Jean-François Rozan

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(1956). One of their findings is that there is indeed a positive correlation between self-efficacy and note-taking skills. This means that higher self-efficacy is related to greater willingness to use, as the authors call them, “the “appropriate” note-taking skills”55 (Habibollah, Fatollahi, Pourgalavi 2015: 2370). The authors argue that “(…) it might be concluded that interpreting trainees’ self-efficacy can help them overcome their doubts when they want to choose appropriate note-taking guidelines” (ibid.). Their observations have some implications for interpreting training which should foster trainee interpreters’ self-efficacy in order to make them more confident while taking notes. Another self-efficacy research project was carried out by Sang-Bin Lee, a Korean interpreting researcher, who developed an Interpreting Self-Efficacy (ISE) scale to measure Korean trainee interpreters’ beliefs about their own interpreting competence. His measurement instrument initially consisted of 61 items but after its refinement, it is composed of 21 items measuring self-confidence (defined as trainee interpreters’ self-confidence related to their interpreting skills), self-regulatory efficacy (understood as trainee interpreters’ perceived ability to manage their behaviours in order to enhance their interpreting skills) and preference for task difficulty (defined as trainee interpreters’ readiness to deal with a more challenging interpreting assignment) (Lee 2014). The development of the interpreting self-efficacy measurement scale can bring several benefits. First of all, it could be used to measure trainee interpreters’ beliefs about their own interpreting competence. Secondly, Lee argues that the scale can provide trainee interpreters with valuable feedback concerning their future careers. In other words, the results of this survey can help identify those areas of self-esteem and self-efficacy which need strengthening and improving. Finally, the scale is an interesting contribution to the studies on the interpreter competence since it introduces the statistical approach, thanks to which it might be possible to find answers to the questions of how trainee interpreters modify their self-efficacy as a result of training or how a modified training programme impacts on trainee interpreters’ performance and their self-efficacy. Sang-Bin Lee (2018) also tried to relate trainee interpreters’ self-efficacy to the quality of their interpreting performance, putting forward the hypothesis that “there is a strong positive correlation between undergraduate students’ ISE

55 The question whether there are any “appropriate” note-taking techniques is disputable. While it is true that many consecutive interpreters prefer to use Rozan’s system of notes, which includes the seven principles, it is by no means obligatory to do so and this system is by no means the most appropriate. What therefore can be posited is that there is no universally accepted “appropriate” system of note-taking and what is important in interpreting is the final oral output, whose quality may be indeed related to the quality of notes but it does not necessarily have to be so, for instance, because of the interpreter’s extended working memory and prolonged attention span and the reduced need for jotting down the input information.

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[Interpreting Self-Efficacy] and performance levels” (2018: 167) which was tested among 33 consecutive interpreting trainees. The conclusion Lee drew is that interpreting self-efficacy is one of the predictors of interpreting performance since there is a positive correlation between those two. However, as observed by Lee, interpreting self-efficacy interacts with other factors and they all can be used to account for interpreting performance and not self-efficacy on its own. Moreover, Sang-Bin Lee notes that the higher levels of self-efficacy, the stronger the correlation between this construct and performance is. The study conducted by Lee offers some implications for interpreting training with one of them being that interpreting trainers, knowing the levels of their interpreting students’ self-efficacy, can organise training in such a way that the less developed areas are covered or that the less confident students are provided with additional training. What is interesting, Alexandra Rosiers, June Eyckmans and Daniel Bauwens (2011) studied the concept of linguistic self-confidence, which, at least partially, overlaps with intermediate self-esteem and self-efficacy, in the context of aptitude testing. In their contribution, they view interpreting students’ linguistic competence as their own perception of their linguistic and communicative skills. One of the aims of their project was to assess whether there are significant differences between interpreting and translation students’ linguistic self-confidence and whether self-confidence is related to interpreting quality. The outcomes of their experiment showed that interpreters differed markedly from translators in that the former exhibited much higher levels of their communicative self-confidence. As for (sight) interpreting performance, there were no significant differences and the authors did not establish any correlation between the study participants’ linguistic self-confidence and the quality of their performance. What the study, however, confirmed by means of standardised questionnaires is that translators and interpreters are indeed characterised by different profiles and that translation and interpreting students view themselves differently. Those profiles, as argued by Rosiers, Eyckmans and Bauwens (2011: 65), cannot be used as the criteria defining the expected performance quality in aptitude testing since “(…) they do not seem to suffice as predictors of success, at least in the short term”. One more interesting study, which has already been briefly discussed in the subchapter on anxiety, examines the issue of academic self-concept (understood as trainee interpreters’ self-perception of their competence and beliefs about themselves in the field of academic interpreting education) with reference to the experience of anxiety (Arnaiz-Castro, Pérez-Luzardo Díaz 2016). One of the authors’ research questions pertained to the relation between trainee interpreters’ experience of anxiety and their self-concepts. In the course of their study, ArnaizCastro and Pérez-Luzardo Díaz found that there is a correlation between those two constructs and claimed that “[t]‌he results show that the measure of anxiety is significantly related to self-concept showing that low self-concept is related to high scores in anxiety” (2016: 77). Fortunately, only 10% of their respondents exhibited the low level of self-concept, with the majority having from the average to high levels. One more interesting conclusion from their study is that the higher levels

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of trainee interpreters’ self-concept were positively correlated with their higher academic achievements, in particular in better results obtained for performance in their target language (their first second language) – English. To sum up, it is evident that self-esteem and other related concepts may influence the quality of the interpreter’s performance and target text production. What is more, although research on interpreters’ self-esteem is rather scanty, those few studies sufficiently demonstrate that nearly all of the types of self-esteem (i.e. global, situational, intermediate, task), sometimes discussed as “self-efficacy” or “self-concept”, are relevant to the person of the interpreter and interpreting practice and lead to the conclusion that interpreting performance may be conditioned by the interpreter’s self-esteem. Thus, what can be extrapolated from the results of those few studies is that that there is a direct relationship between self-esteem and interpreting performance quality:  the lower the interpreter’s self-esteem is, the greater chances of failure and of low-quality interpretation are. Additionally, low self-esteem may trigger off the negative activity of other psycho-affective factors, with anxiety and stress being prime examples.

3.3.2.6. Interpreter’s motivation and its potential influence on the interpreter’s performance and output quality Motivation is an important variable driving human activity whose aim is to achieve a specific goal. It is therefore associated with certain reasons, forces and energy which make people engage in some behaviours. Such motives can be explained as “(…) predisposition[s]‌to behave in a directed fashion” which “(…) act as the motor[s] for action, energizing purposive behaviour that serves a function for the individual” (Fiske 2008: 4). Motives are directed by predefined goals which people set for themselves in a given situation. When such motive forces are absent and people do not engage in specific behaviours, scholars tend to speak about amotivation and when there are some forces which decrease people’s motivation, i.e. drive them away from performing some action, their behaviour can be characterised as being directed by demotivation (e.g. Dörnyei and Ushioda 2011). However, sometimes amotivation and demotivation may be referred to the same psycho-affective variable, as can be inferred from the statement made by Joan Gorham and Diane M.  Christophel, American communication scholars interested in education, students’ motivation and teachers’ behaviours, who claim that demotivation may be understood as lack of motivation, manifesting itself in “the absence of motivational factors” or in the occurrence of demotivating factors “(…) decreasing students’ motivation to try hard to do their best in a given class” (Gorham, Christophel 1992: 241). Since that it is involved in virtually all types of human behaviours, motivation has been an object of research for many decades. The interest in what lies behind people’s actions, i.e. in what makes people want to perform some activities and what forces them to act in one way or another has contributed to the development of several theories of motivation which are sometimes known as

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“motivation science” (Reevy, Ozer, Ito 2010:  391). Perhaps the first approach to motivation was viewing it as related to instincts and human physiology. That is why such explanations of motivation are classified as “the physiological theories of motivation”. Phil Gorman (2005) relates their origin to Darwin’s evolution theory (1859), according to which people are born with instincts which drive their activity towards some behaviours, the basic of which are obviously those related with the instincts to survive. What is more, such theories may prove useful in accounting for biologically motivated behaviours but more complex human activity, like culture or art, cannot be addressed by them since cultural activity is not physiological instinct-driven. Other physiological theories of motivation are, for instance, the homeostatic drive theory (according to which, human body needs to fulfil some physiological needs and when they are not met, the body activates its physiology which pushes the body to recreate this balance) or the positive incentive theory (which holds that people engage in some behaviours because they anticipate the pleasure derived from their actions in the future). Apart from the physiological theories, which are rather reductionist in nature and limit the motivational forces to biological instincts and drives, there are the psychological theories which try to account for what motivates people by referring to a wider array of variables, including the cognitive, relational and other external factors. An example of such theories is the concept of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs (which, amongst others, included people’s need to unlock their potential, aesthetic needs, cognitive needs, esteem needs, love, safety etc. (e.g. Maslow 1943)), the expectancy theory, sometimes also known as the incentive theory (holding that people’s behaviours are motivated by what is given to them as a reward or bonus and that there are two sources of motivation:  internal and external) or the goal-setting theory (i.e. people act to accomplish a goal). Finally, the third strand of motivation theories tries to combine the physiological and psychological aspects (e.g. the optimal level of the arousal theory (i.e. the theory holding that people act in such a way that their optimal level of arousal (the level of human body’s activation) is maintained and are therefore motivated by this level (e.g. Bernstein, Nash, ClarkeStewart, Penner, Roy 2008)) but, as observed by Gorman (2005:  69), “(…) they remain overly simplistic in some ways and overly complicated in others”. Of particular interest in this study is achievement motivation  – motivation exhibited by interpreters’ and trainee interpreters’ when their interpreting competence and performance are subject to an appraisal (i.e. evaluation). Achievement motivation heavily rests on the notion of “need achievement” which can be explained as “[a]‌motive reflected in the degree to which a person establishes specific goals, cares about meeting them, and experiences satisfaction by doing so” (Bernstein, Nash, Clarke-Stewart, Penner, Roy 2008:  316). It might be assumed that both interpreters and trainee interpreters exhibit a high need for achievement since interpreting is a highly complex and challenging activity which, as has been demonstrated in the previous chapters, demands a set of different subcompetences and – because of that – just a few people become professional interpreters who “(…) work hard at striving for excellence, enjoy themselves in the process, and

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take great pride in achieving at a high level” (ibid.). Achievement motivation is shaped by both people themselves, their beliefs about their abilities and knowledge as well as by external factors such as the environment and cultural setting in which they happen to be. What is more, extending the results of the study on achievement motivation in a workplace to the interpreting profession, it might be postulated that interpreters indeed demonstrate higher levels of achievement motivation since they meet all of the five criteria mentioned in the following quote: In Western cultures low worker motivation appears to come largely from negative thoughts and feelings about having little or no control over the work environment (…). Compared with those in highly structured jobs, workers tend to be happier, more satisfied, and more productive if they are (1) encouraged to participate in decisions about how work should be done; (2) given problems to solve, without being told how to solve them; (3) taught more than one skill; (4) given individual responsibility; and (5) given public recognition, not just money, for good performance (…). (Bernstein, Nash, Clarke-Stewart, Penner, Roy 2008: 318)

Given the fact that the interpreting situation can dynamically change, it is indeed true that professional interpreters often have to make their own choices and decisions, have to solve problems on their own, are multi-skilled, are personally responsible for the output rendered and are frequently of high repute for their extraordinary skills. This clearly shows that those professionals could be described as having a high level of achievement motivation. As has already been mentioned in passing, there are two general types of motivation:  intrinsic (internal) and extrinsic (external). Intrinsic motivation has its source in a given person himself/herself and, as claimed by (Reevy, Ozer, Ito 2010: 390), “(…) comes from the rewards inherent to a task or activity, for example, the pleasure, interest, or enjoyment of playing a musical instrument, painting a picture, or learning for its own sake”. This suggests that people themselves are those driving forces which make them take up some tasks. Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, has an external source and can be either positive (i.e. when a person performs some task to obtain benefits, e.g. to earn money, to earn a grade, to become famous etc.) or negative (i.e. when a person does something for fear of being punished) (ibid.). What is interesting, the psychological research has shown that both types of motivation can be held responsible for human activity and this means that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation types do not exclude each other. Of particular interest are the studies which linked motivation to academic achievement which is greater among people whose intrinsic motivation is higher. Motivation is one of the most frequently studied psycho-affective factors in applied linguistics, especially in foreign language learning. Perhaps the most influential theory of motivation in applied linguistics is Lamber and Gardner’s sociopsychological model for language learning motivation (Gardner 1985), in which they differentiate between two types of motivation:  integrative motivation and instrumental motivation. Language learners who exhibit integrative motivation are those individual who focus on learning a foreign language because of their real

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interests in the target language, the community of its speakers and their culture. In other words, in a sense, they wish to integrate with the target language community and culture. Instrumentally motivated learners are those who learn a foreign language since, by means of the linguistic skills, they want to achieve some practical goal, like, for instance, finding employment. Motivation is also one of the variables conditioning both interpreters’ work and trainee interpreters’ achievements in interpreting training. As regards the former, professional interpreters can exhibit both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. The extrinsic one is related to the external factors such as the remuneration for the presence and providing interpreting services or the need for positive and reputation-building feedback and evaluation. On the other hand, it may be speculated that most interpreters are also driven intrinsically to perform their job well because of their internal feeling of professionality and sense of responsibility. Among the intrinsic factors exhibited by professional interpreters are, for instance, the interpreter’s ideal self (i.e. the idealisation of the interpreter’s attributes that a given interpreter wishes to be equipped with) or avoidance (i.e. the factor which results in the interpreter’s unwillingness to engage in a potentially unsuccessful interpreting act because of the fear of failing in interpreting) (Wu 2016:  16). As far as trainee interpreters are concerned, they can also demonstrate both types of motivation especially in the testing situation. Students’ external motivation is directly linked to the feedback obtained in the form of a grade whereas the internal one can be seen in trainee interpreters’ internal need for considerable achievement and thus for obtaining positive feedback letting them feel they are eligible for the profession. Another intrinsic factor can be linked to instrumentality understood as the anticipated utilitarian profit derived from interpreting training (ibid.). Like in the case of other psycho-affective variables, there is not much research on motivation among interpreters. Nevertheless, it is worth drawing attention to those few studies on motivation and its role in interpreting practice and interpreting training. What is interesting, each of those studies attempted at analysing motivation from a different angle, representing three main orientations. First of all, some scholars deal with trainee interpreters’ motivation to pursue interpreting training. Secondly, motivation is seen as a factor predicting interpreting aptitude. Finally, some scholars study motivation in the context of interpreting education (Wu 2016). One of the interpreting education-related studies was conducted by Jackie Xiu Yan, Jun Pan and Hungua Wang (2010), Chinese interpreting scholars, who analysed several factors which condition Hong Kong trainee interpreters’ development of proficiency in language and interpreting skills. An important part of their study questionnaire, which they termed “the Learner Information Cluster”, included several questions related to trainee interpreters’ motivation for pursuing the interpreting course. Nearly 50% of the students admitted that their motivation for learning the interpreting skills was related to their future career and more opportunities for finding a rewarding job, not necessarily related to interpreting. More than 25% of them treated the interpreting course as another possibility to develop their language skills (English alone and English and Putonghua together) whereas only 15% of them

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intended to become professional interpreters. What can be extrapolated from those results is that the study respondents exhibited mostly extrinsic motivation since they expected some kind of future reward for their skills – financially rewarding and interesting job opportunities. Therefore, their goal was utilitarian for it pertained to their future careers. On the other hand, intrinsic motivation was also present, at least to some extent, for it is they and their own needs that motivated them to learn the interpreting skills. In another study carried out within the frameworks of aptitude testing, Šárka Timarová and Heidi Salaets (2011) addressed the issue of students’ self-selection for interpreting training, the possibility of the successful completion of the training and their relation to several factors (i.e. soft skills), among which was motivation. Using the Achievement Motivation Test, a self-protocol consisting of 90 statements to which respondents select an answer out of the options given, the authors wished to test, among others, how the studied groups (there were three tested groups: a group of the self-selected trainee interpreters; a group of liaison interpreting trainees and the control group containing the “unselected” students who had not completed their general education course after which they could apply for the interpreting programme) scored on the achievement motive scale. What the authors found was that those students who obtained high results in the Achievement Motivation Test were characterised by focusing on possibly the best performance whereas those who achieved low results were not motivated by their achievements and, as a consequence, were satisfied with “a “good-enough” performance” (Timarová, Salaets 2011: 42). Generally speaking, the scholars found that those students who decided on their own to pursue interpreting training could be described as demonstrating the higher level of achievement motivation and therefore concentrated more on performing better. Motivation was also among three56 individual differences studied by Alexandra Rosiers, June Eyckmans and Daniel Bauwens (2011) in one group of translation students and one group of interpreting students. In particular, they analysed the integrative type of motivation and found that both groups of respondents were integratively motivated to a similar extent. They claim that “(…) the translation students (…) are just as motivated as their interpreter peers to learn the foreign language and to follow through with their training” (Rosiers, Eyckmans, Bauwens 2011: 64). One more interesting study on motivation was conducted by Zhiwei Wu, a Chinese interpreting scholar affiliated to the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in China. In his paper (2016), Zhiwei Wu addresses the issue of trainee interpreters’ motivation and demotivation understood “as a tripartite-construct” (Wu 2016: 15) providing answers to the questions of “why, how hard and how long trainees are willing to commit themselves to interpreter training” (ibid.). The scholar referred to both the internal and external factors conditioning (de)motivation and found that, generally speaking, the respondents’ motivation was high but several 56 The other two were linguistic self-confidence and language anxiety.

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demotivating factors contributed to demotivation. The (de)motivating factors, also known as (de)motivators, were grouped into four large categories (“self-attributed (de)motivators”, “peer-attributed (de)motivators”, “trainer-attributed (de)motivators”, “institute-attributed (de)motivators”). Wu found that the interpreting instructorrelated factor functioned as the greatest demotivator. Moreover, Wu is right in claiming that the construct of (de)motivation in an interpreting class is dynamic, situated and multi-aspectual for motivation and demotivation change dynamically and can co-exist within an individual trainee interpreter. This suggests that while “(…) interpreter trainees have a generally high level of motivation, they still experience a moderate level of demotivation” (Wu 2016: 21). (De)motivation is also dependent (i.e. situated) on the context of interpreting teaching and driven by many (de)motivating factors. Wu offers several implications from the study and is of the opinion that those aspects are crucial in providing trainee interpreters with proper educational context, teaching methods and materials. This pertains especially to developing trainee interpreters’ self-directed interpreting learning strategies and in triggering trainee interpreters’ intrinsic motivation related to the ideal self. On the whole, motivation plays an important role in any human activity, including interpreting. Therefore, it constitutes a significant psycho-affective factor conditioning professional interpreters’ and trainee interpreters’ interpreting activities. While the extrinsic type of motivation has its roots in interpreterexternal conditions, the intrinsic one is strictly related to the interpreter’s psychoaffectivity, manifesting itself, for instance, in the manner he/she views himself/ herself, his/her skills and competences. Thus, fostering intrinsic motivation in trainee interpreters may bring potential future benefits in that intrinsically motivated professional interpreters will strive to perform to the best of their abilities with the external factors playing a less important role. As a result, goal attainment (i.e. making communication possible) triggering successful performance which leads to a high quality interpreting output may be more a matter of interpreters’ internal needs, beliefs and self-perception than a matter of external factors.

3.3.2.7. Interpreter’s experience of stress and its potential influence on the interpreter’s performance and output quality Albeit certainly a psychological phenomenon, stress is precisely not so much a psycho-affective factor57. However, because of its omnipresence in interpreting, its psychological roots and close relation to anxiety58 and other psycho-affective

57 However, for the sake of clarity and consistency maintained throughout this book, it is classified as one of the psycho-affective factors analysed in further parts of this study. 58 As remarked in Section 3.3.2.1. what can be at times observed in interpreting studies is the interchangeable use of the terms “stress” and “anxiety”. For instance, Timarová and Salaets (2011) when discussing debilitating and facilitating anxiety, refer to stress

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factors as well as its direct links to both physiological and psychological responses, it deserves a separate discussion in the study of the psycho-affective factors experienced by interpreters. Stress, which is sometimes thought to be one of the vaguest and haziest psychological terms (e.g. Richards 2009), can be defined as a psycho-physiological response to some intimidating or demanding event which functions as a stressor (or a stressing agent/stressing factor). The psychological response is usually perceived as some tension whereas the physiological one manifests itself in the individual’s bodily reaction – increased heart rate and blood pressure, intensified perspiration, pupil dilation, the release of stress hormones, to name but a few. Reevy, Ozer, Ito (2010: 543) rightly observe that stress is “(…) an arousal of both body and mind” and that is why this designation does not denote a single phenomenon but is rather an umbrella term or “a catch-all term” (Richards 2009: 239). Alessandra Riccardi (2015b: 405), an Italian scholar examining stress experienced by interpreters, is of the opinion that stress “(…) is generally understood as a psychological reaction experienced when an individual feels an imbalance between task requirements and the resources available for coping with them”. The requirements which she refers to may be of double nature:  external (related to the environment) and internal (determined by the individual himself/herself). Bernstein, Nash, Clarke-Stewart, Penner, Roy (2008: 392) view stress as a process, claiming that it “(…) is the negative emotional and physiological process that occurs as individuals try to adjust to or deal with stressors” while stress reactions “are the physical, psychological, and behavioural responses (such as nervousness, nausea, or fatigue) that occur in the face of stressors” (ibid.). According to the aforementioned view of stress as a process, the manner and intensity of people’s reactions are related to the types of stressors, their influence on those people and those individuals’ way of perceiving the stressors as well as to the coping tactics which those people can use to manage stress. Thus, the stress process is constituted by three major components: stressors, stress mediators and stress responses (Bernstein, Nash, Clarke-Stewart, Penner, Roy 2008). They form several two-way interrelations. For instance, the influence of stressors can be reduced by effective stress mediators and effective stress mediators may lead to the less frequent occurrence of stressors. Moreover, stress responses are not so intense if stress mediators are effective. Those interrelations are presented graphically in Fig. 13 (see below).

and claim that “(…) [b]‌oth are related to people’s response to situations which may induce some level of stress” (2011: 50). However, as aptly explained by Korpal (2017: 62), “(…) anxiety results from the experience of stress”, “(…) anxiety is an emotional reaction to psychological stress” and “(…) anxiety may be understood as an emotion resulting from stress”. This is also confirmed by Piechurska-Kuciel (2008: 26) who states that “[a]nxiety is an emotion often produced in response to stress”. All those quotations pinpoint that anxiety is in fact a stress response and therefore “anxiety” should not be viewed as a synonym to “stress”.

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Fig. 13: The component of the stress process (on the basis of Bernstein, Nash, ClarkeStewart, Penner, Roy 2008: 392).

As regards stressors, also known as stressing factors, stressing agents, stressinducing factors, stress-provoking factors or stress-producing factors, they can be defined as the events and situations which make an individual change or adjust to them. They can be both external, i.e. resulting from the environment, or internal, i.e. resulting from a person’s feelings, thoughts or beliefs. Moreover, stressors have physical and psychological components which frequently co-occur and coincide. Some scholars, like, for instance, Riccardi (2015b), seem to view stressors in terms of external and internal task requirements which have to be met and, when a given person does not have enough resources to fulfil them, there emerges an imbalance which triggers stress. The cognitive evaluation of stressors is highly subjective and for one person stress-provoking factors may be threatening while another individual can see them as challenging and stimulating. Stress mediators can be defined as the measures that people take to reduce the negative influence of stressors. With reference to interpreters, among stress mediators are coping tactics which are used by interpreters to deal with a difficulty invoked by some problem triggers like, for instance, names, non-standard lexical items, non-standard pronunciation etc. (Gile 2015a). Stress mediators also include the so-called “cognitive appraisal” (i.e. the way people perceive stressors), predictability (i.e. the ability to predict the occurrence of stressors) and control (i.e. the ability to have some degree of control over stressors) (Bernstein, Nash, ClarkeStewart, Penner, Roy 2008). In fact, stress management has become a prolific area of psychological inquiry, the results of which can be seen in various stress-coping tactics. For instance, Gretchen M. Reevy, Alan Monat, Richard Lazarus, scholars dealing with stress, have identified three major categories of such strategies: (1) change in an individual’s surrounding or living style; (2)  change in personality or in the way of looking at stressors and (3) adjustment of the bodily reactions to stress (2007). All of them can also be applied to interpreting practice. The psycho-physiological response, which, is sometimes also known as “stress response”, “fight-or-flight response” or “fight-or-flee response”, can be explained as a psychological and physiological reaction to stressors. In other words, stress can generate some psychological change in an individual person’s emotions and cognition whereas the physical side of the response invokes the aforementioned changes in a person’s body (i.e. the bodily reactions). The psycho-physiological response can also be visible as a behavioural response since, under the influence of stress, people can change their behaviour, i.e. they may speak and act differently or look different (e.g. facial expressions, unintelligible sound production, hand

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shaking or excessive gestures may occur), as compared to their everyday behaviour which is not the result of stress. Moreover, as the other denominations of “stress response” (i.e. “fight-or-flight response” or “fight-or-flee response”) suggest, the reaction to a stressing agent may be twofold. It may either motivate and stimulate people to combat the stress (i.e. to fight) and therefore it may be viewed as positive or even needed. Such a positive response is known as “eustress” (Riccardi 2015b: 405). However, stress may also demotivate people so that they give up performing a given task or perform it badly and then such a negative response is referred to as “distress” (ibid.). The excessive experience of stress has been found to be contributory to the decrease in cognitive abilities (memory retention, retrieval, concentration or attention), to the emergence of various dysfunctions such as physical diseases (e.g. heart disease), mental disorders (e.g. clinical depression) as well as different states (e.g. irritability) and fatigue (stress is an energy-consuming response) and to a decreased quality of performance (Richards 2009). Therefore, stress can affect people’s well-being – their body and mind. As has been aforementioned, stress is directly linked to other psycho-affective factors and to emotions at large. Reevy, Ozer, Ito (2010: 544) emphasise that “[i]‌n general, strong emotions produce strong stress responses and mild emotions produce less intense stress responses”. This is true of both positive and negative emotions though the more adverse stress responses (exemplified by faster heart rate and blood pressure, increased perspiration or intensified release of stress hormones) can obviously be seen in negative states such as anxiety or fear. Stress is perhaps the most studied psycho-affective phenomenon occurring in interpreting, especially in its simultaneous mode and because it emerges in the job-related settings, it is at times referred to as “occupational stress”. Some interpreting scholars, for instance, Jesús Sanz (1931), Patricia Longley (1989), Chabasse and Kader (2014), to name just a few, view resistance to stress and the ability to control stress as one of several fundamental skills which need to be tested within the framework of assessing candidates’ interpreting aptitude. Interestingly enough, interpreting scholars have identified a wide array of stressors, among which the most important seem to be the environmental factors (i.e. working conditions: interpreting booth equipment, temperature etc.), mental stressors (e.g. prolonged attention-requiring tasks) and social stressors (e.g. competition, interpreter’s social status, interactions and rapport with another interpreter in a booth). What is more, Kurz (2002:  197) speaks about “environmental stress”, “mental stress” and “social stress” which all can influence what she calls “intervening variables” (ibid.) – an individual interpreter’s factors (e.g. personality traits) conditioning the perception of stressors. Kurz also draws attention to stress responses which are strictly linked to the decreased quality of the interpreter’s performance and can manifest themselves in, for instance, disturbed input comprehension and processing or impeded output production. This implies that interpreters’ stress response can be manifested by interpreters’ bodily responses (e.g. increased heart rate and blood pressure, galvanic skin response/ skin conductance or cortisol concentration), interpreters’ psychological responses

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(e.g. the emergence of anxiety or fear), interpreters’ cognitive responses (e.g. impeded attention span, disturbed information processing, hampered retrieval) and interpreters’ behavioural responses (e.g. expedited respiration, increased gesticulation) as well as linguistic responses59 (e.g. increased speaking pitch, modified speaking pace, modified number of disfluencies60  – pauses and hesitations, language errors etc. (cf. Korpal 2017)). One of the most significant studies on interpreters’ experience of stress was carried out on behalf of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC). The aim of the study was, among others, to examine interpreters’ perception of stress and their coping tactics (Cooper, Davis, Tung 1982). Among the stressing factors identified as the main reasons for the experience of stress, the respondents enumerated environmental stressors (e.g. booth working conditions), task-related stressors and organisational stressors. In another study, also conducted under the auspices of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC 2002), which analysed interpreters’ stress with reference to their psychological, physical and physiological responses as well as interpreting performance, it was found that the respondents experienced stress mostly because of the quality of input delivery and booth working conditions. Some earlier studies on interpreters’ stress pertained to the physiological manifestations of simultaneous interpreters’ experience of stress. For instance, Tatiana Klonowicz (1994), a Polish professor of psychology and conference interpreter, measured interpreters’ heart rate or blood pressure in the context of occupational stress. She concluded that the interpreter’s strategy of information processing may result from the experience of stress whose indicators were different values of heart rate and blood pressure during different turns of the interpreting process. Hans Zeier (1997), a Swiss scholar working within behavioural science, demonstrated the methods of investigating interpreters’ physiological stress response reflected in the endocrine and immune systems, heart rate, skin conductance, muscle activity, respiration or pupil dilation. As regards the psychological response, Zeier pointed to a variety of psychological questionnaire survey methods. Barbara MoserMercer, Alexander Künzli and Marina Korac (1998) measured the influence of the prolonged turns on the interpreter’s performance and output quality. The scholars clearly demonstrated that interpreters became stressed during longer turns and that this affected their target text production. Ida Kurz (2002) also investigated the changes in skin conductance and pulse rate in two groups of interpreters – those

59 As a matter of fact, linguistic responses could be classified as behavioural responses but because of their particular relevance to the analyses discussed in the first three case studies, they have been isolated from the group of behavioural responses. 60 Korpal (2017: 80) refers to several studies on the occurrence of disfluencies among interpreters working in stressful conditions. Those investigations, however, do not provide any conclusive results for in some studies a higher number of disfluencies was reported whereas in others they were less frequent.

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working as conference interpreters and those working as media interpreters. She found that both settings invoked different levels of physiological stress and that media interpreters experienced more elevated levels of stress. Besides, Kurz (2003) also conducted an experiment whose goal was to measure the physiological effects of stress among expert interpreters and novice interpreters. The outcome of her research indicated that novice interpreters exhibited higher levels of pulse rate. She also made it clear that interpreting is indeed a stressful activity and that is why within interpreting training, trainee interpreters should be familiarised with certain tactics combating the negative influence of stress. One more interesting study is the research conducted by Paweł Korpal (2017). The aim of his project was to investigate whether the pace of input production is related to simultaneous interpreters’ and trainee interpreters’ experience of stress and the quality of their target text production. The scholar observed that indeed the faster speed of input delivery contributes to the greater experience of stress (measured, among others, by the pulse rate, anxiety and acoustic indicators) and smaller accuracy of the output. Interestingly enough, there were no statistically significant differences between the stress levels of professional interpreters and trainee interpreters but the former were more accurate in their outputs. Apart from the psycho-physiological markers of stress, there have been several studies on the coping tactics employed by interpreters and trainee interpreters in order to face the stressful situation. A good case in point is the research undertaken by Po-Chi Kao and Philip Craigie (2013), Taiwanese interpreting scholars, who found that interpreting was indeed a stress-inducing activity and that as many as 85% of their trainee interpreters experienced much stress. To combat the negative influence of stress, the study subjects resorted to the use of the problem-solving strategies61 since, as the authors argue, “[b]‌y directly addressing the problems rather than avoiding them, the participants appeared to manage interpreters’ stress more successfully” (Kao, Craigie 2013: 1040). On the other hand, the scholars concluded that the avoidance strategies were used mostly by the students who encountered a greater difficulty of managing stress and that they were under the greater influence of stress. The conclusion which may be drawn from their study is that using the avoidance strategies is related to the higher level of stress and – by extension – to the lower quality of the output. Those who used such strategies probably believed that the stressors were beyond their control. One more interesting strand of research on the influence of stress on interpreters’ performance is exemplified by the study of remote interpreters’ stress-dependent performance pursued by Ilan Roziner and Miriam Shlesinger (2010). Having identified four groups of stressors occurring in simultaneous interpreting (i.e. input production, booth working conditions, no feedback and little or no visual access to the speaker and audience), they discovered that in fact there were no major differences 61 The other two types of coping strategies tested were: avoidance strategies and social support seeking strategies.

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in the physiological indicators of stress as well as in the quality between the output generated in the simultaneous mode and the output produced in the remote mode. What is, however, interesting is that interpreters themselves found the remote mode less convenient and more stressful. Additionally, they were more dissatisfied with their renderings, which might ultimately lead to a greater burnout. As has been presented in this section, stress is undeniably a psychological phenomenon which may condition the interpreter’s performance and target message quality. It has been shown that although there are two basic ways in which stress can impact on the interpreter, the more common is the negative activity which oftentimes manifests itself in the decreased quality of the interpreter’s performance and – ultimately – in the output. Besides, it has also been demonstrated that the interpreting process may involve much stress. Stress itself can be viewed as a process, within which various stressors can occur. When they are perceived as threatening, the interpreter may apply stress mediators which can lessen the negative effect of stressors. In other words, the interpreter can use coping tactics to manage the influence of stressing agents. However, more often the interpreter exhibits the psycho-physiological stress response which can have several manifestations  – psychological, physiological, cognitive, behavioural or linguistic. Although other manifestations are equally significant, it seems that the gravest one is the linguistic manifestation since it may lead to the severe obscurity and inaccuracy of the target text. Therefore, the statement that the interpreter’s, in particular conference interpreter’s, job in terms of stress levels can be compared to the job of an air traffic controller or a pilot (cf. Moser 1995, Kurz 2003) is well grounded.

3.3.3. Interrelations of psycho-affective factors in interpreting As has been maintained throughout this chapter, interpreters, like all other human beings, experience in their work a panoply of the psycho-affective factors which may frequently be held responsible for the decrease in interpreting performance and output quality. However, it should also be stressed that at times those psychoaffective variables strengthen the interpreter’s performance and lead to a successful rendering. Of all the psycho-affective factors discussed in the previous sections, anxiety, fear, language ego and inhibition as well as stress can be usually correlated to the decrease in the interpreter’s performance quality. The impact of personality type (i.e. extroversion/introversion), self-esteem and motivation may also be negative but what can be hypothetically stated is that the high levels of the interpreter’s extroversion, self-esteem or motivation can contribute to a more successful and better interpreting performance. What has only been mentioned in passing is that the psycho-affective factors are interrelated and their accumulative experience can greatly contribute to a low quality of interpretation. To put it differently, the psycho-affective factors are interrelated and the experience of one can lead to the emergence of the other. Sometimes this may be even seen as a chain reaction, in which an externally

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perceived event triggers the internal activity (i.e. experience) of one factor which, in turn, initiates the activity of another factor. Therefore, the observations made by Agnieszka Habrat with reference to foreign language acquisition are also true of the interpreting process. She claims that “(…) certain perceptions or evaluations evoke specific emotional states (thoughts can lead to joy or sadness), whereas affect (irritation or happiness, etc.) can modulate our thinking or judgments” (2013: 240). It has already been highlighted that the psycho-affective factors can influence the cognitive ones and the relational ones. Likewise, the cognitive and relational ones can impact on the psycho-affective factors so there is no doubt that all of them are interrelated. Thus, it is worth reiterating that out of the four models of the representation of the sequence of psycho-affective activity presented and discussed in Section 3.3.1., the fourth model best captures the complex interrelations occurring among its five components: the stimulus, the psycho-affective factors, the interpreter’s behaviour and the interpreter’s bodily responses. As far as the interrelations among the psycho-affective factors are concerned, it can be postulated that at least there are several of them. For instance, a higher level of anxiety experienced by interpreters can affect interpreters’ language ego and strengthen language inhibition. Anxiety can also ensue as a stress response; its higher levels can also be experienced by interpreters who are more introverted and whose self-esteem is rather low. Fear is probably seldom experienced by interpreters working in other than conflict or war zones. However, war or military interpreters can experience fear resulting from the turbulent environment and this can increase the experience of stress. As regards inhibition, there is a clear correlation between interpreters’ low self-esteem and inhibition and weak language ego. Those interpreters who are not self-confident and who view themselves as not fully competent (i.e. who have weak language ego) may be inhibited. This, in turn, can lead to a more intense experience of stress since interpreters’ beliefs about themselves can be thought of as internal stressors. What is more, personality type can also be held responsible, at least in part, for the experience of other psychoaffective variables. More introverted interpreters may find it difficult to speak in public and provide interpretation services. Introversion can therefore be linked to the increased level of stress since people who are shy and timid may find it stressful to work in front of others. Atkinson and Creeze (2014) additionally observe that introverted interpreters may manifest lower self-esteem which may evoke anxiety and stress and negative thinking patterns. Likewise, low self-esteem can be linked to anxiety, weak language ego stress. Some scholars (e.g. Lee 2014) are of the opinion that lower intermediate self-esteem (or, more precisely, self-efficacy) can generate higher levels of stress and anxiety which, in turn, can result in the lower cognitive achievement manifesting itself in the lower quality of interpretation rendered. They observed that it, in turn, “(…) may result in procrastinating or in not attempting the task at all” (Atkinson, Creeze 2014:  5). What is more, they also implicitly suggest that the optimal level of self-efficacy may limit the experience of anxiety and stress and lead to a successful performance. Such interpreters are also aware of their limitations and they may not attempt at such tasks which they find

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too challenging for them and in which they may fail (ibid.). Arnaiz-Castro, PérezLuzardo Díaz (2016) also demonstrated that there is another interrelation between two psycho-affective factors: self-concept, which is closely linked to the notion of self-esteem (and even used interchangeably) and anxiety. They are of the opinion that low self-concept implies higher levels of anxiety experienced by trainee interpreters. This can be supplemented by the claim that low self-concept triggers anxiety which, in turn, can induce stress and ultimately impede the interpreter’s performance. Low motivation can also weaken the interpreter’s performance and perhaps, upon realising that the quality of the interpretation rendered is not sufficiently high, the interpreter can experience some stress. Stress, as has already been said, is also a psycho-affective factor which is linked to other variables, especially to anxiety. Fig. 14 presents graphically some of the potential interrelations (the lines connecting the factors indicate their interrelations) among the psychoaffective factors whose adverse activity can be seen in poorer performance since, as stated above, the psycho-affective factors can affect the cognitive abilities (e.g. input comprehension and processing skills, shorter attention span, a lower level of concentration, deteriorated retrieval etc.), the linguistic skills (e.g. insufficient active lexical resources, decreased grammar competence, inadequate pronunciation, disfluencies etc.), the interpreting skills (e.g. inadequate content information rendering, omissions, hampered note-taking and note-reading skills) or the relational factors (e.g. disturbed turn-taking process).

Fig. 14: Potential interrelations among the psycho-affective factors (source: author’s own concept).

What can be deduced from Fig. 14 is that the interrelations among the psychoaffective factors can be considered – at least to some extent – as resembling the connectionist network. Connectionism as such is a direction of cognitive science

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research, which is itself derived from artificial intelligence. This approach assumes that the mental processes are organised into a network of interconnected units which process information simultaneously. Thus, in a way, the psycho-affective factors create such a network of interconnected units which may also at times be experienced simultaneously – just like information is processed in the human brain viewed from the connectionist perspective. It might be therefore right to state that psycho-affectivity and cognition are not only closely interrelated systems but also their models may be similar to some extent (cf. Bourgine, Keonig 2004). Much has been said about the negative interrelations among the psychoaffective factors but it is true that some of them can also strengthen one another. For instance, the interpreter’s strong language ego may be related to high self-esteem and this can result in little inhibition. The interpreter’s extroversion may also be linked to strong language ego, little inhibition and the limited experience of stress and anxiety. Higher levels of the interpreter’s self-esteem may be directly linked to motivation (i.e. the higher the level, the greater motivation) – and ultimately to successful and high quality interpreting performance because of little inhibition. High self-esteem can limit the interpreter’s experience of stress and, consequently, of anxiety. Moreover, motivation can, too, reduce the experience of stress because of the potential reward waiting for the interpreter after the completion of the interpreting task. Generally speaking, there are several positive interrelations between selected psycho-affective factors which may condition the proper quality of interpretation. Furthermore, due to the fact that the psycho-affective factors have been found in many studies to affect trainee interpreters’ performance, scholars (e.g. Atkinson, Crezee 2014; Korpal 2015) investigating interpreter psychology suggest that one of the fundamental aspects of interpreting training should be to provide students with proper and psychologically convenient working conditions. In other words, a non-threatening environment (i.e. a strengthening psycho-affective framework) in an interpreting class may reduce the negative experience of the psycho-affective factors and, perhaps, contribute to a better development of trainee interpreters’ interpreting competence. To sum up, it is already clear that the experience of the psycho-affective variables can impede the interpreter’s cognitive, linguistic or interpreting skills. What is also evident is that the psycho-affective factors can also influence one another, sometimes in the form of a chain reaction: the negative experience of one factor leads to the negative experience of another factor and this may ultimately hinder the interpreting process and adversely affect output quality. To combat this negative impact, interpreters should be able to exploit some of the coping tactics which are part of their psycho-affective subcompetence.

3.4. Interpreter’s psycho-affective subcompetence In Chapter  2 (Sub­ chapter  2.4.), the consecutive interpreter competence has been defined as a set of ten interrelated subcompetences (i.e. the preparation

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subcompetence, the linguistic subcompetence, the interpreting subcompetence, the general knowledge subcompetence, the domain-related subcompetence, the cognitive subcompetence, the psycho-affective subcompetence, the social subcompetence, the intercultural subcompetence and the business subcompetence). One of the subcompetences is directly related to the management of such psychoaffective factors as anxiety, fear, language ego and language inhibition, introversion, self-esteem, motivation or stress. It has already been partially shown (and is shown in greater detail in the case studies) that those factors can impede consecutive interpreting performance and result in the low quality of the output which may be therefore deficient in some relevant content information, be of poor lexical, grammatical and phonetic quality and fail to achieve the communicative goal of the interpreter-mediated communication act. There are two dimensions of the psycho-affective subcompetence. First of all, trainee interpreters should be familiarised with the theoretical constructs of those psycho-affective factors. It indicates that not only should they know what these factors are but they should also be made aware of their sources, activity course and potential influences and consequences for interpreting performance and output quality. Secondly, within interpreting training, they should be given some practice in managing the psycho-affective variables. In other words, what seems to be an important component of interpreting training is the psycho-affective education, perhaps in the form of practical workshops, whose aim is to develop trainee interpreters’ practical skills of controlling and managing the negative influence of those factors. With this end in view, interpreting trainers should introduce psycho-affective coping strategies (techniques/tactics) whose mastery should also take place within interpreting training. Korpal shares this view and claims that “it is justified to state that one of the essential tasks of interpreting instructors is teaching interpreters-to-be how to increase the interpreting quality by limiting the level of the experienced stress”62 (Korpal 2015:  198). Among the most commonly applied tactics related to the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity are stresscoping strategies which may include, exposing trainee interpreters’ to a stressprovoking interpreting situation, preferably by the simulation of the real-life or near-authentic working conditions. The exercises developing stress resistance could focus on maintaining the standing position during interpretation, playing roles in sensitive contexts or organising public-speaking exercises. Another set of techniques which could potentially limit the negative impact of the psychoaffective variables could be related to a wide array of relaxation techniques (i.e. breathing techniques, positive imaginative thinking etc.) which trainee interpreters may want to use prior to, during or even after the stressful interpreting act. What is interesting, Korpal (2015) additionally suggests that interpreting students ought to abandon perfectionistic practices since making mistakes is natural and hardly ever is it possible to maintain complete perfection during an interpreting act. 62 Translated from Polish by M.W.

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The psycho-affective subcompetence can be developed but certain psychological traits are difficult to change. Therefore, what is sometimes suggested is that aptitude testing should also cover the aspects of interpreter psychology to determine whether a successful candidate is equipped with adequate properties desirable in the interpreting profession and whether he/she is psychologically apt to develop them. The psycho-affective subcompetence, although for long largely neglected in interpreting research, is an important component of the general interpreter competence. It is deemed to be so for interpreting is typically a psychologically tense activity and the properly developed psycho-affective subcompetence allows interpreters to face the challenge of psychologically difficult working conditions and provide high quality interpreting services.

3.5. Chapter 3 summary The aim of this chapter was to demonstrate that the psycho-affective factors may play a role in maintaining (or decreasing) the quality of the interpreter’s performance as well as the quality of the output rendered. As has been shown, this area of interpreting studies, i.e. the psycho-affective strand of interpreter psychology, seems to have for long been largely neglected with only a few studies on how the psycho-affective factors condition the interpreter’s work. This chapter started with the presentation of interpreter psychology as a research subfield within broadly understood interpreting studies. The two strands of interpreter psychology have been discussed:  cognitive and psycho-affective. The psycho-affective strand of interpreter psychology, however, received more attention because the main focus in this chapter was on the introduction, presentation and discussion of seven major psycho-affective variables:  anxiety, fear, language ego/language inhibition/language boundaries, extroversion/introversion, self-esteem, motivation and stress. What is more, it has been shown that the majority of those factors are indeed relevant to interpreting practice since interpreters, like all other people, experience emotions, the activity of which can be oftentimes contributory to a decreased quality of both interpreting performance and the output. In the further parts of this book (i.e. in the case studies) those factors are examined with reference to the performance and outputs of three groups of trainee interpreters and one group of professional certified interpreters. It remains therefore to be seen whether their interpreting products exhibited the negative impact and how they themselves approached the psycho-affective dimension of their interpreting practice.

Chapter 4: Methodological foundations of the case studies This chapter provides an insight into the methodological organisation of the four case studies which form the empirical part of the book. First of all, it touches upon the rationale for studying the psycho-affective factors in consecutive interpreting, providing, as is believed, an ample justification for the selection of this mode of interpreting as a manner of the trainee interpreters’ and certified interpreters’ work, during which the activity of their psycho-affective factors comes to light. Then, the chapter briefly presents an overview of a variety of methods used in interpreting research, pinpointing the general division into quantitative and qualitative interpreting studies. What follows is the description of the case study as the main organisational framework of the studies on the selected psycho-affective factors. There are four case studies and the first three of them follow the same methodology with mixed methods used in data collection, analysis and interpretation whereas the fourth one is different in its form and the methods used. What is also discussed in this chapter is the issue of the ecological validity of the case studies. Finally, since in the course of the four case studies, some shortcomings were observed, the final section presents those limitations and fallacies. Generally speaking, this chapter outlines the methodological foundations of the four case studies presented in the further part of this book.

4.1. Rationale for studying the psycho-affective factors in consecutive interpreting Although consecutive interpreting has been replaced by simultaneous interpreting in many international contexts, especially those involving multilingual conferences, during which the information exchange flow is more or less unobstructed by linguistic matters (e.g. the conference participants’ limited command of the original speech language or its lack is no longer an issue) and the content of the source language message can be provided to multilingual conference participants in a short period of time (i.e. virtually simultaneously) thanks to the work of simultaneous/conference interpreters, it has still remained the preferred mode of interpretation in other contexts. Consecutive interpreting is thus needed and performed in legal settings, e.g. in courtrooms, in notary public’s offices; in police settings, e.g. in police stations, at the accident or crime scene; in medical and healthcare settings, e.g. in doctor- or nurse-patient communication; in educational settings, e.g. in inclusive multilingual education classrooms; in immigration, refugee and asylum-seeking settings, e.g. in immigration offices, to name just a few. It appears that consecutive interpreters working in those contexts may be under a considerable influence of the psycho-affective factors since those settings may contribute

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to, for instance, the intensified experience of anxiety or stress or to the weakening of the interpreter’s language ego and thereby to the strengthening of his/her language inhibition. The demand for consecutive interpreters who work in the above-mentioned diverse settings is well realised by various interpreting training institutions which usually offer some courses in consecutive interpreting even if the curriculum learning outcomes hold that the intended graduate should be able to work as a professional conference (simultaneous) interpreter63, i.e. the potential graduates’ conference interpreting skills are the major concern. Needless to say, training in the consecutive mode, as has already been stressed in the previous chapters, is also a means leading to more advanced training in conference interpretation and, therefore, consecutive interpreting is often a preparatory step towards the more advanced and evidently more complex practice of simultaneous interpretation. Understandably, consecutive interpreting training, especially the testing situation, is also considered a setting, in which trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity may frequently influence the quality of trainee interpreters’ performance and output. Hence, not only is consecutive interpreting training a stage for the observations concerning the negative activity of the psycho-affective factors but it is also a good opportunity for trainee interpreters to realise the manners in which their psycho-affectivity works and to develop some strategies helping them overcome this negative impact of the psycho-affective factors on the quality of interpreting services. The importance attached to consecutive interpreting is also visible in the fact that the Polish State Examination Board, functioning at the Ministry of Justice64 of the Republic of Poland, which is responsible for administering written and oral tests for the candidates wishing to be granted the status of a certified translator/interpreter65 of a specific language, during the oral test, tests candidates’ skills in sight translation/interpreting and in consecutive interpreting. The interpreting part of the test includes four interpretation tasks: two sight translation/interpreting tasks from the candidate’s B language (into A language) and two consecutive interpreting tasks (notes can be taken if the candidate finds it useful) from the candidate’s A language into his/her B language. There are no simultaneous interpreting tasks. 63 Such is the case of the University of Wrocław, Poland, whose interpreting students participated in the three case studies discussed in the further parts of this book. 64 Source:  https://bip.ms.gov.pl/pl/rejestry-i-ewidencje/tlumacze-przysiegli/skladpanstwowej-komisji-egzaminacyjnej/; accessed on: 10 August 2018. 65 In Poland, the candidate who has successfully passed the certified translation/ interpreting test, is granted the status of “tłumacz przysięgły”. Since in Poland there is no differentiation between the profession of a certified translator and that of a certified interpreter and a person with such a status is obliged to perform both translation and interpretation services, in the next parts of this book, especially in Chapter 8, the term “certified interpreter” is used consistently to refer to the representatives of this profession.

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Only after passing the interpreting part (the passing of the translation test is the prerequisite for taking the interpreting test), is the candidate found eligible for the profession. Hence, certified consecutive interpreting is also at times associated with the certified interpreter’s experience of the psycho-affective factors which may contribute to a decrease in the interpretation quality. Given this multitude of settings, in which multilingual communication can take place through the agency of the consecutive interpreter, as well as the growing need for certified interpreters’ services in Poland, it is rather surprising that the majority of the recently published interpreting studies concern mostly conference interpreting, with relatively less attention paid to consecutive interpreting. Likewise, as demonstrated in Chapter 3, there have been rather few studies which examine the influence of the psycho-affective factors on the quality of the consecutive interpreter’s performance and output. This study aims at bridging this gap and that is why consecutive interpreting, in its classic (with note-taking) and short (as is sometimes practised by certified interpreters) forms along with the consecutive trainee interpreters’ and Poland-based certified interpreters’ subjective experience have been selected as the mode, study participants and study object that are worthy of an in-depth analysis with reference to how those interpreters’ psychoaffectivity impacts on their renderings.

4.2. Overview of interpreting research methodology It has already been stressed that interpreting studies is an interdisciplinary research field which both derives much from other fields and contributes to them. Because of this clearly visible interdisciplinarity, i.e. the interfaces with other fields of scholarship and the bidirectional channel of exchanging ideas, concepts and research methodologies, resulting in numerous research questions and hypotheses pertaining to both the theory and practice of interpreting, the scholars representing interpreting studies use manifold research methodologies which are related to the paradigms borrowed from other fields. What characterises interpreting studies is that along with shifts in paradigms66, its methodologies have changed, as well. This, 66 The term “paradigm” was devised by Thomas Kuhn (1962/1996), an American physicist, which he used to refer to the description of research and theorising within scientific disciplines as well as of the changes occurring within sciences. Following Kuhn, the interpreting studies community has adopted this concept and now “paradigm” is understood as a set of “(…) basic assumptions, models, values and standard methods” (Pöchhacker 2004: 67) and the changes of paradigms are referred to as “paradigm shifts” or “paradigm turns” (Pöchhacker 2015d: 294). Researchers working within one paradigm work out concepts, constructs and theories and when there are some atypical data and a given paradigm no longer provides the solid foundations for the study of such anomalous data, they reach for other methodologies, thereby abandoning the old paradigm and forging a new one – causing as the same time the revolution in a given field to occur. However, unlike the paradigm shifts in

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in turn, has contributed to the fact that modern interpreting studies uses an extensive array of different research methods which were introduced into interpreting research along with the changing perspectives and approaches. Therefore, when investigating various interpreting phenomena, interpreting scholars use research methods transplanted from, for instance, discourse studies, education, ethnography, experimental research, psycholinguistics, psychology, sociolinguistics, sociology, to name just a few. What is also interesting, interpreting scholars tend to use mixed research methods to analyse interpreting phenomena since, as is sometimes maintained, such a combination of methods can help to capture the essence of a given phenomenon better and more comprehensively. Interpreting studies, which belongs to the widely understood humanities and social sciences, can be both of conceptual and empirical nature. Conceptual research is related to analysing different concepts, modifying and refining them as well as to interpreting ideas and combining them into bigger systems or theories. Empirical research “(…) seeks new data, new information derived from the observation of data from experimental work; it seeks evidence which supports or disconfirms hypotheses or generates new ones” (Williams and Chesterman 2002:  58). Thus, interpreting research is clearly conceptual since interpreting scholars develop certain concepts, build theoretical constructs and arrange them into some systems or theories. It is also empirical, i.e. data-based, because interpreting researchers gather new data from the observations of a variety of interpreting phenomena, propose certain hypotheses and test them. However, Jemina Napier and Sandra B. Hale (2015: 258) argue that: [u]‌nlike the study of translation, though, investigations of a more theoretical, philosophical nature (e.g. on such topics as ethics and ideology) have not been prominent in interpreting studies; rather, most research on interpreting has been data-based, using both quantitative and qualitative approaches.

The call for more empirical research in interpreting studies was first voiced so strongly at the conference organised at the University of Trieste in 1986 which was attended not only by interpreting scholars but also by the representatives of other disciplines. This gave rise to more empirically oriented interpreting research

the natural sciences, the shifts of interpreting studies paradigms were not revolutionary but rather evolutionary and the paradigm shifts observed in interpreting research typically meant that several different yet related paradigms could coexist within the interpreting studies community (i.e. there were several ways of looking at interpreting phenomena within interpreting studies) at a given time. Among the most prominent interpreting studies paradigms are: Seleskovitch’s Interpretive Theory of Translation (IT paradigm), the cognitive information processing paradigm (CP paradigm), the neurolinguistic paradigm (NL paradigm), the discoursebased interaction paradigm (DI paradigm) (cf. Pöchhacker 2004, Pöchhacker 2011a, Pöchhacker 2015d).

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which has been carried out within what Barbara Moser-Mercer (1994) calls two basic paradigms – the qualitative paradigm and the quantitative paradigm. Napier and Hale (2015) are of the opinion that the quantitative paradigm is typical more of the natural sciences whereas the qualitative one – of the humanities and social sciences. Moreover, those two paradigms are also said to manifest different research philosophies – the positivist approach and the phenomenological approach. The positivist approach can be characterised by the fact that its goal is to analyse a given issue from an objective and unbiased perspective with the use of quantitative methods (e.g. statistics) within the hypothetical-deductive paradigm. It suggests that the researchers working within this paradigm put forward some hypotheses which they deduce from the theories developed as a result of some previous studies. According to Pöchhacker (2004: 62), what is prominent in the quantitative approach is: (…) the deductive movement from theory to data: a research problem is defined within a particular theoretical framework and formulated as a hypothesis; by defining all relevant variables and specifying measurable (quantitative) indicators, the hypothesis is operationalized; using an appropriate methodological procedure, the hypothesis is tested against the data and either upheld or rejected, thus lending empirical support to the underlying theory or necessitating its modification.

In such a way, the quantitative research, pursued by means of the hypotheticaldeductive paradigm, results in providing evidence to the existing theories or in justifying the need to modify them. As regards the phenomenological philosophy of research, it is usually linked to qualitative methods and “(…) aims at interpreting data subjectively and in depth, and does not seek to be representative of a whole population, or replicable by other researchers” (Napier, Hale 2015: 258). The scholars representing qualitative studies work within the inductive paradigm. This implies that the more general questions generate more complex answers which are further used to describe and interpret some phenomena and on such a basis new theories may be formulated, i.e. induced (ibid.). Hence, it may be posited that the inductive method relies on “(…) observing and seeking to discover patterns which may point to theoretical principles” (Pöchhacker 2004:  62). This implies the research carried out within the framework of grounded theory which involves developing some theoretical assumptions on the basis of the data collected and analysed in the course of a study. Quantitative interpreting studies can be exemplified by the research which uses survey research methods (i.e. distributing surveys to interpreters/trainee interpreters), corpus research methods (i.e. looking for certain patterns in quantitative terms) or experimental research methods (i.e. carrying out experiments in order to verify or refute some hypotheses) to observe certain tendencies among interpreters or trainee interpreters which are typically expressed in quantitative terms. In qualitative interpreting research, more attention is paid to other than quantitative aspects and therefore the ethnographic research/observational methods (i.e. observing as a participant or non-participant the behaviours of

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interpreters/trainee interpreters; interviewing them, using cued retrospection), discourse analysis methods (i.e. analysing interpreters’/trainee interpreters’ properties of discourse) or desk-top research methods (i.e. studying a variety of recorded sources to obtain data of biographic, historical or demographic characters) are used. Such qualitatively oriented interpreting research usually studies interpreters’/trainee interpreters’ everyday work in specific social contexts and brings to light certain patterns of behaviours, certain practices or, in the case of desktop research, certain representations of interpreting phenomena (cf. Napier, Hale 2015). Albeit some research methods are characteristic of either the quantitative or qualitative perspective, it should be borne in mind that they can be used in any type of research if they serve the purpose set by the researcher. Additionally, what can be noticed more and more often in interpreting studies is the use of mixed research methods (also known as “mixing methods”, “multiple method research”, “multi-method research”), sometimes referred to as “the third paradigm” (cf. Pöchhacker 2011a), which draw on the triangulation of data. In other words, mixed method research combines the qualitative and quantitative perspectives and integrates various kinds of data in order to capture a given interpreting phenomenon more comprehensively in order to see it from several perspectives. The overall aim of such mixed-method studies is to provide a fuller picture of many intricacies which are inherent in the interpreting process. Mixed method research is therefore the third possible research philosophy which allows postulating that the positivist-phenomenological dichotomy is in fact a continuum which also covers research philosophies situated somewhere between the two extremes. Adelina Hild, a British interpreting scholar, is of the opinion that: [t]‌ he mixed method approach has been considered ideally suited to addressing the inherent complexity of interpreting processes and practices (…), viewed as a way of enhancing legitimacy in the methodology of interpreting research (…) and commended for its potential to allow for innovation in research designs (…). (Hild 2015a: 262)

In addition, while part of interpreting research is truly empirical, there is a clear predominance of interpretive studies since, as stated by Franz Pöchhacker (2011a: 15), “(…) the prevalence of nonnumerical, qualitative data in interpreting studies, usually in the form of text or discourse, places interpretive inquiry at the center of the scientific method in interpreting”. This allows postulating, following Pöchhacker (ibid.), that “interpreting studies could therefore be characterized as an empirical-interpretive discipline” since quite many interpreting scholars pursue their research projects in a wide range of forms, combining the empirical and interpretive methods. They collect data in different ways (e.g. from interviews, retrospective protocols, external assessments) and when some of them aim at quantifying those data, others aim at interpreting them. Thus, Pöchhacker (2011a: 15) rightly observes that “(…) all these scholars worked with essentially qualitative empirical data, some generated in experiments and others collected in fieldwork

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conditions, and that all these researchers were thus forced to apply an interpretive process of inquiry in one form or another”. Given there are two general research paradigms (quantitative and qualitative) and two general methods (deductive and inductive), it is worth emphasising that both manners can be equally justified and, as argued by Pöchhacker (ibid.), “[t]‌he issue underlying the choice between “aggregates” or “individuals”, between numerical or nonnumerical data, is whether the people, events or artifacts (e.g. texts) in question have shared attributes that are so important to the researcher’s concern that their unique features can be ignored”. Consequently, it is just the researcher who has to define what is to be investigated. Deciding about the manner of such investigation (i.e. whether to explore, to describe or to explain) is another important step in the research procedure. It seems that in interpreting studies all those dichotomies (i.e. empirical-conceptual, empirical-interpretive, quantitativequalitative, deductive-inductive) can exist but neither element is dogmatically given priority because all can be equally valid. Such is the case, for instance, with the explanation as a research purpose. Pöchhacker (2011a: 14) argues that “[a]fter all, both nomothetic explanation, which aims at a generalised understanding, and idiographic explanation, which seeks to describe a given case as fully as possible, are equally valid purposes of inquiry in the social sciences (…), and both are of course based on empirical data”. Interpreting research at large can also be characterised in terms of some research peculiarities. One of them is the small size of the data which constitute the research material and another one – the small number of the members of the studied groups forming the samples for interpreting research. In many interpreting studies (e.g. Andres 2002, Chen 2017, Dam 2004, Seleskovitch 1975, Szabó 2006), the studied samples are indeed rather small and the number of study participants is also small, consisting of a few to several subjects/respondents. This results from the fact that it is rather difficult to enlist large numbers of, for example, professional interpreters willing to participate in often lengthy interpreting research procedures. This was also observed by Sylvie Lambert (1994:  5) who wrote about “(…) the relatively small number of sufficiently skilled interpreters available as subject-collaborators who are in one place, who have a specific language combination, and who are willing to become involved in research”. However, Napier and Hale (2015: 258) are right in claiming that “(…) [this] is not a problem in and of itself as long as care is taken not to claim generalisation when reporting the results of such research”. Qualitative research, as this study aspires to be, can be carried out either as basic research or applied research. The former is related to the theoretical aspects which do not have (although they often do) to inform and be the basis for the application of research results. The latter, on the other hand, is strictly related to the application of the research outcomes and manifests itself in the implementation of the research findings in the practice of interpreting or interpreting education. What is more, qualitative applied interpreting research is often pursued within the framework of the so-called action research. This orientation may be defined as “(…) an approach for investigating questions and finding solutions to problems

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that people confront in their everyday lives (…)” (Nicodemus, Swabey 2016: 197). Franz Pöchhacker (2004:  63) views action research as “(…) a form of reflective and collaborative inquiry which involves participants in their real-life context and makes them protagonists, rather than subjects, in a process aimed at enhancing their practices in a given social setting – classroom settings being an obvious case in point”. Napier (2011:  140) adds that “[t]‌his approach is known as practitioner research in the area of language teaching (…), whereby practitioners engage in exploratory practice”. With reference to action research in interpreting, she is of the opinion that “[t]he purpose of interpreter fieldwork research is to contribute to the professionalization of interpreting, and to provide knowledge, understanding, and insights that will sensitize interpreters to the challenges of consumers. This is done through systematic inquiry designed and conducted for the purpose of increasing insight and understanding of the relationships between language, culture, discourse and interpreting” (ibid.). In other words, action research employs the subjective perspective of the study participants who are regarded as practisearchers (practitioner-researchers) not only performing the interpreting tasks but also reflecting upon them in an orderly way. They ask questions related to their professional practice and seek solutions which can be implemented by them in order to enhance this practice. In short, action research is carried out by practising interpreters or interpreting trainers who, by means of researching certain themes, want to address the real-life obstacles which they encounter in their professional practice and which have an influence on, for instance, interpreting performance quality. The action research data can be gathered from several sources  – from observations, interviews, error analysis or surveys. Helen Slatyer (2015: 5) additionally observes that: [i]‌n interpreting studies, action research has been applied primarily in the context of interpreter education and training. Projects range from large-scale curriculum evaluations and more focused projects on designing and implementing curricular innovation (…) to evaluations of an intervention in the interpreting classroom (…). These projects are all observational case studies for which data was collected using one or more of the following methods: pre-/post-intervention surveys and interviews, learning journals, focus groups, and collection and analysis of learning tasks and assessments.

Another approach which is at least partially represented by the study is the above-mentioned grounded theory approach – on the basis of the data collected and analysed within the study, some conclusions are drawn and they serve as cornerstones of some theoretical assumptions. Creswell holds that (2013: 83) “(…) grounded theory is a qualitative research design in which the inquirer generates a general explanation (a theory) of a process, an action, or an interaction shaped by the views of a large number of participants”. The basic properties of grounded theory inquiries involve focusing on analysing processes or actions and developing some local theory (i.e. the theory restricted to a selected sample) of those processes or actions which actually explains the operation of those processes (actions).

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As regards the study presented in this book, in a sense, it represents the phenomenological approach and the data are studied in the qualitative manner. The phenomenological approach prevails since “(…) phenomenological approaches are particularly concerned with understanding behaviour from the participants’ own subjective frames of reference. Research methods are chosen, therefore, to try and describe, interpret and explain events from the perspectives of the people who are the subject of the research” (Hale, Napier 2013: 14–15). However, owing to the fact that the research discussed in the further parts of this volume also represents the mixed-method approach for several research methods are employed in the investigation of the psycho-affective factors and the data obtained are triangulated, it seems more justified to locate the case studies within the third paradigm of multi-method/mixed-method research. This seems to be in line with Pöchhacker’s (2004: 64) claim that: [p]‌roponents of qualitative research in particular have stressed the value of drawing on multiple sources of data (referred to as “triangulation”) by using more than one data collection technique. Such a multi-method approach, which is most typical of case-study research, is widely used also in experimental studies and has been gaining ground also in research on interpreting.

Moreover, the study is empirical in its nature since it is based on the data which – in the first three case studies – come from various sources: the recordings, the notes and the retrospective protocal. The fourth study data, however, come from a single source – the questionnaire. Likewise, they are analysed by several methods: error analysis, note-taking analysis, questionnaire survey response analysis or correlation analysis. Furthermore, the study combines the characteristics of exploratory research (i.e. it seeks to answer the questions of what relations hold between the activity of the psycho-affective factors and the interpreter’s performance and output quality), descriptive research (i.e. it attempts at describing the nature of the activity of the psycho-affective factors) and explanatory research (i.e. it tries to answer why and how those factors affect the interpreter’s performance) in the form of triangulation which, as remarked by Minhua Liu (2011: 90), “(…) has a potential to greatly enhance the validity of [interpreting research] findings (…), because data collected by multiple methods and from different sources can be used for cross-checking”. As aforementioned, this study also represents action research for this research can be said to have been conducted not only by the practisearcher  – an interpreter, interpreter trainer and interpreter scholar in a single person (the primary researcher) but also by and on the trainee interpreters who performed the task of interpreting and reflected upon their experience of the psycho-affective factors and other related aspects (secondary researchers). This seems to address Gile’s (1994) call for the engagement of practisearchers in interpreting research. Additionally, the study reflects the tendency to rely on a small sample of data and the small number of study subjects so all the generalisations made refer basically to the studied groups and not to the entire population of trainee interpreters or

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certified interpreters. Nevertheless, the findings derived from the study help to formulate certain theoretical assumptions, which suggests that the grounded theory approach is also represented by the research discussed in this book.

4.3. Case study as a general framework for studying the psycho-affective factors A case study has been selected to be a general methodological framework for studying the psycho-affective factors since, arguably, it offers the greatest possibilities in terms of the research methods used, data sources and data triangulation. The classification of a case study within the science of science and methodology seems to be problematic since it is sometimes viewed as a methodology (e.g. Creswell 2013) whereas others see it either as strategy. For instance, Bernd Meyer, a German linguist studying, among others, interpreting, claims that a case study is not a research method but that it should be conceived of as a research strategy which can be characterised as a framework which allows scholars to study “(…) properties, actions, attitudes, and social structures of individuals, groups, or institutions by applying one or more methods, such as participant observation, interviews, and analysis of documents (…)” (2016: 214). Pöchhacker (2004) also states that it should be regarded as an example of one of the three general research strategies67 – of field work. He is of the opinion that case studies represent field work understood as “(…) collecting data on people or occurrences in their real-life context, often conceptualised as studying a unique “case” (case study)” (Pöchhacker 2004: 63). The concept of case study research, which can be defined as a “(…) a type of design in qualitative research that may be an object of study, as well as a product of inquiry” (Creswell 2013: 97) is quite broad and flexible and that is why it allows researching a given phenomenon  – “a case within a bounded system, bounded by time and place” (ibid.) from several qualitative points of view and with the data obtained from multiple sources (e.g. recordings, observations, retrospective protocols, interviews etc.). John W. Creswell, an expert in research methodology, has identified several major characteristics of a case study, all of which are also present in the case studies discussed in the further parts of this volume. Those properties include:  “the identification of a specific case” (i.e. the entity studied), “the intent of conducting the case study” (i.e. the reason for researching a specific case), “an in-depth understanding of the case” (i.e. collecting qualitative data from multiple sources and in multiple forms), “data analysis” (i.e. the methods of approaching the data), “a description of the case” (i.e. describing additional findings which were revealed in the course of study), “a chronology” or “a 67 Pöchhacker (2004) distinguishes three general research strategies:  field-work, including case studies; survey research, involving standardised survey questionnaires distributed to many people, and experimental research.

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theoretical model” (i.e. the organisation of the ideas uncovered into some system) and “the conclusions formed by the researcher about the overall meaning derived from the case(s)” (Creswell 2013:  98–99). Hence, the basic objective of the case study research is to develop an in-depth understanding of a given phenomenon or a set of related phenomena on the basis of the data collected from the observation of the standard activities pursued by the studied group. For this reason, the case study research does not have to involve proving or disproving any theoretical assumptions although, as observed by Meyer (2016: 216), “(…) it may indeed lead to the revision of a concept or a claim if the study is able to demonstrate that the concept of theory makes false predictions”. Case studies, although not necessarily named as such, are relatively frequent in interpreting research. The popularity of the use of this research strategy in qualitative interpreting studies involving mixed methods has also been noticed by Franz Pöchhacker who thinks that case studies “(…) are particularly attractive and powerful” (2011a:  20) since “(…) mixing methods, (…) in the paradigmatic sense, and thereby, to some extent, blending epistemological orientations and research traditions would seem to suggest itself as the policy of choice for a field with as complex and multi-faceted an object of study and as great a diversity of conceptual approaches as interpreting studies” (Pöchhacker 2011a: 22). Interestingly enough, the fact that the case study is a popular qualitative interpreting research strategy is attested by Minhua Liu who, in her review of data-based interpreting research, claims that, “[a]‌mong the 48 evidence-based studies reviewed, 26 use a type of qualitative research method. This shows the relative importance of the qualitative approach in interpreting studies. Most of these are case studies where content analysis or discourse analysis methods are used” (2011: 88). Given the above, it seems that the case study, deemed as a framework binding several perspectives on the study participants’ experience of the psycho-affective factors into a more or less coherent whole, is an appropriate strategy of conducting qualitative research. The aforementioned perspectives can be defined as the dimensions of the psycho-affective factors experienced by the trainee interpreters and certified interpreters which are brought to light thanks to the use of multiple methods. Using such data collection methods as observation (i.e. audio-recording and note-taking documentation/physical artefacts) and survey (i.e. retrospective protocol and questionnaire survey) as well as such data analysis methods as recorded output error analysis, note-taking documentation analysis, retrospective protocol analysis and the analysis of survey responses is believed to provide a more comprehensive image of the impact of the study participants’ experience of the psycho-affective factors on the quality of their interpreting performance and output.

4.4. Research methods used in the case studies As has been indicated in the previous sections, since the case study is not a method itself, a variety of research methods have been used to first obtain the data about the

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study participants’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors and then to analyse those data and triangulate them. This subchapter details the research methods used in the four case studies. The first three case studies follow the same organisational pattern of the research whereas the fourth one is different in both the data collection and data analysis methods. The subchapter is supplemented with some remarks on the ecological validity of the four case studies.

4.4.1. Research questions The principal researcher’s interest in the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity grew out of his own practical experience as a certified and non-certified interpreter in non-conference settings. For it is common knowledge that interpreting is rarely (if ever) a stress-free activity and interpreters, like all human beings, may experience a range of emotions during interpreting, the researcher himself noticed that it was hardly possible to completely eliminate the negative influence of some of the psycho-affective factors which he frequently – especially at the beginning of his professional interpreting practice – experienced as impeding the interpreting process and decreasing the quality of the target text production. This led him to think that interpreters who happen to work in so many different settings and with so many diverse people are particularly prone to the negative impact of at least some of the psycho-affective factors. Additionally, it turned out that this area of interpreting research had not been explored in greater detail, with quite many yawning lacunae awaiting to be addressed. For this reason, exploring this issue was deemed justified, or even desirable, since examining the influence the psychoaffective factors have on the interpreter’s performance might provide some interesting findings which could be further translated into interpreting practice. Thus, both the insights gained from interpreting practice and the clear gap in interpreting studies contributed to the researcher’s more extensive studies on how the psychoaffective factors impact on interpreting performance and output quality in two groups of interpreters:  trainee interpreters undergoing consecutive interpreting training and certified interpreters. As stated in the Introduction, the thesis which this study seeks to corroborate is that the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity is a permanently active, complex and intricate module of the interpreter’s psychological make-up which is triggered by different elements of the interpreting process as well as which influences all those constituents of the interpreter-mediated communication act, the outcome of which may be linked to the worse quality of the output. To verify this thesis, this study, pursued from the practisearchers’ perspective, endeavours to provide answers to the following research questions:  (1) What types of psycho-affective factors do interpreters experience?; (2) What is the nature of those factors, i.e. do they impede and obstruct the interpreting process (including the interpreter’s performance and the output) and thus influence it negatively or do they facilitate the interpreting process and thus influence it positively?; (3) In what linguistic and extra-linguistic ways (observed in the products of the interpreting process, i.e. notes taken and

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outputs delivered) does the activity of the psycho-affective factors manifest itself?; (4)  Are there any interdependencies and interrelationships between/among the psycho-affective factors?; (5) Does the visible influence of the interpreter’s psychoaffective factors diminish with the interpreter’s growing experience and expertise? All those questions are addressed within the course of the study, following a detailed examination of the trainee interpreters’ recorded outputs, notes taken and written responses to the questions in the retrospective protocol (in the first three case studies) and following a thorough analysis of the certified interpreters’ answers to the questions included in the questionnaire-based survey (in the fourth case study).

4.4.2. Case study 1, 2 and 3 methodological frameworks The first three case studies follow the same methodological frameworks since they were carried out in a nearly identical fashion in the three groups of the trainee interpreters undergoing university-based interpreting training. What made those groups different was the education mode and level (one extramural (part-time) undergraduate student group, one regular undergraduate student group and one postgraduate student group), major specialisations (one group majoring in interpreting, one group majoring in either translation or English teaching and one group majoring in translation and interpreting) and interpreting course preparation68. What should also be stated is that all study participants whose data were analysed had expressed their explicit consent by filling in and signing the Polishlanguage form of the permission for using the data for scholarly purposes69. In view of the foregoing, all data analysed have been anonymised so that it is not possible to identify a given person.

4.4.2.1. General characteristics of the data collection conditions The data for the analysis of how the psycho-affective factors influenced the trainee interpreters’ target text production were collected within the framework of a consecutive interpreting test, administered at the end of the course in interpreting, of which consecutive interpreting was the most significant part. Classic consecutive interpreting (i.e. with note-taking) training was preceded by sight translation/interpreting training and interrupted consecutive interpreting training. During the course, the trainee interpreters were familiarised with a number of theoretical and practical aspects inherent in interpreting, including the selected issues of interpreter psychology. They were also given instruction and practice in the above-mentioned modes of interpreting. The test was administered in the

68 The studied groups as well as the specific test-taking conditions are described in greater detail in Chapter 5, Chapter 6 and Chapter 7. 69 Appendix 2 is the English version of the form.

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university settings. Before the test procedure commenced, the trainee interpreters were instructed about the course of the test. Moreover, they were advised and encouraged to take notes if they deemed that necessary. The test takers first listened to the Polish-language input read by the instructor at a natural speech pace70. After input production was completed, the trainee interpreters were typically given some time for organising their notes and planning the production of the output (approximately 30 seconds; some students, however, needed as much as 60 seconds). Then, they delivered their English-language text output which was recorded. After they completed the delivery, they were asked to fill in a retrospective protocol which contained several questions related to the trainee interpreters’ subjective assessment of the quality of their outputs and the activity of the selected psycho-affective factors. Due to the fact that after delivering their interpretation the test takers took their seats in the classroom, there was a cumulative number of audience members who were the test takers filling in their retrospective protocols. This procedure was purposeful since interpreting is a socially situated activity and – in the case of consecutive interpreting – there are always some listeners, for whom the interpreter interprets. The entire set of the material for analysis was composed of the recorded English-language outputs, the Polishlanguage input transcripts, the notes taken by the test takers and the retrospective protocols. What is also essential to note is that due to the fact that consecutive interpreters working in different settings in Poland have to interpret both from and into the target and source languages and that during the certified interpreting test taken before the Polish State Examination Board, candidates have to demonstrate the consecutive interpreting skills from their A language into their B language, it was decided that the test takers would interpreter from their A language – Polish into their B language – English. Therefore, the trainee interpreters’ linguistic data are in English.

4.4.2.2. Input materials The consecutive interpreting test, in the course of which the linguistic and non-linguistic data were generated by the test takers, was based on the Polishlanguage texts read by the instructor at a natural pace. The texts which the trainee interpreters were supposed to interpret into English were, as much as it was possible, standardised in their length and difficulty. The input texts, obtained from the Polish websites presenting current political and business news, were comparable in several respects. First of all, they presented current affairs so they were rather not specialised texts. For this reason, no prior specialised knowledge was required. Secondly, in the majority of cases, the information density was also similar. However, some of them could be characterised as more saturated with the

70 The average length of the instructor’s input production was 55 seconds.

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data of specific character like, for instance, numbers, dates, figures or surnames. This, however, was purposeful since, thanks to a variety of texts, it was possible to obtain a bigger collection of diversified linguistic and non-linguistic data which – in the case of a single input text interpreted by all test takers  – would not be possible. Moreover, this data diversity also allowed observing certain patterns of behaviours such as the interpreting strategies used or problem trigger-coping tactics. In a single textual input read to all test takers, this might not be possible since it might be assumed that the trainee interpreters would have informed one another about the input content and thus some of them would have been better prepared to deal with those data. Thirdly, the texts were also comparable in their length for the average text length was 110 Polish words. It took the instructor 55 seconds on average to deliver the input to the test takers. The references to all of the texts, the selected excerpts of which were used as the input materials, are given in a separate section placed at the end of the book (cf. “Sources of the input materials used in Case study 1, 2 and 3”). Generally speaking, every effort was made to guarantee that all test takers’ input texts were similar in length, data saturation and the manner of delivery by the instructor. However, as remarked above, several texts were more data-laden than others but still their English-language rendering required no specialised knowledge nor skills.

4.4.2.3. Data collection methods The data collected in the three case studies are of fourfold nature. First of all, there is the audio-recorded material which constitutes the entirety of the interpretation generated by a trainee interpreter. The second source of data is the transcript of the source text (i.e. the performance transcript), in which the deficiencies, errors71 as well as other worthwhile phenomena (e.g. specific breathing type, gesture etc.) were marked. What is more, the notes taken by the trainee interpreters in the listening phase and read in the production phase are the third source of data. Finally, the retrospective protocol filled in immediately after the test is another interesting source of data. The methods of collecting the research data from all four sources are briefly outlined in the following sections.

4.4.2.3.1. Audio-recording as a form of the observation method

Recording audio material may be thought of as a method generally classified as observation; observation, in turn, can be categorised as a research method 71 As explained in Section 3.3.2.3. although the terms “error” and “mistake” may refer to slightly different linguistic phenomena, both of those denominations have been used interchangeably in the further parts of this book because of the fact that it was not possible to unequivocally determine the nature of a given imperfection detected in the trainee interpreters’ target texts.

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perhaps first utilised in ethnography – “(…) the study of a social group or individual or individuals representative of that group, based on direct recording of the behaviour and “voices” of the participants by the researcher over a period of time” (Hale, Napier 2013:  84). Observation as a research method may be further subdivided into participant observation (also known as immersed observation), in which the participant is directly involved in the interactions with those observed, and non-participant observation (also known as distanced or indirect observation), in which the participant observes the studied group without much interaction with its members (Hale, Napier 2013). This study represents the non-participant (i.e. indirect) observation since the researcher, apart from providing the test takers with the basic instruction prior to the test and reading the Polish-language input, did not interact much with the studied trainee interpreters. It has already been stated that the audio-recording of the material to be analysed is an example of the non-participant observation method. Although some scholars claim that, as compared to video-recording, by means of audio-recording, it is not possible to demonstrate so many intricacies of people’s non-verbal behaviour or speaking-accompanying gestures and therefore this method may not be suitable for researching those aspects which are more visual, like, for instance, the work of sign interpreters, it might be frequently the preferred method since “[a]‌udio recording presents fewer challenges, as it mitigates interference and makes participants’ identities less recognizable than in video recording” (Baraldi, Mellinger 2016:  312). In a sense, audio-recording is a restrictive data collection method for it is only sound that can be obtained in this way. This indicates that because of audio- and not video-recording, researchers may not observe the multitude of other behaviours which at times can provide a more comprehensive image of the trainee interpreters’ experience of the psycho-affective factors manifesting itself in kinesics (i.e. body language), proxemics (i.e. the arrangements of physical objects and physical spaces) or physical appearance. However, this method was selected owing to the trainee interpreters’ great reluctance to video-recording and lack of their consent thereto. Moreover, the mere fact of video-recording could lead to the potential emergence of the observer’s paradox, in which the trainee interpreters would try to unwillingly control their behaviours, seeing that their entire consecutive interpreting process, including a variety of their body movements, is video-recorded. The outputs generated by the consecutive interpreting test takers were recorded by means of general audio-recording software  – Voice Recorder (version:  10.1805.1201.0) which is part of 64-bit Windows® 10 Home operating system produced by Microsoft Corporation, working on a Dell® Inspiron 5537 laptop. No special software for voice processing, modulation, correction or noise reduction was used. The test taker sat maximally one meter from the recording device and all the sounds he/she produced, including those non-linguistic (i.e. sighs, smacks) were registered. In the third case study, however, the university hall

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acoustic conditions were far from perfect and in several cases it may have contributed to the decreased quality of the recordings.

4.4.2.3.2. Performance transcript as a form of the observation method

Another way of collecting data for the analysis is by means of the so-called transcript of the trainee interpreter’s performance. Such a transcript, which includes the entirety of the source text, was prepared by the instructor who was also the primary assessor. The transcript can be viewed as an example of the observation method which, like audio-recording, is widely used in ethnographic research. The performance transcript is therefore characterised by the fact that  – like ethnographic research itself – it is rather subjective and it is the researcher who collects (and – at the same time – analyses by way of evaluating performance and output quality) the data from his/her subjective perspective (e.g. Asare 2016). An example of the performance transcript is presented in Photograph 1 (Walczyński 2017b: 132).

Photograph 1: An example performance transcript with errors marked (author’s own photograph).

As emerges from the above photograph, the performance transcript provides information not only on the trainee interpreter’s deficiencies in performance but also on the extra-linguistic aspects like, for instance, audible breathing patterns, audible uncertainty or the changing voice quality. The performance transcript as a form of observation can sometimes be ­compared to field notes taken by researchers while observing their study participants’ behaviours. Creswell (2013) observes that field notes are an important source of data which are taken on the basis of an observation protocol – a set of guidelines or parameters which are to be observed. The observation protocol in the first three case studies is based on the consecutive interpreting (with note-taking) performance evaluation form (Appendix 1) which contains several parameters, according to which the test takers’ performance was assessed. Out of the general

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eight parameters, five of them72 (i.e. (1) equivalence; (2) grammar; (3) vocabulary; (4) phonetic quality; (5) output delivery fluency) formed the observation protocol. Thus, the observation protocol-based performance transcript presents all the imperfections, deficiencies, deviations or errors (noticed by the researcher) referring to the adopted parameters. Sometimes, additional properties of the output and its delivery (e.g. non-verbal behaviours) were also recorded.

4.4.2.3.3. Notes as artefacts

An important source of interesting data is the collection of notes taken by the test takers in the listening phase of their consecutive interpreting process. Those notes can be roughly equated with artefacts collected within ethnographic research (e.g. Creswell 2013). As above-mentioned, those documents generated by the test takers are deemed a significant source of data since they might represent a variety of cognitive processes inherent in the interpreting process. What is more interesting, however, is that those notes might include certain manifestations of the activity of the psycho-affective factors, visible, for instance, in the handwriting or extra-linguistic aspects (e.g. sweat stains, crumpled paper). Additionally, the adherence to the principles of note-taking which were taught in the courses, within the frameworks of which the research material was collected, can also indicate that some elements of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity could be held responsible for the way they produced their noted retrieval cues.

4.4.2.3.4. Retrospection and the retrospective protocol as a self-observation method

The use of introspective/retrospective protocols/reports is widespread in translation and interpreting research and has been used mainly to examine translators’/ interpreters’ cognitive processes. In fact, retrospection can be classified as a selfobservation method (Baraldi, Mellinger 2016) which is also frequently used in cognitive psychology. Claudio Baraldi and Christopher D.  Mellinger (2016:  309) argue that: [s]‌elf-observation has a strong tradition in psychology (…). Verbal reports (…) are data that can be used to observe cognitive behaviour and processes. Data may either be obtained as the participant performs a task, in which participants concurrently verbalize their thoughts, or retrospectively, with participants describing their behaviour after the fact.

72 The sixth parameter – style and register – has been subsumed into grammar and vocabulary because few source texts used in the three case studies offer the possibility to demonstrate a wide array of stylistic and discourse-specific elements.

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Retrospection as a form of acquiring data was developed in the 1990s as a method parallel to introspection used in translation (Hild 2015b) for collecting data about cognitive processes occurring in simultaneous interpretation. Since it is not possible to provide interpretation and simultaneously speak about what the interpreter is doing, which is a method practised in translation research (e.g. the translator verbalises his/her activities by speaking in the form of the so-called think-aloud protocols (TAPs)), interpreting researchers collect data immediately after the completion of the interpreting assignment. However, it has been found that people may demonstrate the so-called functional forgetting which implies that they tend to forget information which is no longer necessary for solving a given problem. Birgitta Englund Dimitrova and Elisabet Tiselius, translation and interpreting scholars interested in retrospection as a research method, are of the opinion that: [t]‌he memory of how that situation was solved, and of the situation as such, may enter into long-term memory, but not necessarily. Functional forgetting (…) is important in this context, as the brain retains what is necessary for solving the task at hand. Since everything that surfaces cannot be retained in the long-term memory, what is no longer needed can be quickly forgotten. (Englund Dimitrova, Tiselius 2014: 180)

Given the above, one issue related to the use of retrospection is how much is remembered and how much is forgotten by study participants. To solve, at least partially, the problem of functional forgetting, interpreting researchers provide study participants with additional memory cues (e.g. cued questions, the performance transcript or the recorded output) to elicit as much study-relevant information as it is possible from the interpreter’s long-term memory. Another question related to retrospection as a method of collecting data is linked to the time delay which passes from the completed interpreting assignment to the procedure of retrospection. Ideally, retrospection should immediately follow the interpreting task. Some scholars (e.g. Ericsson, Simon 1993: xvi) go even further and claim that cognitive tasks, for the study of which retrospection is used, can be retrieved if they last from 0.5 to 10 seconds and if they are directly followed by retrospective thinking. However, this seems to be unfeasible in many interpreting studies since the interpreting task itself can take several minutes or more. Thus, retrospection which follows directly the interpreting task completion, as is the case with the retrospective protocol filled in by the trainee interpreters in the three case studies, fulfils – at least partially – the immediacy requirement. What is interesting, Hild (2015b) states that there have been interpreting studies, in which data were collected retrospectively after one working day or even after several days or weeks. As mentioned above, retrospection has been used mostly in the simultaneous interpreting research of cognitive processes so the use of retrospection for the purpose of studying the psycho-affective factors experienced by consecutive interpreters may be regarded, at least to some extent, as a novelty. By means of this method, much relevant information on the study participants’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors can be gathered.

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The retrospective protocol used to elicit information about the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors was first devised and tested several times (in different groups of translation and interpreting students) from 2015 to 2016 in the form of piloting. Piloting is used mostly in survey-based studies and its aim is to test whether a given research method is correct in terms of the language used (i.e. whether the cued questions are clear and understandable), whether it can be used in data collection and whether the responses indeed provide the data that the instrument seeks to collect. In other words, the objective of the piloting procedure is to check the validity of the research instrument. As far as the retrospective protocol used in the three case studies is concerned, its initial form underwent piloting. As a result of this procedure, it turned out that the retrospective protocol needed further refinement, improvement and modification since while it was linguistically correct and could be used as a data acquisition instrument, it did not provide enough data on the subjective experience of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affective factors. This was related to two basic problems, which were eliminated in the final version of the retrospective protocol. The first problem pertained to the fact that the cued questions were formulated in the study participants’ second language, i.e. in English, and that the study participants were expected to provide their answers in the same language. The answers were rather brief and not really informative since, as might be concluded, the trainee interpreters might not have known how to express correctly their opinions in the target language. In other words, they may have known no appropriate terminology to describe their feelings. Moreover, some of them perhaps did not want to risk making mistakes in their written English and therefore opted for succinct answers, providing not much relevant information. To solve this problem, the final version of the retrospective protocol was prepared in the Polish language which was the first language for the trainee interpreters. The second problem which arose concerned the fact that the first version of the retrospective protocol did not contain any clarifications concerning the psychoaffective factors. This led to much confusion and the study participants could not decide which psycho-affective factors they indeed experienced. In most cases, they attributed their weaker performance and errors to stress, which was definitely not the only factor responsible for this situation. The final version of the retrospective protocol was therefore supplemented with the brief definitions of the psychoaffective factors, which clearly helped the study participants determine what they really experienced and how a given factor affected their performance. The final version of the retrospective protocol consisted of three parts:  personal data and testing situation data part, the general part and the detailed psycho-affective factor-related part. The general part included six questions concerning the study participants’ experience in consecutive interpreting, their feelings before, during and after the consecutive interpreting test, the test takers’ evaluation of their performance and the linguistic and consecutive interpreting problems encountered by the test takers. The psycho-affectivity-related part comprised seven components, each dedicated to a different psycho-affective factor (i.e. anxiety, fear, language inhibition/language ego/language boundaries, personality

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type, self-esteem, motivation and stress) and one component about self-assessment and the benefits of the test73. The use of the retrospective protocol in interpreting research, especially on the psycho-affective factors analysed within the qualitative paradigm, can be beneficial for several reasons. First of all, such protocols provide first-hand data on the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors. Moreover, thanks to the fact that the protocol used in this research is composed of a number of cued questions, it is possible to acquire specific data on how the experience of a given factor could have contributed to the linguistic and non-linguistic dimensions of interpreting performance. Finally, the fact that various types of data (i.e. the data on the subjective experience, the data on the linguistic performance and extra-linguistic aspects) are collected by means of the protocol allows triangulating them in order to obtain a more comprehensive picture of what really happens in the realm of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity and its influence on the overall interpreting performance.

4.4.2.4. Data analysis and interpretation methods The data collected from multiple sources (i.e. from the audio-recordings, performance transcripts, trainee interpreters’ notes and retrospective protocols) are first analysed separately and then triangulated. In such a way it is possible to obtain a more comprehensive representation of the activity of the psycho-affective factors experienced subjectively by the trainee interpreters participating in the three case studies. The data analysis methods include error analysis, interpreting strategy analysis, note analysis, retrospective protocol analysis and data triangulation.

4.4.2.4.1. Trainee interpreters’ output error analysis

The data collected in the form of the audio material and the performance transcript were subjected to error analysis. This method of data analysis may be defined as “(…) a tool for the assessment of an interpreter’s performance with regard to the standard of accuracy and completeness” (Falbo 2015: 143). Therefore, the error analysis pursued in this book concentrates on the functional and linguistic quality of the outputs generated by the trainee interpreters participating in the study. It is known that at times the interpreter’s performance and output can be deficient for several reasons. Those reasons may include the interpreter’s insufficient linguistic competence, the inappropriate management of cognitive resources, the inappropriate working conditions or the negative activity of the psycho-affective factors. While it is true that on the basis of the errors and deficiencies observed in the output, it may not be possible to pinpoint the exact reason for those deviations, the triangulation, pursued in the final part of each of the three case studies, can 73 Appendix 3 is the English version of the retrospective protocol used in the first three case studies.

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indeed help determine the extent of the impact the psycho-affective factors could have had on the trainee interpreter’s performance. However, before the various types of data can be triangulated, they have to be examined in terms of their deficiencies and errors. During the error analysis proper, all audio-recorded target texts were meticulously listened to and all observed deficiencies were marked on the transcripts. However, for the sake of greater clarity and simplicity of data presentation, instead of the scanned versions of the performance transcripts, all the errors observed were grouped and presented in a tabular form. The analysis of the outputs is based on five parameters included in the consecutive interpreting performance evaluation form (Appendix 1). Thus, the linguistic performance is examined in terms of:  (1) equivalence; (2)  grammar; (3)  vocabulary; (4) phonetic quality; (5) output delivery fluency. The sixth parameter – style and register – is analysed in the grammar and vocabulary error analysis for the source texts used in the studies were rather general and did not allow the trainee interpreters to demonstrate the use of a wide range of stylistic devices or discoursespecific structures74. As regards the analysis of equivalence, attention is paid to the functionally equivalent rendering of the source text. To put it differently, the analysis is an attempt at examining whether the target text is functionally equivalent (i.e. whether it conveys the sense of the original message and produces the equivalent communicative effect). Moreover, such an approach to equivalence allows identifying omissions and additions. At this stage of the analysis, omissions and additions are seen as the errors of performance resulting in the incomplete or too informationladen renderings of the source text, respectively. As far as the trainee interpreters’ grammar is concerned, it is analysed against the standard grammar of the English language. When the trainee interpreter demonstrates a strong predilection for British English, then the grammar of standard British English is a point of reference. Likewise, the use of clearly American English makes American English grammar a point of reference. Deviations from standard forms or uses are taken into consideration. In the analysis of the vocabulary used by the test takers in their outputs, attention is paid to the correctness of the lexical items used. This suggests that the analysis focuses on the appropriate use, relevance as well as proper collocations and lexical variety. In the more specialised (than general) texts (i.e. on business matters), the use of specialised vocabulary (terminology) related to a given domain is also examined.

74 However, when the trainee interpreter had indeed used some specific stylistic figure or discourse-specific element, it is indicated in the analysis as a worthwhile phenomenon, proving the trainee interpreter’s interpreting competence.

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The phonetic quality of the outputs is another aspect of the error analysis. The examination of the trainee interpreters’ phonetics concentrates on language variety-specific pronunciation patterns and deviations from them. The phonetic analysis is closely linked to the analysis of output delivery fluency since phonetic quality (or lack thereof) is also visible in the number of disfluencies: stops, pauses or hesitations. What is more, the analysis of phonetic quality and output delivery fluency can also reveal the extra-linguistic aspects which may result from the activity of the psycho-affective factors. Heavy breathing, faster breathing pace, lip smacking, filled pauses or hesitations can all stem from the negative influence of the trainee interpreter’s psycho-affectivity. The error analysis pursued within the frameworks of the three case studies helps to identify those linguistic areas of interpreting performance which may be under the negative influence of the psycho-affective factors. However, such correlations cannot be made in the course of the error analysis itself since more data are needed to demonstrate that there is indeed a link between poorer performance and the experience of the psycho-affective factors. This is performed in the phase of data triangulation.

4.4.2.4.2. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ output delivery strategies

The analysis performed as part of the three case studies concerns the exploitation of the interpreting strategies which may also be sometimes indicative of the negative activity of the psycho-affective factors. In this analysis, the strategies applied by the trainee interpreters in the production and note-reading phase are analysed. The strategies used during input comprehension and note-taking are not studied here because  – on the basis of the notes taken  – it is not fully possible to first identify and then to discuss those strategies since their use occurs primarily in the interpreter’s mind. Certainly, when taking notes, the trainee interpreters did resort to using such strategies as delaying, anticipation/inferencing, reconstruction or compression but because the manifestations of the applications of those strategies are interpreter-internal and thus not so readily accessible to research, they cannot be explicitly identified. Therefore, such an analysis may be in vain. However, it is much easier to analyse the strategies used during output delivery for they have their manifestations in the target texts. For the needs of this analysis, two data sources are used. The audio material and performance transcript, which both represent the actual output, are examined in order to identify some strategic choices such as repairing, omission, implicitation, explicitation, sound reproduction, naturalisation or transcoding. The observation of the exploitation of the interpreting strategies was carried out in the form of the thorough listening to each of the target texts produced during the consecutive interpreting test. Therefore, the interpreting strategies used by the trainee interpreters were illustrated by all of their instances captured during the listening stage of the analysis. Furthermore, the examination of the interpreting

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strategies used by the study participants is further used in the triangulation of data to detect the potential psycho-affective factors which could have contributed to the deficiencies in the trainee interpreters’ performance. Thus, such an analysis is only an intermediate step leading towards data triangulation and a more comprehensive mixed-method examination of the role of the psycho-affective factors in consecutive interpreting.

4.4.2.4.3. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes

It has already been stated that the notes taken by the trainee interpreters in the comprehension and listening phase and then read by them in the production phase constitute an important source of data concerning the experience of the psychoaffective factors. They may disclose two important aspects of the activity of the trainee interpreter’s psycho-affectivity. First of all, the structure of the notes and the adherence to note-taking principles worked out by Jean-François Rozan (e.g. 1956, 2002) (i.e. noting the idea and not the word, using abbreviation rules, using logical linking rules, using negation markers, using emphasis markers, note verticality, using shift rules), which the trainee interpreters had been taught in the course of their consecutive interpreting training, may demonstrate the extent to which the study participants were under the frequently negative influence of some of the factors. They may also show – by their quality and quantity – how the trainee interpreters dealt with those factors when comprehending the input and producing the output. Secondly, the notes can bear some extra-linguistic indicators of the negative experience of the psycho-affective factors in the form of the crumpled notepaper, the reverse handwriting impressions or sweat stains. Therefore, it might be hypothesised that the more organised notes, the lighter handwriting style and pen grip (not leaving any strongly embossed patterns on the reverse page) or few or no sweat stains left on paper suggest the trainee interpreters’ better management of the psycho-affective factors and their less intense negative activity experienced in the process of consecutive interpreting. Thus, what is sought in the course of the analysis is the adherence to Rozan’s note-taking principles and the extra-linguistic indicators of the psycho-affective factors.

4.4.2.4.4. Interpretation of the trainee interpreters’ retrospective protocol answers

The retrospective protocol has already been discussed as a source of much relevant information on the study participants’ subjective experience of the psychoaffective factors. The interpretation of the responses provided by the study participants to the cued questions regarding the potential influence of the psychoaffective factors is perhaps the most important step in the entire analysis. For the purpose of substantiating the claim that some psycho-affective factors must have influenced the process of consecutive interpreting and the outputs produced by the trainee interpreters within the framework of a testing situation, the citation

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method is used. This involves quoting the study participants’ opinions, or their fragments, concerning their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors. For the purpose of this book, the quotes have been translated from Polish into English since, as indicated above, the language of the retrospective protocol was Polish – the trainee interpreters’ mother tongue. The use of direct citations taken from the retrospective protocol responses can demonstrate the study participants’ perception of the influence the psycho-affective factors had on their performance and outputs. However, the quotes are not provided with references since the data in the retrospective protocol are anonymised (as stated in the consent – Appendix 2) and the authors of particular citations may not be disclosed. The organisation of the quotes and their interpretation follows the structure of the retrospective protocol. Thus, first the responses given in the general parts are presented and discussed and then the answers to the questions concerning particular factors are reviewed. This means that all of the psycho-affective factors are discussed and exemplified with a selection of quotes. However, it may turn out that not all of the factors have been self-identified by the study participants to a similar extent. The data included in the case study participants’ answers to particular questions of the retrospective protocol are analysed against the results of the error analysis, the analysis of the interpreting strategies and the analysis of the notes since such data triangulation (cf. 4.4.2.4.5.) offers a more comprehensive view of the activity of the psycho-affective factors and its influence on particular aspects of the trainee interpreters’ performance. Some of the responses given to the general part questions are also presented in other parts of the analysis, in particular in the section devoted to the description of the testing situation, since they provide interesting data which illustrate the trainee interpreters’ perception of the testing setting. Using quotations  – the study participants’ “voices”  – from the retrospective protocols is one of the most frequently applied methods of data interpretation in qualitative interpreting studies carried out from the ethnographic perspective. The opinions on the psycho-affective factors expressed by the trainee interpreters themselves can shed some light on the individual differences as well as on some shared behaviours observed among the study participants. Moreover, those views can reveal the subjective experience of some of the factors and the extent to which they might have had influenced particular aspects of interpreting performance. Finally, the quotes are valuable data which can be further triangulated with the data obtained from other sources in order to substantiate some correlations observed among the psycho-affective factors and poorer interpreting performance.

4.4.2.4.5. Data triangulation

Data triangulation is an important part of the entire analysis since it is just this method that can substantially help to observe some correlations between the trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors, described in the retrospective protocol, and the deficiencies identified in those study participants’ notes and outputs.

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Triangulation is a more and more commonly used method of collecting and analysing data from several sources, especially in interpreting research carried out within the frameworks of ethnographic studies. As such, it may be defined as “(…) using a combination of methods in order to test or explore the same phenomena from different perspectives” (Napier, Hale 2015: 260). Creswell offers an expanded definition of triangulation by stating that (2013: 251): [i]‌n triangulation, researchers make use of multiple and different sources, methods, investigators, and theories to provide corroborating evidence (…). Typically, this process involves corroborating evidence from different sources to shed light on a theme or perspective. When qualitative researchers locate evidence to document a code or theme in different sources of data, they are triangulating information and providing validity to their findings.

What emerges from the above description is that there are generally four types of triangulation: (1) the triangulation of data sources (data come from a few different sources, for instance, from retrospective protocols, recordings, performance transcripts); (2) the investigator triangulation (there are several researchers involved in a study); (3) the theory triangulation (different theories serve as the foundations for analysing the same set of data); (4) the triangulation of methods (different data collection and analysis methods are used) (cf. Patton 1987; Hale, Napier 2013). The triangulation performed in the three case studies represents the first type (i.e. different data sources) and the fourth type (i.e. different data collection and analysis methods). Sometimes, it is maintained that triangulation is “widely regarded as a best practice” (Angelone, Ehrensberger-Dow, Massey 2016:  71) since it allows examining an interpreting phenomenon through collecting data from various sources by means of mixed methods such as retrospective protocols, recordings, notes, to name just a few. Interestingly enough, it is just because of data triangulation that a number of important findings in interpreting research (e.g. allocation of cognitive resources, differences between trainee, novice, professional and expert interpreters) have been made (ibid.). The fact that triangulation is becoming more and more widespread in qualitative interpreting research results from “(…) a greater readiness to accept that there is no objective reality to be captured [in interpreting research] (…) [which] highlights the need for methodological triangulation – that is, the use of multiple source of data (…)” (Pöchhacker 2004: 204). An essential component of the first three case studies is just the triangulation of data sources and data collection and analysis methods concerning the trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors and its influence on the trainee interpreters’ performance and output quality generated in the course of the university-setting in-class consecutive interpreting test. This research procedure entails analysing, linking, comparing and substantiating the data excerpted from the retrospective protocols with the data obtained in the course of error analysis, the analysis of interpreting strategies and the analysis of notes. The presentation of

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the triangulated data follows the order of the presentation of the psycho-affective factors adopted in the entire study (i.e. anxiety, fear, language inhibition/language ego/language boundaries, extroversion/introversion, self-esteem, motivation and stress). Therefore, first the retrospective protocol data are interpreted and then juxtaposed with other types of data excerpted from other sources. Generally speaking, triangulation is perhaps one of the best methods of arriving at a more comprehensive and wide-ranging view of how the psycho-affective factors experienced by the trainee interpreters affect those trainee interpreters’ consecutive interpreting performance and output quality. Deriving data from multiple sources by means of multiple methods and interpreting them in the form of triangulation may help to provide a better understanding of the consecutive interpreting process with reference to the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity.

4.4.3. Case study 4 methodological framework The fourth case study included in this book is different from the previous three case studies in terms of the study participants, type of data, data collection method and data analysis/interpretation method. The fourth case study was carried out within the framework of survey research. The following sections describe the survey as a data collection method as well as the method of analysing the data obtained from the questionnaire completed by a sample of certified interpreters.

4.4.3.1. Survey as a data collection method Surveying is a method of collecting data from a sample of respondents which is quite widespread in social sciences. It is also frequently used in interpreting studies. In fact, it is at times claimed that the very first survey whose aim was to gather data on conference interpreters was carried out by Jesús Sanz (cf. Sub­chapter 1.6.1.) in 1930 in the form of an interview (Zwischenberger 2015). This method started to be used on a regular basis in interpreting research in the 1970s and 1980s and because of the greater availability and refinement of survey instrument technology (i.e. the Internet and computer software), surveys are also common nowadays in mostly quantitative interpreting research (cf. e.g. Liu 2011, Sun 2016). However, surveys are also employed in qualitative interpreting studies, as is illustrated with the case study in question. Surveying may be defined as “(…) a means of gathering information from particular sources to ascertain certain situations or conditions” (Hale, Napier 2013: 52). Surveys can be classified into four general categories: surveys distributed by post, surveys distributed over the telephone, surveys distributed by means of email and survey distributed on the Internet in an online form (Zwischenberger 2015). What is more, they can be carried out in a variety of forms like focus groups, interviews, observations or textual analysis since all of those forms allow surveying selected phenomena.

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Although surveys are said to be used primarily to collect quantitative data, there is no limitation in using them for the acquisition of qualitative data. This suggests that instead of numerical data which can be quantified, respondents provide answers in the form of textual data which are then interpreted by the researcher. For this reason, survey data tend to be subjective and do not necessarily have to reflect the real situation. Hale and Napier (2013) caution that the answers provided by respondents are subjective and therefore may be either overrated or underrated. They say that (2013:  52–53) “[s]‌ome very good interpreters may be very demanding on themselves and rate themselves low, whereas some not-sogood interpreters may overrate their performance”. This, however, does not invalidate surveying (and its form – the questionnaire) as an important method of data collection especially in view of the fact that the experience of the psycho-affective factors – the issue which the questionnaire used in this case study seeks to gather information on – is itself subjective. A properly designed questionnaire needs to undergo the procedure of piloting – testing the data collection method with several respondents to check its linguistic correctness, functionality and general validity. Like the retrospective protocol form used in the previously discussed three case studies, the questionnaire under analysis was tested in the form of piloting. As a result of this procedure, the questionnaire items were corrected in terms of their instructions (i.e. errors were eliminated or confusing wording was clarified) and contents (i.e. some questions were rearranged). Piloting also helped to measure the amount of time needed to complete the questionnaire. It was established to last approximately from 20 to 30 minutes; however, the average time of completing the final version of the questionnaire was slightly longer – 37 minutes. The use of the surveying method is directly linked to the issue of sampling. Sampling is an important step in the surveying procedure and it entails the selection of the respondents who would provide relevant data. Those respondents are collectively called a “sample”. Zoltan Dörnyei, an applied linguist, holds that: [t]‌he sample is the group of participants whom the researcher actually examines in an empirical investigation and the population is the group of people whom the study is about. (…) That is, the target population of a study consists of all the people to whom the survey’s findings are to be applied or generalized. A good sample is very similar to the target population in its most important general characteristics (for example, age, gender, ethnicity, educational background, academic capability, social class, or socioeconomic status) as well as the more specific features that are known to be related to the variables that the study focuses on (…). That is, the sample is a subset of the population that is representative of the whole population. (Dörnyei 2007: 96)

As emerges from the above quote, the sample has to be carefully selected so that it could be said to represent some population by providing relevant information on the issues studied by means of surveying. In other words, respondents should meet some predefined requirements (like, for instance, the type of interpreting services

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they provide, experience, a specific language combination etc.) to make the study generate germane data. As regards the respondents who provided answers to the questionnaire used in the fourth case study, i.e. the fourth case study sample, the sample consisted of Polish-English certified interpreters who provide consecutive interpreting services. They were selected on the basis of the list of Polish-English certified interpreters which is publicly available on the website of Poland’s Ministry of Justice75. Only those certified interpreters whose email addresses are disclosed were sent the request to participate in the study. This implies that the techniques of convenience sampling (or opportunity sampling) (Dörnyei 2007) was used since the sample selection was driven by “the convenience of the researcher” (Dörnyei 2007: 98), which can be explained by the fact that “members of the target population are selected for the purpose of the study if they meet certain practical criteria, such as geographical proximity, availability at a certain time, easy accessibility, or the willingness to volunteer” (Dörnyei 2007: 98–99). However, Dörnyei (ibid.) is right is stating that in fact those samples are seldom based on the researcher’s convenience for the sample members have to meet the predefined selection criteria relevant to the objective of the study. This was the case, as already explained, in this study. Thus, out of more than 1000 requests sent to the potential respondents via email, 76 certified interpreters completed the questionnaire. 46 respondents started filling in the survey but did not complete it and therefore their responses were not taken into consideration. Given the fact that in qualitative interpreting research, many studies have been conducted on just several subjects, the number of the respondents in this case study, i.e. 76, can be regarded as high. The questionnaire used in surveying can be composed of three types of items. First of all, there might be factual questions whose aim is to elicit demographic data. Such questions oftentimes help interpret other data obtained from the remaining two types of inquiries. Secondly, the questionnaire can contain behavioural questions which pertain to the respondents’ behaviours and practices. Finally, the third type of questions is of attitudinal character. Such questions seek to provide data on the respondents’ opinions, views or beliefs (Hale, Napier 2013). All of the three types of questions are present in the questionnaire which is the basis for the fourth case study. Questionnaire questions can also be divided in terms of the way, in which respondents are asked to answer them. Thus, there are closed and open-ended questions. The items of the questionnaire under discussion were thus either closed questions, with a list of suggested answers, or open-ended questions which required a textual answer. A special type of closed questions is the Likert scale-like question. The Likert scale is perhaps one of the most widespread scales (Sun 2016) used to gauge people’s opinions, beliefs or the level of acceptance of some situation/phenomenon. For this purpose, the answer to a statement contains from five 75 https://bip.ms.gov.pl/pl/rejestry-i-ewidencje/tlumacze-przysiegli/lista-tlumaczyprzysieglych/search,1.html?Language=1; accessed on: 24 August 2018.

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to seven options which respondents can select (e.g. (1) strongly disagree; (2) disagree; (3) neither agree nor disagree; (4) agree; (5) strongly agree). In the questionnaire used in the fourth case study, several closed questions resemble the Likert scale questions but, as rightly observed by Sun (2016), in fact, they are not such questions as they offer some options to choose but they are not preceded with a statement presenting some opinion, with which respondents have to agree or disagree. As far as the questionnaire administration is concerned, this data collection instrument was available in an online form from 17 July 2018 to 24 August 2018. It was placed on the Internet subscription-fee website  – www.webankieta.pl  – which offers a variety of surveying instruments. A special questionnaire website was established for the period of data collection – https://afektywnosctlumacza. webankieta.pl/. Following the retrospective protocol employed in the first three case studies, the fourth case study questionnaire was administered in the Polish language76. To sum up, it appears that the questionnaire turned out to be a properly selected method of collecting subjectively perceived data relevant to the study of the psycho-affective factors since the respondents’ responses contain much information on their subjective perception and experience of those aspects of their psychoaffectivity. This also testifies that the sampling procedure was correct. Moreover, thanks to the questionnaire form, its publication online and the questionnaire analysis software that comes with the website www.webankieta.pl, it was possible to correlate the data obtained as the responses to different questions show certain relationships which hold between variables.

4.4.3.2. Analysis and interpretation of questionnaire-derived data As mentioned in the previous section, the data obtained from the questionnaire are of threefold nature: there are factual data, there are behavioural data and there are attitudinal data. All of those data are examined separately and – in justified cases  – correlatively. In other words, the sets of data provided as the responses to particular questions are analysed across the sample and then what follows is the correlative analysis of the data from various questions. This implies that the data are cross-tabulated and triangulated in order to show certain links between various sets of data, mostly between independent variables (such as age, gender, education, the year of obtaining the status of a certified interpreter or the years of experience as a certified interpreter) and dependent variables. The former variables are constant and are neither affected nor changed by other variables. The dependent variables, as the name suggests, change, depending on other factors so all

76 Appendix 4 is the English version of the original questionnaire used in the fourth case study. Because of the space limitation, the questionnaire has been stripped of its original graphic form.

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the respondents’ responses including their subjective opinions, views or attitudes can be considered to represent the dependent variables. Moreover, an attempt was made to group some of the data in order to highlight certain behaviours, practices as well as opinions and attitudes expressed by the study participants. Owing to the predominantly qualitative character of data, the analysis and interpretation methods follow the qualitative paradigm methods. This implies that they are analysed typically in the form of a narrative report, in which some phenomena observed on the basis of the data are discussed. However, what is ancillary to the interpretive description of the data is the use of the statistical methods derived from descriptive statistics. As explained by Christopher D. Mellinger and Thomas A. Hanson, the authors of a manual on the use of quantitative methods in translation and interpreting research, descriptive statistics, among others, “(…) concisely summarize important characteristics of a sample. Providing a table of descriptive statistics in a research report is an efficient way to communicate basic properties of a sample” (2017: 39). Thus, the descriptive statistics method used in the fourth case study involves representing the sets of data in visual forms (i.e. in the form of charts) since what descriptive statistics are preoccupied with is just presenting the summary observations concerning the sample or study findings. In most cases, the charts used in the fourth case study have been based on the data visual representations included in the study report automatically generated by the data analysis software which accompanies the data collection technique available on the questionnaire website. Certain trends observed in the data are further supported by a selection of the respondents’ quotes (in the English translation) which demonstrate the certified interpreters’ views, opinions and attitudes. However, because of the anonymity as a fundamental principle of administering the questionnaire, the references to the quotes are not provided since it would infringe the anonymity principle. Of course, in the set of raw data, the authors can be easily identified and linked to their responses but this is not practised in this study and all textual data are anonymised, which is why there are no credits to their authors in the book. The analysis and interpretation of the data in the fourth case study represent  – at least to some extent  – the grounded theory approach, in which the conclusions drawn from the interpretation of the respondents’ data serve as a basis for developing some theoretical assumptions which cover the analysed sample of respondents. Generally speaking, the interpretation of the data obtained in the form of the responses to the questionnaire items follows the order of the presentation of the psycho-affective factors adopted in the entire book (i.e. anxiety, fear, language inhibition/language ego/language boundaries, personality (i.e. extroversion/introversion), self-esteem, motivation and stress). Therefore, after the review of the factual (i.e. demographic) data, the data concerning the selected seven psycho-affective factors are discussed, which, as the grounded theory approach assumes, leads to the development of some local theories concerning the certified interpreters’ experience of the psycho-affective factors.

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4.4.4. Ecological, external and internal validity of the case studies An important aspect of any research endeavour is the issue of validity which, as Hale and Napier (2013: 163) acknowledge, is concerned with “(…) the correctness and appropriateness of the interpretation of study results”. In fact, “validity” is an umbrella term which covers a group of research-related aspects. This section presents three of them – ecological validity, external validity and internal validity. As regards ecological validity, it is true that this is one of the major concerns of quantitative, mostly experimental, research. However, it should also be considered with reference to qualitative studies. Generally speaking, ecological validity can be explained as the use of such research methods, materials and situational contexts which would resemble those of the real world. Mark A.  Schmuckler (2001:  420) claims that “(…) ecological validity often refers to the relation between real-world phenomena and the investigation of these phenomena in experimental contexts”. As far as the ecological validity of the four case studies is concerned, it cannot be explicitly stated that it was maintained throughout the entire research procedure. However, some salient aspects of ecological validity were preserved. First of all, in the first three case studies, the trainee interpreters generated their consecutive interpreting outputs during an in-class test, which is a typical setting for any interpretation tests administered within interpreting training. The source texts which they interpreted concerned current affairs (e.g. Polish business or political issues) – the topics quite prevalent in real-life interpreting practice. Moreover, the source text materials were delivered at a natural pace and the trainee interpreters were allowed and encouraged to take notes which would facilitate both input comprehension and output production. This is also what is often practised by professional consecutive interpreters. Another aspect of ecological validity pertained to the quality assessment which focused, most of all, on the success of the communicative act. The minor errors did not seem to play a great role in evaluating the trainee interpreters’ performance. Finally, the trainee interpreters delivered their renderings in the presence of other people (i.e. other trainee interpreters), which is often the case with real-life interpreting. Thus, the consideration given to those aspects of the study procedure shows that ecological validity was – at least partially – maintained. With reference to the fourth case study which follows a different methodology, the issue of ecological validity becomes more complex. The method of the questionnaire used in this study did not allow for much ecological validity since the respondents did not provide any interpreting so the study materials, methods and settings did not resemble those of real-life consecutive interpreting practice. However, what might perhaps be seen as partially ecologically valid was the contents of the questions which concerned the certified interpreters’ real-life experience of the psycho-affective factors. Although subjective and perhaps to some extent biased, their opinions on their experience may be regarded as partially ecologically valid.

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Ecological validity is sometimes mistaken for external validity which stands for the possibility of generalising the study conclusions and extending them onto the entire population represented by the studied sample. Hale and Napier (2013) argue that external validity is preserved if the study outcomes are to some extent similar even though the research is conducted with a different group of respondents, at a different time and in a different place. What is interesting, it seems that in qualitative studies, the notion of “external validity” has been replaced by the notion of “transferability”. This implies the possibility of applying, or transferring, the observations made in the course of one study to other samples or settings. The first three case studies clearly demonstrate that external validity (or transferability) of the research procedure applied in those three research projects was maintained since it generated, as is argued in the further parts of the book, more or less similar results obtained from the study of different samples. The fourth case study can only be hypothesised to maintain external validity since it might be expected that more or less similar results would be generated in the study of, for instance, PolishGerman certified interpreters or certified interpreters working in other countries. Finally, there is the question of internal validity, i.e. “(…) whether the results of the study truly reflect what [the researcher] believes they reflect” (Hale, Napier 2013: 164). In other words, internal validity is related to the design of the study, to the data collection methods used and methods applied for data analysis. It seems that internal validity has been at least partially preserved in the four case studies. This may be supported by the fact that the multiple methods of data collection and analysis have been used and data triangulation constitutes an important method of arriving at relevant conclusions. Ecological, external and internal validity, despite being of paramount importance in quantitative experimental interpreting research, should also be considered with reference to ethnographic qualitative interpreting studies as preserving at least some degree of those types of validity may contribute to a better quality of research both in terms of its applicative potential, relation to real-life practice, repeatability in other studies, transferability and a general research procedure design. It is therefore hoped that the four case studies presented in this book do maintain validity and that their methodological construction can be replicated in other studies.

4.5. Limitations of the case studies Although every effort was made to guarantee that the case studies are methodologically valid and reliable, the entire research presented in the four case studies can also be characterised by several limitations and methodological fallacies which need to be discussed prior to the presentation of the research results. First of all, as shown above, quite many of the research methods used in the four case studies have their origins in ethnographic research which, as argued by Edmund Asare, a language, literature and culture professor of Western Illinois University, “(…) is subjective (…) and the researcher plays a key role in data interpretation” (2016: 257). This implies that it might be the case that some relevant

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aspects of the study have not been given due prominence because of the subjective nature of the methods used. Moreover, subjectivity is well visible in the error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ performance since, as observed by Kalina (2002: 121), “(…) evaluation of interpreting is an intuitive, to a certain extent subjective process, [and that is why] examiners cannot always state precisely what makes the difference between an outstanding and a modest performance”. Thus, albeit much attention was paid to presenting possibly the fullest and most detailed view of the activity of the psycho-affective factors experienced by both the trainee interpreters and certified interpreters, some issues, as might be the case, might have escaped the researcher’s attention and therefore might not be touched upon at all or not discussed at great length. Some elements of this subjectivity may therefore be found in the procedures of data interpretation such as error analysis, note-taking analysis, retrospective protocol data interpretation or questionnaire data interpretation. Secondly, although it has already been explained that qualitative interpreting research is characterised by the fact that the sizes of the analysed samples are rather small, it is certainly a shortcoming since the greater the body of the research material and the greater the number of the study participants, the more reliable the study results may be. This shortcoming pertains in particular to the first three case studies, in which the groups of participating trainee interpreters were not impressively high. Thirdly, it turns out that the four case studies are characterised by incomplete ecological, external and internal validity. While it is true that this is not an equally important concern for ethnographic interpreting studies (as it is for experimental research), an attempt was made to achieve possibly the greatest level of validity. The design of the methodologies of the case studies as well as the selection of an appropriate research paradigm and methods of data collection and analysis may reflect the efforts of maintaining validity but still, as argued in the preceding subchapter, this has not been entirely successful. Certain elements of the case studies make the issue of validity still debatable. As regards particular case studies, a mention must be made about the shortcomings observed in the first three case studies concerning the trainee interpreters’ experience of the psycho-affective factors. Firstly, the occurrence of the negative activity of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affective factors in a testing situation is certain since tests have always been associated with negative feelings and emotions, especially considering the fact that the test is graded and the course completion might depend on this particular grade. Therefore, there is no doubt that the psycho-affective factors were experienced by the test takers and they – in many cases – might have contributed to the lowered quality of the outputs generated. Another shortcoming of the first three case studies is the fact that all test takers in a given group had different source texts to interpret. If they had had to interpret the same text, they would have been exposed to exactly the same testing materials and conditions and therefore it might have been possible to observe more regular patterns in their experience of the psycho-affective factors.

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Moreover, the fact that they knew the instructor who read the input aloud could have contributed to a more intense experience of the psycho-affective factors. Finally, the recording conditions were imperfect:  there was no interpreting laboratory with sound-proof walls available and, moreover, the university premises where the test took place are situated in the city centre. Thus, the external sounds could have disturbed the students and contributed to the more intense experience of the psycho-affective factors. The fourth case study has also some shortcomings. First of all, the data gathered in the questionnaire are highly subjective and it was not feasible to triangulate them with, for instance, the linguistic data generated during real-life consecutive interpreting practice. Recording interpreters for the scholarly purposes is one possibility but the fact is that quite many interpreters are reluctant to participate in such interpreting sessions which are audio-recorded, let  alone video-recorded. Secondly, the questionnaire return rate was rather small, which led to the fact that only 76 certified interpreters decided to participate in the study. Thirdly, the questionnaire, as some of the respondents stated, was slightly too long, which might have discouraged many certified interpreters from taking part in it. In personal communication via email, some of them directly expressed their concerns about the questionnaire being too time-consuming and therefore onerous. To sum up, although it is believed that the results of the four case studies can shed new light on the impact of the consecutive interpreters’ psycho-affective factors on their interpreting performance, some limitations of the research can be found. They include, among others, the researcher’s justified more subjective than objective approach to the analysis, the small size of the study material and study participants or partial ecological, external and internal validity. Nonetheless, it is believed that the study results presented in the next parts of the book can be valuable enough to interpreting community to transfer them into consecutive interpreting training and professional consecutive interpreting practice.

4.6. Chapter 4 summary The overall purpose of the fourth chapter was to sketch the methodological foundations of the four case studies which constitute the empirical part of the study. It was demonstrated that interpreting studies, although being still a rather young academic discipline, has adopted numerous research approaches, paradigms and methods, of which prominence is given to quantitative and qualitative studies. The quantitative interpreting research pertains to eliciting numerical data on various interpreting phenomena whereas the qualitative paradigm focuses on studying interpreting from non-numerical perspectives, in which data are collected in several ways. It appears that modern interpreting scholars working within the qualitative paradigm, show a preference for using multiple methods (mixed methods, mixing methods, multiple method research, multi-method research), by means of which they can study interpreting phenomena from several angles, bringing in different types of data which can be further triangulated in order to present a more

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comprehensive image of a given situation. Hence, the chapter outlined the detailed methodology of the four case studies by providing a description of the methods used to collect and interpret data, among which the ethnographic methods seem to prevail. This part of the study also addressed the issue of ecological, external and internal validity since validity is an important condition of any research, not only this of more experimental character. Finally, the shortcomings and limitations of the four case studies were discussed in order to contribute to a better understanding of why certain data can be interpreted locally (i.e. with reference to the study participants of the four case study) and why they should not be generalised over all consecutive interpreters.

Chapter 5: Case study 1 – part-time undergraduate trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of the psychoaffective factors in consecutive interpreting Chapter 5 presents the discussion of the first case study whose aim is to examine the influence of the undergraduate students’ subjective experience of the psychoaffective factors on the quality of their performance and outputs generated during an in-class consecutive interpreting test. The first part of this chapter provides a detailed description of the group of the trainee interpreters who participated in the study whereas the second part presents the results of the error analysis of the students’ recordings, the analysis of the interpreting strategies which they applied, the analysis of their notes and the analysis of their retrospective protocols which they wrote after they completed their delivery. In the part devoted to the interpretation of the trainee interpreters’ behavioural and attitudinal data, an attempt is made to correlate the students’ opinions about their subjective feelings with the deficiencies identified in the analysis of the outputs and notes. In other words, the potential experience of the psycho-affective factors which the students, directly or indirectly, referred to in their retrospective protocols is juxtaposed with the results of the assessment of their performance.

5.1. Case study 1 methodology synopsis The material which is analysed in this case study was collected from four sources: the trainee interpreters’ recordings, their performance transcripts, their notes taken during the consecutive interpreting test as well as their retrospective protocols which they were asked to fill in right after the test. Thus, the data collection method was mostly observation and self-observation (in the case of the retrospective protocol). As regards the methods of data analysis and interpretation, several of them were used. First of all, the trainee interpreters’ performance was examined within the frameworks of the error analysis, which involves looking at the mistakes they made in their consecutive interpreting outputs. The errors are analysed in terms of equivalence, grammar, vocabulary, phonetic quality and output delivery fluency. Then, the strategies of output delivery were identified since they may also be indicative of the occurrence of the (usually negative) activity of the subjectively experienced psycho-affective factors. Afterwards, the trainee interpreters’ notes were subject to investigation since they also may

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point to the fact that the students were under the influence of some aspects of their psycho-affectivity. The data obtained from the retrospective protocols were interpreted and supplemented with selected quotes. Finally, all types of data were triangulated since triangulation helps to present a more comprehensive picture of how the studied psycho-affective factors condition the production of the consecutive interpreting output in the context of a university-setting test. This triangulation means contrasting the behavioural and attitudinal data from the students’ retrospective protocols with the results of the analysis of their outputs and notes.

5.1.1. Case study 1 group description The first case study group consists of nine third-year undergraduate students of English, pursuing the interpreting specialisation within the frameworks of extramural (i.e. part-time) studies. Such studies are organised into nine sessions taking place more or less every two weeks during weekends. The group comprises four female and five male interpreters, which may be deemed an atypical gender distribution since, as it becomes apparent in other case studies in this book and is attested in other studies as well as in professional practice, the feminisation of the interpreting profession is a fact, with relatively fewer men both undergoing interpreting training and joining the profession. The group under discussion pursued the extramural programme in English studies with the specialisation in interpreting. The fact that the trainee interpreters were – at the time of the test – the third-year students of English implies that their command of English was said to be at the C1 level since such proficiency level is assumed to have been achieved by the third-year students who are just about to complete their bachelor’s degree studies. Moreover, this is important in view of the error analysis and several problems identified in the test takers’ target texts. As above-mentioned, the students participated in the interpreting specialisation classes. Thus, the curriculum of the interpreting specialisation includes several courses before training in classic consecutive interpreting is provided. This implies that the group was given practical education first in sight translation/interpreting and then in consecutive interpreting which was taught in two courses (each lasting for eighteen teaching hours): (1) introduction to consecutive interpreting and note-taking techniques and (2) consecutive interpreting. The test, which provided the organisational basis for data collection, was carried out at the end of the latter course in consecutive interpreting and therefore the trainee interpreters can be said to have undergone two-semester training in consecutive interpreting. This fact may be of importance since it can by hypothesised that the extended experience given to the students during the two courses could have contributed to their less obstructing and more enhancing activity of the psychoaffective factors. The trainee interpreters declared that, in general, their consecutive interpreting practice was limited to the one they received within interpreting training, which means that they practised this mode of interpreting in the university-based

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settings  – for a year. However, one person stated that his/her77 consecutive interpreting experience is longer since he/she interpreted consecutively from and into Polish, English and German already for several months as his/her job duty. One person additionally stated that his/her experience was scanty although he/she performed consecutive interpreting several times two years before. Chart 1 presents the distribution of the trainee interpreters’ experience in consecutive interpreting. several times: 1 student (11%)

only during university education: 7 students (78%)

more extended experience: 1 student (11%)

Chart 1: Distribution of the first case study participants’ experience in consecutive interpreting.

To sum up, although the group consists of the trainee interpreters with rather limited experience, gained mostly in the course of university-based interpreting education, its members have provided some interesting data concerning their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors during the consecutive interpreting test which influenced their performance and output quality.

5.1.2. Case study 1 testing situation description As aforementioned, the test was organised at the very last classes of the course in consecutive interpreting on the premises of the University of Wrocław, Poland, in a university classroom. The trainee interpreters were first informed about the entire test procedure. They were additionally told that the information provided by them in the retrospective protocols or observed in the notes would not have 77 Since all data have been anonymised, the genders of particular students are not specified and that is why there is also the “he/she” or “his/her” reference to a particular student.

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any impact on the final grade for the course. The trainee interpreters selected one source text (approximately 110 Polish words long) which was then read by the instructor at an natural speaking pace. During input delivery, the students could take notes. Afterwards, they were given some time to both organise the notes and plan their output delivery. Having completed the production of their target language (i.e. English) message, the trainee interpreters were asked to spend some time in the same classroom completing the retrospective protocol. What could also be relevant to the description of the testing situation is the trainee interpreters’ perception of the entire test which is manifested in their responses to some of the retrospective protocol general part questions. When asked about their pre-test attitudes and feelings concerning the test itself, the students mentioned stress, slight nervousness and anxiety as the major emotions. What triggered those psycho-affective responses was usually no knowledge of the contents of the source text, the audio-recording of the students’ delivery as well as the presence of other trainee interpreters in the same classroom. The following quotes illustrate the above statement: • I felt a little bit of nervousness because of no preparation in terms of the interpreting topic. • I had typical stress symptoms  – I  felt hot, my heart beat accelerated. They were caused by the level of the difficulty of the interpreted text. • I was aware that I was worse and that everybody would listen to my [interpreting] failure. • I was slightly nervous because of no information about the contents of the source text. • I was stressed and I tried to concentrate. It was caused by the fact that the exam was to be audio-recorded.

Four students, however, had quite positive feelings before the test which manifested themselves mostly in no experience of stress, calm attitude or in some kind of enthusiasm. This is visible in the following responses:

• Anticipation. A bit excited. • I was not anxious about the test because of my previous experience and the effort I put into interpreting classes in the last years. • In general, I did not experience stress until the moment of my first error. The test seemed to be easy. • No euphoria, no stress. A neutral approach. Come what may.

On the whole, the students manifested two approaches to the test before they actually started the testing procedure: they were either stressed or had a generally positive approach. The fact that stress was present among some of the test takers was not surprising since most tests which people have to sit for and whose aim is to assess students’ skills or knowledge are likely to induce some levels of stress. Additionally, interpreting itself is rarely stress-free so there is no doubt that this may be considered to be – at least to some extent – a natural reaction.

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245

The trainee interpreters were also requested to provide some attitudinal information on the emotions and feelings that they had during the test. Four students declared that they experienced rather negative emotions resulting mostly from stress. They argued that this had contributed to their self-perceived less successful performance, adversely influencing, for instance, the use of their lexical or grammatical resources. The following quotes can support this view:



• It was difficult for me to focus on the test because of stress and feeling unwell. I did really badly. It was my worst interpretation during this semester. I forgot the basic phrases and grammar rules. • My mind went blank. I did not have relevant vocabulary. My nervousness was visible. • The test was okay. I have problems with memorising; vocabulary slips my mind; stress. • There was a surname which I forgot, which induced a lot of stress. I found myself stammering.

The remaining trainee interpreters had rather positive feelings during the test and when they experienced stress, it was of mobilising nature. Such a view emerges from the following quotes excerpted from the students’ responses: • I was rather calm. My voice is my problem since after some time it quivers. • I was rather satisfied with quite faithful and smooth interpretation. What was of great help was the clearly read source text and my good mood. • It happened that I had interpreted worse before. When I interpret, I totally switch off the influences of the environment. What is the worst is making this switching off happen. • Mobilising stress; focus on production; errors were motivating.

What can be seen from the trainee interpreters’ perception of the testing procedure is that already before the test, some negative activity of the psycho-affective factors could be observed. The most commonly identified negative aspect of their psycho-affectivity is stress although it might also be hypothesised that anxiety could also have been experienced by the test takers since some of them stated that they had experienced the negative emotions resulting from their worry about whether they would be able to deal with the consecutive interpreting task, which clearly shows that it was their reaction to a subjectively perceived dangerous stimulus – the interpreting test itself – characteristic of anxiety.

5.2. Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs Error analysis, as argued in Chapter  4, is an assessment tool which helps to gauge the functional and linguistic quality of the outputs produced by the trainee interpreters. There are five basic criteria which serve as the yardsticks of the target text correctness. They include: (1) equivalence; (2) grammar; (3) vocabulary; (4) phonetic quality; (5) output delivery fluency. Since the group of the students participating in the first case study was rather small, there were relatively not many errors identified in the study.

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The outputs generated by the trainee interpreters show some significant deficiencies in equivalence which obscure the meaning of the original texts. The following examples in Tab. 1 clearly demonstrate that there were some serious semantic shortcomings of the outputs and that in several cases the meaning of the source texts was not fully conveyed: Tab. 1: The first case study participants’ equivalence errors. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

(…) najważniejszą wiadomością wydawał się powrót do systemu porzuconego w Windows 8 Menu Start.

(…) the most important news seemed to be the return to the system abandoned in Windows 8 – Start Menu.

(…) the main change is to delete the Menu and Start function which appeared in Windows Eight.

Biuro jest także siedzibą Cisco Network Operations Center (NOC), jednej z trzech tego typu inwestycji firmy na świecie.

The office is also the headquarters of Cisco Network Cisco Network Operations Centre Operations is the third (NOC), one of the company’s three office in Poland. such investments in the world.

Darmowy system operacyjny, jedna platforma dla komputerów i smartfonów, wirtualna rzeczywistość, 84-calowy ekran – Microsoft zaprezentował wraz z Windows 10 cały szereg produktów i rozwiązań, które pojawią się na rynku równolegle z nowym systemem. Czy to oznacza powrót czasów świetności firmy?

Free operating system, one platform for computers and smartphones, virtual reality, 84-inch screen – Microsoft presented a whole range of products and solutions that will go with Windows 10 and which will appear on the market alongside the new system. Does this mean a return to the company’s glory?

Free system/operation system has been presented on the last meeting along with the new devices. This new operation system is called Windows Ten.

Droga, którą rozpoczęliśmy w 2012 r. w Krakowie zaczyna przyspieszać, ponieważ dziś otwieramy nasze trzecie biuro w tym mieście i znacząco rozszerzamy zakres działalności.

The way we started in 2012 in Cracow is starting to accelerate, as today we are opening our third office in the city and significantly expanding the scope of our activities.

In 2012 in Cracow there will be the third office so that means the company is growing up.

Ich przedstawiciele spotkali się w piątek w Brukseli z urzędnikami dyrekcji generalnych Komisji Europejskiej ds. transportu i ds. zdrowia.

Their representatives met on Friday in Brussels with officials from the European Commission’s Directorates-General for Transport and Health.

Their representatives of the following countries had a meeting with general directors of European Union [silent pause].

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247

Tab. 1: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Jak wynika z badań firmy Sociomantic Labs (…).

According to the research conducted According to research by Sociomantic Labs (…). done by Socioeconomics Labs (…).

Na drugim miejscu są Niemcy – 45,8 mld euro.

The second place is taken by Germany – EUR 45.8 billion.

Sieć supermarketów Tesco, największa w W. Brytanii poinformowała (…).

Tesco, the largest supermarket chain Tesco Corporation, one in the UK, has announced (…). of the greatest in Great Britain, has informed (…).

The second country is Germany – forty eight point five billion euros.

As regards the analysis of the grammatical correctness of the test takers’ outputs, there were only slight errors which do not render the target messages difficult to understand. A selection of such grammar errors is given in Tab. 2 below: Tab. 2: The first case study participants’ grammatical errors. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

do czasu wyjaśnienia

until it is clarified

to further informations

Innymi krajami europejskimi

Other European countries

Another countries

liczba głównych graczy

the number of major market players

the amount of operators

Państwa zaniepokojone nowymi niemieckimi przepisami to (…)

The countries concerned about Countries that were opposed the new German legislation are to the new regulations was (…) (…)

Trzynaście Państw UE, w tym Thirteen EU countries, including Thirteen countries of the Polska, ma zastrzeżenia do Poland, have reservations about European Union has some (…) (…) [silent pause] (…) W innych firmach

In other companies

by the other companies

W sieci

On the Internet

In the Internet

wycofaniu się z zaplanowanych inwestycji

to withdraw from the planned investments

withdrawing investing plans

The above mistakes are certainly not the result of the trainee interpreters’ insufficient grammatical resources or their ignorance of the rules of standard English grammar but they must have been caused by something else, perhaps by the

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negative aspects of their psycho-affectivity. Anxiety and stress might have been the factors contributing to those errors. The lexical analysis of the students’ target texts demonstrated that generally there are no particularly salient lexical errors which would lead to the incomprehension of the outputs. What is, however, sometimes observed is that the trainee interpreters could not retrieve the necessary lexical items and this often resulted in silent or filled pauses and then using some synonyms. In other cases, the test takers used lexical items which are not direct equivalents of the original words but the sense of the source message in most cases was retained. What is more, at times the test takers used the words which are absent from the English language, making use of the naturalisation strategy. The examples in Tab. 3 could shed some light on the vocabulary issues experienced by the trainee interpreters: Tab. 3: The first case study participants’ lexical errors. Source text

Source text translation into Target text English

dołek finansowy

financial doldrums

financial depression

dyrekcji generalnych Komisji the European Commission’s Europejskiej Directorates-General

general directors of European Union

finalizacja transakcji

finalising the transaction

making the deal

główna siedziba

headquarters

the biggest warehouse

Główny Urząd Statystyczny

Central Statistical Office

the Statistic Office

inwestycji w 49 dalszych

investments in other 49

investing plans that has been encapsulating

poprawi

improve

recompensate

postulat

postulate

primary concern

sieć supermarketów Tesco

Tesco supermarket chain

Tesco corporation

skuteczność

efficiency

progress

zastrzeżenia

reservations

some very important questions

As emerges from the above examples, the gravity of those lexical mistakes is rather low and does not make the outputs incomprehensible. Moreover, considering the fact that the trainee interpreters’ English language competence is near the C1 level, those errors, like the lexical ones, do not arise out of the insufficient command of the target language but rather from the negative impact the testing situation might have had on the trainee interpreters. Therefore, it might be assumed that again some aspects of the interpreting students’ psycho-affectivity could have contributed to those mistakes. The next criterion of the error analysis was phonetic quality. Actually, no major phonetic errors were detected in the audio-recorded outputs. What is also worth

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stressing is that nearly all the trainee interpreters used the pronunciation characteristic either of British or American English and did not alternate between them within their renderings. There were just a handful of rather insignificant phonetically incorrect examples, as presented in Tab. 4 below: Tab. 4: The first case study participants’ phonetic errors. Item

Standard English pronunciation

Target text

Bruksela

/brʌslz/

/’bruksels/

cost

/kost/

/koust/

Eurostat

/juːˈrɒstæt/

/əurostæt/

financial

/fai’næn∫l/

/faɪnə∫əl/

informed

/ɪn’fo:(r)md/

/ɪn’fo:umt/

model

/modl/

/moudl/

vice-president

/vaɪs’prezɪdənt/

/vɪsə’prezɪdent/

What is interesting, in one case, there was an attempt at self-correcting the phonetic error but, nevertheless, its final form was also incorrect (Tab. 5). Tab. 5: The first case study participant’s attempt at repairing a phonetic error. Item

Standard English pronunciation

Target text First attempt

Repair

notebook

/’nəʊtbʊk/

/’ni:utbok/

/’ni:utbuks/

The final aspect of the trainee interpreters’ output error analysis concerned the output delivery fluency. What has been observed is that the trainee interpreters tended to use quite many hesitations and pauses, both filled (usually by prolonged vowels) and silent. Such disfluencies sometimes impede the smoothness of the delivery but the students, once they retrieved the necessary lexical item or input information which halted their delivery, continued their oral production of the target text. In two cases, a clear distortion of the students’ voice was heard – it cracked up and quivered when the test takers encountered some problem triggers like, for instance, lack of a lexical item. However, once the problem trigger was solved, the voice returned to its natural pitch and tone. The following examples (Tab. 6, see below) provide a glimpse into the output delivery phenomena. The fact that, on the whole, the fluency of output delivery is maintained may result from the proper management of this aspect of target text production which was developed in the course of consecutive interpreting training. The comprehension of the interpreter’s output which is rich in disfluencies (hesitations, filled

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Tab. 6: The first case study participants’ output delivery disfluencies. Source text

Source text translation into Target text English

(…) obejmującej także zagranicznych kierowców

(…) which also concern foreign drivers

(…) which concerned, for example, [filled pause: /äa/] car drivers

Czy młody zarząd zdoła na dłużej tchnąć w nią energię, czy to tylko lekki lifting przed wyjściem funduszu z inwestycji?

Will the young management manage to breathe energy into it for a longer time, or is it just a slight lifting before the fund leaves the investment?

Diverse company hired a new CEO or [filled pause: like] this action of Diverse company [silent pause]. Is it [silent pause] because of lifting or because of the new [silent pause] [repair: new] CEO?

Na piątkowym spotkaniu w Brukseli kraje te zaapelowały o zawieszenie stosowanych przepisów

At a meeting in Brussels on The meeting was about [silent Friday, these countries called pause] not accepting the for the suspension of these regulations. rules.

Tesco to wspaniała firma, która znalazła się pod silną finansową presją.

Tesco is a great company under strong financial pressure.

Trzynaście Państw UE, w Thirteen EU countries, tym Polska, ma zastrzeżenia including Poland, have do (…). reservations about (…).

As we all know, Tesco is a great [filled pause: /ɛ/] corporation and is being [repair: has been] under the pressure. Thirteen countries of the European Union has some [silent pause] (…)

The arrow following a given vowel indicates that it was additionally prolonged although, generally speaking, it is usually a short vowel. Moreover, since in the majority of cases, it is just the Polish sound that constitutes a disfluency, the International Phonetic Alphabet symbols used represent the Polish sounds. This fashion of indicating filled pauses is followed in the other two case studies. a

pauses, silent pauses and repairs) may be difficult and that is why, during consecutive interpreting training, so much attention was paid to eliminating those undesirable properties of the output. Of course, the increased frequency of such disfluencies may be linked to the negative activity of some psycho-affective factors. It seems that stress, language inhibition and weak language ego as well as low intermediate self-esteem may contribute to those phenomena which impede the fluency of output delivery. It is also interesting to analyse the trainee interpreters’ answers given to the questions about their generally understood self-assessment of their interpretations. Given the rather few errors of great gravity, it is quite surprising that the students were so critical about of their performance. The following excerpts illustrate this critical attitude:

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251

• It was bad. The text was connected with my interests but, nevertheless, I did not manage to interpret it well. • It was poor. I gave up when the proper names appeared. • My interpretation was of low quality. I got lost with the data which I was to interpret. • Not so good. What was the best was chronology but my vocabulary was weak.

Only three trainee interpreters were satisfied with their performance, stressing in their responses the good quality of their output delivery fluency or equivalence. The following quotes can support this view:

• I assess my interpretation to be very good in terms of accuracy, grammar, vocabulary and fluency. In some places, I stumbled but it did not affect the quality of my interpretation. • I think I interpreted the text fluently but I have the impression that I omitted several elements of the input. • I think I  rendered the sense of the source text but perhaps my target text was slightly too short.

What is more, the trainee interpreters reported that they had problems mostly with vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and fluency. Some of them directly stated that those deficiencies resulted from the experience of some of the psycho-affective factors, mostly from stress, as is illustrated by the following quotes:

• Fluency and vocabulary. Great stress. • Grammar, pronunciation. Those problems result mostly from stress and the colloquial form of the source text.

As far as the trainee interpreters’ skills are concerned, the students claimed that rendering the sense of the original text was problematic. It was indeed so since such deficiencies were identified in the error analysis – in its part devoted to equivalence. The following excerpts confirm the above statement: • I omitted the key phrase – because of stress? • It was more the question of controlling my emotions/stress. I  could make some errors, not rendering the entire content of the source text. • Rendering the sense – because of the fact that the text had many rhetorical questions. • Rendering the sense – concentrating on notes instead of remembering the text. • The production was difficult. I forgot some fragment and because of this the target text was meagre. Additionally, my hands were shaking and I could not align my handwriting.

What those quotations bring to light is that the trainee interpreters’ are critical as regards their self-assessment of their consecutive interpreting performance. Interestingly enough, in quite many cases, they assign their perceived worse performance to the negative activity of the psycho-affective factors, mostly to stress. The above error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ target texts has not revealed a particularly big number of errors. Certainly, in quite many cases equivalence was not fully maintained since the students omitted some important information

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of the input material. The output grammar and lexicon were mostly correct. The students’ voice quality as well as output delivery fluency were also appropriate although some trainee interpreters tended to produce disfluencies such as hesitations, silent as well as filled pauses. This may suggest that the problem triggers are linked to some levels of the experience of the psycho-affective factors which have their exponents just in those disfluencies. To conclude, in the course of the error analysis it became evident that the trainee interpreters, like perhaps all interpreters, at times make various mistakes, some of which may result from the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors. However, those factors appear not to have had a negative impact on the understandability of the outputs.

5.3. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ output delivery strategies The analysis of the part-time undergraduate students’ output delivery strategies shows that they used several strategies when interpreting consecutively. It is of course a matter of speculation whether the use of those strategies was a conscious choice. However, the analysis below shows that in quite many cases, the use of a given strategy was guided by the fact that there was an urgent need to deal with an online problem. Therefore, what may be hypothesised is that those strategies were perhaps the first solutions which the trainee interpreters thought about and that is why they did not have to result from the conscious choices. It appears that the most common strategy used by the trainee interpreters is omission. The fact that they omitted some relevant information of the inputs when producing the outputs was already revealed in the error analysis (i.e. the equivalencerelated errors) and in the students’ responses. Since on the basis of the outputs, it is not possible to define the types of omissions in terms of whether they are conscious or unconscious or intentional or unintentional (cf. Napier 2015), the generally understood strategy of omission is the basic category analysed. Thus, omissions are rather frequent and the following examples illustrate the use of this strategy (Tab. 7): Tab. 7: The first case study participants’ use of the omission strategy. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

(…) będzie to platforma o wiele bardziej przyjazna firmom, a równocześnie będzie na tyle uniwersalna (…).

(…) it would be a much more The operational system business-friendly platform, and at will be really universal the same time it would be universal (…). enough (…).

Amerykański koncern informatyczny Cisco otworzył swoje trzecie, największe biuro w Krakowie, wchodzące w skład centrum wsparcia Cisco.

American IT concern Cisco has opened its third, largest office in Krakow, which is part of the Cisco support centre.

The American concern opened its third office in Cracow.

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies

253

Tab. 7: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Eurostat dostarczył najnowsze dane dot. stóp bezrobocia oraz inflacji w Polsce i strefie euro.

Eurostat provided the latest data on Eurostat shared unemployment rates and inflation its statistics about in Poland and the euro area. unemployment in Euroland and the Eurozone.

Główna siedziba Tesco w Cheshunt w Hertfordshire zostanie zamknięta, a część pracowników uznanych za niezbędnych, zostanie przeniesiona do Welwyn Garden City. Lewis nie ujawnił, jak decyzje te przełożą się na poziom zatrudnienia.

Tesco’s headquarters in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire will be closed down and some of the staff deemed necessary will be transferred to Welwyn Garden City. Lewis did not reveal how these decisions would translate into the level of employment.

The biggest warehouse in Great Britain will be closed, leaving only the major employees.

Hutchison Whampoa potwierdziła w komunikacie, że prowadzi wyłączne negocjacje z Telefoniką w sprawie kupna O2.

Hutchison Whampoa confirmed in a press release that she is negotiating exclusively with Telefonika for the purchase of O2.

Hutchison Whampoa started negotiations to buy O2.

Informację o planach ogłosił The new CEO, Tesco Dave Lewis, nowy dyrektor generalny Tesco has announced the plans. Dave Lewis.

That information was given by Dave Lewis.

Konsumenci z Polski coraz częściej kupują w sieci, a e-przedsiębiorcy inwestują w reklamę internetową.

Consumers from Poland more and more often buy online and e-entrepreneurs invest in online advertising.

Polish consumers spend more and more money on purchasing items in the Internet.

Słowacja, Czechy, Węgry, Rumunia, Bułgaria, Słowenia, Chorwacja, Litwa, Estonia, Portugalia, Hiszpania i Irlandia.

Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia, Portugal, Spain and Ireland.

Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania [silent pause], Slovenia, Lithuania, Estonia, Portugal, Spain and Ireland.

Stopa bezrobocia w strefie euro w listopadzie, po uwzględnieniu czynników sezonowych wyniosła 11,5 proc., wobec 11,5 proc. w poprzednim miesiącu – poinformował w komunikacie Eurostat, urząd statystyczny Unii Europejskiej.

The unemployment rate in the euro zone in November, after taking seasonal factors into account, was 11.5%, compared to 11.5% in the previous month, Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office said in a press release.

In the Eurozone, the level of unemployment at eleven point five percent [silent pause] and in November it was [silent pause | repair: it was] the same.

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Another frequent strategy which has been identified in the test takers’ audiorecorded outputs is the repairing strategy, which may be understood as a self-correction of an error or an attempt at a better expression of some information. In spontaneously generated speech (i.e. not read from the transcript), there are always some elements which are deficient and therefore people at times repeat them, using different words/grammatical structures, with a view to correcting the error or to expressing a given thought differently or more fully. The use of the repairing strategy has been observed in the following examples (Tab. 8): Tab. 8: The first case study participants’ use of the repairing strategy. Source text

Source text translation Target text into English First attempt

Repairs

(…) do nowych niemieckich przepisów

(…) about the new German minimum wage regulations

about regul [unfinished]

about new German regulations

(…) ma zastrzeżenia

have reservations

has some [silent pause]

has very important questions

czy to tylko lekki lifting przed wyjściem funduszu z inwestycji?

or is it just a slight lifting Is it [silent pause] new CEO before the fund leaves the because of lifting or investment? because of the new [silent pause]

Darmowy system operacyjny

Free operating system

free system

operation system

Diverse musi

Diverse has to

Diverse need

Diverse needs to

Stopa bezrobocia w strefie euro w listopadzie, po uwzględnieniu czynników sezonowych wyniosła 11,5 proc., wobec 11,5 proc. w poprzednim miesiącu.

The unemployment rate in the euro zone in November, after taking seasonal factors into account, was 11.5%, compared to 11.5% in the previous month.

and in November it it was the same was [silent pause]

Według metodologii Głównego Urzędu Statystycznego

according to the Eurostat The Statistic Office says methodology say

wycofaniu się z withdraw from the zaplanowanych planned investments in inwestycji w 49 dalszych other 49

withdrawing that has been investing plans that encapsulating were

Wymyślenie nowego konceptu

to come up with a new store concept

to create such stra

Wypchnięcia spółki z dołka

push the company out of the doldrums

pushed the from the financial company from the depression [filled pause: /ɪ/] depression of

strategy, sorry.

255

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies Tab. 8: Continued Source text

Source text translation Target text into English First attempt

Repairs

znalazła się pod silną finansową presją

is under strong financial pressure

has been under the pressure

is being

Furthermore, the use of the strategy of elaboration/explicitation has also been identified. Although this strategy is not so frequently used by the test takers, it should be borne in mind that although consecutive interpreting seems to be the mode which offers a great possibility for adding some clarifications or explanations which are absent from the input but which the consecutive interpreter sees as necessary in the output, the student seemed to used it rather sparingly. There were just a few instances of this strategy (Tab. 9): Tab. 9: The first case study participants’ use of the elaboration/explicitation strategy. Source text

Source text translation into Target text English

(…) najwięcej pieniędzy w (…) the British spent the sieci wydali w ubiegłym roku most money on the Internet Brytyjczycy – 112 mld euro. last year – EUR 112 billion.

(…) is United Kingdom with the net worth of transactions estimated at one hundren twelve billion euros.

(…) że koncern, który w swoim krakowskim centrum zatrudnia około 500 pracowników, zamierza w najbliższych 2 latach zwiększyć zatrudnienie do ponad tysiąca osób.

(…) that the company, which employs about five hundred people in its Cracow centre, intends to increase the employment to over a thousand people in the next two years.

(…) that in two years’ time, they will employ five hundred more employees than now. Nowadays, the concern employs five hundred employees and in two years’ time it will be one thousand.

Czy młody zarząd zdoła na dłużej tchnąć w nią energię, czy to tylko lekki lifting przed wyjściem funduszu z inwestycji?

Will the young management manage to breathe energy into it for a longer time, or is it just a slight lifting before the fund leaves the investment?

Diverse company hired a new CEO or [filled pause: like] this action of Diverse company [silent pause]. Is it [silent pause] because of lifting or because of the new [silent pause] [repair: new] CEO?

Natomiast roczne wydatki na ten cel w Polsce wynoszą zaledwie 5 mld euro.

On the other hand, annual expenditure for this purpose in Poland amounts to only EUR 5 billion.

The yearly net worth of Internet transactions in Poland is nearly five billion euros. (continued on next page)

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Tab. 9: Continued Source text

Source text translation into Target text English

Stopa bezrobocia, po dostosowaniu sezonowym, w listopadzie 2014 roku, według metodologii Eurostatu, spadła w Polsce do 8,2 proc. z 8,3 proc. w październiku.

The unemployment rate, after seasonal adjustment, in November 2014, according to the Eurostat methodology, fell in Poland to 8.2% from 8.3% in October.

From the information we can see that in the November of 2014, the unemployment was on the level of eight point two per cent which is a change from eight point three per cent form the last month of October.

The strategy of condensation/implicitation is clearly visible in those elements of the outputs, in which hyperonyms or words representing the higher class of items are used instead of the target language equivalents of particular words. The following examples in Tab. 10 show that condensation/implicitation is indeed used: Tab. 10: The first case study participants’ use of the condensation/implicitation strategy. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Jedna platforma dla komputerów i smartfonów.

One platform for computers and smartphones.

Operating system for computers.

Transakcja musiałaby uzyskać The transaction would need zgodę zarówno brytyjskich the approval of both UK and jak i unijnych urzędów EU antitrust authorities. antymonopolowych.

To make the deal happen, the transaction would have to be approved by European laws.

Główna siedziba Tesco w Cheshunt w Hertfordshire zostanie zamknięta.

Tesco’s headquarters in The biggest warehouse in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire will Great Britain will be closed. be closed down.

Klient jest najważniejszy. Klient nasz pan. Zorientowani na potrzeby klienta... Klientocentryzm w wydaniu MetLife to nie puste hasło.

The customer is the most In Metlife, the customer is our important. The customer is our most important and cherished master. Customer-oriented… part. Customer-centrism as represented by MetLife is not an empty slogan.

In the students’ audio-recorded target texts, there were also two instances of the use of the naturalisation strategy. This strategy involves naturalising a source language item to the rules of the target language by adopting its form to the rules of English. The following two examples (Tab. 11), although one of them is clearly not the target language item but rather a novel word (i.e. non-existent in English) which has been partially naturalised, have been detected in the outputs:

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes

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Tab. 11: The first case study participants’ use of the naturalisation strategy. Source text

English equivalent

Target text

Diverse

Diverse (proper name)

Diverse /daɪvers/

poprawi

improve/enhance

recompensate /rə’kompenseɪt/

What results from the above analysis of the strategies exploited by the trainee interpreters during their output delivery is that the strategy of omission is used quite frequently. The fact that some elements of the input are omitted can result from the test takers’ decreased cognitive capabilities and this can be linked to the negative activity of the psycho-affective factors which are sometimes said to decrease the cognitive potential. On the other hand, the use of the repairing strategy shows that the students tried to control their output production and when they spotted a mistake, they repaired it. Explicitation and implicitation are also present in the repertoire of the test takers’ interpreting strategies. One example of the (partial) naturalisation strategy may also be indicative of the fact that the trainee interpreters were indeed under the negative influence of their psycho-affectivity since the naturalised lexical item does not belong to the English lexicon so the student took a risk in creating a naturalised word. Generally speaking, the interpreting strategies identified in the outputs generated by the trainee interpreters can be viewed more as ad hoc solutions to the emerging problems rather than as conscious choices since, as indicated by the test takers themselves in the retrospective protocols, they did not manage to memorise or jot down and then retrieve the relevant input information and to bridge such gaps, they resorted to the use of the above-detected strategies. It therefore might be speculated that the use of those strategies could be linked to the test takers’ need to deal with a given problem trigger which might have been caused by the insufficient cognitive resources (i.e. visible in the problems with memorisation, note-taking or retrieval) and this, in turn, could have resulted from the subjective negative experience of the psycho-affective factors.

5.4. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes As stated in Chapter 4, the notes taken by the test takers and then used in output delivery may offer an interesting insight into the influence of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity for two main reasons. First of all, the adherence to the note-taking rules devised by Jean-François Rozan (e.g. 1956, 2002), which the students had been taught in the consecutive interpreting course, may indicate whether the psychoaffective factors had any influence on the students’ source text comprehension and target text production. Of course, all test takers could take notes in whatever way they found the most suitable so the absence of the indicators of Rozan’s system does not have to mean that the trainee interpreters’ negative psycho-affectivity had an influence on their performance. However, the notes, as minimal retrieval units, and in particular their quality and quantity, can, at least to some extent, demonstrate

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whether (and if yes, how) the test takers were able to reduce the impeding nature of the negative psycho-affective factors during the comprehension and production phases. Moreover, the notes can additionally have some external extra-linguistic manifestations of the negative experience of the psycho-affective factors. All sweat stains, crumpled notepaper, handwriting patterns embossed on the notepaper reverse pages can all indicate some negative feelings, manifested externally by the students’ behaviours or bodily reactions (i.e. too firm a ballpoint grip or hand sweating). Generally speaking, because of the rather short length of the source texts, the students did not take a big quantity of notes. The source texts quite frequently contained the elements which could be labelled as “problem triggers” (i.e. proper names, numerical data etc.) and the test takers indeed jotted down such elements, which certainly helped them while producing their outputs. Thus, in quite many cases, the quality of notes was good, as well. On the other hand, those who did not manage to note down proper names or numbers often omitted those elements and generated a bigger number of disfluencies. It therefore may be suggested that not jotting down the problematic elements of the input could have been one of the reasons for the negative experience of mainly stress which was manifested in the aforementioned disfluencies. The basic principle of Rozan’s note-taking system is that interpreters jot down the idea and not the word. It seems that this rule turned out to be quite commonly applied since the trainee interpreters showed a preference for jotting down the major ideas and not the entire sentences. The visual approximations of their notes given below in Tab. 12 show this: Tab. 12: The first case study participants’ notes: noting the idea. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Amerykański koncern informatyczny Cisco otworzył swoje trzecie, największe biuro w Krakowie, wchodzące w skład centrum wsparcia Cisco.

American IT concern Cisco has Americ Sisco opened opened its third, largest office in office Krakow. Krakow, which is part of the Cisco support centre.

Eurostat dostarczył najnowsze dane dot. stóp bezrobocia oraz inflacji w Polsce i strefie euro.

Eurostat provided the latest data on dane Eurostate nt in, unemployment rates and inflation stp. bezrobocia in Poland and the euro area.

Klient jest najważniejszy. Klient nasz pan. Zorientowani na potrzeby klienta... Klientocentryzm w wydaniu MetLife to nie puste hasło. Konsumenci są praktycznie współtwórcami oferty towarzystwa. Ich opinie wyznaczają też kierunki rozwoju firmy.

The customer is the most important. The customer is our master. Customer-oriented… Customer-centrism as represented by MetLife is not an empty slogan. Consumers are practically co-creators of the company’s offer. Their opinions also determine the directions of the company’s development.

in medlife. The cust most im. Custom. Metlife aren’t word on mind. Customer middle of attention, and all decisions ass are based on customer feedback.

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Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 12: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Trzynaście państw UE, w tym Polska, ma zastrzeżenia do nowych niemieckich przepisów ws. płacy minimalnej, obejmującej także zagranicznych kierowców.

Thirteen EU countries, including Poland, have reservations about the new German minimum wage regulations, which also concern foreign drivers.

13 państwa UE+PL zastrz. Niem. płaca kierowcy

Wraz z EE i Vodafone tworzą one czwórkę dominujących operatorów na tamtejszym rynku.

Together with EE and Vodafone, they form the four dominant operators in the Hong Kong market.

EE + Vod = 4 ope.

The trainee interpreters also made extensive use of abbreviations, thereby adhering to the second rule of note-taking. Jotting down the input information in the form of abbreviations definitely helps to proceed with source text comprehension and allows to focus more on the incoming information without the need to write down the entire word/phrase for an abbreviation could be an equally good retrieval cue. However, the abbreviations must be obvious for the interpreter because otherwise they may be the reason for some kind of frustration resulting from the inability to decipher the abbreviated information. The following selection of the examples (Tab. 13) shows that the test takers abbreviated the ideas quite frequently: Tab. 13: The first case study participants’ notes: abbreviations. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Jak wynika z badań firmy Sociomantic Labs, najwięcej pieniędzy w sieci wydali w ubiegłym roku Brytyjczycy – 112 mld euro. Na drugim miejscu są Niemcy – 45,8 mld euro. Natomiast roczne wydatki na ten cel w Polsce wynoszą zaledwie 5 mld euro.

According to the research conducted by Sociomantic Labs, the British spent the most money on the Internet last year – EUR 112 billion. The second place is taken by Germany – EUR 45.8 billion. On the other hand, annual expenditure for this purpose in Poland amounts to only EUR 5 billion.

UK 112 mld €, DE 48,5 mld rocz wyd PL  5 mld €

Konsumenci z Polski coraz częściej kupują w sieci, a e-przedsiębiorcy inwestują w reklamę internetową.

Consumers from Poland more and more often buy online and e-entrepreneurs invest in online advertising.

kons. PL (+) więc n sieć

Olivier Kohler, wiceprezes amerykańskiej spółki (…).

Olivier Kohler, vice-president of the American company (…).

Oliw Kole, vise presid of com

(continued on next page)

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Tab. 13: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Sieć supermarketów Tesco, największa w W. Brytanii poinformowała o planach zamknięcia 43 sklepów (…).

Tesco, the largest supermarket chain Sieć sp tesko WB in the UK, has announced plans to za 43 sklepy close 43 stores (…).

Słowacja, Czechy, Węgry, Rumunia, Bułgaria, Słowenia, Chorwacja, Litwa, Estonia, Portugalia, Hiszpania i Irlandia.

Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia, Portugal, Spain and Ireland.

Slovakia, Cz, Hun, Rum Buł, Sł, Chor, Lit, Es, Port, Es, Irla

As regards the rule of noting the logical links between the ideas present in the input, it has not been identified in the trainee interpreters’ notes. One reason for this might be the relatively short length of the source text and the related lack of the need to jot down the ways, in which the ideas are linked in the input. The other reason for observing no logical links was the fact that all the test texts typically concerned one topic and that is why such linking discourse markers were not present in the source texts. However, what has been found is that the trainee interpreters sometimes used a variety of arrows which may indicate logical links between ideas (like, for instance, the result of something). The examples of such links are provided below in the analysis of the instances of shifts. Likewise, the negation markers were not observed and when the original text included negation, it was usually jotted down as a word, as in the following two examples identified in the trainee interpreters’ notes (Tab. 14): Tab. 14: The first case study participants’ notes: negation. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Informację o planach ogłosił nowy dyrektor generalny Tesco Dave Lewis. „Zwyczajnie nie stać nas na działalność w takim zakresie, jak dotychczas“ – powiedział mediom.

The new CEO, Tesco Dave Lewis, has can’t efort announced the plans. “We simply cannot afford to do business as much as we have done so far” – said to the media.

Klientocentryzm w wydaniu MetLife to nie puste hasło.

Customer-centrism as represented by Metlife aren’t MetLife is not an empty slogan. word on mind.

The test takers also did not use any emphasis markers perhaps for the simple reason that there was no need to do so since the source texts did not contain any elements which would require a special emphasis. The verticality rule has been identified in the majority of the trainee interpreters’ notes. It seems that they prefer to organise their notes vertically since it offers them more space on paper for notes.

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Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes

Finally, the application of the shift rule has been identified in several notes produced by the students who show a preference for using various types of arrows. However, apart from showing shifts, those arrows are often used to show the links between the ideas. The following examples in Tab. 15 illustrate those trends: Tab. 15: The first case study participants’ notes: shifts. Source text

Source text translation into Notes English

76 proc. transakcji mobilnych w naszym kraju dotyczy zakupu biletów lotniczych – czytamy w „Pulsie Biznesu“.

76% of mobile transactions 76% tr. mob  pl in our country concern the ticket wg purchase of airline tickets – ‘Puls Biznesu’ we can read in “Puls Biznesu”.

Jak poinformowano po spotkaniu, w jego trakcie padł m.in. postulat, by stosowanie budzących kontrowersje niemieckich przepisów zostało zawieszone do czasu wyjaśnienia, czy są one zgodne z prawem UE.

As informed after the meeting, during the meeting, among other things, there was a postulate that the application of the controversial German legislation be suspended until it is clarified whether they are compatible with the EU law.

Powtórzył on zapowiedź z października zeszłego roku, że koncern, który w swoim krakowskim centrum zatrudnia około 500 pracowników, zamierza w najbliższych 2 latach zwiększyć zatrudnienie do ponad tysiąca osób.

He reiterated the concern 500 em  announcement from October 2 years into last year that the company, 100 employers which employs about five hundred people in its Cracow centre, intends to increase the employment to over a thousand people in the next two years.

Według metodologii GUS stopa According to the Central bezrobocia w listopadzie wzrosła do 11,4 Statistical Office (GUS) proc. z 11,3 proc. w październiku. methodology, in November the unemployment rate rose to 11.4% from 11.3% in October. Wymyślenie nowego konceptu sklepów zajęło prezesowi Diverse i jego zespołowi równo dobę. W innych firmach potrzeba na to zwykle trzech miesięcy.

Postulat  zawiesić przepisy do wyjaśnienia czy są zgodne

list 2014  8,2% – 8,3

It took Diverse president and new strategy 24 his team exactly a day to come 3 months up with a new store concept. other companies

As aforementioned, the analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes also presents that the test takers did not take a great quantity of notes. It can be explained by the short length of the source texts. What is also observable in the notes is that the key

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elements such as numbers, dates or proper names were jotted down although some students expressed the view that their notes were of rather poor quality, which – surprising as it may seem  – did not influence the quality of their oral outputs. Furthermore, the notes do not have any extra-linguistic exponents of the negative activity of the psycho-affective factors, which means that they are not crumpled, there are no hard ballpoint grip markers etc. On the whole, the analysed notes do not have any particular exponents of the negative influence of the test takers’ experience of the psycho-affective factors so they do not provide any substantial evidence for the statement that while taking and reading them, the test takers experienced some negative feelings which were reflected in their notes. The notes contain different retrieval cues which helped the test takers generate their outputs. Furthermore, generally speaking, the first case study participants’ notes adhered to the major principles of note-taking. Moreover, as stated above, they lack any particular extra-linguistic exponents of the psychoaffective factors so it may be concluded that those notes alone do not provide much information on the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity.

5.5. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ retrospective protocols against the quality of their performance:data triangulation The retrospective protocols filled in after the completion of the test assignment by the trainee interpreters contained several questions related to their perception of the selected psycho-affective factors and their impact on those students’ performance. What is certain is that the entire testing situation is the one that may involve the negative activity of at least some of those factors for it is usually the case that people tend to exhibit some behaviours and attitudes, being the reactions to some stimuli, when an unpleasant evaluation-based situation is about to come. A testing situation may therefore be classified as an event provoking the test takers’ experience of some psycho-affective factors. Surprising as it may seem, the retrospective protocols filled in by the participants of this case study do not contain much behavioural and attitudinal information on the trainee interpreters’ experience of the psycho-affective factors. However, there are some interesting factual data pertaining to the number of the trainee interpreters who declared that they subjectively experienced a given psychoaffective factor. It seems that all of them (100%) experienced some levels of motivation and that the great majority of them (seven students – 78%) experienced stress. More than half of them (55%) observed the impact of their self-esteem as well as language ego (and the related phenomenon – language inhibition) whereas four of them (45%) experienced anxiety. Three members of this group (33%) declared the impact of their personality (i.e. extroversion/introversion). What is interesting, two students (22%) stated that they experienced fear. Those data are presented in Chart 2.

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Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ protocols

2

7

stress

9

motivation

4

5

self-esteem

6

3

extroversion/introverstion

4

5

language inhibition/language ego

7

2

fear

5

4

anxiety 0

2

4

6

8

10

I experienced the impact of this psycho-affective factor. I did not experience the impact of this psycho-affective factor.

Chart 2: The first case study participants’ declared experience of the psycho-affective factors.

The first factor which the trainee interpreters were asked about is anxiety which  – for the needs of this study  – is defined as a reaction to a subjectively ­perceived threat, to an anticipated future negative event. Four students (45%) declared the subjective feelings of anxiety which emerged in connection with the test. What results from the test takers’ responses is that theirs was mostly inhibitory anxiety. Moreover, in the great majority of cases, generally understood existential anxiety was identified, which suggests that archaic anxiety was not reported but it does not mean that archaic anxiety might not have been experienced since what can be hypothesised is that certain anxious feelings which the students had during the test could have been related to some past events such as previous interpreting tests and that is why it might have been one of the reasons why the subjective experience of anxiety ensued. However, because of no explicit references to this type of anxiety in the retrospective protocols, this claim should be treated only as a hypothesis. The analysis of the students’ retrospective protocols has indicated that they were anxious mostly about whether they would be able to perform consecutive interpreting on a topic not known to them, which indicates that the type of anxiety experienced by them might have been performance anxiety. The following quotes may substantiate such a view:

• Anxiety about the assessment of my linguistic skills. • Anxiety about the difficulty of the text, about the real difficulty and about the input reading speed. • I felt anxiety before the test – I had no knowledge of the source text topic. During the interpretation, I felt no stress and after it, stress decreased.

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What is also worth noticing is that the above excerpts could point to the test takers’ experience of test anxiety which comes to light in testing situations. Interestingly enough, one trainee interpreter exhibited some level of acceptance anxiety since in his/her response it is evident that what provoked the experience of this psychoaffective factor was the potential negative evaluation by others. It also suggests that another type of anxiety – the fear of negative evaluation – was also present. The following response makes it clear:

• I am afraid of exposing myself to ridicule. The grade can be corrected but people’s perception – not.

Given the above as well as the rather insignificant number of errors disclosed in the error analysis, it might be postulated that those trainee interpreters who declared their subjective experience of anxiety could be classified as having – at least partially – “the impostor syndrome” (Piechurska-Kuciel 2008) since, generally speaking, contrary to their opinions, their interpreting as well as linguistic skills allowed them to perform good quality consecutive interpreting. The students who declared the various types of anxiety identified above stated that, because of this psycho-affective factor, they used a limited range of vocabulary, their grammar was not fully correct and that they omitted more difficult fragments of the inputs. The extra-linguistic manifestations of anxiety included the shaking hands and this, as informed by the students, had an impact on their notes. The following two quotes refer to those anxiety-related phenomena:

• Because of my shaking hands, I could not read my notes. • Limited vocabulary, improperly used grammar structures. Then, the problems with omitting the fragments which were difficult to interpret.

On the whole, as declared by four trainee interpreters in their retrospective protocols, they experienced anxiety which had several manifestations. However, the subjective experience of this psycho-affective factor did not have a great influence on the general correctness of the interpretation since in the course of the error analysis rather few serious errors were found. Fear, understood as a psycho-affective factor involving a reaction to a real threat, with its stimulus being some real and objectively perceived danger, was not really present in the studied testing situation although two students (22%) declared that they subjectively experienced it. One person spoke about the fear of being negatively evaluated and embarrassment and the other about not being certain about the topic of the source text. Those reasons clearly indicate that what those test takers must have experienced was anxiety and not fear since the testing situation did not pose any kind of genuine threat. Therefore, fear was definitely not the psycho-affective factor which they experienced. Language inhibition, resulting from unstable language ego, was declared by five students. Among the language areas which the students mentioned as causing their language inhibition were the generally understood language competence and, more specifically, vocabulary. One person referred to note-taking skills which

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ protocols

265

might have impeded that person’s language performance and therefore inhibited his/her output production. The trainee interpreters’ inhibition resulted in some omissions (which were indeed identified in the error analysis), in having a difficult start as well as in being very conservative in language use so as not to make any mistakes. The following excerpts point to the experience of language inhibition: • Before, during and after the test I  was more worried about lack of vocabulary. I focused so much on vocabulary that I forgot some proper names and surnames. • I was not confident about my language knowledge. I felt inhibition before I started. • It concerned only my skills of taking notes. It resulted in too short a target [text].

What becomes evident in one response is the clear interrelation between acceptance/negative evaluation anxiety and language ego. One student wrote that he/ she was afraid of being negatively assessed and this contributed to his/her unwillingness to take linguistic risks. Thus, instead of producing the output by means of the available linguistic resources, the person got inhibited and therefore it was not possible to maintain fluency throughout the entire target text production. One more student expressed his/her fear of being ridiculed and producing a poor target text, which again shows that anxiety might have contributed to language inhibition since that person’s language ego was rather weak. The following quotes support the above statements:

• I was afraid of being ridiculed and I do not want to use something that I might have problems with. My target text was therefore poor. • I was afraid of the negative evaluation so I did not take the linguistic risk and lost the fluency of my interpretation.

As presented above, although not a particularly strongly experienced psychoaffective factor, language inhibition was subjectively experienced by some trainee interpreters since, as they wrote, they were not confident enough in terms of their language competence and that is why the use of less complex vocabulary and grammar was their strategy to avoid making mistakes. Extroversion and introversion as two extreme dimensions of personality may also have had some impact on the trainee interpreters’ performance. However, only three students (33%) declared the influence of this psycho-affective factor on the way they interpreted consecutively. Unfortunately, only one trainee interpreter elaborated on this impact, claiming that he/she was more an introvert and the testing situation, especially its audio-recording, was quite different from the previous tests and that is why this student’s introversion plus other stressors could have had an impact on decreasing the quality of the final interpretation. The student wrote:

• Introversion. Additional stressing factors (audio-recording, the form of the examination, i.e. the awareness that this part of the classes has a “more serious” form than the standard conversation classes which took place throughout the semester). I tend to control my speaking too much.

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However, the data included in the above-quoted response are rather insufficient to make any further claims concerning the influence of personality dimensions on the performance of the trainee interpreters. Certainly, this is an interesting issue which needs further research to, first of all, determine if there is any more prevalent personality dimension exhibited by trainee interpreters and, secondly, to find out whether it indeed influences the quality of interpreting performance. Such research could additionally help to verify the commonly held stereotype that students who are extroverts have more chances of becoming successful interpreters. In fact, all people, trainee interpreters alike, can assume their professional selves to mask their more introverted personality dimension so such research could also pertain to the trainee interpreters’ professional selves and how they differ from their private selves. Another psycho-affective factor studied in this case study is self-esteem and its two major types: general/global self-esteem (related to the trainee interpreters’ general evaluation of themselves) and intermediate self-esteem (related to the trainee interpreters’ perception of their interpreting and linguistic subcompetences). What is rather surprising is that situational self-esteem (related to the testing situation) and task self-esteem (related to the very consecutive interpreting task) have not been identified in the responses provided by this case study participants. Five students (55%) declared that their self-esteem had an impact on their performance during the consecutive interpreting test. The general self-esteem of some trainee interpreters was positive (high), which contributed to their good feelings during the test and, as they argued, better performance. Those students who declared their high global self-esteem also wrote about their intermediate self-esteem, which is well reflected in the following responses:

• I am excessively self-confident and confident of my skills. Therefore, I did not experience any of those [psycho-affective] factors. • I felt the impact of my self-esteem. I have a stable professional and private situation. I  have good educational results and obtain positive feedback. That is why I  was focused and was not afraid of making a mistake.

One trainee interpreter had high global and intermediate self-esteem but, nevertheless, his/her rendering was not perfect as it contained several equivalencerelated errors (omissions) and quite many disfluencies (mostly silent pauses). The student claims: • Yes, it had an impact! Belief in myself, in my skills is the basis for me! I  heard [myself during the test] that I got lost when interpreting but I knew I was able to interpret this. Nevertheless, I know it was not an ordered/logical interpretation.

One test taker admitted to having rather negative self-esteem which could have impacted on that person’s production of the target text. The subjective low level of global and intermediate self-esteem can be deduced from the following quote:

• I felt the influence of my self-esteem. I know I am worse, I try to interpret cautiously but, nevertheless, I do badly. You cannot try, being worse. This is visible in my quiet speaking, I refrain from using more difficult structures.

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267

The above responses point to the fact that both positive (high) and negative (low) self-esteem (both global and intermediate) can have an influence on the students’ interpreting performance. Naturally, those trainee interpreters who have high global and intermediate self-esteem see the more positive impact on their performance in, for instance, not being discouraged by potential mistakes. On the other hand, those with low levels of global and intermediate self-esteem may perform worse because they tend to believe that their skills are not properly developed and that is why they are unable to perform consecutive interpreting of good quality. However, it turns out that the person who declared low self-esteem managed to deliver the output of good quality, with only minor equivalence and language errors. Motivation is also a psycho-affective factor which conditions people’s performance and such psycho-affective factor is known as achievement motivation. In the case of the interpreting test, all of the trainee interpreters (100%) declared its impact on the studied testing situation: the internal one resulting from the trainee interpreters’ needs to perform well and the external one resulting from the potential benefits that the students can get (e.g. a positive grade). The testing situation combines two types of motivation for it can result from the intrinsic need of the test takers to realise their ambitions as well as from their extrinsic need to obtain a grade and pass the course. Curiously enough, this is the only psycho-affective factor that was identified by all trainee interpreters in this group. Among the responses provided to the retrospective protocol question concerning this component of the test takers’ psycho-affectivity are those which point to both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The trainee interpreters declared that they were motivated internally (i.e. that they wanted to do well) as well as externally (i.e. they wanted to obtain a positive grade and pass the course). The following quotes reflect the trainee interpreters’ motivation:





• Before the test I was motivated to give 100% of my potential. • I wanted to achieve my goal – to pass the test and I somehow did it. • I wanted to perform the interpreting to the best of my abilities and not to approach it emotionally. There were private factors behind this. I wanted to render the input as fast and best as it was possible. • I was motivated to eliminate the stressing factor, i.e. to finish the exam. Therefore I interpreted faster. • I was motivated to get a good result. I am applying for a grant and I need to have good grades to move to the next phase of the studies. Those were the last classes [in the schedule for that day] so there was motivation in the form of a break [after the interpreting classes]. It resulted in my concentration, fluency, self-confidence. • My wish to do as best as I can. • The need to express as much sense of the original as possible. • This shows my progress. The awareness that I made such a progress moved forward my interpreting and my fluency was greater. • Yes, I felt the influence of motivation. I wanted to do well in the recording – it was a challenge and I wanted to face it.

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As emerges from the above excerpts, the prevailing type of motivation is the intrinsic one although there are some direct references to the potential benefits of performing well which lie outside the realm of the test takers and thus which constitute the extrinsic motivators. The last psycho-affective factor which the students were asked about was their subjective experience of stress. Seven of them (78%) declared that indeed this was the psycho-affective factor which they experienced. There were several stressors such as the fact that the students were not informed beforehand about the content of the target text, the subjectively perceived difficulty of the test, other test takers present in the classroom, in which the test was being administered, or, again, the fear of being ridiculed. Some of the stressors can be directly linked to performance anxiety since the students were anxious about how well they would perform, to their self-esteem since they did not believe in their skills and knowledge and, finally, to their weak language ego. Those interrelations are clearly reflected in the following quotes:



• No information about what the [source] text was to be about. My heart beat speeded up and my hands sweated. • Stress was caused by my feeling unwell and the presence of some other students in the classroom who unconsciously analysed the course of the examination and thought about the content of the interpreted text. I therefore had limited vocabulary and used some grammar constructions wrongly. I omitted some fragments which were too difficult. • The difficulty of the test. The presence of other test takers. This led to the fact that I lowered the volume of my voice, I faltered. I started with a delay. • The fear of being ridiculed. My target text was poor in sense. • Yes, I felt stress but only during interpreting. It resulted from my mistake and the feeling that the time was passing led to a worse interpretation.

Only two test takers declared that the stress they experienced was in fact of motivating character. They state the following:

• Stress was more motivating for me. • Facilitative stress – concentration within a short time.

Generally speaking, quite many trainee interpreters experienced some levels of stress and in many cases it had a subjectively negative impact on their performance. Only in two cases was stress identified as a positive psycho-affective response motivating the students to concentrate more while interpreting and to perform the interpretation better. In others, however, it might have contributed to some errors and disfluencies identified in the trainee interpreters’ target texts. What the above interpretation of the data on the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors demonstrates is that the trainee interpreters’ performance was to some extent conditioned by at least some of the psycho-affective factors and that it could have decreased the overall quality of the outputs produced. Moreover, the results of the error analysis and the study of the interpreting

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strategies employed support the claim of the rather negative influence which some components of the students’ psycho-affectivity could have exerted on their target texts.

5.6. General observations concerning the first case study participants’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors: analysis conclusions The above analyses of the first case study participants’ errors, interpreting strategies and notes as well as the interpretation of the behavioural and attitudinal data excerpted from the trainee interpreters’ responses to the cued questions of the retrospective protocols allowed to make the statement that the subjective experience of some of the psycho-affective factors, as the students claimed, contributed on numerous occasions to a slightly decreased level of their performance. This resulted in the subjectively perceived lower quality of the target texts. The first studied factor was anxiety, the subjective experience of which was reported by four trainee interpreters. In most cases, this was performance anxiety for the trainee interpreters were concerned about how well they would perform. In other words, they were uncertain about their linguistic and interpreting skills. Other types of anxiety identified among the first case study participants were test anxiety and acceptance anxiety. However, because of a rather insignificant number of errors, it might be stated that some trainee interpreters demonstrated “the impostor syndrome” as, generally speaking, their performance was of decent quality. Fear was another psycho-affective factor whose causes, symptoms and exponents were sought in the study materials. In fact, the two students who reported this emotion did not really experience fear and their data point to the experience of anxiety. Language inhibition and fragile language ego were identified by five trainee interpreters as the psycho-affective factor which they had experienced. In fact, it is true that in some cases poorer performance might be attributed to the students’ language inhibition. The dimensions of personality such as extroversion, introversion and ambiversion might also be found to have been partially responsible for some observed deficiencies in three trainee interpreters’ outputs. However, the students’ data are not sufficient to make any further claims concerning this issue. Self-esteem and its different types (mostly linguistic subcompetence and interpreting subcompetence intermediate self-esteem) could have been responsible for five students’ performance. In fact, the test takers admitted to rather positive levels of self-esteem and it may account for the fact that their outputs were delivered smoothly, were generally understandable and contained few errors of serious gravity. The next psycho-affective factor which was studied in the first case study was motivation. All the trainee interpreters declared their subjective experience of this

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psycho-affective factor with both internal and external motivators responsible for the way the students performed consecutive interpreting. Finally, seven trainee interpreters subjectively experienced stress. Several aspects were the stressors, among which were also other psycho-affective factors – anxiety, lower self-esteem or weak language ego. Thus, stress was triggered not only by the external stressors but also by the interpreter-internal ones, thereby proving that the psycho-affective factors are interrelated in the form of a chain reaction, i.e. one leads to another. What can be said with reference to the foregoing discussion is that while it is true that indeed in some cases, the adverse activity of the psycho-affective factors is visible (e.g. in equivalence errors, grammatical or lexical errors or the extensive use of the omission and repairing strategies), the trainee interpreters’ outputs were generally of decent quality. The error analysis confirmed that the target texts were not so deficient as the students acknowledged. What is also interesting is that, on the whole, the trainee interpreters declared rather limited negative experience of the psycho-affective factors in comparison to other studied groups, especially the group of certified interpreters (cf. Chapter 8). One reason for that may be the fact that they had been practising consecutive interpreting already for two semesters and had a similar testing situation in the preceding semester, after the completion of the course “Introduction to consecutive interpreting and note-taking”. Another reason may be linked to the fact that they – as rather young people who were yet to start their professional life – did not yet develop certain negative thinking about themselves, about their language and interpreting skills nor was their interpreting competence significantly influenced by other people’s opinions and evaluations because they did not have a chance to test it in real-life professional practice. The third reason may be linked to a rather small group of the trainee interpreters. Had the group been bigger, there would probably be more opinions about the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors which could change the overall psychoaffective image of the first case study participants. Therefore, it might be concluded that the error analysis of the audio-recorded outputs, the analysis of the interpreting strategies used as well as the analysis of the notes taken and read during the process of consecutive interpreting indicate that the studied psycho-affective factors did not significantly influence the trainee interpreters’ performance during the consecutive interpreting test although sometimes their subjective experience and the statements about it may point otherwise.

5.7. Chapter 5 summary The basic goal of Chapter  5 was to present the results of the first case study carried out among the third-year part-time undergraduate trainee interpreters on their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors in consecutive interpreting. The study derived the research material from several sources – from the audio-recordings of the students’ target texts, from the students’ performance transcripts, on which various aspects of performance, including the errors made

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or the strategies used, were marked, from the notes taken by the test takers during the process of consecutive interpreting as well as from the retrospective protocols filled in immediately after the completion of the testing procedure. Overall, the triangulation of the data was used to capture the psycho-affectivity phenomena and their exponents more comprehensively. Thanks to such an approach to data collection and interpretation, it might be possible to state that the first case study participants’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors did not have a significant impact on the quality of the outputs since rather few errors of great gravity were detected. Moreover, the analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies showed that the most common strategy was omission which might have been dictated by some un- or subconscious choices made by the students who were then under the influence of the negatively affecting factors but the analysis of the notes did not reveal this particular negative activity of those factors. The answers given to the retrospective protocol questions are also rather scanty, which may lead to the conclusion that in this case study, the psycho-affective factors, albeit experienced to some extent, did not exert any substantial influence on the trainee interpreters while performing consecutive interpreting in the form of an in-class university-setting interpreting test.

Chapter 6: Case study 2 – regular undergraduate trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of the psychoaffective factors in consecutive interpreting Chapter 6 is devoted to the presentation of the outcomes of several analyses carried out within the frameworks of the second case study whose participants were the regular third-year undergraduate students pursuing the regular (i.e. with everyday participation in organised university-setting philological education) programme of English studies. The second case study follows the organisational pattern of the first case study and thus it starts with the outline of the methodological foundations of this case study, with particular attention paid to describing the second case study participants. The major part of this chapter focuses on four analyses:  the error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ audio-recorded outputs, the analysis of the major interpreting strategies which the students used while producing their consecutive interpretations and the analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes and the analysis of the data included in the students’ retrospective protocols on their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors. The analysis of those data is also supported by the observations made during the other three analyses. In such a way, there is an attempt at establishing some correlations between the linguistic and extra-linguistic behaviours observed in the trainee interpreters’ target texts and notes and their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors and their potential influence on the trainee interpreters’ performance.

6.1. Case study 2 methodology synopsis The study material was collected and interpreted in several ways. First of all, the trainee interpreters’ target texts were audio-recorded. Then, they were analysed in terms of correctness criteria (equivalence, grammar, vocabulary, phonetic quality and output delivery fluency) and all errors and extra-linguistic properties were marked on the performance transcripts. What is more, the analysis of the audiorecorded outputs allows to identify the interpreting strategies used by the students. Those two analyses are supplemented with the analysis of the notes which were interpreted with reference to the major note-taking principles. The final step of the second case study research procedure was the interpretation of the responses which the trainee interpreters had provided to the cued questions of the retrospective protocol which they had completed once they finished their consecutive

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interpreting test. The observed tendencies are additionally supported by selected quotes excerpted from those retrospective protocols. The triangulation in the form of the analyses of errors, strategies and notes plus the interpretation of the data on the students’ psycho-affectivity allows to identify those psycho-affective factors, the subjective experience of which might have had the greatest influence on the trainee interpreters while performing consecutive interpreting. As reiterated several times so far, it is believed that triangulation is perhaps one of the best ways of researching interpreting phenomena since it often leads to the presentation of the psycho-affective factors from at least several angles.

6.1.1. Case study 2 group description The group whose data form the research material in this case study consisted of 21 regular third-year undergraduate students of English at the University of Wrocław, Poland. Among them, there were fifteen female trainee interpreters and six male trainee interpreters, thereby confirming the fact of the feminisation of the interpreting profession as well of interpreting training. Like the first case study participants, the trainee interpreters from this group were the third-year students of English (in their fifth semester) so their command of English – the target language in the consecutive interpreting test situation – was assumed to be at the C1 level, or near that level, since C1 proficiency is the level which all students of the programme are expected to attain by the end of the six-semester studies. Such a high level of target language proficiency is expected to have contributed to the rather insignificant number of errors. It therefore remains to be seen in the error analysis whether it was indeed so. The course in interpreting which the students attended and during which the consecutive interpreting test, which generated the studied research material, was administered, was a non-obligatory elective course, which means that the trainee interpreters selected it themselves from among several courses on offer in the fifth semester. The thirty-hour course was composed of three major components:  (1) general introduction to interpreting; (2)  sight translation/interpreting practice; (3) consecutive interpreting (without and with note-taking) practice. Since it was the only interpreting course offered to the then regular third-year undergraduate students in the Institute of English Studies of the University of Wrocław, interpreting training lasted for only one semester, which may have had an impact on the trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors which may have been more of negative than positive nature, impeding in this way their interpreting performance. What is more, as presented in Chart 3, the majority of the trainee interpreters participating in the second case study declared that they had had no prior experience in consecutive interpreting and that they never participated in any interpreting training, with this course being the first and only element of such training. This of course could also have contributed to the more intense influence of the students’ psycho-affectivity on their performance. Three students declared

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that they had interpreted several times but this was rather informal occasional consecutive interpreting performed for the needs of communication in basic contexts. Those three trainee interpreters mentioned interpreting for friends or interpreting during travels as the instances of such occasional consecutive interpretation. It may also be assumed that because of the nature of such occasional interpreting, it was rather interrupted consecutive interpreting without notetaking with rather short source text fragments with little information density. Chart 3 presents the second case study participants’ distribution of their consecutive interpreting experience. several times: 3 students (14%)

only during university education: 18 students (86%)

Chart 3: Distribution of the second case study participants’ experience in consecutive interpreting.

Generally speaking, the group of the second case study participants can be characterised as having rather limited experience in consecutive interpreting, the most important element of which was the course during which they practised interpreting for the very first time and during which they took the test which ­generated the research material studied in the further parts of this chapter. This little prior experience is believed to have had a profound impact on how the trainee interpreters managed the activity of their psycho-affective factors and how those factors conditioned their consecutive interpreting performance.

6.1.2. Case study 2 testing situation description Like all the three tests in the three case studies, the second case study test, which provided the analysable linguistic and extra-linguistic material, was administered

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at the last classes of the course in interpreting in the classroom of the Institute of English Studies of the University of Wrocław, Poland. The test takers were first instructed on the test procedure and informed about no relevance of the data provided as their responses to the cued questions in the retrospective protocols to the final grade. It implies that in the assessment of the students’ performance, their answers were of no importance to the grade since the retrospective protocol was distributed to collect the research data and not to be the foundation for interpreting assessment. What is more, the students were additionally advised to take notes if they found it helpful. In fact, all of them jotted down some ideas which they later used in planning and delivering the outputs. Like the first case study test, the second case study in-class consecutive interpreting test had exactly the same form: the students selected the source text (with Polish being the source language); the instructor read it at a natural pace; the trainee interpreters listened to the input, taking notes; the students were then given some time to organise their target message and finally, they interpreted consecutively, using their notes. After the test, which was audio-recorded, the students were asked to fill in the retrospective protocol. The first questions of the retrospective protocol pertained to the trainee interpreters’ feelings before the test. As could have been expected, the students had quite many negative psycho-affective responses with their subjective experience of stress as the predominating factor. It resulted from the trainee interpreters’ insufficient experience in consecutive interpreting, the difficulty of the interpreting task, no knowledge of the topic of the source texts or lack of self-confidence in their skills of dealing with this type of interpretation, including note-taking skills. The following quotes illustrate the above-made statement:

• Great stress because consec is more difficult than sight translation. • I felt great stress. I was afraid of errors and mistakes. • I was stressed. I did not know how long the text would be and whether my way of taking notes would be sufficient. • I was very stressed. It was caused by listening to people who took the test before my turn. • Just before the test, when I was sitting in the classroom and waiting for my turn, I was lightly stressed. It was caused by the fact that I did not known the topic of the [source] text and whether I would manage to jot down important things. • Light stress. Nothing major. • Slight stress and anxiety related to the form of the test and also to the events before the test. I was uncertain about my competences and the possibility of making a fool of myself. • Stress caused my reluctance to take the test because it was a new situation and being evaluated brings about negative emotions. • Stress. I have no experience in interpreting of this kind. • Unlike the previous test, I was stressed because I had problems with this type of interpreting during classes. I am not satisfied with my short-term memory. It also had an influence.

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In fact, many of the above responses are also related to another psycho-affective factor which the trainee interpreters subjectively experienced before they started the testing procedure, i.e. anxiety. It thus shows that quite often stress and anxiety are interrelated, that anxiety can be the response to the stressing agent. The following excerpts shed some light on the students’ subjective experience of anxiety:



• A little bit of anxiety connected to the fact that I was taking a test and the group was listening to me. But I was less stressed than before the sight translation test. What calmed me down was the fact that I could take notes. • Anxiety and fright caused by lack of self-confidence. • I was nervous because I was anxious about the topic of the source text.

Some students admitted to having experienced no particularly strong emotions or even to having stayed rather calm. This may indicate their positive attitude to the test and to consecutive interpreting and may, at least partially, point to their well developed feature of stress resistance, so badly needed in the interpreter profession.



• Before the test I was calm and relaxed. • I was calm. I was not afraid. • I was indifferent – I knew I would pass it because it would be difficult not to and the exact grade was of little importance to me in comparison to all the years of professional development which are ahead of me. • I was quite calm, I know I could take notes and that the text would not be long. • In comparison to the previous test [sight translation/interpreting test], I was relaxed. • No stress. • No stress. I rarely become stressed.

Surprising as it may seem, one person declared that he/she was not stressed since he/she knew he/she would perform badly. Thus, what could be observed in this lack of confidence in the person’s skills and expertise (i.e. low intermediate self-esteem) is actually another psycho-affective factors – self-esteem.

• I was not stressed because I know I will not make it.

From the above discussion emerges that quite many second case study participants subjectively experienced stress and anxiety whereas relatively few of them approached the testing situation with calmness and relaxation. However, it is not surprising that the test evoked such a great deal of stress and anxiety since, generally speaking, people do not like being evaluated, which is what a test aims at, and consecutive interpreting itself is typically a stressful activity. During the test, the students’ feelings were mostly negative and there were several causes of such negative experience. First of all, quite many trainee interpreters declared that they were not able to take good notes since the input reading pace was too fast for them. Secondly, some students became even more stressed because of the inefficient cognitive resources, most notably lexical retrieval, memorisation, general concentration and attention span. Thirdly, some external circumstances,

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not related directly to the test, were also said to have contributed to the students’ increased levels of stress (e.g. their illnesses). Moreover, the subjective negative experience of stress was at times manifested in the way the test takers delivered their target texts. Some of them declared that they stammered, that their voice faltered. A selection of the quotes presents those issues.





• During the delivery, I felt great anxiety. I did not manage to jot everything down I was trying to move to the next issue very fast. • During the test I started to get stressed because I could not cope with taking notes. • During the test, while listening, I felt relaxed because the text was not so difficult but during target text production, I was seized with panic since I could not retrieve the word for “oczekuje” [“to expect”]. • I did not hear the first words because of my problems with my ear. I wanted to ask for repetition but I thought I should not. The text was easy but this beginning was a bit uncomfortable. • I felt horrible. I did not like the topic. I probably totally lost the sense of the source. • I felt very stressed. • I was anxious about whether I would be able to remember an appropriate amount of information in order to perform interpreting. • I was stressed and I could not concentrate as much as I would like. • I was stressed and weakened by my illness so my self-confidence and belief in my skills were weakened. • I was stressed because I could not keep pace with taking notes since – because of stress – I started to jot down full phrases. • My feelings are very bad. I was not able to keep pace with the person reading the source text. I had to patch the text a lot. I also did not catch the names of foreign companies. • Stress was increasing – the reading pace was quite fast and I think I will not exaggerate if I say that half of the information got lost. • When I heard the words and the topic which I do not know about, I became stressed and that is why I know that I did not really know what I would do. • With time, when I was listening to the input, I was more and more stressed because I did not keep pace with the notes. During interpretation I felt worse and worse because I did not know the words, I faltered and stammered.

Some trainee interpreters also stated that they did not experience much stress or any other negative psycho-affective responses to the testing situations. The major reason for this is the previous experience in taking interpreting tests which the students gained while taking a sight translation/interpreting test during the same course (at its earlier stage). This becomes evident in the following quotes:



• During the test I devoted little time to my feelings. For sure, it was a stressing experience. I do not feel I did well but I think it is normal in the situation in which you have little time for preparation. • I felt much more certain than in the first test. I was positively surprised that I was composed despite uncertainty.

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs



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• I felt positive. I felt that I would not get lost suddenly because I knew the topic. Even if I confused something, it was not to such an extent so as to distort the sense of the original. • It was better than previously but it was difficult to remember some words.

The above presentation of the trainee interpreters’ feelings before and during the consecutive interpreting test clearly shows that those psycho-affective responses were mostly negative. The major psycho-affective factor experienced in the testing situation was definitely stress whose linguistic and extra-linguistic manifestations could have had an impact on decreasing the general quality of the outputs produced. In the further parts of this chapter, an attempt is made to identify the linguistic and extra-linguistic areas affected by the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors as well as to ascertain whether stress was indeed the major psycho-affective agent responsible for having such a great adverse impact on the trainee interpreters’ performance quality.

6.2. Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs The error analysis of the second case study participants aims at identifying certain errors and other target text production irregularities with reference to five major assessment categories: (1) equivalence; (2) grammar; (3) vocabulary; (4) phonetic quality; (5) output delivery fluency. It is believed that at least some of the errors detected in the trainee interpreters’ outputs can result from the improper management of the psycho-affective factors which may be responsible for the decreased quality observed in the mistakes made or in the extra-linguistic obstructions of interpreting performance. The first category of errors includes the equivalence-related mistakes. Such mistakes often lead to the change or loss of the meaning of the source message. The following examples of equivalence errors have been identified (Tab. 16): Tab. 16: The second case study participants’ equivalence errors. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

(…) a to o ok. 0,4 mln więcej niż w 2013 r. – pisze „Rzeczpospolita”.

(…) which is about 0.4 million more than in 2013 – writes “Rzeczpospolita”.

(…) that is zero comma three more than in 2013.

(…) na korcie uzbierała już ponad 17 mln dol.

(…) she has already collected up till then, she earned over 17 million dollars in tennis. in total seventy million dollars.

(…) od 15 marca br. po (…) 17 Pendolino trains are to be kolejowych szlakach ma in operation from 15 March this jeździć 17 składów Pendolino, year, and 3 are to be a reserve. a 3 mają stanowić rezerwę.

With the start of new year it is planned to be fifteen trains and three [hesitation] in reserve. (continued on next page)

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Tab. 16: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

(…) ostatni tydzień stycznia prawdopodobnie może przynieść jeszcze pewne obniżki cen paliw, ale w kolejnych tygodniach będzie ich coraz mniej.

(…) the last week of January may bring some reductions in fuel prices, but in the following weeks, there will be fewer and fewer of them.

(…) but probably the prices of the petrol will not decrease anymore and they will probably be even higher from the last week of January.

(…) wynika z cytowanego przez gazetę raportu „Jak mobilizować dodatkowe oszczędności emerytalne”, opracowanego przez Stefana Kawalca, byłego wiceministra finansów, obecnie prezesa firmy doradczej Capital Strategy. Zgadzają się z tym inni eksperci. Np. prof. Leokadia Oręziak z Katedry Finansów Międzynarodowych Szkoły Głównej Handlowej.

(…) according to the report “How to mobilize additional retirement savings”, quoted by the newspaper, prepared by Stefan Kawalec, former deputy finance minister, currently the president of the advisory firm Capital Strategy. Other experts agree with this. For example, professor Leokadia Oręziak from the Department of International Finance at the Warsaw School of Economics.

According to Stanisław Kawalec and [silent pause] Leokadia [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: and other specialists] agrees [silent pause] with him.

Biuro jest także siedzibą Cisco Network Operations Center (NOC), jednej z trzech tego typu inwestycji firmy na świecie.

The office is also the headquarters of Cisco Network Operations Centre (NOC), one of the company’s three such investments in the world.

/tsiknou/ is the third biggest one concerning investments, in the country. This one is the third biggest in the city.

Choć Microsoft chwalił się, że będzie to platforma o wiele bardziej przyjazna firmom, a równocześnie będzie na tyle uniwersalna, by móc obsługiwać jednocześnie klasyczne pecety,

Although Microsoft boasted that it would be a much more business-friendly platform, and at the same time it would be universal enough to support classic PCs, tablets, smartphones, Xbox consoles as well as

Also it is sand that Microsoft will be more friendly and universal. It comes to be using it on tablets and [hesitation] smartphones.

tablety, smartfony, konsolę Xbox, a także urządzenia z kategorii „Internet of things”, najważniejszą wiadomością wydawał się powrót do systemu porzuconego w Windows 8 Menu Start.

the devices belonging to the category of the Internet of things, the most important news seemed to be the return to the system abandoned in Windows 8 – Start Menu.

Also coming back of Windows Eight when [silent pause] there is Menu Start.

Czy młody zarząd zdoła na dłużej tchnąć w nią energię, czy to tylko lekki lifting przed wyjściem funduszu z inwestycji?

Will the young management manage to breathe energy into it for a longer time, or is it just a slight lifting before the fund leaves the investment?

We don’t know if it will be just new breath of [silent pause] [repair: new br] [repair: new breath] or permanent lifting?

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Tab. 16: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Darmowy system operacyjny, jedna platforma dla komputerów i smartfonów, wirtualna rzeczywistość, 84-calowy ekran – Microsoft zaprezentował wraz z Windows 10 cały szereg produktów i rozwiązań, które pojawią się na rynku równolegle z nowym systemem.

Free operating system, one platform for computers and smartphones, virtual reality, 84-inch screen – Microsoft presented a whole range of products and solutions that will go with Windows 10 and which will appear on the market alongside the new system.

Free operational system, computers, smartphones and virtual reality come back in the operational system so called Microsoft Windows

Diverse musi szybko startować z roll-outem, skutecznie powiększać istniejącą sieć 230 sklepów, bo przez złe decyzje zmarnował zbyt wiele lat, by prezes zatrudniony do wypchnięcia spółki z dołka miał siedzieć w biurze z założonymi rękami.

Diverse has to start quickly with a roll-out, effectively enlarge the existing chain of 230 stores, because due to bad decisions it wasted too many years to have the president who was hired to push the company out of the doldrums to sit in the office with his hands put on.

Diverse has to [hesitation] help [filled pause: /ɪ/] its 2030 already existings [repair: existing] shops [filled pause: /ɪ/] to help itself in time of crisis.

Główna siedziba Tesco w Cheshunt w Hertfordshire zostanie zamknięta, a część pracowników uznanych za niezbędnych, zostanie przeniesiona do Welwyn Garden City.

Tesco’s headquarters in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire will be closed down and some of the staff deemed necessary will be transferred to Welwyn Garden City.

The company headquarters in Ceshunt, Hertfordshire, had been shut down and some of its employees are being transferred to Welwyn Garden City.

I wbrew stereotypom między miastem a wsią różnice w kwestii dostępności sieci są niewielkie – 75 do 70 proc. na korzyść mieszczuchów.

Contrary to the stereotypes, the differences in terms of network accessibility between the city and the countryside are small – 75 to 70 percent in favour of townspeople.

Despite the stereotypes, when compared the country to the city, it’s seventy per cent to seventy five.

Lewis nie ujawnił, jak decyzje Lewis did not reveal how these Lewis also said how it te przełożą się na poziom decisions would translate into the will affect the number zatrudnienia. level of employment. and the conditions of the employees. Mogła być już częścią odzieżowego imperium LPP, ale przez kryzys popadła w kłopoty finansowe.

It could already have been part of the LPP empire of clothing, but through the crisis it got into financial trouble.

Diverse could have been one of the greatest partners of LPP. (continued on next page)

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Tab. 16: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Może to dotyczyć w roku 2060 od 25 do nawet 50 proc. osób, które nie zdołają zgromadzić na swoich kontach w ZUS środków wystarczających do otrzymania najniższej emerytury i państwo będzie musiało dopłacić im do świadczeń.

In 2060, this may apply to from 25 to even 50% of people who will not be able to accumulate sufficient funds in their Social Insurance Institution accounts to receive the lowest pension and the state will have to pay them for benefits.

[filled pause: /ɪ/] in 2016 [repair: 2060] [filled pause: /ɪ/] it will be [filled pause: /ɪ/] 25 to [filled pause: /ɪ/] 50 per cent of salary. And [filled pause: /ɪ/] the government [filled pause: /ɪ/] will not be [repair: will not afford [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [repair: and the government will be obliged to [filled pause: /ɪ/] give money].

Na Internet wydajemy średnio ok. 60 zł miesięcznie, a łączne wydatki osób indywidualnych w skali roku wynoszą ok. 6,7 mld zł; w 2013 r. było to odpowiednio: 62 zł i 6,57 mld zł.

On average, we spend about PLN The average price of 60 per month on the Internet, and the Internet circulates the total annual expenditure of around sixty per month. individuals amounts to about PLN 6.7 billion; in 2013 it was: PLN 62 and PLN 6.57 billion, respectively.

Niemieckie regulacje uderzają The German regulations hit w polskie firmy transportowe, Polish transport companies, but ale cieszą związkowców. the trade unionists are happy.

The regulations hit Polish companies [repair: Polish transporting companies] but are very [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [repair: but the Union workers are very happy with them].

Nowe składy Pendolino mają kursować z Warszawy do Wrocławia, Krakowa i Katowic.

The new Pendolino trains are to run from Warsaw to Wrocław, Cracow and Katowice.

They are supposed to go from Warsaw to Wrocław and Cracow.

O2 jest obecnie drugim co do wielkości brytyjskim operatorem komórkowym

O2 is currently the second largest O2 is the second most UK mobile operator. popular mobile phone in United Kingdom.

Od 14 grudnia 2014 r., wraz z wejściem w życie nowego rozkładu jazdy, do eksploatacji włączono 15 składów Pendolino, z czego 9 wozi pasażerów, a 6 składów znajduje się w rezerwie.

From 14 December 2014, with the new timetable, 15 Pendolino trains have been put into operation, of which 9 carry passengers and 6 trains are in reserve.

There are fifteen trains and six in reserve.

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs

283

Tab. 16: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Od 15 lutego br. kolejne dwa składy Pendolino zaczną wozić pasażerów - powiedziała Beata Czemerajda z biura prasowego PKP Intercity.

From 15 February this year the other two Pendolino trains will start carrying passengers – said Beata Czemerajda from the press office of Intercity Polish Railways. The new Pendolino trains are to run from Warsaw to Wrocław, Cracow and Katowice.

Fifteenth February this year two trains Pendolino are planned to start – informs PKP Intercity director Beata Czeme [repair: Czeremejda].

Państwa zaniepokojone nowymi niemieckimi przepisami to oprócz Polski: Słowacja, Czechy, Węgry, Rumunia, Bułgaria, Słowenia, Chorwacja, Litwa, Estonia, Portugalia, Hiszpania i Irlandia.

In addition to Poland, the countries concerned about the new German legislation are Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia, Portugal, Spain and Ireland.

Other countries that are concerned [filled pause: /ɪ/] with this [filled pause: /ɪ/] problem are: [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] Czech Republic, Hungary, [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause], Portugal, Spain, [filled pause: /ɪ/] Italy, [silent pause] Bulgaria, [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] Slove [repair: Slovenia], [silent pause].

Pierwotnie od 14 grudnia na trasach miało się pojawić 17 składów, a 3 miały zostać w rezerwie. Ze względu na opóźnienia w dostarczaniu składów przez producenta – Alstom, PKP Intercity musiało zmniejszyć liczbę Pendolino na torach.

Originally, from 14 December, 17 trains were to appear on the routes and 3 were to remain in reserve. Due to delays in the delivery of the trains by the manufacturer Alstom, Intercity Polish Railways had to reduce the number of Pendolino trains in use.

On fourteenth December [filled pause: /ɪ/] it was planned to entered seventeen trains and [filled pause: /ɪ/] and three in the [hesitation] reserve but [filled pause: /ɪ/] because of [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] late of trains there were [repair: there was] need to raise amount of Pendolinos. (continued on next page)

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Case study 2

Tab. 16: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Premier obiecał obniżenie w tym roku niepopularnego podatku od nieruchomości oraz zmniejszenie podatku dochodowego od osób prawnych do 15 proc.

The Prime Minister promised to reduce the unpopular property tax this year and to reduce the corporate income tax to 15%.

The people who think Samaras is right decided that [filled pause: /ɛm/] the fees about estates would raise up to fifteen per cent.

Sieć supermarketów Tesco, największa w W. Brytanii poinformowała o planach zamknięcia 43 sklepów i wycofaniu się z zaplanowanych inwestycji w 49 dalszych. Firma chce też zmniejszyć koszty o 30 proc.

Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK, has announced plans to close 43 stores and withdraw from the planned investments in other 49. The company also wants to cut costs by 30%.

The company Tesco, which is the biggest in UK, is planning to close [filled pause: /ɪ/] forty two [filled pause: /ɪ/] shops [filled pause: /ɪ/] now and forty nine in the near future and [filled pause: /ɪ/] to lower their cost [filled pause: /ɪ/] to thirty per cent.

Urszula Cieślak z Refleksu zaznacza, że mija tydzień dużej zmienności cen ropy na świecie, a także na rynku walutowym.

Urszula Cieślak from Reflex points out that a week of high volatility of oil prices in the world and on the currency market is passing.

Urszula Cieślak from the centre in Łódź says [silent pause] that those [filled pause: /äm/] [repair: that those] changes [silent pause] [filled pause: /äm/] are caused not only by [silent pause] the changes in the world but also in the currency market.

W sobotę opublikowano trzy sondaże, z których wynika, że radykalna partia Syriza prowadzi przed partią premiera—konserwatywną Nową Demokracją (ND).

Three polls were published on Saturday, according to which the radical Syriza party is leading before the Prime Minister’s party, the conservative New Democracy (ND).

On Saturday [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛm/] [silent pause] conservative new democration [filled pause: /ɛm/] cut [filled pause: /ɛm/] the fees.

Według amerykańskiego „Forbesa” tylko między czerwcem 2013 a 2014 roku wzbogaciła się dzięki nim o 3 mln dolarów.

According to American “Forbes”, between June 2013 and 2014 alone, she earned 3 million dollars thanks to them.

According to „Forbes”, in two thou [repair: between] 2013 and 2014 she will have two millions dollars more.

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs

285

Tab. 16: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Według badania Głównego Urzędu Statystycznego komputer ma 9,7 mln gospodarstw domowych, czyli 77,1 proc. wszystkich.

According to a survey conducted by the Central Statistical Office, a computer is in 9.7 million households, i.e. 77.1% of all households.

nine comma seven [silent pause] households have a computer, that is seventy seven per cent of all the households.

What the above examples show is that the problems with maintaining equivalence between the source text and the target text are quite frequently related to the improper rendering of the numerical data. Sometimes the students included in their outputs the information which is missing from the input or which is contrary to the input data (e.g. the source text holds that there will be a decrease in petrol prices whereas the student’s target text presents those prices as being higher). The trainee interpreters also lost some input information, thereby distorting the sense of the original text. Such omissions have been identified in the target text fragments containing some proper names, names of institutions or countries. Generally speaking, equivalence-related problems seem to be the most frequent type of the test takers’ mistakes. The fact that some input information was not rendered in the target texts may be linked to the trainee interpreters’ inability to memorise, jot down and retrieve information. Obviously, such cognitive issues may stem from the negative activity of the psycho-affective factors which may hinder the processes of lexical retrieval and thus contribute to the non-rendering or improper rendering of some source text information. The next category of errors encompasses the grammatical errors. Since the students’ overall English language proficiency is at the C1 level, those mistakes definitely do not result from their unfamiliarity with the rules of English grammar. They may be linked to some problems with cognitive resources available at the time of performing the consecutive interpretation and those problems could have been triggered by some psycho-affective factors (e.g. by stress or anxiety). Thus, it is obvious that when relaxed, the students do not make the mistakes presented in Tab. 17: Tab. 17: The second case study participants’ grammatical errors. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

(…) by móc obsługiwać jednocześnie klasyczne pecety, tablety, smartfony, konsolę Xbox (…)

(…) to support classic PCs, tablets, smartphones, the Xbox console (…)

(…) it comes to be using it tablets and [hesitation] smartphones (…)

2010 rok

2010

the 2010 (continued on next page)

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Case study 2

Tab. 17: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

9,4 mln

nine point four million

nine point four millions of the people who has access [repair: who have access] to the Internet

Blisko 3/4 gospodarstw domowych ma dostęp do Internetu (…).

Nearly 3/4 of households have access to the Internet (…).

the majority of the Polish households has

Jak wynika z badań firmy Sociomantic Labs, najwięcej pieniędzy w sieci wydali w ubiegłym roku Brytyjczycy – 112 mld euro.

According to the research conducted by Sociomantic Labs, the British spent the most money on the Internet last year – EUR 112 billion.

According to Socialmont Labs, the most [repair: the biggest] amount of money spending online spend people from the Britain – it is above one hundred billion.

Jest jedną z dziesięciu najlepiej zarabiających sportsmenek świata.

She is one of the ten best earning She is the important through sportswomen in the world. the whole world sportsmen.

kolejny tydzień

another wee

the another week

obniżki cen na stacjach

price reductions at the petrol stations

prices of the petrol decreases

od 15 marca

from the 15th of March

from 15th of March

Pierwotnie od 14 grudnia na trasach miało się pojawić 17 składów, a 3 miały zostać w rezerwie.

Originally, from 14 December, 17 trains were to appear on the routes and 3 were to remain in reserve.

On 14 December [filled pause: /ɪ/] it was planned to entered 17 trains and [filled pause: /ɪ/] and 3 in the [hesitation] reserve (…)

Unia Europejska

the European Union

European Union

w Wielkiej Brytanii

in Great Britain/in the United Kindgom

in United Kingdom

Według amerykańskiego „Forbesa” tylko między czerwcem 2013 a 2014 roku wzbogaciła się dzięki nim o 3 mln dolarów.

According to American “Forbes”, between June 2013 and 2014 alone, she earned 3 million dollars thanks to them.

According to „Forbes”, in two thou [repair: between] 2013 and 2014 she will have two millions dollars more.

Zgadzają się z tym inni specjaliści.

Other experts agree with this.

Other specialists agrees [silent pause] with him.

The lexical errors constitute the next category of the mistakes identified in the course of the error analysis. The fact that the students made such mistakes may also be linked to the interference of their psycho-affectivity which might have hindered the proper use of the students’ lexical resources. Those psycho-affective

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs

287

factors therefore could have impeded some cognitive processes such as memorisation or lexical retrieval. What is more, some of those errors could also result from the fact that the trainee interpreters simply did not know the equivalent items, as is sometimes the case with professional interpreters who – in such situations – apply some coping tactics to render the sense of the original using other lexical items in the form of, for instance, periphrases. The following lexical errors have been recognised in the course of the error analysis (Tab. 18): Tab. 18: The second case study participants’ lexical errors. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

biuro maklerskie

brokerage house

currency center

biuro maklerskie

brokerage house

makler’s office

brutto

gross

brutto

konsumenci

consumers

consuments

demokracja

democracy

democration

dopłacić

pay part of the costs

give

opóźnienia w dostarczaniu składów

delays in the delivery of the trains

late of trains

podatek od nieruchomości

real estate tax/fix property tax

fees about estates

premier Grecji

prime minister of Greece

premier of Greece

producent

producer

producent

przedterminowe wybory parlamentarne

early parliamentary elections

pre-termed

sieć supermarketów Tesco

Tesco supermarket chain

the company Tesco

sportsmenka

sportswoman

sportsmen

transakcja

transaction

the terms of regulations

władze w Berlinie

authorise in Berlin

government of Berlin

wydatki

expenses

price

wyjaśnienie

explanation

investigation

wynagrodzenia i emerytury

wages and pensions

fees

zmniejszyć liczbę Pendolino

reduce the number of Pendolino trains

to raise amount of Pendolinos

związkowcy

trade unionists

Union workers

Some of the lexical errors indicate that the test takers tried to adapt the Polish words (e.g. “premier”, “producent”) to the English phonetic system since they were pronounced with the English sounds. Other mistakes show that the students made an effort to retrieve a given lexical item and, when unable to come

288

Case study 2

up with a correct equivalent, they decided to create the phrases which are absent from standard English, like, for instance, “late of trains”, “democration”. What is more, the words which can be classified as belonging to some specialised variety of English were also problematic, as is exemplified by the phrases “brutto” for “gross”, “fees about estates” for “real property tax” or “the terms of regulations” for “transaction”. Those errors also point to the interesting fact that under the rather negative influence of the psycho-affective factors, the students did make an attempt at retrieving words which could help them deal with the proper linguistic transfer rather than give up and leave the source text fragment not rendered at all. As regards the phonetic errors, there were just few of them and none of them influenced the comprehensibility of the target text. As emerges from the phonetic errors, they are not of great gravity and in most cases the wrong pronunciation still makes it possible to understand the words. Thus, those mistakes should be treated more like some slips of the tongue than serious errors resulting from the students’ improper mastery of standard English pronunciation. What also needs to be stressed here is that all the students managed to maintain consistency in using either British or American English. Tab. 19 groups the phonetic errors: Tab. 19: The second case study participants’ phonetic errors. Item

Standard English pronunciation

Target text

centre of attention, focus

/sentə ˈəv əˈtenʃ(ə)n/

/fəkəs/

confirm

/kənˈfɜːm/

/kən’fɪrm/

consist of

/kɒnsɪst/

/kənzɪst/

February

/febrʊ(ə)rɪ/

/feɪbrʊəri/

included

/ɪn’klu:dɪd/

/ɪnklʌdɪd/

litre

/liːtə/

/lɪtr/

lower

/leʊə/

/lu:wər/

success

/səkˈses/

/’sʊksəs/

Tesco

/teskəʊ/

/teskə/

Warsaw

/wɔːsɔː/

/wersoʊ/

world

/ˈwɜːld/

/wo:ld/

In the course of the error analysis of the phonetic quality of the target texts, one instance of phonetic repair was identified (Tab. 20). Although, generally speaking, there were many repairs (cf. the analysis of the trainee interpreters’ output delivery strategies), there was only one phonetic repair. It shows that the student was able to control his/her production in terms of pronunciation and, after hearing the improperly pronounced word, rectified it.

289

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs Tab. 20: The second case study participant’s attempt at repairing a phonetic error. Item litre

Standard English pronunciation

Target text First attempt

Repairs

/li:tə/

/lɪtr/

/lɪtə/

One serious area of the phonetic quality of the students’ outputs concerns the pronunciation of proper names. While it is, at least partially, understandable that new proper names, i.e. those which the trainee interpreters had not heard before, especially the English ones, might be genuine problem triggers, it is rather surprising to find that sometimes the names of geographical places are also mispronounced. One reason for that may lie in the students’ psycho-affective factors which may obstruct their ability to, first of all, comprehend and memorise and later, to retrieve and correctly pronounce the names, with which they are not familiar. As is commonly known, people experiencing some negative psychoaffective reactions are sometimes inhibited in their performance and that is why the trainee interpreters’ pronunciation of some of the proper names might have been inadequate. Such errors are presented in Tab. 21. Tab. 21: The second case study participants’ phonetic errors in proper names. Source text

Correct pronunciation

Target text

Beata Czemerajda

/beatə t∫eremeraɪdə/

/beatə t∫eremeɪdə/

Beata Czemerajda

/beatə t∫eremeraɪdə/

/beatə t∫emeraɪnə/

Bruksela

/brʌslz/

/brukselə/

Bułgaria

/bʌlgeərɪə/

/bulgarɪə/

Cisco

/sɪskəʊ/

/tsɪknoʊ/

Dave

/deɪv/

/deili/

Hutchison Whampoa

/hʌt∫ɪnsn wæmpoə/

/hʌt∫ɪnsn wæmboə/

Kraków

/krækov/, /krakəʊ/

/krækou/

Marcin Bielski

/mærtsɪn bjelski/

/martsin bjerski/

Słowenia

/slə’vi:niə/

/sləveniə/

Sociomantic

/səʊ∫ɪəʊ’mæntɪk/

/sou∫ɪelmont/

Workday

/wз:kdei/

Wordchain /wo:kt∫aɪn/

The final category of errors comprises all disfluencies (filled and silent pauses, hesitations etc.) which all together are part of the output delivery fluency (Tab. 22):

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Case study 2

Tab. 22: The second case study participants’ output delivery disfluencies. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

„Nie będzie żadnych dalszych cięć wynagrodzeń i emerytur. Kolejny przełom w naszym planie wzrostu gospodarczego to między innymi ogólne obniżki podatków, które mogą nastąpić stopniowo, krok za krokiem” – powiedział Samaras na spotkaniu z członkami i zwolennikami swej partii.

“There will be no further They decided to raise [filled cuts in salaries and pensions. pause: /ɛm/] [silent pause] Another breakthrough in our fees. growth plan includes general tax cuts, which can be made gradually, step by step” – said Samaras at a meeting with members and supporters of his party.

„Zwyczajnie nie stać nas na działalność w takim zakresie, jak dotychczas” – powiedział mediom. „Tesco to wspaniała firma, która znalazła się pod silną finansową presją. Usiłujemy ożywić jej model i sprostać finansowym wyzwaniom” – zaznaczył.

The new CEO, Tesco Dave Lewis, has announced the plans. “We simply cannot afford to do business as much as we have done so far” – he said to the media. “Tesco is a great company under strong financial pressure. We are trying to revive its model and meet the financial challenges” – he indicated.

Daily [repair: David] Lewis said that Tesco is a great company that is under the great financial pressure and [filled pause: /ɪ/] it will be [silent pause] passing [fading voice] the employees to Willow Garden City

25 stycznia odbędą się w Grecji Early parliamentary elections On twenty-fifth of January he przedterminowe wybory will take place in Greece on [filled pause: /ɛm/] [silent parlamentarne. 25 January. pause] pre-termed [filled pause: /ɛm/] [silent pause]. Czy młody zarząd zdoła na dłużej tchnąć w nią energię, czy to tylko lekki lifting przed wyjściem funduszu z inwestycji?

Will the young management manage to breathe energy into it for a longer time, or is it just a slight lifting before the fund leaves the investment?

We don’t know if it will be just new breath of [silent pause] [repair: new br] [repair: new breath] or permanent lifting?

Do ścisłej tenisowej czołówki dołączyła w 2008 roku i od tego czasu każdego roku wzbogaca się o ponad 1 mln dolarów (na korcie uzbierała już ponad 17 mln dol.).

She joined the top tennis players in 2008 and since then has earned over 1 million dollars each year (she has already collected over 17 million dollars in tennis).

She [filled pause: /ɛ/] [repair: she was] in 2008 in the [filled pause: /ɛ/] most important [filled pause: /ɛm/] [repair: on the most] [repair: on the list of the most important sportsmen] [filled pause: /ɛ/] and she earned one million of dollars and on her account we’ve got [repair: she’s got] seventeen million dollars.

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs

291

Tab. 22: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Ich przedstawiciele spotkali się w piątek w Brukseli z urzędnikami dyrekcji generalnych Komisji Europejskiej ds. transportu i ds. zdrowia.

Their representatives met on Friday in Brussels with officials from the European Commission’s DirectoratesGeneral for Transport and Health.

On Friday at [repair: in] Bruksela they me [silent pause] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/].

Jak poinformowano po spotkaniu, w jego trakcie padł m.in. postulat, by stosowanie budzących kontrowersje niemieckich przepisów zostało zawieszone do czasu wyjaśnienia, czy są one zgodne z prawem UE.

As informed after the meeting, during the meeting, among other things, there was a postulate that the application of the controversial German legislation be suspended until it is clarified whether they are compatible with the EU law.

The countries [filled pause: /ɪ/] want to postulate [filled pause: /ɪ/] to stop the [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: stop the] German laws till the investigation [filled pause: /ɪ/] to be able to tell [filled pause: /ɪ/] if they [repair: if they are] legal and they want to confirm that [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: they want to confirm] that [silent pause] they are [silent pause] [silent pause].

Może to dotyczyć w roku 2060 od 25 do nawet 50 proc. osób, które nie zdołają zgromadzić na swoich kontach w ZUS środków wystarczających do otrzymania najniższej emerytury i państwo będzie musiało dopłacić im do świadczeń.

In 2060, this may apply to from 25 to even 50% of people who will not be able to accumulate sufficient funds in their Social Insurance Institution accounts to receive the lowest pension and the state will have to pay them for benefits.

[filled pause: /ɪ/] in 2016 [repair: 2060] [filled pause: /ɪ/] it will be [filled pause: /ɪ/] twenty five to [filled pause: /ɪ/] fifty per cent of salary. And [filled pause: /ɪ/] the government [filled pause: /ɪ/] will not be [repair: will not afford [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [repair: and the government will be obliged to [filled pause: /ɪ/] give money].

Niemieckie regulacje uderzają The German regulations hit w polskie firmy transportowe, Polish transport companies, ale cieszą związkowców. but the trade unionists are happy.

The companies who have [repair: who are having] transport services are not so [filled pause: /ɛr/] [repair: not so happy] about that in the [repair: but drivers are]. (continued  on next page)

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Case study 2

Tab. 22: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Od 15 lutego br. kolejne dwa From 15 February this year składy Pendolino zaczną wozić the other two Pendolino trains pasażerów (…). will start carrying passengers (…).

Since [filled pause: /ɪ/] the fifteenth of February [filled pause: /ɪ/] there are used two [filled pause: /ɛm/] Pendolino trains.

Od tak ważnego przyjaciela, jakim są Niemcy, oczekiwałabym europejskiej solidarności oraz respektowania zasad jednolitego rynku w Unii Europejskiej – mówiła premier Ewa Kopacz nt. sytuacji polskich przewoźników w związku z nowymi przepisami o płacy minimalnej w Niemczech.

From such an important friend as Germany I would expect European solidarity and respect for the principles of the single market in the European Union – said Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz about the situation of Polish carriers in connection with the new minimum wage regulations in Germany.

Ewa Kopacz spoke about [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] transporting between [filled pause: /ɪ/] countries of the Union and said that she expected solidarity [silent pause] and equality.

Od tak ważnego przyjaciela, jakim są Niemcy, oczekiwałabym europejskiej solidarności oraz respektowania zasad jednolitego rynku w Unii Europejskiej – mówiła premier Ewa Kopacz nt. sytuacji polskich przewoźników w związku z nowymi przepisami o płacy minimalnej w Niemczech.

From such an important friend as Germany I would expect European solidarity and respect for the principles of the single market in the European Union – said Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz about the situation of Polish carriers in connection with the new minimum wage regulations in Germany.

I suppose our [throat clearing] our neighbours Germany and [filled pause: /ɛm/] we Poland will have the [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛm/] European [silent pause] sol [faltering voice] [repair: solidarity] [filled pause: /ɛm/] in [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛm/] market [filled pause: /ɛm/] which is [silent pause] [repair: in the market of transport service].

Pierwotnie od 14 grudnia na trasach miało się pojawić 17 składów, a 3 miały zostać w rezerwie. Ze względu na opóźnienia w dostarczaniu składów przez producenta – Alstom, PKP Intercity musiało zmniejszyć liczbę Pendolino na torach.

Originally, from 14 December, 17 trains were to appear on the routes and 3 were to remain in reserve. Due to delays in the delivery of the trains by the manufacturer Alstom, Intercity Polish Railways had to reduce the number of Pendolino trains in use.

[filled pause: /ɪ/] The [filled pause: /ɪ/] first plan was to have seventeen trains and two in reserve but [filled pause: /ɪ/] unfortunately [filled pause: /ɪ/] because of the [filled pause: lip smacking] delay on the side of the producer, there are [repair: now] there are [filled pause: lip smacking] fifteen [repair: seventeen]

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Tab. 22: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Jak powiedziała Czemerajda, od 15 marca br. po kolejowych szlakach ma jeździć 17 składów Pendolino, a 3 mają stanowić rezerwę

As Czemerajda said, 17 Pendolino trains are to be in operation from 15 March this year, and 3 are to be a reserve.

trains and three in reserve [filled pause: /ɪ/] which are supposed to [filled pause: /ɪ /] be for use from fifteenth of March [filled pause: something like that].

Pierwotnie od 14 grudnia na trasach miało się pojawić 17 składów, a 3 miały zostać w rezerwie. Ze względu na opóźnienia w dostarczaniu składów przez producenta – Alstom, PKP Intercity musiało zmniejszyć liczbę Pendolino na torach.

Originally, from 14 December, 17 trains were to appear on the routes and 3 were to remain in reserve. Due to delays in the delivery of the trains by the manufacturer Alstom, Intercity Polish Railways had to reduce the number of Pendolino trains in use.

On fourteenth December [filled pause: /ɪ/] it was planned to entered seventeen trains and [filled pause: /ɪ/] and three in the [hesitation] reserve but [filled pause: //] because of [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] late of trains there were [repair: there was] need to raise amount of Pendolinos.

Podobna sytuacja miała bowiem miejsce w Irlandii, gdzie również liczba głównych graczy rynkowych zmniejszyła się z czterech do trzech.

A similar situation occurred in Ireland, where the number of major market players also decreased from four to three.

As [filled pause: /ɪ/] in Ireland, [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] United Kingdom want to help [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: wants to] decrease the number of the companies from four to three, just as Ireland did. [filled pause: /ɪ/] That [repair: therefore] Hutchinson Whampoa thinks that it is very possible that European Union and the council will accept the terms of the contract regulations.

Sieć supermarketów Tesco, największa w W. Brytanii poinformowała o planach zamknięcia 43 sklepów i wycofaniu się z zaplanowanych inwestycji w 49 dalszych. Firma chce też zmniejszyć koszty o 30 proc.

Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK, has announced plans to close 43 stores and withdraw from the planned investments in other 49. The company also wants to cut costs by 30%.

The company Tesco, which is the biggest in UK, is planning to close [filled pause: /ɪ/] forty two [filled pause: /ɪ/] shops [filled pause: /ɪ/] now and forty nine in the near future and [filled pause: /ɪ/] to lower their cost [filled pause: /ɪ/] to thirty per cent. (continued on next page)

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Tab. 22: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Transakcja musiałaby uzyskać zgodę zarówno brytyjskich jak i unijnych urzędów antymonopolowych. Według Hutchison Whampoa jest to jednak realne. Podobna sytuacja miała bowiem miejsce w Irlandii, gdzie również liczba głównych graczy rynkowych zmniejszyła się z czterech do trzech.

The transaction would need the approval of both UK and EU antitrust authorities. However, according to Hutchison Whampoa, this is realistic. A similar situation occurred in Ireland, where the number of major market players also decreased from four to three.

[silent pause] Contract must be accepted [filled pause: /är/] however, there are some speculations that [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: that] [repair: that] [repair: that the] agreement will not be reached. However, [filled pause: /är/] Hutchison Whampoa thinks it’s real, that [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] European Union will accept the terms of regulations.

Trzynaście państw UE, w tym Polska, ma zastrzeżenia do nowych niemieckich przepisów ws. płacy minimalnej, obejmującej także zagranicznych kierowców. Na piątkowym spotkaniu w Brukseli kraje te zaapelowały o zawieszenie stosowania tych przepisów.

Thirteen EU countries, including Poland, have reservations about the new German minimum wage regulations, which also concern foreign drivers. At a meeting in Brussels on Friday, these countries called for the suspension of these rules.

Thirteen countries of European Union, including Poland, [filled pause: /ɪ/] have met [filled pause: /ɪ/] in [filled pause: /ɪ/] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: have met in] Bruksela, [filled pause: /ɪ/] at [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: on] Friday. [filled pause: /ɪ/] They are concerned about [filled pause: /ɪ/] German laws [filled pause: /ɪ/] that [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: about minimal payment] which [filled pause: /ɪ/] is connected to drivers. [filled pause: /ɪ/] They want to suspend these laws.

W sobotę opublikowano trzy sondaże, z których wynika, że radykalna partia Syriza prowadzi przed partią premiera – konserwatywną Nową Demokracją (ND).

Three polls were published on Saturday, according to which the radical Syriza party is leading before the Prime Minister’s party, the conservative New Democracy (ND).

On Saturday [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛm/] [silent pause] conservative new democration [filled pause: /em/] cut [filled pause: /ɛm/] the fees.

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It appears that the students’ target texts contain quite many disfluencies whose origin may be sought in the negative impact the psycho-affective factors could have had on their performance. Some students tend to use disfluencies quite frequently, which is sometimes an indicator of their target text production without planning. This implies that when encountering a lexical problem, they unconsciously utter some vowels (usually the Polish vowels) or become silent for a while as if to give themselves more time for lexical retrieval or planning. The frequent disfluencies can also be treated as the exponents of some psycho-affective factors such as, for instance, stress or language inhibition, which may obstruct the smooth and fluent production of the output. The table below presents a big number of the disfluencies identified in the students’ audio-recorded texts. What predominates is the filled pauses – the majority of the test takers tend to “insert” Polish vowels whereas relatively fewer of them fill such pauses with English vowels. Silent pauses have also been detected. Hesitations and other voice quality properties (e.g. faltering voice, lip smacking) are marginal. On the whole, the two most frequent types of errors are those related to rendering the sense of the source text (i.e. equivalence-related errors) and those linked to obstructed target text delivery fluency. It appears that the test takers quite often left some important input information not rendered or changed the meaning, thereby producing the output which was semantically different from the input. Output delivery fluency was also repeatedly distorted since some trainee interpreters tended to fill the pauses with vowels. Both, the equivalence-related and delivery fluency-related mistakes may point to some influence of the negative activity of the test takers’ psycho-affectivity. It remains to be seen whether the students’ answers to the cued questions of the retrospective protocol will substantiate this tentative assumption that at least some of those errors result from the impact of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affective factors. What could also be of interest in the error analysis is the students’ selfperception and self-evaluation of their performance. The information about how the trainee interpreters’ assessed their performance can be derived from the general part of the retrospective protocol. The great majority of the students self-assessed their performance as rather weak. In fact, in quite many instances, the number of various types of errors was indeed rather big and the trainee interpreters, having a good command of the target language at more or less the C1 level, realised that they had made numerous mistakes and did not always manage to render the sense of the source message. Among the errors they themselves identified were the improper rendering of numerical data, equivalence-related errors (i.e. omissions) or output delivery fluency errors. Thus, their assessment is partially substantiated by the above error analysis. The following set of quotes excerpted from the retrospective protocols presents the students’ critical opinions of their performance: • I am not satisfied with my interpretation. There were no good points of it. • I am not satisfied. In the middle of the text, I did not manage to get some of the numerical information and that is why I decided to omit one of those aspects. • I assess it to be bad because I had to make many pauses and I got lost.

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• I assess my interpreting as a very bad one. It seems to me that I was good at nothing. • I assess my interpreting to be very meagre. I managed to remember quite a lot but it was difficult for me to create a logical whole of the text. • I think it was bad. It concerns not only grammar or pronunciation but also vocabulary and the topic about which I am not knowledgeable. • It could have been better – especially in terms of grammar. • It did not turn out to be very good. I omitted some data, but I think I rendered the most important information, i.e. numbers. I mean, I did not render surnames but only numbers. • It was bad. During classes, it was better. The topic was also difficult, lots of information of which I do not have any idea. • It was poor. I did not stammer and spoke fluently but I did not say everything. There is also a chance that I confused numbers. • Poor – I omitted a lot of information, I changed the sense. Actually, I did not even remember what was in the source text because I did not have time to understand it. • So-so. Fluency was on a good level. Transferring information – on a poor level. • That interpretation did not belong to the best ones. I think I was the best at writing the data and the worst at interpreting them and combining information. • The interpretation was not the best. I was too anxious. What was the best is, in my opinion, the form of the expression. Unfortunately, I often stumbled.

However, some trainee interpreters were not so critical in their self-assessment and saw some positive aspects of their performance during the in-class consecutive interpreting test. Some of them seemed to be satisfied with the way, in which they handled the transfer of the most important information of the input; others – with their linguistic correctness (i.e. grammar), yet others – with the fluency of delivery. The following quotes bring those aspects to light: • Good coherence. Orientation and vocabulary – weaker. • Good:  the numerical data. Worse:  not much varied vocabulary and not really English grammar. • I assess it to be of average quality. The weakest aspect: notes. The best aspect: patching what I managed to remember and read [from the notes]. But it was also of average quality. • I assess my interpretation as satisfactory but not the best. Halfway across the text, I got a little bit lost so it is possible I cut some sentences. Concentration was the worst. I think I made it up a bit by maintaining the sense of the text. • My interpretation was quite fluent and it transferred the meaning. At the end I  did not pay attention to tenses and I  did not even know whether something had already happened or would happen but it did not have any consequences for the text. • The construction of the sentences was correct but I  managed to render only the most essential information. • What was good was moderate fluency. What was weaker was rendering the whole of the content – omission of some parts.

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It is also interesting to look at the linguistic and extra-linguistic aspects of the trainee interpreters’ performance which they themselves perceived to be the most deficient and thus incorrect. What the quotes below clearly show is that the trainee interpreters’ perceived problems are related to two major categories – they were output delivery fluency problems as well as lexical problems manifesting themselves in the equivalence-related and lexical errors. The following selection of quotes taken from the students’ responses point to some defects in fluency and vocabulary: • Fluency – because I did not know words, I had to paraphrase. • Fluency  – the attempt to “weave” a sensible utterance was problematic. While taking notes, the information escaped my attention. So the major problem was to create a coherent utterance because the sense was more or less rendered but I faltered and created very simple sentences. • Fluency and vocabulary – no experience and stress. So, the production of the target text was problematic. • I think that the major problems concerned vocabulary. • Pronunciation (sore throat and runny nose) resulting from my illness and stress, and fluency. • The greatest problems that I had were with general vocabulary. I think it may result from the speed of the test. • Vocabulary – no time to think, fluency. • Vocabulary and I  stammered because I  could not build meaningful sentences. Moreover, the production of the text on the basis of notes was difficult because there were few notes, they were chaotic and the text itself had a difficult topic. • Vocabulary and notes. • Vocabulary, to which I paid too much attention and that is why I did not think about grammar. Moreover, the longer I was thinking, the worse synonyms came to my mind.

Some students were more specific about their lexical deficits and claimed that some specialised terms turned out to be difficult to render in the target language since they did not know their correct equivalents. The quotes below support this statement:

• General and specialised vocabulary. I think I cannot function under stress and such time pressure. • I had problems with vocabulary because I am not interested in technology. • Specialised vocabulary, for instance “biuro maklerskie” [“brokerage house”]. • Specialised vocabulary. Stress caused that I forgot words. • Vocabulary – “spółka” [“company”] etc.

What is interesting, several responses pertain to the students’ note-taking styles, the aspect not touched by the students who participated in the first case study. Thus, the second case study participants realised that the potential source of their problems observed in performing consecutive interpreting was their notetaking techniques. The following quotes demonstrate that the students did not use symbols but longer phrases, that some of the trainee interpreters could not read

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their notes and that the notes taken in the source language could have triggered some problems:

• My greatest problem was with noting down proper names and – at the same time – the times referring to the events. • My notes were in Polish and when I  was preparing for interpreting, I  had the problems of retrieving the English equivalents. So, the majority of problems were those in target text production. I think my notes were not sufficient enough. • Problems with notes. Too fast a pace complicated my interpretation. • The greatest problem that I  had was with lack of some notes, which resulted in pauses. • The note-taking style – instead of key words, I noted down the entire phrases and because of this, much information escaped. Additionally, I wrote unclearly and it was difficult for me to read my handwriting (hurry + stress). • The problem was my calligraphy. I have to learn to write by means of symbols. I try to abbreviate words but later I cannot read them. My memory, calligraphy, accent, taking notes (organisation and calligraphy) result from the fact that consecutive interpreting is difficult and I have to practise a lot and the in-class practice was far too little. • While interpreting, I had a problem with target text production because I took notes in the Polish language.

Another source of the trainee interpreters’ problems which they experienced during the interpreting process was the comprehension of the input. The students realised that, because of inadequate comprehension, they were not able to render the entire sense of the original, which in turn resulted in quite frequent omissions. Such conclusions can be drawn from the following selection of quotes:



• The comprehension of the source text – it was specialised, it was given quite fast. In production, I did not really know what I was supposed to render. • Understanding the first words – I did not hear them. I retained information rather weakly. • Understanding the source text was a problem and the production of the target text was worse because some words escaped my memory and then I thought about the content of the text. • Understanding the text. I omitted some facts which were in the source.

Likewise, some trainee interpreters clearly stated that output production itself turned out to be a challenge since they did not manage to retain and later to retrieve the source text information and thus transferring the meaning of the original was not an easy task. Such views emerge from the following quotes:

• I lost a few last sentences because my concentration faded but I think I transferred the sense of the text. • I think I had problems with the production of the target text because of stress and insufficient skills. • Rendering the sense was a problem.

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• Target text production and rendering the sense were difficult. I think it results from my weak memory and lack of concentration. • The greatest problem was in the fast retrieval of a given word and production of the target text. • The production of the complete target text without omitting all the information was difficult. • The production of the target text was difficult, as was combining the text into a whole. I thought too much about the selection of words, which resulted in fluency and production problems.

In view of the rather big number of various types of errors, only two trainee interpreters claimed that they did not experience any problems in the course of the consecutive interpreting process. Two such quotes have been excerpted from the retrospective protocols:

• In, fact no major problems. • There were no linguistic problems.

As indicated in some of the excerpts from the students’ retrospective protocols, in quite many cases the trainee interpreters attributed their self-perceived worse consecutive interpreting performance to the activity of the psycho-affective factors, mostly to stress. One trainee interpreter could not specify the errors but, nevertheless, he/she saw their origin in his/her experience of stress.

• If there were some linguistic errors, they resulted most probably from stress. I could not remember the source text – my short-term memory is not properly trained.

The error analysis of the five major areas of performance – equivalence, grammar, vocabulary, phonetic quality and output delivery fluency – has demonstrated that the trainee interpreters’ performance was deficient in several ways. First of all, the students omitted the source text information. Secondly, while it is true that in fact, grammar was not such a major deficient area, there were some ungrammatical elements which sometimes might hinder proper output comprehension. Thirdly, the retrieval, use and selection of proper lexical items also turned out to be challenging since several students not only did not know the adequate equivalent but also experienced retrieval problems which ultimately led to the decreased output delivery fluency, with many pauses. What is more, specialised vocabulary was often a challenge which not all trainee interpreters were able to confront. The phonetic quality of the outputs was rather good and the few mistakes identified in the course of the analysis were rather insignificant for the proper understanding of the students’ outputs. What was the real problem triggers was the proper names of people, companies and other institutions which some trainee interpreters failed to render. Finally, the test takers’ target texts were delivered with many silent and filled pauses and hesitations. Especially the filled pauses are more perceptible since they were filled with prolonged vowels. Generally speaking, it may be postulated that the deficiencies enumerated by the trainee interpreters themselves are in line with the findings of the error

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analysis and already at this stage of the study it is evident that at least some of the problems which the students had while delivering their consecutive interpreting outputs were caused by the psycho-affective factors. It remains to be seen which factors had a negative influence resulting in the errors. This issue is addressed in the further part of this chapter.

6.3. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ output delivery strategies Another important analysis of the second case study participants’ target text production involves the examination of a variety of the interpreting strategies which the trainee interpreters used while performing consecutive interpreting in the in-class university-setting consecutive interpreting test. Like the first case study participants, those students used the strategies identified in the course of the strategy analysis probably not because it was their conscious choice to render a given source text fragment in the target language by means of a specific strategy but rather they needed a way to deal with an emerging problem of not knowing an equivalent lexical item, not being able to retrieve some information, not being able to render the entirety of the input fragment meaning or not being able to decipher the information from the notes. Thus, to bridge some of such comprehension gaps, they made use of the first solution that came to their mind. As remarked earlier, there were quite a few equivalence-related errors resulting in omissions (Tab. 23). Thus, in the majority of cases, the use of the omission strategy was definitely not a conscious choice but rather an ad hoc solution to the students’ problem of not being able to render the entirety of the source text meaning. Therefore, when bridging the comprehension gap was not possible, the trainee interpreters resorted to omitting some information, exploiting in this way the omission strategy. Tab. 23: The second case study participants’ use of the omission strategy. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

„Zwyczajnie nie stać nas na działalność w takim zakresie, jak dotychczas” – powiedział mediom. „Tesco to wspaniała firma, która znalazła się pod silną finansową presją. Usiłujemy ożywić jej model i sprostać finansowym wyzwaniom” zaznaczył.

“We simply cannot afford to do business as much as we have done so far” – he said to the media. “Tesco is a great company under strong financial pressure. We are trying to revive its model and meet the financial challenges” – he indicated.

Daily [repair: David] Lewis said that Tesco is a great company that is under the great financial pressure.

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Tab. 23: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

(…) wynika z cytowanego przez gazetę raportu „Jak mobilizować dodatkowe oszczędności emerytalne”, opracowanego przez Stefana Kawalca, byłego wiceministra finansów, obecnie prezesa firmy doradczej Capital Strategy. Zgadzają się z tym inni eksperci. Np. prof. Leokadia Oręziak z Katedry Finansów Międzynarodowych Szkoły Głównej Handlowej.

(…) according to the report “How to mobilize additional retirement savings”‘ quoted by the newspaper, prepared by Stefan Kawalec, former deputy finance minister, currently the president of the advisory firm Capital Strategy. Other experts agree with this. For example, professor Leokadia Oręziak from the Department of International Finance at the Warsaw School of Economics.

According to Stanisław Kawalec and [silent pause] Leokadia [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: and other specialists] agrees [silent pause] with him.

Choć Microsoft chwalił się, że będzie to platforma o wiele bardziej przyjazna firmom, a równocześnie będzie na tyle uniwersalna, by móc obsługiwać jednocześnie klasyczne pecety, tablety, smartfony, konsolę Xbox, a także urządzenia z kategorii „Internet of things”, najważniejszą wiadomością wydawał się powrót do systemu porzuconego w Windows 8 Menu Start.

Although Microsoft boasted that it would be a much more business-friendly platform, and at the same time it would be universal enough to support classic PCs, tablets, smartphones, the Xbox console as well as the devices belonging to the category of the Internet of things, the most important news seemed to be the return to the system abandoned in Windows 8 – Start Menu.

Also it is sand that Microsoft will be more friendly and universal. It comes to be using it on tablets and [hesitation] smartphones. Also coming back of Windows Eight when [silent pause] there is Menu Start.

Darmowy system operacyjny, jedna platforma dla komputerów i smartfonów, wirtualna rzeczywistość, 84-calowy ekran – Microsoft zaprezentował wraz z Windows 10 cały szereg produktów i rozwiązań, które pojawią się na rynku równolegle z nowym systemem.

Free operating system, one platform for computers and smartphones, virtual reality, 84-inch screen – Microsoft presented a whole range of products and solutions that will go with Windows 10 and which will appear on the market alongside the new system.

Free operational system, computers, smartphones and virtual reality come back in the operational system so called Microsoft Windows

(continued on next page)

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Tab. 23: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Mówiąc o polityce firmy, w której centrum stoi klient, nie sposób nie używać oczywistych stwierdzeń. W przypadku MetLife mają one jednak własną treść i znaczenie – mówi Agata LemKulig. Orientacja na Klienta, bo taką nazwę nosi filozofia działania firmy, jest oparta na uważnym słuchaniu opinii klientów.

When talking about the policy of a company where the customer is at the centre, it is impossible not to use obvious statements. In the case of MetLife, however, they have their own content and meaning, says Agata Lem-Kulig. Customer orientation, which is the name of the company’s philosophy, is based on listening carefully to customers’ opinions.

We are not focusing on obvious statements but rather on our philosophy which is [repair: consists of] good listening and main [repair: its main] priority in our company. It is the basis of our marketing plan and [filled pause: /ɪ/] this is what we most focus on – the client.

Na Internet wydajemy średnio ok. 60 zł miesięcznie, a łączne wydatki osób indywidualnych w skali roku wynoszą ok. 6,7 mld zł; w 2013 r. było to odpowiednio: 62 zł i 6,57 mld zł.

On average, we spend about PLN The average price of 60 per month on the Internet, and the Internet circulates the total annual expenditure of around 60 per month. individuals amounts to about PLN 6.7 billion; in 2013 it was: PLN 62 and PLN 6.57 billion, respectively.

Nowe składy Pendolino mają kursować z Warszawy do Wrocławia, Krakowa i Katowic.

The new Pendolino trains are to run from Warsaw to Wrocław, Cracow and Katowice.

Od 14 grudnia 2014 r., wraz z wejściem w życie nowego rozkładu jazdy, do eksploatacji włączono 15 składów Pendolino, z czego 9 wozi pasażerów, a 6 składów znajduje się w rezerwie.

From 14 December 2014, with the There are fifteen trains new timetable, 15 Pendolino trains and six in reserve. have been put into operation, of which 9 carry passengers and 6 trains are in reserve.

Od 14 grudnia 2014 r., wraz z wejściem w życie nowego rozkładu jazdy, do eksploatacji włączono 15 składów Pendolino, z czego 9 wozi pasażerów, a 6 składów znajduje się w rezerwie.

From 14 December 2014, with the new timetable, 15 Pendolino trains have been put into operation, of which 9 carry passengers and 6 trains are in reserve.

In December 2014 was new schedule of trains. They were included fifteen train Pendolino.

Od tak ważnego przyjaciela, jakim są Niemcy, oczekiwałabym europejskiej solidarności oraz respektowania zasad jednolitego rynku w Unii Europejskiej – mówiła premier Ewa Kopacz nt. sytuacji polskich przewoźników w związku z nowymi przepisami o płacy minimalnej w Niemczech.

From such an important friend as Germany I would expect European solidarity and respect for the principles of the single market in the European Union – said Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz about the situation of Polish carriers in connection with the new minimum wage regulations in Germany.

Ewa Kopacz spoke about [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] transporting between [filled pause: /ɪ/] countries of the Union and said that she expected solidarity [silent pause] and equality.

There are some new trains from Warsaw to Wrocław and Katowice.

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Tab. 23: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Od tak ważnego przyjaciela, jakim są Niemcy, oczekiwałabym europejskiej solidarności oraz respektowania zasad jednolitego rynku w Unii Europejskiej – mówiła premier Ewa Kopacz nt. sytuacji polskich przewoźników w związku z nowymi przepisami o płacy minimalnej w Niemczech.

From such an important friend as Germany I would expect European solidarity and respect for the principles of the single market in the European Union – said Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz about the situation of Polish carriers in connection with the new minimum wage regulations in Germany.

I suppose our [throat clearing] our neighbours Germany and [filled pause: /ɛm/] we Poland will have the [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛm /] European [silent pause] sol [faltering voice] [repair: solidarity] [filled pause: /ɛm/] in [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛm/] market [filled pause: /ɛm/] which is [silent pause] [repair: in the market of transport service].

Państwa zaniepokojone nowymi niemieckimi przepisami to oprócz Polski: Słowacja, Czechy, Węgry, Rumunia, Bułgaria, Słowenia, Chorwacja, Litwa, Estonia, Portugalia, Hiszpania i Irlandia.

In addition to Poland, the countries concerned about the new German legislation are Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia, Portugal, Spain and Ireland.

Other countries that are concerned [filled pause: /ɪ/] with this [filled pause: /ɪ/] problem are: [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] Czech Republic, Hungary, [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause], Portugal, Spain, [filled pause: /ɪ/] Italy, [silent pause] Bulgaria, [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] Slove [repair: Slovenia], [silent pause].

Transakcja musiałaby uzyskać zgodę zarówno brytyjskich jak i unijnych urzędów antymonopolowych.

The transaction would need the approval of both UK and EU antitrust authorities.

The contract has to be accepted.

304

Case study 2

The next strategy which was commonly employed by the second case study participants is the repairing strategy. The examples below illustrate that while delivering the outputs, some students were able to control their production in terms of both equivalence and linguistic correctness and when they realised that they made an error or that a given piece of information was not rendered properly (e.g. the information was incomplete and needed some addition or was given imprecisely), they made an attempt at repairing the fragment uttered, thereby exploiting the repairing strategy. However, some of those repairing attempts were not successful since they also contained some errors or disfluencies. What is interesting, at times there were several attempts at repairing some elements of the output during the production of a single meaning unit. Tab. 24 below shows the examples of both single repairs as well as multiple repairs. Tab. 24: The second case study participants’ use of the repairing strategy. Source text

Source text translation Target text into English First attempt

Diverse musi szybko startować z roll-outem, skutecznie powiększać istniejącą sieć 230 sklepów, bo przez złe decyzje zmarnował zbyt wiele lat, by prezes zatrudniony do wypchnięcia spółki z dołka miał siedzieć w biurze z założonymi rękami.

Diverse has to start quickly with a roll-out, effectively enlarge the existing chain of 230 stores, because due to bad decisions it wasted too many years to have the president who was hired to push the company out of the doldrums to sit in the office with his hands put on.

Do ścisłej tenisowej czołówki dołączyła w 2008 roku i od tego czasu każdego roku wzbogaca się o ponad 1 mln dolarów (na korcie uzbierała już ponad 17 mln dol.).

She joined the top tennis She [filled players in 2008 and since pause: /ɛ/] then has earned over 1 million dollars each year (she has already collected on the most over 17 million dollars in tennis).

we’ve got Jest jedną z dziesięciu najlepiej zarabiających sportsmenek świata.

She is one of the ten best earning sportswomen in the world.

Repairs

Diverse has to existing shops [filled [hesitation] help pause: /ɪ/] to help [filled pause: itself in time of crisis. /ɪ/] its 2030 already existings

she was in 2008 in the [filled pause: /ɛ/] most important [filled pause: /ɛm/] on the list of the most important sportsmen [filled pause: /ɛ/] and she earned one million of dollars and on her account she’s got seventeen million dollars

She is one of the of the best sportsmen test who earns a lot of money.

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies

305

Tab. 24: Continued Source text

Source text translation Target text into English First attempt

Może to dotyczyć w roku 2060 od 25 do nawet 50 proc. osób które nie zdołają zgromadzić na swoich kontach w ZUS środków wystarczających do otrzymania najniższej emerytury i państwo będzie musiało dopłacić im do świadczeń.

In 2060, this may apply [filled to from 25 to even 50% pause: /ɪ/] in of people who will not 2016 be able to accumulate sufficient funds in their Social Insurance Institution accounts to receive the lowest pension and the state will have to pay them for benefits.

Repairs 2060 [filled pause: /ɪ/] it will be [filled pause: /ɪ/] 25 to [filled pause: /ɪ/] 50 per cent of salary. And [filled pause: /ɪ/] the government [filled pause: /ɪ/]

will not be

will not afford [filled pause: /ɪ/]

[silent pause]

And the government will be obliged to [filled pause: /ɪ/] give money.

Mówiąc o polityce firmy, w której centrum stoi klient, nie sposób nie używać oczywistych stwierdzeń. W przypadku MetLife mają one jednak własną treść i znaczenie – mówi Agata Lem-Kulig. Orientacja na Klienta, bo taką nazwę nosi filozofia działania firmy, jest oparta na uważnym słuchaniu opinii klientów.

When talking about the policy of a company where the customer is at the centre, it is impossible not to use obvious statements. In the case of MetLife, however, they have their own content and meaning, says Agata Lem-Kulig. Customer orientation, which is the name of the company’s philosophy, is based on listening carefully to customers’ opinions.

We are not focusing on obvious statements but rather on our philosophy which is

consists of good listening and

main

its main priority in our company. It is the basis of our marketing plan and [filled pause: /ɪ/] this is what we most focus on – the client.

Niemieckie regulacje uderzają w polskie firmy transportowe, ale cieszą związkowców.

The German regulations hit Polish transport companies, but the trade unionists are happy.

The regulations hit Polish companies

Polish transporting companies

but are very [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause]

but the Union workers are very happy with them. (continued on next page)

306

Case study 2

Tab. 24: Continued Source text

Source text translation Target text into English First attempt

Od 1 stycznia w Niemczech obowiązuje ustawa o płacy minimalnej; stawka za godzinę, która dotyczy zarówno Niemców, jak i obywateli innych państw pracujących w tym kraju, wynosi co najmniej 8,50 euro za godzinę.

Since 1 January, Germany has had a law on the minimum wage; the hourly rate, which applies to both Germans and the citizens of other countries working in Germany, is at least EUR 8.50 per hour.

An average 8 and a half [silent rate per hour in pause] Euro per hour. Germany equals to 8 point

Od 1 stycznia w Niemczech obowiązuje ustawa o płacy minimalnej; stawka za godzinę, która dotyczy zarówno Niemców, jak i obywateli innych państw pracujących w tym kraju, wynosi co najmniej 8,50 euro za godzinę.

Since 1 January, Germany has had a law on the minimum wage; the hourly rate, which applies to both Germans and the citizens of other countries working in Germany, is at least EUR 8.50 per hour.

From the 1st of January in Germany, the minimum rate for [hesitation] driver

for driver is [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛm/] is 8 point 5 Euro per hour

Od tak ważnego przyjaciela, jakim są Niemcy, oczekiwałabym europejskiej solidarności oraz respektowania zasad jednolitego rynku w Unii Europejskiej – mówiła premier Ewa Kopacz nt. sytuacji polskich przewoźników w związku z nowymi przepisami o płacy minimalnej w Niemczech.

From such an important friend as Germany I would expect European solidarity and respect for the principles of the single market in the European Union – said Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz about the situation of Polish carriers in connection with the new minimum wage regulations in Germany.

I suppose our [throat clearing] our neighbours Germany and [filled pause: /ɛm/] we Poland will have the [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛm/] European [silent pause] sol [faltering voice]

solidarity [filled pause: /ɛm/] in [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛm/]

market [filled pause: /ɛm/] which is [silent pause]

in the market of transport services.

Pierwotnie od 14 grudnia na trasach miało się pojawić 17 składów, a 3 miały zostać w rezerwie.

Originally, from 14 December, 17 trains were to appear on the routes and 3 were to remain in reserve.

The [filled pause: /ɪ/] first plan was to have seventeen trains and two in reserve but

Repairs

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies

307

Tab. 24: Continued Source text

Source text translation Target text into English First attempt

Ze względu na opóźnienia w dostarczaniu składów przez producenta – Alstom, PKP Intercity musiało zmniejszyć liczbę Pendolino na torach.

Due to delays in the delivery of the trains by the manufacturer Alstom, Intercity Polish Railways had to reduce the number of Pendolino trains in use.

Repairs

[filled now there are [filled pause: /ɪ/] pause: lip smacking] unfortunately fifteen [filled pause: /ɪ/] because of the [filled pause: lip smacking] delay on the side of the producer, there are now there are seventeen trains [filled pause: lip and three in reserve smacking] fifteen [filled pause: /ɪ/] which are supposed to [filled pause: /ɪ/] be for use from 15th of March [filled pause: something like that].

Tym samym paliwa są najtańsze od pierwszej połowy 2010 roku.

Thus, fuels have been the cheapest since the first half of 2010.

The lowest price The lowest price from the 2010

from the first half of the 2010.

Według amerykańskiego „Forbesa” tylko między czerwcem 2013 a 2014 roku wzbogaciła się dzięki nim o 3 mln dolarów.

According to American “Forbes”, between June 2013 and 2014 alone, she earned 3 million dollars thanks to them.

According to „Forbes”, in two thou

between 2013 and 2014 she will have two millions dollars more.

Według władz w Berlinie stawka minimalna obowiązuje również kierowców z firm transportowych spoza Niemiec.

According to the and according authorities in Berlin, the to [hesitation] minimum rate also applies [silent pause] to drivers from transport companies outside Germany.

according to [silent pause] government of Berlin, each driver should get the same rate.

Za rok zyska jeszcze więcej (…)

In a year’s time she will earn even more (…)

[filled pause: /ɛ/] and in one year she will [filled pause: /ɛ/]

she will earn this money.

Zaś Internet jest w 9,4 mln domów

And the Internet is in 9.4 million homes

9.4 million of the who have access to people who has the Internet access

308

Case study 2

The elaboration/explicitation strategy was identified in four cases only, which suggests that the trainee interpreters rarely produced the output which was more saturated with information than the input. In the examples below (Tab. 25) the target texts seem to be slightly more explicit than the source texts in that they contain some kind of addition or additional explanation. However, this is not a particularly common strategy applied by the trainee interpreters. Tab. 25: The second case study participants’ use of the elaboration/explicitation strategy. Source text

Source text translation into Target text English

Mówiąc o polityce firmy, w której centrum stoi klient, nie sposób nie używać oczywistych stwierdzeń. W przypadku MetLife mają one jednak własną treść i znaczenie – mówi Agata Lem-Kulig. Orientacja na Klienta, bo taką nazwę̨ nosi filozofia działania firmy, jest oparta na uważnym słuchaniu opinii klientów.

When talking about the policy of a company where the customer is at the centre, it is impossible not to use obvious statements. In the case of MetLife, however, they have their own content and meaning, says Agata LemKulig. Customer orientation, which is the name of the company’s philosophy, is based on listening carefully to customers’ opinions.

We are not focusing on obvious statements but rather on our philosophy which is [repair: consists of] good listening and main [repair: its main] priority in our company. It is the basis of our marketing plan and [filled pause: /ɪ/] this is what we most focus on – the client.

Transakcja musiałaby uzyskać zgodę zarówno brytyjskich jak i unijnych urzędów antymonopolowych. Według Hutchison Whampoa jest to jednak realne. Podobna sytuacja miała bowiem miejsce w Irlandii, gdzie również liczba głównych graczy rynkowych zmniejszyła się z czterech do trzech.

The transaction would need the approval of both UK and EU antitrust authorities. However, according to Hutchison Whampoa, this is realistic. A similar situation occurred in Ireland, where the number of major market players also decreased from four to three.

As [filled pause: /ɪ/] in Ireland, [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] United Kingdom want to help [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: wants to] decrease the number of the companies from four to three, just as Ireland did. [filled pause: /ɪ/] That [repair: therefore] Hutchinson Whampoa thinks that it is very possible that European Union and the council will accept the terms of the contract regulations.

W praktyce każda firma transportowa, której samochód przejeżdżałby tranzytem przez terytorium Niemiec, musiałby płacić swoim kierowcom odpowiednio wysokie stawki.

In practice, any transport company whose car passes through Germany would have to pay their drivers a correspondingly high rate. The German regulations hit Polish transport companies, but the trade unionists are happy.

In real life [silent pause] drivers who are [silent pause] going through Germany should have the same [filled pause: /ɛm/] [repair: should have the same rate] but in real life [filled pause: /ɛm/] it’s not like that.

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies

309

Tab. 25: Continued Source text

Source text translation into Target text English

Za rok zyska jeszcze więcej, ponieważ niedawno wkroczyła na potężny rynek sponsoringu sportowego w USA, rozbudowując swoje sponsorskie portfolio o dwie amerykańskie firmy – sieć restauracji The Cheesecake Factory i producenta oprogramowania Workday.

In a year’s time she will earn even more, as she recently entered the huge sports sponsorship market in the USA, expanding its sponsorship portfolio with two American companies – The Cheesecake Factory restaurant chain and Workday software producer.

However, now she will earn even more money because she signed contracts in the USA with two companies – one that comes from the popular restaurant and another which comes from the program producer.

Unlike elaboration, the strategy of implicitation  – the condensation of the source text content  – has been identified in more target texts produced by the students. While it is true that in some of the following examples, the target texts may contain omissions but they generally appear to convey more or less the same information. Sometimes the use of the condensation strategy is visible in single words. A good case in point is the use of the lexeme “Berlin” to refer to “German authorities” which – in the context of the entire target text – was clearly understandable despite its condensation. The following set of examples in Tab. 26 shows that the implicitation strategy was occasionally applied by the test takers: Tab. 26: The second case study participants’ use of the condensation/implicitation strategy. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

(…) wynika z cytowanego przez gazetę raportu „Jak mobilizować dodatkowe oszczędności emerytalne”, opracowanego przez Stefana Kawalca, byłego wiceministra finansów, obecnie prezesa firmy doradczej Capital Strategy. Zgadzają się z tym inni eksperci. Np. prof. Leokadia Oręziak z Katedry Finansów Międzynarodowych Szkoły Głównej Handlowej.

(…) according to the report “How to mobilize additional retirement savings”‘ quoted by the newspaper, prepared by Stefan Kawalec, former deputy finance minister, currently the president of the advisory firm Capital Strategy. Other experts agree with this. For example, professor Leokadia Oręziak from the Department of International Finance at the Warsaw School of Economics.

According to Stanisław Kawalec and [silent pause] Leokadia [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: and other specialists] agrees [silent pause] with him.

(continued on next page)

310

Case study 2

Tab. 26: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Blisko 3/4 gospodarstw domowych ma dostęp do Internetu, w ciągu zeszłego roku pojawił się on w ok. 400 tys. polskich domów.

Nearly 3/4 of households have access to the Internet, last year it appeared in about 400 thousand Polish homes.

According to the Statistics Department, the majority of the Polish households has the access to the Internet.

Diverse musi szybko startować z roll-outem, skutecznie powiększać istniejącą sieć 230 sklepów, bo przez złe decyzje zmarnował zbyt wiele lat, by prezes zatrudniony do wypchnięcia spółki z dołka miał siedzieć w biurze z założonymi rękami.

Diverse has to start quickly with a roll-out, effectively enlarge the existing chain of 230 stores, because due to bad decisions it wasted too many years to have the president who was hired to push the company out of the doldrums to sit in the office with his hands put on.

Diverse has to [hesitation] help [filled pause: /ɪ/] its 2030 already existings [repair: existing] shops [filled pause: /ɪ/] to help itself in time of crisis.

Jest jedną z dziesięciu najlepiej zarabiających sportsmenek świata. Nie byłoby to jednak możliwe, gdyby nie finansowa pomoc Ryszarda Krauzego, poświęcenie rodziców i odważne inwestowanie we własny rozwój.

She is one of the ten best earning sportswomen in the world. However, it would not have been possible had it not been for Ryszard Krauze’s financial help, the sacrifice of his parents and bold investment in his own development.

She is the important through the whole world sportsmen. She had the financial support by Ryszard Krazue and thanks to the devotion of her parents, she [filled pause: /ɛ/] she succeeded.

Klient jest najważniejszy. Klient nasz pan. Zorientowani na potrzeby klienta... Klientocentryzm w wydaniu MetLife to nie puste hasło.

The customer is the most In our company MetLife important. The customer is our client is our most important master. Customer-oriented… target. Customer-centrism as represented by MetLife is not an empty slogan.

Marcin Bielski nie lubi tracić czasu na długie posiedzenia. Zebrania zarządu? Najlepiej na stojąco. Wystarczy 5 minut. Bum, bum, zrobione.

Marcin Bielski does not like to waste time on long meetings. Board meetings? It is best to stand up. Just 5 minutes. Bum, bum, made.

New director Marcin Bierski [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] has the concept of quick meetings. 5 minutes and it’s ready.

Od 1 stycznia w Niemczech obowiązuje ustawa o płacy minimalnej; stawka za godzinę, która dotyczy zarówno Niemców, jak i obywateli innych państw pracujących w tym kraju, wynosi co najmniej 8,50 euro za godzinę.

Since 1 January, Germany has had a law on the minimum wage; the hourly rate, which applies to both Germans and the citizens of other countries working in Germany, is at least EUR 8.50 per hour.

An average rate per hour in Germany equals to 8 point [repair: 8 and a half] [silent pause] Euro per hour.

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies

311

Tab. 26: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Powtórzył on zapowiedź z października zeszłego roku, że koncern, który w swoim krakowskim centrum zatrudnia około 500 pracowników, zamierza w najbliższych 2 latach zwiększyć zatrudnienie do ponad tysiąca osób.

He reiterated the announcement from October last year that the company, which employs about five hundred people in its Cracow centre, intends to increase the employment to over a thousand people in the next two years.

In his statement in [hesitation] October [hesitation] [filled pause: /ɪ/] he said the concern is going to employ more workers so the number of employees is going to rise from 500 to 1000.

Premier Grecji Antonis Samaras zapowiedział w sobotę w Atenach stopniowe obniżanie podatków i co najmniej utrzymanie wysokości pensji i emerytur.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras announced on Saturday in Athens a gradual reduction in taxes and at least the maintenance of wages and pensions.

Premier of Greece was gradually changing his [filled pause: /ɪhm/] politics.

Według władz w Berlinie stawka minimalna obowiązuje również kierowców z firm transportowych spoza Niemiec.

According to the authorities in Berlin, the minimum rate also applies to drivers from transport companies outside Germany.

According to Berlin, [filled pause: /ɪ/] those wages must apply to transporting companies, as well.

Za rok zyska jeszcze więcej, ponieważ niedawno wkroczyła na potężny rynek sponsoringu sportowego w USA, rozbudowując swoje sponsorskie portfolio o dwie amerykańskie firmy – sieć restauracji The Cheesecake Factory i producenta oprogramowania Workday.

In a year’s time she will earn even more, as she recently entered the huge sports sponsorship market in the USA, expanding its sponsorship portfolio with two American companies – The Cheesecake Factory restaurant chain and Workday software producer.

[filled pause: /ɛ/] and in one year [filled pause: /ɛ/] she will [repair: she will] earn this money. [filled pause: /ɛ/] two American companies – the Cheescake Factory and the producent of Wordchain, they support her.

Interestingly enough, in the outputs generated by the trainee interpreters there were three cases of what might be regarded as the exponents of the naturalisation strategy. The three phrases below can be viewed as representing naturalisation since they were uttered with English pronunciation although they are non-existent in standard English. This might imply that naturalisation was again an ad hoc solution to the problem of having no readily accessible target text equivalent of the Polish concepts. The three examples of the naturalisation strategy have been identified (Tab. 27):

312

Case study 2

Tab. 27: The second case study participants’ use of the naturalisation strategy. Source text

English equivalent

Target text

biuro maklerskie

brokerage house

makler’s office /mæklər’s ofɪs/

demokracja

democracy

democration /dəmə’kreɪ∫n/

PKP

Polish Railways

PKP /peka:’pə/

producent

producer/manufacturer

producent /pro:dju:’snt/

Other strategies such as transcoding or sound reproduction have been identified only in the way some Polish names were rendered. In most cases, they were not interpreted into their English equivalents but instead, they were given in their original Polish form. Tab. 28 presents the test takers’ use of the transcoding/sound reproduction strategy. Tab. 28: The second case study participants’ use of the transcoding/sound reproduction strategy. Source text

Standard Polish pronunciation

Target text

Agnieszka Radwańska

/ägŋɪə’∫kə räd’väŋskä/

/ägŋɪə’∫kə räd’väŋskä/

Ewa Kopacz

/ɛvä kopät∫/

/ɛvä kopät∫/

Leokadia Oręziak

/lɛo’kädjä/

/lɛo’kädjä/

Marcin Bielski

/märtsɪn bjɛrski/

/märtsɪn bjɛrski/

Ryszard Krauze

/rɪ∫ärd kräuzɛ/

/rɪ∫ärd kräuzɛ/

Stanisław Kawalec

/stä’nɪsuäv kävälɛts/

/stä’nɪsuäv kävälɛts/

Urszula Cieślak

/ur∫ulä tsɪɛɕläk/

/ur∫ulä tsɪɛɕläk/

The analysis of the interpreting strategies employed by the second case study participants shows that there is definitely a bigger number of the examples of the omission strategy. This, like in the first case study, can be linked to the students’ impeded ability to cope with rendering the source text information which may have resulted from the inability to comprehend, process, memorise or retrieve some content elements. The malfunctions of those cognitive processes could have been triggered by the negative experience of some psycho-affective factors (e.g. anxiety, stress, language ego, low self-esteem). On the other hand, a rather large number of repairs, reflecting the use of the repairing strategy, can be associated with the students’ at least partially conscious control of output delivery despite their subjectively experienced psycho-affectivity. The fact that at least some of the psycho-affective factors could have led to poorer performance is additionally

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes

313

visible in the use of the condensation strategy which shows that the trainee interpreters decided to leave some elements non-rendered because of some cognitive problems manifesting themselves in lexical gaps or information comprehension gaps. This may also be supported by the four examples of the naturalisation strategy used to render rather commonly used lexical items such as “producer” or “democracy”. Thus, it may be hypothesised that the strategies used by the test takers during output delivery are rather unconscious choices made to cope with the emerging problems rather than conscious and deliberate decisions. Such unconscious choices may have been motivated by the students’ attempts to produce a target text message despite the adverse activity of their psycho-affective factors, under the influence of which they seem to have been while performing consecutive interpreting.

6.4. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes It has already been stated several times that the trainee interpreters’ notes can also cast some light on the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors for they may contain some interesting data indicating whether the students’ psychoaffectivity was in any way related to their ability to comprehend and process the input and to produce the output. The psycho-affective factors are known to have the potential of decreasing interpreters’ cognitive skills of comprehending and memorising the source text and that is why the adherence to the principles of notetaking can show whether the students’ negative psycho-affectivity was indeed involved in the consecutive interpreting process and if yes, how the test takers tried to deal with incoming input content, using their notes. Furthermore, the notes can also have some extra-linguistic exponents of various psycho-affective factors for the trainee interpreters’ increased writing device pressure and handwriting impressions, sweat stains or notepaper creases may indicate the influence of, for instance, stress on the interpreter. It is already known that in several cases, the trainee interpreters had some difficulties in applying the principles of Rozan’s note-taking system since such information is to be found in the students’ responses to the questions of the retrospective protocol. Among the problem triggers which turned out to be difficult to jot down were proper names or times. Some students admitted to not having been able to keep pace with taking notes since, as they argued, the source text delivery was too fast for them and they did not manage to comprehend and process the input. What is more, it was clear from the responses (as well as from the notes taken) that the illegible writing was also a problem trigger as they could not decipher their handwriting. Some of those problems can definitely be attributed to the experience of stress, which is what several test takers remarked about. This being so, what the analysis is expected to bring to light is that the trainee interpreters indeed encountered some difficulties when taking notes and that at least some of those problems could have resulted from the subjective experience of some of the psycho-affective factors.

314

Case study 2

The first aspect of note-taking to be examined in this analysis is whether the trainee interpreters focused on writing down the ideas and not the words or phrases. Indeed, in quite many notes (Tab. 29), the students did not jot down the ideas but preferred to jot down the entire phrases – sometimes in Polish (the source language) and sometimes in English (the target language). The examples below show that some students wrote the words which they heard in the Polish-language input and others wrote entire phrases. Polish was the predominant language of the trainee interpreters’ notes but some of them – in the listening and comprehension phase – transferred the input linguistically, which is evident in the English-language notes. The fact that instead of an idea, they preferred to jot down the exact phrases may result from the trainee interpreters’ inability to get the gist of the message as well as their lack of confidence in their memorisation skills. Writing so much information could therefore be treated as some kind of tactic used to cope with the potential problem of the inability to comprehend and memorise a highly information-saturated content. Thus, what can be postulated and what is partially evident in the trainee interpreters’ responses is that the misapplication of the principle of noting the idea and not the word could have resulted from the trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of some of the psycho-affective factors (e.g. low intermediate self-esteem, stress). Tab. 29: The second case study participants’ notes: noting the word/phrase/sentence instead of the idea. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

„Tesco to wspaniała firma, która znalazła się pod silną finansową presją. Usiłujemy ożywić jej model i sprostać finansowym wyzwaniom” – zaznaczył.

“Tesco is a great company under strong financial pressure. We are trying to revive its model and meet the financial challenges” – he indicated.

can’t afford operating on the same scale anymore Tesco great financial pressure, rejuvenile the model

Czy młody zarząd zdoła na dłużej tchnąć w nią energię, czy to tylko lekki lifting przed wyjściem funduszu z inwestycji?

Will the young management manage to breathe energy into it for a longer time, or is it just a slight lifting before the fund leaves the investment?

Młody zarząd  nowy oddech czy lifting

Diverse musi szybko startować z roll-outem, skutecznie powiększać istniejącą sieć 230 sklepów, bo przez złe decyzje zmarnował zbyt wiele lat, by prezes zatrudniony do wypchnięcia spółki z dołka miał siedzieć w biurze z założonymi rękami.

Diverse has to start quickly with a roll-out, effectively enlarge the existing chain of 230 stores, because due to bad decisions it wasted too many years to have the president who was hired to push the company out of the doldrums to sit in the office with his hands put on.

Diver musi wspomóc + 230 istniejących sklepów. żeby wyciągnąć się zdołka.

315

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 29: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Jak poinformowano po spotkaniu, w jego trakcie padł m.in. postulat, by stosowanie budzących kontrowersje niemieckich przepisów zostało zawieszone do czasu wyjaśnienia, czy są one zgodne z prawem UE.

As informed after the meeting, during the meeting, among other things, there was a postulate that the application of the controversial German legislation be suspended until it is clarified whether they are compatible with the EU law.

postulat przepisy czy są zgodne z prawem UE

Jak powiedziała Czemerajda, od 15 marca br. po kolejowych szlakach ma jeździć 17 składów Pendolino, a 3 mają stanowić rezerwę.

As Czemerajda said, 17 Pendolino trains are to be in operation from 15 March this year, and 3 are to be a reserve.

Od nowego roku ma być 15 składów, 3 rezerwa.

Marcin Bielski nie lubi tracić Marcin Bielski does not like to waste czasu na długie posiedzenia. time on long meetings.

Marin Bierski  zebrania na szybko 5 minut i gotowy

Mogła być już częścią It could already have been part of the odzieżowego imperium LPP, LPP empire of clothing, but through ale przez kryzys popadła w the crisis it got into financial trouble. kłopoty finansowe.

Mogłbyć najlepszy członek LPP kłopoty z Diverse  nie jest.

Od 15 lutego br. kolejne dwa składy Pendolino zaczną wozić pasażerów – powiedziała Beata Czemerajda z biura prasowego PKP Intercity. Nowe składy Pendolino mają kursować z Warszawy do Wrocławia, Krakowa i Katowic.

From 15 February this year the other two Pendolino trains will start carrying passengers – said Beata Czemerajda from the press office of Intercity Polish Railways. The new Pendolino trains are to run from Warsaw to Wrocław, Cracow and Katowice.

15 luty this year 2 składy pendolino are planned to start – PKP intercity szef Beata Czemerajda nowe składy Waw-WRO-KATO

Pierwotnie od 14 grudnia na trasach miało się pojawić 17 składów, a 3 miały zostać w rezerwie. Ze względu na opóźnienia w dostarczaniu składów przez producenta – Alstom, PKP Intercity musiało zmniejszyć liczbę Pendolino na torach.

Originally, from 14 December, 17 ze wzgl. na opóźnienia, trains were to appear on the routes musieli zmniejszyć and 3 were to remain in reserve. Due liczbę składu. to delays in the delivery of the trains by the manufacturer Alstom, Intercity Polish Railways had to reduce the number of Pendolino trains in use.

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316

Case study 2

Tab. 29: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Powtórzył on zapowiedź z października zeszłego roku, że koncern, który w swoim krakowskim centrum zatrudnia około 500 pracowników, zamierza w najbliższych 2 latach zwiększyć zatrudnienie do ponad tysiąca osób.

He reiterated the announcement from October last year that the company, which employs about five hundred people in its Cracow centre, intends to increase the employment to over a thousand people in the next two years.

Statement in October the concern is going to employ more workers so the number from 500 to 1000 of employees will rise

Trzynaście państw UE, w tym Polska, ma zastrzeżenia do nowych niemieckich przepisów ws. płacy minimalnej, obejmującej także zagranicznych kierowców. Na piątkowym spotkaniu w Brukseli kraje te zaapelowały o zawieszenie stosowania tych przepisów,

Thirteen EU countries, including Poland, have reservations about the new German minimum wage regulations, which also concern foreign drivers. At a meeting in Brussels on Friday, these countries called for the suspension of these rules.

13 pań UE spotkało się na w tym PL spotkaniu zastrzeżenia about concerned German laws of the minimal payment płaca minim

Z wyliczeń „Dziennika Gazety Prawnej” wynika, że po 25 latach pracy zatrudniany na umowie zlecenia i etatach z pensją minimalną, rzetelnie opłacający składki pracownik, otrzyma niespełna 500 zł emerytury brutto, czyli zaledwie 28 proc. pensji.

As results from the calculations of “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna”. after 25 years of work, an employee employed on the basis of a contract of mandate and with a minimum salary, who pays contributions reliably, will receive less than PLN 500 pension gross, i.e. only 28% of the salary.

Dzien gaz praw po 25 y l pracy pensja minimalna 500 brutto emery 28 % pensji

Given the above, it seems that the majority of the test takers adhered to the principle of noting the idea and not the word since the visual representations of their notes contain many abbreviations and lexical items representing the ideas included in the source texts. Moreover, the fact that the trainee interpreters’ notes are rather not abundant can corroborate the statement that they were able to understand the crux of their inputs and that many details of the source texts were stored in their memory. The following examples in Tab. 30 show that many students indeed applied the principle of noting the idea.

317

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 30: The second case study participants’ notes: noting the idea. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

„Nie będzie żadnych dalszych cięć wynagrodzeń i emerytur. Kolejny przełom w naszym planie wzrostu gospodarczego to między innymi ogólne obniżki podatków, które mogą nastąpić stopniowo, krok za krokiem” – powiedział Samaras na spotkaniu z członkami i zwolennikami swej partii.

“There will be no further cuts in salaries and pensions. Another breakthrough in our growth plan includes general tax cuts, which can be made gradually, step by step” – said Samaras at a meeting with members and supporters of his party.

cięcia emerytur obwyżki Samaras zwolennicy

W sobotę opublikowano trzy sondaże, z których wynika, że radykalna partia Syriza prowadzi przed partią premiera – konserwatywną Nową Demokracją (ND).

Three polls were published on Saturday, according to which the radical Syriza party is leading before the Prime Minister’s party, the conservative New Democracy (ND).

w sobotę Partia Syriza kontr. Nowa demokracja

25 stycznia odbędą się w Grecji przedterminowe wybory parlamentarne.

Early parliamentary elections will take place in Greece on 25 January.

25.01. przedterminowe - pre

Blisko 3/4 gospodarstw domowych ma dostęp do Internetu, w ciągu zeszłego roku pojawił się on w ok. 400 tys. polskich domów. Według badania Głównego Urzędu Statystycznego komputer ma 9,7 mln gospodarstw domowych, czyli 77,1 proc. wszystkich. Zaś Internet jest w 9,4 mln domów (73 proc.), a to o ok. 0,4 mln więcej niż w 2013 r. – pisze „Rzeczpospolita”.

Nearly 3/4 of households have access to the Internet, last year it appeared in about 400 thousand Polish homes. According to a survey conducted by the Central Statistical Office, a computer is in 9.7 million households, i.e. 77.1% of all households. And the Internet is in 9.4 million homes (73%), which is about 0.4 million more than in 2013 – writes “Rzeczpospolita”.

¾ gosp dom Internet Z ba STATISTICS research 2017 400 tyś. Gosp dom. int last year 9,7 mln komp coma 77 % wszystkich 9,4 mln net 73

Choć Microsoft chwalił się, że będzie to platforma o wiele bardziej przyjazna firmom, a równocześnie będzie na tyle uniwersalna, by móc obsługiwać jednocześnie klasyczne pecety, tablety, smartfony, konsolę Xbox, a także urządzenia z kategorii „Internet of things”, najważniejszą wiadomością wydawał się powrót do systemu porzuconego w Windows 8 Menu Start.

Although Microsoft boasted that it would be a much more businessfriendly platform, and at the same time it would be universal enough to support classic PCs, tablets, smartphones, the Xbox console as well as the devices belonging to the category of the Internet of things, the most important news seemed to be the return to the system abandoned in Windows 8 – Start Menu.

Microsoft b. przyj. i uniwersalny  used for tablets powrót syst. Windows 8  menu start

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318

Case study 2

Tab. 30: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Darmowy system operacyjny, jedna platforma dla komputerów i smartfonów, wirtualna rzeczywistość, 84-calowy ekran – Microsoft zaprezentował wraz z Windows 10 cały szereg produktów i rozwiązań, które pojawią się na rynku równolegle z nowym systemem. Czy to oznacza powrót czasów świetności firmy?

Free operating system, one platform for computers and smartphones, virtual reality, 84-inch screen – Microsoft presented a whole range of products and solutions that will go with Windows 10 and which will appear on the market alongside the new system. Does this mean a return to the company’s glory?

Darmowy sys oper komp smart. wrt. rzeczy. Microsoft come back in the spec os Windows czy to oznacza. Świetność firm?

Do ścisłej tenisowej czołówki dołączyła w 2008 roku i od tego czasu każdego roku wzbogaca się o ponad 1 mln dolarów (na korcie uzbierała już ponad 17 mln dol.).

She joined the top tennis players in 2008 and since then has earned over 1 million dollars each year (she has already collected over 17 million dollars in tennis).

Ag Radwańska w tenis czołów 2008 k. rok  1$ do tej pory 17$

Do ścisłej tenisowej czołówki dołączyła w 2008 roku i od tego czasu każdego roku wzbogaca się o ponad 1 mln dolarów (na korcie uzbierała już ponad 17 mln dol.). Do tego dochodzą wpływy od sponsorów.

She joined the top tennis players in 2008 and since then has earned over 1 million dollars each year (she has already collected over 17 million dollars in tennis). In addition, there are also sponsorship revenues.

2008 ścisła czołówka zarobiła 1 ml dol na koncie 17 ml dol + spons

Do tego dochodzą wpływy od sponsorów.

In addition, there are also sponsorship revenues.

+ sponsorzy

Główna siedziba Tesco w Cheshunt w Hertfordshire zostanie zamknięta, a część pracowników uznanych za niezbędnych, zostanie przeniesiona do Welwyn Garden City. Lewis nie ujawnił, jak decyzje te przełożą się na poziom zatrudnienia.

Tesco’s headquarters in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire will be closed down and some of the staff deemed necessary will be transferred to Welwyn Garden City. Lewis did not reveal how these decisions would translate into the level of employment.

Chesthunt, Hartfordshire – shut Lelwyn, Garden city – some employers transferred didn’t disclose if fired

Hutchison Whampoa potwierdziła w komunikacie, że prowadzi wyłączne negocjacje z Telefoniką w sprawie kupna O2. Według brytyjskich mediów, rozmowy toczą się obecnie na poziomie ponad 10 mld funtów.

Hutchison Whampoa confirmed in a press release that she is negotiating exclusively with Telefonika for the purchase of O2. According to the British media, negotiations currently concern the level of over £10 billion.

Hutch Waboa pr. negociacie z tel dot. O2 5 mld funt.

319

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 30: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

I wbrew stereotypom między miastem a wsią różnice w kwestii dostępności sieci są niewielkie – 75 do 70 proc. na korzyść mieszczuchów. Na Internet wydajemy średnio ok. 60 zł miesięcznie, a łączne wydatki osób indywidualnych w skali roku wynoszą ok. 6,7 mld zł; w 2013 r. było to odpowiednio: 62 zł i 6,57 mld zł.

Contrary to the stereotypes, the differences in terms of network accessibility between the city and the countryside are small – 75 to 70 percent in favour of townspeople. On average, we spend about PLN 60 per month on the Internet, and the total annual expenditure of individuals amounts to about PLN 6.7 billion; in 2013 it was: PLN 62 and PLN 6.57 billion, respectively.

wbrew ste wieś x  70 7075 60/ms $ average

Jest jedną z dziesięciu najlepiej zarabiających sportsmenek świata.

She is one of the ten best earning sportswomen in the world.

Ona  1 z 10 naj zarab sportsmenek

Jest jedną z dziesięciu najlepiej zarabiających sportsmenek świata. Nie byłoby to jednak możliwe, gdyby nie finansowa pomoc Ryszarda Krauzego, poświęcenie rodziców i odważne inwestowanie we własny rozwój.

She is one of the ten best earning sportswomen in the world. However, it would not have been possible had it not been for Ryszard Krauze’s financial help, the sacrifice of his parents and bold investment in his own development.

1 z 10 sport świat financia suport Ryszar Krauze poś rodziców

Kończy się kolejny tydzień wyraźnych obniżek cen na stacjach – wynika z danych łódzkiego biura maklerskiego Refleks.

Another week of significant price reductions at the petrol stations is coming to an end, according to data from the Łódź brokerage house Refleks.

kolejny tydz. obniżki cen petrol gas Łudzkie biuro mak  Currency centre in Łódź Ula Cieślak

Kończy się kolejny tydzień wyraźnych obniżek cen na stacjach – wynika z danych łódzkiego biura maklerskiego Refleks. Średnio ceny spadały od 7 do 8 groszy za litr. Tym samym paliwa są najtańsze od pierwszej połowy 2010 roku.

Another week of significant price reductions at the petrol stations is coming to an end, according to data from the Łódź brokerage house Refleks. On average, prices fell from 7 to 8 groszy per litre. Thus, fuels have been the cheapest since the first half of 2010.

 cen stacja biuro makl 7–8 gr litr petrol 2010 1 połowa

(continued on next page)

320

Case study 2

Tab. 30: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Może to być problemem w finalizacji transakcji, gdyż spółka z Hongkongu jest już właścicielem innej brytyjskiej sieci komórkowej Three. Wraz z EE i Vodafone tworzą one czwórkę dominujących operatorów na tamtejszym rynku.

This could be a problem in finalising the transaction, as the Hong Kong company already owns another UK mobile network, Three. Together with EE and Vodafone, they form the four dominant operators in the Hong Kong market.

sp. z Hongk. jest wł. ee i vod. 4 domin.

Na zaprezentowany po raz pierwszy we wrześniu ubiegłego roku Windows 10 patrzyliśmy dotychczas głównie przez pryzmat interfejsu.

We have been looking at Windows wrze W ⇒ 10, presented for the first time in Interfejs September last year, mainly through the prism of the interface.

Nie byłoby to jednak możliwe, gdyby nie finansowa pomoc Ryszarda Krauzego, poświęcenie rodziców i odważne inwestowanie we własny rozwój. O karierze, sukcesie i pieniądzach – rozmawiamy z Agnieszką Radwańską.

However, it would not have been possible had it not been for Ryszard Krauze’s financial help, the sacrifice of his parents and bold investment in his own development. We talk to Agnieszka Radwanska about her career, success and money.

Zandzi. Suk  fin pomoc  Rysz Krauze wsparcie Rodzice rozwój osobisty

O2 jest obecnie drugim co do wielkości brytyjskim operatorem komórkowym.

O2 is currently the second largest UK mobile operator.

dr. op. kom.

Od 1 stycznia w Niemczech obowiązuje ustawa o płacy minimalnej; stawka za godzinę, która dotyczy zarówno Niemców, jak i obywateli innych państw pracujących w tym kraju, wynosi co najmniej 8,50 euro za godzinę.

Since 1 January, Germany has had a law on the minimum wage; the hourly rate, which applies to both Germans and the citizens of other countries working in Germany, is at least EUR 8.50 per hour.

1.01 płaca min. kierowcy 8,5 e/h min. stawka (rate)

Od 14 grudnia 2014 r., wraz z wejściem w życie nowego rozkładu jazdy, do eksploatacji włączono 15 składów Pendolino, z czego 9 wozi pasażerów, a 6 składów znajduje się w rezerwie.

From 14 December 2014, with the new timetable, 15 Pendolino trains have been put into operation, of which 9 carry passengers and 6 trains are in reserve.

- 14 grudzień  miało być 17, 3 rezerwie

Od tak ważnego przyjaciela, jakim są Niemcy, oczekiwałabym europejskiej solidarności oraz respektowania zasad jednolitego rynku w Unii Europejskiej – mówiła premier Ewa Kopacz nt. sytuacji polskich przewoźników w związku z nowymi przepisami o płacy minimalnej w Niemczech.

From such an important friend as Germany I would expect European solidarity and respect for the principles of the single market in the European Union – said Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz about the situation of Polish carriers in connection with the new minimum wage regulations in Germany.

u Niemcy europ. solidarność jed. rynek przewoźnicy (giving having transport service)

321

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 30: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Podobna sytuacja miała bowiem miejsce w Irlandii, gdzie również liczba głównych graczy rynkowych zmniejszyła się z czterech do trzech.

A similar situation occurred in Irlandla z 4 do 3 Ireland, where the number of major market players also decreased from four to three.

Premier Grecji Antonis Samaras zapowiedział w sobotę w Atenach stopniowe obniżanie podatków i co najmniej utrzymanie wysokości pensji i emerytur.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Premier Gr. Samaras announced on Saturday in Antoni Samaras Athens a gradual reduction in taxes stopniowe and at least the maintenance of wages and pensions.

Premier obiecał obniżenie w tym roku niepopularnego podatku od nieruchomości oraz zmniejszenie podatku dochodowego od osób prawnych do 15 proc.

The Prime Minister promised to reduce the unpopular property tax this year and to reduce the corporate income tax to 15%.

fees podatek o nieruchomości – estates do 15%

Sieć supermarketów Tesco, największa w W. Brytanii poinformowała o planach zamknięcia 43 sklepów i wycofaniu się z zaplanowanych inwestycji w 49 dalszych. Firma chce też zmniejszyć koszty o 30 proc.

Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK, has announced plans to close 43 stores and withdraw from the planned investments in other 49. The company also wants to cut costs by 30%.

Tesco, biggest UK inv in 43 close, 49 cut  30% cost reduction

Transakcja musiałaby uzyskać zgodę zarówno brytyjskich jak i unijnych urzędów antymonopolowych. Według Hutchison Whampoa jest to jednak realne.

The transaction would need the approval of both UK and EU antitrust authorities. However, according to Hutchison Whampoa, this is realistic.

transakcja mus. wg HW jest realne, że UE zgodzi się

W praktyce każda firma transportowa, której samochód przejeżdżałby tranzytem przez terytorium Niemiec, musiałby płacić swoim kierowcom odpowiednio wysokie stawki.

In practice, any transport company whose car passes through Germany would have to pay their drivers a correspondingly high rate.

w praktyce Niemcy odpowiednio wysokie stawki firmy transportowe

Według amerykańskiego „Forbesa” tylko między czerwcem 2013 a 2014 roku wzbogaciła się dzięki nim o 3 mln dolarów.

According to American “Forbes”, between June 2013 and 2014 alone, she earned 3 million dollars thanks to them.

Forbes: cz 2013 – lip 2014 3$

Według amerykańskiego „Forbesa” tylko między czerwcem 2013 a 2014 roku wzbogaciła się dzięki nim o 3 mln dolarów.

According to American “Forbes”, between June 2013 and 2014 alone, she earned 3 million dollars thanks to them.

Frbs 2013–2014 + 3 mln za rok zyska ring sportowców 2 Am Firmy

(continued on next page)

322

Case study 2

Tab. 30: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Za rok zyska jeszcze więcej, ponieważ niedawno wkroczyła na potężny rynek sponsoringu sportowego w USA, rozbudowując swoje sponsorskie portfolio o dwie amerykańskie firmy – sieć restauracji The Cheesecake Factory i producenta oprogramowania Workday

In a year’s time she will earn even more, as she recently entered the huge sports sponsorship market in the USA, expanding its sponsorship portfolio with two American companies – The Cheesecake Factory restaurant chain and Workday software producer.

The Cheese Cake Factory I producent Word (Dżejm)

Wymyślenie nowego konceptu sklepów zajęło prezesowi Diverse i jego zespołowi równo dobę. W innych firmach potrzeba na to zwykle trzech miesięcy.

It took Diverse president and his team exactly a day to come up with a new store concept. In other companies it usually takes three months.

nowy koncept  24 godzin w innych 3 mies

Za rok zyska jeszcze więcej, ponieważ niedawno wkroczyła na potężny rynek sponsoringu sportowego w USA, rozbudowując swoje sponsorskie portfolio o dwie amerykańskie firmy – sieć restauracji The Cheesecake Factory i producenta oprogramowania Workday.

In a year’s time she will earn even more, as she recently entered the huge sports sponsorship market in the USA, expanding its sponsorship portfolio with two American companies – The Cheesecake Factory restaurant chain and Workday software producer.

teraz więcej bo USA sport + 2 firmy restau + prod programu

Interestingly enough, there were not particularly many examples of commonly used abbreviations and in most cases, the test takers abbreviated the words in their own ways. Of course, this is not the aspect which can be castigated for it has already been stated that whatever system the interpreter uses, as long as it provides him/her with correct and readily available retrieval cues, is good. Thus, the following table (Tab. 31) groups the examples of the trainee interpreters’ own abbreviations used in their notes: Tab. 31: The second case study participants’ notes: abbreviations. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Do ścisłej tenisowej czołówki dołączyła w 2008 roku i od tego czasu każdego roku wzbogaca się o ponad 1 mln dolarów (na korcie uzbierała już ponad 17 mln dol.).

She joined the top tennis players in 2008 and since then has earned over 1 million dollars each year (she has already collected over 17 million dollars in tennis).

Ag Radwańska w tenis czołów 2008 k. rok  1$ do tej pory 17$

323

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 31: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Ich przedstawiciele spotkali się w piątek w Brukseli z urzędnikami dyrekcji generalnych Komisji Europejskiej ds. transportu i ds. zdrowia.

Their representatives met on Friday pt w Br in Brussels with officials from the z urzędnikami European Commission’s DirectoratesGeneral for Transport and Health.

Jest jedną z dziesięciu najlepiej zarabiających sportsmenek świata.

She is one of the ten best earning sportswomen in the world.

Ona  1 z 10 naj zarab sportsmenek

Jest jedną z dziesięciu najlepiej zarabiających sportsmenek świata. Nie byłoby to jednak możliwe, gdyby nie finansowa pomoc Ryszarda Krauzego, poświęcenie rodziców i odważne inwestowanie we własny rozwój.

She is one of the ten best earning sportswomen in the world. However, it would not have been possible had it not been for Ryszard Krauze’s financial help, the sacrifice of his parents and bold investment in his own development.

1 z 10 sport świat financia suport Ryszar Krauze poś rodziców

Może to być problemem w finalizacji transakcji, gdyż spółka z Hongkongu jest już właścicielem innej brytyjskiej sieci komórkowej Three. Wraz z EE i Vodafone tworzą one czwórkę dominujących operatorów na tamtejszym rynku.

This could be a problem in finalising sp. z Hongk. jest wł. the transaction, as the Hong Kong ee i vod. 4 domin. company already owns another UK mobile network, Three. Together with EE and Vodafone, they form the four dominant operators in the Hong Kong market.

Nowe składy Pendolino mają kursować z Warszawy do Wrocławia, Krakowa i Katowic.

The new Pendolino trains are to run from Warsaw to Wrocław, Cracow and Katowice.

nowe składy Waw-WRO-KATO

O2 jest obecnie drugim co do O2 is currently the second largest UK dr. op. kom. wielkości brytyjskim operatorem mobile operator. komórkowym. Od 1 stycznia w Niemczech obowiązuje ustawa o płacy minimalnej; stawka za godzinę, która dotyczy zarówno Niemców, jak i obywateli innych państw pracujących w tym kraju, wynosi co najmniej 8,50 euro za godzinę.

Since 1 January, Germany has had a law on the minimum wage; the hourly rate, which applies to both Germans and the citizens of other countries working in Germany, is at least EUR 8.50 per hour.

1.03. płaca min. kierowcy 8,5 e/h min. stawka (rate)

Słowacja, Czechy, Węgry, Rumunia, Bułgaria, Słowenia, Chorwacja, Litwa, Estonia, Portugalia, Hiszpania i Irlandia.

Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia, Portugal, Spain and Ireland

Słowa Che Węgry Rum Buł

(continued on next page)

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Case study 2

Tab. 31: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes Chor Litwa Estonia Portug Hiszp Irl

Średnio ceny spadały od 7 do 8 groszy za litr. Tym samym paliwa są najtańsze od pierwszej połowy 2010 roku.

On average, prices fell from 7 to 8 7–8 gr/l groszy per litre. Thus, fuels have been since the cheapest since the first half of pali naj Igi 2010 2010.

Transakcja musiałaby uzyskać zgodę zarówno brytyjskich jak i unijnych urzędów antymonopolowych. Według Hutchison Whampoa jest to jednak realne.

The transaction would need the transakcja mus. approval of both UK and EU antitrust wg HW jest realne, authorities. However, according to że UE zgodzi się Hutchison Whampoa, this is realistic.

Of particular interest is one ­example  – the graphic abbreviation, the visual approximation of which is presented in the table below. It is interesting how the student captured graphically in his/her notes the concept of the differences between the city and the village (Tab. 32): Tab. 32: The second case study participants’ notes: graphic abbreviations Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

I wbrew stereotypom między miastem a wsią różnice w kwestii dostępności sieci są niewielkie – 75 do 70 proc. na korzyść mieszczuchów.

Contrary to the stereotypes, the differences in terms of network accessibility between the city and the countryside are small – 75 to 70 percent in favour of townspeople.

wbrew ste wieś x  70 7075

Like in the first case study, the trainee interpreters did not use many logical links since the source texts were usually concise and pertained to one topic. Therefore, there was no need to indicate any logical links between the ideas because all the ideas formed a uniform whole. However, it seems that some of the students indicated the relations between the ideas by means of arrows. One person’s notes contained words and phrases representing ideas and all of them were signposted with the arrows showing the order of the source text content. In other cases, arrows usually show links between the meaningful units. Thus, there are no typical logical links and those which are present have the form of arrows (Tab. 33):

325

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 33: The second case study participants’ notes: logical links. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Choć Microsoft chwalił się, że będzie to platforma o wiele bardziej przyjazna firmom, a równocześnie będzie na tyle uniwersalna, by móc obsługiwać jednocześnie klasyczne pecety, tablety, smartfony, konsolę Xbox, a także urządzenia z kategorii „Internet of things”, najważniejszą wiadomością wydawał się powrót do systemu porzuconego w Windows 8 Menu Start.

Although Microsoft boasted that it would be a much more businessfriendly platform, and at the same time it would be universal enough to support classic PCs, tablets, smartphones, the Xbox console as well as the devices belonging to the category of the Internet of things, the most important news seemed to be the return to the system abandoned in Windows 8 – Start Menu.

Microsoft b. przyj. i uniwersalny  used for tablets powrót syst. Windows 8  menu start

Czy młody zarząd zdoła na dłużej tchnąć w nią energię, czy to tylko lekki lifting przed wyjściem funduszu z inwestycji?

Will the young management manage Młody zarząd  to breathe energy into it for a longer nowy oddech czy time, or is it just a slight lifting before lifting the fund leaves the investment?

Klient jest najważniejszy. Klient nasz pan. Zorientowani na potrzeby klienta... Klientocentryzm w wydaniu MetLife to nie puste hasło. Konsumenci są praktycznie współtwórcami oferty towarzystwa. Ich opinie wyznaczaja też kierunki rozwoju firmy. Stawianie klienta w centrum uwagi to przemyślana strategia z konkretnymi celami biznesowymi, a nie element przekazu marketingowego. Tak twierdzi Agata Lem-Kulig, członek zarządu i dyrektor pionu operacyjnego MetLife TUnŻiR.

The customer is the most important. The customer is our master. Customer-oriented… Customercentrism as represented by MetLife is not an empty slogan. Consumers are practically co-creators of the company’s offer. Their opinions also determine the directions of the company’s development. Focusing the customer’s attention is a well-thought-out strategy with specific business objectives, not an element of marketing message. This is what Agata Lem-Kulig, member of the management board and director of MetLife operational division, says.

klient (client is our most important target)  nasz pan  MET LIFE (company)  współtwórcy (co-creators)  say  kient  cele biznesowe (business target) – marketing x oczywiste stwierdzenia (were not focusing on obvious statements)  filozofia  uważne słuchanie

(continued on next page)

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Case study 2

Tab. 33: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

– Mówiąc o polityce firmy, w której centrum stoi klient, nie sposób nie używać oczywistych stwierdzeń. W przypadku MetLife mają one jednak własną treść i znaczenie – mówi Agata Lem-Kulig. Orientacja na Klienta, bo taką nazwę nosi filozofia działania firmy, jest oparta na uważnym słuchaniu opinii klientów.

– When talking about the policy of a company where the customer is at the centre, it is impossible not to use obvious statements. In the case of MetLife, however, they have their own content and meaning, says Agata Lem-Kulig. Customer orientation, which is the name of the company’s philosophy, is based on listening carefully to customers’ opinions.

(philosophy, which consists of good listening  main priority in our company)

Mogła być już częścią odzieżowego imperium LPP, ale przez kryzys popadła w kłopoty finansowe.

It could already have been part of the Mogłbyć najlepszy LPP empire of clothing, but through członek LPP the crisis it got into financial trouble. kłotopoty z Diverse  nie jest.

Wymyślenie nowego konceptu sklepów zajęło prezesowi Diverse i jego zespołowi równo dobę. W innych firmach potrzeba na to zwykle trzech miesięcy.

It took Diverse president and his team nowy koncept  exactly a day to come up with a new 24 godzin store concept. In other companies it w innych 3 mies usually takes three months.

Like in the previous case study, the source texts did not offer much opportunity for marking negation and in those few instances where negation was used in the input, it was jotted down as typical English negation markers – by the “n’t” suffix (Tab. 34): Tab. 34: The second case study participants’ notes: negation. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

„Tesco to wspaniała firma, która znalazła się pod silną finansową presją. Usiłujemy ożywić jej model i sprostać finansowym wyzwaniom” – zaznaczył.

“Tesco is a great company under strong financial pressure. We are trying to revive its model and meet the financial challenges” – he indicated.

can’t afford operating on the same scale anymore Tesco great financial pressure, rejuvenile the model

Lewis nie ujawnił, jak decyzje te przełożą się na poziom zatrudnienia.

Lewis did not reveal how these didn’t disclose if fired decisions would translate into the level of employment.

327

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes

Unlike the first case study participants, most trainee interpreters in this case study did not write their notes vertically. Instead, many notes extend from the left margin to the right margin, as people normally write. Only a few instances of note verticality have been identified. They are presented in the Tab. 35: Tab. 35: The second case study participants’ notes: verticality. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Do ścisłej tenisowej czołówki dołączyła w 2008 roku i od tego czasu każdego roku wzbogaca się o ponad 1 mln dolarów (na korcie uzbierała już ponad 17 mln dol.).

She joined the top tennis players in 2008 and since then has earned over 1 million dollars each year (she has already collected over 17 million dollars in tennis).

Ag Radwańska w tenis czołów 2008 k. rok  1$ do tej pory 17$

Jak poinformowano po spotkaniu, w jego trakcie padł m.in. postulat, by stosowanie budzących kontrowersje niemieckich przepisów zostało zawieszone do czasu wyjaśnienia, czy są one zgodne z prawem UE.

As informed after the meeting, during the meeting, among other things, there was a postulate that the application of the controversial German legislation be suspended until it is clarified whether they are compatible with the EU law.

postulat przepisy czy są zgodne z prawem UE

Jak powiedziała Czemerajda, od 15 marca br. po kolejowych szlakach ma jeździć 17 składów Pendolino, a 3 mają stanowić rezerwę.

As Czemerajda said, 17 Pendolino 15 marca 17 – 3 trains are to be in operation from rezerwa 15 March this year, and 3 are to be a reserve.

Nie byłoby to jednak możliwe, gdyby nie finansowa pomoc Ryszarda Krauzego, poświęcenie rodziców i odważne inwestowanie we własny rozwój. O karierze, sukcesie i pieniądzach – rozmawiamy z Agnieszką Radwańską.

However, it would not have been possible had it not been for Ryszard Krauze’s financial help, the sacrifice of his parents and bold investment in his own development. We talk to Agnieszka Radwanska about her career, success and money.

Zandzi. Suk  fin pomoc  Rysz Krauze wsparcie Rodzice rozwój osobisty

Od 14 grudnia 2014 r., wraz z wejściem w życie nowego rozkładu jazdy, do eksploatacji włączono 15 składów Pendolino, z czego 9 wozi pasażerów, a 6 składów znajduje się w rezerwie.

From 14 December 2014, with the new timetable, 15 Pendolino trains have been put into operation, of which 9 carry passengers and 6 trains are in reserve.

15 składów 6 w rezerwie

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Case study 2

Tab. 35: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Od 15 lutego br. kolejne dwa składy Pendolino zaczną wozić pasażerów – powiedziała Beata Czemerajda z biura prasowego PKP Intercity. Nowe składy Pendolino mają kursować z Warszawy do Wrocławia, Krakowa i Katowic.

From 15 February this year the other two Pendolino trains will start carrying passengers – said Beata Czemerajda from the press office of Intercity Polish Railways. The new Pendolino trains are to run from Warsaw to Wrocław, Cracow and Katowice.

15 luty 2 składy pendolino Beata Czemerajda z Warszawy do wroc krak

Pierwotnie od 14 grudnia na trasach miało się pojawić 17 składów, a 3 miały zostać w rezerwie. Ze względu na opóźnienia w dostarczaniu składów przez producenta – Alstom, PKP Intercity musiało zmniejszyć liczbę Pendolino na torach.

Originally, from 14 December, 17 trains were to appear on the routes and 3 were to remain in reserve. Due to delays in the delivery of the trains by the manufacturer Alstom, Intercity Polish Railways had to reduce the number of Pendolino trains in use.

17 składów 3 w rezerwie – pierwotnie opóźnienie z win producenta

Trzynaście państw UE, w tym Polska, ma zastrzeżenia do nowych niemieckich przepisów ws. płacy minimalnej, obejmującej także zagranicznych kierowców. Na piątkowym spotkaniu w Brukseli kraje te zaapelowały o zawieszenie stosowania tych przepisów.

Thirteen EU countries, including Poland, have reservations about the new German minimum wage regulations, which also concern foreign drivers. At a meeting in Brussels on Friday, these countries called for the suspension of these rules.

13 pań UE spotkało się na w tym PL spotkaniu zastrzeżenia about conerned German laws of the minimal payment płaca minim

Według amerykańskiego „Forbesa” tylko między czerwcem 2013 a 2014 roku wzbogaciła się dzięki nim o 3 mln dolarów.

According to American “Forbes”, Forbes: cz between June 2013 and 2014 2013 – lip 2014 alone, she earned 3 million dollars 3$ thanks to them.

Z wyliczeń „Dziennika Gazety Prawnej” wynika, że po 25 latach pracy zatrudniany na umowie zlecenia i etatach z pensją minimalną, rzetelnie opłacający składki pracownik, otrzyma niespełna 500 zł emerytury brutto, czyli zaledwie 28 proc. pensji.

As results from the calculations of “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna”. after 25 years of work, an employee employed on the basis of a contract of mandate and with a minimum salary, who pays contributions reliably, will receive less than PLN 500 pension gross, i.e. only 28% of the salary.

Dzien gaz praw po 25 y l pracy pensja minimalna 500 brutto emery 28% pensji

329

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 35: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Za rok zyska jeszcze więcej, ponieważ niedawno wkroczyła na potężny rynek sponsoringu sportowego w USA, rozbudowując swoje sponsorskie portfolio o dwie amerykańskie firmy – sieć restauracji The Cheesecake Factory i producenta oprogramowania Workday.

In a year’s time she will earn even more, as she recently entered the huge sports sponsorship market in the USA, expanding its sponsorship portfolio with two American companies – The Cheesecake Factory restaurant chain and Workday software producer.

teraz więcej bo USA sport + 2 firmy restau + prod programu

The final aspect sought in the trainee interpreters’ notes is the use of shift markers. It appears that a wide array of arrows serves this purpose and the information about changes was usually recorded as an arrow indicating an increase or decrease. The following examples have been identified (Tab. 36): Tab. 36: The second case study participants’ notes: shifts. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Do ścisłej tenisowej czołówki dołączyła w 2008 roku i od tego czasu każdego roku wzbogaca się o ponad 1 mln dolarów (na korcie uzbierała już ponad 17 mln dol.).

She joined the top tennis players in 2008 and since then has earned over 1 million dollars each year (she has already collected over 17 million dollars in tennis).

Ag Radwańska w tenis czołów 2008 k. rok  1$ do tej pory 17$

Może to dotyczyć w roku 2060 od 25 do nawet 50 proc. osób, które nie zdołają zgromadzić na swoich kontach w ZUS środków wystarczających do otrzymania najniższej emerytury i państwo będzie musiało dopłacić im do świadczeń – wynika z cytowanego przez gazetę raportu „Jak mobilizować dodatkowe oszczędności emerytalne”, opracowanego przez Stefana Kawalca, byłego wiceministra finansów, obecnie prezesa firmy doradczej Capital Strategy.

In 2060, this may apply to from 25 to even 50% of people who will not be able to accumulate sufficient funds in their Social Insurance Institution accounts to receive the lowest pension and the state will have to pay them for benefits – according to the report “How to mobilize additional retirement savings”‘ quoted by the newspaper, prepared by Stefan Kawalec, former deputy finance minister, currently the president of the advisory firm Capital Strategy.

2060  25–50% nie zdołały środków + państwo będzie dopłac.

(continued on next page)

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Case study 2

Tab. 36: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Powtórzył on zapowiedź z października zeszłego roku, że koncern, który w swoim krakowskim centrum zatrudnia około 500 pracowników, zamierza w najbliższych 2 latach zwiększyć zatrudnienie do ponad tysiąca osób.

He reiterated the announcement Paźdź. Conc 500 prac from October last year that  1000 osób the company, which employs is going to about five hundred people in its Cracow centre, intends to increase the employment to over a thousand people in the next two years.

Sieć supermarketów Tesco, największa w W. Brytanii poinformowała o planach zamknięcia 43 sklepów i wycofaniu się z zaplanowanych inwestycji w 49 dalszych. Firma chce też zmniejszyć koszty o 30 proc.

Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK, has announced plans to close 43 stores and withdraw from the planned investments in other 49. The company also wants to cut costs by 30%.

Urszula Cieślak dodaje, że ostatni tydzień stycznia prawdopodobnie może przynieść jeszcze pewne obniżki cen paliw, ale w kolejnych tygodniach będzie ich coraz mniej.

Urszula Cieślak adds that the ostatni tydzień styczeń last week of January may bring cen paliw some reductions in fuel prices, but in the following weeks, there will be fewer and fewer of them.

Urszula Cieślak z Refleksu zaznacza, że mija tydzień dużej zmienności cen ropy na świecie, a także na rynku walutowym.

Urszula Cieślak adds that the last week of January may bring some reductions in fuel prices, but in the following weeks, there will be fewer and fewer of them.

tych duża zmien  świat  waluty (currency market)

Urszula Cieślak z Refleksu zaznacza, że mija tydzień dużej zmienności cen ropy na świecie, a także na rynku walutowym. Dodaje, że na rynku hurtowym widać już wyższe ceny. Nie są to jednak jeszcze jakieś gwałtowane wzrosty które zachwieją sytuacją na rynku detalicznym. Niemniej jednak można się spodziewać, że tempo obniżek wyhamuje.

Urszula Cieślak from Reflex points out that a week of high volatility of oil prices in the world and on the currency market is passing. She adds that higher prices are already visible on the wholesale market. However, these are not yet any sudden increases which will upset the situation on the retail market. Nevertheless, it can be expected that the pace of reductions will slow down.

Urszula Cieślak rynek walutowy cena  rynek detal  cen wyhamuje

Tesco, biggest UK inv in 43 close, 49 cut  30% cost reduction

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ protocols

331

Tab. 36: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Z wyliczeń „Dziennika Gazety Prawnej” wynika, że po 25 latach pracy zatrudniany na umowie zlecenia i etatach z pensją minimalną, rzetelnie opłacający składki pracownik, otrzyma niespełna 500 zł emerytury brutto, czyli zaledwie 28 proc. pensji.

As results from the calculations of “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna”. after 25 years of work, an employee employed on the basis of a contract of mandate and with a minimum salary, who pays contributions reliably, will receive less than PLN 500 pension gross, i.e. only 28% of the salary.

min. Salary 500 brutto  28% pensji

Zaś Internet jest w 9,4 mln domów (73 proc.), a to o ok. 0,4 mln więcej niż w 2013 r. – pisze „Rzeczpospolita”.

9,4 mln net And the Internet is in 9.4 million homes (73 %), which 73 is about 0.4 million more than in 0,3  2013 2013 – writes “Rzeczpospolita”.

Like the analysis of the notes carried out as part of the first case study, the above analysis alone does not provide much evidence which could help to state that the trainee interpreters experienced some negative influence of the psycho-affective factors and that this experience is particularly well reflected in the notes. However, those factors did impact on the consecutive interpreting process since the students reported that, because of some aspects of their psycho-affectivity, they had difficulties taking and reading their notes. What is interesting, some psycho-affective factors must have been active during the consecutive interpreting test because two students’ notes bear the visible extra-linguistic exponents of the experience of those factors. Photographs 2 and 3 present the wrinkled notepaper whereas Photograph 4 (see below) shows the bulges which emerged in the place of sweat stains. Thus, anxiety, low self-esteem and stress could have been experienced by those test takers, the exponents of which are visible in the photographs. Generally speaking, the analysis of the second case study participants’ notes has not revealed many exponents of the negative impact of the psycho-affective factors. While it is true that some students did not use Rozan’s note-taking system consistently, noting down, for instance, the entire phrases of the source text, writing illegibly or not jotting down some key elements like proper names or numerical data, it is still insufficient to make any general claims concerning the evident exponents of the factors. However, the data obtained from the retrospective protocols as well as the extra-linguistic exponents in the forms of the visible symptoms like wrinkled paper or sweat stains can be viewed as the corroboration of the fact that the trainee interpreters indeed experienced some negative influence of their psychoaffectivity. Perhaps another exponent is several students’ rather limited quantity of notes which oftentimes resulted in many equivalence-related errors since the smaller amount of the notes taken, the smaller number of the retrieval cues

332

Case study 2

Photograph 2: The second case study participant’s wrinkled notepaper (author’s own photograph).

Photograph 3: The second case study participant’s wrinkled notepaper (author’s own photograph).

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ protocols

333

Photograph 4: The second case study participant’s bulges on the notepaper (author’s own photograph).

and – ultimately – the worse performance with a greater exploitation of the omission and repairing strategies. Nevertheless, it seems that the notes alone – like in the first case study – cannot be regarded as the solid proof confirming the negative impact of the factors in question. However, more data from the second part of the retrospective protocol can shed more light on the trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors and its self-perceived manifestation in their notes. This is presented in the next section of this chapter.

6.5. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ retrospective protocols against the quality of their performance: data triangulation The trainee interpreters pursuing their regular undergraduate studies in English provided a wealth of interesting data concerning their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors, and perception thereof, during the consecutive interpreting test. It should be borne in mind that both interpreting at large as well as the testing situation can both invoke the activity of some factors as well as be influenced by them. Therefore, this subchapter is devoted to the analysis and

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Case study 2

interpretation of the data obtained from the responses given to the cued questions. Those data are also juxtaposed with the observations based on the above error analysis, the analysis of the interpreting strategies employed by the students and the test takers’ notes. Thanks to such data triangulation, it might be possible to make some local generalisations concerning the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity and its impact on the consecutive interpreting ultimate product – the output. The numerical data excerpted from the retrospective protocols indicate that the most frequent psycho-affective factor which the trainee interpreters enumerated as the one having an influence on their consecutive interpreting performance was anxiety, which was experienced by sixteen students (76%). The second most often experienced factor of psycho-affective nature was language inhibition and language ego (fifteen trainee interpreters  – 71%). Then, surprising as it seems, stress was felt by thirteen students (62%). The next in order are motivation (twelve students – 57%) and self-esteem (eleven test takers – 52%). Fear was declared as a subjectively experienced psycho-affective factor by ten students (48%). Finally, extroversion/introversion had a subjectively perceived impact on the way the trainee interpreters performed the test-based consecutive interpreting among seven students (33%). Chart 4 presents these data. 13

stress

8

12

motivation

9

11

self-esteem

10

7

extroversion/introverstion

14 15

language inhibition/language ego

6

10

fear

11 16

anxiety 0

5

5 10

15

20

I experienced the impact of this psycho-affective factor. I did not experience the impact of this psycho-affective factor.

Chart 4: The second case study participants’ declared experience of the psychoaffective factors.

As above-stated, anxiety was subjectively experienced by the majority of the test takers (16 students – 76%) and, as emerges from the selection of the quotes, it was more the inhibitory type of anxiety than the facilitative one. On the basis of the answers provided by the second case study participants, it is difficult to ascertain that archaic anxiety was experienced by the test takers. However, like in the

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first case study, it may be hypothesised that they might have had such past-related feelings (i.e. archaic anxiety) which contributed to the subjective experience of existential anxiety but owing to no explicit references to such anxiety, for the time being this issue has to remain of hypothetical character. The major type of anxiety identified in the trainee interpreters’ responses is the existential one. The predominating subtype of existential anxiety which the students reported was performance anxiety. In other words, the students felt anxious about whether they would be able to perform the consecutive interpreting task and its constituent activities (i.e. comprehension, memorisation, note-taking, retrieval etc.). Thus, they showed some uncertainty related to their skills. The following quotes bring such feelings to light:

• Anxiety about the topic of the source text and about the vocabulary which I might encounter. • Anxiety related to not being able to understand the text and to deal with notes. • Anxiety: uncertainty before the test, adrenaline during the test, fear that I did badly. • I felt anxiety which was related to my own skills. • I was afraid that I would not manage. This resulted from my self-worth not from my conviction that I did not have linguistic skills. • I was anxious about whether my notes would be good enough to create a concise whole [of the target text]. • I was anxious about my self-confidence and my skills. • I was anxious that I would not be able to jot down/remember everything. • I was anxious that I would not note down a sufficient amount of information. • My anxiety was caused by lack of some notes.

What is more, acceptance-related anxiety was also experienced by some trainee interpreters since they wrote about the potential ridicule which they might expose themselves to in the case of their poorer performance. Such a view emerges from the following two quotes:

• Because of the form of the test and my awareness of some linguistic deficiencies, I was anxious about being ridiculed and that I would not manage the task. • My lecturer believes in my skills and I feel as if I were to face a huge challenge.

Orientation anxiety, combined to some degree with performance anxiety, was also detected in the students’ written responses. Two trainee interpreters wrote about their concerns over whether they would be able to find themselves in the consecutive interpreting testing situation – to understand and process the input and to deliver the output. Obviously, those concerns also point to the subjective experience of performance anxiety since not being able to understand the source text or not being able to deliver the target message may also indicate anxiety related to the students’ linguistic and interpreting skills. Two such quotes bring orientation anxiety to the fore:

• During the test I was anxious that I was getting more and more lost, I did not understand the source, I could not deliver my interpretation. • My anxiety resulted from the fact that I did not know what to expect from the text.

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Although as many as five students reported no experience of anxiety during the consecutive interpreting test, one person wrote that he/she had such an experience but it was marginal.

• I felt it only minimally.

When asked about how they perceived the influence of the subjective experience of the above-analysed types of anxiety on their interpreting performance and its particular aspects, the trainee interpreters enumerated several problems which were also identified mostly in the error analysis and the analysis of the interpreting strategies. Several students stated that because of their anxiety, they encountered some difficulties with comprehending and processing some elements of the input (reflected, for instance in incomplete and disordered notes), which eventually led to some disfluencies and omissions. Furthermore, the test takers were also aware of their linguistic errors.

• Because of my anxiety, I was not really fluent in my interpretation. I gave important information but not all of  it. • Disrupted fluency and errors. • Errors. • Grammar. • My notes. • Pauses, lack of information, probably the phonetic aspects [were deficient]. • Probably, I confused grammar. • Probably, linguistic errors and general inaccuracy of the interpretation. • Stammering and chaotic notes. • Yes. My anxiety resulted in poor vocabulary and grammar errors and forgetting most of the text.

Two students also wrote about their physiological symptoms of anxiety: about perspiration, flush on the face and shaking hand. In fact, those could also be regarded as the extra-linguistic exponents of other psycho-affective factors, most notably of stress. The following two quotes have been excerpted from the retrospective protocols:

• Distraction. A slightly shaking hand. • I stammer. I faltered. Perspiration. Flush [on my face].

Thanks to the combination of the results of the error analysis, the analysis of the interpreting strategies and the analysis of the notes with the analysis and interpretation of the trainee interpreters’ responses related to their subjective experience of anxiety, it might be stated that anxiety, and its particular types, could indeed have contributed to the problems that the students had while performing consecutive interpreting and to the general decrease of their interpreting performance quality. What the interpretation of the students’ answers has also shown is that in some cases performance anxiety was reported to have been linked to the students’ other psycho-affective factors. Some test takers were of the opinion that they were anxious about how well they would perform, whether they would be able to

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understand and process the input or to take notes. This points to the fact that performance anxiety might have emerged in connection with the trainee interpreters’ lower levels of intermediate self-esteem or language inhibition. Thus, it may bear witness to the interrelations among the psycho-affective factors. The next psycho-affective factor, and its subjective experience, which the trainee interpreters were asked to provide some information about was fear. It has already been stated several times that fear is defined as a person’s reaction to a stimulus which poses a genuine threat. In fact, in the consecutive interpreting testing situation which is examined in all the three case studies, there was no objective danger so the trainee interpreters should not have experienced this psycho-affective factor and it should not have impacted on their performance during the in-class test. However, as many as ten students (48%) taking part in the second case study declared that they had experienced this psycho-affective factor. The following quotes include many references to the subjective experience of fear.

• During the test – insufficient knowledge of vocabulary from this thematic domain. • Fear about how I did. • Fear about not being able to deal with the text, notes, topic. • I felt it and during the test, at some moment, I thought I would write down nothing more and understand nothing more. I was afraid that it would be visible that some words escaped my memory and that I did not know what I was doing. • I forgot some words which I could use and jotted them down in my notes. I also felt it because my notes did not contain all the information. • I had fear that I  would make very basic errors and fear about faltering and not saying a word. • I was afraid of the fact that I was not sure about my skills and of the presence of other people in the classroom. • There was uncertainty which resulted in the loss of my concentration while taking notes.

What is more, the trainee interpreters also enumerated several exponents of their experience of fear. Among them are:

• Errors, concentration problems. • Frequent pauses. • Linguistic errors. • No fluency at some moments. • Stammering. Wrong selection of words. Tragedy! • Transferring the sense. • Very long pauses during interpretation.

What both the students’ accounts of their subjective experience of fear as well as its exponents clearly indicate is that actually it was not fear but anxiety that they felt. The test itself was not dangerous so there could not have been any experience of fear. Moreover, in their responses, the students expressed their concerns which are oftentimes identical to those related to anxiety. Thus, the trainee interpreters’

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fear was in the majority of cases performance anxiety as they were uncertain about their skills and knowledge and those feelings had similar exponents. In one case, the subjective experience of fear resulted from the potential influence of stress. However, it has already been stated that stress and anxiety are often interlinked with each other and anxiety can be a stress response as well as stress can result from anxiety. The following quote makes it clear:

• I was afraid that I would become stressed and stress would impede me and I would make mistakes.

All of the above quoted fragments of the students’ responses undoubtedly point to the subjective experience of anxiety and not fear. That is why it should be stated that because of the absence of any serious and genuine danger in the consecutive interpreting testing situation, what the students might have experienced was debilitating performance anxiety and not fear. The third psycho-affective factor which the trainee interpreters were asked to self-analyse with reference to their performance during the test was language ego/ language inhibition which turned out to have been the second most frequently experienced aspect of the students’ psycho-affectivity for fifteen students (71%) declared its presence during the test. The fact that the test takers might have been linguistically inhibited was already identified in the interpretation of the data pertaining to anxiety for quite many students pointed to their linguistic skills. As explained earlier, language inhibition is related to weak language ego. In other words, those who experience those inhibitory phenomena do not use certain elements of language such as lexical or grammatical structures which they find in some way difficult to use. Thus, their limited linguistic performance may result from incomplete competence, i.e. the awareness that a mistake can constitute a potential threat to their already fragile language ego. This is clearly evident from the students’ responses, in which they state that their lexical resources (in particular, specialised vocabulary) were not rich enough to be fully exploited during the test, that their pronunciation of some words may be defective or that their listening and comprehension skills are not properly developed and therefore their notes were incomplete. The following quotes confirm this:

• Already when listening to the [source] text, I thought it was mega-difficult and that I chose one of the worse topics. • Because I am aware of various linguistic structures, of the fact that I can do it better. Moreover, I was also a bit afraid of humiliation. • Gaps in vocabulary. • I am aware of my insufficient knowledge of specialised vocabulary and because of this I had to look for synonyms during the interpretation. • I was afraid to use some words because of improper pronunciation. • I was inhibited because I did not understand the full sense of the original text and the vocabulary which was there is not the one I use on a daily basis. • Inhibition of vocabulary, of notes. • Inhibition was caused by gaps in my notes and the attempt at filling them in.

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One student linked his/her subjective experience with his/her limited practice in consecutive interpreting. What may be hypothesised here is that the longer experience in consecutive interpreting interpreters have, the less linguistically inhibited they are and that is why this trainee interpreter felt inhibited:

• It was caused by the fact that I had not had much practice in consecutive interpreting so I did not have enough experience.

In two cases, the trainee interpreters attributed their subjectively experienced language inhibition to stress which they were under. As maintained earlier, the students’ language inhibition might be related to their weak language ego which can be manifested in the use of rather simple lexical items, not many specialised terms or not complex grammar structures. In several responses, these problems are accentuated:

• [My language inhibition/ego manifested itself] [p]‌erhaps in using wrong grammar. • Errors and mistakes. • I avoided using some words. • I could not find appropriate words. The entire sense crumbled. • I forgot words and this led to my problems with interpreting. • I tried to paraphrase the unknown vocabulary, to make up words and periphrases, but it was not very successful. • Very poor vocabulary during interpreting, for example, “happy”. • Vocabulary problems – I forgot easy words.

No willingness to use the chunks of language which are yet not fully internalised by the trainee interpreters can also be related to their perception of errors as threats to their language ego. Moreover, some test takers were also aware of the influence of their language inhibition on the fluency of their output production, which indeed resulted in numerous disfluencies, and on the semantic transfer. The following quotes bright those issues to light: • I focused on small details not on the sense of the sentence. • I was blocked. I  could not speak too fluently, with ease, I  often kept silent for too long. • My inhibition led to difficulties with concentration and retrieval of some phrases – my target text was not very advanced. • Omission of some parts of the text in order to omit the fragments as to which I was not sure what to transfer and how to do it. • Problems with transferring the sense of the [source] text.

Given the fact that in the course of the error analysis as well as the analysis of the interpreting strategies quite many various errors and disfluencies were identified, it might be concluded that the students aptly observed that language inhibition was without a doubt the psycho-affective factor which exerted some adverse influence on their output quality. Interestingly enough, some trainee interpreters were also right in stating that their subjective experience of language inhibition

340

Case study 2

was related to stress (and performance anxiety, as became evident in the interpretation of the data concerning anxiety). Therefore, this is another psycho-affective factor whose activity has been identified in the recorded outputs in the course of the analyses of the errors and interpreting strategies. Extroversion/introversion, as two personality dimensions occupying the extremes of the personality continuum, and ambiversion were the next collectively analysed psycho-affective factor, the impact of which was sought in the trainee interpreters’ audio-recorded target texts and in their responses given to the cued questions of the retrospective protocol. Actually only seven students (33%) declared that this psycho-affective factor could have influenced their consecutive interpreting during the test. Unfortunately, those seven trainee interpreters did not provide much information about the impact of their extroversion/introversion/ambiversion on the way they dealt with the interpretation. Only three test takers defined their personality dimension as introversion. The remaining four did not specify it. Those who classified themselves as introverts stated that because of introversion, their output delivery lacked fluency, was oftentimes grammatically and lexically poor or incorrect. What is more, some trainee interpreters linked the experience of their introversion to their language inhibition and anxiety. The following quotes shed some light on those phenomena:

• Introversion because I had to interpret when other group members were listening to me especially considering the fact that it was a weak interpretation. • Introversion during the test: anxiety, inhibition. • Introversion:  I think that was it  – I  prefer not using a given word than using it incorrectly. There were grammar mistakes, my vocabulary was poor, there was no fluency. • No, I  mean a bit yes. I  had a rather negative attitude to the mistakes made by me. I was withdrawn, rather quiet. I prefer to say nothing than to say something wrongly.

It seems that the students’ answers do not really refer directly to how their personality dimension could have impacted on their performance. It therefore can only be hypothesised that this was one of the psycho-affective factors whose adverse activity led to the decrease in the overall quality of the outputs since, as emerged from the analyses, the test takers’ target texts were often relatively shorter than the source texts  – they contained less relevant information, were delivered less fluently with more disfluencies and the omission and implicitation strategies were frequently exploited. Broadly speaking, perhaps extroversion/introversion/ambiversion could have been responsible for the manner, in which the trainee interpreters dealt with the consecutive interpreting task during the test, but because of the scarcity of the data related to this subjectively experienced psycho-affective factor, no far-reaching conclusions can be made. What therefore can be conjectured is that the ambiverts’ target texts could be slightly longer than the introverts’ ones, with the greater fluency of delivery, less observable language inhibition and, perhaps, the greater

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use of the explicitation/elaboration strategy. On the other hand, it should also be borne in mind that some studies (e.g. Schweda-Nicholson 2005) demonstrated that even though some interpreters can be classified as introverts, they can exhibit the properties of extroverts in their professional activity since people are able to switch between their “personal selves” and “public selves”, with the latter being reflected in what is known as “the personae”. This might suggest that this psychoaffective factor may not exert a particularly strong influence on the performance of interpreters. Self-esteem was another element of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity which was analysed. Eleven students (52%) declared that it had an impact on their performance during the consecutive interpreting test. In the trainee interpreters’ responses, several types of self-esteem can be noticed: there are some answers, in which situational and task self-esteem is visible. In others, the test takers speak about their intermediate self-esteem (i.e. the linguistic subcompetence- and the interpreting subcompetence-related). Moreover, on the basis of the accounts of other types of self-esteem, some conclusions can be made with reference to global/general self-esteem. However, as the trainee interpreters’ answers include direct or indirect references to several types of self-esteem, they are also analysed collectively. As regards situational and task self-esteem related to the entire consecutive interpreting testing situation and the interpreting task performed as part of this situation, some trainee interpreters stated that their subjectively experienced situational self-esteem was rather low. Not only were they afraid of the evaluation which is an inherent part of any test but they were also stressed which, as might be extrapolated, contributed to some decrease in their self-esteem. This is well discernible in the following two quotes: • It [my lowered level of self-esteem] was caused by stress. • The awareness of being assessed by someone and other people in the room  – self-criticism at all stages [of the test].

Likewise, several students’ intermediate self-esteem was lowered because of their limited self-confidence and belief in their linguistic and interpreting skills as well as their uncertainty about how they would perform. The aspect which comes to light is the fact that intermediate self-esteem associated with the linguistic subcompetence, in particular the familiarity with vocabulary, was clearly negative. Such a view can be deduced from the following quotes:



• I was afraid I would not manage, and this resulted from my general self-esteem and not from my conviction that I do not have linguistic skills. • I was worried whether I would know appropriate vocabulary in order to perform this interpreting task. I think this was caused by realising the gaps in vocabulary related to business and economics. • Uncertainty related to my consecutive interpreting skills lowered my self-esteem. • When I heard the unknown words, my self-esteem lowered.

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The students who declared that their situational, task or intermediate self-esteem levels were rather low also noticed that this psycho-affective factor could have been one of the reasons for their linguistic errors or the inadequate transfer of the source text sense. One person also stated that this factor manifested itself in the loss of concentration which – in turn – resulted in more source text content-related gaps which ultimately led to the production of a less accurate output. Interestingly enough, one student also added that his/her lower self-esteem resulted in the increase in the subjective experience of anxiety. Those issues emerge from the following selection of quotes:

• The extra-linguistic symptoms were loss of my concentration and this resulted in my forgetting some sentences. • Linguistic errors and the general inaccuracy of the interpretation. • Errors. • Self-correction. The increase in the experience of other factors (anxiety).

However, there were also some trainee interpreters who declared that their intermediate, situational and task self-esteem was positive and therefore they saw no negative influence of the subjective experience of this factor on their performance. On the contrary, it might have helped them perform the consecutive interpreting task better. The quotations below bring those aspects to light:

• Great familiarity with language. • I approached the interpreting task fast and confidently. I did not feel any anxiety before the interpretation. • I have considerable linguistic skills, during the interpreting course they did not bring troubles so before the test I felt quite self-confident. • I supposed I would make it and I felt I had to be calm. Such feelings of mine usually appear during tests. • The prospect of being evaluated reminded me that my self-esteem does not depend on a single test, which calmed me down and let me focus.

The subjectively perceived positive levels of self-esteem were reflected in the manner, in which the trainee interpreters dealt with the consecutive interpreting task. The quotes below indicate that those students who were confident about their skills perceived their interpretation as of decent quality, with fewer errors and greater fluency.

• I am certain of my skills. I am not afraid to speak, I can say something indirectly when I forget something. • No panic in intonation, better fluency thanks to the possibility of thinking over the construction of sentences carefully.

What the above interpretation of the trainee interpreters’ data pertaining to their subjective experience of the influence of their self-esteem on their consecutive interpreting performance indicates is that while it is true that negative self-esteem can obstruct the interpreting process, leading to more errors of various types,

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more disfluencies and the generally poorer transfer of the source text sense, the positive levels of different types of self-esteem allow the trainee interpreters to approach the interpreting task in a calmer and less stressful way since they realise that taking the consecutive interpreting test is not the situation which would have a great impact on their generally positive self-esteem. Another psycho-affective factor which as many as twelve students perceived as having had some impact on their performance during the in-class consecutive interpreting test was motivation. It was subjectively experienced by twelve students (57%). This psycho-affective variable has two dimensions. There is intrinsic motivation which results from a person’s own need for excellence or enjoyment so a person himself/herself is the source of this type of motivation. The other dimension is extrinsic motivation whose source lies outside of the person and thus it can either positive – when it brings some benefits or negative – when it brings some loss or leads to some hindrance. The test itself is a situation which oftentimes triggers both types of motivation and the students’ responses indeed show that. As regards the trainee interpreters’ intrinsic motivation, many of them were motivated to perform as well as they could, thereby satisfying their internal need for excellence. This is what can be concluded on the basis of the following excerpts:

• I wanted to do better than before. • I wanted to pass the test as well as I could since the [previous] sight interpreting test boosted my motivation. • I wanted to perform the task the best I could. • My motivation results from my character – I wanted to approach the [interpreting] task seriously. • The willingness to create possibly the best interpretation. • Yes – the willingness to face the challenge.

What is, however, more observable is that those were more external than internal motivators since quite many trainee interpreters admitted to having subjectively experienced the impact of extrinsic motivation. In other words, they wanted to take the consecutive interpreting test in order to obtain a positive grade, take the test and leave the university premises and have free time. Those external motivators are addressed in the following quotes:

• I wanted to focus on the task to pass the test. • The fact that it was one of the last tests this semester. • The willingness to finish the classes and leave the Institute. • Yes – it was the last short test that day. • Yes – passing the test [was my motivation].

Some test takers directly stated that they were motivated both internally and externally, which implies that their need for good performance was supplemented with the possibility of obtaining a good grade and passing the test (and the interpreting course).

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• I wanted to perform the task the best and to have the best result so I  was very concentrated. • The semester grade and proving my skills. • Yes – I wanted to perform the interpreting fast and be over and done with it. I was also a bit interested in how well I would perform it.

Interestingly enough, while answering the motivation-related question, two trainee interpreters wrote about the motivating influence of stress, declaring that the willingness to perform well contributed to the increase in their subjective experience of stress. This emerges from the following fragments:

• Thanks to stress I tried to do as well as I could despite the fact that my mind was totally blank. • The willingness to present myself increased the level of stress, because of which there could have been some linguistic errors. Stress also brings about motivation.

As several trainee interpreters reported, both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation had an influence on their performance, during which they spoke more confidently, were more careful with the use of language and more determined to provide the interpreting of decent quality. The following quotes seem to corroborate such conclusions:

• Confident, determined approach to the task. • I sat in one place without any difficulties. I had the feeling that there was nothing to lose. • I tried to remember much and control my language. • I was looking for good words and phrases, I wanted to use good grammar etc. • I was more focused.

One person, whose extrinsic motivation involved the prospect of leaving the university premises earlier, stated that this psycho-affective factor manifested itself in a faster and sloppier delivery:

• Faster, careless speech.

The fact that motivation as a psycho-affective factor had some influence on the way, in which the trainee interpreters performed their consecutive interpreting in the form of an in-class test was anticipated. What is surprising, however, is that the external motivators seemed to play such an important role. It also appears that only some students had the intrinsic need for good performance. Nevertheless, the analysis of the test takers’ responses clearly proves that motivation is an important psycho-affective factor which may condition the interpreter’s performance. However, as was revealed during the error analysis, in relatively few instances, it could have reinforced the quality of such performance as the majority of the target texts were deficient in some ways. The last element of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity which the students provided some data about is stress which is known to be experienced by many

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interpreters. What is more, this is perhaps one of the most prevalent psycho-affective factors because interpreting – owing to its nature – can be described as an inherently stressful activity. In this case study, thirteen students (62%) declared the subjective experience of stress and its influence on their performance. Among the stressors, the trainee interpreters gave several stressing agents: the nature of the test itself, the presence of other trainee interpreters or the negative thinking about themselves.



• It was caused by listening to other students and their errors. • Like in the previously presented symptoms, I think that the factors triggering my stress were the test itself, uncertainty as well as the character of my susceptibility to stress. • Stress was caused by the fact that it was the test and by anxiety related to the nonperformance of the task. • What stressed me was the presence of other people.

What is more, it seems that other psycho-affective factors could also have contributed to the students’ subjective experience of stress since in several responses, the trainee interpreters wrote about the awareness of their insufficient knowledge or skills, their uncertainty related to their ability to perform this type of interpreting or their anxiety. Thus, performance anxiety related to the entire testing situation, acceptance anxiety linked to the potentially negative impression the students could make, linguistic subcompetence and interpreting subcompetence intermediate self-esteem and language inhibition/weak language ego are those factors, the subjective experience of which could have triggered debilitating stress, i.e. distress. What is rather surprising is that no trainee interpreter (apart from the two students who mentioned the motivating role of stress when answering the questions about their motivation) reported the enhancing activity of stress (i.e. eustress). The interrelations among different psycho-affective factors (intermediate self-esteem, language inhibition and weak language ego), and their potential to trigger the trainee interpreters’ stress, are directly or indirectly mentioned in the following fragments:

• I was stressed because I believe I have no predisposition to performing good consecutive interpreting. • I was stressed because I lost some of the [source] text. • I was stressed because I was anxious about my poor performance, about making basic mistakes which should not happen. • I was stressed because I was anxious about transferring no information. • I was stressed during the test, when I was listening to the source text and understood less and less of it. When I was to deliver my target text, I was stressed, too so my output was poor. After the test, I was also stressed because of my awareness of making a fool of myself – in front of the group and the instructor. I was afraid that I would make the same errors or even that I would perform worse. • Stress resulted from no self-confidence and no skills. • The reason for my stress was my insufficient knowledge.

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• There was stress related to what text I  would select, whether I  would manage, whether I would be able to take notes.

The error analysis and the analysis of the students’ exploitation of various interpreting strategies have shown that there were quite many mistakes of various types:  not only did the trainee interpreters make some equivalence-related and linguistic errors but they also produced numerous disfluencies in their target texts. It might be hypothesised that at least some of those deficiencies were the result of the inhibitory activity of stress. This view can be corroborated by the following selection of the students’ answers about the effects of their experience of stress: • Decreased ability to understand the input, mess in my notes. • I could not render the entire sense of the text because some words escaped my memory and I had difficulties interpreting. • Lack of notes, inhibition. • Linguistic errors, inaccuracy of the interpretation. • Making linguistic errors. • Poor interpreting. • Prolonged pauses while interpreting, disfluencies. • Speaking quietly, stammering, faltering, perspiration, red flush on my face. • When I made a mistake or stammered, I was even more stressed because of the presence of other people.

The foregoing presentation of the trainee interpreters’ responses concerning their subjective experience of stress, supported by the analyses of the output errors and the output delivery strategies and the students’ comments on their general feelings before the test has revealed that stress was indeed present during the consecutive interpreting test. Additionally, the physiological manifestations of stress were also identified on the trainee interpreters’ notepaper, which provides even more evidence that interpreting is rarely stress-free and even consecutive interpreting performed within interpreting training is oftentimes a stressful activity. Of course, it should be borne in mind that many tests administered as assessment tools within any kind of education have the potential of evoking some levels of stress. Therefore, the conclusion that stress was indeed an important psycho-affective factor which could have been responsible for the trainee interpreters’ poorer performance might be justified. All in all, the interpretation of the trainee interpreters’ responses to the cued questions from the retrospective protocol concerning their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors clearly corroborates the earlier assumptions that at least some of them might have had an adverse impact on the students’ performance. In combination with the results of the analyses of the errors made and the interpreting strategies exploited, the outcomes of the investigation into the attitudinal and behaviour data concerning the test takers’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors show that the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity was involved in their consecutive interpreting performance during the in-class test.

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6.6. General observations concerning the second case study participants’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors: analysis conclusions The results of the analyses carried out within the second case study show that the third-year undergraduate students of English at the University of Wrocław, Poland, might have experienced the psycho-affective factors and – in the majority of cases – this experience had a rather negative impact on the overall quality of the students’ target texts. In the course of the error analysis of the audio-recorded outputs, it became evident that the trainee interpreters had made various types of mistakes. Perhaps the most common errors were those related to the transfer of the source text information which – in many cases – was either lost or obscured, leading to the production of the output which was not fully equivalent. The trainee interpreters also made some grammar, lexical and phonetic mistakes. It might also be postulated that the big number of disfluencies and hesitations could also have stemmed from the negative activity of some of the psycho-affective factors. Likewise, the exploitation of the interpreting strategies – like in the first case study – was more a matter of a spontaneous choice to cope with an emerging difficulty with, for instance, comprehension gaps or information retrieval problems rather than a deliberate selection of the most appropriate strategy. Thus, there was extensive use of the omission, repairing or implicitation strategies. What is more, the analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes did not bring much evidence supporting the claim about the activity of the students’ psycho-affective factors apart from the sporadic traces of the physiological response to stress – hand sweating and wrinkled notepaper, both of which can be regarded as the extra-linguistic exponents. The analysis and interpretation of the data included in the trainee interpreters’ retrospective protocols helped to identify those elements of their psycho-affectivity which, as they argued, could have impacted on their performance. Therefore, it can be stated that while performing consecutive interpreting within the framework of a university-setting test, the students subjectively experienced the psychoaffective factors in question. Anxiety, which was the first examined factor, was subjectively experienced by sixteen trainee interpreters who reported that there were a number of different causes of their feelings. This allowed distinguishing several types of anxiety which the test takers had. The most prevalent type was performance anxiety which manifested itself in the students’ apprehensive thinking about their linguistic and interpreting skills. Moreover, some trainee interpreters exhibited acceptance and orientation anxiety. The students were of the opinion that because of their subjective experience of anxiety, they made some mistakes, their linguistic resources were not fully exploited, their notes were incomplete and their target text production included disfluencies. Fear was the next psycho-affective factor which the students were asked to provide some information about and what emerged from the interpretation of the data is that it was not fear but rather anxiety that the trainee interpreters felt.

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Although as many as ten students admitted to having experienced this factor, it was definitely not so for the test did not constitute a genuine danger which could trigger the experience of fear. Moreover, in the great majority of cases, both the causes as well as the manifestations of the alleged experience of fear overlap with those of anxiety, which leads to the conclusion that the test takers confused fear with anxiety. The third psycho-affective factor was language inhibition resulting from unstable language ego, which fifteen trainee interpreters subjectively experienced. Indeed, all the previous analyses of the students’ target texts can corroborate the retrospective protocol data for language inhibition resulted in a variety of deficiencies in the outputs. The most salient exponent of language inhibition was probably vocabulary. The students reported that not only were they inhibited in using their general lexical resources but they were also aware of their unfamiliarity with specialised vocabulary. Extroversion/introversion/ambiversion as the next examined psycho-affective factor turned out to be of rather little relevance for two reasons albeit seven students claimed that they had observed its influence on them during the consecutive interpreting test. First of all, the trainee interpreters did not provide much information on this issue so it might be assumed that they did not experience it to a great extent. Secondly, because of the possibility of assuming “the public self” in the professional activity, the personality dimension does not have to be reflected in interpreting performance. In the course of the interpretation of the trainee interpreters’ responses, self-esteem (in its various types) emerged as a psycho-affective factor which – depending on its subjective experience – has the potential of obstructing interpreting performance (i.e. low/negative self-esteem) as well as enhancing the manner, in which the trainee interpreters handled the consecutive interpreting task. The subjective experience of self-esteem was declared by eleven students, some of whom directly stated that their intermediate self-esteem associated primarily with their linguistic skills was not high and this could have led to a bigger number of the deficiencies in their outputs. On the other hand, those who wrote about their rather high levels of intermediate self-esteem seemed to realise that even though they might forget something or not be able to express a given thought precisely, their linguistic skills are so well developed that they will always find a way to solve an emerging linguistic problem. Furthermore, in the course of the study it became evident that more than half (twelve) of the trainee interpreters perceived the impact of motivation on their performance during the consecutive interpreting test. Some of them declared that it was the intrinsic type of motivation that guided their performance since they wanted to address their internal need for meeting the challenge and achieving some degree of excellence. Others spoke about extrinsic motivation whose sources were beyond the trainee interpreters. One of such external motivators was the grade for consecutive interpreting performance and another – the possibility of leaving the premises of the University of Wrocław. On the whole, it became clear

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that motivation was an important psycho-affective factor for twelve students who reported the subjective experience of its impact on the consecutive interpreting process, in which they were involved during the test. The final factor which was analysed was stress. Its subjective experience was reported by thirteen trainee interpreters who enumerated several stressors, among which were the test itself, the presence of other people in the classroom or the disbelief in their own linguistic and interpreting skills. Thus, stress was reflected in the target texts which were deficient in several aspects and those deficiencies can be attributed, among others, to the subjective experience of stress. The fact that the students were indeed stressed was additionally substantiated by the analysis of the notes. What the second case study clearly shows is that the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity was involved in the process of consecutive interpreting. This implies that the psycho-affective factors could have contributed to the decrease in the overall quality of the production and its outcome  – the output, which is confirmed by the errors identified in the target texts as well as in the use of some strategies. Additionally, the data obtained from the students’ retrospective protocols shed more light on the students’ subjective experience of those factors and their linguistic and extra-linguistic manifestations. What was also brought to light is that the factors can often be interrelated  – one can trigger another or lead to its more intense subjective experience. Therefore, anxiety can induce stress, negative intermediate self-esteem can lead to language inhibition, which, in turn, results from weaker language ego. Low self-esteem can also be linked to anxiety since those who tend not to be self-confident may be more anxious about their skills and this can end up as an experience of stress. Generally speaking, it is hoped that the outcomes of the second case study are solid and convincing enough to state that the trainee interpreters cannot escape from the influence of their psycho-affectivity in the course of consecutive interpreting, let  alone the consecutive interpreting test.

6.7. Chapter 6 summary Chapter  6 aimed at presenting the results of a set of analyses of both the linguistic as well as attitudinal and behavioural data concerning the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors of the third-year undergraduate students of English. Thanks to the triangulation of data done both at the stage of data collection and at the stage of data analysis and interpretation, it became clear that some psycho-affective factors did indeed influence the students’ production of the target texts. Apart from the errors identified in the trainee interpreters’ outputs and the prevalent exploitation of the strategies of omission, repairing and implicitation observed in the audio-recording material, the data provided by the trainee interpreters themselves cast more light on their subjective experience related to their constituent elements of psycho-affectivity. It appears that – perhaps apart from extroversion/introversion/ambiversion  – nearly all studied

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factors affected consecutive interpreting performance, often leading to a poorer quality of the outputs delivered. Thus, unlike the first case study participants, the second case study trainee interpreters were under a greater influence of their psycho-affectivity, which may point to the fact that it is perhaps not possible to totally “switch off” psycho-affectivity and completely eliminate its impact during the interpreting process.

Chapter 7: Case study 3 – postgraduate trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of the psychoaffective factors in consecutive interpreting Chapter 7 offers an insight into the third case study whose participants were the students of the postgraduate programme in translation. One of the components of this programme was an intensive course in interpreting which provided the organisational framework for collecting and analysing the data concerning the subjective experience of the postgraduate trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors. Following the organisational and methodological format of the previous chapters, Chapter 7 is a venue where the description of the studied group of trainee interpreters, the analysis of their errors, interpreting strategies as well as behavioural and attitudinal data pertaining to their subjective experience of the factors in questions are discussed. This is possible thanks to the procedure of the triangulation of data applied at the stage of data collection and at the stage of data analysis and interpretation. Therefore, the principal purpose of this part of the book is to investigate how this group of trainee interpreters performed their consecutive interpreting in the framework of an in-class university-setting test and how their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors could have affected their interpreting performance.

7.1. Case study 3 methodology synopsis The third case study follows the same methodological organisation and is built on the same methodological foundations which were exploited in the first and second case studies. Moreover, the same source texts were used in this case study in order to provide the same grounds for the comparison of the students’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors and its impact on consecutive interpreting performance. For that reason, the research material was collected during an in-class consecutive interpreting test – the trainee interpreters’ target texts were audio-recorded and then analysed in two steps. First all, the students’ outputs were studied with reference to five correctness benchmarks  – equivalence, grammar, vocabulary, phonetic quality and output delivery fluency. What follows is the analysis of the interpreting strategies used by the third case study participants. Another type of research material is the trainee interpreters’ notes which they took and read during the test in consecutive interpreting. The interpretation of the notes may potentially reveal some influence of the students’ psycho-affectivity.

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The most important part of this case study is the analysis and interpretation of the data which the trainee interpreters provided as the responses to the cued questions of the retrospective protocol, which they completed immediately after taking their test. The analysis of those responses is additionally supplemented with the reference to the outcomes of the three above-mentioned analyses since it is believed that the errors and interpreting strategies identified in the course of the study can be – at least partially – explained by the activity of the psycho-affective factors. Combining data from different sources and analysing them from a few angles represent the example of triangulation which, as has been repeated many times so far, can cast more light on the phenomena under discussion.

7.1.1. Case study 3 group description The third case study participants were the students pursuing one-year postgraduate studies in translation at the University of Wrocław, Poland. The thirty-hour course in interpreting was offered in the winter semester of the academic year 2017/2018 (with classes held every Saturday). Initially, the group consisted of 30 students but one person did not express the consent to use that person’s audiorecorded material, notes and retrospective protocol data for the purposes of this study. Therefore, the research material generated by 29 trainee interpreters was analysed. In this case study, the feminisation of the interpreter profession was confirmed even more strongly since there were 27 female and two male students. Unlike the two previous case study participants, the trainee interpreters from this case study did not have a uniform educational background. The majority of them have graduated from English studies, obtaining their master’s degrees (seventeen students – 59%) or bachelor’s degrees (eight students – 27%) as their higher education degrees in this field of study. Four trainee interpreters held only degrees in non-language-related studies: there were two holders of bachelor’s degrees in management, one holder of a bachelor’s degree in public administration and one holder of a master’s degree in law. What is of particular importance is the fact that among those who completed bachelor’s or master’s English studies, there were five trainee interpreters who held their second degrees: one person was a graduate of master’s studies in law (and at the time of the test, was working towards the completion of his/her doctoral studies), another trainee interpreter held a master’s degree in European law/European political science, yet another completed a master’s programme in management; there was also a holder of a master’s degree in Polish studies and one graduate of bachelor’s studies in resocialisation. The fact that most of the third case study participants completed some form of higher education in English is important for the degrees they obtained may prove their high command of the target language – English – which is at the C1/C2 level. Chart 5 presents the distribution of the third case study participants’ educational background.

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Bachelor’s/ Master’s degrees in other fields: 4 students (14%)

Bachelor’s degree in English studies: 8 students (27%)

Master’s degree in English studies: 17 students (59%)

Chart 5: Distribution of the third case study participants’ educational background.

In the course of the postgraduate studies in translation, the third case study participants attended the thirty-hour course in interpreting which, like the course in the second case study, was composed of three modules:  (1) introduction to interpreting; (2) sight translation/interpreting; (3) consecutive interpreting (without and with note-taking). The fact that consecutive interpreting was only part of the course could have contributed to the more adverse activity of the psycho-affective factors for the trainee interpreters were given less practice in this mode than, for instance, the first case study participants who had an entire course devoted to the practice of consecutive interpretation. As regards the experience in consecutive interpreting gained outside the university setting, the great majority of the trainee interpreters (21 students – 72%) did not practise consecutive interpreting outside the university education. One student admitted to practising consecutive interpreting on a regular basis and one did it once only before he/she started the postgraduate studies in translation. Some prior experience in this mode of interpreting was declared by six students (21%) who did it several times. The third case study participants’ distribution of their consecutive interpreting experience is represented in Chart 6 (see below). As discussed above, the third case study participants usually did not have any extensive experience in consecutive interpreting, with most of them having the first opportunity to interpret consecutively during the postgraduate studies in translation. Such limited experience could have been responsible for the more intense subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors which might have obstructed the interpreting process, leading thereby to a lower quality of the

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only during university education: 21 students (72%)

several times: 6 students (21%)

once: 1 student (3.5%) regular practice of consecutive interpreting: 1 student (3.5%)

Chart 6: Distribution of the third case study participants’ experience in consecutive interpreting.

outputs delivered. For the time being, it remains an open question whether this impact is perceptible in the audio-recorded target texts and their quality as well as in the retrospective protocols. However, this issue is addressed in greater detail and further investigated in the next sections of this chapter.

7.1.2. Case study 3 testing situation description The testing situation which generated a wealth of research material which constitutes the basis for this case study did not differ much from the testing situations analysed in the two previous case studies. Therefore, the consecutive interpreting test was administered at the very last classes of the course on the premises of the University of Wrocław, Poland. Moreover, it followed the same organisational procedure, with first briefing the test takers on the test format and particular tasks which it involved (selecting the source text, listening to the input, taking notes, delivering the output, completing the retrospective protocol) as well as on no influence of their responses on the final grade. Furthermore, the students were informed about the fact that the materials which they would generate in the course of the test would be subjected to several analyses, to which most of them voluntarily agreed by expressing their written consent. An important element of describing the third case study testing situation is how the trainee interpreters themselves perceived it. For that purpose, the general part of the retrospective protocol contained two questions pertaining to the trainee interpreters’ feelings before and during the test. As regards the pre-test feelings, the data would seem to suggest that quite many trainee interpreters experienced

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the negative feelings. The most pervasive and frequent feelings which the students mentioned were obviously stress and anxiety. Many of them stated that their experience of stress and anxiety resulted from not knowing the theme of the source texts which they would have to interpret or from not being able to use appropriate lexical resources related to the said theme. Those two prominent causes of stress are accentuated in the following selection of quotes:

• Anxiety related to the fact that during the test I might not be able to find the necessary word in English or its synonym. Anxiety related to the fact that there might be some topic which I am not knowledgeable about. • I was a bit nervous because I did not know what source text I would have, what vocabulary I would need. • Stress – because of no familiarity with the text to be interpreted. • Stress  – my lexical resources. I  have not managed to work out my own note-taking style. • Stress, anxiety about selecting a too difficult source text, about having no time for preparation. • Stress, anxiety, because I did know what to expect and whether I would make it.

Furthermore, there were a number of students whose negative experience of stress resulted from their low intermediate self-esteem since they were afraid of their potential embarrassment as well as failure stemming from their inability to perform some activities which make up the interpreting process like, for instance, input comprehension and processing, information retrieval or note-taking. Thus, it might be supposed that lower linguistic subcompetence and interpreting subcompetence intermediate self-esteem triggered stress and test-related anxiety. Those aspects come to light in the following responses:

• Light stress that I would not jot down the more difficult information and later would not be able to interpret it accurately. • Stress before the test, no concentration during input delivery. Stress related to the grade. • Stress caused by anxiety about failure and secondary stress caused by the abovementioned stress. • Stress related to the fact that I would not remember information. The awareness of no familiarity with the text. • Stress, fear about embarrassment. • Stress, nervousness caused by anxiety about failure, getting lost, forgetting the text, linguistic errors. • There was very huge stress which was caused by potential failure.

In a few cases, the trainee interpreters admitted to suffering from stress because, as they claimed, they had little practice in consecutive interpreting or that they did not attend the consecutive interpreting classes, thanks to which their consecutive interpreting skills could be more developed. A selection of the trainee interpreters’ responses brings those issues to the fore:

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• Before the text, there emerged stress caused by lack of self-confidence related to the task. My mind went totally blank. • I felt frustrated because I do not feel comfortable as an interpreter. I do not like to do something I am not good at and something that I do not feel. • I was stressed because I was present only at one class of consecutive interpreting and I was afraid that I would not handle it. • No experience, a new situation and the testing situation made me anxious. I  felt insecure, I felt anxiety. • Stress related to the fact that I had never participated in such classes and last time I did badly so stress increased. • Stress, anxiety caused by the feeling that I had too little practice in interpreting.

What is interesting, one trainee interpreter declared that his/her experience of anxiety was related to tiredness and mental fatigue, the issues unaddressed in the previous case study groups. What it might imply is that the mental and physical condition of the interpreter can also generate some levels of negative feelings. Obviously, it is common knowledge that tiredness can influence the interpreter’s performance by adversely affecting his/her cognitive capabilities. The following quote can confirm this view:

• I am very tired, I did not feel very nervous but I had some anxiety that my concentration would decrease and it might influence the quality of my interpretation.

Although the majority of the trainee interpreters experienced some negative psycho-affective responses before the test, several of them did not have any particularly negative feelings or, despite the experience of stress, they tried to remain calm and focused. Such an approach of theirs can be inferred from the following quotes:

• Concentration – mental preparation for the test. • Generally positive feelings. • I did not feel stress. No-one else apart from the examiner was listening. I knew it would not be disclosed. • I felt stress but it was not so great as the stress I felt during the previous test. It surprises me but it seems that consecutive interpreting is less stressful for me and I am better at it than at sight interpreting so the level of stress was moderate. • I was stressed but I tried to think positively. • My feelings were rather positive although I am quite tired today. So mainly it was difficult for me to fully concentrate. • There was no difference in my feelings before and after the test. I was calm. I felt more stressed before the sight interpreting test and I thought that it was not my strongest skill and that it would not be of good quality.

On the basis of the above data, it is possible to conclude that the testing situation provoked the subjective experience of some psycho-affective factors, the most common of which were obviously stress and anxiety. What can also be deduced is that sometimes those two negatively experienced emotions were linked to other psycho-affective factors, mostly to lower levels of self-esteem.

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As remarked earlier, another question in the general part of the retrospective protocol concerned the feelings during the test. Again, stress seemed to be the most dominant psycho-affective factor which might have had a negative influence on the trainee interpreters’ performance since it impeded their cognitive abilities as well as linguistic and interpreting skills. Thus, as many students argued, they were unable to comprehend the source text, to process some information, to jot down some data or to concentrate properly. The following quotes substantiate the above claim:









• As I started to listen to the source text, I tried to focus and jot down information but I realised this was not a text from the field I know and am interested in, so I was anxious about how I would do it. • During the test I was stressed. I wanted to remember as much as possible because sometimes it was difficult to write down the key phrases so that I could read them from my notes with some sense. • I became stressed because while listening to the source text, I knew I did not know many words and that it would be difficult. • I did badly, I could not concentrate. • I forgot one key word – “zastrzeżenie” [“reservation”]  – which I continually thought about and I could not focus on the remaining parts. Stress obstructed slightly my thinking. When I was practising at home, it was slightly better. • I think I  did not so badly but I  know that I  can do it better. When I  got more stressed – when I could not find a word, I started to proceed faster to get out of this troublesome situation faster. • I totally forgot English. Moreover, I completely did not remember the Polish text and I did not write information which was important for my interpretation. • I was nervous just before I started and a moment after reading the text [of notes] I was absolutely not able to remember the first sentence. • Looking at my notes, I knew I had not jotted down all relations [holding between the elements presented in the source text]. • My feelings were caused by the fact that I did not do well and by no or chaotic notes. • My voice was faltering and I could not struggle linguistically at some moments. • Stress related to the possibility of omitting something or not knowing a word in English. • The test itself was not difficult. However, my inability to take notes fast made me not jot down enough information to interpret it smoothly. • The test was not difficult. The source text was not difficult, either. However, instead of listening attentively, I focused on taking notes of too many words. • The topic was totally not mine. There were so many numbers that I felt lost and I totally gave up – it seemed to be senseless because I was not able to decipher from my notes what those numbers referred to.

Limited practice made itself felt during the consecutive interpreting process, as well since no properly developed linguistic and interpreting skills are known to have the potential of hindering the interpreter’s performance. On student claimed

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to have been unable to deal with the correct and accurate production of the target text because of no extensive practice in this mode of interpreting.

• The text was not difficult but I do not have enough practice to interpret it fluently. Stress was the disturbing factor.

In one case, the student’s experience of stress ensued from his/her low self-esteem related to the ability to cope with the consecutive interpreting task well.

• I was stressed. It was caused by my belief that I would fail.

Moreover, one trainee interpreter mentioned frustration as the dominant feeling during the test. So far, this reaction to the test has not been disclosed in the analysis.

• Frustration. I remembered nothing of what was said. At the beginning of the text there was some English name and I started to wonder in which language the test is going to be and I did not start taking notes.

Curiously enough, albeit several trainee interpreters wrote about various problem triggers (such as numbers or proper names) which made their delivery less fluent, they seemed not be greatly stressed by this. Such an approach could result from their awareness of the fact that because of its nature, interpreting is an activity in which rarely is it possible to maintain perfect equivalence or linguistic correctness. It is often a time-constrained activity, in which the exchange of information has to proceed fast. This is certainly a factor leading to incorrect use of linguistic resources or to some omissions resulting in the non-rendering of the source message elements. Other students seemed to have expected more stress but were content to observe that during the test, their negative feelings were not so intense. It is therefore worth quoting those responses, in which the above-mentioned aspects are included.

• During the test I concentrated on remembering information – concentration is what I mostly felt. • During the test, I was stressed a little bit less, mostly owing to the fact that I selected the source text which was not particularly difficult for me (it was not easy, either, but manageable). • I am really happy that stress was not so great today. • I think I  did well. The text was understandable although it had many numbers, surnames and places. • I tried to focus on the source text which was being read and on transferring it into English despite stress. During the work, stress and anxiety faded away. • Motivating stress – caused by my willingness to deal with the interpreting task as best as possible. • My positive attitude helped me! I believed in my potential. • The test contained many numbers and I did not manage to write down and understand them all correctly. Nevertheless, I was not stressed by this.

On the basis of the above quotes, it may be inferred that the third case study participants’ feelings before and during the test were mostly negative and that they may be generally attributed to two psycho-affective factors – stress and anxiety. In

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some cases, however, the ensuing negative subjective experience of stress and anxiety was linked to rather low intermediate self-esteem. It may also be hypothesised that those factors could have caused language inhibition because intermediate self-esteem is often linked to unstable language ego. In the further parts of this case study, an attempt is made to verify those suppositions on the basis of the analysis of the outputs (i.e. the error analysis and the analysis of the interpreting strategies) generated by the test takers. Therefore, for the time being, it might be assumed that those negative emotions could have been brought about not only by the activity of single psycho-affective factors but by their interrelations, as well.

7.2. Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs The error analysis carried out within the frameworks of this case study followed the organisational format of the examination of the correctness of the students’ target texts undertaken in the two previous case studies. Hence, this scrutiny is performed with reference to the same output correctness criteria: (1) equivalence; (2) grammar; (3) vocabulary; (4) phonetic quality; (5) output delivery fluency. The first aspect of the error analysis is the study of the equivalence-related errors. As has been stated several times so far, this category is of paramount importance since errors in transferring the sense of the source text resulting from the inappropriate rendering of the original meaning or from omitting some essential information contained in the input may have serious consequences and impact on the interpreting act participants. However, in the course of this study, which was organised in the form of an in-class university setting consecutive interpreting test, such consequences are absent since this was an artificially created situation whose major aim was to elicit research data and assess the trainee interpreters’ performance. In the course of the analysis of the equivalence-related errors, it became evident that such mistakes constituted the most numerous category of errors. They are exemplified in Tab. 37 below.

Tab. 37: The third case study participants’ equivalence errors. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

(…) wynika z cytowanego przez gazetę raportu „Jak mobilizować dodatkowe oszczędności emerytalne”, opracowanego przez Stefana Kawalca, byłego wiceministra finansów, obecnie prezesa firmy doradczej Capital Strategy.

(…) according to the report “How to mobilize additional retirement savings” quoted by the newspaper, prepared by Stefan Kawalec, former deputy finance minister, currently the president of the advisory firm Capital Strategy.

In his report entitled “How to encourage people to pay [repair: pay] higher social insurance contribution [repair: contributions], Stefan Kawalec, the former ministry of finances [silent pause] [filled pause: /ä/] says it’s going to be a huge problem. (continued on next page)

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Tab. 37: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

(…) wynika z cytowanego przez gazetę raportu „Jak mobilizować dodatkowe oszczędności emerytalne”, opracowanego przez Stefana Kawalca, byłego wiceministra finansów, obecnie prezesa firmy doradczej Capital Strategy.

(…) according to the report “How to mobilize additional retirement savings” quoted by the newspaper, prepared by Stefan Kawalec, former deputy finance minister, currently the president of the advisory firm Capital Strategy.

[filled pause: /ä/] [silent pause] [silent pause] as stated by Stefan [silent pause], who is a prime minister [filled pause: / o/].

„Droga, którą rozpoczęliśmy w 2012 r. w Krakowie zaczyna przyspieszać, ponieważ dziś otwieramy nasze trzecie biuro w tym mieście i znacząco rozszerzamy zakres działalności” – poinformował dziennikarzy Olivier Kohler, wiceprezes amerykańskiej spółki, odpowiedzialny za wszystkie tego typu centra Cisco na świecie.

“The way we started in 2012 in Cracow is starting to accelerate, as today we are opening our third office in the city and significantly expanding the scope of our activities” – informed journalists Olivier Kohler, vice-president of the American company, responsible for all Cisco centres of this type in the world.

[filled pause: /ɛ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛ/] This investment [silent pause] begins in Cracow and [silent pause] [silent pause] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛ/] the investment that [filled pause: /ɛ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: hard swallowing] [filled pause: /ɛ/] [filled pause: /ɛ/] [silent pause] involve the opening of the third [filled pause: /ɛ/] office. the vice-president Olivier Kohler [filled pause: /ɛ/] from American company [filled pause: /ɛ/] announced that investment the year before.

25 stycznia odbędą się w Grecji przedterminowe wybory parlamentarne.

Early parliamentary elections On twenty third of January will take place in Greece on 25 there will be held a pool for January. choosing the parla [repair: the parliament] pool.

Blisko 3/4 gospodarstw domowych ma dostęp do internetu, w ciągu zeszłego roku pojawił się on w ok. 400 tys. polskich domów. Według badania Głównego Urzędu Statystycznego komputer ma 9,7 mln gospodarstw domowych, czyli 77,1 proc. wszystkich.

Nearly 3/4 of households have access to the Internet, last year it appeared in about 400 thousand Polish homes. According to a survey conducted by the Central Statistical Office, a computer is in 9.7 million households, i.e. 77.1% of all households.

Almost three fourth houses have access to the Internet [filled pause: /ɪ/] while last year [filled pause: /ɪ/] over four hundred houses had access to the internet, which constitutes seven point [repair: over] [filled pause: /ɪ/] ten [repair: over nine] million people, which also makes the number [filled pause: /ɪ/] ninety seven per cent of all.

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Tab. 37: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Eurostat dostarczył najnowsze dane dot. stóp bezrobocia oraz inflacji w Polsce i strefie euro Stopa bezrobocia, po dostosowaniu sezonowym, w listopadzie 2014 roku, według metodologii Eurostatu, spadła w Polsce do 8,2 proc. z 8,3 proc. w październiku – podał w środę Eurostat.

Eurostat provided the latest data on unemployment rates and inflation in Poland and the euro area. The unemployment rate, after seasonal adjustment, in November 2014, according to the Eurostat methodology, fell in Poland to 8.2% from 8.3% in October, Eurostat announced on Wednesday.

Eurostat provided us with the information that the rate of unemployment in Poland in November 2014 has fallen from eight point three per cent to eight point three per cent.

Eurostat dostarczył najnowsze dane dot. stóp bezrobocia oraz inflacji w Polsce i strefie euro

Eurostat provided the latest data on unemployment rates and inflation in Poland and the euro area.

The Eurostat announced the data on inflation and unemployment rate in Euroland.

Główna siedziba Tesco w Cheshunt w Hertfordshire zostanie zamknięta, a część pracowników uznanych za niezbędnych, zostanie przeniesiona do Welwyn Garden City.

Tesco’s headquarters in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire will be closed down and some of the staff deemed necessary will be transferred to Welwyn Garden City.

The facility in Chesnut was recently closed and the employees were removed to Wolwyn Garden City.

Hutchison Whampoa potwierdziła w komunikacie, że prowadzi wyłączne negocjacje z Telefoniką w sprawie kupna O2.

Hutchison Whampoa confirmed in a press release that she is negotiating exclusively with Telefonika for the purchase of O2.

The company Hutchison, which is a mobile company is running negotiations [filled pause: /ɪ/] in the field of buying of O2 company.

Kończy się kolejny tydzień wyraźnych obniżek cen na stacjach – wynika z danych łódzkiego biura maklerskiego Refleks. Średnio ceny spadały od 7 do 8 groszy za litr. Tym samym paliwa są najtańsze od pierwszej połowy 2010 roku.

Another week of significant price reductions at the petrol stations is coming to an end, according to data from the Łódź brokerage house Refleks. On average, prices fell from 7 to 8 groszy per litre. Thus, fuels have been the cheapest since the first half of 2010.

[filled pause: /ɪ/] The week of [filled pause: /ɪ/] [filled pause: /ɪ/] prices downfall is ending. [filled pause: /ɪ/]. The bureau Refluks says that the [filled pause: /ɪ/] prices fall between 7 and 8 per cent. At their first [repair: the first half] of the 2010. (continued on next page)

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Tab. 37: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Może to dotyczyć w roku 2060 od 25 do nawet 50 proc. osób, które nie zdołają zgromadzić na swoich kontach w ZUS środków wystarczających do otrzymania najniższej emerytury i państwo będzie musiało dopłacić im do świadczeń.

In 2060, this may apply to from 25 to even 50% of people who will not be able to accumulate sufficient funds in their Social Insurance Institution accounts to receive the lowest pension and the state will have to pay them for benefits.

Maybe in 2060 about twenty five to fifty per cent of people will get [repair: won’t get] enough [repair: enough] [repair: enough money] on their account in ZUS [silent pause].

Nie byłoby to jednak możliwe, gdyby nie finansowa pomoc Ryszarda Krauzego, poświęcenie rodziców i odważne inwestowanie we własny rozwój. O karierze, sukcesie i pieniądzach – rozmawiamy z Agnieszką Radwańską. Do ścisłej tenisowej czołówki dołączyła w 2008 roku i od tego czasu każdego roku wzbogaca się o ponad 1 mln dolarów (na korcie uzbierała już ponad 17 mln dol.).

However, it would not have been possible had it not been for Ryszard Krauze’s financial help, the sacrifice of his parents and bold investment in his own development. We talk to Agnieszka Radwanska about her career, success and money. She joined the top tennis players in 2008 and since then has earned over 1 million dollars each year (she has already collected over 17 million dollars in tennis).

[filled pause: /ɪ/] Thanks to their parents, as Ryszard Krauze says, [filled pause: /ɪ/] is Agnieszka Radwańska which is in the top [filled pause: /ɪ/] tennis players since the year 2001. She makes [filled pause: /ɪ/] more every year and now her account [filled pause: /ɪ/] is [repair: is] estimated to about seventeen million.

O karierze, sukcesie i We talk to Agnieszka About her career, successes pieniądzach – rozmawiamy z Radwanska about her career, and sport we talk with Agnieszką Radwańską. success and money. Agnieszka Radwańska. O2 jest obecnie drugim co do wielkości brytyjskim operatorem komórkowym.

O2 is currently the second largest UK mobile operator.

O2 is the second biggest company in Great Britain.

Podobna sytuacja miała bowiem miejsce w Irlandii, gdzie również liczba głównych graczy rynkowych zmniejszyła się z czterech do trzech.

A similar situation occurred in Ireland, where the number of major market players also decreased from four to three.

And the similar situation took place a couple of years ago when there was [filled pause: /ɛ/] downsizing situation when the number of companies was reduced from four to three.

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs

363

Tab. 37: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Premier Grecji Antonis Samaras zapowiedział w sobotę w Atenach stopniowe obniżanie podatków i co najmniej utrzymanie wysokości pensji i emerytur.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras announced on Saturday in Athens a gradual reduction in taxes and at least the maintenance of wages and pensions.

Prime Minister of Greece Samaras [filled pause: /ɛ/] says that he’s going to lower the taxes and keep [filled pause: /ɛ/] increasing the pensions.

Produkcja przemysłowa w Polsce zwiększyła się w grudniu 2014 o 8,4 proc. rok do roku – poinformował GUS. Wzrost odnotowała też branża budowlana.

Industrial production in Poland increased in December 2014 by 8.4% year-to-year, informed the Central Statistical Office (GUS). The construction industry also recorded an increase.

Industrial production [filled pause: /äm/] has increased by eight point five per cent in 2004 [repair: 2014] well the construction production [filled pause: /äm/] has been decreasing on man [repair: monthly] basis.

Produkcja przemysłowa w Polsce zwiększyła się w grudniu 2014 o 8,4 proc. rok do roku – poinformował GUS.

Industrial production in Poland increased in December 2014 by 8.4% year-to-year, informed the Central Statistical Office (GUS).

As informed the [repair: the mait] Main Statistical Office, the [repair: the] industrial production has increased of eight point four per cent.

Sieć supermarketów Tesco, największa w W. Brytanii poinformowała o planach zamknięcia 43 sklepów i wycofaniu się z zaplanowanych inwestycji w 49 dalszych.

Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK, has announced plans to close 43 stores and withdraw from the planned investments in other 49.

The chain of supermarkets called Tesco has recently closed thirty four [repair: fourty three] facilities and cancelled the opening of the further forty nine facilities.

Stopa bezrobocia, po dostosowaniu sezonowym, w listopadzie 2014 roku, według metodologii Eurostatu, spadła w Polsce do 8,2 proc. z 8,3 proc. w październiku – podał w środę Eurostat.

The unemployment rate, after seasonal adjustment, in November 2014, according to the Eurostat methodology, fell in Poland to 8.2% from 8.3% in October, Eurostat announced on Wednesday.

The unemployment rate, according to Eurostat, fell from eight point two per cent to eight per cent in October.

Urszula Cieślak dodaje, że ostatni tydzień stycznia prawdopodobnie może przynieść jeszcze pewne obniżki cen paliw, ale w kolejnych tygodniach będzie ich coraz mniej.

Urszula Cieślak adds that the last week of January may bring some reductions in fuel prices, but in the following weeks, there will be fewer and fewer of them.

In the last week of January we can still [filled pause: sigh] see some rises but in the next rises the prices [silent pause] start to fall.

(continued on next page)

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Tab. 37: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Urszula Cieślak z Refleksu zaznacza, że mija tydzień dużej zmienności cen ropy na świecie, a także na rynku walutowym. Dodaje, że na rynku hurtowym widać już wyższe ceny. Nie są to jednak jeszcze jakieś gwałtowane wzrosty które zachwieją sytuacją na rynku detalicznym. Niemniej jednak można się spodziewać, że tempo obniżek wyhamuje.

Urszula Cieślak from Reflex points out that a week of high volatility of oil prices in the world and on the currency market is passing. She adds that higher prices are already visible on the wholesale market. However, these are not yet any sudden increases which will upset the situation on the retail market. Nevertheless, it can be expected that the pace of reductions will slow down.

Right now Urszula Cieślak says that the currency market [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: that in the currency market] the prices are higher. These rises are not so high but still we can expect that these rises can stop.

Urszula Cieślak z Refleksu zaznacza, że mija tydzień dużej zmienności cen ropy na świecie, a także na rynku walutowym.

Urszula Cieślak from Reflex points out that a week of high volatility of oil prices in the world and on the currency market is passing.

Mrs. Urszula claim that [filled pause: /ɪ/] [filled pause: /ɪ/] the [filled pause: /ɪ/] significant [filled pause: /ɪ/] diversity of prices is visible [silent pause] not only for the western world but only in Poland.

W sobotę opublikowano trzy sondaże, z których wynika, że radykalna partia Syriza prowadzi przed partią premiera – konserwatywną Nową Demokracją (ND).

Three polls were published on Saturday, according to which the radical Syriza party is leading before the Prime Minister’s party, the conservative New Democracy (ND).

and on Saturday the survey as published, in which the party of primister [repair: prime minister] takes second place and the first place is to the Syrizna party.

Według amerykańskiego „Forbesa” tylko między czerwcem 2013 a 2014 roku wzbogaciła się dzięki nim o 3 mln dolarów.

According to American “Forbes”, between June 2013 and 2014 alone, she earned 3 million dollars thanks to them.

[filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] Since July 2013 to July 2014 she earned three million dollars from sponsors.

Według metodologii GUS stopa bezrobocia w listopadzie wzrosła do 11,4 proc. z 11,3 proc. w październiku.

According to the Central Statistical Office (GUS) methodology, in November the unemployment rate rose to 11.4% from 11.3% in October.

According to Metastats, unemployment rate raised from eleven per cent to eleven three per cent in October.

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs

365

Tab. 37: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Wraz z EE i Vodafone tworzą one czwórkę dominujących operatorów na tamtejszym rynku.

Together with EE and There are four main mobile Vodafone, they form the four phone operators both in EU dominant operators in the and Great Britain. Hong Kong market.

Z wyliczeń „Dziennika Gazety Prawnej” wynika, że po 25 latach pracy zatrudniany na umowie zlecenia i etatach z pensją minimalną, rzetelnie opłacający składki pracownik, otrzyma niespełna 500 zł emerytury brutto, czyli zaledwie 28 proc. pensji

As results from the calculations of “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna”. after 25 years of work, an employee employed on the basis of a contract of mandate and with a minimum salary, who pays contributions reliably, will receive less than PLN 500 pension gross, i.e. only 28% of the salary.

According to „Dziennik Gazeta Prawna” twenty five years of working on a [silent pause] contract, employee will get five hundred zlotys [filled pause: /ɪ/], which is twenty eight per cent of [silent pause] wages.

Zaś Internet jest w 9,4 mln domów (73 proc.), a to o ok. 0,4 mln więcej niż w 2013 r. – pisze „Rzeczpospolita”.

And the Internet is in 9.4 million homes (73%), which is about 0.4 million more than in 2013 – writes “Rzeczpospolita”.

We have to also underline that in the previous year it was seventy three per cent which is nine point four [repair: nine point four] million. This is how the “Rzeczpospolita” states.

Zdaniem ekspertów wynika to z faktu o połowę mniejszej liczby ludności i słabszych zarobków.

According to experts, this is due to the fact that the population is halved and wages are lower.

According to the experts, it’s because [filled pause: /ɪ/] we have [filled pause: /ɪ/] half of the population of [filled pause: /ɪ/] the measure countries and we earn less money than they.

Zgadzają się z tym inni eksperci. Np. prof. Leokadia Oręziak z Katedry Finansów Międzynarodowych Szkoły Głównej Handlowej.

Other experts agree with this. For example, professor Leokadia Oręziak from the Department of International Finance at the Warsaw School of Economics.

and [filled pause: /ä/] other experts, among them, an employee of the Chair of Finances [silent pause] from the [silent pause] [hesitation] [repair: from] Szkoła Główna Handlowa agree with him.

The examples included in the above table clearly indicate that the trainee interpreters’ equivalence-related problems might have resulted from the problem triggers which the source texts contained. One of such problem triggers was definitely the numerical data (numbers, dates) which – in several cases – were either omitted or misinterpreted, leading to the obscurity of the original sense. Likewise,

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proper names were also often not rendered properly since they were also the problem triggers which – when not jotted down – may be difficult to memorise and then to retrieve. Some equivalence-related errors might also have been linked to the improper comprehension of the input for, in a few cases, the target texts contained information which was contrary to the source text. A good case in point is rendering the concept of “an increase” as “a decrease”. Another issue related to equivalence is producing the output which – because of its grammatical incorrectness – did not convey the gist of the original. What was not observed in the two previous case studies but has been identified in several target texts in this case study is the non-rendering of the source text information or, in one case, the entire source text. Hence, non-rendering some information definitely is an example of an equivalence error (Tab. 38).

Tab. 38: The third case study participants’ non-rendering errors. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Diverse musi szybko startować z roll-outem, skutecznie powiększać istniejącą sieć 230 sklepów, bo przez złe decyzje zmarnował zbyt wiele lat, by prezes zatrudniony do wypchnięcia spółki z dołka miał siedzieć w biurze z założonymi rękami.

Diverse has to start quickly with Information nona roll-out, effectively enlarge the rendered at all. existing chain of 230 stores, because due to bad decisions it wasted too many years to have the president who was hired to push the company out of the doldrums to sit in the office with his hands put on.

Od tak ważnego przyjaciela, jakim są Niemcy, oczekiwałabym europejskiej solidarności oraz respektowania zasad jednolitego rynku w Unii Europejskiej – mówiła premier Ewa Kopacz nt. sytuacji polskich przewoźników w związku z nowymi przepisami o płacy minimalnej w Niemczech. Od 1 stycznia w Niemczech obowiązuje ustawa o płacy minimalnej; stawka za godzinę, która dotyczy zarówno Niemców, jak i obywateli innych państw pracujących w tym kraju, wynosi co najmniej 8,50 euro za godzinę. Według władz w Berlinie stawka minimalna obowiązuje również kierowców z firm transportowych spoza

From such an important friend as The entire source Germany I would expect European text non-rendered solidarity and respect for the at all. principles of the single market in the European Union – said Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz about the situation of Polish carriers in connection with the new minimum wage regulations in Germany. Since 1 January, Germany has had a law on the minimum wage; the hourly rate, which applies to both Germans and the citizens of other countries working in Germany, is at least EUR 8.50 per hour. According to the authorities in Berlin, the minimum rate also applies to drivers from transport companies outside Germany.

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Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs Tab. 38: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Niemiec. W praktyce każda firma transportowa, której samochód przejeżdżałby tranzytem przez terytorium Niemiec, musiałby płacić swoim kierowcom odpowiednio wysokie stawki. Niemieckie regulacje uderzają w polskie firmy transportowe, ale cieszą związkowców.

In practice, any transport company whose car passes through Germany would have to pay their drivers a correspondingly high rate. The German regulations hit Polish transport companies, but the trade unionists are happy.

Średnio ceny spadały od 7 do 8 groszy za litr. Tym samym paliwa są najtańsze od pierwszej połowy 2010 roku.

On average, prices fell from 7 to 8 groszy per litre. Thus, fuels have been the cheapest since the first half of 2010.

Teraz marka Diverse bierze drugi oddech. Czy młody zarząd zdoła na dłużej tchnąć w nią energię, czy to tylko lekki lifting przed wyjściem funduszu z inwestycji?

Now the Diverse brand takes a Information nonsecond breath. Will the young rendered at all. management manage to breathe energy into it for a longer time, or is it just a slight lifting before the fund leaves the investment?

Transakcja musiałaby uzyskać zgodę zarówno brytyjskich jak i unijnych urzędów antymonopolowych. Według Hutchison Whampoa jest to jednak realne.

The transaction would need the Information nonapproval of both UK and EU rendered at all. antitrust authorities. However, according to Hutchison Whampoa, this is realistic.

Transakcja musiałaby uzyskać zgodę zarówno brytyjskich jak i unijnych urzędów antymonopolowych. Według Hutchison Whampoa jest to jednak realne.

The transaction would need the Information nonapproval of both UK and EU rendered at all. antitrust authorities. However, according to Hutchison Whampoa, this is realistic.

Z wstępnych danych GUS wynika, że w ujęciu miesięcznym produkcja przemysłowa obniżyła się o 2,3 proc.

According to the preliminary data Information nonof the Central Statistical Office rendered at all. (GUS), industrial production decreased by 2.3% on a monthly basis.

Information nonrendered at all.

The above-presented problems of maintaining equivalence could have resulted from the activity of some of the psycho-affective factors. While it is true that not being able to comprehend, remember, note down or retrieve some information is definitely related to the trainee interpreters’ cognitive abilities such as comprehension,

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memorisation, note-taking or retrieval skills, it might also be postulated that those cognitive abilities were hindered by some negatively affecting psycho-affective factors. In other words, the subjective experience of anxiety, stress, lower levels of intermediate self-esteem or language inhibition could have blocked the cognitive skills, so badly needed in consecutive interpreting, and therefore they could have contributed to such numerous errors in equivalence. Such a conclusion could be drawn on the basis of the three major facts. First of all, before the consecutive interpreting test, the trainee interpreters had practised this mode of interpreting, performing consecutive interpreting of longer and more information-saturated texts. Secondly, their potential incomprehension problems did not result from their poor linguistic skills – all of them were the native speakers of the source language so the inability to understand Polish-language utterances must be excluded. Thirdly, English as the target language was the trainee interpreters’ second language to which they had been exposed for many years, with the majority of the students having completed bachelor’s or master’s studies in English. Therefore, given the above, it may be assumed that the difficulties with memorising or noting down the source text content as well as with producing the output might have been created by the negative activity of some of the psycho-affective factors which are known to adversely affect people’s performance. It is quite possible that the subjective experience of those factors contributed to this multitude of equivalence-related errors. The second category of errors which was examined in the error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ target texts was grammar errors. Again, it was rather surprising that so many grammatical mistakes were identified in the third case study participants’ outputs. Those mistakes are presented in Tab. 39. Tab. 39: The third case study participants’ grammatical errors. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

(…) najważniejszą wiadomością wydawał się powrót do systemu porzuconego w Windows 8 Menu Start.

(…) the most important news seemed to be the return to the system abandoned in Windows 8 – Start Menu.

However, the most important information seem to be [filled paue: /ä/] the comeback of the so-called menu Start.

„Droga, którą rozpoczęliśmy w 2012 r. w Krakowie zaczyna przyspieszać, ponieważ dziś otwieramy nasze trzecie biuro w tym mieście i znacząco

“The way we started in 2012 in Cracow is starting to accelerate, as today we are opening our third office in the city and significantly expanding the scope of our activities” – informed journalists Olivier Kohler, vice-president of the American company, responsible for all Cisco centres of this type in the world.

[filled pause: /ɛ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛ/] This investment [silent pause] begins in Cracow and [silent pause] [silent pause] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛ/] the investment that [filled pause: /ɛ/] [silent pause]

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs

369

Tab. 39: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

rozszerzamy zakres działalności” – poinformował dziennikarzy Olivier Kohler, wiceprezes amerykańskiej spółki, odpowiedzialny za wszystkie tego typu centra Cisco na świecie.

Target text [filled pause: hard swallowing] [filled pause: /ɛ/] [filled pause: /ɛ/] [silent pause] involve the opening of the third [filled pause: /ɛ/] office. the voce-president Olivier Kohler [filled pause: /ɛ/] from American company [filled pause: /ɛ/] announced that investment the year before.

2010 roku

2010

the 2010

Amerykański koncern informatyczny Cisco otworzył swoje trzecie, największe biuro w Krakowie, wchodzące w skład centrum wsparcia Cisco.

American IT concern Cisco has opened its third, largest office in Krakow, which is part of the Cisco support centre.

American concern Cisco just open third the biggest office in Cracow in [filed pause: lip smacking] [silent pause] [filed pause: lip smacking] in support centre Cisco.

Analitycy ankietowani przez PAP spodziewali się, że w grudniu wzrostu produkcji rok do roku o 4,6 proc., zaś miesiąc do miesiąca spadku o 5,9 proc.

Analysts surveyed by Polish Press Agency expected a yearto-year increase in production by 4.6% in December and a month-to-month decrease by 5.9%.

Brokers informed additional informations [filled pause: /ɪ/] thus three point nine per cent of industry was fired [filled paused: comment in Polish “masakra”a].

Do ścisłej tenisowej czołówki dołączyła w 2008 roku i od tego czasu każdego roku wzbogaca się o ponad 1 mln dolarów (na korcie uzbierała już ponad 17 mln dol.).

She joined the top tennis players in 2008 and since then has earned over 1 million dollars each year (she has already collected over 17 million dollars in tennis).

Since 2008 [filled pause: /ɪ/] she earns one million dollar a year in tennis. [filled pause: /ɪ/] So she e [repair: has already earning] seventeen million dollars on the tennis court.

I wbrew stereotypom między miastem a wsią różnice w kwestii dostępności sieci są niewielkie – 75 do 70 proc. na korzyść mieszczuchów.

Contrary to the stereotypes, the differences in terms of network accessibility between the city and the countryside are small – 75 to 70 percent in favour of townspeople.

What is worth saying is that seventy to seventy five per cent of the people who has the access to the internet comes from the cities.

Na spotkaniu

at the meeting

on the meeting

na świecie

in the world

on the world (continued on next page)

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Tab. 39: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Na zaprezentowany po raz pierwszy we wrześniu ubiegłego roku Windows 10 patrzyliśmy dotychczas głównie przez pryzmat interfejsu.

We have been looking at Windows 10, presented for the first time in September last year, mainly through the prism of the interface.

In [repair: in] September of the last year Windows [repair: Windows] [filled pause: /ɪ/] has [repair: has] presented [repair: has presented] a new interface.

Nie byłoby to jednak możliwe, gdyby nie finansowa pomoc Ryszarda Krauzego, poświęcenie rodziców i odważne inwestowanie we własny rozwój. O karierze, sukcesie i pieniądzach – rozmawiamy z Agnieszką Radwańską. Do ścisłej tenisowej czołówki dołączyła w 2008 roku i od tego czasu każdego roku wzbogaca się o ponad 1 mln dolarów (na korcie uzbierała już ponad 17 mln dol.).

However, it would not have been possible had it not been for Ryszard Krauze’s financial help, the sacrifice of his parents and bold investment in his own development. We talk to Agnieszka Radwanska about her career, success and money. She joined the top tennis players in 2008 and since then has earned over 1 million dollars each year (she has already collected over 17 million dollars in tennis).

[filled pause: /ɪ/] Thanks to their parents, as Ryszard Krauze says, [filled pause: /ɪ/] is Agnieszka Radwańska which is in the top [filled pause: /ɪ/] tennis players since the year 2001. She makes [filled pause: /ɪ/] more every year and now her account [filled pause: /ɪ/] is [repair: is] estimated to about seventeen million.

Produkcja przemysłowa w Polsce zwiększyła się w grudniu 2014 o 8,4 proc. rok do roku – poinformował GUS. Wzrost odnotowała też branża budowlana.

Industrial production in Poland increased in December 2014 by 8.4% year-on-year, informed the Central Statistical Office (GUS). The construction industry also recorded an increase.

Industrial production [filled pause: /äm/] has increased by 8.5 per cent in 2004 [repair: 2014] well the construction production [filled pause: /äm/] has been decreasing on man [repair: monthly] basis.

rynek sponsoringu sportowego w USA

sports sponsorship market in the USA

the sponsoring market in USA

W sobotę opublikowano trzy sondaże, z których wynika, że radykalna partia Syriza prowadzi przed partią premiera – konserwatywną Nową Demokracją (ND).

Three polls were published on Saturday, according to which the radical Syriza party is leading before the Prime Minister’s party, the conservative New Democracy (ND).

and on Saturday the survey as published, in which the party of primister [repair: prime minister] takes second place and the first place is to the Syrizna party.

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs

371

Tab. 39: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Według amerykańskiego „Forbesa” tylko między czerwcem 2013 a 2014 roku wzbogaciła się dzięki nim o 3 mln dolarów.

According to American “Forbes”, between June 2013 and 2014 alone, she earned 3 million dollars thanks to them.

[silent pause] in [repair: since] June [filled pause: /ɪ/] 2013 2014 [filled pause: /ɪ/] she earned [repair: she has earned] three million dollars.

a

“Terrible”.

The above table presents the fragments of the target texts which contained evident grammar errors. Similarly, it is not the trainee interpreters’ insufficient command of the target language that caused so many errors in English grammar for their high competence in English is confirmed by the fact that most of them graduated from English studies, during which not only was English the language of instruction but the trainee interpreters’ productive and receptive skills were also developed and regularly evaluated since this is a generally adopted standard of language-related tertiary education at many Polish university departments of English. Therefore, there must have been some other causes of such errors. Among them are the psycho-affective factors which may hinder the students’ linguistic performance and significantly decrease its quality in spite of those students’ well developed competence. However, in most cases, the grammatical errors were not particularly serious because the target texts were still understandable. Moreover, in several cases, the errors in grammar should be treated as lapsus linguae like, for instance, in “informations” or “people who has”. Furthermore, there are two particularly interesting cases of the target text fragments (generated by the same trainee interpreter), in which highly defective English grammar led to the general incomprehensibility of the output and hence to the total loss of the source text meaning (Tab. 40, see below). The fact that those grammar errors were accompanied by such a great number of disfluencies may indicate that the trainee interpreter experienced serious problems with target text production which could have resulted from very intensely experienced psychoaffective factors, with stress being the most probable reason for the mistakes. The error analysis also demonstrated that some trainee interpreters committed lexical errors. Like grammar, the use of the English-language lexicon was expected to be generally correct and understandable but the analysis of lexical errors proved that sometimes it was otherwise. What emerged as the genuine problem triggers is the elements of the specialised lexicon. However, there were relatively few lexical errors and only some of them resulted in the obscurity of the original meaning. What is interesting is that in the case of a lexical gap, some trainee interpreters tried to devise the words which actually do not exist in the English language but which seem to be some approximations to the English lexicon, exploiting thereby the naturalisation strategy (cf. Sub­chapter 7.3.). Such non-existent English-sounding words

372

Case study 3

Tab. 40: The third case study participants’ grammatical errors leading to the total loss of meaning. Source text

Source text translation into Target text English

Urszula Cieślak dodaje, że ostatni tydzień stycznia prawdopodobnie może przynieść jeszcze pewne obniżki cen paliw, ale w kolejnych tygodniach będzie ich coraz mniej.

Urszula Cieślak adds that the last week of January may bring some reductions in fuel prices, but in the following weeks, there will be fewer and fewer of them.

The last week of the January shows that another [filled pause: /ɪ/] decreasing of [filled pause: /ɪ/] petrol prices will be in another [repair: will be last] [hesitation] [filled pause: /ɪ/] for some time but in another weeks will be [filled pause: /ɪ/] the tendency [repair: will be changed] in the way the prices of petrol will be [filled pause: /ɪ/] more higher so the tendency of the diminishing of the price will expire.

Urszula Cieślak z Refleksu zaznacza, że mija tydzień dużej zmienności cen ropy na świecie, a także na rynku walutowym. Dodaje, że na rynku hurtowym widać już wyższe ceny. Nie są to jednak jeszcze jakieś gwałtowane wzrosty które zachwieją sytuacją na rynku detalicznym. Niemniej jednak można się spodziewać, że tempo obniżek wyhamuje.

Urszula Cieślak from Reflex points out that a week of high volatility of oil prices in the world and on the currency market is passing. She adds that higher prices are already visible on the wholesale market. However, these are not yet any sudden increases which will upset the situation on the retail market. Nevertheless, it can be expected that the pace of reductions will slow down.

Mrs. Urszula claim that [filled pause: /ɪ/] [filled pause: /ɪ/] the [filled pause: /ɪ/] significant [filled pause: /ɪ/] diversity of prices is visible [silent pause] not only for the western world but only in Poland. The [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: the] time of the percentage of time [repair: the factor of the time] [repair: of the price lowering] to the [filled pause: /ɪ/] since the few years in the past is significant but the tendency is that in the near future it will be more [repair: it will be] [filled pause: /ɪ/] raises a little bit.

words as “analyticians” or “decreasement” were detected in the target texts. The lexical errors identified in the course of the analysis are presented in Tab. 41 (see below). The fourth type of errors sought in the error analysis carried out on the basis of the third case study participants’ target texts was pronunciation manifesting itself in widely understood phonetic quality. Generally speaking, the analysis of the recorded target texts did not reveal any particularly striking examples which would render the target texts difficult to understand. There were just a handful of pronunciation errors in general vocabulary such as the mispronunciation of vowels and diphthongs or the incorrectly placed stress. Besides, as regards phonetic quality, the trainee interpreters delivered their interpretation in relatively consistent British English or American English, with only very few instances

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs

373

Tab. 41: The third case study participants’ lexical errors. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

analitycy

analysts

analyticians

analitycy

analysts

analytics

analitycy

analysts

brokers

były wiceminister finansów former vice-minister for finance former ministry of finances Eurostat

Eurostat

the Main Statistic Organisation of United Europe

gospodarstwo domowe

household

house

konsumenci

consumers

consuments

obniżka

decrease

decreasement

obniżka

reduction

downfall

płaca

wage, salary

payment

poziom zatrudnienia

employment level

employment rate

produkcja sezonowa

seasonal production

seasonaly sale

prowadzi negocjacje

conduct negotiations/negotiate

running negotiations

przedterminowe wybory parlamentarne

early parliamentary elections

pool

przeniesiony

transferred

removed

składy pociągów

trains

stations of trains

sklepy

shops/stores

facilities

sondaże

polls

survey

sportsmenka

sportwoman

sportsmen

system operacyjny

operating system

operative system

of Polish influences. Therefore, the examples gathered in Tab. 42 (see below) are not numerous. As the above table shows, the phonetic errors were rather insignificant and unimportant for the general understanding of the target texts. Because of this small number of phonetic quality deficiencies, only two instances of phonetic error repairs were identified. They are included in Tab. 43 (see below). The fact that those trainee interpreters repaired their previous incorrect pronunciation of some lexical items may indicate that they were able to control their delivery and correct their mistakes which they themselves identified. One more interesting aspect of the students’ phonetic quality is the manner of dealing with the pronunciation of proper names which, as has been repeated several times, are genuine problem triggers. Tab. 44 (see below) groups such errors.

374

Case study 3

Tab. 42: The third case study participants’ phonetic errors. Item

Standard English pronunciation

Target text pronunciation

buy

/baɪ/

/baild/

claim

/kleɪm/

/klaɪm/

delay

/dɪ’leɪ/

/dɪ’laɪ/

diversity

/daɪ’vɜːsɪti/

/dɪ’vɜːsɪti/

menu

/menjuː/

/meni:/

monthly

/mʌnθli/

/montli/

other

/ʌðe(r)/

/oðe/

per cent

/pɜː’sɛnt/

/pro:’sent/

poll

/pəʊl/

/pul/

significant

/sɪg’nɪfɪkənt/

/’sɪgnɪfɪkənt/

successes

/səkˈsesɪz/

/’sʌkcesiz/

world

/wɜːrld/

/wo:rld/

Tab. 43: The third case study participants’ attempts at repairing a phonetic error. Item

Standard English pronunciation

Target text First attempt

Repairs

both

/bəuθ/

/bəθ/

/bəuθ/

law

/lɔː/

/loʊ/

/lɔː/

Tab. 44: The third case study participants’ phonetic errors in proper names. Item

Correct pronunciation

Target text pronunciation

Agata Lem-Kulig

/ægətə lem-kulig/

/ægətə leg-kulig/

Brussels

/’brʌsəlz/

/’brʌsəl/

Bulgaria

/bʌl’geərɪə/

/bʊl’gʌrɪə/

Cheshunt

/’t∫esənt/

/t∫esnʌt/

Cracow

/’krækəʊ/, /’krækov/

/krækof/

EE

/’i:i:/

/iju:/

Euro

/’jʊərəʊ/

/eurə/

Poland

/’pəʊlənd/

/polənd/

Refleks

/’refleks/

/refluks/

Syriza

/sɪ’rɪzə/

/siriznə/

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs

375

What arises from the collection of the third case study participants’ phonetic errors in proper names is that they mispronounced individual sounds distorting to some extent the name. Yet, those distortions were insignificant since, in most cases, the target text fragment was still understandable. On the whole, the phonetic quality of the outputs generated by the trainee interpreters was high since, in spite of those errors, the original meanings were not impaired by incorrect pronunciation. The final aspect of the error analysis pertains to a variety of disfluencies heard in the recorded target texts. In fact, it seems that disfluencies ( i.e. fi lled pa uses, silent pauses, hesitations, lip smacking, sighs etc.) occurred in a big number, as presented in Tab. 45. Tab. 45: The third case study participants’ output delivery disfluencies. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

(…) wynika z cytowanego przez gazetę raportu „Jak mobilizować dodatkowe oszczędności emerytalne”, opracowanego przez Stefana Kawalca, byłego wiceministra finansów, obecnie prezesa firmy doradczej Capital Strategy.

(…) according to the report “How to mobilize additional retirement savings” quoted by the newspaper, prepared by Stefan Kawalec, former deputy finance minister, currently the president of the advisory firm Capital Strategy.

[filled pause: /ä/] [silent pause] [silent pause] as stated by Stefan [silent pause], who is a prime minister [filled pause: /o/].

„Droga, którą rozpoczęliśmy w 2012 r. w Krakowie zaczyna przyspieszać, ponieważ dziś otwieramy nasze trzecie biuro w tym mieście i znacząco rozszerzamy zakres działalności” – poinformował dziennikarzy Olivier Kohler, wiceprezes amerykańskiej spółki, odpowiedzialny za wszystkie tego typu centra Cisco na świecie.

“The way we started in 2012 in Cracow is starting to accelerate, as today we are opening our third office in the city and significantly expanding the scope of our activities” – informed journalists Olivier Kohler, vice-president of the American company, responsible for all Cisco centres of this type in the world.

[filled pause: /ɛ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛ/] This investment [silent pause] begins in Cracow and [silent pause] [silent pause] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɛ/] the investment that [filled pause: /ɛ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: hard swallowing] [filled pause: /ɛ/] [filled pause: /ɛ/] [silent pause] involve the opening of the third [filled pause: /ɛ/] office. the voce-president Olivier Kohler [filled pause: /ɛ/] from American company [filled pause: /ɛ/] announced that investment the year before.

76 proc. transakcji mobilnych w naszym kraju dotyczy zakupu biletów lotniczych – czytamy w „Pulsie Biznesu”.

76% of mobile transactions in our country concern the purchase of airline tickets – we can read in “Puls Biznesu”.

According to the “Puls Biznesu”, about seventy five per cent of online transactions [filled pause: /ɪ/] are [filled pause: heavy breathing] flight tickets in Poland. (continued on next page)

376

Case study 3

Tab. 45: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Amerykański koncern informatyczny Cisco otworzył swoje trzecie, największe biuro w Krakowie, wchodzące w skład centrum wsparcia Cisco.

American IT concern Cisco has opened its third, largest office in Krakow, which is part of the Cisco support centre.

American concern Cisco just open third the biggest office in Cracow in [filed pause: lip smacking] [silent pause] [filed pause: lip smacking] in support centre Cisco.

Biuro jest także siedzibą Cisco Network Operations Center (NOC), jednej z trzech tego typu inwestycji firmy na świecie.

The office is also the headquarters of Cisco Network Operations Centre (NOC), one of the company’s three such investments in the world.

[filled pause: /ɛ/] its [filled pause: lip smacking] [filled pause: /ɛ/] includes Cisco Network Operations Center [filled pause: /ɛ/] the third biggest investment on the world.

Choć Microsoft chwalił się, że będzie to platforma o wiele bardziej przyjazna firmom, a równocześnie będzie na tyle uniwersalna, by móc obsługiwać jednocześnie klasyczne pecety, tablety, smartfony, konsolę Xbox, a także urządzenia z kategorii „internet of things”, najważniejszą wiadomością wydawał się powrót do systemu porzuconego w Windows 8 Menu Start.

Although Microsoft boasted that it would be a much more business-friendly platform, and at the same time it would be universal enough to support classic PCs, tablets, smartphones, the Xbox console as well as the devices belonging to the category of the Internet of things, the most important news seemed to be the return to the system abandoned in Windows 8 – Start Menu.

[filled pause: /ɪ/] And Windows [repair: Windows] claims that it will be both a platform [filled pause: /ɪ/] a frie [repair: both a friendly] [repair: friendly] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: friendly] [filled pause: /ɪ/] platform for the companies and very universal, which means that [filled pause: /ɪ/] it will be [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [repair: that it could be] used [filled pause: sigh] [filled pause: /ɪ/] for pecets [repairs: PCs] [filled pause: /ä/] [silent pause] [repairs: PCs] and a range of [repair: and the range of] other [repair: and the range of other] it [repair: items] [filled pause: /ɪ/] but the [repair: the] [repair: but the] most major change is the comeback to [repair: to the] Widows 8 system.

Czy to oznacza powrót czasów świetności firmy?

Does this mean a return to the company’s glory?

[filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] Does it mean that [repair: that the company] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: that] [repair: that’s that mean company] has [filled pause: /ɪ/] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: have a] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: has a] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [filled pause: sigh] huge comeback?

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs

377

Tab. 45: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Darmowy system operacyjny, jedna platforma dla komputerów i smartfonów, wirtualna rzeczywistość, 84-calowy ekran – Microsoft zaprezentował wraz z Windows 10 cały szereg produktów i rozwiązań, które pojawią się na rynku równolegle z nowym systemem.

Free operating system, one platform for computers and smartphones, virtual reality, 84-inch screen – Microsoft presented a whole range of products and solutions that will go with Windows 10 and which will appear on the market alongside the new system.

Microsoft has intro [repair: has introduced] a [filled pause: ɪ/] wide range of new products including free operative system, one platform for computer [repair: for both] [repair: for both] computers and smartphones [filled pause: ɪ/] and [filled pause: ɪ/] [silent pause] virtual reality and [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] and virtual reality.

Diverse musi szybko startować z roll-outem, skutecznie powiększać istniejącą sieć 230 sklepów, bo przez złe decyzje zmarnował zbyt wiele lat, by prezes zatrudniony do wypchnięcia spółki z dołka miał siedzieć w biurze z założonymi rękami.

Diverse has to start quickly with a roll-out, effectively enlarge the existing chain of 230 stores, because due to bad decisions it wasted too many years to have the president who was hired to push the company out of the doldrums to sit in the office with his hands put on.

Young director has got quite big [filled pause: /ɪ/] task to do [filled pause: /ɪ/] [filled pause: comment in Polish: “Pas. Nie wiem. Pas”.a].

Do tego dochodzą wpływy In addition, there are also od sponsorów. sponsorship revenues.

[filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] it [repair: this] plus [filled pause: /ɪ/] her sponsors.

Jest jedną z dziesięciu najlepiej zarabiających sportsmenek świata.

She is one of the ten best earning sportswomen in the world.

[filled pause: /ɪ/] one of the [silent pause] most money-making sportsmen.

Konsumenci z Polski coraz częściej kupują w sieci, a e-przedsiębiorcy inwestują w reklamę internetową.

Consumers from Poland more and more often buy online and e-entrepreneurs invest in online advertising.

The Polish consuments are buying more and more online and [filled pause: /ɪ/] Polish [filled pause: /ɪ/] online entrepreneurs are investing in the [lip smacking] online commercials.

Kończy się kolejny tydzień wyraźnych obniżek cen na stacjach – wynika z danych łódzkiego biura maklerskiego Refleks.

Another week of significant price reductions at the petrol stations is coming to an end, according to data from the Łódź brokerage house Refleks.

[filled pause: /ɪ/] The week of [filled pause: /ɪ/] [filled pause: /ɪ/] prices downfall is ending. [filled pause: /ɪ/]. The bureau Refluks says that [filled pause: /ɪ/ prices fall between 7 and 8 per cent. (continued on next page)

378

Case study 3

Tab. 45: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Średnio ceny spadały od 7 do 8 groszy za litr. Tym samym paliwa są najtańsze od pierwszej połowy 2010 roku.

On average, prices fell from 7 to 8 groszy per litre. Thus, fuels have been the cheapest since the first half of 2010.

Kończy się kolejny tydzień wyraźnych obniżek cen na stacjach – wynika z danych łódzkiego biura maklerskiego Refleks.

Another week of significant price reductions at the petrol stations is coming to an end, according to data from the Łódź brokerage house Refleks.

The text [filled pause: /ɪ/] is about decreasing the prices for [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [repair: the prices for oil]. The [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: the] [filled pause: /ɪ/] broker office Refleks [repair: the makler office Refleks] claims that the prices get lower even or significant amount of few Polish groszy per one litre.

Może to dotyczyć w roku 2060 od 25 do nawet 50 proc. osób, które nie zdołają zgromadzić na swoich kontach w ZUS środków wystarczających do otrzymania najniższej emerytury i państwo będzie musiało dopłacić im do świadczeń

In 2060, this may apply to from 25 to even 50% of people who will not be able to accumulate sufficient funds in their Social Insurance Institution accounts to receive the lowest pension and the state will have to pay them for benefits.

That means that in 2060 [filled pause: /äm/] [faltering voice] about [filled pause: /äm/] [repair: as many as] twenty five to fifty per cent of people [faltering voice] [filled pause: /äm/] will not be able to receive the lowest pension from the Social Insurance Institution and [filled pause: /äm/] [repair: and] the state will have to help them financially.

Na zaprezentowany po raz pierwszy we wrześniu ubiegłego roku Windows 10 patrzyliśmy dotychczas głównie przez pryzmat interfejsu.

We have been looking at Windows 10, presented for the first time in September last year, mainly through the prism of the interface.

In [repair: in] September of the last year Windows [repair: Windows] [filled pause: /ɪ/] has [repair: has] presented [repair: has presented] a new interface.

Nie byłoby to jednak możliwe, gdyby nie finansowa pomoc Ryszarda Krauzego, poświęcenie rodziców i odważne inwestowanie we własny rozwój.

However, it would not have been possible had it not been for Ryszard Krauze’s financial help, the sacrifice of his parents and bold investment in his own development.

[filled pause: /ɪ/] Thanks to their parents, as Ryszard Krauze says, [filled pause: /ɪ/] is Agnieszka Radwańska which is in the top [filled pause: /ɪ/] tennis players since the year 2001.

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs

379

Tab. 45: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

O karierze, sukcesie i pieniądzach – rozmawiamy z Agnieszką Radwańską. Do ścisłej tenisowej czołówki dołączyła w 2008 roku i od tego czasu każdego roku wzbogaca się o ponad 1 mln dolarów (na korcie uzbierała już ponad 17 mln dol.).

We talk to Agnieszka Radwanska about her career, success and money. She joined the top tennis players in 2008 and since then has earned over 1 million dollars each year (she has already collected over 17 million dollars in tennis).

She makes [filled pause: /ɪ/] more every year and now her account [filled pause: /ɪ/] is [repair: is] estimated to about seventeen million.

Od 15 lutego br. kolejne dwa składy Pendolino zaczną wozić pasażerów – powiedziała Beata Czemerajda z biura prasowego PKP Intercity. Nowe składy Pendolino mają kursować z Warszawy do Wrocławia, Krakowa i Katowic.

From 15 February this year the other two Pendolino trains will start carrying passengers – said Beata Czemerajda from the press office of Intercity Polish Railways. The new Pendolino trains are to run from Warsaw to Wrocław, Cracow and Katowice.

[sigh] [filled pause: /m/] On the fifteenth of [filled pause: /ɪ/] February [filled pause: /ɪ/] two new [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] trains [filled pause: /ɪ/] will be activated. [filled pause: /ɪ/] As Beata Czemerajda said from [filled pause: /ɪ/] the PKP [filled pause: /ɪ/] the new [filled pause: /ɪ/] trains will be led through Warsaw, Wrocław, Cracow and Katowice.

Od tak ważnego przyjaciela, jakim są Niemcy, oczekiwałabym europejskiej solidarności oraz respektowania zasad jednolitego rynku w Unii Europejskiej – mówiła premier Ewa Kopacz nt. sytuacji polskich przewoźników w związku z nowymi przepisami o płacy minimalnej w Niemczech.

From such an important friend as Germany I would expect European solidarity and respect for the principles of the single market in the European Union – said Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz about the situation of Polish carriers in connection with the new minimum wage regulations in Germany.

Polish prime minster Ewa Kopacz [filled pause: /ɪ/] has said that [filled pause: /ɪ/] Germany [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: that we should be able to rely on Germany] [repair: Germany] in terms of being on their [repair: their] solidarity with our people and especially [repair: especially] Polish workers engaged in transportation [silent pause] when it comes [repair: when it comes to] the minimum payment in Germany. (continued on next page)

380

Case study 3

Tab. 45: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Państwa zaniepokojone nowymi niemieckimi przepisami to oprócz Polski: Słowacja, Czechy, Węgry, Rumunia, Bułgaria, Słowenia, Chorwacja, Litwa, Estonia, Portugalia, Hiszpania i Irlandia. Ich przedstawiciele spotkali się w piątek w Brukseli z urzędnikami dyrekcji generalnych Komisji Europejskiej ds. transportu i ds. zdrowia.

In addition to Poland, the countries concerned about the new German legislation are Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia, Portugal, Spain and Ireland. Their representatives met on Friday in Brussels with officials from the European Commission’s DirectoratesGeneral for Transport and Health.

It was amongst [filled pause: /ɪ/] Poland [filled pause: //] Czechia [filled pause: /ɪ/], Latvia, Portugal, Ireland [filled pause: /ɪ/], Bulgaria [filled pause: /ɪ/] in [silent pause]. On Frida [repair: on Friday], in Brussel, [filled pause: /ɪ/] there was [filled pause: /ɪ/] a meeting [filled pause: /ɪ/] with [filled pause: /ɪ/] representatives for [filled pause: /ɪ/] transport and health.

Powtórzył on zapowiedź z października zeszłego roku, że koncern, który w swoim krakowskim centrum zatrudnia około 500 pracowników, zamierza w najbliższych 2 latach zwiększyć zatrudnienie do ponad tysiąca osób.

He reiterated the announcement from October last year that the company, which employs about five hundred people in its Cracow centre, intends to increase the employment to over a thousand people in the next two years.

The investment [filled pause: /ɛ/] [filled pause: /ɛ/] will [silent pause] involve the hiring [filled pause: /ɛ/] more workers in the office from five hundred to ne thousand.

Produkcja przemysłowa w Polsce zwiększyła się w grudniu 2014 o 8,4 proc. rok do roku – poinformował GUS. Wzrost odnotowała też branża budowlana.

Industrial production in Poland increased in December 2014 by 8.4% year-on-year, informed the Central Statistical Office (GUS). The construction industry also recorded an increase.

Industrial production [filled pause: /äm/] has increased by 8.5 per cent in 2004 [repair: 2014] well the construction production [filled pause: /äm/] has been decreasing on man [repair: monthly] basis.

Produkcja przemysłowa w Polsce zwiększyła się w grudniu 2014 o 8,4 proc. rok do roku – poinformował GUS. Wzrost odnotowała też branża budowlana. Z wstępnych danych GUS wynika, że w ujęciu miesięcznym produkcja przemysłowa obniżyła się o 2,3 proc.

Industrial production in Poland increased in December 2014 by 8.4% yearto-year, informed the Central Statistical Office (GUS). The construction industry also recorded an increase. According to the preliminary data of the Central Statistical Office (GUS), industrial production decreased by 2.3% on a monthly basis.

Industry production in 2004 [silent pause] was increased by eight point four per cent and year by year was better. Building industry [repair: however, building industry] met with the decreasement.

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Tab. 45: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Trzynaście państw UE, w tym Polska, ma zastrzeżenia do nowych niemieckich przepisów ws. płacy minimalnej, obejmującej także zagranicznych kierowców.

Thirteen EU countries, including Poland, have reservations about the new German minimum wage regulations, which also concern foreign drivers. At a meeting in Brussels on Friday, these countries called for the suspension of these rules.

Thirteen European Union states has [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] restrictions in areas of minimum wage in [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] transport industry. In Brussels, [filled pause: /ɪ/] some states [filled pause: /ɪ/] a [repair: have some] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] restrictions against [filled pause: /ɪ/] this new low [repair: law] to be introduced.

Urszula Cieślak dodaje, że ostatni tydzień stycznia prawdopodobnie może przynieść jeszcze pewne obniżki cen paliw, ale w kolejnych tygodniach będzie ich coraz mniej.

Urszula Cieślak adds that the last week of January may bring some reductions in fuel prices, but in the following weeks, there will be fewer and fewer of them.

The last week of the January shows that another [filled pause: /ɪ/] decreasing of [filled pause: /ɪ/] petrol prices will be in another [repair: will be last] [hesitation] [filled pause: /ɪ/] for some time but in another weeks will be [filled pause: /ɪ/] the tendency [repair: will be changed] in the way the prices of petrol will be [filled pause: /ɪ/] more higher so the tendency of the diminishing of the price will expire.

Urszula Cieślak z Refleksu zaznacza, że mija tydzień dużej zmienności cen ropy na świecie, a także na rynku walutowym. Dodaje, że na rynku hurtowym widać już wyższe ceny. Nie są to jednak jeszcze jakieś gwałtowane wzrosty które zachwieją sytuacją na rynku detalicznym. Niemniej jednak można się spodziewać, że tempo obniżek wyhamuje.

Urszula Cieślak from Reflex points out that a week of high volatility of oil prices in the world and on the currency market is passing. She adds that higher prices are already visible on the wholesale market. However, these are not yet any sudden increases which will upset the situation on the retail market. Nevertheless, it can be expected that the pace of reductions will slow down.

Mrs. Urszula claim that [filled pause: /ɪ/] [filled pause: /ɪ/] the [filled pause: /ɪ/] significant [filled pause: /ɪ/] diversity of prices is visible [silent pause] not only for the western world but only in Poland. The [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: the] time of the percentage of time [repair: the factor of the time] [repair: of the price lowering] to the [filled pause: /ɪ/] since the few years in the past is significant but the tendency is that in the near future it will be more [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: it will be] raises a little bit. (continued on next page)

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Tab. 45: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Według amerykańskiego „Forbesa” tylko między czerwcem 2013 a 2014 roku wzbogaciła się dzięki nim o 3 mln dolarów.

According to American “Forbes”, between June 2013 and 2014 alone, she earned 3 million dollars thanks to them.

[silent pause] in [repair: since] June [filled pause: /ɪ/] 2013 2014 [filled pause: /ɪ/] she earned [repair: she has earned] three million dollars.

Zgadzają się z tym inni eksperci. Np. prof. Leokadia Oręziak z Katedry Finansów Międzynarodowych Szkoły Głównej Handlowej.

Other experts agree with this. For example, professor Leokadia Oręziak from the Department of International Finance at the Warsaw School of Economics.

and [filled pause: /ä/] other experts, among them, an employee of the Chair of Finances [silent pause] from the [silent pause] [filled pause:/ɪhm/] [hesitation] [repair: from] Szkoła Główna Handlowa agree with him.

a

“I Pass. I do not know. I pass”.

Like in the previously discussed case studies, the disfluencies observed in the outputs are perhaps the clearest manifestations of the activity of the psychoaffective factors. In the majority of cases, the disfluencies involve the production of the sounds which usually carry no meaning related to the source texts. The pauses filled with Polish sounds (mostly with Polish vowels) may indicate some problems with, for instance, retrieving information from working memory or notes, planning the output or delivering the target text. Such difficulties, as aforementioned, might have been caused by the impeding nature of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity. Likewise, the silent pauses can also indicate that the trainee interpreters were undergoing some problems in the production phase of the consecutive interpreting test and they may have originated from the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors, perhaps from the high level of stress. Moreover, the fact that some students smacked their lips, sighed or hesitated while generating their outputs can be regarded as another potential exponent of the adverse activity of their psycho-affectivity. What is worth underlining is that in this case study, the impact of the students’ psycho-affective factors on their consecutive interpreting performance was also observed not only in the trainee interpreters’ linguistic behaviours. During the third case study interpreting test, the instructor made some additional observations of such behaviours, taking some notes of those phenomena on the students’ performance transcripts. Among the observed extra-linguistic exponents of the subjectively experienced negative or interpreting performance-hindering effects of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity were the visible symptoms of nervousness, anxiety and stress – heavy breathing, sighs, continuous fiddling with a ball pen (i.e. clicking it – switching it on and switching it off), lip smacking or head shaking as

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a sign of the problems encountered. Moreover, after the recording of their delivery was completed, some trainee interpreters made comments in Polish, in which they expressed their experience of stress, dissatisfaction or frustration (i.e. “Oh my, it was dreadful for me” or “For me, it was a tragedy”78). Summing up the results of the error analysis, it may be stated that, despite the trainee interpreters’ command of English at the C1/C2 level and prior practice in classic consecutive interpreting, the consecutive interpreting test task turned out to be difficult and the target texts demonstrated a great number of various deficiencies. It appears that maintaining equivalence and output delivery fluency were the major difficulties. To some extent, the use of English grammar was also challenging. Other aspects were less deficient. An important question is what the causes of so many errors were. When the insufficient knowledge of the English language is eliminated as a potential source of difficulty for it is confirmed by the students’ degrees in English studies obtained at the earlier stages of their education, the three other probable reasons can be enumerated. First of all, in spite of prior interpreting practice given during the interpreting course, the trainee interpreters’ interpreting skills might not have been developed well enough to perform this type of interpreting. Secondly, the students’ cognitive abilities might not have been fully mastered or utilised during the test. Finally, the reason for so many deficiencies observed in the target text production could have been the negative influence of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affective factors, especially those which may emerge in the conditions of an in-class test. What remains to be seen in the subchapter presenting the analysis and interpretation of the students’ retrospective protocol data is whether the above-mentioned factors indeed contributed to the decrease in the overall quality of the target texts produced in the third case study. Like in the two previous case studies, the above error analysis can be compared with the trainee interpreters’ opinions concerning their performance (i.e. their subjective self-assessment) as well as the linguistic and extra-linguistic aspects of their target texts, in which they themselves observed deficiencies. As far as the students’ self-assessment is concerned, in this case study the test takers were usually not satisfied with the quality of their performance and its product – the outputs. However, only several of them directly stated that they perceived their consecutive interpreting performance during the test as of low quality. Such a view predominates in the following quotes: • I think I  can interpret better. I  could round off more numbers to avoid giving wrong data. • In my opinion, my interpreting was weak. • It was a very weak unsuccessful interpretation. • It was very average. • My evaluation – poor. It was difficult for me to catch the most essential information.

78 Translation from Polish.

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• My interpretation was very weak. I did not know and remember many words so I omitted many things. It was very difficult to build my utterance from the notes because, owing to stress, I did not take good notes. • Possibly the lowest quality of interpretation. • Very bad. Nothing went well. I have no clue what I was speaking about.

What is more, one person who was not able to deal with the test and who totally gave it up explained that consecutive interpreting is not the mode he/she is able to perform since handling the spoken input is almost unfeasible because of his/ her more visual than audile perception. That is why this trainee interpreter selfassessed his/her performance in the following way:

• No target text – I assess it as very bad. I am a visualiser so my problems with consecutive interpreting result from the fact that I have to see a text to interpret it.

Curiously, there were also quite many students who stated that their consecutive interpretation was of average quality. They usually realised that some aspects of their target text delivery were deficient and needed improvement whereas others were good. Some of them directly claimed that while their well-developed linguistic skills allowed them to interpret consecutively into phonetically and grammatically correct English, their interpreting-related cognitive skills, such as memorising, notetaking or retrieval, in many cases failed. Hence, what emerges from the following set of the excerpts from the trainee interpreters’ responses is that they were able to take stock of their achievements (mostly in using correct English) and failures (regularly in cognitive and interpreting proper skills) during the consecutive interpreting test. • I assess my interpretation as an average one. The text did not contain any lexical items which I could not interpret. I had problems with combining notes into a logical whole. • I remembered a lot of information and it seems to me that there was no problem with this. I have the impression that transferring information in English was very poor. • I think I omitted some specific information. The worst mistake is that I forgot the word “cal” [“inch”] and it was difficult to replace it so, out of despair, I used a different unit although I knew it was incorrect. I unwound towards the end. • I think my interpretation was average. My voice was quivering because of stress but I was mobilised to speak as much as I remembered and had in notes. • Like always  – the average level. I  am aware of my deficits, which negatively influences the effectiveness of my activities. I did not remember the details, I did not manage to jot them down, I confused the key words. • My interpretation could be better because I tried too much to recreate the original sense, which had an impact on my fluency. I could supplement the missing information with more general statements. • Unfortunately, I think I did not render the key information and did not write down/ memorise details. There were many repetitions and thoughts not related to one another – so there was no cohesion. One positive aspect may be the delivery fluency. • My grammar was not bad. I was not sure how to pronounce the word “Diverse” – with [ai]? I never mentioned this name.

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The third category of the responses concerning the trainee interpreters’ self-assessment of their performance includes all the answers in which the students directly or indirectly express their satisfaction with the way they performed the consecutive interpreting test. They also seem to balance out their weaker and stronger points but a general insight which can be obtained from those statements is that they perceive their target texts to manifest at least decent quality.





• I am really happy to take part in the test but I think I need to practise to learn to interpret correctly. • I did not perform badly. I am satisfied that I managed to jot down the main thoughts, that I understood the input read but I did not render everything I wanted in my interpretation so it can be chaotic. • I think I was the best at pronunciation and at not having to pause to breathe. What is the worst is that I do not know whether I transferred the most important sense and presented the problem from the source text + I forgot about “trade unions”. My text was very easy but, nevertheless, I forgot some words. However, I am generally satisfied. • I think my interpretation was good – the sense was transferred, all key information was included in it. • I was not knowledgeable about the theme but I assess my interpretation as good. • My interpreting was quite good. I think that my strong point is the ability to memorise large fragments without notes and my weakest point is the pauses in the interpretation caused by stress.

Generally speaking, the above quotes bear witness to the trainee interpreters’ rather realistic self-assessment of their performance since the error analysis indeed revealed that in numerous cases, the students were not able to render the source text information, making numerous equivalence-related errors. The not fully developed or not fully exploited cognitive skills could also have contributed to so many disfluencies for the trainee interpreters stated in their responses that one of the major problems which they encountered was transferring the original meaning on the basis of their memory or notes. When those turned out to be insufficient, the disfluencies emerged, thereby decreasing the overall quality of output delivery fluency. When self-assessing their performance, the trainee interpreters were also asked about those facets of their consecutive interpreting which they themselves found most deficient and which manifested themselves linguistically or extralinguistically. Among such aspects are certainly those related to broadly understood target text production which many students enumerated as their general problem-inducing area. Obviously, the difficulties in producing the output were linked to other deficient aspects like, for instance, the incomplete and chaotic notes which hindered the processes of memorising and retrieving the information necessary to generate the output. Likewise, combing the scraps of information into a meaningful and source text-equivalent output was not always feasible because of such problem triggers as numerical data. Moreover, some trainee interpreters overtly stated that their output delivery was conditioned by the most frequently

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enumerated psycho-affective factor – by stress. The following collection of quotes brings such aspects to light: • I had problems with moving from information to information and with simultaneous thinking about the choice of words and structures and about the order of the information. • I think I focused only on transferring information and my target text was gibberish. • I think that the beginning of my interpretation was the most difficult – I confused the numerical values, which – for a while – put me off my stride. • Remembering and recreating numerous numbers and referring them to terms were difficult. • The major problem was the production of the target text and the transfer of the main sense. Moreover, what was also problematic was noting down all information in a clear and understandable way. • The problem was not the language but remembering the text and combining the notes in a whole. • The production of the target sense. It resulted from the incorrectly taken notes and it influenced fluency. • The production of the target text – stress causes forgetting the [source] text. • The production of the target text and the transfer of the sense. I  had difficulties combing single notes in a whole. I think I did not write down the items which were important in the interpretation. I  had vocabulary problems. They resulted from stress that there was not enough time and there was a need to say something. • The production of the target text from the notes taken quite chaotically because of stress and because of my willingness to write down much information in possibly the shortest time. • The production of the target text was a problem. • The production of the target text. It may result from lack of practice, stress and no predispositions towards interpreting. Stress, in this case, is debilitating for me.

As far as the purely linguistic exponents of the trainee interpreters’ poorer performance are concerned, they include vocabulary issues, grammar errors and pronunciation problems. As regards the use of the English lexicon, several students stated that they were not familiar with the vocabulary specific to the thematic domains of the source texts and this contributed to so many lexical errors. Other trainee interpreters were also aware that their knowledge of specialised vocabulary which a few source texts contained was definitely a problem trigger. What is interesting, perhaps lack of the readily available lexical resources in the trainee interpreters’ minds resulted – at least to some extent – in so many disfluencies. Such conclusions can be drawn from the following responses:

• As regards grammar, it was not bad. I think the selection of more appropriate vocabulary is a problem. • Because of stress: mixing up words, forgetting the basic words; keeping pace with notes and at the same time with understanding the content [of the source text].

Error analysis of the trainee interpreters’ outputs

387



• Definitely, my fluency and vocabulary – I faltered for a too long a period because I was lost for words and I could not recreate the sense from my notes. • Finding appropriate equivalents of particular words. • General and specialised vocabulary, mostly because of little time needed for preparation. So because of this, maybe not always the best words came to my mind. • Grammar, vocabulary – the simplest words escape my memory. I always have the impression that despite the knowledge of many words and phrases, I always use those basic ones in a stressful situation. • I did not like the topic so I did not feel too confident. • Lexical and general problems. Spelling of the name of the company! I did not understand this name and that destroyed me and impacted on the entire interpretation. • Specialised vocabulary, fluency. I  am not interested in new technologies, I  had problems with supplementing the missing information. • The understanding of the [source] text and the production of the target text and the transfer of the sense – I did not know vocabulary so it was difficult for me to touch upon the topic and render the sense. I memorised too little, I wrote down too little. • Vocabulary – I forgot one word and this disturbed me for a while. The beginning was poor and perhaps towards the end my interpretation was better. • Vocabulary and fluency. • Vocabulary deficits, which influenced the entire interpreting and problems with reading my notes.

While acknowledging that indeed vocabulary posed some problems, one trainee interpreter made an exceptionally interesting observation concerning the fact that before the consecutive interpreting text, he/she did not know the thematic domain (i.e. the context) of his/her source text. While it is true that in the majority of cases, the interpreter is informed beforehand about the topic of the consecutive interpreting act, in which he/she is to provide interpreting services, sometimes the interpreter is faced with a challenge of interpreting within the domain which is new and unknown to him/her. Thus, the observation made by this particular student is an important contribution to the slight modification of the consecutive interpreting test situation. The student wrote:

• I forgot the English equivalent of “umowa zlecenia” [“contract of mandate”] and I did not know how to translate “Szkoła Główna Handlowa” [“Warsaw School of Economics”]. So specialised vocabulary was difficult. I also had inaccurate notes – no links between the facts. Most of all, total lack of the context before the interpretation. I did not know what area it would pertain to – this does not happen in the normal world.

The trainee interpreters who were the participants of the third case study consecutive interpreting test also realised that they had made some grammar errors. However, those mistakes, as emerged from the error analysis, only in very rare cases influenced the potential comprehensibility of the target texts.

• I had problems with prepositions, vocabulary. I know the vocabulary but I could not remember the words at a given moment. Fluency was also my weak point. I wanted to say more but my information was not ordered enough.

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• I have the impression that I  could have made some errors in two prepositions because at some moment one sentence did not sound good to me. I also forgot the phrase “trade unions”. • I made two mistakes: houses has and billion – million (this is what I remember) and I wrote down the data incorrectly.

Another set of the linguistic exponents of the trainee interpreters’ weaker performance during the in-class consecutive interpreting test which they observed in their target text production is related to generally understood phonetic quality as well as output delivery fluency. The students’ observations, especially those concerning fluency problems, were confirmed in the error analysis, in which a whole bunch of disfluencies were identified. The following quotes corroborate the trainee interpreters’ views:

• Definitely fluency [was a problem]. I did not write down everything, I also did not know how to speak about something, I wrote down words [not the ideas]. • Fluency. I perhaps faltered at some point. At the beginning it was difficult to focus on listening. • I had problems with fluency because of chaotic and incomplete notes. • Pronunciation, fluency – my weak points. • The major problem of mine was the correct pronunciation of the word “sheep” and generally I faltered at the word “leminingi” [“lemmings”] which I rescued by another phrase.

The occurrence of so many various deficiencies was attributed by many trainee interpreters to their incomplete mastery of taking and reading notes. It appears that illegible or incomplete notes could have been the reason for so many paucities observed in the outputs. Therefore, the trainee interpreters were oftentimes not able to render the sense of the original message since they were not able either to memorise or jot down all the essential elements of the input or to combine different noted scraps of information into a meaningful entirety. Interestingly enough, the large quantity of the equivalence-based errors could have stemmed from the trainee interpreters’ deficiencies in note-taking skills. The following collection of quotes bring the inadequate notes to light as a possible explanation for various types of errors identified in the course of the error analysis: • I am weak at taking notes and memorising. • I forgot vocabulary. I  could not read my notes (because of stress). I  heard some concepts in Polish for the first time. • What was the worst was writing down the information. • What was problematic was combining the notes in a whole and forming an entire utterance out of single notes. Stress and pressure were the causes. • I missed some words, I faltered. I had weak notes – I could not read some information. • My problems with interpreting a text consecutively result from the inability to take notes. I write down single words and I cannot put them together in a whole. • My note-taking manner was not efficient in this case.

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• Taking notes is my problem because I  typically focus on the general transfer of sense. In such saturation with numerical data, I got totally lost and I did not know what was essential. • Illegible writing. • The only problem was with the amount of information which I did not manage to jot down and bad notes = bad interpretation. • The greatest problems were with taking notes. I cannot focus on the most important information. If I  feel at the beginning that I  do badly, I  feel resigned and I cannot focus. • The production of the target text was more difficult because my notes were not detailed and I had to rely on my memory. • I did not manage to write everything down (dates – tragedy ). I think that rendering the sense (exact sense) was problematic because of the detailed information contained in the source text. • What was a problem was translating my written words into spoken words. I took my notes too fast.

What the above error analysis, so richly exemplified in this subchapter, has definitely shown is that the production of the target texts was indeed a challenging task. The relatively insignificant number of various language-related errors and numerous equivalence-related errors, problems with transferring the sense of the source text as well as many disfluencies point to the fact that the cause of those deficiencies must lie somewhere else than in the trainee interpreters’ linguistic subcompetence. One of the potential reasons for the students’ obscured performance may be their cognitive abilities which might have been impeded in the course of the consecutive interpreting process for they manifested themselves in different failures in memorising or retrieving information, leading thereby to the general obscurity of the target texts produced. It might also be suggested that the cognitive skills in receiving the input and producing the output were impaired by the students’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors as some third case study participants referred, for instance, to stress as the cause of their problems. The other factors which were indirectly brought to light in the above quotes were different types of anxiety, language inhibition or various forms of self-esteem. Hence, it remains to be seen whether the trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of those factors had indeed any profound impact on their performance. This issue is addressed in greater detail in the subchapter, in which the retrospective protocol data are subjected to interpretation and juxtaposition with the results of the error analysis.

7.3. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ output delivery strategies The analysis of the trainee interpreters whose performance is an object of study in the third case study seeks to answer the question of whether the selection of the

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interpreting strategies exploited by the trainee interpreters can shed some light on their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors and whether those factors influenced in any way the use of those strategies. The first strategy, whose overt manifestations have already been discussed as the equivalence-related errors, is the omission strategy. The following collection of the examples of the exploitation of this strategy clearly points to the fact that the trainee interpreters resorted to omitting some relevant information of the inputs, which was definitely not a conscious strategy selection. Moreover, the nonrenderings, which are also the examples of the use of the omission strategy, reflect the trainee interpreters’ inability to deal with a given portion of the source text information and the only solution they found in such situations was the omission. The following examples in Tab. 46 prove this point: Tab. 46: The third case study participants’ use of the omission strategy. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

(…) wynika z cytowanego przez gazetę raportu „Jak mobilizować dodatkowe oszczędności emerytalne”, opracowanego przez Stefana Kawalca, byłego wiceministra finansów, obecnie prezesa firmy doradczej Capital Strategy.

(…) according to the report “How to mobilize additional retirement savings”‘ quoted by the newspaper, prepared by Stefan Kawalec, former deputy finance minister, currently the president of the advisory firm Capital Strategy.

[filled pause: /ä/] [silent pause] [silent pause] as stated by Stefan [silent pause], who is a prime minister [filled pause: /o:/].

Diverse musi szybko startować z roll-outem, skutecznie powiększać istniejącą sieć 230 sklepów, bo przez złe decyzje zmarnował zbyt wiele lat, by prezes zatrudniony do wypchnięcia spółki z dołka miał siedzieć w biurze z założonymi rękami.

Diverse has to start quickly with Information non-rendered at a roll-out, effectively enlarge all. the existing chain of 230 stores, because due to bad decisions it wasted too many years to have the president who was hired to push the company out of the doldrums to sit in the office with his hands put on.

Kończy się kolejny tydzień wyraźnych obniżek cen na stacjach – wynika z danych łódzkiego biura maklerskiego Refleks. Średnio ceny spadały od 7 do 8 groszy za litr. Tym samym paliwa są najtańsze od pierwszej połowy 2010 roku.

Another week of significant price reductions at the petrol stations is coming to an end, according to data from the Łódź brokerage house Refleks. On average, prices fell from 7 to 8 groszy per litre. Thus, fuels have been the cheapest since the first half of 2010.

[filled pause: /ɪ/] The week of [filled pause: /ɪ/] [filled pause: /ɪ/] prices downfall is ending. [filled pause: /ɪ/]. The bureau Refluks says that [filled pause: /ɪ/] prices fall between 7 and 8 per cent.

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies

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Tab. 46: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Może to być problemem w finalizacji transakcji, gdyż spółka z Hongkongu jest już właścicielem innej brytyjskiej sieci komórkowej Three.

This could be a problem in finalising the transaction, as the Hong Kong company already owns another UK mobile network, Three.

It can be a problem.

Państwa zaniepokojone nowymi niemieckimi przepisami to oprócz Polski: Słowacja, Czechy, Węgry, Rumunia, Bułgaria, Słowenia, Chorwacja, Litwa, Estonia, Portugalia, Hiszpania i Irlandia.

In addition to Poland, the countries concerned about the new German legislation are Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia, Portugal, Spain and Ireland.

It was amongst [filled pause: /ɪ/] Poland [filled pause: /ɪ/] Czechia [filled pause: /ɪ/], Latvia, Portugal, Ireland [filled pause: /ɪ/], Bulgaria [filled pause: /ɪ/] in [silent pause].

Ich przedstawiciele spotkali się w piątek w Brukseli z urzędnikami dyrekcji generalnych Komisji Europejskiej ds. transportu i ds. zdrowia.

Their representatives met on Friday in Brussels with officials from the European Commission’s Directorates-General for Transport and Health.

On Frida [repair: on Friday], in Brussel, [filled pause: /ɪ/] there was [filled pause: /ɪ/] a meeting [filled pause: /ɪ/] with [filled pause: /ɪ/] representatives for [filled pause: /ɪ/] transport and health.

Średnio ceny spadały od 7 do 8 groszy za litr. Tym samym paliwa są najtańsze od pierwszej połowy 2010 roku.

On average, prices fell from 7 to 8 Information non-rendered at groszy per litre. Thus, fuels have all. been the cheapest since the first half of 2010.

Teraz marka Diverse bierze drugi oddech. Czy młody zarząd zdoła na dłużej tchnąć w nią energię, czy to tylko lekki lifting przed wyjściem funduszu z inwestycji?

Now the Diverse brand takes a Information non-rendered at second breath. Will the young all. management manage to breathe energy into it for a longer time, or is it just a slight lifting before the fund leaves the investment?

Transakcja musiałaby uzyskać zgodę zarówno brytyjskich jak i unijnych urzędów antymonopolowych. Według Hutchison Whampoa jest to jednak realne.

The transaction would need the approval of both UK and EU antitrust authorities. However, according to Hutchison Whampoa, this is realistic.

Information non-rendered at all.

(continued on next page)

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Case study 3

Tab. 46: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Transakcja musiałaby uzyskać zgodę zarówno brytyjskich jak i unijnych urzędów antymonopolowych. Według Hutchison Whampoa jest to jednak realne.

The transaction would need the approval of both UK and EU antitrust authorities. However, according to Hutchison Whampoa, this is realistic.

Information non-rendered at all.

Transakcja musiałaby uzyskać zgodę zarówno brytyjskich jak i unijnych urzędów antymonopolowych. Według Hutchison Whampoa jest to jednak realne.

The transaction would need the approval of both UK and EU antitrust authorities. However, according to Hutchison Whampoa, this is realistic.

Information non-rendered at all.

Urszula Cieślak z Refleksu zaznacza, że mija tydzień dużej zmienności cen ropy na świecie, a także na rynku walutowym. Dodaje, że na rynku hurtowym widać już wyższe ceny. Nie są to jednak jeszcze jakieś gwałtowane wzrosty które zachwieją sytuacją na rynku detalicznym. Niemniej jednak można się spodziewać, że tempo obniżek wyhamuje.

Urszula Cieślak from Reflex points out that a week of high volatility of oil prices in the world and on the currency market is passing. She adds that higher prices are already visible on the wholesale market. However, these are not yet any sudden increases which will upset the situation on the retail market. Nevertheless, it can be expected that the pace of reductions will slow down.

Right now Urszula Cieślak says that the currency market [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: that in the currency market] the prices are higher. These rises are not so high but still we can expect that these rises can stop.

Z wstępnych danych GUS wynika, że w ujęciu miesięcznym produkcja przemysłowa obniżyła się o 2,3 proc.

According to the preliminary Information non-rendered at data of the Central Statistical all. Office (GUS), industrial production decreased by 2.3% on a monthly basis.

Za rok zyska jeszcze więcej, ponieważ niedawno wkroczyła na potężny rynek sponsoringu sportowego w USA, rozbudowując swoje sponsorskie portfolio o dwie amerykańskie firmy – sieć restauracji The Cheesecake Factory i producenta oprogramowania Workday.

In a year’s time she will earn even more, as she recently entered the huge sports sponsorship market in the USA, expanding its sponsorship portfolio with two American companies – The Cheesecake Factory restaurant chain and Workday software producer.

In a year she will make even more because of the sponsoring market in USA and her portfolio [filled pause: /ɪ/] will include businesses such as Cheesecake Factory [silent pause] and [repair: and that’s all].

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies

393

Tab. 46: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Zgadzają się z tym inni eksperci. Np. prof. Leokadia Oręziak z Katedry Finansów Międzynarodowych Szkoły Głównej Handlowej.

Other experts agree with this. For example, professor Leokadia Oręziak from the Department of International Finance at the Warsaw School of Economics.

and [filled pause: /ä/] other experts, among them, an employee of the Chair of Finances [silent pause] from the [silent pause] [hesitation] [repair: from] Szkoła Główna Handlowa agree with him.

Curiously enough, one trainee interpreter used only the omission strategy since having heard the input, he/she abandoned the performance of the consecutive interpreting task, using in fact the omission strategy in the form of the total nonrendering of the input (Tab. 47). Tab. 47: The third case study participants’ use of the omission strategy: total non-rendering. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Od tak ważnego przyjaciela, jakim są Niemcy, oczekiwałabym europejskiej solidarności oraz respektowania zasad jednolitego rynku w Unii Europejskiej – mówiła premier Ewa Kopacz nt. sytuacji polskich przewoźników w związku z nowymi przepisami o płacy minimalnej w Niemczech. Od 1 stycznia w Niemczech obowiązuje ustawa o płacy minimalnej; stawka za godzinę, która dotyczy zarówno Niemców, jak i obywateli innych państw pracujących w tym kraju, wynosi co najmniej 8,50 euro za godzinę. Według władz w Berlinie stawka minimalna obowiązuje również kierowców z firm transportowych spoza Niemiec. W praktyce każda firma transportowa, której samochód przejeżdżałby tranzytem przez terytorium Niemiec, musiałby płacić swoim kierowcom odpowiednio wysokie stawki. Niemieckie regulacje uderzają w polskie firmy transportowe, ale cieszą związkowców.

From such an important friend as Germany I would expect European solidarity and respect for the principles of the single market in the European Union – said Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz about the situation of Polish carriers in connection with the new minimum wage regulations in Germany. Since 1 January, Germany has had a law on the minimum wage; the hourly rate, which applies to both Germans and the citizens of other countries working in Germany, is at least EUR 8.50 per hour. According to the authorities in Berlin, the minimum rate also applies to drivers from transport companies outside Germany. In practice, any transport company whose car passes through Germany would have to pay their drivers a correspondingly high rate. The German regulations hit Polish transport companies, but the trade unionists are happy.

The entire source text non-rendered at all.

394

Case study 3

The interpreting strategy which was commonly used by the trainee interpreters was the repairing strategy. Like in the two previous case studies, this strategy was exploited basically for two reasons. First all, the trainee interpreters attempted to repair the linguistic errors which they heard in their delivery of the target text. Therefore, there are several examples showing that the repair is in fact an attempt at rectifying the mistake made. Secondly, the repairing strategy seems to have been used whenever the students realised that the output they produced was incomplete and there was still some information which they held in their memory which could be added to the target text so that it could express the meaning of the source text better and more fully. The following examples of the repairing strategy have been identified in the trainee interpreters’ audio-recorded outputs (Tab. 48): Tab. 48: The third case study participants’ use of the repairing strategy. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

(…) wynika z cytowanego przez gazetę raportu „Jak mobilizować dodatkowe oszczędności emerytalne”, opracowanego przez Stefana Kawalca, byłego wiceministra finansów, obecnie prezesa firmy doradczej Capital Strategy.

(…) according to the report “How to mobilize additional retirement savings”‘ quoted by the newspaper, prepared by Stefan Kawalec, former deputy finance minister, currently the president of the advisory firm Capital Strategy.

In his report entitled pay higher “How to encourage people to pay

25 stycznia odbędą się w Grecji przedterminowe wybory parlamentarne. Blisko 3/4 gospodarstw domowych ma dostęp do internetu, w ciągu zeszłego roku pojawił się on w ok. 400 tys. polskich domów. Według badania Głównego Urzędu Statystycznego

First attempt

Repairs

social insurance contribution

contributions the former ministry of finances [silent pause] [filled pause: /ä/] says it’s going to be a huge problem.

she earned

she has earned three million dollars.

Early parliamentary elections will take place in Greece on 25 January.

On twenty third of January there will be held a pool for choosing the parla

the parliament pool.

Nearly 3/4 of households have access to the Internet, last year it appeared in about 400 thousand Polish homes. According to a survey conducted by the Central Statistical

Almost three fourth houses have access to the Internet [filled pause: /ɪ/] while last year [filled pause: /ɪ/] over four hundred

over [filled pause: /ɪ/] ten [repair: over nine] million people, which also makes the number [filled pause: /ɪ/] ninety seven per cent of all.

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies

395

Tab. 48: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

komputer ma 9,7 mln gospodarstw domowych, czyli 77,1 proc. wszystkich.

Office, a computer is in 9.7 million households, i.e. 77.1% of all households.

houses had access to the internet, which constitutes seven point

Choć Microsoft chwalił się, że będzie to platforma o wiele bardziej przyjazna firmom, a równocześnie będzie na tyle uniwersalna, by móc obsługiwać jednocześnie klasyczne

Although Microsoft boasted that it would be a much more business-friendly platform, and at the same time it would be universal enough to support classic

[filled pause: /ɪ/] And Windows

Windows claims that it will be both a platform

[filled pause: /ɪ/] a frie

both a friendly

friendly

[filled pause: /ɪ/]

friendly

[filled pause: /ɪ/] platform for the companies and very universal, which means that [filled pause: /ɪ/]

pecety, tablety, smartfony, konsolę Xbox, a także urządzenia z kategorii „internet of things”, najważniejszą wiadomością wydawał się powrót do systemu porzuconego w Windows 8 Menu Start.

PCs, tablets, smartphones, the Xbox console as well as the devices belonging to the category of the Internet of things, the most important news seemed to be the return to the system abandoned in Windows 8 – Start Menu.

it will be [filled pause: that it could be used /ɪ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: sigh] [filled pause: /ɪ/]

First attempt

Repairs

for pecets

PCs [filled pause: /ä/] [silent pause]

PCs

and a range of

and the range of

other

and the range of other it

items [filled pause: /ɪ/] but the

the

but the most major change is the comback to

Czy to oznacza powrót Does this mean czasów świetności a return to the firmy? company’s glory?

to the

Widows 8 system.

[filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [filled pause: /ɪ/] Does it mean that

that the company [filled pause: /ɪ/]

that’s that mean company

that [repair:] has [filled pause: /ɪ/] [filled pause: /ɪ/]

[filled pause: /ɪ/]

have a (continued on next page)

396

Case study 3

Tab. 48: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text First attempt

Repairs

has a

[filled pause: sight] huge comeback?

Darmowy system operacyjny, jedna platforma dla komputerów i smartfonów, wirtualna rzeczywistość, 84-calowy ekran – Microsoft zaprezentował wraz z Windows 10 cały szereg produktów i rozwiązań, które pojawią się na rynku równolegle z nowym systemem.

Free operating Microsoft has intro system, one platform for computers and smartphones, virtual reality, 84-inch screen – Microsoft presented a whole for both range of products and solutions that will go for both with Windows 10 and which will appear on the market alongside the new system.

has introduced a [filled pause: /ɪ/] wide range of new products including free operative system, one platform for computer

Jak wynika z badań firmy Sociomantic Labs, najwięcej pieniędzy w sieci wydali w ubiegłym roku Brytyjczycy – 112 mld euro. Na drugim miejscu są Niemcy – 45,8 mld euro.

According to the research conducted by Sociomantic Labs, the British spent the most money on the Internet last year – EUR 112 billion. The second place is taken by Germany – EUR 45.8 billion.

According to the press, the first place [filled pause: /ɪ/] in the online shopping is Britain. It’s about one hundred and twelve millia

billion euro a year. The second place is Germany. It’s forty five point eight euro a year.

Kończy się kolejny tydzień wyraźnych obniżek cen na stacjach – wynika z danych łódzkiego biura maklerskiego Refleks.

Another week of significant price reductions at the petrol stations is coming to an end, according to data from the Łódź brokerage house Refleks.

The text [filled pause: /ɪ/] is about decreasing the prices for [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] [repair: the prices for oil]. The [filled pause: /ɪ/]

the] [filled pause: /ɪ/] broker office Refleks

the makler office Refleks

claims that the prices get lower even or significant amount of few Polish groszy per one litre.

computers and smartphones [filled pause: /ɪ/] and [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] virtual reality and [filled pause: /ɪ/] [silent pause] and virtual reality.

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies

397

Tab. 48: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text First attempt

Repairs

Kończy się kolejny tydzień wyraźnych obniżek cen na stacjach – wynika z danych łódzkiego biura maklerskiego Refleks. Średnio ceny spadały od 7 do 8 groszy za litr. Tym samym paliwa są najtańsze od pierwszej połowy 2010 roku.

Another week of significant price reductions at the petrol stations is coming to an end, according to data from the Łódź brokerage house Refleks. On average, prices fell from 7 to 8 groszy per litre. Thus, fuels have been the cheapest since the first half of 2010.

filled pause: /ɪ/] The week of [filled pause: /ɪ/] [filled pause: /ɪ/] prices downfall is ending. [filled pause: /ɪ/]. The bureau Refluks says that the [filled pause: /ɪ/] prices fall between 7 and 8 per cent [silent pause] at their first

in the first half of the 2010.

Marcin Bielski nie lubi tracić czasu na długie posiedzenia. Zebrania zarządu? Najlepiej na stojąco. Wystarczy 5 minut. Bum, bum, zrobione. Wymyślenie nowego konceptu sklepów zajęło prezesowi Diverse i jego zespołowi równo dobę. W innych firmach potrzeba na to zwykle trzech miesięcy.

Marcin Bielski does not like to waste time on long meetings. Board meetings? It is best to stand up. Just 5 minutes. Bum, bum, made. It took Diverse president and his team exactly a day to come up with a new store concept. In other companies it usually takes three months.

And Marcin Bielski is a new president of the management board so he is out of time. He says there is not too much time for the company [filled pause: /ä/] to lose. So he

he doesn’t really spend much time on meetings. Most of them are taking place [filled pause: /ä/] in a rush.

president says that he he created the president created a new concept of the company in just one day while other companies while other companies [filled pause: /ä/] were creating their concepts in about three months

Może to dotyczyć w roku 2060 od 25 do nawet 50 proc. osób, które nie zdołają zgromadzić na swoich kontach w ZUS środków wystarczających do otrzymania najniższej emerytury i państwo będzie musiało dopłacić im do świadczeń

In 2060, this may apply to from 25 to even 50% of people who will not be able to accumulate sufficient funds in their Social Insurance Institution accounts to receive the lowest pension and the state will have to pay them for benefits.

in approximately three months

Maybe in 2060 about won’t get enough twenty five to fifty per cent of people will get enough

enough money on their account in ZUS [silent pause].

(continued on next page)

398

Case study 3

Tab. 48: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text First attempt

Repairs

Może to dotyczyć w roku 2060 od 25 do nawet 50 proc. osób, które nie zdołają zgromadzić na swoich kontach w ZUS środków wystarczających do otrzymania najniższej emerytury i państwo będzie musiało dopłacić im do świadczeń

In 2060, this may apply to from 25 to even 50% of people who will not be able to accumulate sufficient funds in their Social Insurance Institution accounts to receive the lowest pension and the state will have to pay them for benefits.

That means that in 2060 [filled pause: /äm/] [faltering voice] about

[filled pause: /äm/] as many as twenty five to fifty per cent of people [faltering voice] [filled pause: /äm/] will not be able to receive the lowest pension from the Social Insurance Institution

and [filled pause: /äm//]

and the state will have to help them financially.

Mówiąc o polityce firmy, w której centrum stoi klient, nie sposób nie używać oczywistych stwierdzeń.

When talking about The client-oriented the policy of a strategy [filled company where the pause: /ɪ/] customer is at the centre, it is impossible not to use obvious statements.

This strategy cannot use any obvious words.

Na piątkowym spotkaniu w Brukseli kraje te zaapelowały o zawieszenie stosowania tych przepisów.

At a meeting in On Friday mee Brussels on Friday, these countries called took place in Friday for the suspension of these rules.

On the meeting in Brussels

Na zaprezentowany po raz pierwszy we wrześniu ubiegłego roku Windows 10 patrzyliśmy dotychczas głównie przez pryzmat interfejsu.

We have been looking at Windows 10, presented for the first time in September last year, mainly through the prism of the interface.

In

in September of the last year Windows

Windows

[filled pause: /ɪ/] has

has

presented

has presented

a new interface.

Nie byłoby to jednak możliwe, gdyby nie finansowa pomoc Ryszarda Krauzego, poświęcenie rodziców i odważne inwestowanie we własny rozwój.

However, it would not It wouldn’t be have been possible had possible if there was it not been for Ryszard no Krauze’s financial help, the sacrifice of his parents and bold investment in his own development.

last Friday with the representatives of thirteen European countries.

there were no big Ryszard Krauze and sacrifices of her parents plus investing [filled pause: /ɪ/] in herself and her development.

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies

399

Tab. 48: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Nie byłoby to jednak możliwe, gdyby nie finansowa pomoc Ryszarda Krauzego, poświęcenie rodziców i odważne inwestowanie we własny rozwój. O karierze, sukcesie i pieniądzach – rozmawiamy z Agnieszką Radwańską.

However, it would not have been possible had it not been for Ryszard Krauze’s financial help, the sacrifice of his parents and bold investment in his own development. We talk to Agnieszka Radwanska about her career, success and money.

[filled pause: /ɪ/] is estimated to about Thanks to their seventeen million. parents, as Ryszard Krauze says, [filled pause: /ɪ/] is Agnieszka Radwańska which is in the top

Do ścisłej tenisowej czołówki dołączyła w 2008 roku i od tego czasu każdego roku wzbogaca się o ponad 1 mln dolarów (na korcie uzbierała już ponad 17 mln dol.).

She joined the top tennis players in 2008 and since then has earned over 1 million dollars each year (she has already collected over 17 million dollars in tennis).

[filled pause: /ɪ/] tennis players since the year 2001. She makes [filled pause: /ɪ/] more every year and now her account [filled pause: /ɪ/] is

Sieć supermarketów Tesco, największa w W. Brytanii poinformowała o planach zamknięcia 43 sklepów i wycofaniu się z zaplanowanych inwestycji w 49 dalszych.

Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK, has announced plans to close 43 stores and withdraw from the planned investments in other 49.

The chain of supermarkets called Tesco has recently closed thirty four

Urszula Cieślak z Refleksu zaznacza, że mija tydzień dużej zmienności cen ropy na świecie, a także na rynku walutowym.

Urszula Cieślak from Reflex points out that a week of high volatility of oil prices in the world and on the currency market is passing. She adds that higher prices are already visible on the wholesale market.

Mrs. Urszula claim that [filled pause: /ɪ/] [filled pause: /ɪ/] the [filled pause: /ɪ/] significant

First attempt

Repairs

forty three facilities and cancelled the opening of the further forty nine facilities.

(continued on next page)

400

Case study 3

Tab. 48: Continued Source text Dodaje, że na rynku hurtowym widać już wyższe ceny. Nie są to jednak jeszcze jakieś gwałtowane wzrosty które zachwieją sytuacją na rynku detalicznym. Niemniej jednak można się spodziewać, że tempo obniżek wyhamuje.

Source text translation into English

Target text

However, these are not yet any sudden increases which will upset the situation on the retail market. Nevertheless, it can be expected that the pace of reductions will slow down.

[filled pause: /ɪ/] the factor of the time diversity of prices is visible [silent pause] not only for the western world but only in Poland. The [filled pause: /ɪ/] [repair: the] time of the percentage of time

First attempt

Repairs

of the price lowering to the [filled pause: /ɪ/] since the few years in the past is significant but the tendency is that in the near future it will be

raises a little bit.

Według amerykańskiego „Forbesa” tylko między czerwcem 2013 a 2014 roku wzbogaciła się dzięki nim o 3 mln dolarów.

According to [silent pause] in American “Forbes”, between June 2013 and 2014 alone, she earned 3 million dollars thanks to them.

since June [filled pause: /ɪ/] 2013 2014 [filled pause: /ɪ/]

W sobotę opublikowano trzy sondaże, z których wynika, że radykalna partia Syriza prowadzi przed partią premiera – konserwatywną Nową Demokracją (ND).

Three polls were published on Saturday, according to which the radical Syriza party is leading before the Prime Minister’s party, the conservative New Democracy (ND).

and on Saturday the prime minister takes survey as published, second place in which the party of primister [repair:

Zaś internet jest w 9,4 mln domów (73 proc.), a to o ok. 0,4 mln więcej niż w 2013 r. – pisze „Rzeczpospolita”.

And the Internet is in 9.4 million homes (73%), which is about 0.4 million more than in 2013 – writes “Rzeczpospolita”.

We have to also nine point four million. underline that in the This is how the previous year it was “Rzeczpospolita” states. seventy three per cent which is nine point four

and the first place wi is to the Syrizna party which leads before the prime minister’s party.

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies

401

In the previous case studies, the exploitation of the elaboration/explicitation strategy was not particularly frequent; however, in this case study, it was used more often. When performing their delivery of the target texts, the trainee interpreters sometimes decided to add some more information than the source texts contained in order to make their outputs more comprehensible or richer in information. What is also worth noting is that they occasionally used the periphrasis to express some source text concept/information, i.e. they elaborated on the source text information, thereby creating longer and sometimes more informationladen outputs. The examples provided in Tab. 49 below illustrate the use of the exploitation strategy. Tab. 49: The third case study participants’ use of the elaboration/explicitation strategy. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Choć Microsoft chwalił się, że będzie to platforma o wiele bardziej przyjazna firmom, a równocześnie będzie na tyle uniwersalna, by móc obsługiwać jednocześnie klasyczne pecety, tablety, smartfony, konsolę Xbox, a także urządzenia z kategorii „internet of things”, najważniejszą wiadomością wydawał się powrót do systemu porzuconego w Windows 8 Menu Start.

Although Microsoft boasted that it would be a much more business-friendly platform, and at the same time it would be universal enough to support classic PCs, tablets, smartphones, the Xbox console as well as the devices belonging to the category of the Internet of things, the most important news seemed to be the return to the system abandoned in Windows 8 – Start Menu.

We will take a look at it from the perspective of the interface which is supposed to be [filled pause: /ɪ/] companies friendly and universal enough so that it could accommodate different [filled pause: /ɪ/] [filled pause: lip smacking] appliances and different equipment such as computers, smartphones, [filled pause: /ɪ/] tablets [filled pause: /ɪ/]. However, the most important information seem to be [filled pause: /ä/] the comeback of the so-called menu Start.

Jednak eksperci uważają, że mimo, iż nadal w tym względzie jesteśmy daleko w tyle za innymi krajami europejskimi, to Polska nadrobi te zaległości w krótkim czasie.

However, experts believe that although we are still far behind other European countries in this respect, Poland will catch up in a short time.

Experts say that we are far behind the other countries but Poland will soon catch up and they shortly will [filled pause: /ɪ/] earn the same level.

Marcin Bielski nie lubi tracić czasu na długie posiedzenia. Zebrania zarządu? Najlepiej na stojąco. Wystarczy 5 minut.

Marcin Bielski does not like to waste time on long meetings. Board meetings? It is best to stand up. Just 5 minutes. Bum, bum, made.

And Marcin Bielski is a new president of the management board so he is out of time. He says there is not too much time for the company [filled pause: /ä/] to lose. (continued on next page)

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Case study 3

Tab. 49: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Bum, bum, zrobione. Wymyślenie nowego konceptu sklepów zajęło prezesowi Diverse i jego zespołowi równo dobę. W innych firmach potrzeba na to zwykle trzech miesięcy.

It took Diverse president and his team exactly a day to come up with a new store concept. In other companies it usually takes three months.

So he [repair: he] doesn’t really spend much time on meetings. Most of them are taking place [filled pause: /ä/] in a rush. The president says that he [repair: he created] [repair: the president created] a new concept of the company in just one day while other companies [filled pause: /ä/] [repair: while other companies] were creating their concepts in about three months [repair: in approximately three months].

Mogła być już częścią odzieżowego imperium LPP, ale przez kryzys popadła w kłopoty finansowe. Teraz marka Diverse bierze drugi oddech. Czy młody zarząd zdoła na dłużej tchnąć w nią energię, czy to tylko lekki lifting przed wyjściem funduszu z inwestycji?

It could already have been part of the LPP empire of clothing, but through the crisis it got into financial trouble. Now the Diverse brand takes a second breath. Will the young management manage to breathe energy into it for a longer time, or is it just a slight lifting before the fund leaves the investment?

The company could be a part of LPD. The company that I am talking about is Diverse. [filled pause: /ä/] It’s the second break [hesitation] since [silent pause] the [filled pause: /ä/] [repair: it’s the second breakup of management] since the beginning of company [repair: the company]. New management is taking [filled pause: /ä/] over its [filled pause: /ä/] [repair: the] position of the old management.

Na Internet wydajemy średnio ok. 60 zł miesięcznie, a łączne wydatki osób indywidualnych w skali roku wynoszą ok. 6,7 mld zł; w 2013 r. było to odpowiednio: 62 zł i 6,57 mld zł.

On average, we spend about PLN 60 per month on the Internet, and the total annual expenditure of individuals amounts to about PLN 6.7 billion; in 2013 it was: PLN 62 and PLN 6.57 billion, respectively.

And the cost of the Internet, the monthly price of it, is sixty [filled pause: /ɪ/] zloty, which is the total amount of over seven million zloty and in 2013 it was [repair: the price] of the internet was over sixty zloty, which makes the lower amount in general, which is over six and a half million zloty.

Niemieckie regulacje uderzają w polskie firmy transportowe, ale cieszą związkowców.

The German regulations hit Polish transport companies, but the trade unionists are happy.

In reality, [filled pause: /ɪ/] this regulations are very inconvenient for Polish transportation companies. However, they are good for the people who work for the good of workers.

Orientacja na Klienta, bo taką nazwę nosi filozofia działania firmy, jest oparta na uważnym słuchaniu opinii klientów.

Customer orientation, which is the name of the company’s philosophy, is based on listening carefully to customers’ opinions.

It is a philosophy of customeroriented strategy which consists of [filled pause: /ɪ/] attentive listening and responding to the needs of the customers.

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies

403

Tab. 49: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Urszula Cieślak dodaje, że ostatni tydzień stycznia prawdopodobnie może przynieść jeszcze pewne obniżki cen paliw, ale w kolejnych tygodniach będzie ich coraz mniej.

Urszula Cieślak adds that the last week of January may bring some reductions in fuel prices, but in the following weeks, there will be fewer and fewer of them.

The last week of the January shows that another [filled pause: /ɪ/] decreasing of [filled pause: /ɪ/] petrol prices will be in another [repair: will be last] [hesitation] [filled pause: /ɪ/] for some time but in another weeks will be [filled pause: /ɪ/] the tendency [repair: will be changed] in the way the prices of petrol will be [filled pause: /ɪ/] more higher so the tendency of the diminishing of the price will expire.

W sobotę opublikowano trzy sondaże, z których wynika, że radykalna partia Syriza prowadzi przed partią premiera – konserwatywną Nową Demokracją (ND).

Three polls were published on Saturday, according to which the radical Syriza party is leading before the Prime Minister’s party, the conservative New Democracy (ND).

and on Saturday the survey as published, in which the party of primister [repair: prime minister] takes second place and the first place wi [repair: is] to the Syrizna party which leads before the prime minister’s party.

Według brytyjskich mediów, rozmowy toczą się obecnie na poziomie ponad 10 mld funtów.

According to the British The whole project accounts for ten media, negotiations billion pounds, which is big number. currently concern the level of over £10 billion.

Z wyliczeń „Dziennika Gazety Prawnej” wynika, że po 25 latach pracy zatrudniany na umowie zlecenia i etatach z pensją minimalną, rzetelnie opłacający składki pracownik, otrzyma niespełna 500 zł emerytury brutto, czyli zaledwie 28 proc. pensji.

As results from the calculations of “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna”. after 25 years of work, an employee employed on the basis of a contract of mandate and with a minimum salary, who pays contributions reliably, will receive less than PLN 500 pension gross, i.e. only 28% of the salary.

According to the reports published by “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna”, which is a Polish magazine, [filled pause: /ä/] people [filled pause: /ä/] who will have been working for twenty five [filled pause: /ä/] years by [filled pause: /ä/] approximately 2060, [filled pause: /ä/] based on full-time contracts and [filled pause: /ä/] contracts for specific work who pay [filled pause: /ä/] the minimum social insurance contributions [filled pause: /ä/] will be receiving five hundred zlotys gross as their pension, which means as little as twenty eight per cent of their current salaries.

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Case study 3

What seems striking in comparison to the outcomes of the analysis of the interpreting strategies employed during output delivery by the first two case study participants is that in this case study, the strategy of condensation/implicitation has been detected in a relatively smaller number of target texts. Generally speaking, the examples below (Tab. 50) show that the source text content was often reduced and only the most essential information, as the trainee interpreters using this strategy probably viewed it, was included in the target text. Again, some doubts can be raised as regards the trainee interpreters’ awareness of the use of this strategy for the fragments in the table might indicate that implicitation occurred as a results of some unconscious decision to solve an emerging problem of, for instance, a lexical gap or an information gap. Tab. 50: The third case study participants’ use of the condensation/implicitation strategy. Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

„Nie będzie żadnych dalszych cięć wynagrodzeń i emerytur. Kolejny przełom w naszym planie wzrostu gospodarczego to między innymi ogólne obniżki podatków, które mogą nastąpić stopniowo, krok za krokiem” – powiedział Samaras na spotkaniu z członkami i zwolennikami swej partii. Premier obiecał obniżenie w tym roku niepopularnego podatku od nieruchomości oraz zmniejszenie podatku dochodowego od osób prawnych do 15 proc.

“There will be no further cuts in salaries and pensions. Another breakthrough in our growth plan includes general tax cuts, which can be made gradually, step by step” – said Samaras at a meeting with members and supporters of his party. The Prime Minister promised to reduce the unpopular property tax this year and to reduce the corporate income tax to 15%.

The prime minister Samaras said on the meeting that there will be no more decreasing of the pensions and there will be general decreasing in taxes. And the prime minister intends to lower the real estate tax and decrease the tax for every tax payer to fifteen percent.

Jak wynika z badań firmy Sociomantic Labs, najwięcej pieniędzy w sieci wydali w ubiegłym roku Brytyjczycy – 112 mld euro. Na drugim miejscu są Niemcy – 45,8 mld euro.

According to the research conducted by Sociomantic Labs, the British spent the most money on the Internet last year – EUR 112 billion. The second place is taken by Germany – EUR 45.8 billion.

According to the press, the first place [filled pause: /ɪ/] in the online shopping is Britain. It’s about one hundred and twelve millia [repair: billion] euro a year. The second place is Germany. It’s forty five point eight euro a year.

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ strategies

405

Tab. 50: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Target text

Państwa zaniepokojone nowymi niemieckimi przepisami to oprócz Polski: Słowacja, Czechy, Węgry, Rumunia, Bułgaria, Słowenia, Chorwacja, Litwa, Estonia, Portugalia, Hiszpania i Irlandia.

In addition to Poland, the countries concerned about the new German legislation are Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia, Portugal, Spain and Ireland.

Including Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Czech [repair: Czech Republic], Slovakia, Baltic states, and Ireland.

Powtórzył on zapowiedź z października zeszłego roku, że koncern, który w swoim krakowskim centrum zatrudnia około 500 pracowników, zamierza w najbliższych 2 latach zwiększyć zatrudnienie do ponad tysiąca osób.

He reiterated the announcement from October last year that the company, which employs about five hundred people in its Cracow centre, intends to increase the employment to over a thousand people in the next two years.

The investment [filled pause: /ɛ/] [filled pause: /ɛ/] will [silent pause] involve the hiring [filled pause: /ɛ/] more workers in the office from five hundred to ne thousand.

Produkcja przemysłowa w Polsce zwiększyła się w grudniu 2014 o 8,4 proc. rok do roku – poinformował GUS. Wzrost odnotowała też branża budowlana. Z wstępnych danych GUS wynika, że w ujęciu miesięcznym produkcja przemysłowa obniżyła się o 2,3 proc.

Industrial production in Poland increased in December 2014 by 8.4% year-to-year, informed the Central Statistical Office (GUS). The construction industry also recorded an increase. According to the preliminary data of the Central Statistical Office (GUS), industrial production decreased by 2.3% on a monthly basis.

Industry production in 2004 [silent pause] was increased by eight point four per cent and year by year was better. Building industry [repair: however, building industry] met with the decreasement two point three per cent.

Tak twierdzi Agata Lem-Kulig, członek zarządu i dyrektor pionu operacyjnego MetLife TUnŻiR.

This is what Agata Lem-Kulig, member of the management board and director of MetLife operational division, says.

States Agata Leg-Kulig, [filled pause: /ɛ/] an employee in MetLife.

Zgadzają się z tym inni eksperci. Np. prof. Leokadia Oręziak z Katedry Finansów Międzynarodowych Szkoły Głównej Handlowej.

Other experts agree with this. For example, professor Leokadia Oręziak from the Department of International Finance at the Warsaw School of Economics.

[silent pause] Other expert agrees with it Leokadia Orędziak.

The exploitation of the next strategy – naturalisation – was definitely more frequent in this case study than in the remaining two. When confronted with a lexical gap, the trainee interpreters used their creative potential to form the words which are nonexistent in the English language but which may sound as if they were part of it. A particularly interesting example is the naturalised equivalents of the word “analysts”. In one case, the trainee interpreter used the word-formation rules of derivation to create

406

Case study 3

the lexeme “analyticians” and the other student decided to use the word which is part of the English lexicon “analytics” but which has a meaning different from the intended one. The examples of the naturalisation strategy have been collected in Tab. 51. Tab. 51: The third case study participants’ use of the naturalisation strategy. Source text

English equivalent

Target text

analitycy

analysts

analyticians /’ænelɪ’tɪ∫n/

analysts

analytics /ænə’lɪtɪks/

konsument

consumer

consuments /konsju:ments/

obniżka

decrease

decreasement /ˈdiːkriːsmənt/

pecety

PCs

pecets /pesets/

PKP

Polish Railway Station

PKP /pi:keɪpi/

The final strategy, the examples of which were sought in the trainee interpreters’ outputs, was the exploitation of the transcoding strategy. This method of dealing with an unfamiliar sounding element present in the input is handled by reproducing the original sound in the output. In fact, all of the examples of the sound reproduction strategy involved using the original, i.e. Polish, pronunciation of proper names. It seems that it was the most natural and perhaps most appropriate way of dealing with proper names. What is worth paying attention to is that in two cases, the students decided to use the original Polish name in their target texts although there are widely accepted equivalents in the English language (i.e. PAP – “Polish Press Agency”, Szkoła Główna Handlowa – “Warsaw School of Economics”). All of the examples of sound reproduction strategy are provided in Tab. 52: Tab. 52: The third case study participants’ use of the transcoding/sound reproduction strategy. Source text

Standard Polish pronunciation

Target text

Agata Lem-Kulig

/ägätä lɛm kulig/

/ägätə lɛm kulig/

Agnieszka Radwańska

/ägŋɪɛ’∫kä räd’väŋskä/

/ägŋɪɛ’∫kä räd’väŋskä/

Dziennik Gazeta Prawna

/dʒɪɛnnik gäzɛtä prävnä/

/dʒɪɛnnik gäzɛtä prävnä/

Katowice

/kätovɪtsɛ/

/kätovɪtsɛ/

Leokadia Oręziak

/lɛo’kädɪä orɛndʒɪäk/

/lɛo’kädɪä orɛndʒɪäk/

PAP

/päp/

/päp/

Puls Biznesu

/puls bɪznɛsu/

/puls bɪznɛsu/

Ryszard Krauze

/rɪ∫ärd kräuzɛ/

/rɪ∫ärd kräuzɛ/

Rzeczpospolita

/ʒɛt∫pospo’lɪtä/

/ʒɛt∫pospo’lɪtä/

407

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 52: Continued Source text

Standard Polish pronunciation

Target text

Stefan Kawalec

/stɛfän kävälɛts/

/stɛfän kävälɛts/

/stɛfän/

/stɛfän/

Szkoła Główna Handlowa

/∫kouä glʊvnä händlovä/

/∫kouä glʊvnä händlovä/

Urszula Cieślak

/ur∫ulə tsɪɛɕläk/

/ur∫ulə tsɪɛɕläk/

Wrocław

/vrotslʌv/

/vrotslʌv/

ZUS

/zus/

/zus/

Generally speaking, the observation which readily comes to mind after the analysis of the interpreting strategies exploited by the third case study participants is that those strategies were not the consciously selected ways of dealing with the emerging problems. In fact, in the majority of cases they were perhaps the first solutions that came to the trainee interpreters’ minds in the conditions of the in-class consecutive interpreting test, during which the negative activity of the psycho-affective factors inhibited the students’ performance to some extent. This is particularly true of the omission and condensation strategies, the exploitation of which could have been conditioned by some lexical or information deficits which could not be rendered because they were not memorised nor recorded in the notes. Likewise, although the use of the repairing strategy could suggest the trainee interpreters’ at least partially conscious control over the consecutive interpreting process, in particular over the production of the output, it may also indicate, especially in the case of the frequent repairs of a single target text unit, that the students were under the influence of some negative aspects of their psycho-affectivity which hindered their smooth and flawless production of the outputs. Other strategies such as explicitation, naturalisation or transcoding can bear witness to the fact that they were used rather as a response to some emerging difficulty with rendering the source texts and not the conscious decisions. This view can be additionally corroborated by the fact that some trainee interpreters wrote about stress and time pressure which they felt during the production phase of the consecutive interpreting test. Thus, there are some grounds for supposing that the use of those strategies was indeed conditioned by some psycho-affective factors, the inadequate or improper management of which could have contributed to the nascent problems which those strategies were to address.

7.4. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes The trainee interpreters’ notes, which can be compared to artefacts typically collected and interpreted within ethnographic studies, can also be an interesting source of data on the trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of the psychoaffective factors. As explained earlier in this book, both the (non-)adherence to the

408

Case study 3

note-taking principles as well as the visible extra-linguistic exponents of the negative impact of the students’ psycho-affectivity on the entire consecutive interpreting process, including note-taking, can provide some data concerning the nature of these factors. Additionally, although the analyses of the trainee interpreters’ notes conducted in the two previous case studies did not bring any conclusive results corroborating the negative activity of the psycho-affective factors, it is worth seeing whether in this case the notes are of the same nature in terms of its value as the artefacts providing additional data on the phenomena observed. This subchapter follows the manner of presenting the trainee interpreters’ notes in the form of visual approximations of the handwritten elements. The first aspect of the analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes is whether the students preferred to note the words, phrases or even entire sentences instead of the ideas. A glimpse into the students’ notes allows to state that in many cases they preferred to write down the exact words which they heard while listening to the Polish inputs. This may also account for extensive use of Polish as a language of their notes. Using exactly the same words, phrases or even sentences may have resulted from the trainee interpreters’ great focus on the comprehension of the input but the notes in the form of the entire sentences heard in the source text may indicate that this comprehension might not have taken place just in this phase of the consecutive interpreting process. It might have been so since otherwise the trainee interpreters would have produced the notes which would contain just single concepts/ideas as retrieval cues. This can also indicate that some trainee interpreters’ cognitive abilities were hindered, which could have resulted from the negative impact of the psycho-affective factors on several students’ ability to extract the gist of the input. The following examples in Tab. 53 illustrate the abundance of noting the words, phrases and sentences instead of the meaning derived from the input. Tab. 53: The third case study participants’ notes: noting the word/phrase/sentence instead of the idea. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Analitycy ankietowani przez PAP spodziewali się, że w grudniu wzrostu produkcji rok do roku o 4,6 proc., zaś miesiąc do miesiąca spadku o 5,9 proc.

Analysts surveyed by Polish Press Agency expected a year-to-year increase in production by 4.6% in December and a month-to-month decrease by 5.9%.

analitycy spodziewali się wzrost i spadku o 5.9

Beznadziejnego szefa można tak naprawdę poznać na długo przed przyjęciem oferty pracy. Wysyłają bowiem jasny sygnał, że tylko owce i lemingi powinny aplikować.

A terrible boss can in fact be recognised long before accepting a job offer. They send a clear signal that only sheep and lemmings should apply.

na długo przed interview owce i lemingi powinny aplikować

409

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 53: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Ich przedstawiciele spotkali się w piątek w Brukseli z urzędnikami dyrekcji generalnych Komisji Europejskiej ds. transportu i ds. zdrowia. Jak poinformowano po spotkaniu, w jego trakcie padł m.in. postulat, by stosowanie budzących kontrowersje niemieckich przepisów zostało zawieszone do czasu wyjaśnienia, czy są one zgodne z prawem UE.

Their representatives met on Friday in Brussels with officials from the European Commission’s Directorates-General for Transport and Health. As informed after the meeting, during the meeting, among other things, there was a postulate that the application of the controversial German legislation be suspended until it is clarified whether they are compatible with the EU law.

FRIDAY HEALTH & TRANSPORT COM. eng. practises said POSTULATE to suspend the reg. until the final confirmation of whether they’re in line with EU law

Kończy się kolejny tydzień wyraźnych obniżek cen na stacjach — wynika z danych łódzkiego biura maklerskiego Refleks. Średnio ceny spadały od 7 do 8 groszy za litr. Tym samym paliwa są najtańsze od pierwszej połowy 2010 roku.

Another week of significant price reductions at the petrol stations is coming to an end, according to data from the Łódź brokerage house Refleks. On average, prices fell from 7 to 8 groszy per litre. Thus, fuels have been the cheapest since the first half of 2010.

kończy się spadkiem obniżek cen Łudzkie bióro Reflux 7 – 8% paliwo 1 0,5 2010

Kończy się kolejny tydzień wyraźnych obniżek cen na stacjach – wynika z danych łódzkiego biura maklerskiego Refleks.

Another week of significant price reductions at the petrol stations is coming to an end, according to data from the Łódź brokerage house Refleks.

obniżek cen Biuro Reflex Maklerskie maklerskie

Od 1 stycznia w Niemczech obowiązuje ustawa o płacy minimalnej; stawka za godzinę, która dotyczy zarówno Niemców, jak i obywateli innych państw pracujących w tym kraju, wynosi co najmniej 8,50 euro za godzinę.

Since 1 January, Germany has had a law on the minimum wage; the hourly rate, which applies to both Germans and the citizens of other countries working in Germany, is at least EUR 8.50 per hour.

Od 1 stycznia obowiązuje wynosi 8,5E za godzine

Od 14 grudnia 2014 r., wraz z wejściem w życie nowego rozkładu jazdy, do eksploatacji włączono 15 składów Pendolino, z czego 9 wozi pasażerów, a 6 składów znajduje się w rezerwie.

From 14 December 2014, with the new timetable, 15 Pendolino trains have been put into operation, of which 9 carry passengers and 6 trains are in reserve.

Od 14.02.2014 do eksploatacji will be used włączy 15 stacji składów 9 wozi 6 – ork as a resere  carry passangers (continued on next page)

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Case study 3

Tab. 53: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Od 15 lutego br. kolejne dwa składy Pendolino zaczną wozić pasażerów – powiedziała Beata Czemerajda z biura prasowego PKP Intercity. Nowe składy Pendolino mają kursować z Warszawy do Wrocławia, Krakowa i Katowic.

From 15 February this year the other two Pendolino trains will start carrying passengers – said Beata Czemerajda from the press office of Intercity Polish Railways. The new Pendolino trains are to run from Warsaw to Wrocław, Cracow and Katowice.

15.02. br. 2 składy pędolino – został activated As said Czemrajda from PKP nowe składy pędolino will be lead through * War – WrocKraków - Katowice

Przedstawiamy sześć sposobów, w jaki beznadziejni pracodawcy degradują i wykorzystują osoby poszukujące zatrudnienia. To są bardzo głośne sygnały, które krzyczą, żeby uciekać albo żeby zostać i cierpieć.

We present six ways in which terrible employers degrade and exploit job seekers. These are very loud signals that scream to run away or to stay and suffer.

6 sposobów degradujący Bardzo głośne sygnały żeby uciekać lub zostać i cierpień.

Średnio ceny spadały od 7 do 8 groszy za litr. Tym samym paliwa są najtańsze od pierwszej połowy 2010 roku.

On average, prices fell from 7 to 8 groszy per litre. Thus, fuels have been the cheapest since the first half of 2010.

Ceny spadały 10 8-gr/lit

Trzynaście państw UE, w tym Polska, ma zastrzeżenia do nowych niemieckich przepisów ws. płacy minimalnej, obejmującej także zagranicznych kierowców. Na piątkowym spotkaniu w Brukseli kraje te zaapelowały o zawieszenie stosowania tych przepisów.

Thirteen EU countries, including Poland, have reservations about the new German minimum wage regulations, which also concern foreign drivers. At a meeting in Brussels on Friday, these countries called for the suspension of these rules.

13 EU countries incl. PL express concerns towards new DE reg. for minimum wage that apply to e.g. drivers Friday meeting in Brux.

Urszula Cieślak dodaje, że ostatni tydzień stycznia prawdopodobnie może przynieść jeszcze pewne obniżki cen paliw, ale w kolejnych tygodniach będzie ich coraz mniej.

Urszula Cieślak adds that the last week of January may bring some reductions in fuel prices, but in the following weeks, there will be fewer and fewer of them.

może się spowolnić os tyd stycznia jeszcze ale coraz mniej s. kol. tyg.

Urszula Cieślak dodaje, że ostatni tydzień stycznia prawdopodobnie może przynieść jeszcze pewne obniżki cen paliw, ale w kolejnych tygodniach będzie ich coraz mniej.

Urszula Cieślak adds that the last week of January may bring some reductions in fuel prices, but in the following weeks, there will be fewer and fewer of them.

ostatni tydzień stycznia kolejne obniżki paliw ale w kolejnych tyg. będzie ich coraz mniej

411

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 53: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Urszula Cieślak z Refleksu zaznacza, że mija tydzień dużej zmienności cen ropy na świecie, a także na rynku walutowym. Dodaje, że na rynku hurtowym widać już wyższe ceny. Nie są to jednak jeszcze jakieś gwałtowane wzrosty które zachwieją sytuacją na rynku detalicznym. Niemniej jednak można się spodziewać, że tempo obniżek wyhamuje.

Urszula Cieślak from Reflex points out that a week of high volatility of oil prices in the world and on the currency market is passing. She adds that higher prices are already visible on the wholesale market. However, these are not yet any sudden increases which will upset the situation on the retail market. Nevertheless, it can be expected that the pace of reductions will slow down.

Urszula Cieślak walutowy currency market hurtowy rynek wyższe nie są duże wzrosty

Urszula Cieślak z Refleksu zaznacza, że mija tydzień dużej zmienności cen ropy na świecie, a także na rynku walutowym. Dodaje, że na rynku hurtowym widać już wyższe ceny.

Urszula Cieślak from Reflex points out that a week of high volatility of oil prices in the world and on the currency market is passing. She adds that higher prices are already visible on the wholesale market.

Pani Urszula 2009 mówi Duża zmienność cen już widać

Nie są to jednak jeszcze jakieś gwałtowane wzrosty które zachwieją sytuacją na rynku detalicznym. Niemniej jednak można się spodziewać, że tempo obniżek wyhamuje.

However, these are not yet any jeszcze ale nie sudden increases which will upset zachwieje the situation on the retail market. tempo obniżek cen Nevertheless, it can be expected that the pace of reductions will slow down.

Złe mówienie o przełożonych podczas rozmowy kwalifikacyjnej to kiepski pomysł.

It is a bad idea to talk badly about superiors during an interview.

złe mówienie o przełożonych interview

Żeby tego uniknąć, najlepiej nie mieć z nimi do czynienia. Fatalnych pracodawców można rozpoznać już w trakcie rozmowy o pracę.

To avoid this, it is best not to deal with them. Bad employers can already be recognized during an interview.

lepiej nie mieć nić do czyn.

Although there are a significant number of the instances of noting the word, phrase or sentence, there are even more examples showing that the majority of the trainee interpreters participating in this case study did try to understand the source texts and jotted down the ideas which served as minimal retrieval signs. The following visual appropriations of the actual handwritten notes (Tab. 54) can corroborate the statement that the students’ cognitive skills in understanding and processing the inputs were properly used:

412

Case study 3

Tab. 54: The third case study participants’ notes: noting the idea. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

25 stycznia odbędą się w Grecji przedterminowe wybory parlamentarne. W sobotę opublikowano trzy sondaże, z których wynika, że radykalna partia Syriza prowadzi przed partią premiera – konserwatywną Nową Demokracją (ND).

Early parliamentary elections will take place in Greece on 25 January. Three polls were published on Saturday, according to which the radical Syriza party is leading before the Prime Minister’s party, the conservative New Democracy (ND).

25 I przedterm. wybory parl. w sob sondaże partia Syriza prowadzi przez PM

Amerykański koncern informatyczny Cisco otworzył swoje trzecie, największe biuro w Krakowie, wchodzące w skład centrum wsparcia Cisco. Biuro jest także siedzibą Cisco Network Operations Center (NOC), jednej z trzech tego typu inwestycji firmy na świecie. „Droga, którą rozpoczęliśmy w 2012 r. w Krakowie zaczyna przyspieszać, ponieważ dziś otwieramy nasze trzecie biuro w tym mieście i znacząco rozszerzamy zakres działalności” – poinformował dziennikarzy Olivier Kohler, wiceprezes amerykańskiej spółki, odpowiedzialny za wszystkie tego typu centra Cisco na świecie. Powtórzył on zapowiedź z października zeszłego roku, że koncern, który w swoim krakowskim centrum zatrudnia około 500 pracowników, zamierza w najbliższych 2 latach zwiększyć zatrudnienie do ponad tysiąca osób.

American IT concern Cisco has opened its third, largest office in Krakow, which is part of the Cisco support centre. The office is also the headquarters of Cisco Network Operations Centre (NOC), one of the company’s three such investments in the world. “The way we started in 2012 in Cracow is starting to accelerate, as today we are opening our third office in the city and significantly expanding the scope of our activities” – informed journalists Olivier Kohler, vice-president of the American company, responsible for all Cisco centres of this type in the world. He reiterated the announcement from October last year that the company, which employs about five hundred people in its Cracow centre, intends to increase the employment to over a thousand people in the next two years.

Amery Cisko dz. 3 naj bir Kr w centr. Wsp Cisi Cis Net Oper Cen 3 inwes na św Drog Wsp. rozp. w kr prz ptr 3 bi Olivre Coile Vice prez Amer społ. odpow za tego rodzaj Powtórzył on zapowie z ubiegłego roku 500 prac do 100 osób

Analitycy ankietowani przez PAP spodziewali się, że w grudniu wzrostu produkcji rok do roku o 4,6 proc., zaś miesiąc do miesiąca spadku o 5,9 proc.

Analysts surveyed by Polish Press analiticians Agency expected a year-to-year 4,6%  increase in production by 4.6% in 6%  December and a month-to-month decrease by 5.9%.

413

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 54: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Darmowy system operacyjny, jedna platforma dla komputerów i smartfonów, wirtualna rzeczywistość, 84-calowy ekran – Microsoft zaprezentował wraz z Windows 10 cały szereg produktów i rozwiązań, które pojawią się na rynku równolegle z nowym systemem. Czy to oznacza powrót czasów świetności firmy?

Free operating system, one platform for computers and smartphones, virtual reality, 84-inch screen – Microsoft presented a whole range of products and solutions that will go with Windows 10 and which will appear on the market alongside the new system. Does this mean a return to the company’s glory?

da system operacyjny 1 platforma kom i sma wirtualna rzes 84 cal ekran Mikros szereg produk czy to oznacza powrót świetny

Eurostat dostarczył najnowsze dane dot. stóp bezrobocia oraz inflacji w Polsce i strefie euro

Eurostat provided the latest data on unemployment rates and inflation in Poland and the euro area.

Eurostat dosty dane bezrobocia in PL

Hutchison Whampoa potwierdziła w komunikacie, że prowadzi wyłączne negocjacje z Telefoniką w sprawie kupna O2. Według brytyjskich mediów, rozmowy toczą się obecnie na poziomie ponad 10 mld funtów.

Hutchison Whampoa confirmed in a press release that she is negotiating exclusively with Telefonika for the purchase of O2. According to the British media, negotiations currently concern the level of over £10 billion.

Hanmsu Wham w też w sprawie umowa 02 10 000 £

Ich przedstawiciele spotkali się w piątek w Brukseli z urzędnikami dyrekcji generalnych Komisji Europejskiej ds. transportu i ds. zdrowia.

Their representatives met on Friday in Brussels with officials from the European Commission’s Directorates-General for Transport and Health.

W pt Brukseli spotkanie z przedstawicie ds. Transp. I Zdrowia

Jak poinformowano po spotkaniu, w jego trakcie padł m.in. postulat, by stosowanie budzących kontrowersje niemieckich przepisów zostało zawieszone do czasu wyjaśnienia, czy są one zgodne z prawem UE.

As informed after the meeting, during the meeting, among other things, there was a postulate that the application of the controversial German legislation be suspended until it is clarified whether they are compatible with the EU law.

Postulat o zawieszenie zaostrzenia przepisów czy są zgodne z prawem EU

Kończy się kolejny tydzień wyraźnych obniżek cen na stacjach — wynika z danych łódzkiego biura maklerskiego Refleks.

Another week of significant price reductions at the petrol stations is coming to an end, according to data from the Łódź brokerage house Refleks.

obniżek cen Biuro Reflex Maklerskie maklerskie (continued on next page)

414

Case study 3

Tab. 54: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Marcin Bielski nie lubi tracić czasu na długie posiedzenia. Zebrania zarządu? Najlepiej na stojąco. Wystarczy 5 minut. Bum, bum, zrobione. Wymyślenie nowego konceptu sklepów zajęło prezesowi Diverse i jego zespołowi równo dobę. W innych firmach potrzeba na to zwykle trzech miesięcy. Skuteczność 80 procent? Nie szkodzi. Pozostałe 20 proc. poprawi się później.

Marcin Bielski does not like to waste time on long meetings. Board meetings? It is best to stand up. Just 5 minutes. Bum, bum, made. It took Diverse president and his team exactly a day to come up with a new store concept. In other companies it usually takes three months. Efficiency of 80 percent? It does not matter. The remaining 20 percent will be improved later.

MARCIN BIELSKI DRUGIE –X POSIEDZ NOWY KONCEPT DOBA 13 M-CY SKUT. 80% NIS 20% POPRAW

Mogła być już częścią odzieżowego imperium LPP, ale przez kryzys popadła w kłopoty finansowe. Teraz marka Diverse bierze drugi oddech. Czy młody zarząd zdoła na dłużej tchnąć w nią energię, czy to tylko lekki lifting przed wyjściem funduszu z inwestycji?

It could already have been part of the LPP empire of clothing, but through the crisis it got into financial trouble. Now the Diverse brand takes a second breath. Will the young management manage to breathe energy into it for a longer time, or is it just a slight lifting before the fund leaves the investment?

CZĘŚ lpp KŁOPOTY DIVERSE II ODDECH MŁODY ZARZĄD

Może to dotyczyć w roku 2060 od 25 do nawet 50 proc. osób, które nie zdołają zgromadzić na swoich kontach w ZUS środków wystarczających do otrzymania najniższej emerytury i państwo będzie musiało dopłacić im do świadczeń – wynika z cytowanego przez gazetę raportu „Jak mobilizować dodatkowe oszczędności emerytalne”, opracowanego przez Stefana Kawalca, byłego wiceministra finansów, obecnie prezesa firmy doradczej Capital Strategy. Zgadzają się z tym inni eksperci. Np. prof. Leokadia Oręziak z Katedry Finansów Międzynarodowych Szkoły Głównej Handlowej.

In 2060, this may apply to from 25 to even 50% of people who will not be able to accumulate sufficient funds in their Social Insurance Institution accounts to receive the lowest pension and the state will have to pay them for benefits – according to the report “How to mobilize additional retirement savings” quoted by the newspaper, prepared by Stefan Kawalec, former deputy finance minister, currently the president of the advisory firm Capital Strategy. Other experts agree with this. For example, professor Leokadia Oręziak from the Department of International Finance at the Warsaw School of Economics.

2060  25 – 50% nie mają w ZUS najn. em. państwo dopi. rap. Jak mobi. dod. środki em. Stefan Kawalec MoF inni eksperci Kat. Fi. Międz. SGH

415

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 54: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Na zaprezentowany po raz pierwszy we wrześniu ubiegłego roku Windows 10 patrzyliśmy dotychczas głównie przez pryzmat interfejsu. Choć Microsoft chwalił się, że będzie to platforma o wiele bardziej przyjazna firmom, a równocześnie będzie na tyle uniwersalna, by móc obsługiwać jednocześnie klasyczne pecety, tablety, smartfony, konsolę Xbox, a także urządzenia z kategorii „internet of things”, najważniejszą wiadomością wydawał się powrót do systemu porzuconego w Windows 8 Menu Start.

We have been looking at Windows 10, presented for the first time in September last year, mainly through the prism of the interface. Although Microsoft boasted that it would be a much more business-friendly platform, and at the same time it would be universal enough to support classic PCs, tablets, smartphones, the Xbox console as well as the devices belonging to the category of the Internet of things, the most important news seemed to be the return to the system abandoned in Windows 8 – Start Menu.

we wrześniu Windows ubiegłego roku interfejsu platforma przyjazna klasyczne PC konsole, konsole urządzenia powrót do systemu Windows 8

O2 jest obecnie drugim co do wielkości brytyjskim operatorem komórkowym.

O2 is currently the second largest O2 2 co do wielkości UK mobile operator. GB

Od 1 stycznia w Niemczech obowiązuje ustawa o płacy minimalnej; stawka za godzinę, która dotyczy zarówno Niemców, jak i obywateli innych państw pracujących w tym kraju, wynosi co najmniej 8,50 euro za godzinę.

Since 1 January, Germany has had 1.01. stawka/h a law on the minimum wage; the min 8,5 Ek/h hourly rate, which applies to both Germans and the citizens of other countries working in Germany, is at least EUR 8.50 per hour.

Od tak ważnego przyjaciela, jakim są Niemcy, oczekiwałabym europejskiej solidarności oraz respektowania zasad jednolitego rynku w Unii Europejskiej – mówiła premier Ewa Kopacz nt. sytuacji polskich przewoźników w związku z nowymi przepisami o płacy minimalnej w Niemczech.

From such an important friend as Germany I would expect European solidarity and respect for the principles of the single market in the European Union – said Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz about the situation of Polish carriers in connection with the new minimum wage regulations in Germany.

przyjaciel Niemcy en solidarity zasady premier Ewa Kopacz polscy przewoźnicy płaca min w Niemczech

Państwa zaniepokojone nowymi niemieckimi przepisami to oprócz Polski: Słowacja, Czechy, Węgry, Rumunia, Bułgaria, Słowenia, Chorwacja, Litwa, Estonia, Portugalia, Hiszpania i Irlandia.

In addition to Poland, the countries concerned about the new German legislation are Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia, Portugal, Spain and Ireland.

oprócz PL – Sł. Czechy Węgry Buł Litwa Portugalia Irlandia (continued on next page)

416

Case study 3

Tab. 54: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Pierwotnie od 14 grudnia na trasach miało się pojawić 17 składów, a 3 miały zostać w rezerwie. Ze względu na opóźnienia w dostarczaniu składów przez producenta – Alstom, PKP Intercity musiało zmniejszyć liczbę Pendolino na torach.

Originally, from 14 December, 17 trains were to appear on the routes and 3 were to remain in reserve. Due to delays in the delivery of the trains by the manufacturer Alstom, Intercity Polish Railways had to reduce the number of Pendolino trains in use.

Od 14.02 17 – carry pass 3 w rezerwie Delays Opóźnienie (Alstom) PKS zmniejszy pendoli

Po wyeliminowaniu wpływu czynników o charakterze sezonowym produkcja sprzedana przemysłu ukształtowała się na poziomie o 5,3% wyższym niż w analogicznym miesiącu 2013 r. i o 2,3 proc. wyższym w porównaniu z listopadem 2014 r. – poinformował GUS w komunikacie.

After eliminating the impact of seasonal factors, industrial output sold was 5.3% higher than in the corresponding month of 2013 and 2.3% higher than in November 2014. – The Central Statistical Office (GUS) informed in a message.

prod. Przemysł  (sezonowy) sprzedaż  5% niż w 2013 Gło US

Premier Grecji Antonis Samaras zapowiedział w sobotę w Atenach stopniowe obniżanie podatków i co najmniej utrzymanie wysokości pensji i emerytur.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras announced on Saturday in Athens a gradual reduction in taxes and at least the maintenance of wages and pensions.

PM of G Samaras  podatków utrzymanie wzrostu pensions

Produkcja przemysłowa w Polsce zwiększyła się w grudniu 2014 o 8,4 proc. rok do roku – poinformował GUS. Wzrost odnotowała też branża budowlana.

Industrial production in Poland increased in December 2014 by 8.4% year-to-year, informed the Central Statistical Office (GUS). The construction industry also recorded an increase.

Produkcja przemysł  2014, 8,4% every year

Produkcja przemysłowa w Polsce zwiększyła się w grudniu 2014 o 8,4 proc. rok do roku – poinformował GUS. Wzrost odnotowała też branża budowlana.

Industrial production in Poland increased in December 2014 by 8.4% year-to-year, informed the Central Statistical Office (GUS). The construction industry also recorded an increase.

Prod. W PL  w Gr. of 8,4 – Głów U Statyst setor budown

Stopa bezrobocia w strefie euro The unemployment rate in w listopadzie, po uwzględnieniu the euro zone in November czynników sezonowych wyniosła amounted to 11.5%. 11,5 proc., wobec 11,5 proc.

Unem rate is 11/5% Eurost In Europe 11/5%

417

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 54: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

w poprzednim miesiącu – poinformował w komunikacie The unemployment rate in the Eurostat, urząd statystyczny Unii euro zone in November, after Europejskiej. taking seasonal factors into account, was 11.5%, compared to 11.5% in the previous month, Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office said in a press release.

Notes to 11/5% lst mth Info. Erostat. Stat. Office EU

Stopa bezrobocia, po dostosowaniu sezonowym, w listopadzie 2014 roku, według metodologii Eurostatu, spadła w Polsce do 8,2 proc. z 8,3 proc. w październiku – podał w środę Eurostat.

The unemployment rate, stopa bezrobocia in after seasonal adjustment, in listo 2014 November 2014, according to spadł do 8,2 z 8,3 the Eurostat methodology, fell in Poland to 8.2% from 8.3% in October, Eurostat announced on Wednesday.

Trzynaście państw UE, w tym Polska, ma zastrzeżenia do nowych niemieckich przepisów ws. płacy minimalnej, obejmującej także zagranicznych kierowców. Na piątkowym spotkaniu w Brukseli kraje te zaapelowały o zawieszenie stosowania tych przepisów.

Thirteen EU countries, including Poland, have reservations about the new German minimum wage regulations, which also concern foreign drivers. At a meeting in Brussels on Friday, these countries called for the suspension of these rules.

13 UE państw zatrzeżenia płaca min – kierowcy w Brukseli - apelacje

Według metodologii GUS stopa bezrobocia w listopadzie wzrosła do 11,4 proc. z 11,3 proc. w październiku.

According to the Central Statistical Office (GUS) methodology, in November the unemployment rate rose to 11.4% from 11.3% in October.

Acc or GUS stopa in listo wzrosła 11,4 od,3 paźdz

Według metodologii GUS stopa bezrobocia w listopadzie wzrosła do 11,4 proc. z 11,3 proc. w październiku.

According to the Central Statistical Office (GUS) methodology, in November the unemployment rate rose to 11.4% from 11.3% in October.

acc. Metastat unempl rat 11% ⇑ 11%3% in Oct.

Z wstępnych danych GUS wynika, że w ujęciu miesięcznym produkcja przemysłowa obniżyła się o 2,3 proc.

According to the preliminary miesięcznie  about data of the Central Statistical 20313 Office (GUS), industrial 2,3 niź 2014 production decreased by 2.3% on a monthly basis. (continued on next page)

418

Case study 3

Tab. 54: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Z wyliczeń „Dziennika Gazety Prawnej” wynika, że po 25 latach pracy zatrudniany na umowie zlecenia i etatach z pensją minimalną, rzetelnie opłacający składki pracownik, otrzyma niespełna 500 zł emerytury brutto, czyli zaledwie 28 proc. pensji.

As results from the calculations of “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna”. after 25 years of work, an employee employed on the basis of a contract of mandate and with a minimum salary, who pays contributions reliably, will receive less than PLN 500 pension gross, i.e. only 28% of the salary.

DGP 25 lat umowa zl i etat min. p.  500 zł em. br. 28% pensji

Złe mówienie o przełożonych podczas rozmowy kwalifikacyjnej to kiepski pomysł. Żeby tego uniknąć, najlepiej nie mieć z nimi do czynienia. Fatalnych pracodawców można rozpoznać już w trakcie rozmowy o pracę. Beznadziejnego szefa można tak naprawdę poznać na długo przed przyjęciem oferty pracy. Wysyłają bowiem jasny sygnał, że tylko owce i lemingi powinny aplikować. Dają do zrozumienia, że nikt, kto ma poczucie własnej godności, nie wytrzyma w tej atmosferze pracy długo. Znaki i sygnały znajdują się wszędzie. Ignoruje się je wyłącznie na własną odpowiedzialność. Przedstawiamy sześć sposobów, w jaki beznadziejni pracodawcy degradują i wykorzystują osoby poszukujące zatrudnienia. To są bardzo głośne sygnały, które krzyczą, żeby uciekać albo żeby zostać i cierpieć.

It is a bad idea to talk badly about superiors during an interview. To avoid this, it is best not to deal with them. Fatal employers can already be recognized during an interview. A terrible boss can in fact be recognised long before accepting a job offer. They send a clear signal that only sheep and lemmings should apply. They make it clear that nobody who has a sense of dignity will last long in this working atmosphere. Signs and signals are everywhere. They are ignored solely on their own responsibility. We present six ways in which terrible employers degrade and exploit job seekers. These are very loud signals that scream to run away or to stay and suffer.

złe mów – inter | bad idea / no interv bad employer - know  interview / before nterv sign – sheep lemings – apply no poczucie własne warto / sign – everywhere/ loud | present – how to recogn 6 idea – bad work – degrada | screaming sie | which say | stay and suffer

Using a variety of abbreviations is another principle of Rozan’s note-taking system which was analysed in the notes of the third case study participants. In fact, quite many trainee interpreters used various abbreviations. Some of them are commonly recognised abbreviations (i.e. acronyms) like, for instance PL (for “Poland”), CZ (for “the Czech Republic”) whereas others are just shortened words. A  selection of the examples demonstrating the students’ use of abbreviations is presented in Tab. 55:

419

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 55: The third case study participants’ notes: abbreviations. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Darmowy system operacyjny, jedna platforma dla komputerów i smartfonów, wirtualna rzeczywistość, 84-calowy ekran – Microsoft zaprezentował wraz z Windows 10 cały szereg produktów i rozwiązań, które pojawią się na rynku równolegle z nowym systemem. Czy to oznacza powrót czasów świetności firmy?

Free operating system, one platform for computers and smartphones, virtual reality, 84-inch screen – Microsoft presented a whole range of products and solutions that will go with Windows 10 and which will appear on the market alongside the new system. Does this mean a return to the company’s glory?

da system operacyjny 1 platforma kom i sma wirtualna rzes 84 cal ekran Mikros szereg produk czy to oznacza powrót świetny

Eurostat dostarczył najnowsze dane Eurostat provided the latest data dot. stóp bezrobocia oraz inflacji w on unemployment rates and Polsce i strefie euro inflation in Poland and the euro area.

Eurostat announced latest data on infla in Euroland + un rate

Może to dotyczyć w roku 2060 od 25 do nawet 50 proc. osób, które nie zdołają zgromadzić na swoich kontach w ZUS środków wystarczających do otrzymania najniższej emerytury i państwo będzie musiało dopłacić im do świadczeń – wynika z cytowanego przez gazetę raportu „Jak mobilizować dodatkowe oszczędności emerytalne”, opracowanego przez Stefana Kawalca, byłego wiceministra finansów, obecnie prezesa firmy doradczej Capital Strategy. Zgadzają się z tym inni eksperci. Np. prof. Leokadia Oręziak z Katedry Finansów Międzynarodowych Szkoły Głównej Handlowej.

In 2060, this may apply to from 25 to even 50% of people who will not be able to accumulate sufficient funds in their Social Insurance Institution accounts to receive the lowest pension and the state will have to pay them for benefits – according to the report “How to mobilize additional retirement savings”‘ quoted by the newspaper, prepared by Stefan Kawalec, former deputy finance minister, currently the president of the advisory firm Capital Strategy. Other experts agree with this. For example, professor Leokadia Oręziak from the Department of International Finance at the Warsaw School of Economics.

2060  25 – 50% nie mają w ZUS najn. em. państwo dopi. rap. Jak mobi. dod. środki em. Stefan Kawalec MoF inni eksperci Kat. Fi. Międz. SGH

Od tak ważnego przyjaciela, jakim są Niemcy, oczekiwałabym europejskiej solidarności oraz respektowania zasad jednolitego rynku w Unii Europejskiej – mówiła premier Ewa Kopacz nt. sytuacji polskich przewoźników w związku z nowymi przepisami o płacy minimalnej w Niemczech.

From such an important friend as Germany I would expect European solidarity and respect for the principles of the single market in the European Union – said Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz about the situation of Polish carriers in connection with the new minimum wage regulations in Germany.

1. Od tak waż. Przyj. Niemcy respect. Ewa Kopacz na temat…

(continued on next page)

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Case study 3

Tab. 55: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Państwa zaniepokojone nowymi niemieckimi przepisami to oprócz Polski: Słowacja, Czechy, Węgry, Rumunia, Bułgaria, Słowenia, Chorwacja, Litwa, Estonia, Portugalia, Hiszpania i Irlandia.

In addition to Poland, the countries concerned about the new German legislation are Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia, Portugal, Spain and Ireland.

CZ RO BG CROATIA BALTIC STATES IRL

Produkcja przemysłowa w Polsce zwiększyła się w grudniu 2014 o 8,4 proc. rok do roku – poinformował GUS. Wzrost odnotowała też branża budowlana.

Industrial production in Poland increased in December 2014 by 8.4% year-to-year, informed the Central Statistical Office (GUS). The construction industry also recorded an increase.

Prod. W PL  w Gr. of 8,4 – Głów U Statyst setor budown

Stopa bezrobocia w strefie euro w listopadzie, po uwzględnieniu czynników sezonowych wyniosła 11,5 proc., wobec 11,5 proc. w poprzednim miesiącu – poinformował w komunikacie Eurostat, urząd statystyczny Unii Europejskiej.

The unemployment rate in the euro zone in November amounted to 11.5%. The unemployment rate in the euro zone in November, after taking seasonal factors into account, was 11.5%, compared to 11.5% in the previous month, Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office said in a press release.

Unem rate is 11/5% Eurost In Europe 11/5% to 11/5% lst mth Info. Erostat. Stat. Office EU

Stopa bezrobocia, po dostosowaniu sezonowym, w listopadzie 2014 roku, według metodologii Eurostatu, spadła w Polsce do 8,2 proc. z 8,3 proc. w październiku – podał w środę Eurostat.

The unemployment rate, after seasonal adjustment, in November 2014, according to the Eurostat methodology, fell in Poland to 8.2% from 8.3% in October, Eurostat announced on Wednesday.

acc. to Europstat  8.2% from 8% in Oct. Eurost

Urszula Cieślak dodaje, że ostatni tydzień stycznia prawdopodobnie może przynieść jeszcze pewne obniżki cen paliw, ale w kolejnych tygodniach będzie ich coraz mniej.

Urszula Cieślak adds that the last week of January may bring some reductions in fuel prices, but in the following weeks, there will be fewer and fewer of them.

może się spowolnić os tyd stycznia jeszcze ale coraz mniej s. kol. tyg.

Według metodologii GUS stopa bezrobocia w listopadzie wzrosła do 11,4 proc. z 11,3 proc. w październiku.

According to the Central Statistical Office (GUS) methodology, in November the unemployment rate rose to 11.4% from 11.3% in October.

acc. Metastat unempl rat 11% ⇑ 11% 3% in Oct.

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes

421

Of particular interest are one student’s notes which – in the great majority – were composed of the abbreviated words. However, the error analysis of this trainee interpreter’s output revealed that those shortenings did not provide accurate and adequate retrieval cues since the student’s delivery was abundant in equivalencerelated errors and disfluencies which could have resulted from the fact that the notes did not enable the trainee interpreter to easily and automatically retrieve the source text information. The visual representation of those notes is provided in Tab. 56. Tab. 56: The third case study participant’s notes: the abbreviation of the entire input. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Amerykański koncern informatyczny Cisco otworzył swoje trzecie, największe biuro w Krakowie, wchodzące w skład centrum wsparcia Cisco. Biuro jest także siedzibą Cisco Network Operations Center (NOC), jednej z trzech tego typu inwestycji firmy na świecie. „Droga, którą rozpoczęliśmy w 2012 r. w Krakowie zaczyna przyspieszać, ponieważ dziś otwieramy nasze trzecie biuro w tym mieście i znacząco rozszerzamy zakres działalności” – poinformował dziennikarzy Olivier Kohler, wiceprezes amerykańskiej spółki, odpowiedzialny za wszystkie tego typu centra Cisco na świecie. Powtórzył on zapowiedź z października zeszłego roku, że koncern, który w swoim krakowskim centrum zatrudnia około 500 pracowników, zamierza w najbliższych 2 latach zwiększyć zatrudnienie do ponad tysiąca osób.

American IT concern Cisco has opened its third, largest office in Krakow, which is part of the Cisco support centre. The office is also the headquarters of Cisco Network Operations Centre (NOC), one of the company’s three such investments in the world. “The way we started in 2012 in Cracow is starting to accelerate, as today we are opening our third office in the city and significantly expanding the scope of our activities” – informed journalists Olivier Kohler, vice-president of the American company, responsible for all Cisco centres of this type in the world. He reiterated the announcement from October last year that the company, which employs about five hundred people in its Cracow centre, intends to increase the employment to over a thousand people in the next two years.

Amery Cisko dz. 3 naj bir Kr w centr. Wsp Cisi Cis Net Oper Cen 3 inwes na św Drog Wsp. rozp. w kr prz ptr 3 bi Olivre Coile Vice prez Amer społ. odpow za tego rodzaj Powtórzył on zapowie z ubiegłego roku 500 prac do 100 osób

The principle of noting the logical links between the elements of the input was not observed in the notes of the third case study participants. However, this seems to be in line with the explanations provided in the two previous case studies, according to which there was in fact no need to jot down the links between the ideas

422

Case study 3

present in the input since the source texts usually concerned one topic and there were no radical shifts of the themes within a single input text. However, in a few cases, the trainee interpreters demonstrated a preference for indicating the links between ideas by means of different arrows. The visual approximations of such notes are provided in Tab. 57. Tab. 57: The third case study participants’ notes: logical links. Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Mogła być już częścią odzieżowego imperium LPP, ale przez kryzys popadła w kłopoty finansowe. Teraz marka Diverse bierze drugi oddech. Czy młody zarząd zdoła na dłużej tchnąć w nią energię, czy to tylko lekki lifting przed wyjściem funduszu z inwestycji? Marcin Bielski nie lubi tracić czasu na długie posiedzenia. Zebrania zarządu? Najlepiej na stojąco. Wystarczy 5 minut. Bum, bum, zrobione. Wymyślenie nowego konceptu sklepów zajęło prezesowi Diverse i jego zespołowi równo dobę. W innych firmach potrzeba na to zwykle trzech miesięcy. Skuteczność 80 procent? Nie szkodzi. Pozostałe 20 proc. poprawi się później. W terenie. Diverse musi szybko startować z roll-outem, skutecznie powiększać istniejącą sieć 230 sklepów, bo przez złe decyzje zmarnował zbyt wiele lat, by prezes zatrudniony do wypchnięcia spółki z dołka miał siedzieć w biurze z założonymi rękami.

It could already have been part of the LPP empire of clothing, but through the crisis it got into financial trouble. Now the Diverse brand takes a second breath. Will the young management manage to breathe energy into it for a longer time, or is it just a slight lifting before the fund leaves the investment? Marcin Bielski does not like to waste time on long meetings. Board meetings? It is best to stand up. Just 5 minutes. Bum, bum, made. It took Diverse president and his team exactly a day to come up with a new store concept. In other companies it usually takes three months. Efficiency of 80 percent? It does not matter. The remaining 20 percent will be improved later. In the field. Diverse has to start quickly with a roll-out, effectively enlarge the existing chain of 230 stores, because due to bad decisions it wasted too many years to have the president who was hired to push the company out of the doldrums to sit in the office with his hands put on.

part of LPD – diverse – 2nd break  Marcin out  new Bielski of management  not too time  prezes much Div  koncept 20% 80%  1 day  eff. premises in shops  start roll out 230 shops błędna nast. decyzja  prezes siedzieć w office

Sieć supermarketów Tesco, największa w W. Brytanii poinformowała o planach zamknięcia 43 sklepów i wycofaniu się z zaplanowanych inwestycji w 49 dalszych. Firma chce też zmniejszyć koszty o 30 proc.

Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK, has announced plans to close 43 stores and withdraw from the planned investments in other 49. The company also wants to cut costs by 30%.

S TESCO Supermark  zamk 43 placówki  wyc. 49 dok dalszych  koszty  30%

423

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ notes Tab. 57: Continued Source text

Source text translation into English

Notes

Informację o planach ogłosił nowy dyrektor generalny Tesco Dave Lewis. „Zwyczajnie nie stać nas na działalność w takim zakresie, jak dotychczas” – powiedział mediom.

The new CEO, Tesco Dave Lewis,  Dave Luis has announced the plans. “We simply cannot afford to do business nie stać nas as much as we have done so far” – he said to the media.

„Tesco to wspaniała firma, która znalazła się pod silną finansową presją. Usiłujemy ożywić jej model i sprostać finansowym wyzwaniom” – zaznaczył. Główna siedziba Tesco w Cheshunt w Hertfordshire zostanie zamknięta, a część pracowników uznanych za niezbędnych, zostanie przeniesiona do Welwyn Garden City. Lewis nie ujawnił, jak decyzje te przełożą się na poziom zatrudnienia.

“Tesco is a great company under strong financial pressure. We are trying to revive its model and meet the financial challenges” – he indicated. Tesco’s headquarters in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire will be closed down and some of the staff deemed necessary will be transferred to Welwyn Garden City. Lewis did not reveal how these decisions would translate into the level of employment.

Zgadzają się z tym inni eksperci. Np. prof. Leokadia Oręziak z Katedry Finansów Międzynarodowych Szkoły Głównej Handlowej.

Other experts agree with this. For example, professor Leokadia Oręziak from the Department of International Finance at the Warsaw School of Economics.

 presja finansowa  chcem dać radę Chesthunt  zamknięte Wellain Garden City pracownicy przenieść  Luis nie ujawnił  decyzje  poziom zatrudnienia? inni exp  Leokadia Orędziak Szk. Gł. Handl.

Likewise, negation was not marked in the ways suggested by Jean-François Rozan (1956, 2002). The only examples of negation markers identified in the trainee interpreters’ notes were those in which the Polish negation particle (i.e. “nie”) was used. The following representations of the students’ notes contain this marker (Tab. 58, see below). The vertical way of taking notes was another aspect of the trainee interpreters’ note-taking systems which was under scrutiny. Actually, there were just a few examples of the notes following the verticality principle. The majority of the third case study participants preferred to take notes horizontally. Only a few examples of note verticality have been detected. Some of them are presented in Tab. 59 (see below). The final principle of taking notes is the use of shift markers. Some source texts contained information about different changes and for this purpose, several students used arrows which showed either a decrease or increase in a given

424

Case study 3

value. However, it seems that this principle was not commonly adopted and the trainee interpreters noted down the information about any changes in the form of words or phrases. Those few examples of marking shifts are presented in Tab. 60 (see below). As the above analysis shows, there were rather few (if any) exponents of the students’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors. Perhaps, the clearest manifestation of those factors, mostly of stress, is the presence of bulges resulting from sweat stains on one trainee interpreter’s notepaper (Photograph 5, see below). Tab. 58: The third case study participants’ notes: negation. Source text

Source text English translation

Notes

„Nie będzie żadnych dalszych cięć wynagrodzeń i emerytur. Kolejny przełom w naszym planie wzrostu gospodarczego to między innymi ogólne obniżki podatków, które mogą nastąpić stopniowo, krok za krokiem” – powiedział Samaras na spotkaniu z członkami i zwolennikami swej partii.

“There will be no further cuts in salaries and pensions. Another breakthrough in our growth plan includes general tax cuts, which can be made gradually, step by step” – said Samaras at a meeting with members and supporters of his party.

nie będzie cięć ogólne obniżki – Samaras na spotkaniu

Informację o planach ogłosił nowy dyrektor generalny Tesco Dave Lewis. „Zwyczajnie nie stać nas na działalność w takim zakresie, jak dotychczas” – powiedział mediom.

The new CEO, Tesco Dave Lewis, has announced the plans. “We simply cannot afford to do business as much as we have done so far” – he said to the media.

Dave Luis nie stać nas

Lewis nie ujawnił, jak decyzje te Lewis did not reveal how these przełożą się na poziom zatrudnienia. decisions would translate into the level of employment.

Luis nie ujawnił  decyzje  poziom zatrudnienia?

Może to dotyczyć w roku 2060 od 25 do nawet 50 proc. osób, które nie zdołają zgromadzić na swoich kontach w ZUS środków (…).

In 2060, this may apply to from 25 to 2060  25 – 50% even 50% of people who will not be nie mają w ZUS able to accumulate sufficient funds in their Social Insurance Institution accounts (…)

Stawianie klienta w centrum uwagi to przemyślana strategia z konkretnymi celami biznesowymi, a nie element przekazu marketingowego

Focusing the customer’s attention is a well-thought-out strategy with specific business objectives, not an element of marketing message.

w centrum u  przem. strat nie przek

425

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ protocols Tab. 59: The third case study participants’ notes: verticality. Source text

Source text English translation

Notes

Państwa zaniepokojone nowymi niemieckimi przepisami to oprócz Polski: Słowacja, Czechy, Węgry, Rumunia, Bułgaria, Słowenia, Chorwacja, Litwa, Estonia, Portugalia, Hiszpania i Irlandia.

In addition to Poland, the countries concerned about the new German legislation are Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia, Portugal, Spain and Ireland.

oprócz PL – Sł. Czechy Węgry Buł Litwa Portugalia Irlandia

Produkcja przemysłowa w Polsce zwiększyła się w grudniu 2014 o 8,4 proc. rok do roku – poinformował GUS. Wzrost odnotowała też branża budowlana. Z wstępnych danych GUS wynika, że w ujęciu miesięcznym produkcja przemysłowa obniżyła się o 2,3 proc. – Po wyeliminowaniu wpływu czynników o charakterze sezonowym produkcja sprzedana przemysłu ukształtowała się na poziomie o 5,3% wyższym niż w analogicznym miesiącu 2013 r. i o 2,3 proc. wyższym w porównaniu z listopadem 2014 r. – poinformował GUS w komunikacie. Analitycy ankietowani przez PAP spodziewali się, że w grudniu wzrostu produkcji rok do roku o 4,6 proc., zaś miesiąc do miesiąca spadku o 5,9 proc.

Industrial production in Poland increased in December 2014 by 8.4% year-to-year, informed the Central Statistical Office (GUS). The construction industry also recorded an increase. According to the preliminary data of the Central Statistical Office (GUS), industrial production decreased by 2.3% on a monthly basis. – After eliminating the impact of seasonal factors, industrial output sold was 5.3% higher than in the corresponding month of 2013 and 2.3% higher than in November 2014. – The Central Statistical Office (GUS) informed in a message. Analysts surveyed by Polish Press Agency expected a year-to-year increase in production by 4.6% in December and a month-to-month decrease by 5.9%.

Produkcja przemysł  2014 budowl miesięcznie  about 2013 2,3 niż 2014 anu analicians 4,6% 6%

Sieć supermarketów Tesco, największa w W. Brytanii poinformowała o planach zamknięcia 43 sklepów i wycofaniu się z zaplanowanych inwestycji w 49 dalszych. Firma chce też zmniejszyć koszty o 30 proc. Informację o planach ogłosił nowy dyrektor generalny Tesco Dave Lewis. „Zwyczajnie nie stać nas na działalność w takim zakresie, jak dotychczas” – powiedział mediom.

Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK, has announced plans to close 43 stores and withdraw from the planned investments in other 49. The company also wants to cut costs by 30%. The new CEO, Tesco Dave Lewis, has announced the plans. “We simply cannot afford to do business as much as we have done so far” – he said to the media.

S TESCO Supermark  zamk 43 placówki  wyc. 49 dok dalszych  koszty  30%

(continued on next page)

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Case study 3

Tab. 59: Continued Source text

Source text English translation

Notes

„Tesco to wspaniała firma, która znalazła się pod silną finansową presją. Usiłujemy ożywić jej model i sprostać finansowym wyzwaniom” – zaznaczył. Główna siedziba Tesco w Cheshunt w Hertfordshire zostanie zamknięta, a część pracowników uznanych za niezbędnych, zostanie przeniesiona do Welwyn Garden City. Lewis nie ujawnił, jak decyzje te przełożą się na poziom zatrudnienia.

“Tesco is a great company under strong financial pressure. We are trying to revive its model and meet the financial challenges” – he indicated. Tesco’s headquarters in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire will be closed down and some of the staff deemed necessary will be transferred to Welwyn Garden City. Lewis did not reveal how these decisions would translate into the level of employment.

 Dave Luis nie stać nas  presja finansowa  chcem dać radę Chesthunt  zamknięte Wellain Garden City pracownicy przenieść  Luis nie ujawnił  decyzje  poziom zatrudnienia?

Stopa bezrobocia, po dostosowaniu sezonowym, w listopadzie 2014 roku, według metodologii Eurostatu, spadła w Polsce do 8,2 proc. z 8,3 proc. w październiku - podał w środę Eurostat.

The unemployment rate, after seasonal adjustment, in November 2014, according to the Eurostat methodology, fell in Poland to 8.2% from 8.3% in October, Eurostat announced on Wednesday.

acc. To Europstat  8,2% from 8% in Oct. Eurost

The above examination of the third case study participants’ notes seems to confirm the previous findings from the two previous case studies concerning the rather insignificant value of the analysis of those artefacts in detecting the influence which the trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of their psychoaffective factors could have had on their consecutive interpreting performance. Therefore, the notes themselves cannot be regarded as any particularly significant manifestation of the activity of the psycho-affective factors. This being said, it is worth restating that quite many trainee interpreters declared that some elements of their psycho-affectivity had a negative impact on the way they took their notes. As they argued, this was particularly well visible in in the quality and quantity of such notes which sometimes did not contain enough information to render the entire sense of the source texts. Thus, although this analysis has not provided any conclusive evidence which would suggest that the test takers’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors affected the process of note-taking, it

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ protocols

427

Tab. 60: The third case study participants’ notes: shifts. Source text

Source text English translation Notes

Analitycy ankietowani przez PAP spodziewali się, że w grudniu wzrostu produkcji rok do roku o 4,6 proc., zaś miesiąc do miesiąca spadku o 5,9 proc.

Analysts surveyed by Polish Press analiticians 9,6%  Agency expected a year-to-year increase in production by 4.6% in 6%  December and a month-to-month decrease by 5.9%.

Premier obiecał obniżenie w tym roku niepopularnego podatku od nieruchomości oraz zmniejszenie podatku dochodowego od osób prawnych do 15 proc.

The Prime Minister promised to reduce the unpopular property tax this year and to reduce the corporate income tax to 15%.

 podatek od nieruchomości do 15% od osób tax payer

Produkcja przemysłowa w Polsce zwiększyła się w grudniu 2014 o 8,4 proc. rok do roku – poinformował GUS. Wzrost odnotowała też branża budowlana.

Industrial production in Poland increased in December 2014 by 8.4% year-to-year, informed the Central Statistical Office (GUS). The construction industry also recorded an increase.

Produkcja przemysł  2014, 8,4% every year

Produkcja przemysłowa w Polsce zwiększyła się w grudniu 2014 o 8,4 proc. rok do roku – poinformował GUS. Wzrost odnotowała też branża budowlana.

Industrial production in Poland increased in December 2014 by 8.4% year-to-year, informed the Central Statistical Office (GUS). The construction industry also recorded an increase.

Prod. W PL  w Gr. of 8,4 – Głów U Statyst setor budown

Stopa bezrobocia, po dostosowaniu sezonowym, w listopadzie 2014 roku, według metodologii Eurostatu, spadła w Polsce do 8,2 proc. z 8,3 proc. w październiku – podał w środę Eurostat.

The unemployment rate, after seasonal adjustment, in November 2014, according to the Eurostat methodology, fell in Poland to 8.2% from 8.3% in October, Eurostat announced on Wednesday.

acc. To Europstat  8,2% from 8% in Oct. Eurost

Z wstępnych danych GUS wynika, że w ujęciu miesięcznym produkcja przemysłowa obniżyła się o 2,3 proc.

According to the preliminary data miesięcznie  about 20313 of the Central Statistical Office 2,3 niź 2014 (GUS), industrial production decreased by 2.3% on a monthly basis.

might be assumed that it did. As is demonstrated in the forthcoming analysis and interpretation of the trainee interpreters’ answers to the retrospective protocols and data triangulation, the quality and quantity of their notes could have been the consequence of the students’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors.

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Case study 3

Photograph 5: The third case study participant’s bulges on the notepaper (author’s own photograph).

7.5. Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ retrospective protocols against the quality of their performance: data triangulation The analysis and interpretation of the trainee interpreters’ data pertaining to their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors elicited from their responses to the cued questions included in the retrospective protocols helped to formulate quite interesting conclusions about the negative influence the subjective experience of such factors as anxiety, intermediate self-esteem, language inhibition or stress had on the way the students dealt with the production of the outputs during the in-class consecutive interpreting test. The same method of data analysis and interpretation as well as their juxtaposition with the results of the analyses carried out in the previous parts of this book is applied to the information obtained from the third case study participants  – the students of the postgraduate studies in translation offered at the University of Wrocław, Poland. It is hoped that such triangulation of data may contribute to some valid generalisations concerning

429

Analysis of the trainee interpreters’ protocols

the studied group of trainee interpreters, their subjective feelings related to the psycho-affective factors as well as the influence those factors could have exerted on consecutive interpreting performance and output quality. The numerical data derived from the retrospective protocols for the needs of the third case study descriptive statistics indicate that nearly all of the studied psychoaffective factors were subjectively experienced by the third case study participants. Four of them: anxiety, self-esteem, motivation and stress were experienced by the same number of the trainee interpreters – 24 (83%). The experience of the students’ language inhibition was reported by as many as 21 test takers (72%). Seventeen trainee interpreters (59%) asserted that their personality dimension (i.e. extroversion/introversion) had some impact on the way they performed their consecutive interpreting test. Fear was the least subjectively experienced psycho-affective factor with only eight students (28%) reporting its occurrence. Chart 7 presents the trainee interpreters’ declared experience of the psycho-affective factors in question.

stress

24

5

motivation

24

5

self-esteem

24

5

17

extroversion/introverstion

12 21

language inhibition/language ego

8

8

fear

21 24

anxiety 0

5

10

5 15

20

25

30

I experienced the impact of this psycho-affective factor. I did not experience the impact of this psycho-affective factor.

Chart 7: The third case study participants’ declared experience of the psychoaffective factors.

The first aspect of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity is their subjective experience of various kinds of anxiety. As aforementioned, this psycho-affective factor was subjectively experienced by as many as 24 trainee interpreters (83%) while they were taking their consecutive interpreting test. In the majority of cases, it might be stated that the subjective experience of anxiety was of inhibitory character. Not only is it corroborated by the students’ responses but also by the results of both the analysis of the errors identified in the trainee interpreters’ target texts as well as in their exploitation of the interpreting strategies.

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Case study 3

In some cases, the trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of anxiety was linked to the fact that they did not have much practice in consecutive interpreting. Therefore, it may reasonably be suggested that what they felt was archaic anxiety. The following quotes may be cited to support this claim:

• The feeling of having no practice and experience. • Yes. I could not prepare well for the test.

Unlike archaic anxiety, the existential one was subjective experienced by the majority of those students who declared such feelings. The dominant type of existential anxiety observed in the test takers’ responses is the performance type of anxiety resulting from their uncertainty or restricted self-confidence in their linguistic as well as interpreting skills. One area of their performance which could have triggered the anxious feelings was definitely the language-related aspects, mostly vocabulary. Quite many trainee interpreters linked their anxiety to their unfamiliarity with the topic of the source texts and vocabulary which might be of use when interpreting consecutively the inputs. Such observations can be made on the basis of the following quotes: • Anxiety resulting from my no prior knowledge about the contents of the [source] text. • Before the test I was afraid that I would have the vocabulary which I did not know, that it would be a difficult text. During the test I  already knew that it would be rather poor because the text was hard for me. After the test, I did not really feel anxiety but disappointment with what I produced. • I felt anxiety because I might lack some words, some synonyms in order to continue interpreting. Anxiety about the fact that if there was such a situation, I would become even more stressed. • Mild level. It was caused by no information about the domain of the text – usually I can revise the domain-related vocabulary before interpreting. • My anxiety before the test was caused by the unawareness of what I could expect.

Others felt insecure and anxious about whether they would be able to perform particular elements of the consecutive interpreting process, i.e. understanding and processing the input, taking notes, producing the output or speaking in public which can be exemplified by the act of consecutive interpreting. In other words, the trainee interpreters’ performance anxiety resulted from their negative thinking about their skills or alleged lack thereof. The following excerpts from the trainee interpreters’ retrospective protocols bring their subjective experience of performance anxiety to light:

• Anxiety because of no belief in my skills. • At the beginning I felt anxiety about what text I would select, i.e. about the level of difficulty. During the test, my anxiety resulted from wondering whether I remembered everything and whether I rendered the whole sense. At the end, everything was okay in my interpretation.

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• Before the test, I was anxious about not knowing the text, about mixing languages (recently, I have been using French and I was afraid to mix the words and grammatical constructions). • I felt anxious about whether I would manage. During the interpretation, I experienced anxiety and got lost while listening [to the input]. • I felt it just a minute before the text. This resulted from my thinking that I would have to jot down many numbers. In my mind, I arranged the symbols and abbreviations which I would use. In fact, not many of my concerns were true. • It was caused by expecting something important, the moment when you need to show what you can but I did not feel any great anxiety before the test. During the test, yes, I felt anxious when I heard the topic about which I do not feel too confident. • Just a little bit. I was not present at the classes a week ago and I did not know about the test. This is always some kind of public speaking, which is what I am afraid to do. • No confidence in my abilities, exaggerating the situation, the impression that the consecutive interpreting test surpasses me and my skills. • The awareness of not being able to remember information, waiting for the text, other students’ nervousness. • There was anxiety because I knew that taking notes was difficult for me.

Interestingly enough, among the third case study participants’ responses there were some comments which suggest that the trainee interpreters had some subjective feelings of acceptance anxiety. It manifested itself mostly in their anxiety about potential failure, being ridiculed or embarrassed. What is more, the fact that some concerns over the students’ failure in the test emerged could indicate that some of them experienced test anxiety. Other test takers who wrote about their apprehension about negative evaluation could have undergone the state of negative evaluation anxiety or even negative self-evaluation anxiety. The following collection of quotes may substantiate the emergence of the trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of acceptance anxiety:



• There was mild anxiety because of: the awareness of being evaluated; the anxiety about the topic. • I was anxious because of the presence of other people (including the lecturer) and embarrassment related to my performance. • Anxiety related to failure. • Before the test I was afraid of embarrassment and language barrier. • Yes, I felt anxiety before the test: it was the stress related to the final test. During the test: my stress increased after I became familiar with the test task: my feeling of shame increased my anxiety. • I felt it only during the test. I was disappointed with the text and with myself that I started, having prepared inaccurate notes. • Anxiety related to failure and to making a fool of myself.

Some of the excerpts quoted with regard to the third case study participants’ subjective experience of anxiety also include some direct or indirect references to other

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psycho-affective factors – mostly to intermediate (i.e. linguistic and interpreting subcompetence) self-esteem, language inhibition or stress. This shows that those factors can be interrelated and that they therefore can sometimes influence the consecutive interpreting process in a group. The students of the postgraduate programme in translation who had provided the research material analysed in this case study were additionally asked about how their subjective experience of anxiety was reflected in their consecutive interpreting performance. Quite many of them wrote about their difficulties which they encountered while trying to remember or retrieve the equivalents of the lexical items contained in the source texts or while taking notes. Thus, one major group of errors which they identified themselves was the one including various lexical deficits. Those lexical deficiencies are therefore inextricably linked to the rather low quality of the students’ notes or output delivery disfluencies, which were also identified in great numbers in the course of the error analysis of the target texts. The following quotes accentuate those issues:

• At some point, already while taking my notes, I gave up. • At the beginning of my interpretation, lower self-confidence and maybe because of it, I forgot the word “cal” [“inch”]. • Chaotic notes. • Faltering, the problems with retrieving the basic words and structures. • Forgetting names, numbers and contents. • I did not remember the equivalent of “umowa zlecenia” [“contract of mandate”] – to some extent it disturbed my note-taking process. • In the linguistic dimension  – I  was uncertain about pronunciation; in the extralinguistic dimension – quivering voice, willingness to complete the task fast. • It was visible in stress. I  got stuck on some word from the notes and could not understand what was next. • Pauses in delivery. No good vocabulary. • Problems with interpretation fluency, problems with reading my notes. • Stammering, repeating words, looking for solutions in my mind. • The awareness that the vocabulary was not okay for me hindered me, I  knew it would be a poor performance. • When I lacked a word, I hesitated, the fluency of my interpretation decreased and I interpreted faster.

The lexical difficulties resulting from the inability to retrieve appropriate Englishlanguage equivalents either from the trainee interpreters’ memory or their notes as well as the other interpreting process-related aspects (like taking notes itself) could also have led to some concentration problems which the students observed during their performance and which they attributed to the subjective experience of anxiety. The quotes below highlight those observed extra-linguistic exponents of anxiety:

• A mental blank, lack of appropriate vocabulary. • I was not really able to concentrate – my work could have been more effective.

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• Mental chaos, no focus. • My concentration deteriorated.

The analysis of the trainee interpreters’ responses given to the cued questions concerning their subjective experience of anxiety point to the fact that this psychoaffective factor was mostly of debilitating nature and could have had a negative impact on the students’ consecutive interpreting performance. Perhaps the most pervasive type of anxiety was performance anxiety for the test takers’ answers indicate that they did not have enough confidence in their linguistic and interpreting skills, they were afraid of a potential failure or embarrassment which their failure could trigger. What is more, their subjective experience of various kinds of anxiety, interwoven with other psycho-affective factors, was reflected in lexical deficits, comprehension and processing problems, note-taking and note-reading difficulties as well as the deterioration of concentration which might have hindered the entire consecutive interpreting process. Some of those deficient aspects were also identified in the error analysis and in the analysis of the interpreting strategies used by the trainee interpreters and that is why it might be concluded that anxiety was indeed present during the test. The experience of the second psycho-affective factor to be examined in this case study is the subjective experience of fear. At the very beginning it is worth recapitulating that fear is the psycho-affective factor which should not have been experienced by the trainee interpreters in the context of an in-class university-setting consecutive interpreting test since there was no real danger which could threaten the test takers. Of course, the entire testing situation could have jeopardised their thinking about themselves and, most of all, their language ego when they were to be confronted with a failure in the consecutive interpreting test but, nevertheless, there was no objectively menacing stimulus. For this reason, albeit eight trainee interpreters (28%) declared that they subjectively experienced fear, this was definitely not this psycho-affective factor that they felt. Instead, it was anxiety, mostly performance anxiety, as the trainee interpreters expressed similar concerns to those which they had while commenting on their subjective experience of anxiety. The following quotes, although include direct reference to fear, clearly show the feelings of anxiety and not the feelings of fear: • At the beginning of the test:  I treated the test as a necessary evil. During the test:  whether everything would be okay and whether I  would be satisfied with myself or not. • During the test I  could not recreate the beginning of the [source] text in my memory. This stressed me out much. Moreover, I  was aware that I  did not have enough extra-linguistic knowledge of new technologies [i.e. of the issues presented in the source text]. • During the test I felt fear when I heard the [source] text. I was frightened because I knew I did not know the words. • I felt it after the test that the examiner would ridicule me.

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• I forgot a word and did not focus on the remaining content and that is why I totally lost the rhythm of my interpreting. • It made me falter. I  had a long pause in the delivery and I  could not patch the target text. • The fact that other students were nervous, the awareness of having no preparation contributed to my feeling of fear. • Today no! • Yes, before and during the text. • Yes, mild fear, whether I would make it.

Moreover, the linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents of the purported subjective experience of fear were similar, or in many cases identical, to the manifestations of anxiety. The following quotes can substantiate this statement:

• In terms of language: vocabulary and delivery fluency; in terms of extra-linguistic aspects: I do not know what and why it happens but… – whenever I am well prepared, for instance, I have appropriate symbols which may be of use in interpreting, I finally do not use them and instead, I use the simplest ones. • In the linguistic dimension: selection of vocabulary. In the extra-linguistic dimension: visible nervousness, hand sweating. • My concentration was insufficient. • No fluency. • There were fear and stress and, as a consequence, there was no coherence of my target utterance, there were pauses, non-rendered sentences, no concentration.

The above quotes concerning the students’ subjective experience of fear and its exponents plus the type of the stimulus which may trigger this psycho-affective factor and which was absent in the consecutive interpreting test explicitly show that it was anxiety and not fear which the trainee interpreters might have experienced. Language inhibition which is perhaps a more tangible outcome of language ego has already been mentioned as a psycho-affective factor which may have been responsible for numerous deficiencies in the linguistic dimension of the target texts. The relatively substantial number of errors identified in the course of the error analysis was definitely influenced by the trainee interpreters’ language inhibition. Moreover, this aspect of the students’ psycho-affectivity was mentioned in the previously quoted excerpts about the subjective experience of anxiety, which means that already at this point, it may be assumed that language inhibition indeed ensued in the consecutive interpreting test situation, contributing to the decreased quality of the students’ outputs. When answering the question about the potential subjective experience of language inhibition, 21 trainee interpreters (72%) admitted that they had experienced subjectively the phenomena related to this psycho-affective factor. There were several different reasons for the students’ experience of language inhibition. The natural cause is obviously limited practice in using the target language  – English, unstable language ego and the resulting limited confidence in linguistic skills (this limited confidence is directly related to the trainee interpreters’ low

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levels of intermediate self-esteem). This observation can be inferred from the following quotations concerning the reasons for language inhibition:

• Inhibition – no confidence in my skills. • No practice of speaking English before the test makes it difficult for me to switch into thinking in this language and speak it freely. • No self-confidence, no language skills. • Yes, because I was unsure about my own linguistic skills. • Yes, I  felt language inhibition. I  am aware of my linguistic deficits, which has a huge influence on my self-evaluation. I am not sure whether the vocabulary used is correct. • Yes, I had it because I did not graduate from English studies. • Yes, it resulted from too little practice, especially the “spoken” practice. • Yes. I do not interpret such texts on a daily basis. I was aware that some information may escape my memory.

Several trainee interpreters were more specific about the insufficient mastery of the language-related aspects and linked their language inhibition to their awareness of the inadequate familiarity with the vocabulary which might be of use in producing their target texts.

• During the test, I felt it because I was aware that I lacked specialised vocabulary. • I experienced it before the test because I did not know specialised vocabulary.

Only one trainee interpreter stated that his/her language inhibition resulted from the cognizance of the deficits in his/her grammar knowledge. This is brought to light in the following excerpt: • The inability to produce a continuous long and coherent sentence because of my awareness that I have to remember a lot and learn a lot, especially grammar and prepositions and phrasal verbs.

The opinions about the insufficiently developed skills in using English were also linked to the subjective experience of other psycho-affective factors, such as the aforementioned self-esteem, stress or anxiety (especially negative evaluation anxiety), which could have strengthened the trainee interpreters’ language inhibition phenomena. The statements in which those interdependencies are mentioned are as follows:

• I felt a little bit of language inhibition during the test. It was caused by anxiety and fear at the same time about whether I would render everything – the entire sense. • My language inhibition was caused by stress. • There was language inhibition – minimalism in using words, anxiety about not creating a “newspeak”. • There was language inhibition resulting from my awareness of being listened to and evaluated. However, I did take the risk! • Yes. It was caused by the fact that my interpreting was recorded and listened to by the lecturer and my fellow students.

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An interesting aspect of the study of the trainee interpreters’ subjective experience of language inhibition is the issue of the linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents of this psycho-affective factor. The error analysis revealed that in several instances, the students’ target texts were deficient not only in vocabulary and grammar but also in equivalence. The limited knowledge of the grammatical and lexical resources of the English language could obviously have led to the equivalence-related errors since the test takers lacked some linguistic resources or did not want to risk using certain linguistic means to transfer the sense of the source texts. That is why the outputs were deficient. Such a view may also be extrapolated from the following fragments:

• Grammatical structures. • I did not use my more advanced lexical base. I was afraid to create something that would not be correct. • I forgot words, which affected the quality of the interpretation. • I got stuck in one place. I was thinking about one word, its synonym and nothing came to my mind. • I had problems with finding appropriate equivalents and rendering the sense in a clear and linguistically correct way. • I tried to replace some specific phrases with the more general ones. • Making language mistakes, faltering. • My interpretation was not fluent and vocabulary was poor. • Not using appropriate (specialised) vocabulary and complex grammatical structures. • Stumbles and problems with retrieving basic words. • Uncertainty about whether a given language form or word is correct. • When interpreting, I  repeated one word twice, correcting myself. In the extralinguistic dimension – I did not write everything.

What the trainee interpreters also saw as stemming from their weak language ego and resulting language inhibition was the difficulty in maintaining the fluency of target text delivery and rendering the sense of the source text. They paused, they hesitated, they made linguistic errors, they omitted some relevant input information because of their unstable language ego and certain mental block in using the target language resources. As already reiterated several times, those deficiencies can obviously be attributed to the subjective experience of other psycho-affective factors, too since their activity is also oftentimes inhibitory and debilitating. Moreover, the collective negative impact of those factors could also be visible in the inhibited cognitive skills. This all may have its consequences in the decrease of the overall quality of the students’ performance. The following quotes present those exponents:

• Before the test, I did not feel it. It seemed to me that I had made some progress but during the test when I got blocked, I knew I would do it badly (and I was right!). • I do not think I have the skills but the correctness of my rendering was disturbed by the huge quantity of data. • I faltered and my lexical resources were blocked.

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• I omitted many things because I did not remember them; I could not make use of my notes. • I wanted so much to remember one phrase which I  jotted down in Polish [but I failed]. • I was less confident in performing this interpreting. • Incomplete interpreting. • Language inhibition influenced my fluency. • My language inhibition resulted from not remembering the [source] text and no notes. • No automatic or decrease in automatic interpreting process. • Uncertainty, hesitation, saying whatever, realising that it is not a good choice. • Wrong rendering of the input.

Generally speaking, language inhibition certainly affected the trainee interpreters’ performance and contributed to the less correct outputs. Such a conclusion can be drawn not only from the students’ remarks made in the retrospective protocols but also from the analysis of the outputs generated by them. The outcomes of the error analysis confirm that the trainee interpreters, despite their general high competence in the English language, did not use many complex structures or advanced vocabulary, often opting for simple structures and more general than specialised vocabulary. Obviously, this is not a charge against interpreters as long as their target texts, composed of those simpler language forms, transfer the sense of the original and maintain overall equivalence. In the analysed outputs, however, equivalence was frequently not achieved and the language used was defective. Another psycho-affective factor which may influence at times the way consecutive interpreters and consecutive interpreting trainee interpreters perform this kind of interpretation is the personality dimension or, more precisely, extroversion, introversion and ambiversion. In the two previous case studies, the impact the students’ personality had on their performance was rather marginal and, more importantly, the first and second case study participants did not provide enough data on their experience related to this factor. Moreover, what could also have been the case was the possibility of changing personality dimensions depending on the type of situation. It suggests that introverts can have an “extrovert public self” performing their professional duties. It is interesting whether the same applies to the third case study participants. In this case study, the trainee interpreters provided more data on their self-perceived personality dimensions and their impact on their consecutive interpreting delivery. There were seventeen students (59%) who experienced some influence of their personality dimension on their renderings in the conditions of the test. However, since not all of those test takers directly stated which personality dimension they have, it is not possible to make any statements about some predominance of one type over another. What they did provide is some information concerning how their personality affected their consecutive interpretation.

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There were several students who described themselves as extroverts. Because of this personality dimension, they claimed to be more stress resistant, less anxious and, generally speaking, more open and willing to experiment with language. Moreover, some of them were of the opinion that their extroversion was contributory to the faster and more fluent delivery. Such a conclusion can be drawn from the following excerpts:

• Despite nerves, I was rather courageous because I am an extrovert. • Extroversion. Because of it, I did not notice anxiety. • Extroversion. Stress made me try to speak faster and more fluently. It minimised my level of stress. • I am extroverted. I am chaotic. • To some extent yes. Despite stress, which accompanied me during the test, I had a positive attitude to myself and some kind of courage, confidence in my skills. • Yes. I was willing to meet the challenge of interpreting.

Some trainee interpreters classified themselves as ambiverts who have some properties of extroverts and some of introverts. They also claimed that such a personality dimension had some impact on their performance. Thanks to the extroverted properties, they could endure stress and anxiety which were associated with the testing situation and spoke more willingly. On the other hand, however, among the introverted properties, they noted some kind of inhibition and unwillingness to perform consecutive interpreting which is typically a form of public speaking. The following three responses illustrate the above observations:

• Yes. I am between extroversion and introversion, which allows me to become calm and serious and, at the same time, I am open to public speaking. • Yes. I  am of a mixed type but I  have more introverted properties especially as regards the issues of speaking in public and speaking loudly about the topics which I do not like. • Yes. On the one hand, greater talkativeness as an attempt to fight stress and uneasiness and, on the other hand, the willingness to isolate myself from the stressful and nervous atmosphere.

Among the trainee interpreters, there were also several introverts. Their subjective experience of their personality dimension was mostly negative and manifested itself not only in greater caution related to potential errors, and therefore in not using the language forms which they had not fully internalised, but also in the intensified subjective experience of other negative psycho-affective factors such as anxiety, stress, low self-esteem or language inhibition. The following quotes may support such a view:

• Introversion. I think that if my personality were more extroverted, I would not have given up so fast [because] I started interpreting in a bad way. • Introversion. Stress, anxiety related to errors, anxiety related to embarrassment. • Introversion. Uncertainty, awareness of no experience, no knowledge of the topic of the [source] text.

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• Introversion. Yes, a little bit. I therefore was a little bit afraid to take the risk and to “patch” the target text out of the information which I had. • Not really. I was unwilling to take the linguistic risks – when it is evaluated, it is more visible than in my everyday life. • Since I am an introverted person, public performances are difficult for me and I am more afraid of a failure. • Yes, introversion. Anxiety related to taking the linguistic risk and potential errors.

Three responses are particularly interesting as the trainee interpreters declared directly or indirectly introversion as their personality dimension but they also stated that they did not experience its impact on their performance within the consecutive interpreting test because they managed to control this influence. This may mean either that they are in fact ambiverts or that they are able to hide their personality dimension behind their “public selves”. The ability to mask the introverted properties by “the public self” seems to a desirable feature of interpreters, as is perhaps the fact of being an ambivert. The three responses are as follows:

• I always experience such an impact but I learnt to control it. I am an introverted person and a highly sensitive person (the psychological concept of a collection of various features). Recently I have found out that there is an interesting division into sensitive and insensitive people. • No. I am rather introverted but as regards tests, I did not experience any impact. • Slightly yes. Certainly, because of the fact that I  translate on an everyday basis and although I have direct contact with my clients, the character of my work has some influence [and is related to my introversion]. Despite the fact that I also speak English – it is the level of a primary school because I teach such children. So, it was some kind of leaving my comfort zone.

When asked about the exponents of the subjective experience of the impact their personality dimension had on their consecutive interpreting performance, the introverted trainee interpreters focused mostly on the negative manifestations. They enumerated both the cognitive problems like, for instance, deteriorated concentration, and the deteriorated quality of their performance observed, for example, in the disturbed fluency and slower pace of their delivery, chaotic rendering and various types of errors (e.g. omissions, lexical and grammatical errors). Moreover, they believed that their personality dimension could have influenced their subjective experience of other psycho-affective factors, mostly language inhibition, anxiety or stress. What is interesting, there was one trainee interpreter who, as demonstrated in the error analysis and the analysis of the interpreting strategies, did not provide any consecutive interpreting whatsoever. That person stated that it was, among others, the result of his/her introverted personality. The following quotes shed some light on those exponents:

• A little chaos and hurry, because of which I did not think about the structure of a sentence. • Errors, hesitations.

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• Fluency and speed of delivery could influence the coherence, chaotic delivery, omission of key information. • Inhibition. • No concentration. • No fluency of interpretation. • No interpretation whatsoever. • Simple grammar construction, grammar and linguistic errors. • Stress related to the potential failure and deteriorated concentration. • Stress. • Withdrawal, no courage to take the risk (although I am not an introverted person).

The extroverts and ambiverts did not disclose much information concerning the effect their personality dimensions had on their target text production. There were only a few short responses which lead to a general conclusion that both extroversion and introversion may contribute to a better development of skills in coping with the adverse conditions of the interpreting act. The following succinct comments can be quoted:

• A better quality of interpreting? • Almost none. • Coherence despite difficulties. • Stress and anxiety which I felt at the beginning could be overcome and did not have any profound impact on my interpreting skills.

On the whole, the examination of the third case study participants’ comments on their subjective experience of the influence of their personality dimension on consecutive interpreting confirms the commonly held belief that those who are more extroverts are more willing to speak in public, have more confidence in their skills and are more eloquent. That is why, their subjective experience of this psychoaffective factor does not hinder their interpreting performance. Those who declare themselves as introverts seem to be more inhibited and unwilling to perform this type of interpreting. They experience more anxiety, stress and language inhibition. What has to remain an unresolved question in this case study is whether this subjective experience of the trainee interpreters’ personality dimension reflects their objective psychologically identified personality type. For this reason, this issue opens an interesting path for further research on interpreters’ personality types with the use of psychological tests. Self-esteem, with its various types, was another psycho-affective factor which the trainee interpreters were requested to provide information about. As many as 24 test takers (83%) admitted to having subjectively experienced the impact of their self-esteem on their consecutive interpreting performance. It is by now clear that this component of the students’ psycho-affectivity influenced adversely their consecutive interpreting performance since it is deeply interrelated with other psycho-affective factors. Both the examination of the output errors and output delivery strategies disclosed many deficiencies, some of which may also arise from the subjective experience of this factor.

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What the responses to the cued questions included in the retrospective protocols indicate is that several students’ global (general) self-esteem conditioned their consecutive interpreting during the test. Those trainee interpreters directly stated that their general self-esteem is not particularly high and that it is also transferred onto their levels of linguistic and interpreting intermediate self-esteem. The following two observations can be quoted in this respect:



• I think I was brought up in such an environment that I do not remember that my parents often appreciated me. I also was aware of the fact that my sister achieved better results in science. I also compare myself to those better than me. • My lowered self-esteem causes my lack of belief in my linguistic skills, and what follows, stress increased during the test.

In the retrospective protocols completed by the third case study participants there were also some references to situational and task self-esteem. The situational type of self-esteem is linked to the entire situation, in which the trainee interpreters took the consecutive interpreting test in a university setting whereas task self-esteem concerned the very interpreting task which the students had to undertake within the framework of the test. In this case, those two types are closely interwoven and therefore they can be combined and discussed together. The test induced the test takers’ anxiety which they connected to their self-perceived difficulty of the source texts as well as to their evaluation of other group members whom they could hear during their consecutive interpreting test. Thus, the other participants as well as the source texts could have lowered the trainee interpreters’ situation and task self-esteem. Such a view can be extrapolated from the following selection of quotes: • I felt it before the test  – I  did not want to perform interpreting after the person whom I  assessed as better than me. I  think that my linguistic skills earlier (two, three years ago) were on a higher level. It has some influence on the level of my interpretation. • I think that it was present at the beginning of the interpretation in connection with the topic of the source text which I do not like. • I took the interpreting test although I know that interpreting is a great challenge for me. • I usually have a high level of self-esteem but before the test, it dropped. It was caused by anxiety related to the difficulty level of the text to interpret and its length. There was anxiety that I would not be as good as I would like myself to be. • It resulted from my anxiety concerning the fact that other group members speak better English and I – as a graduate of English studies – should be able to express myself in English. • No self-confidence and disbelief that I would make it. • Anxiety that I would not make it, that I would not interpret the text.

Intermediate self-esteem in its two versions – linguistic subcompetence intermediate self-esteem and interpreting subcompetence self-esteem – were the two

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most dominant types of self-esteem which may be held at least partially responsible for the trainee interpreters’ poorer performance. Not only did the students express their lack of self-confidence in their interpreting skills but they were also highly critical of their linguistic skills. The fact that those two sets of skills might have been yet inadequately developed or not properly employed was additionally confirmed by the results of the error analysis in which numerous mistakes came to light. The lower levels of intermediate self-esteem related to interpreting skills can be observed in the following comments:



• I know that I am good at a different type of translation [not interpreting] and this type is totally not the one I feel good at so I prefer to concentrate on something that I feel comfortable with and give up on interpreting and do other types of work with texts. • No confidence in my [interpreting] skills. • Uncertainty, no experience in interpreting. • Yes, I know that it is not the right moment for becoming an interpreter but I can become one if I practise it.

The trainee interpreters’ negative thinking about their skills in using the English language is prevailing in the following collection of their responses:

• Fear of using complicated grammar and lexical structures. • I knew that lexical deficits and no contact with the English language could affect the interpretation. • I know where my deficits are and I was afraid that I would have the vocabulary which I would not be able to render. During the test I knew that I would be bad because I knew that vocabulary was not correct. • It was caused by my self-reflection on my linguistic skills (as an attempt to deal with stress). • No completion of English studies lowered my linguistic self-esteem.

Among those who observed the influence of their self-esteem on the way they handled their consecutive interpreting during the test were also those whose levels of self-esteem were rather high and who realised that one of the approaches to the interpreting task is to have firm confidence that even though a given interpreting performance may be deficient in some respects, it should not influence their thinking of themselves and their skills. Several trainee interpreters seem to have demonstrated such thinking, as is illustrated by the following fragments:

• I am certain of my linguistic skills although during and before the test I started to doubt them. • I know that I know something so I knew I would say something. • My self-esteem is not too high but I  tried to think positively and believe in my abilities. • My self-esteem is rather high.

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• Yes. I felt confident and that is why my interpretation was better. • You always experience it but I have learned to push away such feelings during the test/performance and focus on doing it to the best of my abilities.

The lower levels of different types of self-esteem were obviously manifested linguistically and extra-linguistically in the trainee interpreters’ performance and output quality. The error analysis as well as the investigation into the interpreting strategies confirmed that many target texts were deficient and incorrect. This is also what the students observed, claiming that their lower levels of self-esteem could have obstructed their interpreting and linguistic skills, thereby causing errors. The following quotes underline those inaccurate aspects of the test takers’ outputs which may be linked to their inadequate self-esteem:

• At the beginning, maybe it was reflected in the lower quality of interpreting. • Errors, hesitations. • I did not believe that I could perform good interpretation in this thematic domain. Therefore, I did badly. I made mistakes, I omitted much important information. • I did not care about this type of translation because I know I will never want to perform interpreting so I did not try to the best of my abilities to create something. This caused that I generated a very low quality interpretation. • I had some inhibition. It certainly influenced my fluency. Generally speaking, my greatest reservation concerning the linguistic aspect was deficient pronunciation. • If the beginning is bad, I feel resigned and blocked – I cannot choose words. • No confidence in selecting words. • Problems in using appropriate vocabulary and recreating the sense. • The vocabulary which I used was very basic because of the fear of using too intricate vocabulary. • Uncertainly, no fluency.

Only few people saw some strengthening effects of their higher levels of self-esteem which enabled them to complete the interpreting task or to maintain its good quality. The following three responses can be quoted to support this view:

• I did not have any problems with the majority of the planned interpreting forms. • I tried to reach the end of the interpreting despite the feeling that I was not doing it right. I treated that as an experience in order to improve it in the future. • The improvement (I hope) of the quality of my interpretation.

As can be observed on the basis of the interpretation of the trainee interpreters’ responses concerning their subjective experience of self-esteem, this psychoaffective factor was certainly among those which might have impaired their consecutive interpreting quality. The negative approach to the testing situation, the interpreting task as well as their interpreting and linguistic skills could have debilitated the students’ capabilities to interpret consecutively. The analysis also points to the fact that when the trainee interpreters’ self-esteem declines, their defective interpreting performance may generate the semantically, lexically and grammatically obscured outputs.

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Another psycho-affective factor which was analysed on the basis of the third case study participants’ responses in the retrospective protocols and the linguistic material which they generated during the test was motivation. It is common knowledge that motivation is an important part of any activity since thanks to it, people are able to achieve better results and, generally speaking, to excel whereas its lack may often be associated with no or poor performance. Motivation is also an important factor in education, including interpreter education, and it can be attested by the number of the trainee interpreters who declared that they subjectively experienced its influence on their performance while performing consecutive interpreting. There were 24 such students (83%) who declared that motivation was an important aspect of their psychoaffectivity that could have impacted on their consecutive interpreting performance. The types of motivation, the impact of which was subjective experienced by the third case study participants, were both external (extrinsic) and internal (intrinsic) motivation. Extrinsic motivation usually stems from the external conditions whereas the intrinsic one directly results from a person’s need for achievements. Thus, what differentiates those two types is their sources. What is more, external motivation can be positive and negative. The former dimension of extrinsic motivation is associated with some profits which people experiencing it can take whereas the latter involves some damage, burden or loss. The study of the trainee interpreters’ responses concerning their subjectively experienced impact of both types of motivation maintained in the conditions of the in-class interpreting test brings some thought-provoking results. Perhaps the dominant type of motivation which the students participating in the third case study had before and during the test was intrinsic motivation. They wanted to perform well in the consecutive interpreting test, thereby proving their skills in consecutive interpreting. In a way, the trainee interpreters’ intrinsic motivation was linked to their positive extrinsic motivation because proving their ability to interpret consecutively could also mean that they wanted to obtain a grade which would confirm an adequate development of those skills manifesting themselves in the outputs of high quality. The following responses bring the students’ subjective experience of intrinsic motivation to light:

• Before the test – I wanted to perform as well as I could. • I study to learn so this was my motivation – I learn so I want to see the effect. • I wanted to check myself, to check my progress and see how [I use] my skills in the condition of an examination. • I was motivated to focus on the test, to do it as well as I could. • My willingness to do it positively [to perform it well]. • Performing a good interpretation. Motivation stems from my ambition (?). • The will to perform possibly the best interpreting. • Yes – I wanted so badly to perform well, to acquire new skills. • Yes, I cared about performing well and proving it to myself. I wanted to prove myself that I am able to handle consecutive interpreting and to control stress related with it. • Yes. I wanted to test myself, to subject my skills to evaluation.

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• Yes. Stress motivated me to speak and transfer as much information as I was able to. At the beginning it was caused by my willingness to take the test and during the test it was caused by my wish to handle the interpreting task. • Yes. The willingness to face the challenge. Before the test: I was motivated to perform well and after it: the will to develop. • Yes. What was my motivation was my willingness to perform well in interpreting.

Two other responses given by the test takers to the cued questions concerning motivation are interesting and – at the same time – difficult to interpret with reference to this psycho-affective factor. The following two fragments can be regarded as some exponents of the students’ intrinsic motivation because they show that those trainee interpreters were, or could be, motivated by their internal need for good performance:

• Yes. Despite having limited practice, I know that if I want to concentrate on this area in the future, it will not be so bad. For the time being, I treat it as an experience. • Yes. I devoted much time to practising interpreting at home. I put a lot of effort at home in practising consecutive interpreting, I knew that my interpretation was not of the quality which I would expect from myself but I feel calm because I know that I am able to render the main sense.

External motivation was also a force driving some trainee interpreters’ performance. As above-mentioned, this type of motivation can be positive and connected to some reward or negative and resulting in some failure or loss. Thus, extrinsic motivation was definitely an element of several students’ psycho-affectivity since what motivated their performance was obtaining a positive grade and passing the consecutive interpreting test. The following excerpts corroborate such a conclusion:



• Although I am sure I do not want to be an interpreter, I somehow wanted to pass the test with a positive result. • Before the test, my motivation was related to my wish to get it over with. It seems to me that it could have been caused by the level of my fatigue. Certainly, I felt it totally different from what I felt during the sight interpreting test where I wanted to perform it well. • The will to pass the test and my conviction that I would make it. • Yes – I wanted to take the test as fast as possible. I also thought that I would perform it much better, better than recently. Before the test, I  was motivated, during and after it, my motivation faded away because I knew it would be tough. What then was important was completing it fast.

Likewise, a few trainee interpreters declared that they had negative extrinsic motivation, which implies that they wanted to perform good interpreting so as not to have to feel ashamed of their performance or so as to avoid a potential failure. Such observations result from the following collection of the students’ quotes:

• My motivation was related to the fear of making an error, of not being able to perform the interpretation task.

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• Yes, I did not want to embarrass myself in front of other people. So the fear of shame. • Yes. A good performance of the task. Because I wanted to perform the task well, I was afraid of the failure.

In their retrospective protocols, the third case study participants also made some comments on an interesting motivation-related phenomenon, not identified in the previous case studies. What can be indirectly inferred from the students’ answers is that because of having no motivation, they were not so much concerned about the quality of their performance and outputs and, perhaps, thanks to this, they did not pay attention to the errors which they might have made and therefore they did not get inhibited. The following quotes present the students’ opinions about their lack of motivation:

• I felt no motivation. • I was rather calm and distanced, if that can be called motivation. • Yes, I felt the impact of my motivation because I did not feel it since this type of interpreting is not for me and I know never again will I want to do it. It was caused by my lack of will to perform such interpreting. No motivation for this type of work with texts.

Both types of motivation which the trainee interpreters had during the testing situation were manifested in different aspects of the students’ performance. Some of them claimed that thanks to their motivation, they were more concentrated and determined to perform the interpreting task as well as they could. Thus, motivation had several positive exponents, as the following responses show:

• Better focus. • I approached the interpreting task and despite difficulties I completed it. • I felt more confident than during the last test. • I was focused to perform the test. • No stress and concentration. • Serious approach to the task. • The willingness to recreate the text of possibly the best quality. • Very great concentration and willingness to perform the best I could.

What is also intriguing is that motivation or its lack was reflected in some deficits, for instance, in the trainee interpreters’ distraction, output disfluencies or lexical deficiencies of the target texts. Indeed, those exponents were identified in the test takers’ outputs so motivation could have been one of the psycho-affective factors which conditioned those errors. The following excerpts touch upon the above-mentioned issues:

• All possible errors. • I felt distracted. I could not retrieve some information from my memory. • It increased my stress and lowered concentration. • My motivation decreased at the moment of my linguistic deficits  – the difficulty formulating my thoughts.

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• No fluency. • Paradoxically, my motivation could have had a negative impact on my interpretation because I felt the need to find the most suitable words and structures, which – in interpreting – inhibits. • Producing an incoherent interpretation not on the topic. • While interpreting, I did not think about anything else but about completing it fast because it was so bad.

As discussed above, the third case study participants experienced the impact their both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation had on their performance during the consecutive interpreting test. What is, however, striking is that no trainee interpreter directly reported the motivating role of stress. Another conclusion which can be made on the basis of the retrospective protocol answers is that intrinsic motivation was the predominant type of this psycho-affective factor, which may imply that the trainee interpreters felt an internal need for excellence and for having their skills positively evaluated. Similarly, several students were externally motivated and those external motivators were both positive (a positive grade and passing the test) and rather negative (fear of failure, fear of errors, negative evaluation or embarrassment). All in all, motivation was certainly one of the factors which could have conditioned the trainee interpreters’ performance, sometimes enhancing their target text production and – especially in the case of those test takers who lost motivation as a result of their self-observed errors – sometimes impeding it. The final element of the third case study participants’ psycho-affectivity which was examined on the basis of the answers provided by the trainee interpreters to the questions of the retrospective protocol was stress. As explained in Chapter 3, stress is not a typical psycho-affective factor but because of its omnipresence in the interpreter profession, it deserves attention as one of the conditions which interpreters and trainee interpreters have to respond to while performing consecutive interpreting. As many as 24 students (83%) had the subjective experience of stress in the testing situation. There is nothing striking in such a great number of those who were stressed considering the fact that the majority of the testing situations, in which students have to prove their skills or knowledge, provoke some levels of stress. However, what is interesting is that there were just a few students who declared that the consecutive interpreting test itself was a cause of their experience of stress for they expressed their concerns over the evaluation which goes with the test, over the potential failure and over the fact of recording their target text production. Such a view emerges from the following responses:

• Before the test: the collective nervous feelings and the awareness of not knowing the text. • Fear of failure. • I experienced stress before entering the room, while waiting for my turn. • My stress resulted from the will to pass the test with a positive result and from the awareness that I had not practised this task for too long.

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• My stress was caused by the fact that it was a test, checking myself and my skills and the atmosphere which always surrounds tests. • Stress related to being evaluated and I do not like it. • The awareness of evaluation and recording.

What seems to have been the greatest stressor was the subjective experience of other psycho-affective factors, especially anxiety and low intermediate self-esteem. Lack of self-confidence in linguistic as well as interpreting skills: the purported unfamiliarity with vocabulary were the common stressors. Such a conclusion can be drawn from the following quotes:

• Before the test: whether I would manage. During the test: general nervousness. • Fear of not performing the task, no belief in my own skills. • It was caused by no belief in my skills, which [my belief in my skills] is undermined at each class. • It was caused by persuading myself that I have no skills. • My stress resulted from the knowledge of my deficits in English and the awareness of the presence of listeners. • My stress was caused by my unwillingness to perform in public. • My stress was caused by no self-confidence. • Yes, especially before the test because of the awareness of my weak points.

Several students’ experience of stress had its origin in their anxiety related to the cognitive skills. Thus, they were stressed because of their anticipation of some cognitive difficulties such as not being able to remember and note down some key elements of the input, not being able to retrieve relevant information or not being able to use appropriate target language equivalents. Therefore, some stressors resulted from the trainee interpreters’ lack of self-confidence in their cognitive skills, so badly needed during the consecutive interpreting process. The following responses highlight those concerns:

• Before the test – anxiety about whether I would make it. During the test – whether I would be able to write everything down. After the test – no stress. • I felt it one minute before the test. It seems to me that it could have been caused by my anxiety about having to remember/write down many numbers/dates. • I was afraid that I would not jot down/remember everything and would not be able to recreate the text, transferring its main sense.

In two cases, the trainee interpreters attributed their experience of stress to their generally stress-laden recent life conditions. It is a commonly held view that stress affecting one sphere of a person’s life can also affect other spheres and even interpreters (and trainee interpreters alike), although trying to act professionally, may be under the influence of other stressful events while rendering their services. It is therefore not surprising that there were two comments, in which the test takers claimed to suffer from the increased levels of stress in their life, which could have contributed to their subjective experience of stress during the consecutive interpreting test. The following two comments illustrate this:

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• I felt great stress just before the test and after hearing the [source] text. I  was stressed by the fact that I  would select a text of which I  would have little extralinguistic knowledge and that it would be difficult for me to complete the missing information. At the same time, I  feel that generally the level of stress has been keeping me on a high level recently. • Just a little bit during the test. It was caused by my general psycho-physiological condition recently – I have much stress and many duties at my work.

Like in the previous case studies and the previously examined psycho-affective factors, stress can be held responsible for some deficiencies which were observed in the error analysis, in the analysis of the interpreting strategies and which were also reported by the trainee interpreters. What stress might have caused is a variety of errors: omissions, lexical mistakes, grammar errors and disfluencies – filled and silent pauses or hesitations. Moreover, as the error analysis revealed, some stressed students inserted some Polish phrases commenting on their performance, which can also be attributed to their subjective experience of stress. Those output-related symptoms of stress are mentioned in the following responses:



• I faltered a little bit. I was not 100% concentrated on the task. • Inhibition. Getting stuck in one place. • No coherence, chaos, information omission. • Pauses in my utterance, poor vocabulary, grammar errors. • Stress caused my anxiety and uncertainty in my voice. When I get blocked in one part of the interpretation, it is difficult for me to fast and calmly continue it; my errors often demotivate me. • The decrease in quality of the interpreting process. My hands were trembling.

Furthermore, as remarked earlier, stress is known to affect the trainee interpreters’ cognitive abilities and some of the third case study participants stated that, as a consequence of their experience of stress, their concentration deteriorated and this, in turn, could have had an adverse impact on other cognitive skills, leading to a decrease in output quality. The following quotes confirm such an assumption:

• Decreased concentration. • Inability to concentrate. • It disturbs my concentration. • No adequate concentration and fluency. • While interpreting, my rational thinking switched off, I focused on what I could not do instead of on what I could do.

Curiously enough, one trainee interpreter’s experience of stress was so huge that, as he/she stated, it resulted in no rendering at all. This non-rendering was also identified in the error analysis as the non-rendering of the entire source text. Another student claimed that his/her experience of stress resulted in abandoning the attempt to interpret consecutively. Those two students wrote the following comments:

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• My stress was so huge that it resulted in no actions whatsoever. • Only in my giving up so fast.

Stress is also known to affect people’s bodies and therefore it may be manifested by several types of bodily responses. Actually, only three trainee interpreters observed how their bodies reacted to the stressful testing situation and wrote about their shaking hands, faster heart beat and sweating in the following responses:

• My hands were shaking and I could not overcome it. • My hands were shaking. • My heart was pounding, I was sweating, my hands were shaking.

What is also rather surprising is that, in this group of trainee interpreters, there was not a single clear answer pointing to the mobilising and enhancing activity of stress. All of the previously discussed responses to stress were about its debilitating and inhibitory nature. However, one student stated that, in fact, stress could have improved his/her cognitive skills of concentration and there was one test taker who declared no subjective experience of stress. Those two answers are provided below.

• Exceptionally, as never in my life, no . • I think I did not feel it during the test and if yes, it allowed me to concentrate better.

By and large, the subjective experience of stress turned out to be of more debilitating nature since not only was it reported as such by the third case study participants but it was also identified as a potential cause of many errors detected in the course of the error analysis and the examination of the interpreting strategies. The frequent equivalence-related mistakes and numerous disfluencies could certainly have been the result of the adverse activity of stress which could have emerged as a response to the testing situation itself, to the trainee interpreters’ negative thinking about their knowledge and skills and to other psycho-affective factors. Accordingly, stress was certainly an important factor which conditioned the students’ performance during the consecutive interpreting test, decreasing its quality and resulting in the inadequate and oftentimes quite deficient outputs. The above interpretation of the third case study participants’ attitudinal and behavioural data included in their retrospective protocols substantiates the previous assumptions that at least some of the psycho-affective factors could be responsible for the deficiencies identified in the target texts. Additionally, the analysis of the test takers’ responses casts more light on the fact that the psychoaffective factors are interrelated and that one can lead to another. Such was the case, for instance, with anxiety, stress, language inhibition, intermediate self-esteem and stress which repeatedly co-occurred, inhibiting in this way the trainee interpreters’ cognitive, linguistic and interpreting skills and affecting the overall quality of the outputs.

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7.6. General observations concerning the third case study participants’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors: analysis conclusions The scrutiny of the third case study participants’ target text errors, the interpreting strategies used in delivering the outputs as well as the responses pertaining to their subjective experience and linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents of the psycho-affective factors in question leads to the conclusion that some of them definitely ensued in the course of the consecutive interpreting test, adversely affecting the students’ performance and leading to a decreased quality of the outputs. The first investigated factor was anxiety. The observations resulting from the study of the retrospective protocols combined with the linguistic examination of the target texts and the interpreting strategies exploited in their delivery lead to the conclusion that the majority of the trainee interpreters experienced subjectively different types of anxiety, of which performance anxiety was the most dominant. The students exhibited their negative thinking about (and lack of self-confidence in) their ability to interpret the source texts consecutively. Thus apart from their interpreting skills, they were also anxious about their linguistic skills, the most prominent of which seems to be the use of their lexical resources. Moreover, some trainee interpreters also demonstrated acceptance anxiety, being concerned, for instance, about the potential failure and the related negative evaluation or about embarrassment. This all indicates that the psycho-affective factor of anxiety indeed had an adverse impact on consecutive interpreting performance. Fear was another psycho-affective factor which was analysed with reference to the trainee interpreters’ subjective experience and its linguistic as well as extralinguistic manifestations. Like in the two previous case studies, although some students declared that during the consecutive interpreting test they experienced fear, this factor could not have affected their performance for the simple reason of the absence of the stimulus which could evoke such fear-related feelings. In other words, there was no objectively perceived imminent danger which could threaten in any way the trainee interpreters. Owing to the fact that the test takers’ comments on their subjective experience of fear as well as on its manifestations nearly in all cases overlapped with those of anxiety, it was just anxiety that they subjectively felt. Consequently, the only conclusion which can be drawn from the investigation into the subjective experience of fear is that in no way could fear have affected the consecutive interpreting performance and that anxiety was mistaken for it. The psycho-affective factor of language inhibition, having its roots in fragile language ego, was observed among the trainee interpreters. Not only did it manifest itself in the errors of various types detected in the target texts but it was also reported by the students. The analysis of the third case study participants’ language inhibition also indicated that this psycho-affective factor occurs in conjunction with other psycho-affective factors, making the phenomenon of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity even more complex.

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Extroversion, introversion and ambiversion were the next aspects of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity which were examined. The conclusions which can be drawn from the study indicate that those students who classified themselves as extroverts declared that extroversion could have improved their interpreting performance whereas those who viewed themselves as introverts stated that their personality dimension was reflected in their weaker performance – in the errors resulting from their deteriorated concentration, general unwillingness to speak in public, anxiety, stress, lower self-esteem and language inhibition. For this reason, it may be safely concluded that the personality dimension may exert some positive or negative influence on the manner, in which the trainee interpreters performed their consecutive interpreting task. Another psycho-affective factor which was analysed was self-esteem. It seems that the trainee interpreters’ situation and task self-esteem were not always high enough to enable them to handle the consecutive interpreting test and to produce the outputs of decent quality. More importantly, however, it is the students’ lack of self-confidence in their interpreting and linguistic skills observed through the prism of the low levels of interpreting subcompetence and linguistic subcompetence self-esteem that may have been one of most essential hindrances to the maintenance of high quality in their interpreting performance. It therefore seems justified to posit that self-esteem turned out to be an adversely affecting psycho-affective factor, the subjective experience of whose impact conditioned the test takers’ worse performance during the consecutive interpreting test. Motivation, which is known to have the potential of enhancing people’s activity, was also identified in the trainee interpreters’ responses to the questions included in the retrospective protocol. What came to light is that there was basically one fundamental intrinsic motivator – their internal will to excel, to perform well and to prove their interpreting skills. As regards the extrinsic type of motivation, it appears that there were both the positive external motivators in the form of a positive grade for the test performance or just passing the test as well as the negative ones that manifested themselves in the trainee interpreters’ fear of potential errors, failure, negative assessment or criticism. What the outcome of the study of this psycho-affective factor shows is that it was certainly an important element of the trainee interpreters’ psycho-affectivity which had an impact on the way they handled the entire task of consecutive interpreting. The final psycho-affective factor which was analysed in this case study was stress. In fact, quite many trainee interpreters declared their subjective experience of stress which ensued either as a reaction to the test itself, as a response to their anxiety and lower intermediate self-esteem or as a continuation of their experience of stress which they have in their lives. Stress is perhaps one of the most adversely acting components of the students’ psycho-affectivity since only few students saw it as a motivating and performance-enhancing force. In most cases, unfortunately, stress was of debilitating and inhibitory character which was frequently interrelated with other psycho-affective factors under scrutiny.

Chapter 7 summary

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All the analyses carried out in the frameworks of this case study point out that nearly at all stages of the consecutive interpreting process, the third case study participants were under the influence of the psycho-affective factors. Those factors not only inhibited their cognitive skills by distracting their concentration, reducing their attention span, limiting the input processing capacity, impairing memorisation and note-taking skills or debilitating their retrieval abilities. The psycho-affective factors also influenced their production phase by inhibiting the exploitation of their lexical resources, limiting their grammar, affecting their output delivery fluency or obscuring the source text meaning which they were supposed to convey in their target texts. What additionally follows from the scrutiny of the third case study participants’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors is that those factors are often interrelated and sometimes the occurrence of one of such psycho-affective phenomena triggers off the occurrence of another one, leading to a kind of psychoaffective chain reaction. A good case in point is the chain reaction with anxiety which may be related to introversion and stem from lower intermediate self-esteem and which can result in various language inhibition phenomena that intensify the experience of stress. Hence, on the basis of all the data examined in this case study, it is possible to infer that the third case study participants’ subjective experience of the interrelated psycho-affective factors was more inhibitory and debilitating and that it is just those factors that were the major causes of so many deficiencies identified in the outputs.

7.7. Chapter 7 summary The major purpose of Chapter 7 was to discuss the issue of the subjective experience of the selected psycho-affective factors observed in a group of the postgraduate students of the University of Wrocław, Poland, pursuing their one-year postgraduate studies in translation. An important component of the curriculum was a course in interpreting which was used as a platform for collecting linguistic, statistical, attitudinal and behavioural data concerning the subjective experience of anxiety, fear, language inhibition/language ego, extroversion/introversion/ambiversion, self-esteem, motivation and stress, their impact on the manner of performing consecutive interpreting and on the overall quality of the target texts. The triangulated data clearly suggest that the trainee interpreters experienced subjectively the negative impact of the studied psycho-affective factors and that this impact was brought to light not only in the students’ responses to the questions from the retrospective protocols which they filled in immediately after completing the consecutive interpreting test but also in the analysis of the errors which they made while delivering their outputs as well as in the examination of the interpreting strategies which they exploited during their interpreting performance. Numerous equivalence-related errors, frequent disfluencies as well as the common use of the strategies of omission, implicitation (condensation) and repairing could all point

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to the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors. Consequently, on the basis of the results of all the analyses conducted within the frameworks of this case study, it can be stated that the third case study trainee interpreters subjectively experienced the analysed factors even more intensely than the participants of the other two case studies and that this adverse impact on output quality is more evident. Therefore, the final conclusion which may be drawn from this case study is that is it probably not possible at all to completely remove the influence of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity from the interpreting process since there are always some components of this process that are affected by such factors, which tend to occur in an interrelated way.

Chapter 8: Case study 4 – certified interpreters’ subjective experience of the psychoaffective factors in consecutive interpreting This chapter presents the analysis, interpretation and discussion of the results of the online questionnaire completed by the Polish certified interpreters of English who, responding to the questions included in the questionnaire, provided a wealth of data on their subjective perception of the nature and impact of the psychoaffective factors experienced in the course of certified consecutive interpreting. The chapter begins with the analysis of the certified interpreters’ factual data. Then, the respondents’ answers concerning the seven psycho-affective factors are analysed and interpreted. Finally, data interpretation leads to some local conclusions regarding the sample in question. On the whole, the chapter shows that the professional practice of certified consecutive interpreting is rarely free from the impact of the psycho-affective factors.

8.1. Case study 4 methodology synopsis Case study 4 represents the qualitative ethnographic research carried out in the form of an online questionnaire which was available on the case study-dedicated website  – https://afektywnosctlumacza.webankieta.pl/  – from 17  July  2018 to 24 August 2018. Considering the fact that qualitative interpreting research tends to be carried out on the basis of typically small-sized samples, the number of the respondents participating in the study is relatively high – 76 certified interpreters of English who provide consecutive interpreting services in Poland. However, in view of the number of requests sent to the potential respondents (more than 1000), the response ratio is rather small. As far as the sample selection criteria are concerned, only those certified interpreters of English whose email addresses are publicly available on the official website of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Poland were sent the requests via email with the direct link to the questionnaire. The methods of data analysis and interpretation include the elements of the descriptive narrative method which presents some trends observed in the data as well as of the descriptive statistic method which serves merely as a visual representation of the data related mostly to independent variables. Wherever possible or deemed worthwhile, the data are correlated. Since this case study represents  – at least to some extent  – the grounded theory approach, the data analysed and interpreted form the basis for drawing

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certain conclusions. In turn, those conclusions are further formulated into several theoretical assumptions, following the general grounded theory approach, according to which local theories can be developed on the basis of the examined data. The order of data presentation and discussion follows the generally adopted pattern in this book. This means that the data regarding the following psychoaffective factors are discussed:  anxiety, fear, language inhibition/language ego/ language boundaries, personality type, self-esteem, motivation and stress.

8.2. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ factual data It has already been stated that some of the data obtained in the course of the survey-based study are of factual character. This means that they are related to such independent variables as the respondents’ age, gender, education, the year of obtaining the status of a certified interpreter, the years of professional experience in consecutive interpreting and the frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting. In the following subchapters, those factual data are discussed and illustrated graphically by charts.

8.2.1. Certified interpreters’ age and gender Owing to the fact that the certified interpreter profession may be regarded as a public trust profession, as a profession involving great personal responsibility, as a profession requiring exceptional linguistic proficiency in both the source and target languages, as a profession implying extensive knowledge of a variety of thematic domains, with the legal domain occupying a special place, it might be expected that certified interpreters are rarely very young people who have just graduated from higher studies. Indeed, the data concerning the certified interpreters’ age show that the average age is 46  years old whereas the most common age is 37 – indicated by eight respondents (11%). However, the age range is very broad and the youngest respondent was 29  years old (represented by one certified interpreter) whereas the oldest one  – 74 (also represented by one respondent). This may confirm the above-stated expectation that the profession is pursued by rather mature people, with both profound life and professional experience, who may be claimed to realise the need for responsibility and public trust which this profession is inextricably linked with. Chart 8 (see below) presents the respondents’ age distribution. As far as the certified interpreters’ gender is concerned, the study results confirm the generally observed trends in the translation and interpreting market manifesting themselves in the great feminisation of the profession. This trend has been addressed, among other, by Pöchhacker (2004: 174) who stated nearly fifteen years ago that “(…) women (…) have come to outnumber men in the profession at a ratio of roughly 3:1” and attempted to account for this phenomenon referring to the “superior aptitude for languages and communication in women” (ibid.), and,

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Analysis of the certified interpreters’ factual data 41 yo (4%)

42 yo (8%)

40 yo (3%)

43 yo (3%) 44 yo (7%) 45 yo (5%)

39 yo (1%)

46 yo (4%)

38 yo (4%)

47 yo (3%) 48 yo (3%) 49 yo (1%)

37 yo (11%)

50 yo (4%)

51 yo (1%) 52 yo (1%)

36 yo (4%)

55 yo (3%) 35 yo (4%)

56 yo (1%) 57 yo (1%)

34 yo (3%) 30 yo (3%) 29 yo (1%) 74 yo (1%)

58 yo (1%) 70 yo (3%)

61 yo (3%) 63 yo (1%) 62 yo (5%)

59 yo (3%) 60 yo (1%)

Chart 8: The respondents’ age distribution.

unfortunately, to the lowering prestige that this profession enjoyed since, stereotypically, interpreting was viewed as “(…) a service or helping profession” (ibid.). The sample of certified interpreters comprises 55 women (72%) and 21 men (28%), which corresponds to the ratio estimated by Pöchhacker. The gender distribution of the studied sample is presented in Chart 9.

21 male certified interpreters (28%)

55 female certified interpreters (72%)

Chart 9: The respondents’ gender distribution.

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8.2.2. Certified interpreters’ education and professional experience

46 32 19

13 Other higher studies

Postgraduate studies in translation/interpreting

Doctoral studies in translation/interpreting

0 Master’s studies in other philological specialisations

50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Master’s studies in translation/interpreting

The number of answers

Polish certified interpreters whose profession is regulated by the Act on the Profession of a Certified Translator of 25 November 200479 do not necessarily have to be the graduates of higher language-related studies since their linguistic skills, next to translation and interpreting skills, are tested during the official examination taken before the Polish State Examination Board. However, the data clearly show (Chart 10) that the majority of the respondents have in fact graduated from language-related studies either in the form of master’s studies in translation/ interpreting, master’s studies in other philological specialisations80 or postgraduate studies in translation/interpreting. What is more, it is often the case that the certified interpreters have graduated from two or even more fields of study and indicated more than one option related to their educational background. Therefore the data show this by the fact that the total number of responses to this questionnaire item exceeds the total number of respondents. Moreover, although it is not reflected in the data, some respondents hold doctoral degrees in translation studies obtained within a non-study format procedure.

Chart 10: The respondents’ educational background. 79 Source:  http://prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/download.xsp/WDU20042732702/U/ D20042702Lj.pdf; accessed on: 27 August 2018. 80 In Poland, language- and literature-related studies are usually offered as the field of study known as “philology”. Translation and interpreting can be therefore

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Analysis of the certified interpreters’ factual data

What is interesting in this data set is the diversity of the non-language-related fields of study that the respondents completed (Chart 11). Thirteen respondents declared the completion of other studies, the most frequent ones being law (five respondents), followed by psychology and economics (two respondents each) and then by Polish studies, fish processing, machinery design and chemistry. Especially, the last three fields of studies might seem rather surprising considering the fact that interpreting, and translation alike, can be classified as belonging to the humanities and social sciences.

chemistry machinery design fish processing Polish studies economics psychology law 0

1

2 3 The number of graduates

4

5

Chart 11: Other fields of study completed by the respondents.

Another important question to be discussed in this section is the length of the certified interpreters’ professional experience expressed by the year, in which the respondents were granted the status of a certified interpreter. The following chart (Chart 12, see below) illustrates the year, in which the study participants obtained their certified interpreter’s status. The certified interpreter with the longest experience obtained the status of a certified interpreter in 1975, which means that this respondent has been providing certified interpreting services for more than 40 years. The shortest experience is that of the certified interpreter who has just started practising the profession as that person obtained the certified interpreter’s status in 2018. An important point related to the years, in which the respondents started their professional careers as certified interpreters is that since 2005, as has already been specialisations of such studies. Other specialisations may include language teaching, literary studies, cultural studies etc. What is more, translation and interpreting can also be studied within the field of study known as “applied linguistics”.

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6 5

2015 2016 2017 2018

2013 2014

2011 2012

2009

2010

2007 2008

2005

0

2001

1

1998

2

2006

2002

3

2003 2004

1999

4

1975 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1989 1990 1993 1994 1995 1996

The number of certified interpreters

7

The year of obtaining the status of a certified interpreter

Chart 12: The respondents’ years of experience as certified interpreters.

stated, the status of a certified interpreter has been granted only to people who have successfully completed the difficult examination procedure, having passed the translation examination and the interpreting examination. The fact that such examinations are indeed of great difficulty is attested by Bolesław Cieślik, the Head of the Department of Certified Translators, Court Experts and Certified Auditors of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Poland and member of the Polish State Examination Board, who is of the opinion that “the certified translation/interpreting examination is very difficult and hence the success rate does not exceed 25%”81 (2016: 7). In the sample, there are 36 (47%) respondents who have undergone the examination procedure implemented in 2005. As regards the respondents’ experience in consecutive interpreting at large (i.e. not only the certified one) (Chart 13), the most common answer was twenty years (eleven respondents) whereas the average number of the years of consecutive interpreting practice is sixteen. What is important for this study is that as many as 51 (67%) respondents have more than ten-year experience in consecutive interpreting so, as might be expected, they might have experienced a panoply of different situations, in which they could identify the impact of their subjectively experienced psycho-affective factors on their performance. Additionally, in the sample there are only three (4%) certified interpreters whose experience is shorter than three years. Among them, there is one person who answered that he/she sporadically performs consecutive interpreting and that is why this certified interpreter has

81 Translated from Polish by M.W.

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been classified as having limited experience (less than one year). The remaining 22 (29%) respondents’ consecutive experience ranges from three years to ten years.

10 9 7

3 2 1 0

13 years 12 years

4

14 years

5

19 years 18 years 16 years

6

8 years 7 years 6 years 5 years 4 years 3 years 2 years 0 year sporadically

10 years

8

43 years 42 years 36 years 33 years 31 years 30 years 28 years 26 years 25 years 23 years 22 years

The number of certified interpreters

15 years

20 years

12 11

The respondents’ years of consecutive interpreting experience

Chart 13: The respondents’ years of consecutive interpreting experience.

Another set of factual data contains information about the frequency of providing certified consecutive interpreting services. All respondents have some experience in certified consecutive interpreting. This conclusion can be drawn from the data as no respondent selected the answer “never”. However, more than half of the sample admitted to acting as a certified consecutive interpreter rarely (once or twice per month; 23 respondents – 30%) or very rarely (several times a year; 28 respondents – 37%). Nineteen respondents (25%) interpret consecutively often (several times a month) and six (8%) of them – very often (several times a week) (Chart 14, see below). The fact that the respondents rarely or very rarely have the chance to interpret consecutively may be one of several reasons for their experience of the psycho-affective factors which may impede their performance and adversely affect output quality. When asked about the types of certified consecutive interpreting performed, the respondents gave multiple answers (Chart 15, see below). It seems that certified consecutive interpreting in notary’s offices is the most frequent type performed by the respondents as 72 of them (95%) declare that they provide such interpretation. This seems to be in line with the trends observed in the Polish interpreting market since in Poland the certified interpreter’s presence is required for the validity and lawfulness of a given act in law like, for instance, signing a company agreement or signing a real estate purchase agreement. Less frequent, although still common, is courtroom interpretation, which has been indicated by 62 respondents (82%).

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Case study 4 rarely (once/twice a month): 23 respondents (30%)

often (several times a month): 19 respondents (25%)

very rarely (several times a year): 28 respondents (37%)

very often (several times a week): 6 respondents (8%)

never: 0 respondent (0%)

Chart 14: The respondents’ frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting.

80

82%

78%

78%

60

62%

50 30

62

59

59

72 47

20

Interpreting for private companies

Notary’s office interpreting

Registry office interpreting

Police interpreting

0

Courtroom interpreting

10

20%

14% 11

15

Other types

40

Immigration office interpreting

Numbers of answers

70

95%

Chart 15: The types of certified consecutive interpreting performed by the respondents.

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Analysis of the certified interpreters’ factual data

Then, as many as 59 respondents (78%) work as certified consecutive interpreters interpreting for the police and in registry offices. 47 ce rtified int erpreters (62 %) admit to interpreting consecutively for private entities whereas only eleven of (14%) them have the experience of certified consecutive interpreting in an immigration office. Interestingly enough, among the other types of certified consecutive interpreting, the respondents enumerate such contexts as the prosecutor’s office, Polish border guard, healthcare institutions (mostly hospitals), the probation officer’s office, estate agencies and – a very general category – the business sector (Chart 16). This clearly shows that certified interpreters oftentimes assume the function of a community/public service interpreter, providing the means of intercultural communication between two linguistically differing parties.

business sector

1

estate agency

1

probation officer’s office

1 3

healthcare institutions (mostly hospitals)

4

Polish border guard

4

prosecutor’s office 0

1

2 3 The number of answers

4

Chart 16: Other contexts of certified consecutive interpreting performed by the respondents.

The last question whose aim was to elicit factual data concerned the type of certified consecutive interpreting which the respondents perform most frequently. What emerges from the answers is that notary’s office interpreting (27 respondents – 35%) is the most commonly provided by the respondents. Then, what follows is courtroom interpreting, mentioned by twenty respondents (26%). Those two results confirm the trends observed in the interpreting market that  legal contexts (i.e. court, notary’s office) predominate in the certified interpreter’s work settings. Registry office interpreting and police interpreting were given by ten (13%) and nine (12%) respondents, respectively. Private companies and other contexts were each mentioned by five respondents (7%) (Chart 17). As far as those other types of interpreting are concerned, two certified interpreters mentioned the prosecutor’s office, one – hospital, one – the Polish border guard and one – public administration institutions. The last answer could actually be subsumed into one of the general categories, represented visually in Chart 17.

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Notary’s office interpreting: 27 respondents (35%)

Interpreting for private companies: 5 respondents (7%) Other types: 5 respondents (7%)

Courtroom interpreting: 20 respondents (26%)

Registry office interpreting: 10 respondents (13%)

Police interpreting: 9 respondents (12%)

Chart 17: The most frequent types of certified consecutive interpreting performed by the respondents.

The data collected from the certified interpreters who filled in the questionnaire demonstrate that the respondents work in the contexts which may oftentimes impose a great psychological burden that can manifest itself in the negative experience of the psycho-affective factors. However, the factual data also show that the certified interpreters making up the studied sample are, generally speaking, highly educated professionals with extensive experience in certified and noncertified consecutive interpreting and therefore it is interesting to observe whether this comprehensive educational and professional background helps them deal somehow with the negative aspects of their psycho-affectivity. Those issues are analysed in the further part of this case study.

8.3. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ behavioural and attitudinal data The behavioural and attitudinal data obtained from the respondents concern those respondents’ practices and behaviours as well as attitudes, opinions and views on how they see their experience of the psycho-affective factors, how they see the impact those factors may have on their performance and how they use coping tactics. Before each psycho-affective factor is discussed on the basis of the certified interpreters’ data, the responses provided to two general questions about the respondents’ typical feelings (i.e. the most frequently experienced states prior to the act of certified consecutive interpreting) are discussed.

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Analysis of certified interpreters’ behavioural data

8.3.1. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ typical precertified consecutive interpreting feelings It has already been stated several times that interpreting as such is rarely stressfree and that it often invokes a wide array of different psycho-affective responses which may manifest themselves in the interpreter’s linguistic and non-linguistic performance, leading to the decrease in the overall quality of the output rendered. This view is corroborated by the data gathered from the respondents’ answers to the first set of the behavioural and attitudinal questions of rather general character. The first question elicited the certified interpreters’ data concerning their typical feelings before consecutive interpreting. The respondents could select one or several psycho-affective responses that they typically experience before they start their consecutive interpreting. Among the suggested feelings were both the positive ones, like curiosity, composure, satisfaction and relaxation, as well as those which manifest themselves negatively – stress, insecurity, anxiety, lowered self-esteem or fear. What emerges from Chart 18 is that curiosity was indicated by as many as 40 respondents (53%), composure by 29 (38%), satisfaction by eight (11%) and relaxation by four (5%). Among the negative feelings, the most common was stress (38 respondents – 50%) and insecurity (33 respondents – 43%). Anxiety was indicated by twelve respondents (16%) whereas lowered self-esteem and others (i.e. anger and irritation, boredom, increased talkativeness, concentration) by four respondents (5%). As might be expected, fear was not a popular answer and was

50% 38%

16%

20%

11%

satisfaction

anxiety

composure

insecurity

0%

stress

10%

5%

The respondents’ typical feelings

Chart 18: The respondents’ typical feelings.

5%

5%

4% fear

30%

others

40%

lowered self-esteem

43%

50%

relaxation

53%

curiosty

The number of answers

60%

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selected by three certified respondents (4%). From this set of data emerges that the certified interpreters experience both positive and negative feelings before the act of consecutive interpreting. On the one hand, this type of interpreting activity may be positively challenging for quite many interpreters, which is reflected by so many respondents for whom it is interesting and satisfying. On the other hand, however, 50% of the sample indicated that consecutive interpreting is stressful and therefore may not be their preferred type of interpreting activity. It is also interesting to see the correlation between those feelings and the frequency of providing certified consecutive interpreting since it might be expected that the more frequently the respondents perform this type of interpreting, the less negative and the more positive feelings they experience. Chart 19 clearly shows that the respondents who perform certified consecutive interpreting very rarely (several times a year) or rarely (once or twice per month) are less likely to experience the positive feelings like composure (in total thirteen respondents), relaxation (no respondent), satisfaction (five respondents). However, this type of interpreting is interesting for them since 24 respondents performing certified consecutive interpreting very rarely or rarely selected this option. Such certified interpreters are also more likely to experience the negative feelings such as insecurity (in total 28 respondents) and stress (32 respondents). As for those who provide certified consecutive interpreting services often or very often, they claim to be less stressed (six answers), less insecure (five answers). Moreover, while they report being composed (totally sixteen respondents), they do not seem to be more relaxed or derive more satisfaction from the certified consecutive interpreting tasks.

Others

1

0

Insecurity

2

1

15

Lowered self-esteem

13

2

2

Stress

20

Fear

2

Composure 0%

12

3 10

10%

20% 30% very rarely

0 4

3

3 3

0 3

12

Relaxation 0

1

1 4

12

Satisfaction

5

1 5

Curiosty

0

12

1

Anxiety

3

2

0 1

13 40% 50% 60% 70% rarely often very often

3 80%

90%

100%

Chart 19: The correlation between the frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting and the types of feelings experienced.

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467

When asked about the causes of their positive feelings (and – by extension – of lack of their negative feelings), the most common answer was the one related to their experience and expertise. The respondents clearly state that the fact that they are familiar with the topic(s) to be interpreted, with the court proceeding format and sometimes with the interpreting act participants contributes to their positive feelings. The quotes excerpted from the questionnaire responses to this item show that the certified interpreters’ professional background, skills and expertise and the familiarity with the situation make certified consecutive interpreting a positive experience. • Certainty about my domain-based knowledge (in terms of language-related and topic-related issues). • I am certain about my knowledge and the situation which I will interpret. • I know the court proceedings and I know what is to happen in the courtroom. I am interested in what the trials today will be like. • I prepare for interpretations in advance, I become familiarise with the project of the notarial deed, I inquire about the subject of the court proceedings etc. • My composure results from my extensive experience and curiosity – the general curiosity about the world and current affairs. • My previous positive experiences. • The familiarity with the theme and the earlier arrangements with the client. • The knowledge of the topic and belief in my own skills and capabilities, the knowledge of the situation and potential interpreting participants.

Another reason for such feelings was the fact that this type of interpreting is interesting, sometimes challenging, and that it is a good opportunity to learn something new and meet new people. The citations taken from the questionnaire responses confirm this view. • A new experience, a new challenge, meeting new people and being in new situations. • A new situation. • Court proceedings which I  interpret are usually interesting. Besides, this is an adventure. • Curiosity about the new experience and meeting new people. • Curiosity: the new situational arrangement; access to confidential data. • Each new interpretation is an opportunity to learn something new, it mobilises me for preparation and – at the same time – allows me to gain experience. • I like new challenges. I  like learning new vocabulary and new situations. I  like working with people and I derive satisfaction from the high evaluation of my work; I feel self-fulfilled. • I treat such a task as a challenge and test of my skills. • The interest in people and their behaviours, the feeling of being needed and the sense of my job, the satisfaction from the fact that I do what I am good at, that I like people I work with and that I appreciate the way the refer to me (respect, cordiality). • The willingness to test myself, to meet new people. I like this job. • What is interesting is meeting new people and learning new themes.

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The respondents also referred to the fact that in the course of their certified consecutive interpreting acts, they help others to solve problems of different nature and, generally speaking, they feel they are needed. They also demonstrate their awareness of the importance and responsibility of certified interpreters. The following quotes illustrate this:

• I like interpreting; I am aware of the certified interpreter’s responsibility and feel satisfied with the fulfilment of my duty, of helping another person in need. • The awareness of the responsibility, of relying on me and my knowledge, the significance of the profession I practise. • The feeling of being needed, the possibility of helping others in executing certain processes and procedures. • The opportunity to provide help, to meet new people and learn their stories. • The possibility of being helpful in solving a problem. • The possibility of helping a foreigner, of completing the interpretation, enabling the successful completion of some matter.

What is more, there are several interesting opinions related to the situational embedding of certified consecutive interpreting and the varied feelings which they evoke. It seems that police stations and notary’s offices, unlike courts, can be those places, in which certified interpreters experience positive feelings. • Composure  – in the case of many interpretations in an notary’s office this is very easy despite a big difficulty of a typical notarial deed text. I can do it, I feel confident. • Generally, this is stressful. Positive feelings emerge when there is good and friendly contact. • In general, I do not have positive feelings, except for the situations in the police station, where there emerges curiosity and the situation is to some extent informal. • My feelings depend on the place, in which interpreting is to take place – my positive feelings can result from the fact that interpreting assignments are usually less time-consuming and are better paid (excluding interpreting for public administration institutions). (…) My positive feelings are associated with interpreting for the police (despite difficult matters, the atmosphere is rather friendly, I am respected there) and for the notary public (in short  – good remuneration, usually positive atmosphere). • My positive feelings are related to interpreting in the notary’s office and registry offices. I usually meet nice people, the interpreting topics are not difficult and they are not surprising for me.

Several respondents directly referred to their awareness of the fact that negative feelings may impede their interpreting performance and affect its quality and, therefore, they try to stay calm. What is more, the respondents’ positive experience of other psycho-affective factors and, generally speaking, their psychological properties, also contributes to the more positive feelings. The following fragments illustrate this:

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469

• If I expect the interpretation to be performed appropriately – higher self-esteem, self-satisfaction. • The awareness that being calm and dealing with the potentially stressful situation significantly influences the cognitive resources available to me, which – in turn – results in higher interpreting quality. • The fact that I can be assertive and do not allow other people in the room to walk all over me.

The certified interpreters’ positive feelings concern the fact that they simply like their job and like interpreting at large since, as is already known, certified interpreters in Poland are also certified translators who are also obliged to translate documents and thus interpreting, in comparison to translation, offers greater flexibility. This means that the interpreter, when in doubt, can ask for repeating information or – at times – his/her omissions are not noticeable because of the little importance of the skipped information.

• I like my job and, generally speaking, I don’t have any negative past experiences. I am aware of my imperfections and I remember all the previous interpreting tasks positively. • Walking away from the computer work, meeting a new person, learning a new story. Generally speaking, good attitude that I  am only a teller of other people’s utterances and not the main “actor”; besides, you can always ask for repeating; no one will bite your head off.

The above quotes illustrate that the respondents’ positive feelings before certified consecutive interpreting have numerous roots, the most common ones being those related to their experience and expertise, to different opportunities which certified interpreting opens up as well as to the fact that they enjoy working as certified interpreters, realising the professional obligations and responsibility that goes with it. As regards the question about the negative feelings, surprising as it may seem, there were several answers pointing to no negative feelings associated with certified consecutive interpreting. Other answers can be grouped into several broad categories, among which the most salient is perhaps the group of the respondents’ attitudinal data concerning their knowledge, expertise, skills or experience. What comes to the fore is that quite many of them lack self-confidence, are unsure about their abilities and speak about various kinds of deficiencies that they identify in their certified interpreter competence. The following collection of quotes shows that:

• Fear of language errors, fear of being criticised by other people. • Fear of making an error. • For years – the same thing – the fear of the insufficient knowledge of specialised vocabulary especially when there is no possibility for preparation. • Gaps in my knowledge  – vocabulary, phrases, sometimes interpreting goes not the way we would like to, which means that not good phrases were used, there was no precision, that generally interpreting can go smoothly but there are some shortcomings which bring about dissatisfaction.

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Case study 4

• I am afraid I will not remember everything. • I am afraid there will be a word/phrase which I will not be able to render. • I think what stresses me is the awareness that I may not hear something or forget something. • In a natural way I  am stressed because, during interpreting, I  am  – in a way – evaluated. • Lack of self-confidence in my skills, unfamiliarity with the topic, thinking that I would not deal with it, that I will not know some word or that I will not be able to get out of a difficult situation/task etc. • Lowered belief in my skills and knowledge. • Often those negative feelings are caused by the demands which I impose on myself. After several minutes of work, when it turns out I do well and the clients are satisfied, this feeling fades away. • Sometimes in the course of the trial, some unexpected terminology (e.g. in the trial for damages, where I was told to be prepared for discussing the financial aspects of paying the damages, the trial unexpectedly turned into discussing skin transplants and medical complexity). But I have to admit that this does not stress me nor paralyses me; it is an intellectual challenge which I have always met. • There is some stress related to showing ignorance. • Uncertainty about how I  will do, whether something will not surprise me, for instance, the language which the foreigner uses (slang, sometimes verbosity, sometimes unclear pronunciation, sometimes terminology). • Uncertainty about my competence; no professional preparation for interpreting, rare performance of interpreting. • Uncertainty concerning vocabulary which may come up; the fear that I  will not know some word.

What can be extrapolated from the above selection of the respondents’ citations is that they are concerned about their skills and expertise. The fact that they may stumble across an unfamiliar lexical item, that they will not be able to hear the input and, generally speaking, they will not make a given interpreter-mediated communication act successful is prominent among those answers. This is, however, rather surprising given the fact that quite many of the respondents had to undergo the difficult testing procedure, during which their expertise and skills were positively verified. Another numerous collection of the respondents’ responses about the causes of their negative feelings includes the answers, in which the certified interpreters voice their reservations about the possibility of having prior access to some background knowledge of the future interpreting act, i.e. of its theme(s), its participants or the documents used. Those opinions usually focus on the fact that the respondents do not prepare for certified interpreting acts because they are not informed about the topic, the participants and other aspects which may not be important for other participants of the interpreting act but which are significant for the certified interpreters. Those opinions are provided in the next assortment of the quotes from the respondents’ responses.

Analysis of certified interpreters’ behavioural data

471



• English is not my mother tongue. Almost never do I know what the interpretation will be about. • I don’t know what I can expect, whether there will be some vocabulary I am unfamiliar with. It sometimes happens that I know only the subject matter of the proceedings and only in the courtroom do I get information about the details. The court does not give prior access to the documents which enable the interpreter to prepare for interpretation. • I never know whom I am to interpret – how that person speaks, how much that person understands. I often don’t know the nationality of that person. • Insufficient information about the topic of interpreting; awareness or knowledge that other less known topics can be raised, too. • Insufficient preparation. • Lack of the possibility of preparation. • No familiarity with the topic to be interpreted. No possibility of having a short time to become familiarised with the general course of the meeting. The client’s excessive demands which are not adjusted to external conditions. The transfer of dissatisfaction with the stressful situation onto the interpreter. • Unfamiliarity with the topic which will require interpreting, no possibility for 100% preparation. • Unfamiliarity with the topic. The bureaucracy of the process of the settlement with the institution.

The third category of the causes of the respondents’ negative feelings includes what is sometimes referred in the opinions as “the human factor”. In other words, the respondents feel that sometimes it is just other participants of the certified consecutive interpreting act that invoke those negative psycho-affective responses or contribute to their occurrence.

• Apprehension of the third parties’ negative assessment, suspecting the interpreter of having no competence. Fear of making an error, of interpreting imprecisely. • Court and the police – you never know what to expect. “The other party” in courts is often aggressive and claims that the interpreter interprets wrongly. • I am an introvert, and interpreting is a great effort for me. I’m stressed that for some reason I will not be able to do the job. I also have an unpleasant experience with interpretation in court (I was criticised by the judge for not wanting to interpret her statements word-for-word instead of summarising the sense for the lost foreigner). Generally, I try to avoid this kind of work as much as I can. I feel much better in translation. • I associate the negative feelings mostly with courts because of the high level of stress (of all people present), stringent requirements, within which I do not really feel confident (the flowery speeches of attorneys, the domain issues – legal issues, where you can stand, when you can speak). Sometimes there is audio- and videorecording of the interpreting performed at times totally with no preparation when the court refused access to the files. And, at the end, several months of waiting for very meagre remuneration.

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Case study 4



• I think that very much depends on the people with whom you cooperate, the work atmosphere and because they are people I  do not know, I  do not know what to expect of them. • It is true that I can prepare for the subject matter of the trial but it is not possible to prepare for interpreting a person who speaks nervously, unclearly or – to put it simply – knows the language at a low level. • Most often because of the awareness of my imperfections and little practice in interpreting as such and they also result from the previous unpleasant experiences with officials, notaries who at all cost want to show their superiority/importance. • Sometimes there is the unfamiliarity with the subject (the court/another party/ the client does not want to show the files or, peculiarly, insists on “confidentiality” without realising that the more I know, the more quickly and efficiently I will interpret). I would call it frustration caused by the client’s approach. Sometimes negative feelings arise from the client’s attitude who demonstrates it by saying “we all speak English and actually you are not needed here”, by cutting in with their knowledge or by correcting me (as illustrated by one case going on for a year in which I  interpret:  one of the plaintiffs is convinced of his linguistic knowledge to such an extent that he interrupts the judge, for which he has received many reprimands). • Stress – in courtroom interpreting – the topic is often difficult, especially in the economic division. One needs to be knowledgeable about the matter to interpret it well. Of great importance is also interpreting accuracy, the proper selection of words. It happens that the parties’ barristers pick at particular phrases, trying to force their versions and interpretations. Moreover, they also use this rather artificial language (“legalese”) and I have the impression that their aim is to make the matter maximally complicated. Generally, the judge usually speaks simply and clearly and the barrister – strangely, using such phrases as “Czy był Pan w przekonaniu…?” [Have you been in conviction…?’]. • Stress results from the character of insecurity concerning the behaviour of the people involved/the interested parties. • The apprehension of “the human factor” – no cooperation with the people testifying in the courtroom, atypical subject matter. • The suspicion of the aggressive attitude of one of the parties.

As results from the above collection of quotes, the respondents’ negative feelings are sometimes related to the imbalance of power, especially in the courtroom, manifesting itself in showing some kind of disrespect to the interpreter and his/ her work. What is more, the fact that for their services for courts, the police and other public institutions, the certified interpreters receive inappropriately small remuneration also contributes to their negative opinions. This is directly addressed in the respondents’ responses.

• I am stressed that people who often declare language skills de facto know it poorly and communication is difficult (I will not mention their knowledge of a specialised

Analysis of certified interpreters’ behavioural data



473

language). In addition, I do not like speaking in public, hence there are uncertainty and light stress. Moreover, in cooperation with state administration institutions, there is still the element of embarrassingly low remuneration rates, which causes considerable irritation. • The amount of interpreting rate per hour. • There are no negative feelings. Only before the interpretation for the bodies of the Judiciary, there is dissatisfaction due to low payment rates.

Other respondents enumerated additional causes of their negative feelings such as the issue of the certified interpreter’s reliability and responsibility or the time pressure related to, for instance, police or courtroom interpreting. The quotations below express those opinions. • Awareness of responsibility in relation to possible errors; it is not known what to expect of the client (e.g. the level of English) or of the hearing (e.g. specialised vocabulary). • Delays – I am afraid of a prolonged meeting due to other duties that I have planned for later. • The pressure of time and the awareness that, for example, leaving for the police station, on the desk I still have some translation in progress and suddenly there is an urgent and unexpected case at the police station (if I refuse to do so, this poor man will stay in jail/in the waiting room...) so everything must be put aside. • The responsibility for the reliability of the interpretation. • Whether I  will make it on time, whether the interpretation will be extended or whether the client will pay (if it is a new private client).

From the above selection of quotes emerges that the major causes of the certified interpreter’s negative feelings are those linked to the way they perceive themselves as interpreters, in particular, to their perceived insufficient expertise and skills, those linked to the limited possibility of prior preparation for interpreting in a given case as well as those linked to the institutional settings of certified consecutive interpreting. In this regard, quite many respondents mention the fact that cooperation with other participants of the interpreting act is not fruitful and that there is power imbalance, with them being given not due respect by other legal professionals or even the court trial parties. This power imbalance is also visible in the fact that the certified interpreters are denied access to the data which are important in the course of the trial.

8.3.2. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions about their subjective experience of anxiety The issue of the certified interpreters’ subjective experience of anxiety is particularly interesting especially considering the fact that in quite many different linguistic activities, there is some level of anxiety, understood as some reaction to the

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subjectively perceived anticipated threat in the form of, for instance, a negative event, experienced by, for instance, learners, trainee interpreters and, as is shown below, professional certified interpreters with many years of interpreting experience. Interestingly enough, the majority of the respondents speak about the debilitating type of anxiety which impedes their performance. The typology of anxiety which is followed in this subchapter is the one in which there are two basic types of this psycho-affective factor: archaic anxiety (i.e. related to the respondents’ past experiences) and existential anxiety (i.e. related to the respondents’ lives) which is further subdivided into acceptance anxiety (i.e. displayed by other people’s attitude to the interpreter and the interpreter’s perception of this attitude), orientation anxiety (i.e. related to the interpreter’s understanding of what is happening in a given certified interpreting act) and performance anxiety (i.e. manifesting itself in the interpreter’s approach to his/her expertise and skills). All of these types and subtypes are examined in this section. Generally speaking, the experience of anxiety has been reported by as many as 42 respondents (55%) whereas 34 of them (45%) claim that they do not experience this psycho-affective factor during the process of certified consecutive interpreting (Chart 20). “I experience anxiety”: 42 respondents (55%)

“I do not experience anxiety”: 34 respondents (45%)

Chart 20: The distribution of the respondents’ subjective experience of anxiety.

Interesting conclusions can be made on the basis of two correlative analyses of the data: the respondents’ gender and their experience of anxiety as well as the respondents’ frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting and their experience of anxiety. Chart 21 presents the former correlation and Chart 22 – the latter.

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21 women

“I do not experience anxiety”.

13 men

34 women

“I experience anxiety”.

0

10

8 men

20 30 40 The number of respondents

50

Chart 21: The subjective experience of anxiety among the female and male respondents.

It appears that as many as 62% of the female certified interpreters (34 female respondents) experience anxiety whereas only 62% of the male certified interpreters do not experience it. This result seems to confirm that the male respondents are – at least in theory – more open to new challenges which are not necessarily debilitating. The female respondents, on the other hand, are more likely to be influenced by their subjective feeling of anxiety. The frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting also conditions the occurrence of the respondents’ anxiety, as arises from Chart 22.

2

very often

4 7

often

12 16

rarely

7

17

very rarely 0

5

11 10

“I experience anxiety”.

15

20

25

30

“I do not experience anxiety”.

Chart 22: The subjective experience of anxiety among the respondents performing certified consecutive interpreting very often, often, rarely and very rarely.

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It is obvious that those certified interpreters who perform certified consecutive interpreting very often rarely experience anxiety, which can be explained by the fact that the experience of the psycho-affective factors which typically adversely influence interpreting performance may theoretically diminish along with the growing experience and frequency of providing such services. More than 63% of the respondents (twelve certified interpreters) who interpret consecutively often also claim not to experience anxiety whereas the remaining 37% do. This is somewhat surprising considering the above-mentioned statement that along with the growing experience (counted in the frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting) the experience of anxiety may decrease. What is also understandable is that those certified interpreters who do not have extensive experience in certified consecutive interpreting and therefore do it rarely or very rarely are most likely to feel anxiety during interpreting. Thus, anxiety which is subjectively experienced by the certified interpreters was more of inhibitory rather than facilitative nature. As above-mentioned, certified interpreters’ anxiety can be divided into two general categories – archaic anxiety and existential anxiety whereas the latter is further subdivided into acceptance anxiety, orientation anxiety and performance anxiety. The attitudinal and behavioural data obtained from the respondents clearly show that all types are present. The respondents’ archaic anxiety is strictly related to their previous experience, or lack thereof, and limited practice of certified consecutive interpreting. The following citations confirm it:



• Feeling unwell, for example when I had to interpret for 5 hours in the court immediately after the inflammation of the larynx, still weakened and coughing; sleep deprivation, tiredness – I had several situations that I would call “playing the interpreter” during negotiations (in private companies). • Gaps in experience in such services. • Lack of knowledge, inadequate practice, lack of sufficient skills.

As far as existential anxiety is concerned, the most commonly experienced type of anxiety is performance anxiety. The respondents’ performance anxiety is usually associated with their alleged gaps in knowledge (in particular of specialised terminology) improperly developed linguistic and interpreting skills, which means that the certified interpreters are concerned about their performance since, as they argue, they are expected, and they themselves expect themselves, to be almost infallible. The following quotes prove it: • As I mentioned before, expectations towards myself. I am convinced that professionalism is age-related and the older we are, the more professionalism should accompany our work. • Fear of missing a vocabulary or having an unknown topic to interpret. • Fear of the ignorance of the subject matter and therefore ignorance of terminology. • Lack of language equivalent. • Not knowing vocabulary, making mistakes, difficulties in understanding.

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• Predicting that there will be a sentence/vocabulary/phrase that I will not know and I will not be able to get out of it. • The fact that I do not know the exact professional term (but it happens rarely and takes a short time). • Too long source fragments to be interpreted.

What can additionally be stated is that the respondents who declare that they experience performance anxiety may be characterised by “the impostor syndrome” since they usually have excellent skills and, generally speaking, are competent certified interpreters who might sometimes think of themselves as not fully skilled and therefore they might be afraid that someone will identify those subjectively perceived deficiencies in their overall competence. Moreover, the certified interpreters also demonstrate that sometimes their low self-confidence, uncertainty or certain mental phenomena obstructing their cognitive abilities, like, for instance, inability to recall a word, inability to retrieve source information etc., are the causes of their subjectively experienced performance anxiety. Those aspects, as the respondents claim, may impede the quality of their performance. The collection of quotes provided below demonstrates this attitude.

• “Mental block”. • Difficulty with the memorisation of the whole statement. • Lack of faith in own abilities. • Uncertainty. • Uncertainty whether I will remember everything, whether I can keep up.

The second most common type of existential anxiety observed in the responses provided by the certified interpreters is orientation anxiety. The respondents stress that figuring out how to behave and interpret in a given contextual embedding, i.e. in institutional and situational contexts, leads to their subjective experience of anxiety. One of such causes is definitely both linguistic and non-linguistic behaviours of the individuals who also participate in the certified consecutive interpreting act. This is visible in the following quotes:

• A new situation, new people, a new accent (e.g. Nigerian English). • Creating a situation of being misunderstood or misunderstanding something. • It is sometimes contact with the criminal world. • Misleading the interlocutors, by misunderstanding the interlocutor, especially when he speaks quickly or with a strange accent or about the topic I am not really familiar with. • When I have the impression that the speakers will come to a topic I do not know, it was not planned and I did not prepare myself for it. • When interpreting during deliveries, I  start to feel the patient’s fear; if there are complications and we suddenly find ourselves together in the operating room. • When the person accused, convicted or interrogated is not always proficient, then maybe I will not understand him, maybe he will not understand me, and maybe it will have a significant impact on his future fate, or maybe I will meet him on the street.

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Finally, there is acceptance anxiety which, as the respondents claim, is related to whether they will be accepted or, perhaps, become embarrassed, negatively judged, criticised or ridiculed82. Below are the fragments which may corroborate the subjective experience of acceptance anxiety.

• Fear of a complete “failure” of my interpretation. • Fear of being suspected of having an insufficient level of competence. • Fear of criticism, fear of making a mistake, fear of a situation in which I will not know how to interpret. • Like in the case of feelings before interpreting: today, many people know English well enough to notice inaccuracies or mistakes in interpretation. • Ridicule, total “stumbling”. • The moment when I miss a word and I’m afraid of my negative assessment of my skills. • The possibility of making a fool of myself.

Interestingly enough, there are two statements in the respondents’ answers made by those certified interpreters who claim to experience no anxiety. They confirm that they either experience positive emotions (so certainly not anxiety) or no emotions during interpreting.

• During interpretation, I work in the “fight or flight” mode and I do not feel anything. Emotions come later. • There is no anxiety, I feel adrenaline – it is cool.

On the basis of the above discussion, it may be postulated that there are two reasons which may be held responsible for the respondents’ subjective experience of anxiety: their usually negative thinking about their knowledge and skills (i.e. they seem to underestimate their interpreting competence) and other participants of the interpreting act whose judgements, opinions or attitude may trigger off the certified interpreters’ anxiety. Another issue pertaining to the subjective experience of anxiety was related to what was called “the linguistic aspects of their certified consecutive interpreting” (i.e. linguistic exponents). To put it differently, the respondents were asked to enumerate (and comment on) those areas of their interpretation which become deficient because of their anxiety. What counts as those linguistic exponents concerns both the equivalence between the input and output, including gaps (i.e. omissions), as well as other more linguistic elements like grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation. As could be expected, the respondents’ subjective experience of anxiety oftentimes leads to several types of errors made in the course of one interpreting act. Chart 23 illustrates the proportions of errors.

82 This may also be classified as their negative evaluation anxiety, described in Chapter 3.

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Analysis of certified interpreters’ behavioural data no linguistic indicators: 11 responses (21%)

a variety of errors: 18 responses (34%)

grammatical errors: 1 response (2%) phonetic errors: 2 responses (4%)

omissions: 15 responses (29%) lexical errors: 5 responses (10%)

Chart 23: The distribution of the respondents’ linguistic exponents of anxiety.

Among 52 responses83 provided to this questionnaire items, there were eighteen (34%), in which the respondents enumerated more than one type of error they happen to make. Some comments, in which this becomes apparent, are worth citing. • Grammatical errors, despite a very good knowledge of grammar; lexical errors, rather no phonetic errors; lack of the use of the best equivalents. • I simplify so much that it hurts, sometimes I skip the content if it is not crucial; I use a very simple language; I synthesise; phonetic errors occur sporadically. • Most commonly – grammatical mistakes; repeatedly repeating the same content to ensure that it has been transferred. • Occasional omission of content, use of descriptive equivalents, sometimes errors in pronunciation (not always consistent use of British English and Americanisation of phonetics). • Omission of content or a possible change of content; suspension; grammatical errors may occur, and it has the greatest influence on pronunciation. • Sometimes I cannot remember a very simple word, e.g. a sofa. In addition: omission of content, grammatical errors, lexical errors, phonetic errors.

83 As the respondents did not have to answer such questions (i.e. answering such questions was not obligatory), the total number of the responses given may not equal the number of the respondents.

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Then, the responses include the mention of only one type of errors: fifteen responses (29%) refer to omission, five (10%) – to lexical errors, two (4%) – to phonetic errors and one (2%) – to grammatical errors. One quote about lexical errors is particularly interesting since it shows that anxiety also occurs in healthcare interpreting which, as might be assumed, what not in fact certified in this particular case because the birth-giving situations do not require the presence of a certified interpreter but rather of a community/public service interpreter. The interpreter, however, was a certified one. The quote goes as follows:

• My mind locks up and does not give me professional vocabulary, I just have to discuss it. For example, the doctor yells that he must use forceps, and I have shaking hands and a metaphorical hole in the head, so instead of telling the patient the word “forceps”, I have to describe the device to grip the child’s head and remove it from the birth canal.

Interestingly enough, as many as eleven responses (21%) refer to making no mistakes as their authors do not experience anxiety. The textual data present in the following quotations reveal that anxiety does not have to always impact on the certified interpreter’s performance because quite many respondents explicitly confirm the lack thereof. These quotes may support this view:

• Anxiety always disappears when the interpretation begins. • I do not feel anxiety, the problem for me is the inability to interrupt the speech of the interpreted person and therefore I forget some input elements or I sometimes distort that person’s lengthy utterances. • It seems to me that anxiety does not manifest itself. I do it forward and that’s it. Perhaps phonetically, sometimes, I speak with an accent. • Just the excessive use of fillers (“yyy”), pauses. Rather, I  do not notice mistakes as such. • This does not affect the language level.

As presented above, subjectively experienced anxiety can have its linguistic manifestations and, what is interesting, the certified interpreters report that this psycho-affective factor adversely affects more than one linguistic aspect of their renderings with omissions of some elements of the input message being the most frequent exponents. Thus, it might be concluded that anxiety can impact nearly all spheres of the linguistic dimension of certified consecutive interpreting. Since certified consecutive interpreting is also linked to the fact that the certified interpreter has to speak in public and since anxiety can also be demonstrated by some extra-linguistic aspects of the interpreter’s performance (i.e. perceived in kinesics, vocalics or physiological bodily reactions), the respondents were asked to provide information on how their subjective experience of anxiety can impact on their bodily reactions to this psycho-affective factor. The certified interpreters could provide their own answers but, as it seems, most of them used the suggested options – shaking, sweating, increased heart rate, increased pulse, body tension, increased gesticulation. This time, 53 responses were given. Before the analysis

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of those responses, it should be remarked that the observations of those extralinguistic exponents resulting from the experience of anxiety are based on the certified interpreters’ observations and not on the empirical studies, in which the occurrence of those exponents would be measured. Thus, the data, while qualitatively interesting, should not be regarded as quantitatively reliable. Chart 24 clearly demonstrated that more than 50% of the respondents declare that their experience of anxiety is manifested by several exponents. Actually, it might be stated that even though the certified interpreters mention in their responses that several such symptoms occur, it does not have to be always so since certified consecutive interpreting acts may induce different levels of anxiety and thus different exponents. Among the most common sets of exponents are:

shallow breating: 1 response (2%)

dry throat: 1 response (2%)

sweating: 5 responses (9%)

body tension: 7 responses (13%)

accelerated pulse: 1 response (2%) accelerated heartbeat: 1 response (2%)

no exponents: 6 responses (11%) stammering: 1 response (2%)

increased gesticulation: 1 response (2%)

hot flush: 2 responses (4%)

a variety of exponents: 27 responses (51%)

Chart 24: The distribution of the respondents’ extra-linguistic exponents of anxiety. • Accelerated heartbeat, accelerated pulse, body tension, sweating hands, general nervousness. • Body tension, accelerated heartbeat, immobility, stiffening of facial muscles, which leads to an increased effort to articulate sounds correctly. • Body tension, accelerated pulse. • Body tension, irritability. • In the somatic dimension: excessive sweating, dry mouth, sometimes hoarseness, tense posture. • Nervous tics, accelerated heartbeat, dry mouth, body tension. • Shaking hands, sweating, increased gestures. • Stuttering, shaking, sweating.

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• Trembling voice, body tension.

As far as the exponents of anxiety occurring individually, body tension is reported by seven respondents (13%), sweating by five (9%), hot flush by two (4%) and shallow breathing, dry throat, accelerated pulse, accelerated heartbeat and increased gesticulation each by one respondent (2%). Curiously enough, there are also six responses (11%), in which the certified interpreters claim that they do not observe any symptoms of anxiety because, as they responded before, they do not experience this psycho-affective factor. From the quotes below it appears that those respondents do not observe any particular extra-linguistic exponents of anxiety.

• Anxiety does not manifest itself. • Generally, I do not experience anything like that, I keep my hands on the table – sometimes I notice raising my voice – especially when I want to keep up with the interlocutor, and he is already in the next sentence. Then I clearly feel that the lower timbre of my voice has entered a higher tone but this is probably an unconscious passive reaction.

One person’s response is about the fact that the feeling of anxiety in fact mobilises that respondent, which leads to more focus.

• Greater focus and concentration, as if the outside world ceased to exist.

What can be concluded on the basis of all the data discussed in this section is that anxiety is a psycho-affective factor that rather strongly affects the certified interpreters’ performance, leading  – in most cases  – to different types of errors and bodily reactions. Thus, it is externally manifested not only in the decreased linguistic quality of the output but also in a variety of extra-linguistic exponents such as sweating, accelerated heartbeat and pulse, body tension or stammering. However, those data, because of their qualitative nature, should be understood as representing the respondents’ opinions concerning their subjectively experienced anxiety and not as the ones derived from the linguistic error analysis of the target texts or from the physiological examinations of the certified interpreters’ bodies and their reactions. Such studies would definitely contribute much to the understanding of what really happens when the certified interpreter experiences anxiety as well as of whether the interpreter’s subjective experience is corroborated by the objective data coming from physiological tests of bodily reactions. However, because of the qualitative character of this study and reliance on the subjective certified interpreter-provided data, no far-reaching conclusions about the objectively manifested exponents of the experience of anxiety during the process of certified consecutive interpreting are made.

8.3.3. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions about their subjective experience of fear Another psycho-affective factor which the respondents were asked to provide their opinions about is fear. Fear, as demonstrated in Chapter 3, often accompanies

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483

anxiety in a variety of lists of basic emotions and, moreover, it is often used as a point of reference for explaining the phenomenon of anxiety. This is so since many researchers claim that both fear and anxiety can have similar manifestations and what differs them is the nature of the threat. As above-mentioned, in the case of anxiety, the stimulus is perceived as a threat and this is a given person’s subjective opinion since there is usually no objectively threatening stimulus while fear is typically invoked by the real danger, existing objectively. To put it differently, while one stimulus may be seen as a peril by some people, others do not have to share the same opinion about it and thus what is triggered by those seeing it as a danger is anxiety since this is their subjective feeling. Fear, on the other hand, is usually viewed as such because there are some objective reasons to do so. Moreover, anxiety is future-oriented and may occur before the stimulus (i.e. it is “a prestimulus” psycho-affective factor) whereas fear usually occurs after the stimulus (i.e. it is a poststimulus psycho-affective factor). Given the above, it should be expected that the certified interpreters do not experience fear since they do not work in the conditions, in which there is the objectively existing imminent danger. Indeed, the results confirm that this is not a very common psycho-affective factor experienced by the respondents for only twenty of them (26%) report it. The remaining 56 certified interpreters (74%) do not experience fear in their professional practice (Chart 25). “I do not experience fear”: 56 respondents (74%)

“I experience fear”: 20 respondents (26%)

Chart 25: The distribution of the respondents’ subjective experience of fear.

In the correlative analysis of the respondents’ gender and their experience of fear (or lack thereof), it appears that among the twenty respondents who experience fear, there are seventeen female certified interpreters and two male female interpreters. Considering the gender distribution, 31% of the female respondents report the experience of fear with only 17% of the male certified interpreters doing

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so. This may be, at least partially, accounted for by the fact that women are claimed to be more emotional and, perhaps, more sensitive to the threatening stimulus. Chart 26 illustrates this correlation.

“I do not experience fear”.

38 women

“I experience fear”.

17 women

0

10

18 men

3 men

20

30

40

50

60

The number of respondents

Chart 26: The subjective experience of fear among the female and male respondents.

Other interesting findings emerge from the correlation between the subjective experience of fear and the respondents’ frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting. As might be expected, the higher the frequency of interpreting consecutively, the less frequent the experience of fear is. Those certified interpreters who perform this service very often (six respondents) and often (nineteen respondents) experience fear more seldom (i.e. one respondent performing certified consecutive interpreting very often (17%) and four respondents doing it often (21%)) while those who do not have much experience in certified consecutive interpreting, demonstrated by their frequency of providing such services, are more prone to the experience of fear. This concerns in particular eight respondents (35%) who do it rarely as compared to seven certified interpreters (25%) performing certified consecutive interpreting very rarely. Obviously, it remains to be seen whether those who experience fear indeed feel it and whether the stimulus is objectively dangerous. Chart 27 (see below) illustrates those relations. The responses provided by the certified interpreters to this questionnaire item reveal the causes of fear. However, before the presentation of what the respondents wrote, it is essential to point to the fact that each question about a particular psycho-affective factor, including that about fear, was accompanied with a brief definition since, otherwise, the respondents might not really be able to distinguish between, for instance, anxiety and fear. It might be therefore claimed that this

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5

1

very often

4

often

15 15

8

rarely

21

7

very rarely 0

5

10

“I experience fear”.

15

20

25

30

“I do not experience fear”.

Chart 27: The subjective experience of fear among the respondents performing certified consecutive interpreting very often, often, rarely and very rarely.

definition helped them identify this psycho-affective factor and its influence on their professional practice. In the statistical part, it was indicated that relatively quite many respondents reported no experience of fear. However, those who did pinpointed the reasons for this. The major cause of the certified interpreters’ experience of fear was related to the presence of other interpreting act participants and the way they behaved. Thus, among the fear-invoking agents are mostly aggressive participants of the consecutive interpreting act. However, one respondent referred to a life-threatening situations in the operating room. The following citations corroborate this view: • A very aggressive attitude of a suspect who was suspected of serious crimes. • Abnormal behaviour of the participants of the trial. It has happened to me twice during my work. When interpreting criminals in the prosecutor’s office; when interpreting an accused schizophrenic woman, with whom I was left alone “for a moment” by the police; and maybe when interpreting another arrested man with whom I  had to stay in custody. Quite often  – I  say it based on my experience  – interpreters are treated as the foreigner’s babysitter and the fact that he is a criminal does not matter especially when – during the hearing – we have to provide the details concerning the interpreter’s residence address. • Aggression of the “other party” in the courtroom. • Contact with criminals; a prolonged interpretation interfering with other plans. • Once I happened to perform interpreting in the criminal case in which I was afraid of the accused and sat next to him (interpreting him) for a long time. Besides this event, I have not experienced fear. Maybe sometimes in the operating room (in the obstetrics ward) I’m afraid of whether the child will survive. • Two cases of fear are as follows:  a Swede was stopped by border guards while smuggling (he was intensively waving his arms and violating my personal space)

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In all other responses what becomes evident is that the respondents’ fear is not actually fear but some kind of anxiety since they are concerned with whether they will manage to understand or memorise the content of the input or whether they will know some general lexical items or terminology items. This implies that they experience anxiety and not fear. The following quotes demonstrate this:

• Encounters with vocabulary about which I feel insecure. • I am always afraid of interpreting; that I will not know something, that I will not remember what was said to me. • I’m afraid that I will not understand something or remember it. • Speaking in front of the audience, the inability to render some concepts, ignorance of terminology, subject, general vocabulary.

What is more, the respondents mentioned the other parties’ judgment of their interpretation and the resulting uneasiness. This explicitly shows that this is not an instance of the experience of fear because there is no real danger. The following quotes prove it: • Expectations with regard to myself. Fear that there will be someone in the room who will notice all those shortcomings if there are such. • The criticism of my skills.

Two quotations are particularly interesting since they show that some respondents clearly realised that what certified interpreters may experience is rarely fear because of no imminent and objectively perceived danger.

• Fear is too strong a term. I would call it “uneasiness” – anxiety that, in a moment, the registrar in the Registry Office may come up with some flowery poetry while conducting the wedding ceremony, which may surprise me. • It seems to me that I experience anxiety more, that is, a reaction to an imagined threat than a real one, because the actual threat rarely happens. In fact, what is the real threat during the interpretation?

Summing up the causes of fear subjectively experienced by the certified interpreters, it might be stated that there is actually one reason  – the aggressive, abnormal behaviour of other participants of the interpreting act since those participants may themselves be associated with invoking fear because of their roles of criminals, the accused or suspects in the court proceedings or at the police station. Since not many respondents admitted to the experience of fear, there are relatively few linguistic exponents of this psycho-affective factor. Apart from the most common answer that there are no linguistic exponents of the experience of fear because there is no experience of fear (eight responses out of totally 24 responses

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Analysis of certified interpreters’ behavioural data

given to this question (33.5%)), those who experience some levels of fear speak about omissions (eight responses (33.5%), phonetic errors (two responses  – 8%) grammatical errors (one response – 4%) and a variety of errors (five responses – 21%). The data are presented in Chart 28. no linguistic exponents: 11 responses (21%)

a variety of errors: 18 responses (34%)

grammatical errors: 1 response (2%) phonetic errors: 2 responses (4%)

lexical errors: 5 responses (10%)

omissions: 15 responses (29%)

Chart 28: The distribution of the respondents’ linguistic exponents of fear.

The respondents made some interesting observations concerning their errors. For example, they sometimes skip some information of the input. They write:



• At a wedding ceremony, because this is the most frequent type of interpreting services I provide, I sometimes simplify and/or paraphrase poetry fragments if there is poetry. • I get jammed, I ask to repeat, I skip the content. • I present the content briefly. • I shorten the original speech.

Some certified interpreters also mention a variety of errors which occur during certified interpreting. However, they are able to rectify the errors or those errors do not intensify their negative feelings. Two quotes show this.



• I completely do not care about errors – when omitting the content, I ask for repetition, I correct the error I notice, I do not go back to unconscious mistakes, and no individual present in the dynamics of, for example, a hearing or interrogation, looks at such trivialities. • I make errors in grammar and phonetics, but I try to and I do overcome them with maximum focus, not paying attention to the audience – other people.

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As far as the extra-linguistic manifestations of the experience of fear are concerned, again, the respondents did not provide many responses for the certified interpreters are not typically affected by this psycho-affective factor. Out of 25 responses, in ten of them (40%), the certified interpreters mentioned no extra-linguistic exponents. Then, in six responses (24%) there were a variety of linguistic exponents, some of which relied on the options given in the questionnaire as potential extra-linguistic exponents. Body tension was mentioned in four responses (16%) whereas others  – sweating, dry throat, increased gesticulation, accelerated heartbeat and accelerated pulse – wee mentioned once (1%). Chart 29 represents the distribution of the fear-induced extra-linguistic exponents.

sweating: 1 response (4%)

no indicators: 10 responses (40%)

increased gesticulation: 1 response (4%)

dry throat: 1 response (4%)

body tension: 4 responses (16%)

accelerated pulse: 1 response (4%)

accelerated heartbeat: 1 response (4%) a variety of indicators: 6 responses (24%)

Chart 29: The distribution of the respondents’ extra-linguistic exponents of fear.

In conclusion, it may be stated that the interpretation of the data provided by the certified interpreters has brought some evidence to support the claim that fear is not a particularly strong psycho-affective factor impeding their work since rather relatively few respondents reported the experience of fear. On the contrary, its influence is rather marginal. However, those respondents who mentioned this psycho-affective factor pointed to other participants of the certified consecutive act as the agents triggering the feeling of fear. In most cases, they were deemed to be aggressive and therefore the certified interpreters identified them as real threats. In this place, it should be repeated that the data about both the respondents’ linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents of their experience of the psycho-affective factors are subjective and cannot be considered objective since it was not possible to carry out the error analysis of the respondents’ performance in various institutional settings in which they work or to examine the physiology of their bodily reactions during the experience of fear. However, the data, as is believed, have

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already cast some light on the way, in which the certified interpreters’ subjective experience of both anxiety and fear (and other factors, as is shown in the further parts of this study) is manifested linguistically (i.e. by the quality of their outputs) and extra-linguistically (i.e. by the quality of their performance).

8.3.4. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions about their subjective experience of language inhibition, language ego and language boundaries The fact that the certified interpreters participating in the study experience different levels of language inhibition resulting from their sometimes fragile language ego and rather firm language boundaries has already been identified in the discussion of their subjective experience of anxiety since what triggered the respondents’ anxiety was quite often related to their language skills. Thus, language inhibition is certainly a psycho-affective factor which affects the interpreters’ performance, which is reflected in the number of the respondents who admit to the experience of this factor. As many as 52 of them (68%) confirm that they indeed experience it while 24 of the certified interpreters (32%) claim that they do not experience language inhibition. Chart 30 illustrates the distribution of the experience of language inhibition. “I do not experience language inhibition”: 24 respondents (32%)

“I experience language inhibition”: 52 respondents (68%)

Chart 30: The distribution of the respondents’ subjective experience of language inhibition.

As far as the correlation between the respondents’ experience of language inhibition and their gender is concerned (Chart 31), what is prominent is that there is a definitely larger number of the female certified interpreters who report their subjective experience of language inhibition and the related phenomena, i.e. weaker

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language ego and firmer language boundaries. As many as 41 female respondents (75%) experience this psycho-affective factor. On the other hand, from among 21 male certified interpreters, eleven of them (52%) also admit to experiencing this aspect of their psycho-affectivity. Given those numbers, it is already justified to postulate that this is a strongly experienced psycho-affective factor which certainly conditions the certified interpreters’ work.

14 women 10 men

“I do not experience language inhibition”.

41 women

“I experience language inhibition”.

0

10

11 men

20 30 40 50 The number of respondents

60

Chart 31: The subjective experience of language inhibition among the female and male respondents.

One more correlation which is interesting is the one between the subjective experience of language inhibition and the frequency of providing certified consecutive interpreting services. Chart 32 (see below) clearly shows that the experience of language inhibition is less intense when the frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting increases. In other words, the more frequently the respondents interpret consecutively in certification-requiring contexts, the weaker their experience of language ego and, by extension, the stronger their language ego is and the less firm their language boundaries are. The number of those certified interpreters who perform certified consecutive interpretation very often and often is smaller, which may indicate that those respondents are visibly less affected by their language inhibition (i.e. they report that they do not experience it) whereas those who perform it rarely are very much inhibited by their language ego and boundaries (eighteen respondents (78%) out of 23 reporting it) and those who do it very rarely experience even greater levels of this psycho-affective factor (25 respondents (89%) out of 28 admitting to this experience). Generally speaking, this correlation once more highlights the commonly observed fact: the more practice in certified consecutive interpreting the respondents have, the less intense their experience of a given psycho-affective factor is.

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2

very often

often

4

7

12

18

rarely

5

25

very rarely 0

5

10

“I experience language inhibition”.

3

15

20

25

30

“I do not experience language inhibition”.

Chart 32: The subjective experience of language inhibition among the respondents performing certified consecutive interpreting very often, often, rarely and very rarely.

The high level of the subjective experience of language inhibition is also identified in the respondents’ responses related to the causes of this phenomenon, its linguistic manifestations and its extra-linguistic, i.e. bodily, exponents. As regards the reasons for which the certified interpreters experience language inhibition resulting from their weak language ego and rather impermeable language boundaries, there are several of them. The most prominent is the certified interpreters’ awareness of the imperfection of their language competence, which leads to little linguistic risk-taking because any mistake may be considered a threat to those respondents’ insufficiently strong language ego. Moreover, some interpreters compare themselves to English native speakers in terms of their language skills and view themselves as less proficient in language use. The following excerpts seem to confirm this view:

• Awareness of imperfections. • Awareness of interpreting and linguistic deficiencies, little experience. • Awareness of my own imperfection. • Fear of potential errors. • The natural constrains resulting from the fact that I am not a native speaker.

What is more, some respondents explicitly admit that their language inhibition results from insufficient or little experience in certified consecutive interpreting or from having limited time resources for self-development, learning and practice. The following quotes illustrate the above statement:

• Deficiencies in preparation. • Insufficient amount of time for training due to overwork.

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• Lack of experience in interpreting; I interpret actually in one domain only – in the medical domain. • No time to refine the skills.

Curiously enough, there are quite many responses, in which the respondents refer to their knowledge of vocabulary and this concerns both feeling insecure as regards the selection of particular specialised lexical items and feeling uncertain about the correctness of a particular word, especially the one that belongs to some specialised domain, as well as not knowing the word. A selection of quotes can be illustrative of the respondents’ weak language ego in terms of their lexical resources.

• Awareness of gaps in my specialist language knowledge, awareness of the incomplete understanding of concepts and processes behind this vocabulary. • Awareness of lack of the knowledge of vocabulary. • Lack of certainty as to the use of an appropriate language construction, the peculiarity of the jargon used in the interpretation. • Lacks in vocabulary. • No familiarity with the word to be interpreted. • No terminology. • Uncertainty as to the choice of the correct words. • Uncertainty as to the correctness of a word, phrase or collocation.

Another reason for the respondents’ subjectively experienced weak language ego, firmer language boundaries and the resultant inhibition is the limited or little knowledge of the topics which a given instance of interpretation concerns. This is obviously directly linked to the lexical competence, i.e. having the knowledge of the lexical resources which are used in a particular thematic domain. The quotes below refer to those issues.

• A different subject matter of the interpretation from the one previously announced, no preparation before ad hoc interpreting. • Digressing on the topics belonging to the areas in which I  do not specialise, for instance, in the description of accident injuries during a court trial. • If I were commissioned to interpret outside of my specialisation. • If the subject of the interpretation has not been precisely defined. • Insufficient knowledge of a given area, too high rate or length of speech. • Insufficient knowledge of the subject. • Lack of good knowledge of the subject and related vocabulary. I also know that my hearing is worse than it used to be. • Lack of knowledge, the very nature of consecutive interpreting. • Unfamiliarity with the subject or the nature of the interpreting situation.

Some respondents also linked their weakened language ego and intensified inhibition with the presence of other people, mostly of the native speakers of the target language whose negative judgment of the interpreter may be thought of as undermining the certified interpreter’s skills and thus negatively affecting his/her

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language ego. Another cause connected to the aforementioned one is the uncertainty about whether the party for whom the consecutive interpreting service is rendered understands the output. The following fragments illustrate this assumption:

• Behaviour of the participants of the trial. • I am not sure if I understand correctly what the person for whom the interpreting is being performed has to do, especially if English is not that person’s native language. • Usually if an educated native language user participates in the trial. He is always better. • When a native English person tries to show that the certified translator does not understand the slang word used in his village in County X and shows in the courtroom that, for example, the funeral reception is known as “wEEght” etc.

The other two reasons are associated with the certified interpreters’ cognitive skills and other psycho-affective factors. There are four responses, in which the respondents claim that their language inhibition results from memory and retrieval problems.



• Awareness that, for example, I have a given expression in my general memory store, but I cannot access it without disturbing the fluidity of my work, the retrieval of the given wording occurs then within a few consecutive minutes/hours/days. • Difficulties in recalling vocabulary. • Problems with memory. • Some moment of a mental block – a fraction of a second of mental mist.

Besides, there were a few respondents who saw the reason for their weak language ego and high inhibition in other psycho-affective factors such as low self-esteem or the experience of stress. This would confirm the previously postulated assumption that the interpreter’s psycho-affective factors can be interrelated and one may condition the other. The quotes below show the respondents’ opinions on this issue.

• Insecurity. • Lack of confidence. • Low self-esteem, perfectionism, negative assessment of the third parties. • Stress, unpleasant atmosphere. • The awareness of my deficiencies. Stress triggers some block and the feeling of emptiness. No automation.

Those respondents who claimed that they do not experience language inhibition provided interesting data, as well. They seem not to experience this psychoaffective factor not because they are so confident of their perfect skills and expertise but because they realise that making mistakes, especially during interpreting which is a complex and dynamically changing communicative act, is not a threat to their language ego since they are not the native speakers of the target language or they believe that anything can be interpreted in one way or another. The following citations confirm this approach:

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• I always go the whole way – there is no content that cannot be passed “in other words”. • I am not a native speaker, so I make mistakes. • Now I do not experience it. I stopped worrying that my English is less than perfect.

The above collections of the respondents’ quotes confirm that they indeed experience some levels of language inhibition resulting from their fragile language ego and firm language boundaries. In most cases, as is evident from the above quoted responses, the respondents’ subjective experience of this psycho-affective factor is linked to their thinking about their skills, knowledge and expertise which, as they claim, need further practice and refinement. On the other hand, the certified interpreters may subjectively experience language inhibition for they know that knowing a language at a native-like level is a skill whose complete and full mastery is perhaps never attainable and the learning of which is a life-long continuous process which is never completed. In this, as might be argued, they may show some kind of respect for native-like language competence and performance. Another question which the respondents were asked to provide their answers to concerns the linguistic exponents of their subjectively experienced language inhibition, subjectively viewed language ego and language boundaries. Since the responses are so varied (there are 52 responses), the linguistic exponents are organised into six very broad categories which should be treated only as some kind of approximation as the real image of the linguistic manifestations of the subjective experience of language inhibition is far more complex. Chart 33 presents the language inhibition-induced linguistic exponents.

omissions: 11 responses (21%)

no linguistic exponents: 5 responses (9%)

fluency problems: 2 responses (4%)

use of less advanced language: 26 responses (50%) incomprehension: 4 responses (8%)

explicitations: 4 responses (8%)

Chart 33: The distribution of the respondents’ linguistic exponents of their language ego.

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As emerges from Chart 33, in 26 responses (50%), the certified interpreters reported the use of less advanced language structures. What this suggests is that in order to avoid mistakes, they tend not to take the linguistic risk in using the grammatical and lexical structures as well as the pronunciation patterns and resort to using the less advanced language, of whose correctness they are certain. Such language simplification and taking no linguistic risk result from the respondents’ awareness of their imperfect language competence and performance as well from the awareness of the fact that any error in certified consecutive interpreting, especially in the courtroom or at the police station, can have serious consequences. The following quotes excerpted from the respondents’ answers cast some light on the issue of using the less complex language structures:

• Avoiding uncertain expressions, using incorrect phrases. • Avoiding wording, structures or words that I have doubts about. • I do not risk making a mistake, I use simpler wording, especially in the courtroom, where the interpreter’s mistake can have huge consequences. • I do not use some structures (e.g. the 3rd conditional, advanced reported speech structures) and I avoid certain expressions, which I am not sure of at a given time. • Not using certain expressions/structures; omitting certain topics, speaking descriptively to avoid structures that I am not sure of. • Not using words whose pronunciation I am not sure about. • Simplicity of language. • Simplification, lowering the register, awareness of deficits. • Simplifications in interpreting. Longer pauses. • Taking no risk in the use of structures/expressions, the correctness of which I am not sure, awareness of insufficient vocabulary. • Taking no risk; using, instead, descriptive translation strategies. • Uncertainty as to correctness; awareness of my shortcomings, e.g. lexical shortcomings (especially in the case of professional terminology). • Using easier words and structures.

One respondent was more explicit about using the less complex language in the courtroom. As is generally known, legal English is characterised by a panoply of atypical lexical and grammatical structures which are not used in everyday English and therefore, to laymen, they seem unclear and incomprehensible, making legal communication a difficult task. The respondent wrote: • I try not to use phrases typical of written English of, for instance, contracts (i.e. “herein”, “hereinafter”) in consecutive interpreting, because clients do not understand them. If I am not sure of a certain term, I give a few options and watch the client’s reaction (until he nods to let me know he understands). As for the sounds, lately I had a problem with the pronunciation of the word “calm” – the client pronounced it differently. I had the impression that he did not quite understand me, I  gave some synonyms, but in the end she simply had to accept that I  was pronouncing it differently.

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Then, because of their weak language ego, several certified interpreters stated that they do use the omission strategy so the linguistic exponent of their subjective experience of language ego is just omission. However, in the majority of cases, such omissions are directly linked to the use of less complex vocabulary. In such cases, the respondents paraphrase the input fragments, sometimes eliminating the less important information.

• Omission of advanced vocabulary. • Omission of content. • Omitting some expressions, using colloquialisms, possibly describing the meaning of the term instead of translating it. • Omitting the content, but more often translating it and replacing the word with another synonym or paraphrasing a fragment of the statement. • Omitting the less important content. • Skipping the vocabulary, which causes uncertainty as to its use.

Instead of omitting, some respondents demonstrated a preference for using the explicitation strategy, which means that in the output, they provide additional explanations of the elements of the input. This makes the output slightly longer but the meaning is retained. The following quotes illustrate this tendency:

• Expressing the same content in a different way, using other words, or using words or phrases, realising consciously that they contain phonetic or grammatical errors. • The use of circumlocutions, synonyms; the appearance of pauses, the replacement of specialist vocabulary with colloquial words. • When I do not know what slang word is expected by a given Briton in the courtroom, I replace it with a longer, descriptive translation.

The subjective experience of language ego and the resulting language inhibition is also manifested by the respondents in the fact that they do not always understand correctly a given input fragment, or are unsure as to its meaning, and they ask the certified consecutive interpreting act participants to repeat or clarify it. One respondent additionally stated that in such cases, he/she finds the word he/ she does not understand or not remember in a dictionary during the break, for which he/she asks when tired. The following quotes present some of the answers:

• If I do not understand a term, I ask the lawyer/judge for clarification and there is always a way out. • It happens that I ask the speaker for confirmation that I understood the statement correctly. • Rarely, but I happen to forget the equivalent of a word that I have to interpret – I use a dictionary then and sometimes I ask for a small break, because I see that I am tired. • There is a need to inquire about a given input fragment and reconstruct the interpreted content again.

What is interesting, weak language ego, firmer language boundaries and greater language inhibition are claimed to be manifested most prominently in

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pronunciation. Among the respondents, there were only two responses which addressed the issue of pronunciation and general fluency of output delivery. However, in those two cases, inhibition does not seem to stem from the real problems with pronunciation but from other reasons affecting fluency – from the need to inquire about some information and from some restriction, unspecified by the respondent at greater length. The responses are as follows:

• Lack of fluency of speech resulting from the need to ask participants of the meeting about the content. • Lack of freedom and fluency, fear of using the idiom.

Several responses concerning the causes of potential language inhibition are additionally interesting as they point to the fact that language inhibition in fact does not occur and when there is some problem, the respondents have developed some tactics to deal with it. The following responses are a good case in point:



• I usually risk a mistake. In the case of certified interpreting, the transfer of content is crucial, even if I make a language mistake. • Looking at the list of examples, the only thing I can choose is the awareness of my shortcomings. As a certified translator/interpreter, I do not allow myself to accept an order in which I would have to omit the content during the interpretation. I only work in the area of my ​​ specialisation. In addition, it seems to me that not using certain structures/phrases/sounds and not taking risks in using certain structures/ phrases/sounds should not occur outside the stage of preparation for interpretation. • Sometimes lack of vocabulary, but usually greater diligence and linguistic tidiness.

All in all, quite many certified interpreters participating in the study experience language ego-related problems which manifest themselves in output quality, especially as regards its linguistic correctness and equivalence. However, the respondents who were asked about their subjective experience of this psychoaffective factor rarely mention pronunciation or – more generally – voice quality – as this aspect of their performance which is under the biggest negative influence of their language ego. Pronunciation is often regarded as the most salient exponent of high language inhibition, weak language ego and firm language boundaries. Perhaps, some more studies involving the observation of the linguistic data generated by the sample in the form of the outputs could cast more light on the real nature of this psycho-affective factor and its impact on the certified interpreters’ performance. The respondents’ weak language ego and the resulting language inhibition can also manifest themselves in extra-linguistic exponents which  – in the case of certified consecutive interpreting – may be equally important conditions contributing to the success of the interpreter-mediated communicative event or to its failure. It seems that the respondents’ extra-linguistic behaviours greatly overlap with the exponents resulting from the subjective experience of other psycho-affective factors, most notably of anxiety and, as is argued below, of stress. Interestingly enough, there was one answer whose author clearly stated that that

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person’s language inhibition results in stress, which again may prove that there are interrelations between the psycho-affective factors, in which one conditions the other. The following collection of the respondents’ quotes illustrates this point of view:

• I do no classify the reactions of my body in terms of whether they are due to anxiety or inhibition. • I think the answer is the same as the one I gave in the anxiety section since anxiety results from a certain self-image, including the self-awareness of one’s imperfection. • Language inhibition is visible in my stress. • Like in the case of anxiety and fear.

Chart 34 presents the distribution of the extra-linguistic exponents of the subjective experience of language inhibition resulting from language ego and language boundaries and – like in anxiety – in quite many responses (nineteen out of 48 – 40%) the respondents identify at least two extra-linguistic manifestations of their experience of this psycho-affective factor.

accelerated heartbeat: 3 responses (6%)

increased gesticulation: 4 responses (8.5%)

a variety of exponents: 19 responses (40%)

accelerated pulse: 1 response (2%) body tension: 3 responses (6%) mandible stiffness: 1 response (2%) blush: 1 response (2%)

no exponents: 10 responses (21%) slower speech pace: 1 response (2%)

dry throat: 1 response (2%)

sweating: 4 responses (8.5%)

Chart 34: The distribution of the respondents’ extra-linguistic exponents of their language ego.

The most common exponents, which go together, are body tension, sweating, accelerated heartbeat, intensified use of gestures and shiver. The following quotes confirm this:

• Accelerated heart rhythm, body tension, dry mouth. • Accelerated heartbeat and gestures.

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• Accelerated heartbeat, accelerated pulse, body tension. • Increased gesticulation, trembling of the voice. • Pulse, speaking faster. • Shaking hands and sweating. • Sweating, accelerated heart rhythm, pulse, body tension. • Sweating, body tension, accelerated pulse. • Tension of the body, sometimes the impression that I do not hear well.

In ten responses (21%), the respondents claim that, because they do not experience any language ego-related problems, they do not observe any extra-linguistic exponents. They claim, for instance, that:

• I do not have those symptoms. • Rather none after all these years. • They [the extra-linguistic exponents] do not manifest themselves too much. • This is not a stressful situation for me. I warn clients that I am not an expert in the field and if in doubt, I will ask questions to verify my understanding of the topic.

The increased use of gesticulation and increased sweating as the only extralinguistic exponents of the experience of language inhibition were both identified in four responses (8.5%). However, especially in the case of sweating, this might have been caused equally well by the subjective experience of other psychoaffective factors, of which stress seems to be the one that is associated with this bodily reaction most. Accelerated heartbeat and body tension were each mentioned in three responses (6%). Other extra-linguistic exponents were each referred to in one response. Of interest is the fact that one respondent noticed his/her mandible stiffness which, perhaps, could affect speech production and that one certified interpreter’s delivery rate was slower because of the subjective experience of language inhibition. On the whole, it might be concluded that language inhibition which is the result of weak language ego and firm language boundaries is a strong psycho-affective factor which the certified interpreters experience during certified consecutive interpreting. However, this is somewhat surprising that it rarely manifests itself in pronunciation problems since this area of linguistic performance is claimed to be more sensitive to language inhibition. The certified interpreters’ weaker language ego usually results from the fact that they are aware of their linguistic deficiencies and they demonstrate some wariness of using those less internalised grammatical structures or lexical expressions for such errors may be regarded as threats to their language ego. What is more, the fact that the certified interpreters might have developed rather weak and unstable language ego may be linked to the fact that being the linguistic professionals of the highest rank, they do not want to be negatively judged on the basis of any errors they may make although they fully realise that language competence does not always have to be externalised by language performance, i.e. that although they may know well how to use a foreign language, they may happen to make mistakes. What

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certainly contributes to the higher number of various errors is just the activity of interpreting itself. In addition, the institutional contexts, the interpreting act participants or the theme of the certified consecutive interpretation can intensify the negative experience of the psycho-affective factors, including language inhibition which, in turn, may be manifested in the use of simplified language, i.e. taking no risk in the linguistic patterns which are not fully mastered yet. This all leads to the conclusion that language inhibition is a consequence of weaker language ego and firmer language boundaries and that it is indeed one of the strongest subjectively experienced psycho-affective factors impeding the certified interpreters’ work.

8.3.5. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions about their subjective experience of the impact of extroversion/introversion As has been presented in Chapter 3, extroversion and introversion are two personality dimensions occupying two extremes on the personality continuum. It has also been stated that there is the third more general dimension – ambiversion – which combines the features of the remaining two. Obviously, it might be anticipated that because of the public character of the certified interpreter profession and the need to appear and speak publicly before different types of authorities, the respondents would be more extrovert than introvert. Some research (e.g. Schweda-Nicholson 2005), however, showed that this does not have to be the case since both extroverts and introverts can be equally good at interpreting. It turns out that the majority of the respondents – as many as 58 of them (76%) – notice the impact of their personality dimension on their certified consecutive interpreting whereas eighteen certified interpreters (24%) do not observe such an influence. Chart 35 (see below) presents the distribution of the respondents’ answers concerning the influence of their personality on the way they perform certified consecutive interpreting. On the basis of rather simple definitions of the three dimensions of this psychoaffective factors, the certified interpreters who completed the questionnaire determined their subjectively perceived dimension84, the distribution of which is presented in Chart 36 (see below). What the above chart clearly shows is the majority of the respondents classify themselves either as extroverts (five definitely extrovert respondents  – 7% and twenty extrovert respondents – 26%) or ambiverts (30 respondents – 40%). 21

84 As with other studied psycho-affective factors, these may not necessarily be the objectively examined personality dimensions. Such objective study can be carried out by using a battery of psychological tests but what the present research aims at is the analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions on their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors and therefore no psychological tests were used.

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“I do not observe the influence of my personality on certified consecutive interpreting”: 18 respondents (24%)

“I observe the influence of my personality on certifed consecutive interpreting”: 58 respondents (76%)

Chart 35: The distribution of the respondents’ perception of the influence of personality on certified consecutive interpreting. ambivert: 30 respondents (40%) introvert: 14 respondents (18%)

extrovert: 20 respondents (26%)

definitely extrovert: 5 respondents (7%)

definitely introvert: 7 respondents (9%)

Chart 36: The distribution of the respondents’ personality dimensions.

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respondents determined their personality dimension to be either introvert (fourteen respondents – 18%) or definitely introvert (seven respondents – 9%). Such a distribution of the certified interpreters’ personality dimensions can thus only partially corroborate the commonly held view that interpreters are more extrovert than introvert. As far as the correlation between the respondents’ gender and their personality dimension is concerned, it appears that twenty female respondents are extrovert (fifteen extroverts and five definite extroverts) whereas only five male respondents are extrovert (no definite extrovert male certified interpreters). This implies that 36% of the female respondents and 24% of the male respondents classify themselves as extrovert. 21 female respondents (38%) and nine male respondents (43%) claim to represent the intermediate dimension, locating themselves somewhere along the extroversion/introversion continuum. Introversion (i.e. introversion and definite introversion) is the personality dimension, to which totally fourteen female certified interpreters (26%) (ten introverts and four definite introverts) and seven male certified interpreters (33%) (four introverts and three definite introverts) can be ascribed. What Chart 37 shows is that there are more female and male certified interpreters who classify themselves as extroverts and ambiverts (the dimensions which may make a person more apt at interpreting, including certified consecutive interpreting) than introverts. Of course, as aforementioned, those data should be treated with caution since they are just the respondents’ declarations and not the dimensions determined in the course of a psychological test.

3

4

definitely introvert

4

10

introvert

9

21

ambivert

5

15

extrovert 5

definitely extrovert 0

0 5

10

15 women

20

25

30

men

Chart 37: The distribution of personality dimensions among the female and male respondents.

The influence of the respondents’ personality on certified consecutive interpreting (Chart 38) is observed by a relatively huge number of 47 female respondents (85%) and by eleven male certified interpreters (52%). Only eight female respondents (15%) do not see this impact. As for the male respondents,

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ten of them (48%) do not observe the impact of their personality of the manner, in which they interpret consecutively in certified interpreter-requiring contexts. It is interesting why so many female certified interpreters see that the dimension of their personality affects their certified consecutive interpreting. It might only be speculated that because the majority of the female respondents classify themselves as either extroverts or ambiverts (in total 41 respondents, as compared to fourteen introverts), they are more likely to state that the properties characteristic of those two personality dimensions help them practise this profession.

“I do not observe the influence of my personality on certifed consecutive interpreting”.

8 women 10 men

“I observe the influence of my personality on certifed consecutive interpreting”.

47 women

0

10

11 men

20 30 40 50 The number of respondents

60

Chart 38: The perception of the influence of personality on certified consecutive interpreting among the female and male respondents.

The respondents’ answers provided to the question about the way their personality is reflected in the linguistic aspects of certified consecutive interpreting offer a wealth of interesting data85. What emerges from the study of the respondents’ responses is that the extroverted certified interpreters claim that their personality manifests itself in their increased verbal expression and the use of the explicitation strategy. This can be inferred from the quotes below.

• Additional explanations. • Additional explanations (explicitation) that were not in the source text. • Additional explanations (quite often I use them) so that there is no doubt about the meaning of the utterance spoken by the parties.

85 Because of this wealth and sometimes very extended responses covering quite many linguistic exponents, it is not possible to present those data in a chart form.

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• Additional explanations, especially if there is no 100% counterpart in the target language. • Additional explanations, mainly of the terms typical of the Polish legal system/ language area for I expect the client might not know or understand them. • Explicitation – in necessary situations. • I always try to render the speaker’s intention in a precise, fast and concise way but never “word-for-word” so when needed, I use explanations based on my experience. • Possible additional explanations only in case I become aware that there are some lexical gaps or the interpretation recipient does not understand the issue. • Sometimes additional explanations. • The desire to be well understood and the resulting explanation.

Furthermore, the respondents who represent extroversion or ambiversion claim that during certified consecutive interpreting their verbal expression increases, they offer additional explanations to make a given concept more explicit (i.e. they use explicitation). They also speak much, sometimes using advanced structures, in order to check whether their client understands the interpretation. Such conclusions can be drawn from the following citations:





• A lot of talking and making sure that the client understands everything well. • High verbal expression (a lot of speaking), additional explanations (explicitation). • High verbal expression, additional explanations. • High verbal expression, verbosity, no breaks in speaking, the use of more and more advanced structures, as time goes by, during interpretation I become more invigorated and willing to continue the interpretation. • I talk a lot, I can easily make contacts, so during the break there are talks with the parties, sometimes additional explanations. • Lack of inhibition, verbal expression, sometimes explicitation. • More speaking, explaining if there is such a need until the addressee understands or until I am certain that the parties understand each other well and that the proper content is recorded. • Yes, I do have high verbal expression, I can evaluate a given situation fast, I am not afraid to paraphrase in order to maintain the sense and achieve the client’s goal.

The fact that, as presented above, some of the respondents classify themselves as introverts is also manifested in their subjectively perceived linguistic exponents of their personality. Perhaps the most frequent symptom of their introversion is faithful interpretation with no additions or explanations. Another one is the decreased verbal expression and speaking as much as necessary and not more. Such a view emerges from the following quotes:



• A faithful interpretation, rarely additional explanations if the terminology does not have its counterpart in the target language (e.g. the former inheritance law in the United Kingdom, whose rules of inheritance do not have Polish equivalents). • Faithful interpretation, low expression. • Faithful interpretation, sometimes even literal.

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• I am calm and approach the foreigner with understanding. People usually, even during police interrogations, become calmer, turn to me and see their ally in me and say more and more, sometimes I have the impression that they are excusing themselves to me. • Linguistic concretism, perhaps on the verge of oblique statements. • Weak verbal expression, speaking quietly.

What is, however, found most frequently in the respondents’ responses concerning the linguistic manifestations of their personality is that they include the elements of both extroversion and introversion, which may suggest that those certified interpreters are actually ambiverts. The following quotes clearly show that ambiversion – the dimension combining the elements of the other two – is also present: • A faithful interpretation + possibly additional explanations if necessary. • A faithful interpretation, sometimes an additional explanation if I see that something is unclear. • A faithful interpretation. • I am inherently taciturn (much more open in writing), I am a good listener focused on the other party of the dialogue (i.e. I do not impose my rules in the interpreting place, I rather adapt to the existing conditions), I interpret faithfully, if I cannot find a word, then I stop for a moment and look for inspiration outside the window. If I see that the recipient does not understand, I additionally explain if, for example, the topic concerns the issues specific to Poland or otherwise, specific to the country of the person for whom I interpret. • I think I  am an introvert, but with some ambivert (or extrovert) features. This is manifested by a tendency to additional explanations but perhaps less verbal expression. It is difficult for me to assess my personality myself. • In a situation where I  see that the recipient of the interpretation does not fully understand what is being said, I offer an explanation or commentary, an example etc. • In judicial units, a very faithful interpretation but sometimes you have to add something. • Interpreting as faithfully as possible, possibly with a few explanations or additions.

Some respondents wrote about their context-dependent changing personality and this once more may point to their ambiversion or to the adoption of their “public selves”. The following two quotes may prove this point of view: • Of course, it depends on the person/people whom I  interpret; in the majority of cases, my extroversion turns on and is manifested by my talkativeness but at home I am a peaceful introvert who likes peace and quiet. • When I interpret, I am actually not myself – rather someone else, because I speak much slower than usual (I usually speak too fast), I speak in a lower tone because I am aware that it sounds better and I am looking for nice words because I know that they also build a picture of me.

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Curiously enough, there are also several answers which directly indicate that some of the respondents try – as much as it is possible – to avoid expressing their personality in their professional practice of a certified interpreter. Some of them claim that certified consecutive interpreting, because of the fact that it is certified and the message in the source language has to be rendered into the target language faithfully and accurately, offers no possibility for the interpreter to demonstrate his/her personality. The fragments below clearly demonstrate such an attitude. • I do not allow my personality to be revealed in any aspect of consecutive interpretation. • In judicial or medical translations, there is no room for interpreting according to your personality type. In the courtroom I have to say that “you are released on bail” and I cannot explain anything more. This is not the time and place for it! (There will be a place for it during the consultations of the lawyer with the client after the verdict, but then it is not certified interpreting). The same holds true during a medical procedure: I inform about complications in the same way as the doctor tells it! I cannot say more. I have the same surgical precision as the doctor uses in the interview. Lexical or phraseological equivalence at exactly the same level. • It is not revealed. • Lack of expressing personality, control of emotions and focus on the message. In the interpreter’s work there is no place for expressing personality.

What follows from the foregoing discussion is that the certified interpreters, perhaps like all other people, express, intentionally or unintentionally, at least some parts of their personality. Those interpreters who classify themselves as extroverts speak about increased verbal expression, talkativeness or offering additional clarifications which are not present in the input. The introverted certified interpreters claim to be rather reserved in terms of the quantity of speech they generate during certified consecutive interpreting and, generally speaking, interpret faithfully offering few explanations. What also comes to the fore from the above analysis of the linguistic exponents of the interpreter’s personality is that quite many respondents declare that although they interpret faithfully, they provide clarifications when needed, which can be viewed as an example of their increased verbal expression. Thus, they may in fact be classified as ambiverts. This all points to the fact that the certified interpreters’ personality can, and indeed is, expressed by several linguistic exponents which impact on their ultimate performance and output quality. As has already been said several times, the experience of the respondents’ psycho-affective factors is also reflected in what in this study is known as the extra-linguistic exponents. In the case of personality, those extra-linguistic exponents manifest themselves not so much in the extra-linguistic properties of a given certified consecutive interpretation but rather in the interactions which occur during the interpreting act. To put it differently, extroverted people tend to engage more in interactions with other people, showing their willingness to help or cooperate with other participants of the certified consecutive interpreting situation. In fact, the respondents who think of themselves as either extroverts

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or ambiverts clearly state that one of the fundamental extra-linguistic exponents of their personality dimensions is the willingness to become more involved in the interpreting-centred interaction. The willingness to help the interpreting act participant(s), especially those who are weaker in the power imbalance constellation, is characteristic of both extrovert and ambivert respondents. They eagerly interact with those participants. Several quotes below support this view.

• I am always willing to help, regardless of my potential weaknesses. • Increased gesticulation, interaction with parties, willingness to help. • Increased gesticulation, willingness to help. • Interacting with the parties – I am very social. • Interaction with the parties (willingness to help/prevent delays)  – e.g. preparing clients for possible questions, for example: at a meeting with the registrar of the registry office regarding marriage, I warn them that their marital status is “kawaler” because the British have a tendency to say “single” which causes an avalanche of questions from the registrar (“Have you never been married?” or “Do you know what “kawaler” means?” etc.). • Interaction-conversation with the party, showing an interest in deepening the topic and the matter – it is nice to sometimes focus on small things. • Interactions with parties, willingness to help. • Interactions with parties, willingness to help them, taking care of general good and friendly atmosphere in the room. • Search for eye contact with the recipient and non-language information from the recipient; I always cooperate and help as much as possible. Poker face is not my style. • Willingness to help but not to bother, interaction with parties that are usually helpful and forgiving; requesting the parties for clarification. But also sweating, accelerated heart rhythm, tension. • Willingness to help or neutrality; what I often encounter is that after interpreting, for example at the border guard’s office, the leaving person promises that as soon as he comes back to Poland he will want to meet me, repay me... – they do not come back but it does not matter at the moment. • Willingness to help, smile. • Willingness to help. • Willingness to help; sometimes I think it is excessive, if I observe that an English speaker has a problem with verbalising what he clearly wants to say, because it results from his earlier statements and reactions.

Thus, extroverts’ and ambiverts’ extra-linguistic behaviours demonstrated within certified consecutive interpreting acts are associated with helping parties, interacting with them, sometimes even with holding informal conversations about “small things”, as one of the respondents wrote, which sometimes may imply that the certified interpreter’s personality dimension lets him/her align more with the weaker party, especially in the institutional contexts, in which the power imbalance is at times clearly visible.

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Those who belong to the introverts state that their personality is reflected in their neutrality (i.e. little or no willingness to help) or limited expressiveness. Moreover, the introverted certified interpreters admit to keeping the other participants of the certified consecutive interpreting act at a distance or not interacting too much with them. Some introverted respondents directly state that they want to leave the room (i.e. flee from the situation), in which they are supposed to interpret. Some of those extra-linguistic exponents are mentioned in the quotes below. • I keep the parties at a distance. • I never feel at ease in the company of strangers. • Neutrality, possibly with minimum interaction with other parties like answering questions, explanations etc. • Neutrality; I rarely interact with parties. • No expressiveness. • Willingness to escape, to hide. • Willingness to leave the meeting.

The introverted respondents also enumerate several bodily reactions which they observe during interpreting. However, those bodily reactions may not directly result from the impact of their personality but be rather the effects of other psychoaffective factors, such as anxiety or stress, which they may experience when they have to demonstrate linguistic and non-linguistic behaviours which are associated with other personality dimensions and not with theirs. The symptoms which they connect with their introversion include: accelerated heartbeat and pulse, shaking, trembling, increased sweating or body tension. Curiously enough, although the respondents mention those extra-linguistic behaviours as the reflections of their introversion, some of them also exhibit several elements of extroversion or ambiversion since they are also willing to help by providing additional explanations. All of these aspects are mentioned in the following quotes: • Accelerated heart rhythm, accelerated pulse, body tension but also interactions with parties. • Accelerated heart rhythm, accelerated pulse, but at the same time interaction with the parties, willingness to help. • Accelerated heartbeat, accelerated pulse, body tension. • Shaking and sweating. • Sweating. Muscle tension. Willingness to help. • Trembling. • Tremor, sweating, accelerated heart rhythm, accelerated pulse, body tension, at the same time – interactions with parties and willingness to help. • Willingness to help, interaction with the parties, increased gestures, accelerated heartbeat, tension.

Finally, one more response is worth quoting since it explicitly shows that the act of certified consecutive interpreting, probably like interpreting at large, makes the

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introverted certified interpreters adopt their “public selves”, their personae which come to light in professional settings.

• I think that during interpreting I behave in the way which is opposite to my dominant personality type. Usually I am introverted, distrustful of others. It takes a lot of time for me to break the ice. During the interpretations I am perceived as open and helpful. I easily interact and make small-talk.

Perhaps, the fact that while performing interpreting, the introverted interpreters manifest non-introvert behaviours like, for instance, willingness to help other participants of the interpreting act or readiness to interact with them, results from their sense of professionalism and this, in turn, may indicate that in their professional practice, their personality dimension in fact does not have a great influence on their performance since they put on the mask of their other public selves. i.e. they adopt their other personae. To sum up, although at first glance it may seem that the certified interpreter’s personality influences his/her performance, it does not necessarily have to be so. While it is true that the interpreter’s extroversion (and perhaps to some extent ambiversion) may contribute to more expressive performance, more interaction with the interpreting act participants, greater openness and willingness to aid them during interpretation, introversion does not have to manifest itself in the opposite behaviours for, as argued both in Chapter 3 (as well as in Chapters 5, 6 and 7) and in this chapter, interpreters can adopt their public selves which may not correspond to their real (i.e. private life) personality dimension. What is more, the variety of linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents which the respondents mentioned as the manifestations of their personality point to the fact that most of them exhibit a combination of extrovert and introvert properties. This may suggest that in fact they are ambiverts. Of course, as aforementioned, in this case study, it is the respondents themselves who were to determine their personality type so their psychologically examined personality type may diverge from the one they declared. However, personality, though certainly an important psychoaffective factor, may not necessarily greatly impact on the certified interpreters’ performance because of the possibility to assume the public self, which is different from the private self. This allows postulating that in certified consecutive interpreting personality does not have to be a decisive psycho-affective factor conditioning interpreting performance and output quality.

8.3.6. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions about their subjective experience of the impact of their self-esteem Self-esteem is another psycho-affective factor which the respondents were asked to provide their opinions about. From the theoretical perspective, all professional and public activities, including interpreting, may be conditioned by the way a person perceives himself/herself with reference to his/her general

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worth as a person (i.e. global or general self-esteem), with reference to a given situation (i.e. situational self-esteem), with reference to a given domain of competence (i.e. intermediate self-esteem) and with reference to a specific task (i.e. task self-esteem). The levels of those types of self-esteem can be very high and high (i.e. positive self-esteem), average (i.e. neutral) or low and very low (i.e. negative). As presented in Chapter 3, all of those categories of self-esteem can be applied to certified interpreters. However, the respondents’ perceptions of only two types of self-esteem are analysed here – the global one and the intermediate one since it would be perhaps unfeasible to put all the respondents in exactly the same situation and give them the same interpreting task. That is why, situational self-esteem as well as task self-esteem are not investigated at great length. The results of the study show (Chart 39) that self-esteem is indeed the psychoaffective factor which influences the certified interpreters’ performance for as many as 61 respondents (80%) observe the impact their self-esteem has on the way they perform consecutive interpreting in certification-requiring contexts.

“I do not observe the influence of my self-esteem on certified consecutive interpreting”: 15 respondents (20%)

“I observe the influence of my self-esteem on certified consecutive interpreting”: 61 respondents (80%)

Chart 39: The distribution of the respondents’ perception of the influence of selfesteem on certified consecutive interpreting.

What is interesting, the fact that self-esteem influences the respondents’ certified consecutive interpreting is observed by far more women than men since 47 of the female respondents (89%) stated that they observe this link between the level of their self-esteem and their certified consecutive interpreting performance. Among 21 men in the sample, ten of them (48%) did not observe any correlation between their self-esteem and the way, in which they perform consecutive interpreting. Chart 40 presents this correlation.

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10 men

“I do not observe the influence of my selfesteem on certifed consecutive interpreting”.

8 women

“I observe the influence of my self-esteem on certifed consecutive interpreting”.

47 women

0

10

11 men

20 30 40 50 60 The number of respondents

70

Chart 40: The perception of the influence of self-esteem on certified consecutive interpreting among the female and male respondents.

The respondents were also asked to determine their general (global) self-esteem as well as intermediate self-esteem with reference to their linguistic skills (i.e. linguistic subcompetence) and to their interpreting skills (i.e. interpreting subcompetence). Generally speaking, six respondents (8%) are characterised by very high self-esteem, 35 certified interpreters’ (46%) self-esteem is high and 28 respondents (37%) claim that the level of their self-esteem is average (i.e. neutral). However, seven certified interpreters (9%) admitted to having low self-esteem whereas no respondent exhibits very low self-esteem. Since, as stated above, the profession of a certified interpreter is often linked with various public appearances, the quality of which may be – at least to some extent – conditioned by people’s self-esteem, it is a positive characteristic of the studied sample that so many of the respondents exhibit very high, high or average (i.e. neutral) self-esteem. Chart 41 (see below) presents the distribution of the respondents’ levels of self-esteem. The sample, as presented in the previous sections, comprises 55 female and 21 male certified interpreters. What emerges from the correlation of the respondents’ gender and their level of self-esteem (Chart 42, see below) is that there are more female respondents with very high self-esteem (four female respondents  – 7%), high self-esteem (25 female respondents – 46%) and neutral self-esteem (twenty female respondents  – 36%) However, this group is also more abundant in the respondents with low self-esteem (six female respondents  – 11%). As far as the male certified interpreters participating in the study are concerned, only one of them (5%) admitted to having low self-esteem whereas others have either average (eight male respondents – 38%), high (ten male respondents – 47%) or very high self-esteem (two male respondents – 10%). What therefore can be concluded from this correlation is that there are approximately similar numbers of the female and male respondents whose self-esteem is average or high.

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Case study 4 high self-esteem: 35 respondents (46%)

very high selfesteem: 6 respondents (8%)

average (neutral) self-esteem: 28 respondents (37%)

very low selfesteem: 0 respondent (0%)

low self-esteem: 7 respondents (9%)

Chart 41: The distribution of self-esteem levels among the respondents.

low self-esteem

6

1

average (neutral) self-esteem

20

high self-esteem

8

25

very high self-esteem

4

0

10

2

5

10

15 women

20 men

25

30

35

Chart 42: The distribution of self-esteem levels among the female and male respondents.

The respondents were also asked about their intermediate self-esteem which – in the questionnaire form – was subdivided into two types: intermediate self-esteem concerning the certified interpreters’ linguistic skills (i.e. their linguistic subcompetence) and their interpreting skills (i.e. their interpreting subcompetence).

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As far as the respondents’ linguistic subcompetence self-esteem, it is not surprising that the great majority of the certified interpreters have high or very high self-esteem (44 respondents – 58% and ten respondents – 13%, respectively). 21 of them (28%) define their linguistic subcompetence self-esteem as neutral/average. Only one certified interpreter (1%) felt insecure in terms of his/her linguistic subcompetence and defined his/her self-esteem as low. The above results may confirm the fact that in order to obtain the status of a certified interpreter, interpreters have to demonstrate an exceptionally well developed command of both languages and that is why their intermediate linguistic subcompetence self-esteem is generally high. However, one intriguing question arises with reference to those high levels of linguistic subcompetence self-esteem. If the respondents are indeed so confident about their linguistic skills, why do so many of them experience language inhibition? One explanation may be directly linked to the organisation of the questionnaire which they filled in since the questions concerning the studied psycho-affective factors were isolated, i.e. each factor had its own set of questions and, as might have been anticipated, when answering questions about one psychoaffective factor, the respondents did not consider the other factors, which may be why there are some confusing results pertaining to linguistic subcompetence intermediate self-esteem. Therefore, to examine the genuine correlation between those factors, a different organisational format of the study would be required, which may be a worthwhile path for further research of this issue. Chart 43 presents the above-described distribution of the respondents’ levels of their intermediate self-esteem concerning their linguistic skills.

average (neutral) self-esteem: 21 respondents (28%)

high self-esteem: 44 respondents (58%)

low self-esteem: 1 respondent (1%) very low selfesteem: 0 respondent (0%)

very high selfesteem: 10 respondents (13%)

Chart 43: The distribution of linguistic subcompetence self-esteem levels among the respondents.

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The respondents’ intermediate self-esteem related to their interpreting skills (i.e. interpreting subcompetence) is different from the one regarding their linguistic skills. While it is not surprising that the majority of the respondents demonstrate either very high self-esteem (eight respondents – 11%), high self-esteem (36 respondents  – 47%) and neutral self-esteem (22 respondents  – 29%), it was rather unanticipated that as many as ten certified interpreters (13%) defined their interpreting subcompetence self-esteem as low (Chart 44). There may be several reasons for this. They may include the respondents’ short period of practising as a certified interpreter, little experience in certified consecutive interpreting or performing certified consecutive interpreting rather infrequently.

average (neutral) self-esteem: 22 respondents (29%)

low self-esteem: 10 respondents (13%)

very low selfesteem: 0 respondent (0%)

very high selfesteem: 8 respondents (11%)

high self-esteem: 36 respondents (47%)

Chart 44: The distribution of interpreting subcompetence self-esteem levels among the respondents.

Given the above, it seems vital to correlate the levels of the respondents’ intermediate self-esteem pertaining to their interpreting skills with the frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting (Chart 45). Chart 45 demonstrates that low self-esteem concerning interpreting skills is exhibited by six respondents who perform certified consecutive interpreting very rarely and by four certified interpreters who do it rarely. This confirms the assumption that low interpreting subcompetence self-esteem results from the limited experience in performing this type of interpreting expressed by how often the respondents provide such services. However, what this chart also shows is that six certified interpreters who interpret consecutively in certification-requiring contexts very often have high self-esteem. It is also interesting to note that very high interpreting subcompetence self-esteem is attributed to two certified

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4 0

6

low self-esteem

12

average (neutral) self-esteem

12

8

high self-esteem 21

very high self-esteem 0

6

4 0

10

6

5 0

5 10 15 very rarely rarely

20 25 30 35 often very often

Chart 45: The correlation of the respondents’ interpreting subcompetence selfesteem with their frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting.

interpreters who interpret consecutively very rarely, by one certified interpreter who performs certified consecutive interpreting rarely and by five certified interpreters who do it often. While it is not surprising that those five certified interpreters performing this type of interpreting often may have such a level of interpreting subcompetence self-esteem, the other two cases are puzzling. It may be speculated that those respondents’ high self-esteem related to interpreting skills may result from other factors such as extremely high global self-esteem, extremely high linguistic subcompetence self-esteem, low language inhibition and very strong language ego, to name but a few. However, this should be treated as merely tentative assumptions since more research would be needed to ascertain the reasons for such a state of affairs. The respondents were also asked about how their level of global and intermediate self-esteem manifests itself in the linguistic aspects of their certified consecutive interpreting. Among the linguistic exponents of the positive (high) or neutral (average) levels of global and intermediate self-esteem, the most frequent was the so-called speaking confidence – the manner of delivering certified consecutive interpreting in a smooth, confident way, with clear pronunciation, in a loud voice, with few pauses. Such a view clearly emerges from the selection of the respondents’ quotes:

• Certainty and fluency of expression. • Certainty of expression, confident voice. • Certainty of speech, definitely. • Certainty of speech, loud speaking.

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• Certainty, self-control of voice, good pace, few mistakes, smile. • Confidence and fluency. • Confidence and precision of expression. Natural and calm behaviour. • Confidence and sonorous voice with clear intonation and sentence stress. • Confidence of expression, the ability to “mask” errors and imperfections, to correct mistakes in a way that sounds good. On the other hand, it happens that I overuse “fillers” and other expressions that allow me to gain time. • Confidence of speech. • Confidence of statements, a small number of mistakes, confident voice, no pauses and no fillers. • Confidence of statements, fluency, no significant mistakes. • Confidence of utterance, few pauses, loud pronunciation. • Confidence of utterance, rationality of the message, definite voice, smile. • Confidence, loud voice, no pauses, full sentences. • Confidence, timbre, assertiveness towards the parties in order to lead to the proper understanding of the party’s position. • Definitely, I try to speak slowly in a lower voice – it rises as the pace of speech increases; I do not give in to indecisiveness – there is always some way to overcome the issue even as words pass. • Despite possible pauses to make a decision, I  explain with full conviction that I chose the best possible option (lexis, grammar, register). I speak loudly and slowly. • During interpreting I am sure of what I am doing, if I miss something, I will find it in a moment, I have no problem asking for repetition if I do not remember something, I will interrupt too long speeches if I think it is appropriate and nobody feels bad about it. • Flowery language and language sophistication, especially in the English language. • I always try to speak in a certain voice, without pauses and fillers. • I am certain of the speech, I interrupt the interlocutor if it is necessary, I ask for clarification if necessary. • I am sure of my skills; I am rarely wrong. • I am sure of what I am saying, I am not improving it. Sometimes there are breaks between sentences – if I search for the best phrase in my mind. • I can control my voice, stress, I seem more confident than I am. • I do not interrupt the interpretation and try not to make mistakes. • Interpreting speed, timbre, number of repetitions. • The awareness that I  know how to properly perform this kind of translation facilitates the formulation of consistent statements, maintaining a steady voice, avoiding mistakes etc. • The management of intonation, the rate of speaking (not too fast), careful articulation but without hypercorrectness. • The timbre of the voice is balanced, there are few breaks and rather a confidently delivered interpretation.

However, there are also some responses in which it is evident that the respondents’ self-esteem is rather high but those certified interpreters express some concerns, for example, about their lexical skills or cognitive abilities.

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• Certainty of utterance, pauses and indecision are rare for me. In a courtroom (because there are the most difficult instances of interpreting here), I often have an appropriate dictionary to check, for instance, legal terminology. • I feel confident as a language user, I use both languages every day at home, talking on various topics, on current and transcendental issues – that is why the language does not raise my concerns during the interpretation. Possibly, I may be concerned about the quality of my memory (plus the inability to interrupt others), so on the day of the interpretation I try to get enough sleep, there is no partying the day before etc.

Some certified interpreters, most likely those whose global and intermediate self-esteem is positive (high) or neutral (average), state that they do not observe any linguistic exponents as regards their subjectively felt self-esteem. This arises from the following two quotes: • I hope my self-esteem is not reflected. I try to control the situation and hide my nervousness. I speak confidently although I feel insecure internally. • I rate my language skills as very good, my self-esteem also does not affect the language layer.

Since there are relatively few respondents who define their global and intermediate self-esteem as low, the number of the responses in which the certified interpreters mention the linguistic exponents of their subjectively assessed low levels of global and intermediate self-esteem is not high. However, those exponents which appear in the respondents’ comments usually include pauses, indecision, hesitations and errors (grammatical, lexical or errors in conveying the sense of the original). The following quotes support this opinion: • Great uncertainty, stuttering. • I show a preference for translation, interpreting is a stressful situation, causing more mistakes. • I think that this lack of faith in my own skills may manifest itself in a larger number of mistakes, pauses, indecision, a shaky voice. I noticed that when I feel confident, my performance is much better as soon as I approach interpreting with fear and anxiety, with doubts, the quality of my target speech or interaction decreases. • Indecision and pauses which I use for thinking. • Indecision. • It may happen that I search for the right vocabulary. • Mistakes. • Number of pauses and indecision, synthesising content. • Pauses. • Speaking silently, frequent indecision, pauses. • Trembling, trouble with eye contact, pauses. • Uncertainty of expression, indecision. • When my sense of self-confidence drops, I  hesitate more often, I  make longer pauses.

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Interestingly enough, there were also two more extended responses in which the respondents speak about the way they “mask” their lower levels of self-esteem or about their additional thoughts related to how their interpretation is gauged by other participants of the certified consecutive interpreting act. Although it is not stated directly, it may mean that that respondent’s self-esteem is not high. Those two citations present such attitudes:



• I “fight” as best I can, most of my clients, this is my impression, do not know how much insecurity I have in myself and get the impression that it is quite the opposite. Despite the lack of certainty in my statements, I try to be determined, to interpret fluently and, if necessary, I ask confidently for clarifications or for help. Sometimes it can be turned into a joke (it depends on the type of interpreting and atmosphere). In the event of problems, I perhaps lower the level of voice. • Timbre of the voice – proper pronunciation. However, when I am nervous, dryness in the mouth limits the articulatory apparatus; sometimes I wonder if others judge me and how they judge me – in terms of language and general appearance; it does not affect the quality of the interpretation, but somewhere it goes around my head and I may lose my attention so it will lead to a summary of the content. I try not to think about how anyone judges me, just do the work, but these are the thoughts which I cannot influence.

On the whole, the respondents’ high levels of both global and intermediate self-esteem can be said to be contributory to a better quality of target text delivery whereas the lower levels which some respondents have may impede the interpreting process since such certified interpreters notice the influence of their lower self-esteem in the linguistic dimension of interpreting, especially in errors, pauses and hesitations. Those pauses and hesitations are not so much the linguistic exponents of the impact of self-esteem but instead, them are the extralinguistic manifestations of the lower levels of self-image related to them themselves as people as well as to their linguistic and interpreting skills. Thus, it is now time to look at such extra-linguistic manifestations of this psycho-affective factor. In terms of the extra-linguistic exponents of the influence of the respondents’ global and intermediate self-esteem, several certified interpreters enumerated the non-linguistic behaviours which point to their high or very high levels of self-esteem. Such behaviours are calm attitude, no or very limited gesticulation, smile or no extra-linguistic exponents at all. The following quotes support such reasoning:

• A calm attitude with a little bit of gesticulation in some situations. • A confident body posture. • Confidence of my behaviour. • Erect posture, looking in the interpreted people’s eyes, I always have a pen and a notebook to help myself, not to raise my self-worth. • I do not do any additional activities/I do not use additional elements. The position is unimportant – depending on the situation.

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• It is not reflected in the non-linguistic aspects. The interpreter must be able to control his behaviour in this. I do not do such things. Maybe I often smile (if the situation is right). • Most often I sit (during a hearing or trial); I do not use gadgets to help – they only distract me, my hands are on the table. I pay more attention to having a fresh breath before the oral translation (the Orbit gum is a must) – especially when, for example, at the hearing I have to sit next to the person whom I am to interpret. • Natural and calm behaviour. • No gestures. • Smile.

Furthermore, quite many respondents demonstrate the behaviours which may point to their willingness to increase their levels of self-esteem. Those behaviours, however, are of different type and form. For instance, some certified respondents state that to boost their global as well as intermediate self-esteem, they take the sitting position during certified consecutive interpreting, use gestures and hold some gadgets, like a ballpoint pen, in their hands. This gives them some kind of psychological comfort and security. Others, on the contrary, feel better when they can stand during interpretation. Such opinions are included in the quotes, the selection of which is provided below.

• A straight posture in every position, hands best intertwined in front of me. • Different items in my hand (e.g. pen). • Gadgets in my hand. • I feel more confident with a pen in my hand but it also has practical applications when I want to draw the customer’s attention to something. • I have never paid attention to this – maybe what gives me more self-confidence is a ball pen and a notepad for notes. • I prefer to interpret in a standing position (if possible); I  always hold a pen in my hand. • Perhaps using a pen. • Standing position, using additional items. • Straight position. Clean, nice notebook and pen. • The position depends on the conditions: I sit at the police station, in the courtroom – I sit, interpreting for the party, and I stand, interpreting for the court. I usually have a notebook and a pen to take notes but it also helps me as there is something to do with my hands, I avoid excessive gestures. • Using a pen or holding something in my hand. • Using additional elements, gesticulation. • Usually a free sitting position; in the registry office – I stand. Gesticulation is nonexistent and so are other unnecessary movements. • Usually, I prefer to sit and hold a pen or notebook.

Some certified interpreters, probably those whose levels of global and intermediate self-esteem are low, mention other behaviours which can indicate that they

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do not feel confident and secure during the act of certified consecutive interpreting. Those behaviours can also be regarded as those which boost the levels of the certified interpreters’ global and intermediate self-esteem. However, they can also increase the respondents’ task self-esteem (i.e. related to a particular interpreting task) and situation self-esteem (i.e. pertaining to a given interpreting situation) but it is not possible to determine the type of self-esteem they indeed improve on the basis of the written responses. The following fragments of the respondents’ answers illustrate the above assumptions:



• Dry mouth. Touching my hair. • Gadgets in my hands. • Gesticulating a lot, I tend to stoop. • Holding my palms tightly. • I dress carefully, comb, put my make-up (which I do not do every day) – to create the impression of a serious and professional person. Before I go out for the interpreting task, I eat at home and take some water with me. • In the case of problems, the posture will be stooped (I think). • Many gestures (more than on a daily basis). • Moving my hands, fiddling with a ring, touching hair. • Sitting position, playing with a pen and gesticulation to raise my self-confidence, or I withdraw, I also touch my hair or pluck something.

Some respondents admit to the fact that they are not able to identify the extralinguistic manifestations of their levels of global and intermediate self-esteem. This may indicate that such certified interpreters do not link any specific non-linguistic behaviours with their levels of self-esteem and that those levels are either positive or neutral. The following quotes allow drawing the above conclusions:

• I cannot assess this. • I cannot say. • I do not know. • If such elements occur, they are usually unconscious. I can gesticulate; if I stand, I shift my weight from foot to foot. • This is probably more evident to people observing me. I prefer standing (if possible) and keep eye contact with the person I am addressing.

As can be observed on the basis of the above discussion, self-esteem is a psycho-affective factor which, unlike other such factors, does not have so many negative linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents. This is definitely related to the certified interpreters’ generally positive (very high and high) or neutral (average) levels of global self-esteem and linguistic subcompetence and interpreting subcompetence intermediate self-esteem. In other words, this psycho-affective factor seems not to have a definitely negative impact on the quality of the certified interpreters’ performance since the levels of the studied types of self-esteem are generally positive. However, those high levels of global and intermediate self-esteem somewhat contrast with the subjective experience

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of other psycho-affective factors like, for instance, anxiety or language inhibition, which – in the studied sample – have been identified as those impeding the certified interpreters’ performance by having an adverse effect on the smoothness, accuracy and correctness of output delivery. This influence is manifested by quite a big number of various linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents. Therefore, this contrast leads to an intriguing question: while it is already known that the psycho-affective factors are interrelated and many of them impact on one another, why are the generally positive levels or global and, in particular, intermediate self-esteem not reflected in the limited subjective experience of anxiety, lower language inhibition or stronger language ego? At this point, however, this question cannot be answered since more in-depth studies are needed to examine the correlations between the impact of the positive psycho-affective factors (i.e. self-esteem) on interpreters’ performance with the influence those more negative ones (i.e. anxiety, language ego) exert. What can, however, be hypothesised is that the certified interpreters participating in the study, while responding to particular questions of the questionnaire, treated those psychoaffective factors individually and not collectively and therefore they might not have noticed that strong language ego usually goes hand in hand with neutral or positive intermediate self-esteem or that anxiety occurs more frequently among people who tend to have the negative levels of their self-esteem. Thus, this issue needs further research.

8.3.7. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions about their subjective experience of the impact of their motivation Motivation plays a crucial role in virtually all activities people undertake. This is also an important psycho-affective variable which conditions any professional practice, including that of interpreters. When people are motivated, they oftentimes put more effort in performing their tasks more accurately, more correctly and, at times, faster. One of the types of motivation is achievement motivation which, as explained in Chapter 3, is directly linked to achieving excellence in a given domain. Certified interpreters’ achievement motivation is characterised by several properties which involve the interpreters’ making choices and decisions, solving problems, having multiple skills, being personally responsible for their actions and having public recognition. What is more, motivation can greatly influence the way certified interpreters perform consecutive interpreting and there are two basic sources of motivation: intrinsic (internal) and extrinsic (external). Let us therefore now examine how this psycho-affective factor contributes to the certified interpreters’ work. The respondents were asked about whether they feel motivated during certified consecutive interpreting and the vast majority of them – 69 certified interpreters (91%) – confirmed this. Only seven of them (9%) stated that they are not motivated while performing certified consecutive interpreting (Chart 46).

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“I am not motivated”: 7 respondents (9%)

Chart 46: The distribution of the respondents’ perception of their motivation.

The respondents were additionally asked about the sources of their motivation. What clearly emerges from their responses is that the certified interpreters perform certified consecutive interpreting because they have an internal need for excellence which is usually understood as demonstrating professionalism. Thus, being professional is definitely an example of the respondents’ intrinsic motivation which is expressed in numerous certified interpreters’ responses. Their selection gives an insight into this motivating factor. • Drawing pleasure from the very act of internally located striving to satisfy an internal norm related to the quality of work. • I like my job. • I want to behave professionally and be perceived as such. • I want to interpret as best as possible as it is my profession. I want to help. I want to do what I love, that is, to interpret, and it is crucial for me to be the mirror in which the text is reflected. I do not have such high external motivation – money is far behind. • Internal motivation. • Professionalism, willingness to help the parties. • Professionalism, willingness to help, willingness to prove myself, to show myself that I can. • Professionalism, willingness to make a good impression. • Professionalism. • The need to do the job flawlessly, not giving the lawyers the arguments that “my client lost the case because the interpreter was bad and interpreted badly” since some colleagues have had to struggle with such accusations. • The pursuit of professional performance of the task, willingness to help the parties.

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• Willingness to do a good job. • Willingness to interpret at an appropriate level.

Another factor which the respondents enumerate as the one driving their willingness to be certified interpreters is helping other people. Again, this can be classified as an example of intrinsic motivation since it results from the interpreters’ internal needs (partly overlapping with professionalism), not from the external environment. This is brought to light especially in the following quotes:



• Internal motivation: willingness to help the parties, job satisfaction. • Internal motivation: willingness to help the parties. In the case of the registry office ceremonies – emotional involvement, which could suggest lack of professionalism, but I really like wedding ceremonies because of their positive atmosphere. • Salary to a small extent, because it is too low. Rather, a sense of indispensability in performing this function and professionalism in its performance. • Willingness to help the parties. • Willingness to help, satisfaction.

Several respondents’ internal motivation is related to their need for professional challenges, for gaining experience and for learning new things. Some, additionally, see in the interpreting act an opportunity to meet new people, which also motivates them. The following quotes prove it:

• I like challenges and I am good at managing stress. • The awareness that learning (e.g. of vocabulary or structures) will result in greater self-confidence and professionalism. • The fact of participating “live” in the event, interacting with people, their respect for my work. • The opportunity to meet new people, the opportunity to help. • Willingness to gain experience, interest in interpreting and in a given matter, willingness to help. • Willingness to meet the challenge, a sense of mission, money, too.

What also motivates the certified interpreters is their internal need for being appreciated and respected. In other words, they attach significance to the prestige of a certified interpreter and seek appreciation, recognition, clients’ satisfaction and gratitude, which all can be classified as internal (as well as – to some extent – external) motivators.

• Prestige of the profession, the awareness that one must have exceptional skills to interpret consecutively. • Willing to perform the task professionally and to make a good impression. • Willingness to help the parties, customer’s satisfaction, remuneration. • Willingness to help, customer’s positive reactions and gratitude and appreciation for my work.

Moreover, as anticipated, the certified interpreters are also motivated by external factors, one of which is remuneration for their consecutive interpreting

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services. It turns out that even though the remuneration rates for official interpretation services rendered in public institutions (e.g. for courts, for the police etc.) are immensely low, the certified interpreters’ fees which they earn by performing consecutive interpreting elsewhere are probably satisfactory and thus motivating. Such an opinion can be inferred from the following quotes:

• Money. • Pay, establishing new business contacts. • Pay, willingness to help participants • Salary – in the case of individual orders, willingness to help the parties, satisfaction with the experience gained. • Salary and professionalism.

Since Polish certified interpreters have a statutory obligation to perform interpretation when requested by public authorities (e.g. courts, the police), the statutory obligation is an example of an external motivator which several respondents mention in their responses.

• Fulfilment of the obligation. • In the case of orders from outside the circle of “statutory obligation”, the motivating factor is the financial factor, while the rest – only the statutory obligation. • Obligation, willingness to help the parties and professionalism. • Statutory obligation.

Quite many certified interpreters stated that there are two sources of their motivation  – intrinsic and extrinsic  – and that a variety of factors make them willing to perform certified consecutive interpreting. Their intrinsic motivation results, as above, from their willingness to help people participating in the certified consecutive act, willingness to behave professionally or willingness to expand their experience and learn something new. Among the external factors, they mention the salary, an opportunity to establish new business contacts as well as appreciation and gratitude expressed by their clients. The following selection of quotes presents all those aspects:



• Both types of motivation. • Both types of motivation: usually statutory obligation, sometimes remuneration, at the same time professionalism and willingness to help. • External (contacts, earnings) and internal (experience, help). • External motivation: remuneration; internal motivation: willingness to help. • I always want to act professionally and make an impression that it is my daily bread and not some way through difficulties. Secondly, when I get paid for it, I have the impression that the other party does not come here to fight against the language aspects and only expects a smooth course of the commissioned work. • I like this job and – apart from the courtroom setting – I get a good salary. I am a professional, I like to quickly and efficiently execute orders, work in difficult and new projects, I am happy with the positive response of my clients – their praise gives me a boost and makes me willing to work.

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• Internal motivation:  professionalism, willingness to help the parties; external motivation: remuneration. • Professionalism, statutory obligation, remuneration (not in the case of courts), reputation in the environment. • Professionalism. Unless it is an interrogation at the police, then it is still curiosity because the stiffness of the officials/judge/notary public is eliminated – then I hardly get nervous and am willing to do my job. • Salary, business relations for large companies, sometimes willingness to help lost foreigners. • Salary, positive experiences from the past, willingness to help the parties, curiosity, willingness to gain experience, after a positive experience  – building a sense of self-worth. • Salary, professionalism, willingness to help. • Salary, statutory obligation, willingness to help, willingness to raise qualifications. • Willingness to help, professionalism, facing new challenges.

Only two respondents directly expressed their opinions on what demotivates them. It appears that remuneration is such a demotivating factor (especially in the above-mentioned public institution settings) and the uncertainty of how the certified consecutive interpreting act may unfold may also be demotivating.



• Generally, I do not like public speaking or interpreting unless it happens in a familiar environment, in the circumstances and on the topics that I know and I know I can handle. Any new elements appearing as a surprise (e.g. change of the interpreting content in relation to what was determined) may be paralysing. The salary and desire to act professionally may be motivating. • Professionalism, willingness to help parties. Remuneration has never been my motivating, rather demotivating factor.

On the whole, it seems that in their professional interpreting practice, the certified interpreters become motivated internally by such factors as their sense of professionalism, their willingness to help other participants of the consecutive interpreting act to communicate, their need for new challenges and professional self-development or their need for reputation and positive feedback concerning their work. What is interesting, as regards the external motivators, remuneration is perhaps not the most important factor, especially in view of the low rates for certified interpreting services rendered for public institutions, but some respondents seem to be driven by this source of external motivation. This factor, however, can also be the source of demotivation. Other external motivators include the need to meet the statutory obligation of performing certified interpreting. What is interesting, considering the fact that so many respondents (91%) feel motivated, they usually mention both types of motivation (i.e. intrinsic and external) which condition their professional practice, which may point to the fact that a panoply of factors motivate them to achieve excellence in certified consecutive interpreting and perform to the best of their abilities.

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Another motivation-related question which the respondents were asked to provide their responses to concerned the linguistic exponents of their motivation. Generally speaking, the majority of the certified interpreters state that their internal and external motivation is reflected in the target text correctness which involves the production of the linguistically correct and equivalent output. Some respondents add that they put much effort into using correct specialised lexicon, grammatical structures, pronunciation patterns or discourse-specific properties like, for example, appropriate register or honorifics. Output delivery speed is also claimed to result from the certified interpreters’ motivation. All of those aspects are mentioned in the following collection of the respondents’ quotes:

• After a few moments of difficulty, I enter the level of proficiency, I accelerate, I synthesise and do what I need to. • Taking care of the correctness of the output. • Correct use of language, appropriate speed of presentation, use of appropriate formulae (e.g. “Pani Rejent” [to address the female notary public]). • Correctness, speed of speech and proper intonation. • Correctness, speed, register/style. • Honorifics forms, attention to detail. • I care about the correctness of my speech and accuracy in the choice of vocabulary. • I use the correct language register; I try to choose nice words so that they sound good to me. The correctness of the interpretation. Then I have the feeling of a wellfulfilled mission and of building my positive image as a professional. • Smoothness of expression in a quiet, not too fast voice. The parties appreciate clear pronunciation. • Striving to use appropriate vocabulary and structures. • The accuracy and speed of delivery. • The correctness of the interpretation. • This is my little perversion  – I  love the legal language, maybe because it is so detached from reality and therefore I care so much about correctness. • Very high speed and high accuracy of the target message.

Several respondent also mention the communicative aspects of the certified consecutive interpreting acts, in which they participate, in particular their attention to the fact whether other participants understand the certified interpreter and his/her interpretation. Such a view emerges from the following citations: • Correctness of the target text and attention to good communication. • I try to adapt to the expectations of the client; usually it means simplifying the regulations of the contracts or of other contents so that they are easier to understand by the client. At the same time I maintain their key meaning. • Matching the text to the recipient – first of all, I want to understand what is being said and this results from my willingness to help. Confidence of my speaking style – I want everything to sound smooth and professional.

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• Precision, assessment of whether the client understands the target text, using additional explanations. • Rather, my motivation manifests itself positively – in correctness, appropriate pace, willingness to interpret precisely – especially those issues that I know that can be incomprehensible to people who do not know the Polish law.

One respondent made an interesting observation concerning the accuracy (and professionalism) of his/her interpretation, claiming that he/she tries to provide such interpreting irrespective of the motivating or demotivating factors:

• Regardless of the motivating (or demotivating) factors, I always strive to make my interpretation accurate and professional.

As regards the extra-linguistic aspects, in which the respondents’ motivation is reflected, the certified interpreters state that their generally understood professional approach manifests their motivation. This professional approach encompasses several other behaviours such as diligence (understood as the accurate rendering of the source texts), neutrality (showing an unbiased and non-judgemental attitude towards the people interpreted) or confidentiality (not disclosing the confidential information revealed in the course of certified consecutive interpreting). Thus, it might be stated that professionalism can be both a motivating force and the outcome of such a motivating force. The internal need for being professional is an essential motivating drive, the outcome of which is just such a professional behaviour. The following responses refer directly to those aspects: • A sense of professionalism and diligence in doing this job. Also awareness of empathy on my part. • Cheerfulness, appropriate clothing, professionalism. • Emotional involvement. • I always maintain impartiality; I try to be reliable. • I approach each client professionally, without assessing who he is, where he comes from and why he needs my help, whether he is a paedophile or a president of the company, I  will treat him in the same way and he will not feel what I  think about him. • I try to be professional and neutral. • I try to remain neutral. • I try to work in a professional way, bring a good impression. • It affects the whole way, in which I will execute the order. I respect the client and try to help him. • Neutrality, reliability, ethical behaviour (keeping the information for myself etc.), maintaining personal culture. • Neutrality, reliability. • Neutrality, smile, openness, professionalism. • Neutrality. • Professional approach to work. • Professionalism, definitely.

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• Professionalism, diligence. • Professionalism, neutrality, honesty, kindness. • Professionalism, reliability, being helpful. • Professionalism, reliability, diligence, willingness to learn. • Punctuality, reliability. • Reliability, professionalism, “invisibility” during the interpretation. • Reliability, professionalism, knowledge of my place in the system, listening to the instructions of the judge etc. • Reliability, professionalism. • Reliability, taking care of a good atmosphere. • The motivation is professionalism, that is, I  agreed so I  have to do the task but I promise myself never again.

As can be seen from the above analysis of the certified interpreters’ responses, motivation is definitely a strong and positive psycho-affective factor which conditions their manners of performing certified consecutive interpreting. Both types of motivation – the intrinsic one, resulting from their own needs and the extrinsic one – resulting from the environment – trigger the respondents’ work. However, quite often they refer to both types of motivation as the driving forces conditioning their certified consecutive interpreting. Among the internal motivating factors are the certified interpreters’ need for excellence and professionalism, willingness to help the interpreting act participants communicate, the need for gaining experience and learning new things as well as the need for appreciation and respect. The respondents are also motivated externally and such external motivating drives include remuneration (earned for certified interpretation services provided not for the public institutions but elsewhere), the opportunity to establish new contacts and meet people, their clients’ appreciation and gratitude and the statutory obligation to interpret for courts and the police imposed on all certified interpreters. Concluding, it may be stated that motivation is another psycho-affective factor (next to extroversion and self-esteem) that has a more positive influence on the certified interpreters and their performance.

8.3.8. Analysis of the certified interpreters’ opinions about their subjective experience of stress The experience of stress is the last psycho-affective factor which the respondents were asked about. As presented in Chapter 3, stress is considered to be an omnipresent and inseparable element of interpreting which has a multitude of linguistic, extra-linguistic and physiological manifestations. The stress response, which is also known as “fight-or-flight response” or “fight-or-flee response”, is usually triggered by stressors. Such stressing agents can be either internal, which means that they result from the interpreter’s internal feelings, beliefs, thoughts and attitudes, or external, which means that their source is beyond the interpreter, in the widely understood surrounding environment.

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In the studied sample, the great majority of the respondents (64 certified interpreters  – 84%) experience stress during certified consecutive interpreting whereas twelve certified interpreters (16%) do not. Chart 47 shows the distribution of the subjective experience of stress among the respondents. Of course, like all other psycho-affective factors, stress is studied here from the respondents’ subjective perspective and the objective view may be different from the present one. “I experience stress”: 64 respondents (84%)

“I do not experience stress”: 12 respondents (16%)

Chart 47: The distribution of the respondents’ subjective experience of stress.

It is also interesting to compare the subjective experience of stress among the female and male certified interpreters participating in the study. What emerges from Chart 48 (see below) is that given the definitely larger group of the women in the sample, the female respondents are more likely to experience stress during certified consecutive interpreting as 50 of them (91%) experience the impact of this psychoaffective factor, with only five female certified interpreters (9%) not reporting this subjective experience. As regards the male respondents, fourteen of them (67%) are under the influence of stress while performing certified consecutive interpreting and the remaining seven (33%) do not report this phenomenon. It can therefore be concluded that the female certified interpreters, who predominate over men in the interpreting profession, contributing thereby to its feminisation, are more prone to stress. The subjective experience of stress can also be related to the frequency of performing this type of interpreting so – by extension – to growing experience in certified consecutive interpreting practice. It might be hypothesised that the more frequently the certified interpreters interpret consecutively in certification-requiring contexts, the less intense their subjective experience of stress is. As expected, the respondents who interpret consecutively very rarely and rarely experience stress more often since there are 26 (93%) and twenty (87%) such respondents, respectively. The

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“I do not experience stress”.

5 women 7 men

50 women

“I experience stress”.

0

10

14 men

20 30 40 50 The number of respondents

60

70

Chart 48: The subjective experience of stress among the female and male respondents.

increasing frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting would mean the lesser subjective experience of stress. However, still relatively many respondents who interpret often become stressed during this type of interpreting  – there are fifteen (79%) such certified interpreters. What is also interesting is that there is an equal number of the stressed and unstressed respondents who interpret consecutively very often – there are three (50% + 50%) certified interpreters in each group. The conclusion which can be drawn from Chart 49 (see below) is that the increasing frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting does not significantly decrease the subjective experience of stress among the respondents, which can additionally be observed in only slightly increasing numbers and percentage of those

3

very often

3 15

often

4 20

rarely

3 26

very rarely 0

5

10

“I experience stress”.

2 15

20

25

30

“I do not experience stress”.

Chart 49: The subjective experience of stress among the respondents performing certified consecutive interpreting very often, often, rarely and very rarely.

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who are not stressed: among the interpreters who interpret very rarely, there are two such people (7%), among those who do it rarely, there three such interpreters (13%), among those who do it often – there are four such respondents (21%). Another question concerned the internal stressors which trigger the respondents’ subjective experience of stress. Since they could provide several stressing agents, the numerical values represent the number of responses (and not the number of the respondents). It appears that the domain-related subcompetence involving the knowledge of the themes which are interpreted and the related specialised vocabulary is the main stressing agent because it was indicated in 37 responses. Several respondents expressed their comments on this stressor, claiming that what triggers their subjective experience of stress is their unfamiliarity with the subject matter (and the related specialised lexicon) of a given certified consecutive interpreting situation and other topics which sometimes crop up during interpreting. Such a view can be extrapolated from the following quotes:

• Cases of very specialised vocabulary or practices used in a given industry. • During court interpretations, lack of familiarity with some concepts; in the case of other interpretations, lack of familiarity with the processes (e.g. financial). • I do not take up a subject which is new to me but there are surprises, especially in the legal language, then the notary public is merciless. • If I do not know much about the subject of the interpretation, stress is greater. • It happens (in the case of interpreting for companies/in a notary’s office) that I am not very familiar with the subject matter discussed during the interpretation. • Knowledge of a specific industry. • Lack of even a superficial knowledge of the subject matter of interpreting, leading to mistakes. • Lack of sufficient knowledge (or my subjective feeling of lack of knowledge) induces anxiety in me and thus stress. • Lack of the knowledge of the subject, e.g. medicine, technology. • New subject matter, previously unknown to me and short time to prepare myself. • New vocabulary or concepts that I do not even know in my mother tongue. • Sometimes it is not fully known what the interpreting act will concern. • Sometimes there are very specialised interpretations for which it was not possible to prepare. • Sometimes, if there is specialised terminology that I may not be familiar with. • Sometimes, when I interpret in the areas where I am not an expert in terms of the themes, what is stressful is whether I have understood the context well. • Specialist vocabulary. • Stressful subject matter is a subject which is not well known to me. • The subject matter is sometimes very broad. • Unexpectedly appearing issues from other fields of knowledge than those previously announced (e.g. the civil case concerns compensation for complicated medical complications). • Vocabulary that appears unexpectedly outside the expected themes.

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Then, anxiety also contributes to the experience of stress since 22 responses concern this psycho-affective factor as being one of the internal stressors. This also shows that stress is the result of anxiety and therefore, as maintained in the previous parts of this book, these should be deemed two separate albeit greatly overlapping psycho-affective factors. The linguistic and interpreting subcompetences were mentioned in nineteen responses each, which implies that those components of the widely understood interpreter competence are also the stressing factors. As far as the linguistic subcompetence is concerned, the respondents provided some additional comments and what results from those remarks is that the unfamiliarity with the specialised language is their primary linguistic subcompetence stressor. Other stressors in this category pertain to other lexical subsystems such as phonetics or grammar, of which the respondents usually think as deficient in some way. The following quotes corroborate the above conclusion:

• Awareness of my own shortcomings in this respect. • I am not bilingual, I can always be surprised. • I have not been in a foreign language country for a long time, so I feel the lack of knowledge and uncertainty of the vocabulary and structures used. • I specialise in medical vocabulary so the other areas are deficient. • Insufficient lexical competence. • Lack of vocabulary, incorrect pronunciation. • Professional terminology. • Sometimes lack of words.

The respondents’ interpreting subcompetence stressors oftentimes result from insufficient experience in certified consecutive interpreting and the difficulties regarding the cognitive aspects of interpreting (i.e. memorisation and retrieval), note-taking, too fast input delivery (manifesting itself, among others, in fast or obscured pronunciation) and the inability to deal with this or the management of the interactions taking place within the interpreting event. The certified interpreters expressed their concerns in the following quotes:



• Failure to keep up with the interlocutor who speaks quickly and unclearly. • I almost have no experience – just two interpretations per year and I avoid this type of work. • I am afraid that I will not remember something or miss something. • Infrequent practice, undeveloped skills. • Lack of experience. • Not remembering the text, retrieving the lexical equivalents. • Rarely performed consecutive interpreting. • Sometimes it is difficult to get the parties to cooperate – certified interpreting is not conference interpreting, it has to be careful and precise, which clients sometimes do not seem to understand; they build long and multiple complex sentences. • The need to remember longer utterances and render them in another language. • Too fast a source delivery pace to take notes.

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• Too complicated, too long or too quickly pronounced phrases to interpret. • Too little practice, inability to take notes.

The other categories of internal stressors include several psycho-affective factors: language inhibition86 (fifteen responses), introversion (fourteen responses), motivation (twelve responses), low/negative self-esteem (eleven responses) and fear (five responses). An interesting category is that of “Others” which includes nine responses, of which only some of them can be classified as the certified interpreters’ internal stressors. Among those other internal stressing factors are the respondents’ perfectionism, physical condition, mental and physical fatigue and negative future-oriented thinking about the potential problems with receiving remuneration for a given certified consecutive interpreting service. Actually, this negative future-oriented thinking may be classified as an example of anxiety. Chart 50 presents the distribution of those internal stressors which evoke the respondents’ experience of stress. Domain-related subcompetence: 37 responses (23%)

Interpreting subcompetence: 19 responses (12%)

Others: 9 responses (5%)

Linguistic subcompetence: 19 responses (12%)

Anxiety: 22 responses (13%)

Motivation: 12 responses (7%) Low/negative self-esteem: 11 responses (7%)

Introversion: 14 responses (9%)

Language inhibition: 15 responses (9%)

Fear: 5 responses (3%)

Chart 50: The distribution of the respondents’ internal stressors.

86 Although the two concepts may be viewed as similar and greatly overlapping, language inhibition is different from the linguistic subcompetence since the former refers to the psycho-affective factor and the related behaviours of not using certain elements, which means that it is more performance-oriented, whereas the latter is linked to the command of both the source and target languages and thus is more competence-oriented.

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The certified interpreters participating in the study were also asked about the external stressors. All of the factors they referred to can be classified into three broad categories:  context (i.e. the contextual embedding, in which the respondents perform certified consecutive interpreting), working conditions and other participants of the certified consecutive interpreting act (the fourth one is “non-applicable”, which means that the respondents did not mention any external stressors). The distribution of the responses classified into the above-mentioned categories is presented in Chart 51. non-applicable: 3 responses (5%)

context: 23 responses (40%)

working conditions: 7 responses (12%)

other participants: 25 responses (43%)

Chart 51: The distribution of the respondents’ external stressors.

Some of the respondents’ answers concern the other participants of the interpreting act who – because of their roles in the institutional settings, such as a judge or a lawyer in a courtroom or the interrogating police officer at a police station  – often demonstrate the imbalance of power, with them being the more important participants than the interpreters and seeming not to fully understand the role of certified interpreters. They also invoke the certified interpreters’ stress by formulating careless, imprecise and ambiguous statements which are difficult to render orally in the target language. Sometimes the interpreted parties’ behaviour also leads to the respondents’ stress as they do not seem to treat the certified interpreters as equal, let alone the most important participants of the certified consecutive interpreting act, thanks to whom such bilingual communication is possible. This, as the certified interpreters claim, contributes to their subjective experience of stress. Such a view about power imbalance emerges from the following quotes:

• Carelessness and inaccuracy of the statements of state officials leading to the ambiguity of meaning.

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• Court and notary public and the situation of the wedding ceremony when people are stiff, silent, formal, stressed. • Court, subject matter, behaviour of other people. • Court/police:  judge’s/client’s lack of cooperation (too fast speech), awareness of responsibility for my words. • Court: the presence of specific persons. • Lack of the parties’ understanding of the role of the interpreter. • Other people’s behaviour, lack of culture, male chauvinistic remarks I heard at the police station and during other interpretations (e.g. I  was called “a girl”  – I  was 36  years old, I  interpreted negotiations between two big companies and after hearing such words I felt like going out and slamming the door), lack of a microphone sometimes and the need to shout to the whole room. • Representatives of the authorities, subject matter of the interpretation. • The behaviour of other people, lack of understanding of the character of our profession. • The behaviour of people – many times the parties have had a neglectful attitude towards my work (in the notary’s office; I do not know where this comes from). Other things do not stress me. • The blatant behaviour of the court accounting department and the practice of some judges and registrars to give as little remuneration as possible or nothing at all; the interpreter should come to the court at her own cost and the invoice for the service is given half a year later. • The context of the court. The presence and behaviour of other people: I am particularly stressed by the lawyers of the parties – for the reasons I described earlier [their superior behaviours towards the certified interpreter and formulating linguistically complex sentences to undermine the interpreter’s competence or obstruct the interpreting process]. • The unfriendly behaviour of the parties is stressful for me; negative atmosphere, especially in the courts – the harshness and high expectations of judges and, besides that, jurors who doze off and court reporters who make mistakes; sometimes prolonged interpreting (e.g. in addition to the statement for the police, you have to go for an on-site inspection and interpret there).

A few certified interpreters view the behaviours of the less powerful people taking part in interpreting as stressful. Among such people are the individuals interrogated by the police, witnesses or the aggrieved. Other people who may be considered the external sources of the certified interpreters’ stress are observers like, for instance, the representatives of the media or native speakers of English who may hypothetically judge the certified interpreters’ skills based on their performance. The presence and behaviours of those individuals can evoke the respondents’ experience of stress. The following quotes corroborate this opinion: • External factors, i.e. factors independent of me, as I mentioned: the behaviour of the interrogated, sometimes the subject matter, but as I wrote earlier, I try to minimise it earlier, e.g. by requiring that I should be informed about the subject to be

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interpreted, by getting acquainted with the subject matter or the content of the messages or by providing a glossary. • Other people around. • Sometimes the behaviour of the persons interrogated (several times I  had the opportunity to experience more or less disguised threats), the defectiveness of the equipment (recently, the microphone in the courtroom was malfunctioning), the awareness of the recording. • The behaviour of others. • The presence of a native speaker. • The presence of other persons, especially those “reviewing” my interpretation, the presence of the media. • The presence of people who can verify my interpretation. The possibility of omitting the content or making a mistake. • Vague, difficult to understand pronunciation of people for whom English is not their native language.

There is also one particularly interesting response, in which the respondent observes that what he/she finds stressful is the situation of the people involved in the certified consecutive interpreting process, especially those who are clearly less powerful in the institutional power imbalance. What triggers that respondent’s stress is:

• The plight of victims and/or accused persons. Compassion for the person for whom I am interpreting when the case cannot be resolved successfully.

The institutional setting and the related themes of a given certified interpreting act, i.e. the interpreting context which is partly related to its actors (i.e. the interpreting situation participants), is another category which groups the certified interpreters’ external stressors. Thus, the certified interpreters observe that they tend to be stressed in the court, police or hospital contexts since, in quite many cases, the certified interpretation provided there pertains to difficult matters whose gravity is usually strong and which require quite formal linguistic and nonlinguistic behaviours. The experience of stress induced by the widely understood context is reflected in the following selection of the respondents’ quotes:

• Context (notary’s office), subject matter of interpretation, uncertainty as to how the certified interpreter is treated. • Interpreting topics, presence of many people, behaviour of participants. • Subject matter, presence of people with a good knowledge of both languages or interpreters of other languages. • The context of interpreting can cause stress. • The context, institution, seriousness of the situation, presence of people who could assess my competence, the presence of authorities. • The subject matter of interpretation, aggression during e.g. an interrogation. • The subject matter of interpreting, the speed of speech, failure to wait for the interpreting to be completed, speaking to the interpreter instead of speaking to

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the interlocutor, the inability of some people to work with the interpreter (and the statements like “Let them be told that...”). • The subject matter of translation. • There are (police, prosecutor’s office, court) very unpleasant cases, related to human tragedies. They always cause stress and some discomfort. • Unknown unknowns – the unpredictability of events in the operating room in an obstetric ward. • Usually in courts stress is higher, which results from a very formal context.

The last category of the respondents’ external stressors has already appeared in some of the quotations and is related to the working conditions, in which the certified interpreters work. What the respondents mean by their working conditions, includes both the spatial settings, in which they have to interpret consecutively, their acoustics, additional noises, temperature and stuffiness as well as late hours, at which they have to work and the insufficiently and inappropriately priced certified interpreting services. • Noise (e.g. when I  am surrounded by other people talking to one another), interjections by other people. • Sometimes my discomfort and stress are caused by working conditions. Recently I  was interpreting at the police station for 7.5 hours at night and nobody even offered me a glass of water (I did not take it with me because it was supposed to be 2–3 hours long) although in the meantime an officer on duty brought tea several times to the policeman who interrogated the injured Pakistanis. They were also not offered anything to drink. • Sometimes unfavourable working conditions at the police station or in the court – in a cramped, stuffy room, e.g. for several hours without the possibility of drinking water. It is impossible to predict when the interpretation will end. • The awareness of the low salary for interpreting for the judicial authorities when, at the same time, it is possible to earn a decent wage and receive payment on time and the awareness of rates which have been unchanged since 2005 while the economic reality has changed dramatically cause stress and reluctance. • Unfavourable working conditions, context, subject matter. • Working conditions, a few other people in one room at the police station – it is loud, it is not possible to focus, the time is late, the accused often use vulgarisms.

As presented above, there are several internal and external stressors which contribute to the intensity of the respondents’ subjective experience of stress. What is interesting, those stressors act in three major ways. They are either of motivating and enhancing character and hence increase the certified interpreters’ potential and skills. 31 respondents (41%) report this positive activity of stress. For 21 certified interpreters (28%), stress is of negative and debilitating nature because it hinders their performance by distracting their attention, impeding their cognitive capabilities and affecting their linguistic production and thereby contributing to errors. 24 certified interpreters (31%) claim that actually their subjective experience

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of stress is neutral, which means that this psycho-affective factor neither increases nor decreases their potential, competences and skills. Chart 52 presents the distribution of the character of the impact stress has on the certified interpreters participating in the study. Stress is debilitating: 24 respondents (31%)

Stress is motivating: 31 respondents (41%)

Stress is neutral: 21 respondents (28%)

Chart 52: The distribution of the respondents’ stress impact character.

The three above-presented ways in which the internal and external stressors influence the certified interpreters’ performance can also be discussed in terms of their linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents. As far as the former indicators of the respondents’ subjective experience of stress are concerned, they have been grouped into six major categories: a variety of errors, lexical errors, omissions, incomplete and/ or illegible notes, others and no exponents. Since no certified interpreter mentioned the aspects of phonetics and pronunciation and of grammar as occurring individually, such errors do not occur and therefore they are not reflected in the analysis. Chart 53 (see below) presents the distribution of the respondents’ linguistic exponents of stress. The above chart clearly shows that stress is reflected in the linguistic dimension of the certified consecutive interpretation by a variety of exponents, mostly by errors. This suggests that the respondents enumerated several linguistic aspects of their certified consecutive interpreting performance which become deficient because of the experience of stress. This category of the linguistic exponents of stress also includes the errors belonging to other categories but because of the fact that they are mentioned together in the respondents’ responses, they form a separate category. Among the errors enumerated by the certified interpreters are those related to grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation as well as those related to note-taking techniques and the skills of rendering (or not) the source message in the target language. The selection of the certified interpreters’ quotes substantiates this line of reasoning.

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Analysis of certified interpreters’ behavioural data

omissions: 13 responses (24%)

other exponents: 9 responses (16%)

no linguistic exponents: 8 responses (14%)

a variety of exponents: 17 responses (31%)

lexical errors: 2 responses (4%)

incomplete and/or illegible notes: 6 responses (11%)

Chart 53: The distribution of the respondents’ linguistic exponents of stress.



• Grammatical, phonetic, lexical errors, inability to reproduce the source text. • Linguistic errors (grammatical, lexical, phonetic), incomplete notes, illegible notes, difficulty in understanding the source text, inability to reproduce the source text from the notes. • Linguistic errors. • Omissions of content, incomplete notes, phonetic and grammatical errors. • Omissions, incomplete notes. • Omissions, language errors (grammatical, lexical, phonetic). • Omissions, problems with understanding the source text, incomplete notes. • Phonetic and grammatical errors.

Another category of the linguistic exponents of stress includes omissions. The respondents clearly state that because of stress, they are sometimes unable to remember or to retrieve the source text information, which leads to the omission of some elements of the input or to generalisation or hyperonomy – the use of words of higher order which substitute more specific items. To cope with this problem, the certified interpreters use the strategy of requesting the interpreted parties to repeat some input information so that they could fill in the comprehension gaps. The following quotes prove that omission may indeed be a frequent stress-induced phenomenon. • Generalisation. • In cases of increased stress, inability to reproduce the text accurately. • Occasional omissions and occasional linguistic errors.

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• Omissions. • Omissions, less often the inability to reproduce the source text from the notes. • Omissions, request for repetition.

The authors of six responses mention the problems with deciphering the notes as the linguistic exponents of stress. What the respondents view as stress-related is their inability to read what they noted in the listening phase of certified consecutive interpreting. This may result from stress, which, in turn, can be caused by the fast pace of input delivery or the saturation of the input with numerical data or proper names – the interpreters’ common problem triggers. The following quotes indicate that the problems with note-taking and note-reading can result from stress:

• Illegible or incomplete notes, excessively high input production speed. • Incomplete and illegible notes. • Sometimes it happens that I am unable to jot down all the numbers and have to ask for repeating them. • Unreadable notes and the inability to remember numerical data or proper names induce my stress. • Unreadable notes, inability to reproduce the source text from the notes.

What is more, there are only two responses whose authors are of the opinion that their experience of stress manifests itself in their lexical errors or poorer vocabulary resources available to them (in their mental lexicons) at a given time. Those two responses are quoted below.

• Lexical errors, lack of access to source texts. • Poorer choice of vocabulary.

Some respondents also enumerated other linguistic exponents of stress. Those nine such answers pertain to the certified interpreters’ distraction and shorter attention span, retrieval problems, too fast delivery of the output and the awareness of the fact that the interpreting addressee may not keep pace with the interpreter or that there are too long pauses between the sentences. Those exponents are addressed in the following quoted remarks:

• Asking the parties to repeat what they have said, discussing the content with them. • Requests for repetition. • Sometimes I forget something. • Sometimes I interpret too quickly, the recipients may not be able to keep up. • Sometimes I take a bit longer breaks between sentences. • Very rarely the distraction and the need to repeat what has been said.

Finally, there is a group of responses, in which the respondents speak of no linguistic exponents because, as discussed earlier, twelve certified interpreters (16%) do not experience stress related to the performance of certified consecutive interpreting. The following fragments excerpted from the certified interpreters’ responses may confirm the above conclusion:

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Analysis of certified interpreters’ behavioural data

• I cut myself off from the situation, it does not affect me directly – I explain it to myself in this way. • I do not experience stress as regards the linguistic dimension of consecutive interpreting. • I do not notice any. • I hope that after so many years there are no exponents. • It probably does not influence my consecutive interpreting too much.

What is interesting, there are also some certified interpreters who see no negative influence of stress on the linguistic correctness of their renderings but, instead, they feel additionally motivated by stress which gives them a boost of energy and allows them to focus on completing the interpreting task in an appropriate manner. This clearly emerges from the following responses:

• I manage to overcome stress before starting the interpretation. Once I start, I focus on my work. • It does not really concern me… I allow a maximum of 7.56% of stress to ensure motivation to deliver a professional quality interpretation as is required from me . • Positive stimulation and a significant increase in the level of task completion. • Stress causes positive motivation.

As aforementioned several times so far, stress is also the psycho-affective factor which has its extra-linguistic exponents that may also have an impact on the interpreters’ performance. It seems that the respondents’ subjective experience of stress manifests itself in quite many extra-linguistic exponents provided in the questionnaire as the potential indicators of this psycho-affective factor. They have been grouped into eight general categories. Chart 54 presents the distribution of the extra-linguistic exponents of the certified interpreters’ experience of stress.

voice quality: 9 responses (12%) pauses: 10 responses (14%)

other exponents: 15 responses (20%)

sweating: 4 responses (5%)

dry throat: 2 responses (3%)

no exponents: 19 responses (25%)

a variety of exponents: 16 responses (21%)

Chart 54: The distribution of the respondents’ extra-linguistic exponents of stress.

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There are 75 responses given by the respondents. Among them, there are sixteen answers, in which the respondents speak about a variety of the extra-linguistic exponents which they observe in connection with their subjective experience of stress and they range from the bodily reactions (e.g. uncontrolled movements, use of gestures, body tension, sweating, dry mouth, nervous tics or accelerated pulse), through the organisational matters (e.g. fiddling with note-taking gadgets, chaotic organisation of notes) to voice quality (e.g. distorted voice quality, stammering, pauses, voice trembling). The following responses can illustrate the above point:



• Accelerated pulse, redness, headache. • As with other factors. I cannot tell if I feel stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, etc. in a given situation. Probably it is a mixture of factors. • Attitude, fillers, sweating, voice quality – I speak quieter. • Attitude, voice quality, sweating. • Excessive body tension, hurry, in general I have the impression that I do not control my behaviour or speech, I keep notes very chaotically. • Gesticulation, sweating. • Gestures, stammering (sporadically), problems with turning the sheets of paper in the notepad, nervous tics. • Pauses. Sweating. • Shaking, playing with a ballpoint pen, a sheet of paper. • Sweating, sweat marks on notes, sometimes lack of the organisation of documents on the table, especially in the case of A4 sheets used for notes (in the absence of a notepad). • Trembling of voice, accelerated breathing. • Uncontrolled movements, tense posture, voice quality. • Voice quality, dry throat.

The second most numerous category of the respondents’ extra-linguistic indicators of stress includes all those responses which could not be classified elsewhere since there were just single instances of such exponents. The certified interpreters enumerated such aspects as the disorganisation of the source documents which they use as interpreting aids, too firm a ball pen grip or coughing. These are clear manifestations of stress experienced by the respondents who commented on them in the following excerpts:

• A tense body posture. • Clenching fists. • Excessive pen pressure, coughing. • Lack of the organisation of documents on the table (e.g. court documents, source documents). • Press on the pen. • The documents get scattered.

What is interesting, hesitations and pauses, both filled (i.e. fillers/repairs) and silent (i.e. stalls), were also mentioned by quite many respondents as their

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543

extra-linguistic exponents of stress. Such pauses are known to occur when people try to retrieve some information or lexical items and although during interpreting training trainee interpreters learn how to avoid them, it is not always possible to do so and stress is definitely a factor which contributes to such disfluencies. A selection of the certified interpreters’ responses shows that these elements occur during certified consecutive interpreting.

• Faltering. • Fillers, coughs. • Fillers. • Pauses, silence, I wait. • Sounds like: aaaaa, yyyyy.

Distorted voice quality is another category which may be thought of as a manifestation of the interpreters’ experience of stress. It is common knowledge that when stressed, some people speak down (or, on the contrary, speak up), their voice falters and is devoid of confidence, their speech pace is either accelerated or slowed down. The respondents linked those aspects of their voice quality with their feeling of stress. The following quotes present those distortions: • Accelerated speech, shorter pauses. • As I  wrote earlier  – what I  consciously observe in myself is an increase in the volume of voice with an increase in the speed of speech – sometimes it is like a self-reinforcing vicious circle: the speaker speaks faster = the interpreter interprets faster  =  the speaker speaks even faster  =  the interpreter asks for repetition (i.e. impeding the speed of speech). • Decreased voice quality. • I speak too quietly. • I use the intonation of questions. • Lack of speaking fluency. • Slower speaking. • Trembling voice. • Uncertain voice tone.

In six responses, the certified interpreters speak about their physiological stress responses: four of them mention sweating and two of them – dry mouth. These are indeed clear extra-linguistic exponents of stress which may also condition the interpreter’s performance. Especially the latter exponent may make it difficult for the interpreter to speak. Finally, there is a relatively numerous group of nineteen responses in which the certified interpreters speak either of having no extra-linguistic exponents of stress because they do not experience this psycho-affective factor or of the motivating activity of stress which increases their capabilities and makes their interpretation qualitatively better. The former situation can be observed in the following collection of quotes:

• I do not feel stressed, so I did not answer this question. • I do not notice any such indicators.

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• I do not remember, I do not deal with such considerations. • I have not observed any. • I hope that none of them. In the courtroom I am observed by all the participants of the procedure, so my body is in control itself. • I rather do not notice them [those exponents]. • I remain calm. • In no particular way, I simply ask for repeating what has been said more often. • In the non-linguistic dimension, I do not experience stress either. • It is not manifested too much, maybe accelerated pulse rate. • It seems to me that it does not appear. • Lack of such symptoms of stress, I have undergone training in which they teach how to reduce the undesired symptoms of stress. • No stress. • None of the above.

As far as the motivating role of stress is concerned, such a view emerges from the following excerpts:

• I experience stress mainly after an assignment. During interpreting, it motivates me to have a better quality of work. • Stress has a very strengthening effect on me, all anxiety disappears when I  start interpreting, the accent changes (to a more professional one), an upright posture etc. • Stress motivates me to be more focused and to look for solutions. • Stress occurring in such situations has a positive – mobilising effect.

On the whole, the analysis of the certified interpreters’ both quantitative and qualitative data allows postulating that stress is indeed a strong psycho-affective factor which is experienced by the majority of the certified interpreters during certified consecutive interpreting for a number of reasons which are known as the internal and external stressors. As far as the former stressing agents are concerned, it emerges that the respondents’ thinking about their subcompetences of the interpreter competence (i.e. domain-related, interpreting and linguistic subcompetences) may trigger the experience of stress. Similarly, other psychoaffective factors can also contribute to stress (i.e. anxiety, language inhibition, introversion, motivation and low self-esteem). Among the most frequent external stressors are other participants of the certified consecutive interpreting act, interpreting institutional contexts as well as working conditions. It seems that the certified interpreters’ experience of stress becomes more intense in the setting of power imbalance, where other participants of the interpreting event show their superiority over the interpreters because of their higher position resulting from their greater engagement and decision-making. Thus, the behaviours of judges, lawyers or police officers can contribute to the certified interpreters’ experience of stress. What is interesting, quite many respondents declare that stress is a motivating force for them. Others think that this psycho-affective factor has either a debilitating influence on them or is neutral and does not significantly affect them.

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Those who experience the negative influence of stress enumerate several linguistic exponents which are often reflected in various types of errors or in incomplete/illegible notes which may lead to omissions. As regards the extra-linguistic indicators of the respondents’ subjective experience of stress, they include the distorted levels of voice quality, filled and unfilled pauses or the typical bodily stress responses like sweating, trembling or body tension. This all shows that stress is another psycho-affective factor which is strongly experienced by many certified interpreters, which has numerous sources and different linguistic and extralinguistic manifestations.

8.3.9. General observations concerning the certified interpreters’ subjective experience of the psychoaffective factors: analysis conclusions After the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data provided by the certified interpreters about their subjective experience of the selected psycho-affective factors, it is now time to make some general conclusions concerning the sample. However, before some general observations are presented, it has to be once again mentioned that what has been examined in this case study is the subjective experience of the selected psycho-affective factors and its influence on interpreting performance perceived by the study participants themselves. Such an approach to the issue of the certified interpreters’ psycho-affective factors was dictated by the fact that it is virtually unfeasible to collect the linguistic material generated by so many certified interpreters working in different locations in Poland, on the basis of which it would be possible to observe more objectively how their psychoaffectivity impacts on their performance. Thus, the case study was selected as the organisational framework of the above analysis because it allows studying the issues in question from a more subjective perspective. This being so, it is not possible to offer any far-reaching conclusions concerning the psychologically measured objective level of the experience of those factors. Such an examination can be carried out within the frameworks of psychology whereas this study is situated more within interpreting studies (and its subfield – interpreter psychology). The observations are therefore based on the certified interpreters’ subjective opinions about their experience of the psycho-affective factors and not on the objective research outcomes obtained in the course of psychological research carried out by means of psychological instruments such as psychological tests. The psycho-affective factors discussed above can be divided into two broad categories: those which are triggered more by the external factors and whose activity may be said to be more negative than positive and those which are triggered more by the internal factors, mostly the certified interpreters’ internal thinking about themselves and self-evaluation, and whose activity can be claimed to be more positive than negative. It so happens that the first group includes anxiety, fear and stress whereas the other group comprises language ego/language inhibition, personality, self-esteem and motivation.

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As regards the psycho-affective factors which belong to the first group, apart from fear which  – because of its nature  – is felt by relatively fewer certified interpreters, anxiety and stress can be regarded as two psycho-affective factors which strongly influence the certified interpreters’ performance (Chart 55).

12 respondents

64 respondents

stress

56 respondents

20 respondents

fear

34 respondents

42 respondents

anxiety

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

I experience this psycho-affective factor. I do not experience this psycho-affective factor.

Chart 55: The subjective experience of the first group psycho-affective factors.

Anxiety, understood as the respondents’ reaction to subjectively perceived threats, is quite common among the certified interpreters as 55% of the sample declared the experience of this psycho-affective factor. Its different types (i.e. archaic anxiety and existential anxiety, which is further subdivided into acceptance anxiety, orientation anxiety and performance anxiety) have all been identified in the respondents’ responses and the major causes of such feelings are the certified interpreters’ negative feelings and negative appraisal of the components of their overall interpreting competence and other participants of the interpreting acts whose potential opinions and judgemental attitudes act as the forces triggering the experience of this psycho-affective factor. The respondents see the negative influence of anxiety in the errors which they make while interpreting consecutively. Those errors are of various character and pertain to nearly all subsystems of language and to the issues of equivalence. Thus, anxiety contributes to lexical, phonetic and grammatical errors as well as to the non-rendering of some elements of the input (i.e. omissions). Anxiety has also its extra-linguistic exponents which are typically the reactions of the certified interpreters’ bodies such as body tension, accelerated heartbeat, sweating or increased gesticulation. In fact, it may be postulated that anxiety is similar to stress since their linguistic and extra-linguistic

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exponents overlap. Therefore, quite frequently anxiety can be viewed as a stress response and the experience of stress can be brought about by the experience of anxiety. This may confirm the postulate presented in Chapter 3 that the psychoaffective factors are interrelated and one can lead to another. As presented in the earlier parts of the book, fear is the psycho-affective factor defined as a reaction to the genuine threat which endangers people in some way. In regular certified consecutive interpreting practice, such dangers are usually non-existent but, as the respondents rightly observed, there are some situations in which those threats develop. This concerns in particular all those certified consecutive interpreting acts, in which the interpreters are supposed to interpret people who have committed some kind of crime and therefore may be dangerous. The linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents of fear are similar to those of anxiety and include various kinds of errors, with omissions being the most frequent mistake type, and different bodily reactions. It is natural that people who are afraid of something react by having body tensions, an accelerated heartbeat or gesticulating more. This could also suggest that fear may also be closely interrelated with stress since, again, many linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents are identical. As far as stress is concerned, it is perhaps the most frequent psycho-affective factor experienced by the respondents. Unlike anxiety or fear, it is not only of impeding and debilitating nature since it can also motivate people, give them a boost of energy, thereby enhancing their performance. Among those certified interpreters who report its negative impact, the most common sources are both the interpreter-related causes such as the respondents’ negative thinking about their interpreter competence (in particular about the domain-based, interpreting and linguistic subcompetences). Other psycho-affective factors (anxiety, weak language ego, introversion, motivation, low/negative self-esteem) can also be seen as the internal stressors. This once more shows the interrelations of the studied psycho-affective factors. What also triggers stress is the external stressors, mostly other participants and the institutional embedding of certified interpreting acts as well as working conditions. Like anxiety, the certified interpreters’ declared linguistic exponents of stress include various errors, including omissions. Incomplete and/or illegible notes can also result from the negative experience of stress. As above-mentioned, stress has also similar extra-linguistic exponents to those of anxiety or fear. In view of the foregoing, it may be concluded that the certified interpreters’ subjective experience of anxiety, their subjective experience of fear and their subjective experience of stress are closely linked, which is illustrated not only by the similar sources of the emotions associated with those three psycho-affective factors but also by the similar linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents. Moreover, it may also be postulated that both anxiety and fear can be sometimes classified as stress responses and this, in turn, shows that the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity is in fact a network of interrelations. The second group of the psycho-affective factors includes language ego/ language inhibition, personality, self-esteem and motivation. In fact, the majority

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of the respondents observe that those factors have an impact on their certified consecutive performance (Chart 56), sometimes obstructing it and sometimes enhancing it.

69

motivation

7

61

self-esteem

15

58

personality

18

52

language ego/language inhibition 0

10

20

30

24

40

50

60

70

80

I observe the influence of this psycho-affective factor. I do not observe the influence of this psycho-affective factor.

Chart 56: The perception of the influence of the second group psycho-affective factors.

Language inhibition, as maintained throughout this book, is closely linked to the concept of language ego and language boundaries. What was brought to light in the course of the analysis is that the certified interpreters often experience language inhibition when performing certified consecutive interpreting, which results from their rather unstable and weak language ego and firm language boundaries. In other words, the respondents oftentimes claim that their performance may not be so perfect since they are well aware of those areas of their language competence which are deficient in some ways and that is why they tend not to take risks in using them, being at the same wary so as not to make an error. Such errors, as was disclosed in the analysis, may constitute threats to the certified interpreters’ language ego. The rather high levels of the subjective experience of language inhibition, weaker language ego and less permeable language boundaries are also related to the fact that the respondents’ experience in certified consecutive interpreting is not particularly extensive, that their linguistic resources are not particularly rich and that their knowledge of a given domain is not sufficient. This, plus the presence of other interpreting act participants, leads to more inhibition resulting from weak language ego and firmer language boundaries. Interestingly enough, the experience of this psycho-affective factor is also at times triggered by low self-esteem (especially the intermediate one), which again proves that the

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psycho-affective factors are interrelated. In terms of the linguistic exponents of the certified interpreters’ language ego, the most common indicators are the use of simpler language and omissions. The extra-linguistic exponents of this psychoaffective factor are similar to those which are present in the case of the previously discussed factors. The influence of the certified interpreters’ personality dimensions on their certified consecutive interpreting practice has also been observed by quite many respondents. However, when the certified interpreters were asked to determine their personality dimensions, all of the three dimensions were identified among the respondents although extroverts or ambiverts clearly predominate. What the analysis has demonstrated is that the extrovert and ambivert interpreters tend to speak more during the certified consecutive interpreting act, producing the output which is slightly longer and more word-laden than the input. They are also more willing to act more socially and get involved in the interpreting act interactions as well as more willing to be more helpful to the interpreted parties. The introvert interpreters, on the other hand, speak less, generating the less verbose target messages. They also declare to be more reserved towards other participants of the interpreting situation and, curiously enough, they additionally enumerate several extra-linguistic exponents of their personality dimensions, also observed by those experiencing the other psycho-affective factors of more negative nature (i.e. anxiety or stress). Among them are the accelerated heart beat or pulse, which may point to the fact that introversion may trigger the experience of anxiety and stress. However, introversion cannot be directly linked to worse performance since even though some certified interpreters’ personality may be classified as being introverted, those people can mask it by adopting their public selves. This all leads to the conclusion that personality may not be a particularly strong psycho-affective factor affecting the certified interpreters’ performance. Another psycho-affective factor studied in the above analysis is self-esteem which can be subdivided into several types: global/general self-esteem, situational self-esteem, intermediate self-esteem and task self-esteem. Actually, because of the nature of the respondents’ data gathered in the form of the questionnaire, it was possible to look at global/general self-esteem and intermediate self-esteem. It seems that the certified interpreters’ level of global self-esteem is mostly positive or neutral. As regards intermediate self-esteem, it has two dimensions since one type of intermediate self-esteem refers to the respondents’ linguistic skills (i.e. their linguistic subcompetence) and the other one – to their interpreting skills (i.e. their interpreting subcompetence). As regards the former, the great majority of the certified interpreters are of the opinion that their linguistic subcompetence intermediate self-esteem is very high and high (i.e. positive) or average (i.e. neutral). Interpreting subcompetence self-esteem has been assessed only slightly worse and the major difference lies the greater number of those respondents who view their interpreting self-esteem as low. The high levels of both types of intermediate self-esteem manifest themselves in greater confidence and certainty observed on the level of speech and voice quality. This shows that self-esteem

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as a psycho-affective factor does not generate many negative exponents and that is why it may be concluded that the nature of this factor is more positive than negative. The final aspect of the certified interpreters’ psycho-affectivity is motivation which is observed among the great majority of the respondents. There are two types of motivators – the internal and the external ones. It seems that the internal forces are more numerous and become visible as the respondents’ professionalism or their willingness to be as much of help to the interpreted parties as it is possible. Among the external motivators are remuneration earned in non-public institutional settings (i.e. not for interpreting services rendered for public judiciary bodies) and the statutory obligation to provide interpretation when requested. The certified interpreters’ motivation makes them pay more attention to the linguistic correctness of the target message (i.e. correct language, accuracy or proper delivery speed) and to the generally understood more professional behaviour which they demonstrate during certified consecutive interpretation. Motivation is thus certainly a positive psycho-affective factor conditioning the certified interpreters’ better performance resulting in the better quality of the target texts. The analysis carried out within the frameworks of this case study has additionally brought two interesting phenomena to light. First of all, it was rather unanticipated that fear would be experienced by the respondents. However, their responses show that the certified interpreter’s work may be the one involving some real threat and hence fear is sometimes felt by them. Secondly, what emerges from the study is that the certified interpreters are usually very sensitive in terms of their overall interpreting competence and the subjective negative experience of some of the psycho-affective factors results from their negative thinking about (and lowered confidence in) their knowledge, expertise and skills. This was surprising in view of the fact that the profession of a certified interpreter is the one that is thought to represent the high level of knowledge, expertise and skills, in particular linguistic and interpreting abilities. Perhaps, the certified interpreters, whose knowledge and skills were objectively assessed in the testing procedure during the examination before the Polish State Examination Board as those meeting the stringent criteria, realise that there is still a vast knowledge to be acquired and that the mastery of their skills is never complete. It is believed that this would – at least partially – account for those numerous responses given by the certified interpreters about their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors. However, as remarked earlier, this contrasts with the study of the respondents’ generally high intermediate self-esteem and hence more research is needed to determine such interrelations. Concluding, as has been discussed above, the selected psycho-affective factors act in twofold ways: their activity is either impeding, and therefore more negative, or strengthening, and therefore more positive. What emerges from the analysis is that many psycho-affective factors adversely influencing the certified interpreters have similar linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents and that is why it might be postulated that they can be regarded as the exponents of the generally understood interpreter’s psycho-affectivity. Thus, the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity can be

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defined as a construct encompassing several interrelated psycho-affective factors which may trigger one another as well as result from one another and whose negative activity is also experienced by the linguistic professionals of the highest rank – certified interpreters.

8.4. Chapter 8 summary Chapter 8 aimed at presenting the analysis of the qualitative (and to some extent – quantitative) data concerning the certified interpreters’ subjective experience of the selected psycho-affective factors. What this study has brought to light is that the representatives of this profession, although having an extensive knowledge and expertise as well as extraordinarily developed linguistic and interpreting skills, in many cases confirmed in an objective two-stage assessment procedure organised by the Polish State Examination Board, experience the psycho-affective factors and oftentimes this experience is negative and hinders their certified consecutive interpreting performance. What is more, the experience of those factors has a number of linguistic and extra-linguistic manifestations, including lexical, phonetic or grammatical errors or omissions of some input information as well as different bodily reactions like the increased heartbeat, pulse, sweating or increased gesticulation. This clearly points to the fact that in the course of the certified consecutive interpreting act (perhaps like in all other interpreting acts), the interpreter is not only a mechanical information transferring entity but a living and feeling individual whose affective responses, and emotions at large, may condition and may be conditioned by a variety of the constituents of the interpreting act, contributing thereby to more or less successful interpreter-mediated communication. Thus, this analysis has clearly demonstrated the anthropocentricity of interpreting, i.e. that the interpreter is a central figure of the interpreting system. Moreover, it has also shown that being a professional interpreter does not have to be equated with emotionless interpreting performance since, like all human beings, interpreters experience the psycho-affective factors which do condition their work.

Conclusions, implications and paths for further research Interpreter psychology has turned out to be an interesting area of research, in which the issues of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity occupy an important position since, as it has become clear throughout this volume, both the trainee interpreters and professional certified interpreters are affected by their subjective experience of various psycho-affective factors. In most cases, this subjective experience appears to be of inhibitory character and its negative impact is observed in the lower quality of the target texts produced as the outcomes of the consecutive interpreting process. This book reflects the author’s interests in the practice and theory of consecutive interpreting as well as in the interpreter’s subjective experience of the psychoaffective phenomena. What triggered the author’s thinking about the potential influence of the selected aspects of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity was his own observations concerning the certified consecutive interpreting process, during which he was supposed to provide certified consecutive interpreting services. At different stages of this process, he noticed that there emerged some problems related, for instance, to his ensuing subjective experience of anxiety and stress, which were manifested in a decrease of his cognitive skills (caused mainly by the so-called problem triggers) and which ultimately resulted in the output quality, with which he was not fully satisfied. The anxiety and stress associated with the institutional and situational context of certified interpreting in a courtroom as well as with other participants of the consecutive interpreting act motivated the author to examine this aspect of the interpreter profession more thoroughly. Another motivation came from the author’s practice as an interpreting trainer who educated university students in interpreting. During interpreting training he noticed that while taking a consecutive interpreting test in a university setting, his trainee interpreters were also under the influence of their psycho-affective factors and that those factors quite frequently inhibited the interpreting process by limiting the test takers’ cognitive skills, as a result of which their interpreting performance was disturbed and the target texts were deficient not only in terms of equivalence but also in terms of target language correctness. Those two observations spurred the author’s interests in the influence of the trainee interpreters’ and certified interpreters’ subjectively experienced psycho-affective factors on the consecutive interpreting process and product. The outcomes of the author’s scholarly endeavours have been presented in this book.

Book summary The first chapter of this study pertained to generally understood interpreting and interpreting studies. Not only did it present the definition of interpreting

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Conclusions, implications and paths for further research

adhered to in the entire work but also its various typologies. Hence, throughout the study, interpreting was seen as a highly complex mental activity with the linguistic transfer of meaning as its central aspect. Such transfer is characterised by its immediacy, specific settings and conditions and is possible thanks to the central role of the interpreter – a person operating on several levels: linguistic, pragmatic and communicative, cognitive and psycho-affective. Because of all these levels, the interpreter is able to transfer the aural source text message into its semantically corresponding oral target text utterance. Chapter  1 also presented interpreting as a communicative act with the central role of the interpreter making the communication between other participants (i.e. addresser and addressee) possible. As aforementioned, interpreting can also be seen as a cognitive activity, occurring in the interpreter’s mind and therefore attention was also paid to the cognitive aspects which can be regarded as the components of the interpreter competence which was another theme discussed in this chapter. Moreover, the interpreter was also presented as a professional whose duties involve assuming different functions and roles. Another issue related to the interpreter was interpreting training. The second part of Chapter 1 pertained to interpreting studies, specifically to the history of this field of scholarship, its division into subfields and interdisciplinarity. What might be thought of as some kind of novelty is the proposal of a map of interpreting studies which presents various subfields and their interrelations. One of such subfields is interpreter psychology which is concerned with the cognitive and psycho-affective dimensions of interpreting. Some deliberations concerning anthropocentric interpreting studies which puts the interpreter in the focus of scholarly attention complete Chapter  1. Thus, Chapter  1 offered an insight into interpreting research, upon which the further chapters relied. Chapter  2 was devoted entirely to consecutive interpreting. It seems that in modern interpreting studies, this mode of interpretation is no longer the primary object of research because it is simultaneous interpreting that has been brought to the fore. The second chapter aimed at discussing various aspects of consecutive interpreting by showing it both as a professional practice and research object. As argued in this chapter, consecutive interpreting is not a uniform activity and therefore its various forms and types were presented in several typologies. The empirical research presented in the further chapters of this study was done on the basis of classic consecutive interpreting  – uninterrupted integral consecutive interpreting aided by the notes taken by the interpreter in the comprehension stage and then read in the production stage. Additionally, Chapter 2 offered some space for discussing the intricacies of the consecutive interpreting process and therefore such aspects as the theoretical modelling of this process, the significance of the interpreter’s memory, note-taking, comprehension, processing and production were discussed at some length. What is more, the process of consecutive interpreting is often conditioned by what is known as input variables which were also the topic elaborated on in this chapter. The discussion of the consecutive interpreting process also included a review of the interpreting strategies exploited by interpreters at different stages of the consecutive interpreting process. Thus,

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555

apart from the most obvious interpreting strategies used in the production phase, the review focused on preparation, note-taking and interaction strategies which seem to be equally often used in consecutive interpreting. Another theme which Chapter  2 addressed is the concept of the consecutive interpreter competence which, as pointed out in Sub­chapter  2.4., may be presented as a componential model comprising ten subcompetences related to such areas as preparation skills, language command, interpreting skills, general knowledge, domain-related knowledge, cognitive skills, psycho-affective factors, social skills, intercultural dimension and interpreting business-related skills. All of those components make up what was referred to in Chapter  2 as “the consecutive interpreter competence”. The final issue which was addressed in Chapter  2 was consecutive interpreting training and quality assessment. One of the possible consecutive interpreting measurement instruments developed by the author was the trainee interpreter’s consecutive interpreting (with note-taking) performance evaluation form (Appendix 1). In conclusion, the major objective of the second chapter was to accentuate a variety of aspects of consecutive interpreting. What was therefore brought to light is that it is not a single and uniform mode of interpreting since it is practised in several forms. Moreover, those various subtypes are attention-grabbing objects of scholarly inquiry, which this chapter also aimed to highlight. The major objective of Chapter 3 was, first of all, to delineate the subfield of interpreting studies which  – for the purpose of this study  – was referred to as “interpreter psychology” and, secondly, to review the seven psycho-affective factors which were studied in the empirical part, i.e. anxiety, fear, language ego/ language inhibition/language boundaries, extroversion/introversion, self-esteem, motivation and stress. However, prior to a more thorough analysis of the analysed components of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity, some space was devoted to the subfield of interpreter psychology with its two main strands:  the cognitive strand and the psycho-affective strand. The review of interpreting studies literature allowed stating that whereas the studies of the cognitive issues of interpreting have become one of the most dominant trends in modern interpreting research, there is relatively less research on the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity (with perhaps stress being a notable exception). The discussion of the entirety of the conditions influencing interpreting performance could not be complete without some mentions of other factors like, for instance, those of technical, linguistic and relational nature. However, as already stated, the priority in Chapter 3 was given to the review of the psycho-affective factors which may impact on the interpreter and on the whole interpreting process. Therefore, the remaining part of the third chapter was dedicated to, first of all, the definitions of basic terms such as “affect” or “psycho-affective factor” and, secondly, to an in-depth discussion of each of those factors. The analysis of anxiety, fear, language ego/language inhibition/ language boundaries, extroversion/introversion, self-esteem, motivation and stress involved the review of the findings both from psychology and from interpreting studies. The investigations into the selected psycho-affective factors experienced in different contexts and settings by interpreters or trainee interpreters revealed

556

Conclusions, implications and paths for further research

that those emotions and feelings accompany both professionals and students and that sometimes it is hardly possible to eliminate the impact the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity exerts on the quality of the interpreting process and product. On balance, Chapter 3 offered many insights into the complexity of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity which was revealed in several studies carried out within the frameworks of interpreter psychology. What the fourth chapter focused on was the methodological foundations of the four case studies discussed in the further parts of this book. For this reason, the first theme elaborated on in this chapter was the rationale for studying the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors in consecutive interpreting. As argued in Chapter 4, although simultaneous interpreting has become the more preferred type of interpreting performed in international settings, the consecutive mode is still required in, for instance, courtroom or healthcare contexts. Moreover, it is one of the two forms of interpretation (the other one being sight translation/interpreting) used by the Polish State Examination Board to test the candidates wanting to become certified translators/interpreters. Therefore, consecutive interpreting, trainee interpreters and certified interpreters were selected as the mode and study participants, respectively. Their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors and its impact were examined in the four case studies. Chapter  4 also provided an overview of interpreting research methodology, stressing the distinctions between the qualitative perspective and quantitative perspective, between the positivist approach and the phenomenological approach and between the empirical and conceptual research work. This study represented more the phenomenological and qualitative approach since it sought to understand the study participants’ experience and behaviours by means of multi-method/mixedmethod research. Moreover, the triangulation of data, i.e. collecting the research data from several sources, could also manifest the empirical approach. The further parts of the fourth chapter offered the justification for selecting a case study as a general organisational framework for this research. There were basically two types of case studies. The first three case studies were organised in the same manner, with the same data acquisition and interpretation methods. Thus, the linguistic, factual, behavioural and attitudinal data were obtained from the trainee interpreters’ audio-recorded outputs, their performance transcripts, their notes and the retrospective protocols (Appendix 3) which they filled in immediately after the consecutive interpreting test. The data were analysed by means of the target text error analysis, the analysis of the interpreting strategies exploited, the analysis of notes and the interpretation of trainee interpreters’ responses to the cued questions included in the retrospective protocol. The fourth case study followed a different methodological organisation since it was based solely on the surveying method. A sample of Polish certified interpreters of English completed an online questionnaire, thereby providing a wealth of data concerning their subjective experience of the studied factors. Chapter 4 also included a discussion of the ecological, external and internal validity of the case studies as well as the observed shortcomings of the research. All things considered, Chapter 4 was methodologically oriented since it

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not only presented the methodological organisation of the four case studies but it also shed some light on the general issue of methodology relevant to interpreting studies. Chapters  5, 6 and 7 can be summarised collectively since they followed the same organisational and methodological format. What they included is a wealth of linguistic, factual, behavioural and attitudinal data concerning the three case study participants’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors and its influence on consecutive interpreting practice. All of the trainee interpreters were pursuing their interpreting education in various forms and modes at the Institute of English Studies of the University of Wrocław, Poland. The fifth chapter offered the space for discussing the case study whose participants were nine parttime undergraduate trainee interpreters, the sixth chapter was dedicated to the case study involving 21 regular undergraduate trainee interpreters whereas the seventh chapter was based on the case study in which 29 trainee interpreters enrolled in one-year postgraduate studies in translation participated. All those three chapters included the short summaries of the data collection and interpretation methodology as well as the descriptions of each group, with additional focus on their consecutive interpreting experience. The major aspect of all three case studies was the examination of the linguistic material generated by the trainee interpreters in the in-class consecutive interpreting test through the analyses of errors and interpreting strategies identified in the audio-recorded target texts. This was supplemented with the investigation into the study participants’ notes. What followed was the interpretation of the data which the students provided in the retrospective protocols. The analysis of the responses was abundantly illustrated with the quotations excerpted from the trainee interpreters’ answers (translated from Polish). The general conclusion which was drawn from all of the three case studies was such that the psycho-affective factors were subjectively experienced by the study participants and that this experience had – in the great majority of situations – an adverse impact on the quality of the consecutive interpreting process and product. The eight chapter exploited a different methodology of research for it made extensive use of the surveying method, i.e. the online-based questionnaire with a variety of cued questions regarding the certified interpreters’ subjective experience of the studied psycho-affective factors. Surprisingly, as many as 76 Polish certified interpreters of English completed the survey, providing a cornucopia of information about their age, gender, educational background or professional experience. Besides, they also answered several questions about their consecutive interpreting practice. Those data were interpreted and presented in the form of a variety of charts. What followed was a review of the subjective feelings associated with certified consecutive interpreting and an extensive discussion of the respondents’ subjective experience of each of the psycho-affective factors. Not only are the certified respondents’ data presented by means of charts but they are also interpreted in a narrative which is additionally supported by a selection of the quotes excerpted from the fourth case study participants’ answers. What this

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Conclusions, implications and paths for further research

case study brought to light is that all the psycho-affective factors can be divided into two broad groups. The first group includes anxiety, fear and stress which are triggered by the external factors and the subjective experience of which is more negative while the second group comprises language ego/language inhibition, extroversion/introversion, self-esteem and motivation  – which were found to occur as a result of the certified interpreters’ internal thinking about themselves and their self-evaluation and whose influence was more positive than negative. A somewhat unanticipated conclusion which was drawn from this case study was that the certified interpreters – in spite of their externally confirmed highly developed consecutive interpreter competence – were also frequently under the adverse impact of their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors. On the other hand, however, they demonstrated the higher levels of the positively affecting factors like motivation or self-esteem and even stress was reported by the respondents to be of motivating, mobilising and facilitative character more often than in the previous three case studies.

Summary of findings The outcomes of the four case studies show that nearly all of the psycho-affective factors in question affect the trainee interpreters and certified interpreters. It is now time to present some juxtapositions of those results. However, because of the uneven number of the four case study participants and two different methodologies used, it seems more justified to focus on the percentage distribution of the subjective experience of the components of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity rather than the number of the interpreters declaring their subjective feelings. What results from Chart 57 (see below) is that as far as the four case study participants are concerned, there are no particularly striking differences between the subjective experience of the factors in question. Perhaps, one such significant difference could concern fear which, although declared by all case study participants, was experienced only by the certified interpreters because  – after the analysis of the trainee interpreters’ declarations  – it became apparent that they confused the subjective experience of fear with that of anxiety. What is more, the subjective influence of the personality dimension differs across the studied interpreters, with the certified interpreters observing the greatest influence of this factor on their interpreting performance. This may imply that the subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors can be observed nearly at all stages of interpreting education as well as in professional practice. As aforementioned, the first psycho-affective factor which was studied in all groups was anxiety. This component of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity was viewed throughout this book as the trainee interpreters’ and certified interpreters’ reaction to their perceived threat which was also related to the future-oriented anticipated negative event. In all the four case studies, anxiety turned out to be a rather strong psycho-affective factor which had a usually negative impact on the way the study participants delivered their consecutive interpreting. What was

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Summary of findings

57%

motivation

83%

55% 52%

self-esteem 33% 33%

extroversion/introversion

59%

22%

76% 71% 72% 68%

language inhibition/language ego fear

48%

28% 26%

45%

anxiety

76% 55%

10%

20%

Case study 1

30%

100% 91%

83% 80%

55%

0%

78% 83% 84%

62%

stress

40%

Case study 2

50%

60%

70%

Case study 3

80%

83%

90%

100%

Case study 4

Chart 57: The percentage distribution of the four case study participants’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors.

identified as one of the major causes of anxiety was the trainee interpreters’ and certified interpreters’ negative thinking about their alleged deficiencies in their linguistic or interpreting skills. For this reason, the major type of anxiety which they demonstrated was performance anxiety. Not only did they demonstrate lack of self-confidence in their skills but they were also often afraid of the negative evaluation. The other types – orientation anxiety and acceptance anxiety – were identified mostly in the group of the certified interpreters whereas test anxiety was manifested by several trainee interpreters. An interesting observation was made with reference to the first case study participants whose outputs did not contain any serious errors and what could therefore be postulated that they exhibited “the impostor syndrome”. As regards the second psycho-affective factor – fear – it was not a particularly frequently subjectively experienced emotion. Actually, fear, understood as the interpreters’ reaction to the real threat that is about to come, could have been felt by the certified interpreters working with, for instance, criminals whom they were interpreting consecutively in the courtroom or in the police station settings or with medical patients to whom they provided interpreting services in the context of a labour ward. Thus, fear was certainly not a commonly experienced psychoaffective factor for – apart from the above-mentioned situations – there was no genuine threat which could in any way jeopardise the study participants. The phenomena of language inhibition and language ego, which could be explained with reference to the interpreters’ awareness of the deficiencies in their linguistic competence and the related reluctance to take the risk of using the

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Conclusions, implications and paths for further research

lexical and grammatical resources they are not certain of for fear of making errors which could endanger their fragile language ego, were experienced by all examined groups. The participants of the case studies declared that they suffered from language inhibition since they realised their linguistic deficits and wanted to use those lexical items and grammatical structures which they had firmly internalised. This implies that some errors in conveying the sense of the source texts or in using more advanced vocabulary could have been triggered by the subjective experience of this psycho-affective factor. The great majority of the trainee interpreters and certified interpreters expressed their concerns over the use of specialised vocabulary, the unfamiliarity with which can contribute to the more intense subjective experience of language inhibition. Another component of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity which was put under close scrutiny was extroversion/introversion/ambiversion. Extroversion and introversion can be regarded as two extreme dimensions of personality. The former can be characterised by some kind of courage and confidence, an open and unbiased attitude, sociability or a positive attitude to language risks whereas the latter can manifest itself in lack of confidence, reserve, reticence, a less willing approach to language risks. All the dimensions located between the two poles of this personality continuum can be classified as ambiversion. Whereas it is true that personality dimension does not have to determine a person’s aptitude for interpreting, in the first and second case studies the trainee interpreters did not provide enough data to make any conclusive statements about the influence of this factor on interpreting performance. In the third and fourth case studies, however, the impact of the interpreter’s declared personality dimension was more visible. Those study participants who classified themselves as either extroverts or ambiverts seemed to observe that this was certainly one of the factors which could improve their performance since they were more willing to speak in public or were less afraid to make errors. In the study of the certified interpreters, it was additionally revealed that the extrovert and ambivert certified interpreters tended to produce longer target texts and interact more with other participants of the interpreting act. On the other hand, the introvert third case study trainee interpreters declared that they subjectively experienced the impact of this factor which was observed, among others, in their weaker performance since being afraid of public speaking, they could not concentrate properly as a result of the feelings of anxiety, stress and language inhibition. The introvert certified interpreters stated that this personality dimension contributed to their less verbose production with occasional accidental omissions. On the whole, it may be safely concluded that personality dimension may – at least to some extent – condition the interpreter’s work. At this point, however, caution should be exercised since it is known that in their professional settings, people can exhibit a different personality dimension by assuming their “public selves”. Therefore, although personality may indeed be contributory to the way the interpreter performs consecutive interpreting, it is by no means the most important and the most strongly experienced psycho-affective factor.

Summary of findings

561

Self-esteem, explicated as the interpreters’ feelings towards themselves, their skills, the environment and the tasks which they perform, turned out to be of great significance since its subjective experience undeniably conditions consecutive interpreting performance. The analyses carried out within the frameworks of all four case studies clearly demonstrated that both the trainee interpreters’ and certified interpreters’ different levels of intermediate self-esteem (i.e. linguistic subcompetence- and interpreting subcompetence-related) can be held responsible for the quality of the performance and output. Those study participants who declared their positive levels of different types of self-esteem, including the intermediate one, performed better since they believed that their linguistic and interpreting skills were good enough to deal with consecutive interpreting tasks. However, what was even more visible is that many trainee interpreters experienced rather lower (i.e. negative) levels of self-esteem which could have emerged from their lack of self-confidence in their linguistic skills and general uncertainty about their abilities to effortlessly deal with consecutive interpreting. The certified interpreters’ subjective experience was somewhat different since as far as their linguistic subcompetence self-esteem, they usually viewed it as very positive (very high) and positive (high). The interpreting subcompetence self-esteem was assessed as slightly lower although still rather many certified interpreters observed that their thinking about the interpreting skills was more positive than negative. The analysis of various aspects of the trainee interpreters’ and certified interpreters’ self-esteem allows postulating that the subjective experience of this psycho-affective factor may have a profound impact on the way the interpreters perform consecutive interpreting. Motivation, which is necessary in the majority of endeavours people commit themselves to, was another dimension of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity which was examined. This factor was found to be of great significance since in the majority of cases, the trainee interpreters and certified interpreters wrote about their motivation which had a direct impact on their consecutive interpreting performance. Among all study participants, it was the intrinsic motivation that prevailed for it resulted from their internal need to perform well, to prove their skills, to act professionally. The less frequent external motivators included the prospect of a grade for the test, the possibility to leave the university premises (in the case of the trainee interpreters) as well as the remuneration for consecutive interpreting services and the obligation to perform interpreting for state institutions resulting from the Polish Act on the Profession of a Certified Translator of 25 November 2004. What can therefore be inferred on the basis of the results of the analyses is that motivation is another psycho-affective factor which had a strong impact on the study participants’ manners of work. The final aspect of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity research in this study was stress. As argued throughout the book, this was not so much a psycho-affective factor but because of its omnipresence and motivating or demotivating nature, it was included in the set of the psycho-affective factors under analysis. It appears that this was the most pervasive feeling among all the study participants. In the

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Conclusions, implications and paths for further research

majority of cases, it was found to be of debilitating nature since, as the trainee interpreters and certified interpreters claimed, their consecutive interpreting performance was hindered by the stress which ensued as a reaction to the interpreting situation. What triggered the study participants’ stress was both the external stressors (e.g. the source text, other participants of the interpreting act, the institutional setting, working conditions etc.) as well as the internal ones (i.e. anxiety, weak language ego, introversion, (de)motivation, low/negative self-esteem). Only several trainee interpreters and certified interpreters declared that their subjective experience of stress was of facilitative character and motivated them to perform better. Thus, stress is undoubtedly one of the strongest psycho-affective factors, the experience of which exerts usually a more negative than positive impact on the quality of interpreting performance. The study participants were also asked to provide some information about the linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents of their subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors. Those linguistic and extra-linguistic manifestations were additionally brought to light in the analyses conducted within the first three case studies. Generally speaking, the trainee interpreters and certified interpreters enumerated the same linguistic and extra-linguistic markers such as omissions, lexical and grammatical errors, phonetic issues or disfluencies of various types (hesitations, filled pauses, silent pauses) or their bodily reactions (e.g. increased gesticulation, accelerated heartbeat, accelerated pulse, body tension, dry throat, sweating or slower speech pace). It is therefore impossible to explicitly correlate the linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents with the psycho-affective factors which could have triggered them. Therefore, in such cases where it is unclear which factor could be linked to a given manifestation, it seems justified to speak about the linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity and not about its particular components. The outcomes of the investigations into the psycho-affective factors subjectively experienced by the trainee interpreters and certified interpreters additionally allow postulating that the basic model, according to which the factors operate, is the one presenting the psycho-affective sequence as a complex arrangements of various interactions among the stimulus, psycho-affective factors, behaviour(s), bodily reactions and other linguistic, cognitive, technical and relational factors (see Fig.  12, Sub­chapter  3.3.1.). It is especially true of those psycho-affective factors whose activity is typically more negative than positive, i.e. anxiety, fear, language inhibition, self-esteem and stress. Hence, the expanded model of the psychoaffective sequence in consecutive interpreting can be graphically represented by Fig. 15 (see below). What could stimulate the experience of a given psycho-affective factor is, for instance, the subjectively perceived difficulty of the source text, the testing situation or the interpreting theme or contexts. Such a stimulus can provoke the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity to respond to it and, at the same time, the interpreter’s body can react accordingly. This sequence can additionally be influenced by other

Summary of findings

563

Fig. 15: The expanded model of the psycho-affective sequence in consecutive interpreting (author’s own concept on the basis of Gorman 2005: 5).

factors – the interpreter’s cognitive and linguistic skills, the technicalities of a given interpreting situation or the relations between the interpreting act participants. All of this can be manifested in the interpreter’s behaviours, among which there might be the distortions of various aspects of input comprehension or the impediments in output production. The above model accentuates this complex nature of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity as well as the many interdependencies occurring among the stimulus, psycho-affectivity, behaviours, bodily reactions and other factors. What is also interesting, the study of the psycho-affective factors highlighted the many interdependencies among them. For instance, anxiety was found to stem from the study participants’ negative thinking about their linguistic and interpreting skills so it might be argued that this psycho-affective factor could have resulted from lower intermediate self-esteem. What is more, because of anxiety, the trainee interpreters and certified interpreters declared the subjective experience of language inhibition and this psycho-affective factor could have contributed to the increased levels of stress. Fear, the subjective experience of which was declared by the certified interprets, could also have been interlinked with some levels of stress and language inhibition which could have occurred as a result of the certified interpreters’ decreased cognitive skills. As shown above, language inhibition, which results from unstable and fragile language ego manifesting itself in the interpreters’ view of errors as threats, was also quite frequently linked to lower intermediate self-esteem since the study

564

Conclusions, implications and paths for further research

participants admitted to certain problems resulting from their awareness of linguistic deficits. Moreover, if those interpreters whose language ego was weak made some errors, they tended to become stressed and anxious about the potentially negative evaluation formulated by other participants of the consecutive interpreting act. Although extroversion/introversion did not significantly affect the interpreters and their ways of delivery, it may be assumed that the more introverted interpreters would experience greater levels of anxiety and stress and that they would be less willing to experiment with language use because of their language inhibition. Self-esteem has already been shown as a factor interrelated with other components of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity since it was often declared by the study participants and their anxiety, stress and language inhibition resulted from their insufficient self-confidence and self-esteem related to their linguistic and interpreting skills. Motivation was found to have a direct relation with stress because for some interpreters, especially those belonging to the fourth case study sample, stress was of motivating and facilitating character. On the other hand, in the group of the trainee interpreters, there were some individuals who  – because of their lower levels of intermediate self-esteem and high language inhibition – were not motivated at all to perform the consecutive interpreting task well. This may suggest that extremely low intermediate self-esteem demotivated some students and  – owing to their demotivation, lower self-esteem, fragile language ego – they experienced anxiety and stress more intensely. The final psycho-affective factor – stress – could be linked to nearly any other factors for it accompanies their subjective experience and, in quite many situations, debilitates the interpreters’ skills, thereby decreasing the overall quality of the interpreting process and the target texts.

Answers to the research questions The analyses carried out within the frameworks of the four case studies have brought answers to the research questions formulated in the fourth chapter. The first question concerned the types of psycho-affective factors which the interpreters subjectively experience. Generally speaking, it seems that nearly all the studied psycho-affective factors impacted on all case study participants to a greater or lesser degree. What was, however, brought to light is that it was anxiety, language inhibition, intermediate self-esteem and stress that had the greatest impact on the trainee interpreters’ and certified interpreter’s work. Motivation was also identified as a psycho-affective factor influencing the study participants’ performance whereas extroversion/introversion had a rather insignificant impact. Of minimal importance was fear which, although typically declared by some members of the studied groups, was in fact almost non-existent. The only group, in which it could have been experienced, is the certified interpreters whose feelings of fear were triggered by dangerous situations in which they were supposed to interpret consecutively.

Answers to the research questions

565

The second research question pertained to the nature of those factors. What the examinations carried out within the four case studies revealed is that in the majority of cases, the subjective experience of anxiety, language inhibition and self-esteem was of negative and inhibitory character. Likewise, fear was always an adversely affecting factor. On the other hand, while extroversion/introversion had usually neither a negative nor positive effect, motivation – in the majority of cases – was of positive, facilitating nature. Interestingly enough, some study participants’ subjective experience of stress was highly negative and therefore debilitating but there were also such trainee interpreters and certified interpreters who were motivated by some levels of stress and that is why it turned out that this psycho-affective factor was positive and mobilised their skills and intellectual potential. It therefore can be stated that the influence of stress can be of double nature. The answer to the third question about the linguistic and extra-linguistic exponents of the psycho-affective factors has also been provided as a result of the analyses of both the linguistic material generated by the participants of the first three case studies as well as the factual, behavioural and attitudinal data obtained in all four case studies. The negative influence of the psycho-affective factors was usually reflected in various equivalence-related errors, disfluencies, some lexical and grammatical mistakes and the frequent use of the strategies of omission or implicitation. Moreover, the exploitation of the repairing strategy could also be regarded as the exponent of the negative activity of the factors in question. As regards the extralinguistic manifestations, in the course of the research it became apparent that the subjective experience is reflected in such bodily reactions as accelerated heartbeat and pulse, body tension, dry throat, increased gesticulation or sweating which the trainee interpreters and certified interpreters observed on their own. Only in few cases were such extra-linguistic exponents observed in the notes taken by the students. The fourth question about the occurrence of any interdependencies and interrelationships between the psycho-affective factors has already been answered and for that reason it can only be repeated that there are many such interrelations since the studied factors can operate in a form of a chain reaction, in which one factor activates another. As far as the final research question is concerned, it can be concluded that the visible influence of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity does not necessarily diminish with the interpreter’s expanding experience and expertise. It was rather surprising to observe that so many certified interpreters – language specialists of the highest rank with the highly developed linguistic and interpreting skills officially confirmed in the difficult testing procedure before the Polish State Examination Board – report on their subjective experience of the typically negative activity of those factors. What was also interesting is that the first case study participants declared the least subjective experience of their psycho-affectivity. The data would therefore seem to suggest that although it is true that the novice interpreters may experience such factors more intensely and that those factors may have a more detrimental effect on the quality of interpreting performance and the output, the subjective experience of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity does not necessarily subside.

566

Conclusions, implications and paths for further research

What could be extrapolated from the answers obtained within the course of the study is that the initial thesis concerning the continuous activity, intricacy and complexity of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity, the impact it has on nearly all the constituents of the interpreting process as well as its potential causes which may lie in virtually all – even the seemingly unimportant – aspects of the interpreting process is valid, justified and well-grounded in the outcomes of the analyses carried out as parts of this project. This suggests that the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity is conditioned and conditions all units of the interpreting act, the results of which can sometimes be observed in the decreased quality of the target text.

Proposal of a revised model of consecutive interpreting The outcomes of this study may also have some implications for theorising and modelling consecutive interpreting. It was demonstrated that so many different aspects of the interpreting process may trigger off the interpreter’s subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors and their linguistic and extra-linguistic manifestations that it seems justified to include the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity in the model of consecutive interpreting. Fig.  16 graphically represents such a revised model.

Fig. 16: A revised model of consecutive interpreting (author’s own concept).

Implications for consecutive interpreting training

567

The bidirectional arrows placed over the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity indicate that virtually all aspects of the interpreting process can activate the subjective experience of such factors as well as that this subjective experience can influence those aspects. For instance, a too information-saturated source text can invoke the interpreter’s low intermediate self-esteem, anxiety and stress which in turn will affect comprehension and note-taking. Because of the comprehension gaps which emerge in the comprehension phase under the influence of stress and the interpreter’s negative intermediate self-esteem, the target text production may be imperfect, with many disfluencies. Finally, the output generated may be of lower quality, with many omissions and language errors. Hence, the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity certainly plays a role in consecutive interpreting and therefore it seems justified to include it in the revised model.

Implications for consecutive interpreting training The results of the research can offer several implications for interpreting training. First of all, it seems that interpreting aptitude testing should also cover the psycho-affective dimension. Different interpreting aptitude testing instruments aim to screen out those candidates who are not apt enough at mastering the skills of interpreting by means of linguistic, interpreting and cognitive tasks (e.g. shadowing, lexical and grammatical tests, basic sight translation/interpreting tasks) with little or no reference to the psychological predispositions of the candidates. Obviously, the usefulness of other tasks is not questioned but there should also be a psycho-affective component which would allow determining the potential student’s psycho-affective predispositions such as anxiety- and stress resistance, at least neutral self-esteem, self-confidence, motivation or strong language ego. It is believed that this can be done by using some psychological instruments or by organising some psycho-affectively-oriented interview, during which the specialists in the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity could gather the relevant data on the candidate’s psycho-affective potential. Secondly, the study of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity should also be incorporated into the curriculum of interpreter education. First of all, it seems vital to introduce trainee interpreters to the vast area of interpreter psychology since both cognition and psycho-affectivity are the fundaments of the interpreter’s performance. Moreover, trainee interpreters should be able to experience at least some of those factors during in-class training so as to become familiar with the ways, in which they react before they start their professional careers and before they have to deal with difficult real-life interpreting tasks. For this purpose, special workshops in the interpreter’s experience of psycho-affectivity could be organised, during which students could be exposed to challenging interpreting situations. Trainee interpreters’ reactions and feelings should be then thoroughly examined to illuminate both the negative and positive impact the psycho-affective factors could have on them during the interpreting process.

568

Conclusions, implications and paths for further research

Finally, although challenging interpreting situations can be beneficial for the development of trainee interpreters’ awareness of their psycho-affectivity, equally important is creating proper atmosphere during interpreting training which would foster students’ positive self-esteem, strong language ego or motivation. Considering the fact that interpreting at large is such a complex mental operation activating so many different linguistic, cognitive, psycho-affective or relational processes, students learning the interpreting skills in such supportive psycho-affective frameworks should be reassured that professional interpreters do happen to make mistakes and do happen to have comprehension and production problems but those issues  – even though they may induce stress and anxiety  – should not undermine their self-confidence, language ego or motivation since, like in everyday communication, errors in comprehension and errors in production occur and because of the character of consecutive interpreting, the interpreter can repair them. Thus, interpreting trainers should strive to create the atmosphere which would foster, facilitate and enhance their students’ psycho-affectivity since this turns out to be an important component of the overall interpreter competence.

Paths for further research The study, along with its results, opens up certain paths for further research in the field of interpreter psychology, especially on the interpreter’s psycho-affectivityrelated aspects. Certainly, the basic direction of potential research is to carry out similar studies in other than English language groups. It may perhaps shed some light on whether the source and target languages can somehow be linked to the subjective experience of the factors under scrutiny. Such a multi-language study could also provide some interesting data on whether the interpreter’s source culture (the one in which he/she grew up) may be in any way linked to the way he/ she experiences the psycho-affective factors since it is commonly known that, for instance, in Slavic countries people are encouraged not to publicly take pride in themselves and in their skills (i.e. not to exhibit high levels of self-esteem) and – generally speaking – to behave modestly whereas in the English-speaking cultures, developing high self-esteem and being proud of a person’s knowledge and skills is fostered and promoted. Perhaps, such research could help answer the question of why so many Polish certified interpreters are so critical of themselves and of their expertise, skills and competences. Another avenue for such scholarly endeavours may be the study of the psychoaffective factors subjectively experienced by trainee interpreters in several other schools of interpreting which may approach interpreting training in a different way from what is practised at the Institute of English Studies of the University of Wrocław. Perhaps, this might also point to some more universal tendencies observed among trainee interpreters concerning their subjective experience of the studied factors. Likewise, it might be of interest to study the aspects of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity among other professional groups of interpreters, of which community or simultaneous interpreters are a good case in point. It would

Epilogue

569

be interesting to analyse how community interpreters experience those factors, how those factors influence their work and how they try to mitigate their negative activity. Moreover, it would be equally interesting to carry out such research among conference interpreters performing simultaneous interpreting. This mode is often described as the most difficult and – at the same time – the most stressful type of interpretation because of the simultaneous activation of several cognitive processes or, generally speaking, because of the simultaneity of input compression and output production. It would therefore be interesting to see whether conference interpreters also experience other psycho-affective factors, and if yes, how they manifest themselves in the conference interpreters’ performance and how those professionals deal with the negative impact of their psycho-affectivity. One more path for further studies on the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity could be directly related to interpreting training. It might be of use to observe whether the subjective experience of the factors in question changes as a result of training in the aspects of the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity. On the whole, the interpreter’s psycho-affectivity is a very rich source of fascinating themes for further research which could enhance the understanding of this intricate sphere.

Epilogue To sum up, it is hoped that this study has cast more light on the intricacies of the trainee interpreters’ and certified interpreters’ subjective experience of the psychoaffective factors which have been found to influence consecutive interpreting performance and the output. Moreover, the subfield of interpreting studies – interpreter psychology  – has turned out to be a fascinating and thought-provoking area of inquiry since it allows looking at interpreters through the prisms of their emotions, feelings and psycho-affective responses. This research has also shown that psycho-affectivity is an inherent part of every human being and that it is perhaps impossible to “switch it off” in professional activity and become a totally emotionless, unfeeling, psycho-affectively unresponsive language transfer provider. The novice interpreters’ (i.e. trainee interpreters’) as well as professionals’ subjective experience of their psycho-affectivity shows that it is indeed hardly possible not to react to the psycho-affective factors triggered by so many different stimuli present in human communication, of which consecutive interpreting is a fine example.

Appendix 1: Consecutive interpreting (with note-taking) performance evaluation form Grades 1.

2. 2.1.

2.2.

3. 3.1.

3.2.

4.

5.

EQUIVALENCE (functionalpragmatic equivalence) GRAMMAR GENERAL EVALUATION (form, use, appropriateness) DISCOURSESPECIFIC GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURES VOCABULARY GENERAL EVALUATION (use, collocations, variety, semantic relevance) SPECIALISED VOCABULARY – TERMINOLOGY (use, collocation, relevance) PHONETIC QUALITY (pronunciation, rhythm and intonation, language variety use consistency) OUTPUT DELIVERY FLUENCY (stops, pauses, hesitations etc.)

1. Full equivalence 2. Partial equivalence 3. No equivalence

3 2 0

1. No grammar errors 2. Minor grammar errors 3. Major grammar errors

3 2 0

1. Correct selection and use of grammatical structures 2. Limited range of discoursespecific grammatical structures 3. No discourse-specific grammatical structures

3

1. No lexical errors 2. Minor lexical errors 3. Major lexical errors

3 2 0

1. Correct selection and use of specialised vocabulary 2. Limited range of specialised vocabulary (non-specialised vocabulary prevails) 3. No specialised vocabulary 1. No phonetic errors 2. Minor phonetic errors 3. Major phonetic errors

3

1. Fully fluent 2. Minor fluency errors/short pauses, infrequent hesitations 3. Major fluency errors/frequent and long pauses, frequent hesitations

3 2

2 0

2 0 3 2 0

0

Points

572

Appendix 1

Grades 6.

STYLE AND REGISTER

7.

NOTES AND NOTE-TAKING SKILLS

8.

PSYCHOAFFECTIVE FACTORS* (whether their negative role(s) is observable) IMPRESSION Positive market AND suitability/ MARKET impression of a SUITABILITY professional

1. Correct discourse-specific style 3 and register 2. Minor problems with discourse2 specific style and register 3. No adherence to discourse0 specific style and register 1. Fluent use of the trainee’s 3 own notes 2. Minor problems in using the 2 trainee’s own notes 3. Major problems in using the 0 trainee’s own notes 1. No negative role of affective 3 factors 2. Minor influence of affective 2 factors 3. Major influence of affective 0 factors High quality interpreting 100%–93%30–28 output. No adjustment necessary.

Points

5

Good quality interpreting output. Only slight revision necessary.

92%–84% 27–25

4,5

Interpreting training purposes

Acceptable quality interpreting output. Greater revision necessary.

83%–76% 24–23

4,0

Negative market suitability/ interpreting training purposes

Meagre quality interpreting output. More detailed revision necessary.

75%–70% 22–21

3,5

Meagre quality interpreting output. Major revision necessary.

69%–60% 20–18

3,0

Unacceptable. Re-interpreting necessary.

59%–0% 17–0

2,0

FINAL GRADE *ADDITIONAL COMMENTS ABOUT THE PSYCHO-AFFECTIVE FACTORS IDENTIFIED: Grading policy: Adapted from Daniel Gouadec’s (2010: 273) grades used to assess translation: “roughcut” (grade 0), “fit-for-delivery” (with minor improvements needed) (grade 2), “fit-for-broadcast” (“accurate, efficient, ergonomic”) (grade 3).

Appendix 2: Permission for using the data for scholarly purposes Wrocław, on:............................ I,........................................................................................................................(name and surname), holding the Identity Card no....................................................................(ID or another document no.) hereby express my consent/does not express my consent* (select the option) to the processing of the material registered in connection with the consecutive interpreting test conducted as part of the course taught within the following study programme:..................................................................... (specify the name of the studies) in the Institute of English Studies of the University of Wrocław. The said material includes: • The audio-recording of my interpretation • The notes taken by me during the consecutive interpreting process • The transcript of my interpretation with the deficiencies and errors marked by the instructor • The retrospective protocol filled in by me after the test The said material may be used in an anonymised form (i.e. no essential data allowing the identification of the person who performed interpreting) for scholarly purposes. ����������������������������������������������������������������� legible signature In case you are interested in the results of the research project entitled: “Selected psycho-affective factors in consecutive interpreting” pursued by Marcin Walczyński, please provide your email address so that you are sent the results published as scholarly papers or volume chapters. You email address:........................

Appendix 3: Consecutive interpreting test retrospective protocol Name and surname:.................................................................................................................. Test date:......................Test time:....................Retrospective protocol time:.............. Input text number:..................................................................................................................... Data on the studies completed: 1. Level of studies (bachelor’s degree/master’s degree/doctoral degree):................... 2. Field of study:........................................................................................................................ 3. University:............................................................................................................................. Thank you very much for agreeing to participate in the study and for diligently answering the questions below. The answers which you will provide will be used only for the purpose of the research on the psycho-affective factors experienced by interpreters in (mostly consecutive) interpreting. Please, provide as accurate and thorough answers as you can. In no way will your answers affect you consecutive interpreting test grade.

GENERAL PART 1. Have you ever had to deal with consecutive interpreting? Have you ever interpreted consecutively? Have you ever participated in consecutive interpreting classes (at the previous stages of your education)? .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. 2. Please, describe your feelings about the test BEFORE the test? What were they caused by? .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. 3. Please, describe your feelings about the test and your performance DURING the test? What were they caused by? .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. 4. How would you assess your interpreting? What were you the best at and what were the weakest at? .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. ..................................................................................................................................................

576

Appendix 3

5. What language-related problems did you encounter during your interpretation (grammar, general vocabulary, specialised vocabulary, pronunciation, fluency etc.)? What could they have resulted from? .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. 6. What interpreting skill-related problems did you encounter during your interpretation (input comprehension, output production, rendering the sense, looking at the sentence/fragment as a whole)? What could they have resulted from? .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. ..................................................................................................................................................

PSYCHO-AFFECTIVE FACTOR-RELATED PART Language-related dimension of interpreting pertains to all linguistic aspects (grammar, vocabulary, intonation, fluency etc.) Extra-linguistic dimension of pertains to all extra-linguistic aspects (equivalence, sense transfer, input comprehension, note-taking etc.) ANXIETY: your reaction to the threat perceived by you, to the anticipated negative event (compare with the definition of fear!). 7a. Did you experience anxiety before, during or after the test?.................................... 7b. If yes, what could it have been caused by at every stage of the interpreting test? What factors could have caused it?.................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. 7c. What did it manifest itself in in your interpretation (in language-related and extra-linguistic dimensions)?������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. FEAR: your reaction to the real threat that is about to come. 8a. Did you experience fear before, during or after the test? 8b. If yes, what could it have been caused by at every stage of the interpreting test? What factors could have caused it?................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. 8c. What did it manifest itself in in your interpretation (in language-related and extra-linguistic dimensions)?������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. ..................................................................................................................................................

Appendix 3

577

INHIBITION, LANGUAGE EGO, LANGUAGE BOUNDARIES:  certain awareness of the deficiencies in one’s language skills and knowledge of some structures and vocabulary and – because of this – taking the risk of making mistakes while using them or not taking the risk and not using those structures and vocabulary. 9a. Did you experience inhibition, weaker language ego or language boundaries before, during or after the test?��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9b. If yes, what could they have been caused by at every stage of the interpreting test? What factors could have caused them?��������������������������������������������������������������� .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. 9c. What did they manifest themselves in in your interpretation (in languagerelated and extra-linguistic dimensions)?...................................................................... .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................. PERSONALITY TYPE: extroversion (characterised by courage and confidence, openness, talkativeness, gregariousness, positive attitude to language risks, to mistakes etc.), introversion (characterised by closed attitude, reserve, taciturnity, lower level of willingness to taking the linguistic risks, negative attitude to mistakes etc.), ambiversion (the type located in between extroversion and introversion). 10a. Did you experience the influence of your personality type before, during or after the test?...................................................................................................................... 10b. If yes, what could it have been caused by at every stage of the interpreting test? What factors could have caused it?..................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... 10c. What did it manifest itself in in your interpretation (in language-related and extra-linguistic dimensions)?......................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... SELF-ESTEEM: our feelings towards ourselves, the environment and the task we are to face. 11a. Did you experience the influence of your self-esteem before, during or after the test?................................................................................................................................ 11b. If yes, what could it have been caused by at every stage of the interpreting test? What factors could have caused it?..................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ...............................................................................................................................................

578

Appendix 3

11c. What did it manifest itself in in your interpretation (in language-related and extra-linguistic dimensions)?......................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... MOTIVATION: factors motivating us to perform some task/work. 12a. Did you experience the influence of your motivation before, during or after the test? (What was this motivation)?......................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... 12b. If yes, what could it have been caused by at every stage of the interpreting test? What factors could have caused it?..................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... 12c. What did it manifest itself in in your interpretation (in language-related and extra-linguistic dimensions)?......................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... STRESS: physical/physiological bodily reaction to a given situation, can be motivating or demotivating. 13a. Did you experience stress before, during or after the test?....................................... ............................................................................................................................................... 13b. If yes, what could it have been caused by at every stage of the interpreting test? What factors could have caused it?..................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... 13c. What did it manifest itself in in your interpretation (in language-related and extra-linguistic dimensions)? ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................... 14.  How would you generally assess your performance? Can you learn something from the test?  ...............................................................................................................................................  ...............................................................................................................................................  ...............................................................................................................................................  ...............................................................................................................................................  ............................................................................................................................................... Thank you for your time and filling in the retrospective protocol.

Appendix 4: The fourth case study questionnaire form INTRODUCTION Dear Certified Interpreter, Thank you very much for your willingness to participate in the study concerning the influence of the psycho-affective factors on (certified) consecutive interpreting. Completing the questionnaire will take approximately 20–30 minutes and the entire questionnaire is composed of 46 items, among which there are closed questions, dichotomous questions, multiple-choice questions and open-ended questions. This questionnaire is part of a larger research project entitled “Selected psycho-affective factors in consecutive interpreting” carried out in the Department of Translation Studies of the Institute of English Studies (the University of Wrocław, Poland) by Marcin Walczyński, Ph.D., whose scholarly interests centre on interpreting studies and interpreter education and who himself is a practising certified interpreter and translator based in Wrocław. The aim of this questionnaire is to collect data on the subjectively experienced influence of the psycho-affective factors on the certified interpreter who provides consecutive interpreting services at the request of courts, the police, prosecutors, public administration institutions, other state entities and private institutions where the presence of the certified interpreter is mandatory. The questionnaire is anonymous and the data collected will be used only for the scholarly purposes. Thank you for your time and great help! Marcin Walczyński Before you start completing the questionnaire, read the following definitions which are repeated in the relevant parts of the questionnaire: • ANXIETY:  your reaction to the threat perceived by you, to the anticipated negative event. • FEAR: your reaction to the real threat that is about to come. • LANGUAGE INHIBITION, LANGUAGE EGO, LANGUAGE BOUNDARIES: certain awareness of the deficiencies in one’s language skills and knowledge of some structures and vocabulary and  – because of this  – taking the risk of making mistakes while using them or not taking the risk and not using those structures and vocabulary. • PERSONALITY TYPE: extroversion (characterised by courage and confidence, openness, talkativeness, gregariousness, positive attitude to language risks, to mistakes etc.), introversion (characterised by closed attitude, reserve, taciturnity, lower level of willingness to taking the linguistic risks, negative attitude to mistakes etc.), ambiversion (the type located in between extroversion and introversion).

580

Appendix 4

• SELF-ESTEEM: our feelings towards ourselves, the environment and the task we are to face. • MOTIVATION: factors motivating us to perform some task/work. • STRESS:  physical/physiological bodily reaction to a given situation, can be motivating or demotivating.

QUESTIONNAIRE ITEMS 1. Age Enter here

 

2. Sex Select

female

male

3. Education in interpreting Select (more than one option can be selected) • master’s language studies with translation/interpreting specialisation • master’s language studies with other specialisation • doctoral studies in translation/interpreting studies • postgraduate studies in translation/interpreting • other higher studies (specify the field of study: ______________________) 4. The year of becoming the Certified Interpreter of English Enter here

 

5. The number of the years of experience as a consecutive interpreter (not only certified) Enter here

 

6. How often do you provide certified consecutive interpreting services? Select

never

very rarely (a few times a year)

rarely (oncetwice a month)

often (several times a month)

very often (several times a week)

Appendix 4

581

7. What type(s) of certified consecutive interpreting services do you provide? Select (more than one option can be selected) • court interpreting • police interpreting • interpreting in a registry office • interpreting in a notary’s office • interpreting in private entities (companies) • interpreting in an immigration office • other (specify: ______________________) 8. What type(s) of certified consecutive interpreting services do you provide most often? Select (more than one option can be selected) • court interpreting • police interpreting • interpreting in a registry office • interpreting in a notary’s office • interpreting in private entities (companies) • interpreting in an immigration office • other (specify: ______________________) 9. Please, define your typical feeling(s) before consecutive interpreting. Typical feeling means the most frequently experienced states before certified consecutive interpreting. Select (more than one option can be selected) • composure • relaxation • satisfaction • curiosity • anxiety • fear • stress • lowered self-esteem • insecurity • other (specify: ______________________)

582

Appendix 4

10. What are causes of the positive feelings which you experience before certified consecutive interpreting? Enter here

 

11. What are causes of the negative feelings which you experience before certified consecutive interpreting caused? Enter here

 

12. Do you happen to experience anxiety during certified consecutive interpreting? ANXIETY: your reaction to the threat perceived by you, to the anticipated subjective negative event (although objectively this threat is non-existent). Select

yes

no

13. If yes, what could it be caused by? Please, enumerate the potential factors triggering anxiety. Enter here

 

14. In what way does anxiety manifest itself in the linguistic dimension of your certified consecutive interpreting? E.g. omissions, grammar errors, lexical errors, phonetic errors etc. Enter here

 

15. In what way does anxiety manifest itself in the extra-linguistic dimension of your certified consecutive interpreting? E.g. bodily reaction (shaking, sweating, increased heart rate, increased pulse, body tension), increased gesticulation etc. Enter here

 

16. Do you happen to experience fear during certified consecutive interpreting? FEAR: your reaction to the real threat that is about to come. Select

yes

no

17. If yes, what could it be caused by? Please, enumerate the potential factors triggering fear. Enter here

 

583

Appendix 4

18. In what way does fear manifest itself in the linguistic dimension of your certified consecutive interpreting? E.g. omissions, grammar errors, lexical errors, phonetic errors etc. Enter here

 

19. In what way does fear manifest itself in the extra-linguistic dimension of your certified consecutive interpreting? E.g. bodily reaction (shaking, sweating, increased heart rate, increased pulse, body tension), increased gesticulation etc. Enter here

 

20. Do you happen to experience inhibition resulting from language ego and language boundaries during certified consecutive interpreting? LANGUAGE INHIBITION, LANGUAGE EGO, LANGUAGE BOUNDARIES:  certain awareness of the deficiencies in one’s language skills and knowledge of some structures and vocabulary and – because of this – taking the risk of making mistakes while using them or not taking the risk and not using those structures and vocabulary. Select

yes

no

21. If yes, what could it be caused by? Please, enumerate the potential factors triggering inhibitions. Enter here

 

22. In what way does inhibition resulting from language ego manifest itself in the linguistic dimension of your certified consecutive interpreting? E.g. omissions, not using certain structures/phrases/sounds because of uncertainty concerning their correctness, not taking risks of using certain structures/phrases/ sounds because of uncertainty concerning their correctness, the awareness of linguistic competence deficits (vocabulary, in particular). Enter here

 

23. In what way does inhibition resulting from language ego manifest itself in the extra-linguistic dimension of your certified consecutive interpreting? E.g. bodily reaction (shaking, sweating, increased heart rate, increased pulse, body tension), increased gesticulation etc. Enter here

 

584

Appendix 4

24. Do you notice the influence of your personality type during certified consecutive interpreting? PERSONALITY TYPE:  extroversion (characterised by courage and confidence, openness, talkativeness, gregariousness, positive attitude to language risks, to mistakes etc.), introversion (characterised by closed attitude, reserve, taciturnity, lower level of willingness to taking the linguistic risks, negative attitude to mistakes etc.), ambiversion (the type located in between extroversion and introversion). Select

yes

no

25. How would to define your personality type? Select • definitely extrovert • extrovert • ambivert (the intermediate type) • introvert • definitely introvert 26. In what way does your personality type manifest itself in the linguistic dimension of your certified consecutive interpreting? E.g. great verbal expression (much speaking), additional explanations (explicitation) which were not present in the source text and which were deemed necessary or lower verbal expression, fewer explanations, faithful interpreting. Enter here

 

27. In what way does your personality type manifest itself in the extra-linguistic dimension of your certified consecutive interpreting? E.g. bodily reaction (shaking, sweating, increased heart rate, increased pulse, body tension), increased gesticulation, interactions with parties, willingness to help, neutrality etc. Enter here

 

28. Do you notice the influence of your self-esteem during certified consecutive interpreting? SELF-ESTEEM: our feelings towards ourselves, the environment and the task we are to face. Select

yes

no

Appendix 4

585

29. How would to define your self-esteem? Select • very high (very positive) • high (positive) • average (neutral) • low (negative) • very low (very negative) 30. How would to define your self-esteem concerning your linguistic skills? Select • very high (very positive) • high (positive) • average (neutral) • low (negative) • very low (very negative) 31. How would to define your self-esteem concerning your interpreting skills? Select • very high (very positive) • high (positive) • average (neutral) • low (negative) • very low (very negative) 32. In what way does your self-esteem (general, concerning linguistic skills and interpreting skills) manifest itself in the linguistic dimension of your certified consecutive interpreting? E.g. certainty of expression, voice timbre number of errors, pauses and hesitations. Enter here

 

33. In what way does your self-esteem (general, concerning linguistic skills and interpreting skills) manifest itself in the extra-linguistic dimension of your certified consecutive interpreting? E.g. posture, standing/sitting position, using additional items (e.g. a pen) to increase self-esteem, gesticulation, touching lips, hair etc. Enter here

 

586

Appendix 4

34. Do you feel motivated during certified consecutive interpreting? MOTIVATION: factors motivating us to perform some task/work. Select

yes

no

35. If yes, what is the source of your motivation? External motivation:  remuneration, statutory obligation, other external factors; internal motivation:  professionalism, willingness to help parties, other internal factors. Enter here

 

36. In what way does motivation manifest itself in the linguistic dimension of your certified consecutive interpreting? E.g. speech correctness, speech speed, using appropriate honorifics etc. Enter here

 

37. In what way does motivation manifest itself in the extra-linguistic dimension of your certified consecutive interpreting? E.g. professionalism, neutrality, reliability etc. Enter here

 

38. Do you experience stress during certified consecutive interpreting? STRESS: physical/physiological bodily reaction to a given situation, can be motivating or demotivating. Select

yes

no

39. If yes, what factors could trigger stress? In some fields, please specify the factors. Select (more than one option can be selected) • anxiety • fear • language inhibition • personality dimension – introversion • low/negative self-esteem • motivation • linguistic subcompetence – source and target language skills (specify: ______________________)

Appendix 4

587

• interpreting subcompetence – interpreting skills (specify: ______________________) • domain-based subcompetence – knowledge of the topic of interpreting (specify: ______________________) • other (specify: ______________________) 40. If yes, what external factors, not related to you, could trigger stress? Context (court, the police), the topic of interpreting, the presence of particular people (e.g. the representatives of the authorities), unfavourable working conditions, other people’s behaviours, others. Enter here

 

41. How does stress influence you? Select • it is motivating (it enhances my potential and skills) • it is debilitating (it impedes my potential and skills) • it is neutral (it neither enhances nor impedes my potential and skills) 42. In what way does stress manifest itself in the linguistic dimension of your certified consecutive interpreting? Omissions, language (grammar, lexical, phonetic) errors, incomplete notes, illegible notes, source text comprehension problems, inability to recreate the source text from the notes etc. Enter here

 

43. In what way does stress manifest itself in the extra-linguistic dimension of your certified consecutive interpreting? Posture, voice quality (filled and non-filled pauses), gesticulation, sweating, paper crumpling, excessive pen grip during note-taking, disorganisation of documents at a desk (court documents, source documents), uncontrolled movements, hair fiddling, coughing, clearing the throat, etc. Enter here

 

44. In case there is a need to carry out in-depth interviews with certified interpreters of English, would you be willing to participate in such anonymised (i.e. your data will not be disclosed) interview on the psycho-affective factors influencing the quality of your consecutive interpreting?

588

Appendix 4

The interview could be carried out via Skype, telephone or personally. Select

yes

no

45. In case you answer YES in the previous question, please provide your contact data. Enter your email address

 

46. In case you have any comments, please fill in the field below. Enter here

 

THANKS Thank you very much for completing the questionnaire. If you are interested in the results of the study, please send me a message to: [email protected]

List of figures Fig. 1: The adaptation of Bühler’s model of communication to Fig. 2: Fig. 3: Fig. 4: Fig. 5: Fig. 6: Fig. 7: Fig. 8: Fig. 9: Fig. 10: Fig. 11: Fig. 12: Fig. 13: Fig. 14: Fig. 15: Fig. 16:

interpreting (author’s own concept on the basis of Bühler 2004: 26) ........................................................................................................  38 The extension of Jakobson’s communication act model as applied to interpreting (author’s own concept on the basis of Jakobson 1960: 353) ......................................................................................................  39 The adaptation of Kopczyński’s model of the interpreting act (author’s own concept on the basis of Kopczyński 1980: 45) ...............  40 A fragment of Pöchhacker’s interactant model of the interpreting situation (source: Pöchhacker 2005: 689) .................................................  42 A proposal of a map of interpreting studies (author’s own concept) ........................................................................................................  74 Grucza’s concept of the extended translation system (on the basis of Żmudzki 2017: 215) .................................................................................  83 The temporal phase-related distribution of consecutive interpreting strategies (author’s own concept) .......................................  127 The proposed model of the consecutive interpreter competence (author’s own concept) ...............................................................................  131 The first representation of psycho-affective activity sequence (adopted from Gorman 2005: 5) .................................................................  156 The second representation of psycho-affective activity sequence (adopted from Gorman 2005: 5) .................................................................  157 The third representation of the psycho-affective activity sequence (adopted from Gorman 2005: 5) .................................................................  157 The fourth representation of psycho-affective activity sequence (adopted from Gorman 2005: 5) .................................................................  158 The component of the stress process (on the basis of Bernstein, Nash, Clarke-Stewart, Penner, Roy 2008: 392). .......................................  194 Potential interrelations among the psycho-affective factors (author’s own concept) ...............................................................................  200 The expanded model of the psycho-affective sequence in consecutive interpreting (author’s own concept on the basis of Gorman 2005: 5) ..........................................................................................  563 A revised model of consecutive interpreting (author’s own concept) ........................................................................................................  566

List of tables Tab. 1: Tab. 2: Tab. 3: Tab. 4: Tab. 5: Tab. 6: Tab. 7: Tab. 8: Tab. 9: Tab. 10: Tab. 11: Tab. 12: Tab. 13: Tab. 14: Tab. 15: Tab. 16: Tab. 17: Tab. 18: Tab. 19: Tab. 20: Tab. 21: Tab. 22: Tab. 23: Tab. 24: Tab. 25: Tab. 26: Tab. 27:

The first case study participants’ equivalence errors ..........................  246 The first case study participants’ grammatical errors .........................  247 The first case study participants’ lexical errors ....................................  248 The first case study participants’ phonetic errors ................................  249 The first case study participant’s attempt at repairing a phonetic error ............................................................................................................  249 The first case study participants’ output delivery disfluencies ..........  250 The first case study participants’ use of the omission strategy .........  252 The first case study participants’ use of the repairing strategy .........  254 The first case study participants’ use of the elaboration/ explicitation strategy ................................................................................  255 The first case study participants’ use of the condensation/ implicitation strategy ...............................................................................  256 The first case study participants’ use of the naturalisation strategy .......................................................................................................  257 The first case study participants’ notes: noting the idea .....................  258 The first case study participants’ notes: abbreviations ........................  259 The first case study participants’ notes: negation ................................  260 The first case study participants’ notes: shifts ......................................  261 The second case study participants’ equivalence errors .....................  279 The second case study participants’ grammatical errors ....................  285 The second case study participants’ lexical errors ...............................  287 The second case study participants’ phonetic errors ...........................  288 The second case study participant’s attempt at repairing a phonetic error ............................................................................................  289 The second case study participants’ phonetic errors in proper names ..........................................................................................................  289 The second case study participants’ output delivery disfluencies .................................................................................................  290 The second case study participants’ use of the omission strategy .......................................................................................................  300 The second case study participants’ use of the repairing strategy .......................................................................................................  304 The second case study participants’ use of the elaboration/ explicitation strategy ................................................................................  308 The second case study participants’ use of the condensation/ implicitation strategy ...............................................................................  309 The second case study participants’ use of the naturalisation strategy .......................................................................................................  312

592

List of Tables

Tab. 28: The second case study participants’ use of the transcoding/ sound reproduction strategy ...................................................................  312 Tab. 29: The second case study participants’ notes: noting the word/ phrase/sentence instead of the idea .......................................................  314 Tab. 30: The second case study participants’ notes: noting the idea ................  317 Tab. 31: The second case study participants’ notes: abbreviations ..................  322 Tab. 32: The second case study participants’ notes: graphic abbreviations .............................................................................................  324 Tab. 33: The second case study participants’ notes: logical links .....................  325 Tab. 34: The second case study participants’ notes: negation ...........................  326 Tab. 35: The second case study participants’ notes: verticality ........................  327 Tab. 36: The second case study participants’ notes: shifts .................................  329 Tab. 37: The third case study participants’ equivalence errors .........................  359 Tab. 38: The third case study participants’ non-rendering errors ....................  366 Tab. 39: The third case study participants’ grammatical errors ........................  368 Tab. 40: The third case study participants’ grammatical errors leading to the total loss of meaning ..........................................................................  372 Tab. 41: The third case study participants’ lexical errors ..................................  373 Tab. 42: The third case study participants’ phonetic errors ..............................  374 Tab. 43: The third case study participants’ attempts at repairing a phonetic error ............................................................................................  374 Tab. 44: The third case study participants’ phonetic errors in proper names ..........................................................................................................  374 Tab. 45: The third case study participants’ output delivery disfluencies .........  375 Tab. 46: The third case study participants’ use of the omission strategy ........  390 Tab. 47: The third case study participants’ use of the omission strategy: total non-rendering ..................................................................  393 Tab. 48: The third case study participants’ use of the repairing strategy .......................................................................................................  394 Tab. 49: The third case study participants’ use of the elaboration/ explicitation strategy ................................................................................  401 Tab. 50: The third case study participants’ use of the condensation/ implicitation strategy ...............................................................................  404 Tab. 51: The third case study participants’ use of the naturalisation strategy .......................................................................................................  406 Tab. 52: The third case study participants’ use of the transcoding/sound reproduction strategy ...............................................................................  406 Tab. 53: The third case study participants’ notes: noting the word/ phrase/sentence instead of the idea .......................................................  408 Tab. 54: The third case study participants’ notes: noting the idea ...................  412 Tab. 55: The third case study participants’ notes: abbreviations ......................  419 Tab. 56: The third case study participant’s notes: the abbreviation of the entire input ................................................................................................  421

List of Tables

Tab. 57: Tab. 58: Tab. 59: Tab. 60:

593

The third case study participants’ notes: logical links .........................  422 The third case study participants’ notes: negation ..............................  424 The third case study participants’ notes: verticality ............................  425 The third case study participants’ notes: shifts ....................................  427

List of charts Chart 1:      Distribution of the first case study participants’ experience in consecutive interpreting ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 243 Chart 2:      Th  e first case study participants’ declared experience of the psycho-affective factors ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 263 Chart 3:      Distribution of the second case study participants’ experience in consecutive interpreting ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 275 Chart 4:      Th  e second case study participants’ declared experience of the psycho-affective factors ������������������������������������������������������������������������ 334 Chart 5:      D  istribution of the third case study participants’ educational background ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 353 Chart 6:      D  istribution of the third case study participants’ experience in consecutive interpreting ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 354 Chart 7:       Th  e third case study participants’ declared experience of the psycho-affective factors ������������������������������������������������������������������������ 429 Chart 8:      The respondents’ age distribution .............................................................. 457 Chart 9:      The respondents’ gender distribution ....................................................... 457 Chart 10: The respondents’ educational background .............................................. 458 Chart 11: Other fields of study completed by the respondents ............................. 459 Chart 12: The respondents’ years of experience as certified interpreters ........... 460 Chart 13: The respondents’ years of consecutive interpreting experience ......... 461 Chart 14: The respondents’ frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 462 Chart 15: The types of certified consecutive interpreting performed by the respondents ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 462 Chart 16: Other contexts of certified consecutive interpreting performed by the respondents ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 463 Chart 17: The most frequent types of certified consecutive interpreting performed by the respondents ������������������������������������������������������������������� 464 Chart 18: The respondents’ typical feelings �������������������������������������������������������������� 465 Chart 19: The correlation between the frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting and the types of feelings experienced �������� 466 Chart 20: The distribution of the respondents’ subjective experience of anxiety �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 474 Chart 21: The subjective experience of anxiety among the female and male respondents ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 475 Chart 22: The subjective experience of anxiety among the respondents performing certified consecutive interpreting very often, often, rarely and very rarely ����������������������������������������������������������������������� 475 Chart 23: The distribution of the respondents’ linguistic exponents of anxiety �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 479

596

List of Charts

Chart 24: The distribution of the respondents’ extra-linguistic exponents of anxiety ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 481 Chart 25: The distribution of the respondents’ subjective experience of fear ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 483 Chart 26: The subjective experience of fear among the female and male respondents ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 484 Chart 27: The subjective experience of fear among the respondents performing certified consecutive interpreting very often, often, rarely and very rarely ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 485 Chart 28: The distribution of the respondents’ linguistic exponents of fear ...... 487 Chart 29: The distribution of the respondents’ extra-linguistic exponents of fear ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 488 Chart 30: The distribution of the respondents’ subjective experience of language inhibition ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 489 Chart 31: The subjective experience of language inhibition among the female and male respondents ��������������������������������������������������������������������� 490 Chart 32: The subjective experience of language inhibition among the respondents performing certified consecutive interpreting very often, often, rarely and very rarely ����������������������������������������������������������� 491 Chart 33: The distribution of the respondents’ linguistic exponents of their language ego �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 494 Chart 34: The distribution of the respondents’ extra-linguistic exponents of their language ego ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 498 Chart 35: The distribution of the respondents’ perception of the influence of personality on certified consecutive interpreting ����������������������������� 501 Chart 36: The distribution of the respondents’ personality dimensions ............. 501 Chart 37: The distribution of personality dimensions among the female and male respondents ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 502 Chart 38: The perception of the influence of personality on certified consecutive interpreting among the female and male respondents ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 503 Chart 39: The distribution of the respondents’ perception of the influence of self-esteem on certified consecutive interpreting ���������� 510 Chart 40: The perception of the influence of self-esteem on certified consecutive interpreting among the female and male respondents ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 511 Chart 41: The distribution of self-esteem levels among the respondents ........... 512 Chart 42: The distribution of self-esteem levels among the female and male respondents ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 512 Chart 43: The distribution of linguistic subcompetence self-esteem levels among the respondents ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 513 Chart 44: The distribution of interpreting subcompetence self-esteem levels among the respondents ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 514

List of Charts

597

Chart 45: The correlation of the respondents’ interpreting subcompetence self-esteem with their frequency of performing certified consecutive interpreting ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 515 Chart 46: The distribution of the respondents’ perception of their motivation ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 522 Chart 47: The distribution of the respondents’ subjective experience of stress ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 529 Chart 48: The subjective experience of stress among the female and male respondents ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 530 Chart 49: The subjective experience of stress among the respondents performing certified consecutive interpreting very often, often, rarely and very rarely ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 530 Chart 50: The distribution of the respondents’ internal stressors ........................ 533 Chart 51: The distribution of the respondents’ external stressors ........................ 534 Chart 52: The distribution of the respondents’ stress impact character .............. 538 Chart 53: The distribution of the respondents’ linguistic exponents of stress ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 539 Chart 54: The distribution of the respondents’ extra-linguistic exponents of stress ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 541 Chart 55: The subjective experience of the first group psycho-affective factors �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 546 Chart 56: The perception of the influence of the second group psycho-affective factors ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 548 Chart 57: The percentage distribution of the four case study participants’ subjective experience of the psycho-affective factors �������������������������� 559

List of photographs Photograph 1: An example performance transcript with errors marked (author’s own photograph) ���������������������������������������������������������  221 Photograph 2: The second case study participant’s wrinkled notepaper (author’s own photograph) ............................................ �������������  332 Photograph 3: The second case study participant’s wrinkled notepaper (author’s own photograph) ���������������������������������������������������������  332 Photograph 4: The second case study participant’s bulges on the notepaper (author’s own photograph) ��������������������������������������  333 Photograph 5: The third case study participant’s bulges on the notepaper (author’s own photograph) ��������������������������������������  428

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ŁÓDŹ ST UDIES IN LANGUAGE Edited by Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk and Łukasz Bogucki Editorial Board: Piotr Cap (University of Łódź, Poland) Jorge Díaz-Cintas (University College, London, England) Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland) Wolfgang Lörscher (Universität Leipzig, Germany) Anthony McEnery (Lancaster University, England) John Newman (University of Alberta, Canada) Hans Sauer (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany) Piotr Stalmaszczyk (University of Łódź, Poland) Elżbieta Tabakowska (Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland) Marcel Thelen (Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Maastricht, The Netherlands) Gideon Toury † (Tel Aviv University, Israel) Vol. 1     Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk / Patrick James Melia (eds.): PALC'99: Practical Applications in Language Corpora. Papers from the International Conference at the University of Łódź, 15-18 April 1999. 2000. Vol. 2     Lou Burnard / Tony McEnery (eds.): Rethinking Language Pedagogy from a Corpus Perspective. Papers from the Third International Conference on Teaching and Language Corpora. 2000. Vol. 3     Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk / John Osborne / Frits Schulte: Foreign Language Teaching and Information and Communication Technology. 2001. Vol. 4     Piotr Cap: Explorations in Political Discourse. Methodological and Critical Perspectives. 2002. Vol. 5     Ewa Waniek-Klimczak / Patrick James Melia (eds.): Accents and Speech in Teaching English Phonetics and Phonology. EFL perspective. 2002. Vol. 6    Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk / Kamila Turewicz (eds.): Cognitive Linguistics Today. 2002. Vol. 7     Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (ed.): PALC 2001: Practical Applications in Language Corpora. 2003. Vol. 8     Corpus Linguistics by the Lune. A Festschrift for Geoffrey Leech. Edited by Andrew Wilson, Paul Rayson and Tony McEnery. 2003. Vol. 9     Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (ed.): Practical Applications in Language and Computers. PALC 2003. 2004. Vol. 10 Imagery in Language. Festschrift in Honour of Professor Ronald W. Langacker. Edited by Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk and Alina Kwiatkowska. 2004. Vol. 11 Seana Coulson / Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (eds.): The Literal and Nonliteral in Language and Thought. 2005.

Vol. 12 Piotr Cap (ed.): Pragmatics Today. 2005. Vol. 13 Jacek Waliński / Krzysztof Kredens / Stanisław Goźdź-Roszkowski (eds.): Corpora and ICT in Language Studies. PALC 2005. 2007. Vol. 14 Krzysztof Kosecki (ed.): Perspectives on Metonymy. Proceedings of the International Conference "Perspectives on Metonymy", held in Łódź, Poland, May 6-7, 2005. 2007. Vol. 15 Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk / Tomasz Płudowski / Dolores Valencia Tanno (eds.): The Media and International Communication. 2007. Vol. 16 Krzysztof Kredens / Stanisław Goźdź-Roszkowski (eds.): Language and the Law: International Outlooks. 2007. Vol. 17 Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (ed.): Corpus Linguistics, Computer Tools, and Applications – State of the Art. PALC 2007. 2008. Vol. 18 Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk / Katarzyna Dziwirek (eds.): Studies in Cognitive Corpus Linguistics. 2009. Vol. 19 Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk / Marcel Thelen (eds.): Meaning in Translation. 2010. Vol. 20 Łukasz Bogucki / Krzysztof Kredens (eds.): Perspectives on Audiovisual Translation. 2010. Vol. 21 Piotr Stalmaszczyk (ed.): Turning Points in the Philosophy of Language and Linguistics. 2011. Vol. 22 Stanisław Goźdź-Roszkowski: Patterns of Linguistic Variation in American Legal English. A Corpus-Based Study. 2011. Vol. 23 Kamila Ciepiela (ed.): Identity through a Language Lens. 2011. Vol. 24 Stanisław Goźdź-Roszkowski (ed.): Explorations across Languages and Corpora. PALC 2009. 2011. Vol. 25 Krzysztof Kosecki / Janusz Badio (eds.): Cognitive Processes in Language. 2012. Vol. 26 Alina Kwiatkowska (ed.): Texts and Minds. Papers in Cognitive Poetics and Rhetoric. 2012. Vol. 27 Paul A. Wilson (ed.): Dynamicity in Emotion Concepts. 2012. Vol. 28 Piotr Pęzik (ed.): Corpus Data across Languages and Disciplines. 2012. Vol. 29 Mikołaj Deckert: Meaning in Subtitling. Toward a Contrastive Cognitive Semantic Model. 2013. Vol. 30 Łukasz Bogucki: Areas and Methods of Audiovisual Translation Research. 2nd Revised Edition. 2016. Vol. 31 Janusz Badio / Kamila Ciepiela (eds.): Language, Action, Interaction. 2013.

Vol. 32 Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk / Krzysztof Kosecki (eds.): Time and Temporality in Language and Human Experience. 2014. Vol. 33 Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka (ed.): Cognitive and Pragmatic Aspects of Speech Actions. 2014. Vol. 34 Małgorzata Anna Kamińska: A History of the Concise Oxford Dictionary. 2014. Vol. 35 Łukasz Bogucki / Mikołaj Deckert (eds.): Accessing Audiovisual Translation. 2015. Vol. 36 Joanna Jabłońska-Hood: A Conceptual Blending Theory of Humour. Selected British Comedy Productions in Focus. 2015. Vol. 37 Krzysztof Kosecki / Janusz Badio (eds.): Empirical Methods in Language Studies. 2015. Vol. 38 Katarzyna Stadnik: Chaucer's Choices. Through the looking-glass of medieval imagery. 2015. Vol. 39 Paulina Pietrzak / Mikołaj Deckert (eds.): Constructing Translation Competence.2015. Vol. 40 Małgorzata Fabiszak / Karolina Krawczak / Katarzyna Rokoszewska (eds.): Categorization in Discourse and Grammar. 2016. Vol. 41 Marcel Thelen / Gys-Walt van Egdom / Dirk Verbeeck / Łukasz Bogucki / Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (eds.): Translation and Meaning. New Series,Vol. 1. 2016. Vol. 42 Łukasz Bogucki / Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk / Marcel Thelen (eds.): Translation and Meaning. New Series,Vol. 2, Pt. 1. 2016. Vol. 43 Łukasz Bogucki / Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk / Marcel Thelen (eds.): Translation and Meaning. New Series,Vol. 2, Pt. 2. 2016. Vol. 44 Przemysław Łozowski / Katarzyna Stadnik (eds.): Visions and Revisions. Studies in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics. 2016. Vol. 45 Marek Kuźniak / Bożena Rozwadowska / Michał Szawerna (eds.): From Motion to Emotion. Aspects of Physical and Cultural Embodiment in Language. 2016. Vol. 46 Anna Rędzioch-Korkuz: Opera Surtitling as a Special Case of Audiovisual Translation. Towards a Semiotic and Translation Based Framework for Opera Surtitling. 2016. Vol. 47 Mateusz Sajna: Video Game Translation and Cognitive Semantics. 2016. Vol. 48 Kamila Ciepiela (ed.): Identity in Communicative Contexts. 2016. Vol. 49 Mikołaj Nkollo: The Entrenchment of the ‘unus alterum’ Pattern. Four Essays on Latin and Old Romance Reciprocal Constructions. 2016. Vol. 50 Paweł Rydzewski: Backness Distinction in Phonology. A Polish Perspective on the Phonemic Status of y. 2016.

Vol. 51 Piotr Pęzik / Jacek Tadeusz Waliński (eds.): Language, Corpora and Cognition.2017. Vol. 52 Janusz Badio (ed.): Events and Narratives in Language. 2016. Vol. 53 Mikołaj Deckert (ed.): Audiovisual Translation – Research and Use. 2017. Vol. 54 Michał Szawerna: Metaphoricity of Conventionalized Diegetic Images in Comics. A Study in Multimodal Cognitive Linguistics. 2017. Vol. 55 Artur Gałkowski / Monika Kopytowska (eds.): Current Perspectives in Semiotics. Signs, Signification, and Communication. 2018. Vol. 56 Artur Gałkowski / Monika Kopytowska (eds.): Current Perspectives in Semiotics. Text, Genres, and Representations. 2018. Vol. 57 Łukasz Bogucki / Piotr Cap (eds.): Exploration in Language and Linguistics. For Professor Piotr Stalmaszczyk on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday. 2018. Vol. 58 Michał Kornacki: Computer-assisted Translation (CAT) Tools in the Translator Training Process. 2018. Vol. 59 Marcin Walczyński / Piotr Czajka / Michał Szawerna (eds.): On the Verge between Language and Translation. 2018. Vol. 60 Łukasz Bogucki / Paulina Pietrzak / Michał Kornacki (eds.): Understanding Translator Education. 2018. Vol. 61 Marcin Walczyński: Psycho-Affective Factors in Consecutive Interpreting. 2019. www.peterlang.com