Getting Started in Interpreting Research : Methodological reflections, personal accounts and advice for beginners [1 ed.] 9789027297815, 9789027216380

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Getting Started in Interpreting Research

Benjamins Translation Library The Benjamins Translation Library aims to stimulate research and training in translation and interpreting studies. The Library provides a forum for a variety of approaches (which may sometimes be conflicting) in a socio-cultural, historical, theoretical, applied and pedagogical context. The Library includes scholarly works, reference works, post-graduate text books and readers in the English language.

Advisory board Jens Allwood

Makoto Nagao

University of Gothenburg

Kyoto University

Morton Benson

Roda Roberts

University of Pennsylvania

University of Ottawa

Marilyn Gaddis Rose

Juan C. Sager

Binghamton University

UMIST, Manchester

Yves Gambier

María Julia Sainz

Turku University

Universidad de la República, Montevideo

Daniel Gile

Klaus Schubert

Université Lumière Lyon 2 and ISIT, Paris

Fachhochschule Flensburg

Ulrich Heid

Mary Snell-Hornby

University of Stuttgart

University of Vienna

Eva Hung

Sonja Tirkkonen-Condit

Chinese University of Hong Kong

University of Joensuu

W. John Hutchins

Gideon Toury

University of East Anglia

Tel Aviv University

Werner Koller

Wolfram Wilss

Bergen University

University of Saarbrücken

José Lambert

Judith Woodsworth

Catholic University of Louvain

Mt. Saint Vincent University, Halifax

Willy Martin

Sue Ellen Wright

Free University of Amsterdam

Kent State University

Alan Melby Brigham Young University

Volume 33 Getting Started in Interpreting Research: Methodological reflections, personal accounts and advice for beginners Edited by Daniel Gile, Helle V. Dam, Friedel Dubslaff, Bodil Martinsen and Anne Schjoldager

Getting Started in Interpreting Research Methodological reflections, personal accounts and advice for beginners Edited by

Daniel Gile Université Lumière Lyon 2

Helle V. Dam Friedel Dubslaff Bodil Martinsen Anne Schjoldager Aarhus School of Business

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam
/
Philadelphia

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TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Getting started in interpreting research : methodological reflections, personal accounts and advice for beginners / edited by Daniel Gile…[et al.]. p. cm. (Benjamins Translations Library, issn 0929–7316 ; v. 33) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Translating and interpreting--Research. I. Gile, Daniel. II. Series. P306.2.G48 2001 418’.02’072--dc21 isbn 90 272 1638X (Eur.) / 1 58811 1288 (US) (Hb; alk. paper)

2001043804

© 2001 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

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Table of contents

Introduction Daniel Gile, Helle V. Dam and Anne Schjoldager Selecting a topic for PhD research in interpreting Daniel Gile

vii

1

Critical reading in (interpretation) research Daniel Gile

23

Reporting on scientific texts Yves Gambier

39

Writing a dissertation in translation and interpreting: Problems, concerns and suggestions Heidrun Gerzymisch-Arbogast MA theses in Prague: A supervisor’s account Ivana Cˇenˇková Interpretation research at the SSLMIT of Trieste: Past, present and future Alessandra Riccardi, Anna Giambagli and Mariachiara Russo

55

69

87

Small projects in interpretation research Ingrid Kurz

101

Doctoral work on interpretation: A supervisee’s perspective Peter Mead

121

Beginners’ problems in interpreting research: A personal account of the development of a PhD project Friedel Dubslaff

145

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Table of contents

The manipulation of data: Reflections on data descriptions based on a product-oriented PhD on interpreting Helle V. Dam

163

Approaching interpreting through discourse analysis Cecilia Wadensjö

185

Working within a theoretical framework Franz Pöchhacker

199

Reflective summary of a dissertation on simultaneous interpreting Anne Schjoldager

221

Conclusion: Issues and prospects Daniel Gile, Helle V. Dam and Anne Schjoldager

233

About the contributors

241

Abbreviations and acronyms

245

Name index

247

Concept index

251



Introduction Daniel Gile, Helle V. Dam and Anne Schjoldager

In January 1997, a one-week research-training seminar for PhD students working on topics in the field of interpreting was organized in Aarhus, Denmark, at the initiative of scholars from the Aarhus School of Business (Helle Dam, Friedel Dubslaff, Bodil Martinsen, Anne Schjoldager, with the participation and under the leadership of Henning Nølke, a professor of linguistics at that institution, who had taken a keen interest in interpreting research over the years and had helped the younger colleagues in their doctoral work, and of Daniel Gile). The seminar format was inspired by the yearly CE(T)RA seminars organized as an introduction to research in Translation Studies for young scholars by José Lambert of the Catholic University of Leuven since 1989 (Gile 1996). Along a similar pattern, the 1997 Aarhus seminar, which focused on interpreting, included lectures, interactive sessions, and private consultations with experienced scholars, most of whom have contributed to this volume. Others — Bill Isham, Henning Nølke, Miriam Shlesinger and Sonja TirkkonenCondit — could not, for a variety of reasons. The objectives of the seminar were to acquaint young scholars with fundamental scientific thinking and methodological approaches relevant to Interpreting Studies, and to establish direct interaction between young and more experienced scholars. Immediate reactions and answers to a questionnaire distributed on the premises showed that the participants thought the seminar was useful (also see Basel 1997, Gambetti and Mead 1998). The organizers initially thought of publishing the proceedings, but upon closer scrutiny, it was decided that a distinct book, structured so as to offer a similar content, but with some corrections and additions, might give more flexibility and a better coverage of the issues, as well as a presentation better suited to a wider readership. This collective volume is the result of this endeavour.

viii Introduction

This book is written for two types of readers: a. Beginning researchers, essentially those who wish to work on topics in the field of interpreting, though it will undoubtedly become clear to readers that the issues it takes up and the advice it offers are widely applicable to Translation Studies as a whole — and beyond. b. Trainers and advisors/supervisors of such research students, and more generally, scholars interested in the development of research in Translation Studies. The papers describing institutional settings will be particularly relevant for them. The editorial philosophy of this book is practical, and aims at usefulness and reader-friendliness. The style chosen is rather personal and informal. The papers were written by a group of authors from various European universities. Most of them are practising interpreters themselves. Some have been active in the field for many years, and others finished their PhDs recently (in fact, one of the authors had not yet completed his dissertation at the time he wrote his contribution), and are in a position to share their recent experience with doctoral candidates. It should be stressed that this volume is not a course book, nor an introduction to research methods in the technical, traditional sense. Many research paradigms are used in Translation Studies, and many in Interpreting Studies, and depending on one’s choice of a cognitive-experimental, linguistic, sociological, historical, computational or other approach, technical books explaining the relevant methods in detail are available — though by necessity, some of them will have to be adapted to the particular environment of interpreting. All the authors have attempted to write with their readership in mind. They have endeavoured to describe parts of their experience which they consider potentially most useful to others. The result is a collection of papers which explain principles, often illustrated by examples from the field, and tackle a wide range of practical and methodological issues that nearly all beginning researchers face, including topic selection, the choice of a theoretical framework, the use of the literature, time constraints, supervisor-supervisee relations, access to subjects, data collection and preparation, interdisciplinarity, institutional frameworks, theoretical research vs empirical research, both in synoptic presentations and in straightforward, honest, personal, often critical accounts of the authors’ own experience, including their initial ambitions, the route they followed, problems they encountered and strategies they used to overcome them. The papers refer to theoretical work, to empirical work, both experimental and

Introduction

observational, mostly at doctoral level, but also at MA level. Beginning researchers should therefore find much information and advice directly linked to their own experience, doubts and problems — information and advice which are difficult to find in writing elsewhere, as they are generally given orally, in personal interaction with fellow students and with supervisors, whereas here, they are concentrated into a single book. Structurewise, this volume essentially goes from general papers to specific, illustrative accounts, although ‘general’ papers also include references to specific examples, and personal accounts also discuss fundamental issues in general terms and provide methodological advice as such. The first papers present general methodological principles. They are followed by descriptions of the setting and history of two institutions where interpreting research by students is particularly active. This is followed by discussions tackling more specific topics and by descriptions of several scholars’ personal experience, mostly with respect to their own PhD work. For the sake of convenience, the papers are presented below in virtual ‘sections’, but the book was not designed with this particular structure in mind, and many aspects of interpreting (and translation) research are discussed across such structure boundaries.

Synoptic papers The first two papers, by Daniel Gile (Université Lumière Lyon 2, France), are the most general in the book, and attempt to cover synoptically and systematically two issues he considers very fundamental and critical to the success of beginning researchers, on the basis of his experience in training young scholars over many years and in different settings (students of interpreting, translation, Japanese language and culture, and various departments of the faculty of languages in his home university). In the first paper, Gile explains in what way topic selection is a planning process, which includes feasibility assessment, and how critical the whole process is. In the second paper, he offers a systematic approach to critical reading, designed to help beginners get the most out of the literature they read as a background to and in the process of doing their own research. Both papers include specific advice, and many issues discussed in them synoptically are taken up and illustrated in a more concrete, personal way in other contributions. In the third paper, Yves Gambier (University of Turku, Finland), a very active Translation Studies scholar with a wide range of interests, including

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Introduction

interpreting (see Gambier, Gile and Taylor 1997), offers his analysis of scientific texts and reports on such texts. In particular, he stresses that beyond their informational function, scientific texts have important sociological functions within the scientific community, which explains some of the statements they contain (as well as some statements they do not contain). In this context, he focuses on reviews of scientific texts, with a small corpus which he analyses, highlighting strengths and weaknesses, thus raising the awareness of beginning scholars to possible traps and misperceptions to avoid when reading the literature. The last paper in this section is offered by Heidrun Gerzymisch-Arbogast (University of the Saarland, Germany), another leading Translation scholar who has been devoting much time and effort to helping and interacting with PhD students at her university. On the basis of her experience, and after questioning students specifically on the subject, she presents a synoptic view of fundamental problems faced by such students, including what they consider their insufficient preparation for PhD work in terms of literature processing skills, research management and methods, as well as time management. She also devotes considerable attention to the human factor issue, including personality and motivation issues, the students’ feeling of isolation, and supervisor-supervisee relations. She then goes on to suggest improvement of the situation through a ‘PhD prep school’, international cooperation in PhD training, and a ‘PhD contract’ between supervisors and supervisees laying down explicitly the role of each. Gerzymisch-Arbogast is known mostly as a translation scholar, but her supervisory activities cover interpretation as well, and her contribution is equally relevant to interpreting research.

Institutional settings Gerzymisch-Arbogast’s paper includes a brief description of the German PhD setting. The next two papers offer a more detailed view of two interpreter training programs which have produced many research theses on interpreting (interestingly enough, these are graduation theses, whereas very few doctoral dissertations have come out of these institutions). These institutions have a relatively long history of interpreting research by graduating students, and have organized accordingly. In other academic centres well-known for their contribution to Interpreting Studies, such as ESIT (Paris) and ETI (Geneva), research has been carried out mostly by experienced interpreters later in their

Introduction

professional career. Ivana Cˇenˇková (Charles University of Prague, Czech Republic), a particularly active Interpretation Studies scholar and interpreter trainer, explains the setting at the Institute of Translation Studies at her university, where research training and student research are more institutionalized than in most other translator and interpreter training centres. A research methodology seminar is offered to students, a list of potential topics is presented to them, and project approval and supervision are formalized through a number of steps, including requirements sheets prepared by the supervisor for each student. Two examples of projects are described, one theoretical and one empirical, including the requirements sheet. The article winds up with practical advice, which touches upon issues such as access to subjects, caution when generalizing from a sample, the difficulty of writing up the thesis, and supervisor-supervisee relations. Alessandra Riccardi, Anna Giambagli and Mariachiara Russo represent the SSLMIT of the University of Trieste, Italy, an important driver of the renewal which occurred in interpreting research towards the end of the 1980s (see Gran and Dodds 1989), with its emphasis on empirical, interdisciplinary studies, and one of the main producers of research over the past decade. The three authors describe the history of research in their institution, with its mix of academics and professional interpreters in the teaching staff, as well as the graduation thesis preparation process, highlighting the generally strong link between the supervisors’ line of research and the respective topics of their students. An interesting analysis offered in this paper explains how institutional factors in the academic system in Italy, with its requirements for sustained research production from university instructors, generate and sustain motivation for research from the teaching staff.

Specific experiences Ingrid Kurz (University of Vienna, Austria), whose doctoral dissertation (Pinter 1969), an experimental study of the evolution of the student interpreters’ ability to speak and listen at the same time, was the first on interpreting by an interpreter in the West, has remained one of the most productive interpretation scholars ever since. Her paper stresses the value of small projects and illustrates her ideas with examples from her own work. She also gives advice applicable to larger projects. Inter alia, Kurz shows how previously published work can serve as a base for selection of research topics aimed at

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Introduction

checking existing theories or other authors’ conclusions, or for replications and extensions of previous studies. Her personal contribution as a trained psychologist also includes advice on the use of calibrated psychological personality tests in the field of interpreting. Peter Mead (SSLiMIT, University of Bologna, Italy), who is both a teacher and supervisor of MA theses and an advanced PhD student himself, is in the rare position of being on both sides of the supervisor-supervisee interaction at the same time. In a very personal account of the process that led him from the teaching of English as a foreign language in Italy to conference interpreting, and then to the preparation of a doctoral dissertation, he touches upon many issues of interest to PhD students, including motivation, the choice of a host institution and a supervisor, the selection of a topic, interdisciplinarity and the use of statistics. He discusses in some detail technical and other issues in the interaction between his supervisor and himself, including distance supervision by email, and gives concrete examples of points where the supervisor’s contribution may be particularly important. Friedel Dubslaff’s (Aarhus School of Business, Denmark) account of her ‘via doctorosa’ (a term aptly coined by Miriam Shlesinger) takes another concrete look at problem areas for beginners. She explains, with illustrative details from her own course, how the lack of previous domain-specific research experience and training and the absence of a local supervisor well versed in interpreting caused her some hardship in the initial steps of topic selection, in the use of the literature, when selecting a theoretical framework, when determining which method to use, when collecting and analyzing data, and when writing up her dissertation. In particular, her paper points out how difficult it is to import theories from other fields for use in the field of interpreting without close guidance, and stresses that much waste of time and effort can result from that. In her conclusion, she recommends that some kind of preparatory research seminar be offered to students. Helle V. Dam’s (Aarhus School of Business, Denmark) paper is another personal account of a doctoral dissertation, but rather than covering the whole process, she focuses on an important issue which is often neglected in the literature, namely the post-collection preparation of data for analysis. In the context of her PhD, which was based on comparative analyses of source and target texts, the relevant data preparation operations included transcription work, a translation of the source text to be used as a ‘tertium comparationis’ in the subsequent analyses, and segmentation of the texts into smaller units of analysis. Apart from describing the practical work and the problems involved in

Introduction xiii

the data preparation process, Helle Dam shows how this process involves selection, abstraction and interpretation — in short, manipulation — of the data, and discusses the conceptual implications of such manipulation. Cecilia Wadensjö (Linköping University, Sweden) reports on her doctoral work in community interpreting. Like most other authors in this volume, she takes an interdisciplinary approach; her particular viewpoint is sociological and discourse-analytical. After a brief presentation of discourse analysis, she focuses on methodological issues in a somewhat more practical vein. She underscores the fact that her approach is naturalistic, in that it involves observing people interact in the field rather than experimenting with them under controlled conditions, as is more common in cognitive studies. This requires gaining access to observable situations involving interpreters, as well as obtaining permission to record the relevant events. Wadensjö discusses these issues, as well as the principles underlying the use of transcripts for discourse-analytical work, corpus size in such observational studies, how to record the interaction, and provides references for further reading. Franz Pöchhacker (University of Vienna, Austria), whose early research work was theory-oriented, focuses on this aspect of doctoral work through his own personal history, which he sets against the background of existing theories in Translation Studies and of the status of theory in interpreting research. He shows how the choice of one’s theoretical framework is strongly influenced by environmental factors in the host institution, and describes his personal route. Interestingly, he started out his doctoral project with a naturalistic corpus which he intended to submit to analysis, which would have made his dissertation essentially empirical, but he ended up focusing on theory. Pöchhacker describes his critical analysis of existing theories, perhaps the most common basic paradigm in theory-oriented research, and discusses relevant aspects of modelling and testing. Anne Schjoldager’s (University of Aarhus) doctoral work as described in her paper was essentially empirical. Like Pöchhacker, she drew upon theories from research into written translation. More specifically, she tried to use Toury’s concepts of translational norms to study relationships between sourcetext and target-text segments in an exploratory experiment (as opposed to the hypothesis-testing type of experiment, which is conventional in cognitive psychology). She takes a critical look at her own work and explains her decisions. In the course of her analytical work, she developed a taxonomic tool defining relations between source text and target text, which she used in the analysis of her data. Schjoldager concludes her paper with practical and



xiv Introduction

methodological advice to beginners, stressing in particular that doctoral work can be viewed as a learning process, and calling the readers’ attention to the importance of careful planning to avoid unnecessary waste of time. The book ends with a short conclusion, in which major points mentioned by several authors are summarized and discussed briefly, and with indexes to help readers navigate in the texts when looking for specific names or concepts. Readers will thus find in this volume multiple references to specific personal, institutional and methodological issues, both in the form of systematic overviews and advice, and in the form of illustrations from the authors’ personal experience. They will also find out, as the editors of this volume have found out when reading the various contributions, that there is much convergence on these issues between young and experienced scholars, whether their background be linguistic, sociological, professional or otherwise, and whether their approach be theoretical, empirical-experimental or empirical-observational. At this stage where interpreting (and translation) research is still scattered over many regional and institutional centres, each with very few resources to support the individual PhD students in their work, we hope that this volume will be of effective usefulness to all.

References Basel, E. 1997. “Research-based teaching”. The Jerome Quarterly 12(2): 8–9. Gambetti, M. and Mead, P. 1998. “The Aarhus Seminar on Interpreting Research.” The Interpreters’ Newsletter 8: 169–180. Gambier, Y., Gile, D. and Taylor, C. (eds). 1997. Conference Interpreting: Current Trends in Research. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Gile, D. 1996. “La formation à la recherche traductologique et le concept CERA Chair.” Meta 41(3): 486–490. Gran, L. and Dodds, J. (eds). 1989. The Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Teaching Conference Interpretation. Udine: Campanotto Editore. Pinter, I. 1969. Der Einfluss der Übung und Konzentration auf simultanes Sprechen und Hören. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Vienna.



Selecting a topic for PhD research in interpreting Daniel Gile Université Lumière Lyon 2

1.

Introduction

Most scientific disciplines are essentially defined on the basis of their research objects (physics studies the physical aspects of reality, zoology studies animals, astronomy studies celestial bodies, linguistics studies language), and at discipline level, find themselves tackling specific research questions and topics as a matter of course. At the level of institutional bodies — such as research laboratories or academic departments — many research questions and objectives are determined by external actors such as government agencies, industrial sponsors and other funding organisations, and by circumstances (obvious examples can be found in medical research). At individual level, researchers working within these bodies are often assigned to research topics on the basis of their institution’s needs. In other cases, experienced individual researchers take up research topics and objectives in some sort of natural sequence, based on their previous research. Selecting a topic for research is therefore not necessarily problematic. However, when beginning researchers, and more specifically (prospective) PhD students, have to select their own topic (sometimes they are given a list of potential research topics by their supervisor — Cˇenˇková’s paper in this volume refers to a similar system for MA theses), it turns out that it is a very difficult task for them, especially in the field of interpreting. In fact, a sizeable proportion of PhD students never manage to take off, precisely because they fail to overcome this problem, and in spite of the absence of precise statistics, it is probably fair to say that this accounts for a large proportion of aborted dissertations. This paper sets out to provide some general guidance to prospective PhD

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candidates in the selection of a topic for research, with some emphasis on and illustrations from the field of interpreting. 2. Expectations from a research project Research is basically a target-oriented activity, and it is important for beginning researchers to know what the expectations are in order to choose an appropriate target for their endeavour. Essentially, science is a systematic, rule-bound, collective exploration of reality. A prevailing norm in the scientific community suggests that individual research efforts should contribute to such exploration by adding and/or correcting and/or consolidating either knowledge or a potentially useful tool for knowledge acquisition. In concrete terms, such contributions can take three forms: 2.1 Empirical contributions These can be the discovery of unknown physical, social and behavioural entities and/or the unveiling of facts describing their nature and behaviour. In the field of interpreting, to take just a few examples of what could be a very long list, such empirical contributions can take the form of new information about: – – – – –

language-specific interpreting strategies (Dawrant 1996), the personal history and linguistic behaviour of “truly bilingual” conference interpreters (Thiéry 1975), progress in the interpreting students’ ability to listen and speak at the same time (Pinter 1969), inter-subject variability in the vocabulary used to interpret a source speech (Lamberger-Felber 1998), the interpreter’s working memory span (Padilla 1995).

Note that generally in the scientific establishment as a social institution, while new empirical findings are given the highest priority, corrections of previous findings are also considered very important, and confirmation of previous findings by replication is indispensable. In routine scientific activity, uncovering new information is therefore not a standard requirement. At PhD level, some degree of innovation is generally required, but this need not be a new theory, a new model, or the discovery of new laws. Prospective PhD students should keep this in mind in order to avoid setting their sights too high unnecessarily.

Selecting a topic for PhD research in interpreting

2.2 Conceptual (‘theoretical’) contributions Another acceptable type of contribution is conceptual, in the form of new theories, new questions, new hypotheses to test, new analyses of known facts or findings: why do so many errors occur in source-speech segments which do not present any measurable objective difficulty (Gile 1989)? Why is it more difficult to interpret read speeches than impromptu speeches (Déjean Le Féal 1978)? Why is quality perception by delegates highly variable (Gile 1999)? Note that generally, conceptual contributions generate empirical research, which leads to empirical findings, whereas the reverse is not true. It may be worthwhile pointing out that in early interpreting research, most of the conceptual contributions were introspective, and published in the form of essays, with few references to the literature from the relevant cognate disciplines, and few attempts to actually test ideas. Over the past ten to fifteen years, the paradigm has shifted towards a more sophisticated form of research. Introspection-based speculation has been replaced to a large extent by conceptual research more in line with the behavioural sciences, referring extensively to existing theories as reflected in the literature, with a strong interdisciplinary component involving mostly linguistics and the cognitive sciences (see for example Dillinger 1989, Setton 1997). Prospective PhD students should be aware that a theoryoriented project now involves much reading of theory in cognate disciplines, and assess the feasibility of their project accordingly (see Section 3). 2.3 Methodological contributions Exploration of reality in all its complexity is a difficult endeavour, and one important component of scientific work is to develop tools that help explore reality in a more sensitive, accurate and reliable way. Therefore, the value of research projects can be assessed not only on the basis of new information they collect and new conceptual/theoretical analyses and entities they introduce, but also on the basis of new exploratory tools they develop. Such contributions can materialise as new experimental designs, statistical procedures, the development of metrics, of measurement tools, of analytical procedures, of classification and categorisation tools. For example, Pöchhacker (1994) designed a tool to measure parameters of source speeches relevant to interpreting difficulty, and Tommola and Hyöna (1990) looked at the feasibility of the use of pupil dilation measurements as an indicator of mental load during interpreting. As is the case of conceptual/theoretical contributions, methodological

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Daniel Gile

contributions are generally associated with empirical findings which support them. Without them, it is difficult to assess the value of a tool. 2.4 What is the minimum required contribution for a research study? One frequent misunderstanding among beginners is the idea that a research project has to “find an answer” or “solve a problem”. Associated with this misunderstanding is their somewhat unrealistic ambition, often expressed in the introduction of dissertations, to “bridge the gap between theory and practice”, to “determine/develop the best training methods”, to “show the mental operation of interpreting”, to “see how the interpreter’s personality is expressed in his/her interpretation style”, to “show that performance when working into a B-language is better/worse than working into an A-language”, to “show that a particular way of using a computer in the booth is most efficient”, etc. Reality is generally far too complex to allow a single study to find complete and final answers to such questions. Most studies ‘only’ contribute one or a few bricks to the building which is being erected by many other members of the community, and more comprehensive (albeit generally provisional) answers generally result from the efforts of dozens, if not hundreds of researchers over long periods. This is often a disappointment to beginners, who may be surprised when their supervisor tells them after they have worked on their thesis or dissertation for some time that they can stop, because they have ‘enough’ for the degree. This disappointment is somewhat puzzling at first sight: while reviewing existing literature in the course of their preparatory work, budding scholars have ample opportunity to realise that previous theses and dissertations do not provide comprehensive answers either. Expectation bias introduced by the strength of their own motivation in starting a doctoral project may be the reason for their reaction. Be it as it may, calling the attention of beginners to the fact that individual research projects generally make small contributions to the community’s collective exploratory endeavour may help them accept more modest objectives than those they would have contemplated otherwise.

3. Topic selection and feasibility One further point to remember when selecting a topic for research is that science is ‘opportunistic’, in the sense that its objectives and methods adapt to

Selecting a topic for PhD research in interpreting

what is feasible, gradually extending the territory and pushing the limits further as more tools, concepts, financial and human resources become available. Generally, doctoral students who do not take on board existing constraints when planning their study either do not manage to complete their dissertation, or find themselves with a flawed end-product. Frequent feasibility problems include the following: 3.1 Lack of time MA and PhD regulations often impose limitations on time-to-completion. Besides these formal constraints, each researcher also takes part in life outside the academic microcosm, and experiences other motivations and constraints which may compete with the demands of doctoral work. Some PhD candidates need the degree for their career, in which case this requirement sustains their motivation, but imposes time constraints of its own (for instance if their scholarship or grant has a set duration, or if they need to complete the degree within a certain period in order to have an employment contract offered or renewed). Many PhD candidates also have an important professional or personal activity outside university. In the latter case, especially in the field of interpreting, where successful professionals may be very busy and earn their living handsomely, once the coursework is over, it may be difficult for PhD candidates to sustain their motivation, as other activities become increasingly important. As time goes by, more interpreting work, and possibly an enlarged family and more active social life make the benefit associated with completing an advanced degree less attractive at the required cost in time and efforts, and many PhD candidates drop out. Two distinct but interdependent time constraints therefore need to be addressed when selecting a topic (actually, when considering the feasibility of doctoral studies for a given prospective doctoral student): total duration to completion, and total availability of time on a regular basis (daily, weekly or monthly). A project involving much field work and/or laboratory work is not feasible if the candidate is too busy to spare the necessary time slots. And yet, this consideration is often neglected. Similarly, a project designed around events lasting several months or longer (for instance, when studying progress made by interpreting students over two years of studies) or occurring periodically with long intervals in-between (such as graduation examinations) may require several years for data collection even if it is well planned and implemented, let alone if there are problems with the data collected the first time.

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Beginners also tend to underestimate the time required to draft the dissertation. Many believe that once the data have been analysed and results are available, ‘writing it up’ is fast and effortless. And yet, writing a document of up to several hundred pages presenting a large volume of information and thoughts in a clear, precise style and along a logical and convincing path which takes the reader from a general introduction to the conclusion is a lengthy process, which may take several months to the better part of a year even if the student’s effort is sustained. Actually, many a PhD student who has completed his/her design, data collection and data analysis has given up when the ‘only’ remaining task was to ‘write up’ the dissertation. 3.2 Lack of baseline expertise Another issue which arises in any study which involves transdisciplinary components is baseline expertise, both declarative (‘knowing about things’, in particular knowing about relevant existing theories and facts) and procedural (‘know-how’, for instance as regards experimental design or data processing), insofar as the project may require expertise which the researcher does not yet have. Lack of awareness of the gap may lead to aborted projects (generally when the problem arises in the early stages of actual work on the concept, and the researcher finds him/herself unable to overcome it), or to seriously flawed studies (generally, when awareness of the problem arises at a later stage, and the researcher decides to go ahead with the study and complete it nevertheless). In the field of interpreting, gaps in declarative expertise are often found in psychological and linguistic concepts, theories and tools, and there are frequent weaknesses in procedural expertise as regards inferencing (see Gile’s second paper in this volume), let alone experimental design, statistical data processing, linguistic analysis of the corpus, etc. Note that such lack of expertise may also be found in the supervisor in charge, whose own background may be of little relevance to the dissertation’s topic and paradigm, and who was assigned or chosen as a supervisor because no one else was available locally (also see Section 4.2.3). 3.3 Lack of access to the literature A pandemic problem in interpreting research is difficult access to the relevant literature. Few university libraries, even in well-known translation and interpretation schools in West-European countries, let alone academic departments not

Selecting a topic for PhD research in interpreting

specialised in translation and interpretation, offer adequate coverage of interpretation literature. Ironically but understandably, it is much easier for interpretation students to find specialised texts in cognitive psychology and linguistics. Many research projects by serious scholars from the adjacent disciplines have gone astray because of a lack of insight into the mechanisms of interpreting, whereas more available literature might have prevented this from occurring. The lack of availability of interpretation literature has also generated much repetition and loss of opportunities within the field. 3.4 Lack of access to subjects and/or materials Difficult access to subjects is a well-known problem to all researchers in the field and is mentioned time and again in the literature (though personal accounts in this volume do not confirm this — see the conclusion at the end of this book). The difficulty arises not only because of the small size of the total population of conference interpreters (court interpreters and community interpreters are much more numerous in many countries) and because it is spread out geographically, but also due to the interpreters’ reluctance to serve as subjects for research. Authentic source speeches can be found, but those having precise pre-determined linguistic, informational and other characteristics are sometimes hard to come by, and so are recordings of their authentic target-speech renderings, with the exception of those that have been broadcast on radio, TV or the Internet. Some supervisors can help students plan their work adequately (see in particular Cˇenˇková’s paper in this volume on the guidance provided institutionally at MA level at the Institute of Translation Studies at Charles University, Prague). Others consider that it is up to the students to take responsibility for their work. Still others are too overloaded to be able to devote to each of their students as much time as would be required to check feasibility thoroughly. Finally, as mentioned above, supervisors may find themselves in charge of a student working on a topic with which they are not familiar, and do not have the necessary knowledge to guide him/her efficiently through feasibility analysis. In all these cases, students have to take their fate in their own hands. 4. Dealing with feasibility issues: Project planning The best way to avoid the trap of feasibility problems arising unexpectedly after the project has started and jeopardising its success is to select one’s topic only

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after careful consideration of the requirements and potential problems versus available resources. 4.1 Areas of interest, topics and objectives The first step would be to identify one or several areas of interest, such as interpretation quality, interpretation training, the interpreter’s personality, the interpreter’s status in society, etc. In each such area of interest, one or several possible topics can be considered. For instance, in the area of interpretation quality assessment, Collados Aís (1996) chose to focus on the effect of monotonous intonation on quality perception, which is just one out of the many dimensions of quality. In the area of cognitive abilities of interpreters, Padilla (1995) checked their memory span for one type of data, again a very specific location in a wide space of possibilities. Within each topic, specific objectives should be considered. These can be exploratory, as was the case Thiéry’s doctoral dissertation (1975) devoted to an initial description of the personal history and behaviour of ‘true bilingual’ interpreters. They can also be focused around specific questions, as is the case of Collados Aís’s dissertation mentioned above. They can also consist of tests of a hypothesis, a series of hypotheses or a theory. 4.2 Method and resources No final decision about a research objective should be taken before a method is selected and its associated requirements are assessed against available resources. Such an assessment involves concrete planning, far beyond the choice of a general approach, so that precise needs in terms of resources are known: prospective PhD candidates should, inter alia, decide what background literature to explore, see where it can be found, what subjects and/or materials are relevant and where to find them, what precise method(s) is/are going to be used, calculate the approximate time required to go through the various steps of the study, and see whether all other required resources are available. In particular, the following important areas deserve to be highlighted: 4.2.1 Baseline expertise If the method contemplated is theoretical discussion or development of a particular theoretical entity, researchers should make sure they have access to the relevant background texts, understand the languages in which these are

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published, and have enough expertise in the relevant field. For instance, the theoretical model of simultaneous interpreting adapted by Moser in her 1976 dissertation from another model by Massaro required theoretical knowledge in cognitive psychology. It is important to realise that minimum baseline expertise may call for much preparatory learning, up to several years of coursework in linguistics, cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, etc. Browsing through a few textbooks or papers is not enough to turn a novice into a genuine linguist, cognitive psychologist or neurophysiologist. Guidance through discussions and comments with and by experts is generally necessary to acquire a coherent, well balanced and correct perception of the theories, thinking modes and research methods that make up the relevant fields. The same applies to experimental design. Reading descriptions of various classical designs in textbooks is not enough, no matter how intelligent the students are. Implementing the reasoning process while avoiding the numerous traps requires hands-on guidance and correction until the skills are truly mastered. If prospective PhD candidates do not have the required baseline expertise, they have three options: acquire it, enlist the help of an expert, or choose another topic. If their supervisor happens to be an expert in the field, s/he may help decide whether acquiring a minimum level of expertise is feasible. Without such help, the decision to go ahead with the study is risky. 4.2.2 Sample representativeness In any research endeavour which scrutinises a selected part of the entity to be explored, that is a sample of the population (the name traditionally given to the target entity), it is essential to know whether there is good reason to believe it is representative of the whole population, in which case it said to be a “representative sample”, or whether it represents a sub-population that may differ in some relevant characteristic from the overall population. It is important to understand that representativeness is only loosely dependent upon sample size. For instance, women interpreters probably make up well over 50% of the population of interpreters, but may differ from the rest of the population (male interpreters) as regards social behaviour, self-image, personal ambitions, etc. In a study focusing on such parameters, a sample composed of female interpreters, be it 50% of the total population of interpreters, could only be taken as representative of the female sub-population of interpreters, and any inference on the whole population would be justifiably criticised. On the other hand, a wellchosen sample of a few thousand people yields fairly accurate estimates of behaviour in a population of millions of people.

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In interpreting research, the lack of access to subjects and the limited volume of empirical research conducted so far make this issue particularly sensitive, because there is little data to help determine the limits of generalisability. To what extent and in what areas is it legitimate to extrapolate from one type of speech to another, from one language to another, from students to professionals, from a particular working environment to another? Two fundamental rules can be recommended in this respect: Firstly, use all available information to decide whether a sample of subjects to whom you have access can be representative of your population in respect of the phenomenon you are studying; if not, consider changing the focus of your study. For instance, suppose you are interested in the study of automated cognitive processes of a complex nature in interpreters, and it turns out that you only have access to student interpreters. Reading the literature and consulting with experienced researchers may make you decide that students cannot be taken as representative of the population of interpreters with respect to the focus of your study. In such a case, it does not make sense to go ahead with the project. A somewhat different situation occurs when you want to analyse the personality of interpreters, and find out you only have access to staff interpreters in an international organisation. An analysis and some reading of the relevant literature in sociology and psychology may make you decide that the personality of staff interpreters may differ from that of free-lancers. In such a situation, you can go ahead with your project, but with a narrowed-down objective, namely to study the personality of staff interpreters only. Secondly, be cautious when generalising from your results. Clearly, in the project about the personality of staff interpreters, you can only generalise to staff interpreters, and possibly only to staff interpreters in certain types of organisations. The issue of generalisability is tricky: after all, when implementing a policy of scientific scepticism and caution in strict terms, one could argue that unless a strict random sampling procedure is used, something which is not feasible in the interpreting research environment (and in most behavioural disciplines), there is always the possibility that some hidden sampling bias exists, and that only claims about individuals in the actual sample studied are legitimate. The second best (and the only feasible) strategy in most cases is to consider all available evidence and reflections by fellow researchers, to decide how far one wishes to generalise, and to explain in one’s text whether, why and with what reservations one could consider that the findings also apply beyond the ‘generalisation perimeter’. At this point, and as long as no comparative data is available to help

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determine the limits of generalisability, such decisions will be largely subjective. Making them carefully on the basis of all available data and making the limitations clear to the reader (see Schjoldager in this volume) are the acceptable way to proceed. 4.2.3 Sample size One other matter which deserves particular attention in interpreting research is sample size. In an empirical study, the number of subjects that can be observed and/or submitted to experimental procedures is an essential parameter. In a hypothesis-testing endeavour, random variation makes it difficult to contemplate any generalisation from very small samples, unless intra-sample variability is small. This is a matter of common sense, and mathematics only add precision to the principle: generalising on the basis of a 4-unit sample with measured values 2, 3, 3 and 2 is more reasonable than generalising on the basis of a 4-unit sample with measured values of 2, 3, 75 and 60. This is particularly critical if the idea is to compare two samples and decide whether they come from the same population, which is the basic idea in most experimental procedures (for instance, when testing student performance against professional performance, or performance when interpreting from an A-language into a B-language vs. work in the opposite direction). On the other hand, if the question is whether some mean value (such as a metric for quality, a physiological value, a proportion of a population displaying a particular feature, etc.) is higher or lower than some threshold, or even whether some mean value is ‘rather high’ or ‘rather low’, some generalisation is possible even in a highly variable sample. For instance, suppose the research question is whether names are truly problematic in interpreting, as is often reported in the literature, and correct name-rendition rates are measured in a random sample of subjects performing an interpretation task. If the measured values are 30%, 85%, 50%, 60%, 25%, in spite of the small size of the sample and its variability, it is clear that all subjects experience difficulties with names, and performing statistical tests will not contribute anything towards finding the answer to the precise question as defined above. The mathematics of probability theory and inferential statistics can give more generalisation power to findings if more is known about variable distributions, especially if these are close to the Gaussian curve (also called “bell-shaped curve” or “normal curve”). For further technical details and precise suggestions on sample size, read one of the many available books on practical statistics for the behavioural sciences, and/or consult statisticians.

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However, as long as no unreasonable generalisations are made, there is nothing wrong with studies on very small samples. Even case studies with single subjects are legitimate scientific endeavours, especially when they serve as exploratory studies. Many important scientific discoveries originated in case studies. In fact, Bromley (1986, quoted in Coolican 1999: 126), has called case studies “the bedrock of scientific investigation”, while Robson (1993) argues that experiments should also be considered case studies, which makes sense insofar as each is based on a single sample or set of samples. 4.2.4 The availability of a competent supervisor For historical, sociological and institutional reasons (see Gile 1995), there are still few supervisors for research into interpreting who have both research expertise, especially as regards empirical research, and knowledge of the world of interpreting, and such supervisors with sufficient competence for the particular topic the candidate has chosen may not be available locally (the subject is discussed further in the context of interdisciplinarity in Section 6.1 and illustrated in several contributions in this volume). In such a case, candidates may decide to choose a topic for which there is a local supervisor, or to enlist the help of experts from other institutions as co-supervisors. Thanks to modern technology, it is even possible to work with people from afar (see Mead, in this volume). However, there may be institutional and personal obstacles: some universities may not allow supervision by scholars from other institutions, or the main supervisor may be reluctant to accept the very principle of co-supervision. It is also possible to enlist informally the help of experts from other institutions, but this is also associated with some risk if the official supervisor’s views are at odds with the informal supervisor’s.

5. Strategies Somewhat ironically, while doctoral training programs are said to teach graduate students what research is all about and how to go about it, in many cases, the PhD project, which is the culmination of the learning process, may differ significantly from research projects as they are conducted in the field. The essential reason for the difference is that while in research as practised by qualified scholars, projects generally aim at advancing towards solutions to research problems, PhD projects aim at fulfilling academic requirements, and are driven by them and largely constrained by the local academic environment

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and its norms. The two are not always compatible, and a choice may have to be made. Doctoral projects are a necessary gateway in academia and do not restrict their authors’ freedom to engage in any type of research they choose after obtaining their degree. It may therefore be best, when students have long-term academic objectives, to give priority for a time to the specific requirements of the doctoral project rather than to norms of research as it is practised more generally in the field. This implies in particular specific strategies relevant to the selection of topics: 5.1 Feasibility as a priority While research proper in a PhD project must be in line with the prevailing standards of research, as mentioned above, the fundamental aim underlying a PhD project is the acquisition of the degree. Consequently, the candidate’s priorities are not quite the same as those of non-degree research. More specifically, adapting to environmental resources and constraints may take precedence over the quest for a solution to a specific research problem, and candidates would be well-advised to consider the possibility of choosing a topic most likely to facilitate their doctoral work rather than a topic closer to their research interests but more difficult to tackle at the PhD stage in their local environment. In particular, as already mentioned, choosing a topic in line with the expertise and interests of a locally available supervisor may be a wise strategy, although before doing so, candidates should attempt to predict how they will react to several years of work on a subject which may not be their favourite. 5.2 Alternative routes Planning alternative routes is another strategy specific to research-for-a-degree as opposed to ordinary research. Although some research projects are straightforward, when innovative or original elements come in, problems and outcomes are somewhat unpredictable in spite of careful planning. This is why it is wise to plan not only the implementation of the initial action plan, but also alternative routes, which become increasingly important as the project advances. If, during the early stages of a study, PhD candidates discover that access to background literature is more difficult than anticipated, or that their project requires baseline expertise that they do not have and do not have the time to acquire, they can still choose a different direction for their study without incurring dramatic loss of time and other resources. If, however, they find after

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much investment that their material is not suitable for their project, or that there is too much variability in their data to find the answer that they had sought, a radical change may be much more painful and/or costly. Alternative routes should be planned rather than improvised, the idea being to use to the largest possible extent the work already done at the time the change in direction is made. This means in particular thinking of several scenarios that will be using to a large extent the same background literature, the same material, and the same sample of subjects. Without such planning, there is a risk of having to discard much of what was achieved before the insurmountable obstacle was found. 5.3 Determining the scale of the study The issue of alternative routes is linked to another question, namely how and when to determine the scale of the study. Theoretically, careful planning at all levels is highly recommended, and in the traditional experimental paradigm, the scope of the study, including the number of experimental groups and their respective sizes, as well as the corpus to be used (most often source speeches), is supposed to be determined in advance. However, in the field of interpreting studies, especially in the case of time-constrained doctoral dissertations, this is not always possible, or indeed wise, simply because of the difficulties involved in finding authentic speeches and enlisting the co-operation of professional interpreters for research purposes. Determining in advance in a non-modifiable way the scope of the study in such terms may entail the risk of failure, if the sights are set too high, or of missing opportunities for collecting valuable information, if they are set too low. An open-ended design with minimum sample sizes and materials which can also accommodate further materials and/or information may lead to better results. One example is a study by Gile (1999) — not a doctoral project — on variability in the perception of fidelity, which involved several steps and an incrementally growing number of participants. The idea was to check variability in the perception of interpreting quality by various groups, including interpreters and non-interpreters, and depending on the mode of presentation of the target speech (audio recording or transcript). Data on reactions in the written mode (the transcript) was obtained incrementally by questionnaire, as interpreters and other subjects became available. Data on reactions in the oral mode (the audio tape) had to be collected on a large enough sample using a method and environment ensuring identical conditions for all subjects. The opportunity

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presented itself when I was invited to give a one day workshop on research into conference interpreting at an interpreting school. I thus had enough time for the experiment and a large sample of participants — it goes without saying that deciding to wait for such opportunities is only an appropriate strategy if the researcher knows that such opportunities will present themselves within an acceptable timeframe. One reviewer of the paper, who had a traditional experimental background, commented that the study seemed to be improvised, rather than planned. In fact, precise planning and the preparation of materials was necessary in order to seize the opportunity when it arose. Admittedly, there was some uncertainty as to when exactly it would arise and what the precise size and composition of the sample of subjects would be, but a close-ended study could probably have been conducted only at a much smaller scale. Sharing corpora and using the same speech and some findings from completed research for further studies is one way of increasing the amount of available, comparable data. It is also, in a rather loose sense, a way of increasing ‘sample size’ (but not in the strict sense, since the data may be available from a set of distinct samples, with differences in the task and/or environmental conditions under which it was obtained). The open-ended design is legitimate and efficient, though one must be careful to identify the differences between conditions in the various incremental stages so as to avoid making unjustified inferences. 5.4 Canonical and non-canonical steps in the research process In general accounts of science, the point is made that research is based on a theoretical foundation, insofar as one or several theoretical account(s) of a phenomenon or set of phenomena are studied and then either developed (in theoretical research) or tested (in empirical research). In actual life, research often focuses on a pragmatic problem, without an extensive theoretical basis: Is there a difference between the expectations of various user groups as to interpreting quality? Do interpreters work better from an A-language into a Blanguage or vice-versa? How useful are specific conference preparation methods for interpreters? While some form of “theory” in a very general sense of the word is always present behind the very questions, in empirical studies, it need not be as comprehensive, cohesive and well-articulated as a theory presented as such in a scientific text. In the humanities, and in particular in a humanities-oriented view of Translation Studies (as opposed to a social-sciences-oriented view of

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Translation Studies), the prevailing norms seem to require from doctoral dissertations a substantial introduction, at least one chapter long, simulating the researcher’s route from theoretical considerations to the precise research question(s). While it is necessary for PhD candidates to explore the theoretical background to a research topic, as well as previous empirical studies and their findings, making a final selection of the topic on this sole basis may not be the most efficient strategy, because feasibility issues may then force the student to backtrack. It is often better to start with one or several tentative research questions, do some planning and check feasibility and previous work on the subject, and defer the drafting of the detailed literature-based introduction to a later stage, so that it can introduce the reader to the actual research question tackled. In other words, while the way the dissertation is structured seems to suggest that its author started out with theoretical exploration of the issue, developed a set of hypotheses and went on to test them, the actual order in which the research project was carried out may be quite different.

6. Further issues 6.1 Interdisciplinary work The idea of interdisciplinary work (meaning, in this context, work on interpreting involving a substantial input from an adjacent discipline such as psychology, linguistics, sociology, etc.) has become very popular in the last decade or so, and many prospective PhD candidates are attracted to the idea of working on cognitive or neurophysiological topics. While a number of literature reviews and simple empirical studies at MA level have been completed successfully, at PhD level, feasibility issues are more problematic and should not be underestimated. In particular, in the cognitive paradigm, experimental design at PhD level needs to be very strict (see for example the sophisticated design of Dillinger 1989 or Liu 2001), and it takes specific training or much experience to acquire the required expertise. In this connection, the following points deserve special attention: – In principle, doing interdisciplinary research at PhD level requires the input of supervisors or co-supervisors from the relevant adjacent discipline. Such supervisors may assume that the students have much better knowledge of that discipline than is actually the case, be reluctant to coach PhD candidates into the acquisition of basic knowledge or skills which they should normally have at

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their fingertips at that stage, and/or require them to attend many courses to bring them up-to-date; some of these courses may seem irrelevant or too remote from interpreting-related matters. Candidates for interdisciplinary projects should be aware of these possibilities and decide whether such requirements are acceptable to them. – In some cases, especially when students are experienced interpreters themselves, supervisors from adjacent disciplines may trust them to ‘do the right thing’ without actually supervising them, and be too lenient when the completed work is presented to the assessment committee, because of these students’ special status as ‘outsiders’ and as experienced interpreters. This may result in weaknesses both as regards interpreting proper (due to the supervisor’s insufficient knowledge of the world of interpreting and of the associated literature) and as regards the adjacent discipline. – There may also be differences between the student and the supervisor when choosing metrics and when interpreting the data. For instance, in the interest of rigorous measurement, non-interpreting researchers may insist on using formal textual criteria such as propositional matching between source speech and target speech to assess fidelity, without taking into account interpreting strategies. In experiments having performance as the dependent variable, this can be very problematic. It is therefore particularly important, when contemplating an interdisciplinary doctoral project, not only to make sure that a supervisor from the relevant discipline is available locally, but also that s/he is mentally available and willing to help over the whole duration of the PhD work, and to ascertain what his/her attitude and requirements are. When the dissertation is completely within the paradigm of the adjacent discipline (as was the case in Padilla’s 1995 dissertation on the interpreters’ memory span), things are relatively straightforward, but as soon as genuine interpreting work comes in, problems arise easily. On the whole, interdisciplinarity seems less problematic with linguistics and sociology, with their strong descriptive and naturalistic component, than with cognitive psychology, which tends to favour ‘hard’ experimental procedures (see the comments in Shlesinger 2000). 6.2 Scientific norms Another issue which is far from trivial has to do with the selection of scientific norms for interpreting research, since these are diverse and evolve over time. In

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the mid-seventies to mid-eighties, the prevailing interpreter-researchers’ norms (see Gile 2000) were associated with essay-type explorations of the applicability of the prevailing paradigm (in the form of “why the théorie du sens also applies to Korean” — see Choi 1986), as opposed to strictly experimental studies or to theoretical development in the strict sense such as done in Moser (1976), in Mizuno’s work on a ‘dynamic model of simultaneous interpretation’ (1993) and in Setton’s pragmatics-based theory (1997). Towards the end of the eighties, a shift occurred, with a strongly interdisciplinary trend, with respect not only to the topics and methods used, but also to scientific standards. As mentioned above, the now central position of cognitive psychology among the proponents of interdisciplinary research is associated with a strong position of the experimental paradigm in the strict sense, and within the ranks of interpreter-researchers, there seems to be a strong feeling that experimental research is the only one which truly meets the requirements of Science. The experimental paradigm certainly provides a relatively powerful rationale to deal with confounding variables (variables which exert influence over the phenomena under investigation but which are not controlled by the experimenter). However, it also entails a number of drawbacks other than the well-known issue of ecological validity (to what extent do laboratory conditions reflect the genuine phenomena they are supposed to measure?), and is being challenged from within the ranks of cognitive psychology — for an interesting discussion of the issue, and the presentation of an alternative qualitative approach, see Coolican 1999. Besides this fundamental rationale, practical reasons such as the lack of access to a sufficiently large number of subjects, the lack of knowledge about variable distribution, the lack of knowledge about inter- and intra-subject variability, the lack of validating evidence for performance metrics, etc., may erect severe methodological and feasibility obstacles in the way of the conventional hypothesis-testing type of experimental paradigm in the world of conference interpreting, and reduce considerably its potency. It is important to remember that the experimental paradigm is by no means the only legitimate one in science, and that naturalistic paradigms are standard in many disciplines acknowledged as scientific (including astronomy, geology, botany, zoology, epidemiology, etc.). As regards behavioural disciplines, and in particular cognitive psychology, quoting from Coolican (1999) again, “it is perfectly possible to test hypotheses without an experiment. Much psychological testing is conducted by observing what children do, asking what people think and so on.” (p. 12). He explains that “scientists are pragmatic in their

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progress of knowledge, rather than following the rigid code which is often presented as the ideal to work towards in psychology methods courses” (p. 197). Allport, a promoter of psychology as a conventional science, explains that “We should adapt our methods so far as we can to the object, and not define the object in terms of our faulty methods” (quoted in Coolican 1999: 198). Going further into the critique of the conventional experimental paradigm is a feminist perspective which sees it as characteristic as a male approach to research…: preoccupation with quantifying variables; an emphasis on control, mastery and manipulation; a tendency to remain distant rather than be involved with the subjects of research; a preference for gadget-oriented research over naturalistic enquiry; competition and ego building. (Coolican 1999: 207).

Without necessarily going as far in the critique of the experimental paradigm, PhD candidates should realise that some margin of freedom in the choice of their scientific norms is legitimate. Unless forced to do otherwise for practical reasons, for instance when enrolled in doctoral programs which impose the conventional hypothesis-testing experimental approach, PhD candidates should ideally be free to choose one out of several scientific paradigms, to be determined according to their own tastes and as a function of feasibility — with the proviso that their underlying rationale is solid. In that respect, the paradigms of sociology, with their emphasis on naturalistic studies, which are not less rigorous than experimental studies by nature, may provide a good reference to present to reluctant prospective supervisors.

7. Conclusion: Preparing students for research topic selection As can be seen, selecting a topic for a PhD project is not to be seen as a short, straightforward preliminary to the study proper. Rather, it is a planning process, sometimes complex, often lengthy, which may last well into the actual literature review, data collection and even data analysis stages (as illustrated by Dubslaff’s and Schjoldager’s accounts in this volume), sometimes forcing a change in direction somewhere along the line (see Dubslaff, in this volume). Optimising the process requires much reflection, as well as a flexible and realistic attitude. In interpreting research, PhD students are often experienced interpreters who do not need the doctoral degree for their career and who undertake their PhD project with the purpose of solving an interpreting problem or finding an

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answer to a question. This may make it more difficult for them to come to terms with the reality of research, and with the idea that their project will probably not bring forth the ultimate solution or answer. Is the difficulty of the topic selection process universal? It is obviously a critical process, and my own experience as a supervisor and the experience of fellow researchers in several other disciplines, including translation studies, literary studies and linguistics, with whom I have discussed the issue, seem to suggest that it may well be difficult for many students. In established empirical disciplines, the process should be easier. While studying for a second degree, and even for an undergraduate degree, students are introduced to research methods, and their study of the evolution of concepts and theories in their discipline makes them analyse closely and critically the designs and methods used throughout its history. Often, they also have to design and conduct their own empirical projects in the course of their studies. When their turn comes to select a topic for a PhD, they already have a basis for their planning and decision process. Moreover, in such disciplines, a number of research paths are well charted out and validated, and there are many qualified supervisors to guide the students in the appropriate direction. In interpreting research, where students often have to chart their own course and do not have the benefit of a syllabus which prepares them naturally to research, besides training in critical reading (see Gile’s second paper in this volume), specific training in topic selection/research planning is probably a useful component of coursework for beginning researchers. Students are presented with a research question or topic and asked to plan a course of action for a PhD project that would seek to explore it and find a specific answer or solution, listing all expected difficulties, available resources, possible strategies, alternative routes, etc. Their analysis and design are then discussed in the classroom, and compared to actual research done on the same topic or question. In the absence of such courses, students should be encouraged to seek as much help as possible from their supervisor, as well as from other experienced researchers.

References Bromley, D.B. 1986. The Case Study Method in Psychology and Related Disciplines. Chichester: Wiley.

Selecting a topic for PhD research in interpreting

Choi, Jungwha. 1986. L’interprétation consécutive coréen-français du point de vue de son enseignement. Unpublished doctoral thesis, ESIT, Université Paris III. Collados Aís, Á. 1996. La entonación monótona como parametro de calidad en la interpretación simultánea: la evaluación de los receptores. Doctoral dissertation, Universidad de Granada. Coolican, H. 1999. Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 3rd Edition. Dawrant, A. 1996. Word Order in Chinese-English Simultaneous Interpretation: An Initial Exploration. Unpublished M. A. thesis, The Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation Studies, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei. Déjean Le Féal, K. 1978. Lectures et improvisations — Incidences de la forme de l’énonciation sur la traduction simultanée. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, ESIT, Université Paris III. Dillinger, M. 1989. Component Processes of Simultaneous Interpretation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, McGill University, Montreal. Gile, D. 1989. La communication en réunion multilingue. Les difficultés de la transmission informationnelle en interprétation simultanée. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Université Paris III. Gile, D. 1995. Regards sur la recherche en interprétation de conférence. Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille. Gile, D. 1999. “Variability in the perception of fidelity in simultaneous interpretation”. Hermes 22. 51–79. Gile, D. 2000. “The history of research into conference interpreting: a scientometric approach”. Target 12:2. 299–323. Lamberger-Felber, H. 1998. Der Einfluss kontextueller Faktoren auf das Simultandolmetschen. Eine Fallstudie am Beispiel gelesener Reden. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, KarlFranzens Universität Graz. Liu, Minhua. 2001. Expertise in simultaneous interpreting: a working memory analysis. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin. Mizuno, A. 1993. “Doujitsuuyaku no doutaimoderu ni mukete”. (“Towards a dynamic model of simultaneous interpreting”). In Conference Proceedings of the 4th International Japanese/English Translation Conference. University of Auckland, Brisbane, Australia. 421–443. Moser, B. 1976. Simultaneous translation: Linguistic, Psycholinguistic, and Human Information Processing Aspects. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Innsbruck, Austria. Padilla, P. 1995. Procesos de memoria y atención en la interpretación de lenguas. Doctoral dissertation, Universidad de Granada. Pinter, I. 1969. Der Einfluss der Übung und Konzentration auf Simultanes Sprechen und Hören. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Universität Wien. Pöchhacker, F. 1994. Simultandolmetschen als komplexes Handeln. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Robson, C. 1993. Real World Research. Oxford: Blackwell. Setton, R. 1997. A Pragmatic Theory of Simultaneous Interpretation. Doctoral dissertation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Shlesinger, M. 2000. Strategic Allocation of Working Memory and Other Attentional Resources in Simultaneous Interpreting. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Bar-Ilan University.

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Thiéry, C. 1975. Le bilinguisme vrai chez les interprètes de conférence professionnels. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, ESIT, Université Paris III. Tommola, J. and Hyöna, J. 1990. “Mental Load in Listening, Speech Shadowing and Simultaneous Interpreting: a Pupillometric Study”. In Foreign Language Comprehension and Production. AFinLA Yearbook 1990, Tommola, J. (ed). 179–188. Turku: Publications de l’Association finlandaise de linguistique appliquée AfinLA.



Critical reading in (interpretation) research Daniel Gile Université Lumière Lyon 2

1.

Introduction

Reading other authors’ texts is an essential part of research, with multiple functions: a. Acquiring information about previous and on-going research as regards content (including foci of interest, approaches, methodology, findings) and form (including language and presentation conventions and preferences). b. Using previously completed research for orientation (choosing topics for one’s own studies, choosing topics for further studies, making career plans, etc.) c. Analysing and evaluating other researchers’ studies for inspiration on the basis of their strengths and for preventive awareness as regards potential weaknesses. This critical dimension of reading for research purposes is fundamental. d. Reporting other researchers’ work for the benefit of the scientific community (in reviews). e. When reading in one’s capacity as an advisor or supervisor, helping trainees improve their work. f. When refereeing, help an editor or other decision-maker (such as someone in charge of hiring a researcher) take the proper decisions, and, in the case of collective volumes and journals, help authors improve their text. Interestingly, in research into interpreting, there are many instances where the literature-reading phase is not carried out properly (see an analysis and examples in Gile 1999b). One of the reasons for improper use of the literature has to do with the personality of the critical reader, who may be careless, impatient, or lack the stamina required for long, careful reading. One would expect the same personality features to be reflected in other parts of the researcher’s work as well,

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for instance in the design of his/her study, its implementation, the analysis of the data and the wording of the report, paper or thesis. And yet, in many instances, these components of the process are of good quality, whereas the critical reading component is not. Two explanations can be offered. One is that scholars do not necessarily consider the critical reading component as important as other components. The other is that they do not have methodological guidelines for critical reading as they do for the other parts of the research process. In the context of doctoral work and beyond, this paper sets out to raise readers’ awareness of the importance of the critical reading component in research and to provide such guidelines, in the hope that this will contribute to raise the quality of this essential part of scholarly work in the interpreting research community.

2. Three norms for critical reading While this paper provides a rather wide coverage of the issues of critical reading, it may be useful to start with three norms as a foundation for the discussion:

a. Critical reading is a research act subject to the same norms as other research acts One of the most fundamental norms of scientific research requires it to be systematic, rigorous, careful and objective. As an important part of the process, one that generally provides most of the necessary background information for a new project, exploration of the relevant literature should comply with the same norm. This implies in particular that an author’s text is assessed by other authors not only on its innovative content, but also on its use of existing literature. It is also important to consider that besides its specific functions such as outlined in Section 1, if performed correctly as a research act per se, that is carefully, systematically, as objectively and as explicitly as possible, critical reading is a very useful exercise for beginners as part of the research skills learning process. One might add that it also keeps experienced researchers on their toes. b. Make sure you understand before evaluating Experience shows that misperceptions of other authors’ writings, especially as regards their positions and opinions, are very frequent (numerous examples are given in Gile 1999b). This can be due to the complexity of the phenomena

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or ideas described or discussed in the text, to the author’s ambiguous or clumsy prose, but also to insufficient efforts on the critical reader’s part and to his/her bias. Information contained in the literature is part of the factual basis on which a project will be built, the other part being information collected in the field. Depending on the project, facts from the literature may be less important, equally important or more important than facts from the field. In all cases, they should be processed just as seriously.

c. Be sceptical towards your own criticism Reader bias is ever-present. It is particularly strong against writings expressing opinions or positions contrary to or different from the readers’. Before deciding that writings actually express such opinions or positions, it is desirable to read the relevant parts again very carefully. In particular, when a text seems to be saying something illogical or even absurd, double-checking is essential, lest the critical reader ridicule the author and him/herself by hastily drawing the wrong conclusions and reporting his/her reactions in public. In other cases, careful reading shows that the text does say what it seems to be saying. However, before making a final decision and criticising the author, consideration should be given to the possibility that the error lies in the writing, not in the author’s thoughts: the author may be writing in a non-native language, s/he may not have had enough time to check the text thoroughly, errors may have been introduced during the publication process, etc.

3. Reading for comprehension Evaluation depends on norms and on the assessor’s subjective preferences, which may interfere with comprehension and generate misperceptions (see above). It is a good policy to read for comprehension first, inhibiting temporarily one’s evaluative reactions to reduce potential interference detrimental to good comprehension of the text, and only read for evaluation in a second pass. In particular, the following questions are useful in guiding readers of research texts: 3.1 Understanding the author’s objectives It is important to understand the author’s objective(s) in the text. Is the study an attempt to answer a specific question? To test a hypothesis? To explore a

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phenomenon? All too often, readers assess a study not on the basis of the author’s objectives, but on the basis of their own focus of interest, which may be markedly different. For instance, one referee specialising in the translation of classical Japanese literature criticised a study on Japanese-into-French translation strategies for scientific and technical texts for choosing a “poorly written” modern Japanese source text. His claim was that modern Japanese writers, especially in non-literary fields, no longer write in good Japanese, not that the source text was not valid or representative. This was not valid criticism of the study, which looked at texts actually brought in for translation, regardless of whether they were written in good or poor Japanese. In another example, one member of a doctoral assessment committee criticised the author of a dissertation which set out to compare legal language in French and English for choosing a particular grammar for linguistic description, not because it was problematic with respect to the study of the corpus, but because there are more up-todate and comprehensive grammars. While this input is potentially useful as a piece of information, its relevance as criticism is doubtful, insofar as it does not say that the grammar chosen by the candidate was inappropriate for the contrastive purpose of the dissertation. A piece of research is a target-oriented action, and when assessing its quality, it is only fair that this be done with reference to the author’s objectives first, before passing judgement at other levels such as the referee’s interests or the overall contribution of the study to the field under consideration. An interesting example is that of a paper written by Andrew Chesterman and Rosemary Arrojo (2000), which aimed at identifying the ideas shared by representatives of different views in Translation Studies, and was then criticised by other scholars as failing to contribute towards objectives that were not in the authors’ mind (see Gile 2001) 3.2 Understanding the method used Texts often carry long and detailed descriptions of the background, rationale, advantages and disadvantages of the method used in a study, and readers may lose their bearings in the vast volume of information. Before assessing a study, it is important to make sure one understands the actual method used from this sometimes large mass of words describing the background, references, and terminological conventions. One way to test one’s comprehension of the method used by the author is to summarise it in writing: Is the method a discussion of the internal coherence of a concept or theory?

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Of its coverage or consistency with data from the field? Is it a comparison of theories or models? Is it a chronological analysis of theories or views? Is it an observational (naturalistic) method? Is it based on questionnaires? On interviews? Is it experimental? What is the basic design? Is it a case study, a study on a sample? For practical reasons (see Section 6), it may be worthwhile to write in a few sentences a description of the main variables and some details about the type of process or procedure. For instance, something like: a. “The author tried to see whether in the classroom, notes in consecutive actually take up processing capacity at the expense of listening, by dividing the class in two groups which interpreted the same speech in consecutive, one with notes, and one without. Results were compared on the basis of the rendering of proper names, which were used as an indicator” (Gile 1995). b. “The author tried to see whether complex sentences were more difficult to interpret than simple ones by looking at the diameter of the interpreters’ pupils as an indicator of mental load” (Tommola and Niemi 1986). c. “The author examined the applicability of the Skopos theory to interpreting by identifying characteristics of interpreting and assessing the extent to which the Skopos theory addressed them” (Kurz 1996). d. “The author tried to see whether different groups of users have different expectations from interpreting by having them fill in questionnaires where they were asked to mark on a 1 to 7 scale how important they considered 9 quality components” (Kurz 1996). For detailed comprehension, assessment, reporting and future referencing purposes, readers may find it useful to prepare a more documented synopsis of the method with the relevant details, such as the size and composition of samples, the type and numbers of speeches analysed in the study, the precise experimental design, the statistical tests and metrics used etc., which will be combined with a summary of the results and conclusions of the study (see below). 3.3 Understanding the results and conclusions of the study Results of the study, especially in empirical research, often come with a large number of tables, indications of statistical means, of levels of significance, and other quantitative (and/or qualitative) indications. It can be very useful for the critical reader to pick out and describe the most meaningful ones in a synoptic way. The results most often lead to conclusions (but not necessarily, if the study is exploratory and does not seek to find an answer to a precise question), to the

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effect that a hypothesis is supported or not, that the expected difference was found or not, that problems were discovered in the course of the study, etc. Again, a synoptic representation of the conclusions is necessary for the evaluation to be carried out later, and could take the form of short written descriptions such as: –

–

–

“The number of names rendered correctly in the consecutive-without-notes condition was higher than in the consecutive-with-notes condition, which supports the hypothesis that note-taking is detrimental to listening in beginners.” “The numbers show that engineers consider terminology more important than medical doctors. There seem indeed to be differences in the relative weights given to various quality parameters depending on user groups.” “Theory X does not take into account immediate interaction between participants on site, and therefore does not seem to be well suited to the requirements of the theoretical study of interpretation.”

At the risk of belabouring the point, one might stress again that misperceptions of other scholars’ writings are very frequent. Some of them occur in the course of the reading process, when the reader is not careful enough, but others have to do with longer term memory processes, as the reader’s general bias and feelings about the author’s position and work distort what s/he remembers of the actual text. It is therefore desirable, before writing a final assessment of a text, to document it with precise summaries, citations and comments in writing. At a time when computers have found their way into every academic department and virtually all scholars have access to them, this is rather easy (also see Section 7).

4. Assessing substance 4.1 Assessing the objectives of the study Before assessing the author’s method, it can be useful to assess the study’s objectives (the precise objectives of the study, as opposed to wider underlying objectives). In this respect, one often sees specific objectives that are not really relevant to the more general problem or question at hand. For instance, in one recent study, the author wanted to address the question of interpreters being “born or made” (finding an answer to this question would

Critical reading in (interpretation) research

be the wider underlying objective), and set as the precise objective of his study to check whether interpreting performance improved with training. The problem is one of rationale. People may be born with the potential to become interpreters but only develop their skills over many years, so that no significant performance improvement can be seen over one or two years of training (see for instance Cai 2000, Liu 2001), or be refractory to a particular didactic paradigm and fail to benefit from it. On the other hand, students may progress in the course of a training syllabus, but never reach the level required from professionals. In other words, the usefulness of this isolated study on performance improvement during training towards answering the wider underlying question is doubtful at best. Its usefulness could be assessed differently if it were presented as part of an overall strategy, with different studies focusing on different aspects of the issue at hand. An even more problematic case is that of objectives that can clearly not be met in a single study for reasons of feasibility. The most typical case are objectives that would require a vast amount of research by many teams of researchers over many years and cannot possibly be achieved in one study by one author (such as “bridging the gap between theory and practice”, or “identifying the differences in translation strategies between written translation and interpretation”), or one for which the required corpus or conceptual or technical tools are difficult to get hold of or develop. Assessing such objectives in other authors’ texts is an awareness-raising exercise which may make it easier for doctoral students to see weaknesses in their own objectives and make the necessary corrections before going too far in a particular direction in their own work. 4.2 Assessing the method Next, the question is whether the design and implementation of the method used to achieve these objectives are appropriate. This is where questions of validity, representativeness and reliability arise. Is the general approach appropriate? Will a questionnaire yield a faithful image of the required facts, should an interview be carried out to make sure that respondents are probed in depth, or should observational methods be used because there may well be a wide gap between what respondents say and what they actually do? Is experimentation required in order to isolate the relevant variable under investigation from spurious influences, or does it make the situation too artificial? Is the sample large enough, representative enough? Are the experimental tasks and conditions

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in line with the objectives? Is the data processing method chosen by the author appropriate? Is it the best under the circumstances? Could it be improved? Clearly, assessment of some technical aspects of the methodology used is only possible if the reader has specialised knowledge and experience. This pertains in particular to the use of inferential statistics, to some linguistic analyses, to psychological and neurophysiological procedures. However, in interpreting research literature, one still sees many fundamental problems with the very rationale underlying the research procedures, and these can be identified by the sole use of common sense and general knowledge of interpreting. For example, every interpreter will understand that a quality assessment method that systematically defines word order changes in the target text as an error may distort the results, or that using on interpreters a psychological test that has been validated for a specific ethnic group is problematic (because it is not unlikely that interpreters do not have the same characteristics as any single ethnic group). Assessing the seriousness of such potential flaws is more difficult, but identifying them should be helpful both to the critical reader and to the author — if feedback is sent to him/her. 4.3 Assessing the reported facts The answers to questions about the method depend on the strength of the authors’ rationale and on feasibility issues (see Gile’s paper on topic selection in this volume), but also on their awareness of facts in the field, on their correct or incorrect interpretation, and on their use in the study. For instance, in the literature, one author from a country with a small and isolated interpreting market claims repeatedly that interpreters are “rarely… exposed to the work of more than a handful of colleagues”, and therefore do not “relate… [their] own output to a body of interpreted texts”. While the rationale is right, the facts are wrong, and result from “provincialism” (taking facts from one’s own “province” as generalisable without checking beyond the province — Babbie 1992: 77): in many markets, interpreters actually work with dozens of colleagues throughout their careers and are therefore in a position to relate their work to the work of many colleagues. Besides data from the field, there are data from the study, those produced by the implementation of the method. Are they correctly identified and classified? In one recent study, “omissions” and “additions” were excluded from “meaning errors” without any explanation, which is problematic: is the fact that information was (unjustifiably) omitted and/or added not a “meaning error”?

Critical reading in (interpretation) research

Are all the relevant facts taken into account in the authors’ conclusions? If not, is this justified? For instance, in a number of studies, including Gile 1999a, I chose to only use errors very clearly identified as such. The advantage is increased reliability, but the drawback is that much relevant information may have been missed. Critical readers may consider that this is not a good strategy, because the general picture may be distorted due to the missing information. 4.4 Assessing the use of the literature Facts from the literature include previous work and results, and other authors’ theories, positions and statements. In what is traditionally the first part of papers and theses, a review of the existing literature, authors generally present its content and analyse it as a general background, often making a point about what is weak or missing, which then leads to their own contribution. Sometimes, their study is a direct test of a position taken by previous authors. When assessing this aspect of a research text, two obvious questions are whether the most relevant authors/bibliographical items in the field are presented, including the most recent findings, and whether the references from the literature are correct, as opposed to misrepresentations (see Gile 1999b). A further set of questions concerns the selection of references. Do all of them have significant substantial added value by informing the reader about findings or opinions on the point under consideration, by backing up a statement, by representing correctly an author’s viewpoint, etc.? If their added value from this viewpoint is small, are they ‘politically’ or diplomatically motivated, in which case their selection can be an indication of the affiliation and/or ‘political’ position of the author? An author’s affiliation as shown in the paper can explain why certain authors are given prominence despite their rather small contribution to the issue under investigation, or ignored despite their significant contribution. Any assessment of the use of the literature in a text should take this ‘political’ factor into account, and possibly prevent the assessor from incorrectly concluding that the author is not familiar with the literature (see Gambier, in this volume). When assessing an authors’ professionalism as a researcher on the basis of his/her use of the literature, one should also consider linguistic and availability issues: much material is written in languages that are not understood by the majority of members of the interpreting research community, and unfortunately, most libraries, even in translation and interpreting schools, only have a very small sample of the relevant literature. Missing references are therefore not

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necessarily signs that an author has not done his/her preparatory exploration of the relevant literature seriously. 4.5 Assessing the author’s inferences Science is supposed to be ‘logical’, in a Cartesian, explicit way, and all the empirical procedures, in particular experimental design and inferential statistics, are grounded in such logic. While environmental limitations (physical constraints, lack of access to subjects and data, lack of time, lack of funding) explain and justify less-than-ideal research strategies (see Gile’s other paper in this volume), correct rationale is an essential part of science, does not depend on such environmental factors, and should be a high-priority focus of critical reading. The basic question is whether the rationale in the study is correct, starting with the relevance and power of the study’s design, and ending with the author’s conclusions on the basis of results obtained. Does every step in the rationale stem logically and explicitly from the previous step? Does every procedure adopted by the author provide a logical answer to the question or issue addressed? Are the author’s conclusions drawn from the results in a direct, continuous, logical progression from the data, or are one or several steps missing? Are the author’s conclusions the sole logical inferences which can be made from the data, or are other conclusions possible and plausible? If so, does the author discuss them and explain the choice of one vs. the others in a convincing way? Are the author’s generalisations from the study’s local environment to a wider context justified? Are all the findings taken into account? These aspects are particularly important in the conclusions of empirical studies, especially in those seeking answers to precise questions. 5. Assessing form Less essential, but nevertheless important for communication purposes, is the quality of a study’s presentation, which is also to a large degree a reflection of the author’s degree of professionalism. 5.1 Assessing the structure of the text How is the text structured? In a ‘logical’, linear form that allows readers to understand the background of the study, then the objectives and methods used, then the results and conclusions? Is the relative length of each segment appro-

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priate? A frequent weakness of poorly edited research texts is excessive length, with not enough relevant value for space. Are all the necessary explanations given, as regards the objectives, methods and inferences? A strong norm in many empirical disciplines is the IMRD structure (Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion), but this is not necessarily the only acceptable way of presenting empirical studies. 5.2 Assessing language Besides the obvious concern with linguistic correctness (grammatical and otherwise), how readable is the text? Are sentences clear? Do they impose a heavy cognitive load on the reader because of complicated syntax or high informational density? Is lexicological and terminological use standard and consistent? Did the author create new terms which were not necessary? Are there many acronyms? Are they explained? Does the author explain highly specialised terms which may not be familiar to the intended readers of the text? Are citations in foreign languages (adequately) translated or explained? 5.3 Assessing visual presentation Is the layout of the text pleasant, as regards paragraph length, titles and subtitles, margins, font? Are there enough tables and/or graphic illustrations? Are they useful, or redundant? Are they easy to read and to understand? While presentation standards are often set by publishers and by journal editors, there is some margin of freedom for the authors, and the critical reader’s impression when reading other authors’ texts can be a good cue to what s/he should do and what s/he should avoid in his/her own texts. 5.4 Assessing the presentation of references Are all entries correct and complete, with names, dates and places of publication and other relevant details? Are typographical conventions observed? Are all references given in the body of the text also present in the list of references, and vice-versa? Some mistakes and omissions are beyond the author’s control, for instance when no proof is sent to the author for final checking and correcting, when the use of different pieces of software by authors and publishers calls for format-conversion procedures with damaging consequences, in particular as regards accented and special characters, embellishments and graphic formats.

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Others are definitely indicators of the quality of the author’s own work. Attention to detail is a sign of professionalism. Even knowledgeable, creative, well-read scholars who do not devote enough care to such detail may see their scholarship and findings questioned.

6. Overall assessment A reader’s evaluation of a research text largely rests on ‘objective’ elements (essentially data and inferencing quality) and on their subjective weights in the reader’s personal assessment scale, as well as on subjective preferences for methods, schools of thought, bibliographical references, writing styles and layouts, etc. The respective weights of assessment components vary according to circumstances. They depend on the status of the author and the type of text: what may be acceptable in a student’s research report may be totally unacceptable in an experienced researcher’s paper. They will be weighted differently according to whether the text is a thesis or dissertation, and a paper serving as a basis for an oral presentation in a colloquium will not be assessed in the same way as a text submitted for publication in a high-prestige publication. Thirdly, some findings will be weighted as a function of environmental constraints. For instance, the absence of relevant references to the literature will be considered less ‘incriminating’ if the author does not have easy physical access to such literature, or if the reader knows or guesses that the academic environment that the author is affiliated with has a strong tradition of not quoting the missing authors, for ‘political’, ideological or personal reasons. On the other hand, fundamental flaws in the underlying rationale of a study are ‘objective’ insofar as they may invalidate it, no matter how inexperienced the author. Similarly, carelessness as reflected by repeated errors in the numbers, by numerous typos and wrong citations is an ‘objective’ flaw which reflects any author’s lack of seriousness. However, there are no ‘objective’ correctness criteria for the length of a paper, for the degree of comprehensiveness of an introductory review of the literature, for a ‘right’ decision between several research strategies, each having its own advantages and drawbacks. When criticising an author’s choices (in the negative sense of the word), critical readers would be well advised to check whether s/he is aware of the drawbacks of his/her choice and justifies it, or whether s/he does not seem to be aware of them, in which case the rationale may be flawed. For instance, the decision to use small non-random samples and study them in depth, and then perform no

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inferential statistics on the results, may show that the author is aware of the limitations of such small samples and decides that inferential statistics are not appropriate. It does not necessarily demonstrate his/her ignorance of statistical methods and of the importance of sample size. Finally, the reader’s assessment itself may be of different types, ranging from a positive, helpful evaluation of a text for the purpose of helping the author (such as a student) progress, to a selection procedure for grants or awards, with a more critical, impersonal attitude, through a midway assessment only aimed at helping the critical reader find inspiration for his/her own work. In this last case, when critical reading is performed for learning purposes, the overall assessment is less important than assessment of each component with a view to take what is positive and avoid what is negative.

7. Practical advice As suggested in Section 2 on general principles, critical reading should be viewed as a scientific act per se and should preferably be conducted in a way as systematic, careful, explicit and logical as possible. The following are practical tips. 7.1 On-line notes a. Critical reading should always be done with paper and pencil (or a computer), so that relevant data and ideas can be taken down before they are forgotten or distorted. I tend to use a pencil and underline important passages or write in the margins, except when the text does not belong to me, in which case I copy the precise references, complete with page number, paragraph number and line number(s), as well as the relevant data. b. Whenever performing a critical reading operation, always make sure to write down the full references of the text before starting to take notes, including the library or other place where you found it, lest you forget, have incomplete references and can only find the text to complete the missing information after considerable efforts, if at all. c. Important text segments, in particular those you are going to criticise, should be written down verbatim (unless you can keep the text).This makes it possible to refer to the exact text and double-check its meaning and scope whenever you refer to it, either in criticism or in one of your own texts.

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d. For later use, it is convenient to mark particularly important segments and rate their importance to you by underlining them or putting other signs such as single, double or triple stars in the margin. e. Whenever it is possible, especially before writing a book review to be published, ask the author for clarification if you are unsure about his/her approach, statement or action in a particular study. Though this is not standard procedure, it gives you an opportunity to make sure you understand a problematic point correctly and do not misrepresent or judge an author unfairly. In my experience, authors have always reacted positively to this opportunity given to them to clarify their thought and sometimes defend their strategy before being ‘judged’ in public.

7.2 Personal reading reports and data organisation One convenient way of organising the results of your critical reading is a text composed of two parts. The first is a series of comments made as you read the text, with the page number, such as the following. The ‘box’ below represents part of a page of such a reading report. Words in the left margin are keywords inserted by the critical reader to help scan the report faster in later use. The body of the text consists of an indication of the page(s), followed by either a verbatim citation or a description of the section quoted, followed by the critical reader’s personal comment, underneath the citation or description. performance

p.6 “ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ” (citation) Note: interesting

time constraints

p.7 “ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ” (citation or information given in the text)

processing capacity

p.7 “ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ” (citation or description of procedure) Note: problematic inferencing, because…

memory

p.10 “ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ”(citation) Note: Innovative idea Etc.

The second part of the report is a synopsis of the data and the comments, made on the basis of the first part. Such ‘personal reading reports’ (usually one to several pages for papers, and up to twenty or more pages for books and dissertations) can be archived and used for later research. As the reading progresses and more data accumulates, access to specific information elements becomes increasingly difficult, as dozens, and sometimes

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hundreds of pages may have to be read before finding all the relevant citations needed. Simple organisational steps can alleviate the difficulty. The keywords introduced in the margin of each citation (as in the example above) make it easier, in a subsequent literature review, to find all the citations of a certain type referring to a particular point, as only the keywords are scanned, and only when relevant ones are found are the corresponding citations and comments read. Going one step further, the keywords can be used to prepare a database, with correspondences between them and references (including the author’s name, year of publication and page number). In a later study, when seeking relevant citations, the use of the database saves much time and may ensure a higher degree of completeness than when relying on one’s sole memory. 8. Reporting The main point to remember when writing a report after a critical reading operation is that it should be useful to its beneficiaries, that is, editors of journals and collective volumes, members of selection and evaluation committees, readers of reviews in journals, and last but not least, to the authors themselves. In all cases, the report should contain information besides the assessment, and criticism should be documented, just as criticism in other research components is documented (also see Gambier, this volume). The amount of factual content and degree of explicitation will depend on the type of report which is requested and on available space. In a journal, the whole report is synoptic. When reporting for an assessment committee, it can be longer, especially if it is critical in the negative sense of the word. If you are asked by a publisher to assess a manuscript submitted for publication, it is advisable to write a short synopsis, so that the commissioners of the report may read it first, but also to draw a comprehensive list of problems, with precise references for each (including page numbers, paragraphs and/or lines), so that the publisher, other reviewers and/or the author(s) can check and assess your assessment, and to help make the necessary corrections. For a further discussion of one type of reporting, namely book reviews, see Gambier’s paper in this volume. 9. Conclusion Starting with an introductory list of functions of critical reading, this paper has suggested that such reading can have much value, and that it should be done

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following the same fundamental rules as other research endeavours. To members of the relevant scientific community, who are overloaded by a mass of published texts, critical reviews represent potentially valuable information and a pointer to good texts to read. To decision makers who must decide whether to publish or not, whether to hire or not, whether to promote or not (see Gambier, this volume), it helps make the proper decisions. To authors, it provides feedback and suggestions for improvement which are often hard to come by once they have completed their PhD and have no supervisor or advisor to monitor their progress. To the critical readers themselves, it is useful as an exercise which imposes careful reading, and therefore fosters better comprehension and retention of the information in the text. Last, but not least, when performing critical reading, beginners learn by seeing and assessing what others have done, and train themselves in the fundamental scientific skills of exploring, using and reporting data systematically and carefully.

References Babbie, E. 1992. The Practice of Social Research. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Cai, Xiaohong. 2000. Le processus de l’interprétation consécutive et le développement de la compétence interprétative — Etudes empiriques, observations des étudiants et des interprètes de français. Unpublished doctoral dissertation , Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. Chesterman, A. and Arrojo, R. 2000. “Shared Ground in Translation Studies”. Target 12(1): 151–160. Gile, D. 1995. “Fidelity assessment in consecutive interpretation: An experiment”. Target 7(1): 151–164. Gile, D. 1999a. “Testing the Effort Models’ tightrope hypothesis in simultaneous interpreting”. Hermes 23: 153–171. Gile, D. 1999b. “Uses and abuses of the literature in interpreting research”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 9: 29–43. Gile, D. 2001. “Being Constructive about Shared Ground”. Target 13(1): 151–155. Kurz, I. 1996. Simultandolmetschen als Gegenstand der interdisziplinären Forschung. Wien: WUV — Universitätsverlag. Liu, Minhua. 2001. Expertise in Simultaneous Interpreting: a working memory analysis. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin. Tommola, J. and Niemi, P. 1986. “Mental load in simultaneous interpreting: an on-line pilot study”. In Nordic research in text linguistics and discourse analysis, Evensen, L.(ed), 171–184. Tapir.



Reporting on scientific texts Yves Gambier University of Turku, Finland

1.

The multiple functions of scientific discourse

Some sociologists such as Bourdieu (1984, writing about the academic world), have shown how scientific communities, “invisible guilds” (“collèges invisibles”
), follow rituals (attending Congresses regularly, reading the same periodicals, etc.), and have rules for ensuring legitimacy, recognition, promotion, exclusion, etc., like other social groups. The intrinsic quality of research is just one element in this dynamic system. Scientific discourse, in particular, with its various oral and written forms and with its specific terminology, is just one of the ways these communities function. Its role is to publicise their studies, to assess them, to validate key concepts, to explicate conventions and values through which individuals identify with the group, to recall the constraints and limitations of adherence to the group. The main role of the collective scientific entity is to give sanction to the scientific ‘truth’ of its members’ statements and to certify their qualifications. Against this background it can readily be seen that scientific discourse goes beyond reporting an experiment or introducing innovation. It actually constructs the scientific community (publish or perish!), by ‘in-forming’ it, that is, by giving it both shape and meaning, and by materialising its existence on the scene, as it were. Young researchers strive to construct and find their identity within such discourse. It follows that it is important not only to understand the content of texts, but also to be able to determine their position in the space of scientific discourse and in the relevant scientific community. Attention should be drawn to the fact that while there are books giving advice on how to draft, present and organise the layout of scientific or academic texts such as theses, dissertations and papers, little has been written about how to read such texts, whereas reading a text necessarily comes before reviewing it.

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This paper does not aim to give directives on how to write reviews. Rather, it sets out to describe their position in the space of scientific discourse and to offer some guidance on the aspects of a text that should be taken on board prior to writing a review. After an introduction to some features of scientific texts, this paper describes the specific functions and objectives of book reviews (and more generally of critical reports on scientific texts). It then lists some criteria and questions aimed at raising the awareness of scholars who need to write such reports or synopses, and analyses a small corpus of book reviews to illustrate strengths and weaknesses found in such reports.

2. On general features of scientific texts No text is written in a vacuum. Texts operate between social actors with some pre-existing knowledge who rely on established ‘genres’ in order to get their messages across more efficiently and improve their interaction. 2.1 The two dimensions of scientific texts Text types and genres have been a focus of interest in text linguistics for several decades (see for example Werlich 1975, 1983; Longacre 1976; Adam 1985, 1992), and in translation studies for a shorter period (see for instance Trosborg (ed.) 1997). The difficulty in defining and implementing non-ambiguous criteria has generated significant variability in the suggested typologies. Labels attached to scientific texts have displayed a similar variability. This is not the place to review them (see however Gambier, forthcoming). Suffice it to note that each scientific text has two dimensions: 2.1.1 The social and cognitive dimension Scientific texts refer to a field of knowledge, to a branch of activity, to objects and concepts, which make up their analytical and referential aspect. On the other hand, they are ‘inter-textual’, insofar as they are part of and interact with the space of texts making up scientific discourse in the relevant community. Their interactive nature allows citations, evaluations, references to viewpoints, to results, to hypotheses presented in other texts. It also reflects authority relationships, hence its polemic aspect at times, its aspect of connivence at other times, with possibilities for implicit references, allusions, innuendos. When writing a scientific text, scholars do not merely express knowledge, with

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controlled definitions, descriptions or classifications (see Section 2.2.1). They also seek or grant recognition from/to peers, may attempt to co-opt other members of the community, reach toward inclusion in the group, or show they belong to the group that determines the boundaries of the particular scientific field under consideration. 2.1.2 The visual dimension Texts also have a visual dimension, which can be further sub-divided, insofar as it includes at least two distinct semiotic systems. One is linear (the horizontal axis of the written text), and includes language and symbols (such as numbers). The other is non-linear, with its own space on paper or screen, and includes both icons (such as drawings) and iconographic elements (such as diagrams). This visual dimension has always been part of scientific writings, but it has become more salient recently, thanks to imaging techniques which allow to take ‘snapshots’ of infinitesimal entities, and to reproduction techniques which facilitate visual representation. The further dissemination of multimedia technology (the Internet, CD-ROMs) should amplify this growing role of the visual dimension (which is important and is therefore mentioned briefly here, but will not be discussed further). 2.2 Situational and communicational parameters All scientific documents are determined by certain situational and communicational parameters, pooled here into three categories: 2.2.1 Senders and addressees Parameters which define senders and addressees include their social status and professional activity, their institutional affiliation, their training, the extent to which they are specialised. These parameters have a bearing on the credibility and authority of a text, and on the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript (see Section 2.3). Senders and addressees (experts from the same field, from cognate fields, from different fields, teachers, journalists, etc.) share (mostly) tacit rules of language production and interpretation. On the basis of their shared experience, knowledge, presuppositions and terminology, they organise, refer to and verbalise their information and their texts along similar patterns, following the same considerations having to do with space saving, accuracy, objectivity and relevance. This ensures maximum goodness of fit between the author’s intentions and the addressees’ expectations, since on both sides, the same readability

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strategies and rhetorical conventions are accepted. PhD students are initiated into these rules, strategies and conventions when they read the literature and take part in seminars, colloquia, etc. 2.2.2 The text’s objectives A text may aim at disseminating among other experts the results of an experiment, or at convincing a supervisory authority that it is urgent to buy this or that piece of equipment, at explaining a new phenomenon, at describing a process, at challenging the foundation of a theory, at comparing the experimental conditions in tests, at suggesting new hypotheses, at challenging other authors’ interpretations of findings, etc.; beyond explaining, scientific statements have many functions, such as disseminating information, inducing change, convincing, generating action. Such objectives partly determine the scope of communication of the text. 2.2.3 The medium Written texts are now available on a variety of media, ranging from paper print to electronic media, whether on-line (Internet) or off-line (CD-ROMs). They can be made available to all, or to a limited group, or to members of a network. These parameters have implications on their structure, on the extent to which presuppositions are explicated, on the hierarchical structure of the information presented, on the way receivers are acknowledged, etc. In other words, they guide the author in the discourse-organisation process (see Bronckart 1996). Thus, depending on whether a paper is written for restricted use, for a prestigious medium, for students, for the public at large, terminological usage, definitions, diagrams, photographs, the density of new information etc. will vary. On the basis of such parameters, texts written by scientists can be categorised into genres such as laboratory notes, interim reports and assessments of studies, working papers, papers for specialised journals, papers for high-level nonspecialised science journals (often targeted at experts from other fields), papers for popular science journals, introductory textbooks for students, reports for ministerial, academic and other committees, conference proceedings, etc. 2.3 The editorial process The interaction between situation-related parameters and genre-related constraints may best be shown through an example of how scientific papers come to be published in a specialised journal. The steps in the process which gradually validate the text are the following:

Reporting on scientific texts

a. A call for original papers is sent out by the journal’s editorial committee, in particular for a special issue or in the case where the journal is not widely known and is looking for contributions. b. Papers received are read a first time, often by a member of the editorial committee, and assessed with respect to their compliance with the general policy of the journal. Papers not in line with the objectives and scope of the journal may be rejected, irrespectively of their scientific value. For instance, Interpreting will not publish contrastive analyses based on a corpus of out-ofcontext sentences, nor will it publish suggestions for language policy. Authors whose texts are rejected are informed. c. Texts which have withstood this first test are read by one or several referees who can be members of the editorial committee, editorial consultants and/or other experts, for further assessment and comments. The first and second reading can be performed by the same person. d. On the basis of these assessments, the editorial committee decides whether to publish the papers or not, as submitted or after changes in the content and/or presentation introduced by the author, often on the basis of the referees’ suggestions. The editorial committee may reserve its right to change titles, subtitles, summaries and other descriptors. e. The papers, as submitted or after correction, are allocated to particular issues of the journal. f. Proofs are sent to the authors for the ultimate formal corrections. The final version is sent to the printer’s workshop. The lag between the moment a paper is received and the final approval of the proof can vary between several months and around two years, depending on the initial state of the manuscript, the required corrections, the speed at which authors respond and the available space in the journal. As can be seen, the filtering process is based on a dual set of criteria: – –

Editologically, on the basis of scientific criteria, as implemented by peer reviewers; Editorially, on the basis of criteria having to do with presentation and distribution, and sometimes with commercial considerations.

Each step (pre-drafting, drafting, post-drafting) contributes some input towards the final ‘value’ of the text. The order of the steps does not change radically for papers submitted for publication on the Internet. However, the electronic medium enhances interactivity, inter alia giving the possibility for

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any reader to suggest amendments for a limited period, after which the author, having accepted some and refused others, asks the Editorial Committee to reconsider his/her text. Moreover, in this mode, amendments can be negotiated to a larger extent and more rapidly. A final point is that the lag between submission and publication on the Internet is shorter than it is for paper print. The Internet thus enhances the collective dimension of the validation process, with a dozen or more referees replacing the conventional two to three referees in the traditional paper medium. The next sections of this paper focus on reports on scientific texts (critique of art or literature, reports on field trips and reports on conferences are outside the scope of this article).

3. The institutional dimension of reports on scientific texts Reports on publications have an important institutional dimension for two reasons: firstly, because they are part of the editorial space of scientific texts (they can promote or pass an adverse judgement on a publication), and secondly, because they are institutionalised within the journals establishment. This does not mean that they are necessary valued in the academic world: very often, they do not count in the assessment of a researcher. This is where their ‘collective’ dimension comes in (see Section 1): authors may accept to write them to support a school of thought, to acknowledge the validity of an approach or give it a wider audience, to pay back a debt owed to a colleague, to express one’s loyalty towards a research group, to help an editor who published one’s own texts in the past, etc. This also explains the elliptic aspect of ‘condensed reports’ (Section 5.1), as well as omissions in ‘selective reports’ (Section 5.3), as authors of reviews may be reluctant to criticise books they report on. Reports are useful to their readers in two ways. Firstly, they provide them with information about publications (monographs, collective volumes, conference proceedings, articles, special issues of journals, etc.). Secondly, they help them make decisions on whether to buy a particular publication, have it bought for an academic department or research team, borrow it at the library, put it on a reading list for others, put it on one’s personal list of high priority texts to read, etc. A paradox also found in our corpus (Section 5) is that reports are often written in the same language as the publication they refer to, which puts the information out of reach of members of the community who do not understand that language.

Reporting on scientific texts

3.1 The addressees Depending on the periodical which publishes the review, it is more analytical and evaluative or more bibliographical in nature. In the first category, a distinction can be drawn between reviews in ‘book reviews’ sections and in ‘books at a glance’ sections. The latter category presents the text briefly without documenting or explaining the reviewer’s assessment, rather similarly to the publishers’ promotional texts, often found inside the book cover or in catalogues. In ‘Annual Reviews of…’, ‘Recent Advances in…’ and ‘Yearbook of…’, some bibliographical indications are offered, as well as notes on the content, but these are not necessarily set against a background and are not necessarily associated with evaluations. This paper will henceforth focus on ‘book reviews’, which their authors are often requested to send in as soon as possible after they receive the book to be reviewed. Book reviews can be scanned or read more carefully by various types of readers: a. Peers, who wish to keep up-to-date with developments in their field b. Experts from neighbouring fields who do not have the time to read fully the book under consideration but who also wish to be kept up-to-date. c. Students who are looking for books to read. d. Doctoral students who wish to write a synopsis of existing studies as a background to their dissertation. 3.2 The two objectives of reviews Writing a review serves two objectives and requires a dual aptitude from their authors. Firstly, they must be able to present the contribution of a text against the background of the existing literature and of their own research (see for instance Cooper 1998). Secondly, they should be capable of assessing theoretical results, hypotheses, data, approaches, both with respect to the study reported in the text and to the book’s declared aims, and with respect to the readers’ specific outlook (meaning, very often, the outlook, knowledge, experience and aims of the reviewers themselves). Clearly, the less one is familiar with a field, the more the assessment must be cautious, due to one’s lack of knowledge of the facts and lesser aptitude to judge from a distance (see Gile’s paper on critical reading, in this volume). To achieve these two objectives, authors may adopt a number of strategies. Reviews can be constructed around the content as a whole, or follow the order

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of chapters, or focus on the text’s rationale, on key concepts used, on the limitations of the book compared to similar publications, etc. Be it as it may, from score-settling reviews to ravingly flattering reviews, both of which often reflect personal motivations, there is room for many types of reviews. Nevertheless, for some authors including Bourdieu (1985), their conventional functions and rhetoric always allow their authors to use ‘legitimate symbolic violence’. This has been confirmed by Ian Watt (1968), who has stressed the extreme asymmetry of the roles of the reviewer on one hand, and the author of the reviewed text on the other. Watt’s analysis reflects a rather devastating concept of reviews, in which criticism and some form of aggression come together. I believe the polemic aspect of reviews (polemikos in Greek refers to war) is but one of their aspects. It can arise from the controversial nature of a book, but need not lead to outrageous statements and style. Be it as it may, this violence remains ‘legitimate’ in view of the institutional dimension of reviews and of the fact that their authors are part of the scientific community, often with an acknowledged authority.

4. Criteria and questions for the reader Downstream of the review is its reception by the journal (see Section 3); upstream is a set of questions formulated by the reviewer before, during and after reading the text (see Gile 1995, and Gile’s paper on critical reading in this volume). The following is a list, which translation students at the University of Turku, who have to present at least one review of a text which they use for their graduation thesis, have been using as a reference for a number of years, and which helps raise their awareness of the multidimensional nature of the texts they read. 4.1 Before reading: acting like an addressee a. What do you expect from the book, before even starting to read it? What are the criteria which made you choose this book? b. What are the author’s intentions as you perceive them? Who is s/he writing for? Think of the journal or the collective volume from which the text is drawn; this should give you part of the answer. What do you think the author takes as already known and accepted by readers (on the basis of the title, subtitles, the summary, the list of references)?

Reporting on scientific texts

c. Do the introduction and the conclusion of the text shed any light on the objectives and the rationale of the text before you read it fully? d. Does the list of references help you perceive the theoretical and/or methodological framework used by the author? Are there references to other disciplines? Are there self-references? 4.2 Once you have read the text: reacting to its presentation and structure e. Does the author lend more weight to the data or to the rationale? Does the author present the data as representative? If so, on the basis of what criteria? f. Are the tables, graphs, diagrams and other figures easy to read? Do they have explicit captions? Are they referred to in the body of the text? g. Is a clear distinction made in the text between opinions, facts, and the results of analysis? h. What types of reasoning can you find in the text? How would you define the rationale underlying the presentation of the text, keeping in mind that rhetoric traditions differ from one culture to the next and that there may be a difference between the ‘research rationale’ and ‘editorial rationale’? i. Do you agree with all the data presented (statistics, responses to questionnaires, quantitative data, extracts from texts, etc.)? Do you agree with the arguments presented by the author? j. What role do you attribute to examples on one hand, and to the jargon used (in particular abbreviations and acronyms) on the other? k. Do you find the objectives and approach underlying the study sufficiently explicit and justified? Do you understand the relevance of the exploratory or analytical process reported in the text and the research problem as presented? 4.3 Assessing the text’s original contribution l.

Do you find the text sufficiently original, or does the author repeat him/ herself when presenting facts, formulating ideas, suggesting methods? What are your yardsticks? Can you compare the text in this respect with similar projects, results and reflection? m. Does the text refer to other studies of a similar nature? Does it present them synoptically, clearly and objectively? n. How are references used in the text? Does the author cite a sentence without further comments, does s/he quote an idea, an opinion or a

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position that s/he agrees or disagrees with? Are there mere references, or extracts serving as a proof of the reviewer’s claims, as an argument, or as a new idea to be considered? o. Do you feel that the bibliographical references are up-to-date? Do they seem to give more prominence to two or three authors for reasons more personal than scientific? 4.4 Presenting an overview p. What do you gain from reading the text? (With respect to ideas, to the rationale, to research methods, to analysis procedures, to the testing of hypotheses, etc.). What do you view as the limitations of the text? (In terms of rationale, of demonstrations, of illustration, of positions taken by the author, etc.). Justify your viewpoint. Such questions can activate, stimulate and orient the reading and interpretation of a scientific text, especially if the reader has considerable previous knowledge and experience.

5. Book reviews: A few examples Twenty reviews, relating to various aspects of interpreting and drawn without specific selection criteria, were analysed. All were taken from international journals specialising in linguistic mediation, except reviews No. 1, 2 and 4 (see the appended list of primary sources). Paradoxically, as already mentioned above, I did not find systematic reviews in English of books written in French or in German (three examples in the corpus), or reviews in French of books written in English or Spanish (one example). Most of the reviews (14 out of 20) are in English and report on books written in English, though not necessarily by native English speakers. In the corpus, there is no indication regarding the time elapsed between the moment reviews were received and the moment they were published, except for review No. 1. This lag can sometimes be considerable (more than 14 months for review No. 4 – see Section 2.3), which may make them partly obsolete in view of developments in the literature during that time. Moreover, in the journals, little information is given about the reviewers. Most often, their name is followed by the name of their university or the city

Reporting on scientific texts

where it is located. The department they are affiliated with is given in review No. 1 (Communication and Sociology), in No. 3 (Communication Studies), in No. 20 (ASL/English Interpreting Program), and the reviewer’s field of activity is indicated in No. 17 (Community-based ESL). Readers are thus left with no precise indication as to the reviewer’s background. If they are newcomers to the field and are not familiar with the periodical under consideration, they will not know who does the assessment and with what authority. Nevertheless, collectively, the reviews in the corpus reveal a subtle pattern of inter-relationships, as many reviewed authors (such as Gile, Pöchhacker, Wadensjö and Morris) are also reviewers. The interpreting research community is thus weaving its network structure (see Section 3). Moreover, in certain cases, such as reviews No. 7 and No. 8, these names are referred to again and again, as standard references, as it were, by way of an argument, a term for comparison. For convenience, the reviews in the corpus were placed in three categories (see Sections 5.1-5.3 below). It should be noted that this corpus is very small, and therefore lays no claim to representativeness, nor to comprehensive coverage of all categories of scientific texts reviews. 5.1 ‘Condensed reviews’ (No. 2, 5, 6, 9, 17, 19) These reviews, which are generally rather brief, can be likened to lists of chapter headings (No. 6, 9, 17), of key words (No. 9, 19), of brief citations (No. 9). The general aim of the reviewed book is indicated briefly, but neither the data, nor the analysis and reflections presented in the book are adequately reported. Sometimes, only a few papers or chapters are quoted, without any explanation for this choice. One can argue that the small amount of space available in the journal is a good reason (No. 5). The reviewers’ opinions are strong (in No. 6 and 17, a third of the review is devoted to the reviewer’s definition of ‘public service interpreters’), but these marked opinions by the reviewers are not adequately justified. Sometimes, the reviewer’s perspective of the text is a bit one-sided: in No. 2, the author, whose main focus of interest is discourse analysis, only addresses the book he reviews under the perspective of applied linguistics. In this type of reviews, texts are not set against a background, no references are indicated, and nothing is said about their potentially original contribution, except in No. 19, where, in less than two pages, the author manages to present the contribution of the reviewed book, without mentioning, however, that it is a doctoral dissertation.

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Furthermore, such reviews display marks of subjectivity, often through value judgements reflected by adjectives and adverbs. For instance, No. 6 includes expressions such as “a broad spectrum”, “my only quibble”, “this apparently disparate collection”, “some clear questions”, “the broad compass… is both stimulating and challenging”, “a welcome addition”, “an excellent initiative”, etc. In No. 9, “a very important feature of this book”, “the impression that”, “a typical example”, “in this respect the author maintains that”, “apparently, Daniel Gile fails to appreciate”, “an extremely useful guide to and review of”, etc. In No. 17, “a useful addition”, “a curious chapter”, “the clear, concise and comprehensive description of”, “I cannot help but feel, however, that”, “nevertheless, I was impressed by”, etc. 5.2 ‘Systematic reviews’ (No. 4, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 18, 20) Three general features are found in these reviews: a. They set the book against a background, and underline new openings, implications and limitations, without necessarily referring to other books, as is the case of No. 4 and No. 7. Sometimes, they indicate clearly the position they are taking. For instance, in No. 10: “I would like to make it clear that this review is given from my perspective as free-lance translator and conference interpreter”, thus compensating for the lack of information about the reviewer under the title of the review. In No. 18, the author writes “La version publiée … sera analysée ici non pas comme un texte universitaire, mais dans l’optique du lecteur non spécialisé intéressé par la recherche sur l’interprétation” (“The published version… will be analysed here not as an academic text, but from the viewpoint of a non-specialised reader interested in interpreting research”). b. Such reviews cover all the chapters, sometimes through an essentially descriptive overview (No. 11, 12, 20), sometimes with an accompanying rationale (No. 4, 7, 14, 18), in which the authors explain how they perceive innovations or weaknesses in specific parts of the book. Such explanations do not necessarily make the review very long (No. 12). c. The first two features lead up to a straightforward assessment, most often in the final paragraph. ‘Systematic Reviews’ thus tend to follow a rather standard outline: they start by showing the book’s general ‘position’, which does not preclude reviewers from presenting right away their general assessment (No. 4, 7, 14, 18, 20). The content of every chapter is then presented. In some cases, there is a virtual

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dialogue between the book’s author and the reviewer, with the presentation of a rationale, relevant questions, objections supported by comments, subtle suggestions regarding the data, methodology or interpretation of results (No. 7, 18). Such a dialogue calls on a number of modalities. For instance, in No. 18, the impersonal form “on” is used (“on voit mal”, “on notera tout de même que”, “peut-on tirer des conclusions”, “on y trouve tout de même”, “on peut s’interrroger”), as well as cautious language through the use of adverbs (“il aurait peut-être été préférable”, “c’est peut-être aller un peu vite en besogne”), of adjectives for attenuation (“un petit commentaire”, “il n’est pas étonnant que”), and of objections (“particulièrement importants…mais”, “ces différences sont intéressantes… mais”). The review often ends with an evaluative conclusion on the overall value of the book (with respect to its theoretical, methodological, didactic and other contribution), be it positive (No. 4, 10, 18, 20), negative (No. 7), or mixed (No. 11, 14). The noteworthy point is that in most of these reviews, authors do not hesitate to take a strong stance, but they always do so while presenting arguments, in contrast with ‘Condensed Reviews’ (No. 7, No. 14 which refers to “irritation”, No. 20 which recommends “a fascinating book”, “a far-reaching new approach to interpreter-mediated conversations”). 5.3 ‘Selective reviews’ (No. 1, 3, 8, 13, 15, 16) These reviews are somewhat frustrating, not so much because they choose to only refer to a few chapters, but because the reasons for their choice are not necessarily clear, except when the viewing angle is deliberately selected and justifies after the fact the way the book is perceived (in No. 1, Berk-Seligson’s book is scrutinised mostly for its methodology and for its author’s interdisciplinary courage). In such reviews, authors also seize the opportunity to elaborate on some of their own views without necessarily showing how these are relevant to the reviewed books. For instance, the reviewer in No. 3 seems to distantiate herself from the way the reviewed book considers court interpreters. The use of citations, and the report on Chapter 8 alone do not provide the reader with a good idea of the potential weaknesses of the book. Review No. 8 describes several chapters of the book it reviews without indicating whether all of it is covered. Furthermore, the reviewer seems to focus more on defending his own ideas than on a description of all aspects of the reviewed book, a dissertation (perhaps because he was misinterpreted in the

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dissertation). In such a case, it is difficult to be objective. The review may seem partial and biased, something that readers who do not understand German cannot check out. In No. 13, the review is structured in a rather singular way, as if the reviewer had read the book keeping in mind only the two key-words in the title, namely concepts and methods, and the book’s didactic function. It follows that comments come point-wise, are sometimes very specific and lack coherence, as readers do not know what chapter they refer to. It seems that the reviewer’s main criticism against the book has to do with the intended readership, and consequently with the relevance of some of the explanations and information offered. This generates the impression of some rampant polemic which leaves the review readers’ expectations unfulfilled. Finally, reviews No. 15 and 16 start off with favourable comments and then seem to go downhill: a number of authors or chapters are quoted, but there is a lack of coherence in the text. These two reviews end somewhat singularly, the former with comments on weaknesses in the index and typos in the list of references, and the latter with general comments for the benefit of interpreters. However personal they are, these ‘Selective Reviews’ do not explicate the reviewers’ presence in the same way as the other types of reviews. Rather than presenting a documented albeit subjective position, they offer a viewpoint too schematically constructed.

6. Conclusion Against the background of a sociology-oriented discussion of some features of scientific discourse, the analysis presented in this paper focuses on what the three categories of reviews include, and on what they omit. The important thing to note is that reviewers shape their texts differently, depending on their expectations, their involvement in research and their professional and/or didactic experience as interpreters. In order to demonstrate this further, several reviews of the same book are compared below, for instance No. 5 and 6 in the ‘Condensed Reviews’ category and No. 7 in the ‘Systematic Review’ category. Clearly, after reading No. 5 and 6, it is difficult to decide: should Bridging the Gap be bought, ordered, borrowed, quoted, be put on a priority reading list? After reading No. 7, the decision can be documented, and the review will be useful in at least one respect (see Section 3). As regards Basic Concepts and Models for Interpreter and Translator Training, readers of reviews No. 10, 11, 12

Reporting on scientific texts

and 14 will have some information on which to base their decision, but reviews No. 9 and 15 will leave them frustrated, as they will not be given indications on the rationale and the original contribution of the book, and on the data presented. It thus appears that though most reviews are not rigid and narrowminded assessments, not all report on daring innovations in the books, or assess the demonstrations that may be presented by their authors after long reflection and reformulation efforts. Like other readers, book reviewers have a set of questions when reading the texts they report on, but they do not always answer all of them in their reports. Readers of their reviews must remain alert so as not to be misled. In this respect, experience accumulated over the years leaves one better prepared to avoid many pitfalls.

Books and reviews used in the corpus Berk-Seligson, S. 1990. The Bilingual Courtroom. Court Interpreters in the Judicial Process. Chicago & London: the University of Chicago Press. 1. Review by Morrill, C. Language and Society 21(1). 1992: 147–152. 2. Review by Stubbs, M. Discourse and Society 4(4). 1993: 470–473 (A third of the review is devoted to Berk-Seligson (1990), and two thirds to J.N. Levi & A.G. Walker: Language in the Judicial Process
). 3. Review by Wadensjö, C. The Translator 2(1). 1996: 104–108 (More than half of the review is devoted to Fundamentals of Court Interpretion, by D. R. Gonzales et al.). 4. Review by Yves Gambier, Multilingua 16 (1). 1997: 101–105. Lambert, S. and Moser-Mercer, B. (eds). 1994. Bridging the Gap. Empirical Research in Simultaneous Interpretation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 5. Review by Viezzi, M. and Musacchio, M.T. Language International 7(5). 1995:38–39. 6. Review by Mackintosh, J. Parallèles 17. 1995: 143–144. 7. Review by Pöchhacker, F. Target 7(1).1995: 181–185 (Special Issue: Interpreting Research). Pöchhacker, F. 1994. Simultandolmetschen als komplexes Handeln. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. 8. Review by Gile, D. Target 7(1). 1995: 185–188 (Special Issue: Interpreting Research). Gile, D. 1995. Basic Concepts and Models for Interpreter and Translator Training. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (9–12: reviews in English; 13–14: reviews in French). 9. Review by Musacchio, M. T. Language International 8(1). 1996: 40–41. 10. Review by Bauwelinck, E. Translatio 15(2). 1996: 302–309. 11. Review by Kiraly, D. and Sawyer, D. Target 8(2). 1996: 375–378. 12. Review by Ilg, G. The Interpreters’Newsletter 7.1996: 153–154. 13. Review by Bastin, G. L. Meta 42(2).1997: 732–736.

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14. Review by Brunette, L. Meta 43(2). 1998: 320–325. Gile, D. 1995. Regards sur la recherche en interprétation de conférence. Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille. 15. Review by Ilg, G. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 7.1996: 150–153. Colin, J. and Morris R. 1996. Interpreters and the Legal Process. Winchester: Waterside Press. 16. Review by Shlesinger, M. Meta 43(1). 1998: 157–158. 17. Review by Ferrando, A. The Translator 5(2). 1999: 347–349 (Special Issue: Dialogue Interpreting) Kurz, I. 1996. Simultandolmetschen als Gegenstand der Interdisziplinären Forchung. Wien: WUV-Universitätsverlag. 18. Review by Gile, D. Target 11(1). 1999: 175–178. Wadensjö C. 1998. Interpreting as Interaction. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman. 19. Review by Morris, R. Target 6(1). 1994: 121–122 (actually, this is a report on the 1992 dissertation which served as the basis for the book published in 1998) 20. Review by Roy, C. B. The Translator 5(2). 1999: 337–342 (Special Issue: Dialogue Interpreting).

References Adam, J.-M. 1985. Le texte narratif: précis d’analyse textuelle. Paris: Nathan-Université. Adam, J.-M. 1992. Les textes: types et prototypes. Paris: Nathan-Université. Bourdieu, P. 1984. Homo Academicus. Paris: Editions de Minuit. Bourdieu, P. 1985. “L’institution du compte rendu”. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences sociales 59, septembre 1985. Bronckart, J.-P. 1996. Activité langagière, textes et discours. Pour un interactionnisme sociodiscursif. Neuchâtel/Paris: Delachaux et Niestlé. Cooper, H. 1998. (third edition). Synthesizing Research. A Guide for Literature Reviews. London: Sage. Gambier, Y. (forthcoming) “Typologie des documents technico-scientifiques”. In Translating Scientific Texts, Catani, E. and Laver I. (eds). Urbino: Quattroventi. Gile, D. 1995. “La lecture critique en traductologie”. Meta 40(1): 5–14. Longacre, R. 1976. An Anatomy of Speech Notions. Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press. Trosborg, A. (ed.) 1997. Text Typology and Translation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Watt, I. 1968. “Serious Reflections on The Rise of the Novel’’. Novel 1: 205–216. A brief extract was translated in Bourdieu (1985). Werlich, E. 1975. Typologie der Texte. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer. Werlich, E. 1983. A Text Grammar of English. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer.



Writing a dissertation in translation and interpreting Problems, concerns and suggestions Heidrun Gerzymisch-Arbogast University of the Saarland, Germany

A PhD in T&I1 is still a research novelty with limited institutional support and little experience to back up the candidates’ endeavors. This is not surprising given the fact that even today a PhD degree in T&I is offered by only a very limited number of universities,2 most of those offering a PhD degree only in related areas such as philology or applied linguistics. The following paper is based on the experiences made by both candidates and supervisor(s) encountered in the process of writing dissertations in the field of T&I. It is not intended to be a systematic account but rather a momentary glance at existing problems and concerns as experienced by PhD candidates and supervisors with a PhD group at the University of the Saarland. It is organized into a section that largely reflects the problems raised by candidates (2) and is followed by a section which includes the supervisor(s)’s comments and suggestions (3) in a concerted effort to outline some of the desiderata we thought would encourage more T&I students to accept the challenges of writing a dissertation in their field of studies. I am very pleased to have this opportunity to report some of the experiences made with running a PhD programme in T&I.

1.

The setting

The following remarks are based on the work and discussions with 11 doctoral candidates (six of whom are German nationals with a T&I degree (five from the University of the Saarland) and the remainder coming from a variety of other European and non-European academic institutions) and covers a period of roughly five years (from the end of 1994 to mid-2000). The picture given here

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reflects largely the structure and framework of the existing German academic environment. No formal PhD training is offered. Usually a candidate has two supervisors, a Doktorvater (‘paternal’ doctoral advisor, first supervisor) and a Zweitgutachter (co-supervisor) with the Doktorvater assuming general responsibility for advising the PhD candidate. A PhD degree in T&I usually requires a completed T&I training. A PhD in applied linguistics may also be granted to those who do not fulfill this requirement. The group meets regularly 3–4 times per semester for a full day of interactive Doktorandenkolloquium (doctoral workshop) where candidates present the status of their work and discuss the problems they are faced with. Co-supervisors and selected colleagues from other disciplines and universities are sometimes invited to participate to give candidates an outside perspective and a variety of feedback. Apart from these scheduled gatherings the candidates are free to consult their supervisor(s) individually during office hours and upon special appointment. The group is heterogeneous with respect to age (25–35), nationality (German, European, other), previous degree (MA in languages and/or linguistics and T&I diploma) dissertation stage (beginning, mid-way and final), topic (applied linguistics, translation or interpretation) and financial support (scholarships, grants and personally financed). Most projects in the group are theory-related3 and fall within an area that can be roughly described as text and translation. This selection of topics does not reflect any value statement but is rather related to the supervisor’s own training and field of research. Out of the 11 candidates, there is only one doing empirical research with co-supervision and support from the sociology division,4 another one (Bi-cultural Texts and Translation
) is co-supervised by the translation division, the actual supervisor being the chair for comparative literature. Two candidates write a dissertation dealing with interpretation, the others deal with translation projects.

2. Main problems and concerns In order to discuss the main problems and concerns that PhD candidates experienced during their course of study, my doctoral candidates were presented with a set of questions, among others concerning their judgements on the prerequisites for engaging in a dissertation, on what background was needed, on their main problems (organization of time, exploitation of literature, their work with supervisor(s), possible support from (interdisciplinary) PhD seminars within the faculty and/or University). Candidates responded anonymously. Their

Writing a dissertation in translation and interpreting

comments form an important part of this paper but were not formally analyzed and evaluated. Therefore, the paper does not claim to be representative or systematic but is written with the aim of sharing the experiences and impressions obtained in an important aspect of academic work. In general discussions with PhD candidates and in response to specific questions posed for the purpose of this article, the main problems and concerns felt by the candidates were in three areas: (1) background knowledge, (2) research training, and (3) the ‘human factor’, i.e. (inter)personal relations and problems during the process of writing the dissertation. 2.1 Background knowledge With respect to background knowledge, all candidates agreed that they were not adequately prepared for PhD work. Most of the candidates felt that they were lacking the necessary theoretical overview of existing theories in their field of research for them to make meaningful decisions with respect to their own work and/or orientation. Traditional lectures and/or seminars were felt to be insufficient for content-related and methodological reasons. With respect to content, traditional lectures held for undergraduate and graduate T&I students on the topic of translation were felt to be imparting too general a knowledge and were not problem-oriented enough to enhance appreciation and/or criticism on the candidate’s part. Advanced seminars were felt to be too specifically ‘one-dimensional’, imparting knowledge only on selected approaches and aspects without positioning them against other similar and/or different approaches and without sufficient reference to their relevance and position within the general research context. With respect to methodology, it was largely felt that there was too little guided interaction during regular traditional course-work for students to develop the ability to criticize or be criticized. This situation was not considered to be conducive to stimulating logical argument and the response to creative thought — abilities needed during PhD work when assessing the merits and limits of related theories (literature exploitation) and in providing the intellectual distance when positioning these against the candidate’s own ideas. In essence there was a consensus among the candidates that in preparing for PhD work, they would profit from being offered more problem-oriented, comparative theory-related seminars specifically designed for T&I PhD candidates, which would integrate a variety of perspectives to a given problem and which were designed to foster critical thought through interactive discussions.

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2.2 Research training A second area where training was felt to be insufficient was in research management, ranging from research methodology (cf. Gile 1991) to time management. There was a wide consensus among the candidates that they lacked expertise in research methods and methodology, an aspect closely related to the lack of background knowledge discussed above. It was largely agreed that they needed to be competent in interdisciplinary research methods (hermeneutics, formal logic, contrastive analysis, empirical research) in order to be able to make sensible decisions with respect to selecting the method that fits the questioning of their research project. The greatest problem, however, was undoubtedly seen in accessing, processing and structuring relevant literature information — a prerequisite when formulating the ‘state-of-the-art’ section of their dissertations. Most of the candidates felt that individual ad hoc efforts were too unsystematic, timeconsuming and ineffective and were largely responsible for the frustration and unnecessary stress (‘doc-blues’) during the time of literature exploitation. This could be avoided by having access to and being trained in an effective strategy for structuring large amounts of information for the purpose of presenting a status quo analysis. One possible strategy for systematizing literature is the development of a matrix which vertically lists the authors reviewed and the aspects under which they are discussed and/or evaluated in a horizontal row (cf. Gerzymisch-Arbogast 2001).5 Systematic training and support was also considered necessary in structuring and organizing a dissertation as a research text. Most candidates felt that there was copious literature available on the common tripartite structural setup (introduction, main part and conclusion) of a research paper and on the form of references and quotations. However, little support was offered with respect to very general principles and what they actually meant in the writing process, like the use and misuse of literature (cf. however Gile 1999b), the general principle of economy of expression and factuality, the requirements of exactness, explicitness and verifiability. It was also largely felt that too little training was offered in how to structurally set up a dissertation,6 in the development of hypotheses, the state-of-the art analysis of available research (positioning the candidate’s own approach within that broad picture), the logical development of thought or the tests verifying the candidate’s own approach against existing data. There was a wide consensus among members of the PhD group that a general course in research training and writing research papers

Writing a dissertation in translation and interpreting

before embarking on a dissertation project would make them more confident in their endeavors and speed up the writing process. With respect to time management, opinions in the group were divided. While it was generally thought that time management was an aspect where additional training would be helpful, some group members warned that this depended largely on personal preference and working style. Some candidates were very favorably inclined towards and even needed the motivation of a structured time frame (e.g. deadlines for individual tasks) for planning their research in certain phases. Others felt uncomfortable with the idea, considering it an additional pressure and stress factor with ensuing frustration because, after all, ‘creative thought’ would not be commandable and could not be triggered to fit a certain time frame or sequence. It was generally felt though that awareness of working in steps or phases and correlating these phases to time periods, the setting of deadlines for controllable tasks (calculations and tables, proofreading, checking new literature for relevance) would be helpful. Some skills, however, like the discovery of one’s own ‘best times’ to write and the delegation of ‘chores’ (like referencing and adding to bibliographical data) to times when individual creativity is low — were thought to naturally develop with the process of writing. In essence, time management strategies were thought to be helpful for certain controllable tasks but more or less so according to individual preferences and personal working style. 2.3 The human factor It was largely felt among candidates that PhD work presupposes qualities and skills that they had not expected and thus were not prepared for. It was argued that the independent work over the length of time required for writing a dissertation (2–5 years) — largely unstructured with respect to a pre-set seminar format and class schedule and with little outside re-enforcement and support through measurable partial results and progress — required them to live with extended insecurity as to their capabilities and potential success. This, they felt, was manageable only with considerable ‘backbone’ in the form of an ‘rock-solid’ intellectual curiosity and interest in the field of research they had chosen coupled with strong analytical capabilities and a considerable portion of (creative) energy and goal-orientedness. Even with these characteristics, the challenge was thought to be tremendous and the proper mindset, a high degree of self-motivation and perseverance, were thought to be an indispensable requirement for success. In addition to these more or less permanent qualities, candidates felt that a high

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level of frustration tolerance was a definite asset to see them through bouts of ‘doc blues’.7 Among the acquired and trained skills that were thought to be helpful on occasion — mostly for stress management — were discipline, the ability to accept advice and criticism, and a generally positive attitude towards oneself and life, especially a positive response to pressure. Another major area of concern was seen in their interactions with other doctoral candidates (i.e. within the group) and/or with their supervisor(s). With respect to personal relations, the extended loneliness that goes with a relatively high level of independent work caused problems to most candidates and required them to build strong ‘survival networks’ — the many thankful acknowledgements to spouses, parents and other family members in the formal dedications and/or acknowledgements of dissertations indicate that this is indeed a very important source of support. It is thus not surprising that the peer group was highly appreciated as a framework of identification with peers and has proved to be a major integrative force for all candidates as the following comments show:8 Durch den regelmäßigen Erfahrungsaustausch mit anderen Doktoranden konnte ich meine Einsamkeit überwinden. Wir unterstützen und ermutigen uns gegenseitig (By regularly exchanging experiences with other doctoral candidates I could overcome my loneliness. We support and encourage each other)9 Die Doktorandenkolloquien haben nur positive Seiten. Der kritische Blick und die Fragen der Teilnehmer eröffnen neue Perspektiven in die jeweils besprochenen Themen. Hier gelingt es, eine gewisse Distanz zur eigenen Arbeit zu gewinnen (The doctoral workshops have only positive side-effects. The critical view and the questions from participants open up new perspectives of the topics under discussion. The workshops enable us to gain a certain distance vis-a-vis our work) …sind meiner Meinung nach durchweg positiv zu beurteilen (can be considered nothing but positive) This is in general the most positive experience I have made during my doctoral studies…

Interaction with the supervisor(s) turned out to be complex. While generally demanding consistent supervision and encouragement at intervals chosen upon their request and convenience, pressure from the supervisor(s) in terms of setting deadlines, requiring certain parts to be completed in a given time frame was not appreciated. Only one candidate attributed the responsibility for

Writing a dissertation in translation and interpreting

“working out alternative solutions on his/her own” to him/herself and sees the supervisor(s)’s role as one of a ‘reviewer’ rather than the omnipotent father or mother figure (cf. 3.3). Most of the other candidates have quite high — albeit sometimes not conscious and implicit — expectations. As one said: They (the candidates) expect … their supervisors to give them their experience in matters of planning, literature exploitation, stress management and writing skills

Some realized the balancing act they demanded: Die Kunst des Betreuers ist dabei, eine Balance zwischen Beratung und Freiheit zu finden. Die Beratung sollte in klaren Worten erfolgen und im Verlauf der verschiedenen Beratungstermine schlüssig und aufeinander aufbauend sein (It is up to the supervisor to develop the art of finding a balance between supervision/advice and freedom. Advice should always be given in clear words and in a coherent step-by-step fashion in the course of consultation appointments)

This attitude may well be unique to the T&I scenario where the lack of theoryrelated expertise combined with a lack of research training seem to lead to deep feelings of insecurity concerning individual standing and capabilities and a resulting over-reliance on the supervisor(s)’ suggestions and encouragement.

3. Desiderata and suggestions From the problems and concerns discussed above, three critical requirements from PhD supervision in translating and interpreting emerged: – – –

substantial preparation of candidates in T&I-specific theoretical thought competence in research methods and techniques more formalized interactions with supervisor(s) in a PhD scenario.

These led to suggesting a T&I prep school with international cooperation and support from outside experts (3.1 and 3.2) and the setting up of a ‘PhD contract’ outlining the rules and regulations of interactions between the supervisor(s) and the PhD candidate (3.3). 3.1 A ‘PhD prep school’ In follow-up discussions with the group of doctoral students, it was acknowledged that T&I training — as it is offered in the German university environment

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today — does not include sufficient theoretical substance and/or research training to enable students to embark on PhD work without further preparatory training.10 This leads to unnecessarily prolonged PhD studies in the course of which content matter (theoretical substance) and research (management) techniques are acquired during and alongside the actual process of writing a dissertation. To avoid such ineffectiveness and unnecessary frustration for both PhD candidates and supervisor(s), the institution of a ‘PhD prep school’ was suggested that would ideally consist of (1) some preparatory course work in theory and research techniques (offered before the actual dissertation topic is chosen) and (2) additional seminars that widen the candidate’s perspective. The additional seminars could be offered as an accompanying measure while actually writing the dissertation. They could take several forms, including intensive seminars during term breaks and holidays, on-line seminars and/or video-conferenced sessions with integrated (international) guest lectures. These measures would also alleviate some of the loneliness by providing for more opportunities for group interaction and support. Possible set-ups for such a PhD programme are illustrated in Figures 1 and 2: Online Seminar

Intensive Seminars

Once in the course of a term

During holiday periods with workshops chosen from topics II–IV

Local Events

Video Conference

- doctoral workshop - Interdisciplinary Perspectives Seminar

Once in the course of a term with guest lectures from other disciplines or international T&I experts

Figure 1.
Types of Seminars/Lectures

The Wider Research Perspectives seminar and the seminar on Interdisciplinary Research Methods and Techniques (Figure 2) would need to be completed as preparatory PhD work before actually settling down on a specific topic. The doctoral workshop Problems of Current Dissertation Projects and the Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Figure 2) could be offered as seminars accompanying the process of writing the dissertation. The contents of these classes would need to be specially developed for these purposes, ideally as a team-taught class by experts in the field. With respect to developing scientific writing skills, a format of methodological principles has been suggested (Mudersbach 1999; cf. also

Writing a dissertation in translation and interpreting

I Problems of Current Dissertation Projects ●

●

Presentation and discussion of current dissertation projects interdisciplinary Perspectives Seminar on topics II

II Wider Research Perspectives (examples) ●

●

●

Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics Multilingualism Models of text respresentation

●

Theories of translation

●

…

●

…

III Interdisciplinary Research Methods and Techniques (example) ●

●

●

●

●

●

Empirical analysis in linguistics Format of theories Multi-media teaching enviroments Research methods in translation … …

IV Interdisciplinary Perspectives (example) ●

●

●

●

●

intercultural communication Foundations of cognitive science interpretation research … …

Figure 2.
Classification of Topics

Gerzymisch-Arbogast 2001) which candidates find demanding and ‘normative’ but helpful. I believe that with more adequate training and preparation, candidates will be better equipped to decide more sensibly whether they indeed want to engage in PhD work and will soon adopt a more realistic and mature attitude with respect to what they can expect from themselves, their supervisor(s) and their PhD work in general. 3.2 International cooperation It has long been acknowledged that T&I experts are few (even internationally) and that with the present low academic profile of T&I studies one university alone is institutionally hardly able and equipped to provide the expertise and experience for competent theoretical PhD preparation and research training. The situation is described in detail by Gile (1999a). This suggests that the required training should be offered through combined international efforts by consolidating the existing expertise across national borders. Again, this could take a variety of forms that would range from regular guest lectures, back-toback or intensive (international) seminars during holiday periods, the advantage being that they would also be accessible to a wider range of (international) PhD candidates and would thus foster international exchange. Today’s new media opportunities make international seminars possible in the form of videoconferenced guest lectures or online seminars co-chaired by colleagues from other disciplines providing for interdisciplinary perspectives and/or by international experts in the field of T&I. An intensive one-week PhD seminar during

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the spring and/or summer holidays could be structured as in Figure 3: Monday

Informal GetTogether

Tuesday

Presentation of dissertation projects in international groups

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Workshops (topics II-IV) Presentation of workshop results in plenary discussions

Figure 3.
Intensive Seminar

Provided the requested funds are granted, a European T&I ‘PhD prep school’ will be offered starting in 2001 as a combined effort by the Aarhus School of Business, Prague’s Charles University and the University of the Saarland. 3.3 A ‘PhD contract’ As mentioned in 2.3, candidates’ demands on their supervisor(s) are high, ranging from expecting to share his/her experience in all aspects of PhD work from stress management to exploitation of literature. With quite a demanding work load outside of advising doctoral students — which may be the most worthwhile and is considered to be the least time-consuming of his/her tasks — the supervisor is hardly able to live up to these high expectations. By contrast, his/her demands are focused on eliciting independent thought with solid results at regular intervals. In order to bring candidates’ and supervisor’s expectations into line and avoid misunderstandings and confusions, the group discussed the possibility of drawing up a ‘PhD contract’ specifying what PhD candidates in T&I can expect from their supervisor(s) and vice versa. This could be done by each of the two parties individually drawing up a list of expectations, demands and restrictions and subsequently negotiating and accepting each other’s conditions before actually entering a relationship. The following suggestions made by group members and supervisor may contain helpful elements to be included in a PhD contract:

Writing a dissertation in translation and interpreting

–

–

–

–

– – –

Making it clear to candidates that there will be a time when candidates know more about their subject than their supervisor(s) and that they themselves, not their supervisor(s), are the creators of new thought; Securing candidates’ understanding and acceptance of the supervisor’s role as Doktorvater/mutter, i.e. as someone to help candidates help themselves rather than a provider of concrete solutions for all problems at all times to all candidates. Encouraging candidates to share in the responsibility for successful consultations and advising sessions by – preparing a consultation session in writing (specifying a problem or aspects of a problem in writing before a review session with the supervisor, since the very act of putting them in writing may solve some problems); – taking notes during consultations, thus documenting ‘agreed-upon actions’ or steps that could later be used as a dossier and basis against which a candidate can evaluate his/her own success and performance; – encouraging them to raise relevant questions when something does not seem clear and consistent to him/her; Encouraging candidates to seek advice preferably after having thought through various solutions himself/herself and using the supervisor as a sounding board to check them for consistency and logic; Setting definite limits with respect to time (maximum consultation time both in terms of amounts per period and time frame per consultation); Specifying objective(s) for a consultation (if possible in writing) and have them agreed upon by both supervisor and candidate; Coordinating the presentation of (partial) results with the time sequence of individual consultations.

Naturally, the concrete specifics of a PhD contract need to be worked out in a concerted effort, leaving enough leeway to accommodate personal preferences and individual working styles on the part of both candidates and supervisor(s).

4. Concluding remarks In the above, a glimpse was offered on what problems to expect when writing a T&I dissertation, many of which certainly are not exclusively T&I-related but may be of a very general nature. Once again, it must be remembered that this was not intended to be a formal systematic account but rather a momentary

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glance at the problems and concerns experienced by PhD candidates and supervisor in a PhD group in Saarbrücken. With formal training in T&I research almost non-existent today, we will have to undertake substantial efforts to produce a greater number of young trained T&I researchers who can turn this trend around and give a more academic profile to the discipline than it now has. We hope to be able to make a contribution to that effect.

Notes 1. I use T&I here to mean translation and interpretation, although — with only two PhD projects on interpretation — the following paper will largely concentrate on translation. 2. In Germany, there are hardly a handful universities offering a PhD degree in T&I. At the University of Heidelberg, for instance, the Promotionsrecht (the right to obtain a PhD in T&I) was only introduced in 1986. At the University of the Saarland it was not before 1994 that an institutionalized T&I PhD programme for students trained as translators and/or interpreters was introduced. With such a lack of institutional back-up, the ensuing lack of research training courses and the resulting lack of genuine T&I research, it is, of course, not surprising that the level of research done in the field of T&I is often characterized as low. 3. theory-related is here used in opposition to empirical. It is intended to signify that the focus is on the development of new thought, not on the presentation of research findings based on empirical data. While this distinction may be controversial in general terms, it seems useful for methodological and evaluative reasons for the purposes of PhD work in T&I, because objectives (the presentation of ‘research findings’ vs the development of ‘theoretical models’) differ, and PhD training and the structural set-ups of dissertations may differ as a result. 4. This candidate’s dissertation on the professional career development of women translators in the EU is an empirical study with its underlying questioning being sociological in nature. 5. As this topic is dealt with in Gerzymisch-Arbogast (2001), the details will not be repeated here. 6. For detailed suggestions with respect to methodological principles of structuring a research paper see Mudersbach 1999. 7. Over the period discussed here, four candidates (not included in this paper) withdrew their projects either because they found that they did not have the mindset to work on a project continuously over a prolonged period of time with little noticeable result or because they found it difficult to work independently, setting realistic goals for themselves and developing their own ideas in private or simply because they found that they had overestimated their motivation and were not as dedicated and committed to research as they had thought they would be. 8. The comments were made anonymously so that the examples are quoted here without specific reference.



Writing a dissertation in translation and interpreting

8. The comments were made anonymously so that the examples are quoted here without specific reference. 9. This and the following English translations of the German quotations are my own. 10. This is also true in other European and international contexts. In the ELC (European Language Council) curricula developments for example, ‘best practices’ are the focus of T&I training (cf. http://160.45.10.21/elc/index.htm) and the international umbrella organization CIUTI for T&I training has only recently integrated research as a regular component of training (cf. http://www-gewi.kfunigraz.ac.at/ciuti/index.html).

References Gerzymisch-Arbogast, H. 2001. “Theory-related Translation Research — Some thoughts on methodology”. Hermes 26: 81–95. Gile, D. 1991. “Methodological Aspects of Interpretation (and Translation) Research”. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 3(2): 153–174. Gile, D. 1999a. “Internationalization and institutionalization as promoters of interpretation research”. In Wege der Übersetzungs- und Dolmetschforschung [Jahrbuch Übersetzen und Dolmetschen 1], H. Gerzymisch-Arbogast, D. Gile, J. House and A. Rothkegel (eds). Tübingen: Narr. Gile, D. 1999b. “Use and misuse of the literature in interpreting research”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 9: 29–43. Mudersbach, K. 1999. “Richtlinien zum Schreiben von wissenschaftlichen Publikationen — Kurzfassung”. In Wege der Übersetzungs- und Dolmetschforschung [Jahrbuch Übersetzen und Dolmetschen 1], H. Gerzymisch-Arbogast, D. Gile, J. House and A. Rothkegel (eds). Tübingen: Narr.

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MA theses in Prague A supervisor’s account Ivana Cˇenˇková Institute of Translation Studies, Charles University, Czech Republic

1.

Theses and dissertations in Prague: an overview

Theses and dissertations on translation and interpreting at graduate, doctoral and post-doctoral level have been prepared and completed at Charles University, Prague, since the sixties. Doctoral dissertations, however, have been few so far. This paper describes the history and institutional setting of such research at Charles University, and then focuses on MA theses, by far the most numerous at our Institute. 1.1 MA theses Interpreter and translator training at MA level is provided in Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic since 1963. Graduation requirements include State examinations and a thesis in the students’ discipline(s), that is, translation and/or interpreting. The first theses were completed at the Department of Translation and Interpreting as early as 1967. Since this volume focuses on interpreting, I will do likewise in this paper. So far, 55 theses on various aspects of interpreting have been completed (40 from 1967 to 1995, and 15 from 1996 until May 2000). Requirements for theses have gradually become stricter and now call for an autonomous research project, demonstrating the students’ analytical and synthetic skills as applied to scientific work through a proper approach and handling of their topic. Interpreting theses at our University have always been mostly empirical in nature. They analysed linguistic corpora in a concrete interpreting situation, investigated various types and aspects of interpretation, various steps in the

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interpreting process, etc. Fundamental concepts such as quality, communication equivalence, work into B-language, the interpreter’s and speaker’s personality, the stakes of multilingual communication and the importance of context, humour in interpreting, cohesion and coherence have all been focal points of such theses. Until 1996, students had to attend a one-semester ‘diploma seminar’ under the leadership of an experienced instructor who acted as a supervisor and gave methodological and practical advice to students. Such seminars were provided for each of the languages taught at our department, namely English, German, Spanish, French and Russian. They were later removed from the syllabus. This was partly due to the introduction of a new credit system, determining a maximum number of lectures that students could attend each week. The seminars’ rationale was also challenged, since students who attended them had different interests, which did not necessarily tally with the seminars’ foci. For example, students interested in dubbing and subtitling musical films could well feel that they were wasting their time when studying the influence of social and literary evolution on translation. In 1993, the Department was renamed ‘Institute of Translation Studies’ (see Cˇenˇková 1995) and reorganised with a view to meet the needs of students and instructors, with their range of specialities. This resulted in the creation of three Units: the Unit of translation theory and didactics, the Unit of interpretation theory and didactics, and the Unit of comparative translation and translation history. MA theses are now prepared within each of these Units. All members of the faculty ranked senior lecturer or higher are qualified as potential supervisors of graduation theses. Since these are mandatory, there are many to supervise. All qualified instructors draw up a list of topics for students each year. Actually, students choose their supervisor just as much as they choose their topic. As is the case in all other institutions, instructors are more or less popular and accordingly more or less in demand as supervisors. 1.2 PhDr theses Another title which has been in existence for a long time in Czechoslovakia/ the Czech Republic is the PhDr (‘Doctor in philosophy’) degree, the status of which lies in-between an MA and a PhD in the Anglo-saxon system and which, until 1980, entailed the completion of a thesis and an oral examination before an assessment committee. Any holder of an academic degree could sit the exams and present the results of his/her research work in a thesis of at least 120 pages.

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No official supervisor was required. Generally, in translation and interpreting, candidates were alumni from our Department of Translation and Interpreting who had graduated with excellent marks and who had been advised to investigate their topic more deeply, taking on board the comments made by the assessment committee, the supervisor and one ‘opponent’ (a commentator not involved in the supervision of the thesis) on their MA thesis. The extended thesis was then read and commented upon by at least two opponents, and a viva was held before a 3-member committee. There have been very few PhDr’s on interpreting: Ota Sofr, a free-lance interpreter working with German, completed a thesis on the interpreting process (Sofr 1978), and I completed the other (Cˇenˇková 1980 – see Cˇenˇková 1995). After 1980, the thesis requirement was removed, and only oral examinations remained, which reduced the value of the degree considerably. In 1999, the thesis requirement was reinstated by a new Law on Institutions for higher Education. At the time this paper is written, one recent graduate of our Institute wishes to work towards the PhDr degree. I am not her official supervisor, but I do help her, and she comes to consult with me from time to time. 1.3 CSc and PhD dissertations Yet another degree was the CSc (‘Candidate in Sciences’), which was established in Czechoslovakia after the Soviet model, and which corresponded roughly to the PhD degree found in English-speaking countries. The CSc degree still exists in Russia, but was removed from the Czech academic institution soon after 1990, to be replaced by the PhD degree. I earned the CSc degree in 1986 after passing exams and defending a dissertation on the interpreting process. At that time, the Department of Translation and Interpreting was not yet authorised to offer a doctoral studies program, meaning that I had to complete the work within the Department of Russian Language at the Faculty of Arts. Since 1996, our Institute is qualified to deliver full PhD doctoral training in Translation Studies (translation and interpretation theory) as an autonomous scientific discipline. At this time, in the Czech Republic, I am the only holder of the CSc degree and the only ‘docent’ (associate professor) in interpreting theory. This situation may well last a long time, since all simultaneous interpreting instructors are practising professionals and do not wish to spend much time on research (Cˇenˇková 1995). At present, I have two applicants who passed the admission test and who want to write a dissertation on interpreting. One should do it as an ‘extern’ (a

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regular student with no grant), but she has not even started her studies and is on maternity leave. The second candidate just passed the admission test. As an ‘intern’, she will receive a grant for 3 years. During that period, she will have to pass several examinations within the framework of the doctoral program, and prepare her dissertation under the guidance of a supervisor. 1.4 Habilitation dissertations In order to qualify as a supervisor for PhD dissertations, it is necessary to be a ‘docent’ or a full professor, and be appointed by the Dean of the Faculty of Arts of the University. Requirements for a ‘docent’ status include rather extensive teaching experience, numerous publications, and a habilitation thesis with a viva before the Scientific Council of the Faculty of Arts with two opponents. The Scientific Council (about 17 members) then votes for or against the candidate’s habilitation. In case of a positive vote, the Rector confirms the results, and after several months, in a solemn ceremony, the candidate receives the appointment — in my case, for Translation Studies. At our Institute, there are 6 staff members with such qualifications, 4 docents and 2 professors. 2. Preparing a thesis in Prague 2.1 The research methodology seminar In 1996, the Institute decided to create a new seminar on research methodology to replace partly the diploma seminars which existed previously (see Section 1.1), but with a more ambitious and more scientific scope. During the 7th semester of the syllabus, all students attend this 26-hour seminar, where experts from different fields introduce them to various types of research and studies: theoretical, empirical (naturalistic or experimental), historical (comparative or not), as well as to various sub-categories (see for example Gile 1998, Jettmarová 1998). Students are also offered an introduction to Interpreting Studies and to the relevant research methods. They are given an overview of existing studies, receive a basic list of bibliographical references (appended to this paper), and a few examples of empirical research (i.e. Rejšková 1999, Gile 1999a) are presented to them. Previously completed graduation theses from our Institute are also brought into the lecture room, along with written assessments by the supervisors and opponents, and explanations are given to students as to the strong points and weaknesses of each.

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2.2 Selecting the topics 2.2.1 Topics suggested by instructors Each year, members of the teaching staff prepare a list of suggested topics for theses. These are determined on the basis of the needs of the Unit to which they are affiliated and of the instructors’ own research projects. Three years ago, it was decided unanimously by all instructors that glossaries would no longer be accepted as graduation theses. It is now mandatory that such theses be genuine empirical or theoretical research projects (see examples in Section 3). Students choose the topic on the basis of their field of speciality, their focus of interest and their language combination. On the list prepared for them, alongside each suggested topic, the names of the relevant supervisors are indicated, so that students know what languages are concerned. This is particularly important in empirical studies, which process a specific corpus. For instance, if I suggest the topic ‘The quality of interpreting into the B-language — an empirical study’, students know that they can work on a Russian, French or Czech corpus under my supervision. When the nature of the project is such that the linguistic corpus is of relatively little importance, I may accept to supervise a study which involves a different language, but choose a consultant with the proper language combination. Such consultants have no official status, and only come in at the request of the student or the supervisor. They are not members of the assessment committee, but can attend the viva as observers. Generally, their help is acknowledged by the students in the introduction of their thesis. 2.2.2 Topics proposed by students The topics proposed by the Institute may not meet the students’ wishes. This is often the case when they follow another course of studies in parallel to translation and interpreting (psychology, sociology, phonetics, applied linguistics, etc.). They may then suggest their own topics, but have to consult with the prospective supervisor and obtain his/her go-ahead after presenting briefly the nature of the study they contemplate, including the reasons for their choice, the general orientation and objectives of the thesis, the methods to be used, etc. Students may also decide to write their thesis in their other discipline, for instance in economics, psychology, etc. In such a case, the whole process, including the viva, is placed within that other discipline, which is specified on their diploma as the discipline in which they completed their thesis.

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2.3 Zeroing in on the topic The topic should neither cover too wide an area nor be too general. Students are better advised to choose a focused research issue which is amenable to an analysis in depth, beyond plain description. When selecting the topic, they should consider all objective givens and constraints, and in particular: – – – –

–

Previously completed studies on the same topic if available The existence of methods germane to the study under consideration The availability of a corpus — in the case of an empirical study The availability of subjects for experiments (professional interpreters, interpreting students, etc.) or for questionnaire-based surveys (translation agencies, professional conference organisers, interpreters, etc.) The availability of consultants if case need be

All these aspects are discussed with the prospective supervisor as soon as the student feels s/he has chosen a germane topic. The supervisor explains what s/he had in mind when putting the topic on the list and both discuss the future thesis and its potential contribution, namely: – – –

The introduction of a new research method or an innovative approach The confirmation or falsification of an existing hypothesis or theory New conclusions based on personal hypotheses or on their generalisation (see Jettmarová 1992 and 1998, Synek & Sedlácˇková 1994).

In all cases, students must feel that their topic is useful and that their research can tangibly contribute something to interpreters as individuals, to the interpreting profession, to training or to theory. A topic chosen at random will not be of much use. In view of the wide range of topics offered, only rarely, about once a year or so, does a student select one, start working on it and then change his/her mind and choose a completely different one. 2.4 The thesis proposal form and preparatory coordination with the supervisor Once the topic has been determined, a ‘thesis proposal form’ is filled in by the student and is signed by the supervisor and handed over to the secretariat, usually during the 7th semester of studies. The supervisor is then appointed by the Director of the Institute of Translation Studies to prepare a requirement sheet on a standard form, which is then signed by the Director and sent by

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registered mail to the home address of the student. Two translations of such requirement sheets are presented below to illustrate their function. One was prepared for a rather theoretical project (the topic was chosen in view of the upcoming visit of that particular student at ESIT, France), and the other an empirical, interdisciplinary project, in which the students’ dual syllabus (she also studied psychology) was fully leveraged.

Example A — a theoretical project The A4-format form carries the name of the student, particulars of her diploma (in this case “French translation and interpretation”), the topic of the thesis: A critical view of Francophone interpreting theories (a theoretical study), the name of the supervisor and the name of the opponent. Beneath, the supervisor adds the following statement of objectives and instructions:

Requirement sheet 1. In the introduction, indicate your objectives, and explain that a critical study is required: so far, no in-depth study of interpretation theory in Francophone countries has been carried out. Define the geographical area covered: France, Belgium, and the French-speaking parts of Switzerland and Canada. Describe briefly the stages of the evolution of research into interpreting in these countries over time and by authors. Highlight the researchers’ basic approach and their working places or academic affiliations. Hypothesis: most of them are professional interpreters who also teach interpreting in interpreting schools. 2. Discuss the present status of interpreting research in the geographical area under consideration. Choose a number of interdependent criteria: types of interpreting, the interpreting process, the use of input from other disciplines (the interdisciplinary approach), interaction with professional practice (empirical studies). Discuss in more detail the relevant authors (J. F. Rozan, J. Herbert, H. Van Hoof, G. Ilg, D. Seleskovitch, M. Lederer, K. Déjean Le Féal, J. Delisle, D. Gile and others) and their main publications. 3. Attempt a critical classification and an analysis of the different ‘theories’ or approaches and views of the relevant authors. Focus in particular on the two fundamental theoretical approaches, ‘interpretive theory’ (“théorie du sens”) as

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represented by D. Seleskovitch and ESIT, and D. Gile’s Effort Models, and analyse and compare them in depth. 4. Try to generalise beyond these approaches and views and analyse them in the context of present research trends, points of convergence and divergence. On the second page of the requirement sheet, the supervisor indicates recommended readings (the pre-printed form explains that publications serving as reference, dictionaries and encyclopedias should not be included in this bibliography). Due to space limitations, 15 entries at most can be included. Besides precise bibliographical items, I try to mention journals such as The Interpreters’ Newsletter, Meta, ELA, The IRN Bulletin, Babel, ToP, Target, Interpreting, Parallèles, Multilingua, Hermes, Language International, L´interprète, Ad Notam, Cizí jazyky ve škole, Folia Translatologica, without indicating the specific volumes and issues, as well as the proceedings of international conferences which present material on interpreting research (these include meetings held in Turku, Prague, Vienna, Stockholm, Elsinore, Trieste, etc.), indicating that they are available at the library of our Institute, but without giving the full bibliographical data.

Example B — an empirical, interdisciplinary project The topic of the thesis is The personality of the conference interpreter and the professional translator — an empirical study. This student also studies psychology. The supervisor should not claim s/he has an all-encompassing knowledge. Clearly, s/he will need the input of experts to write a description of the required content of the thesis and to recommend bibliographical items. Moreover, the student wishes to use an English and Czech corpus, meaning that both the consultant and the ‘opponent’ will have to have English in their language combination.

Requirement sheet 1. In the introduction, define the working hypothesis and objectives of the study: the personality of professional translators and conference interpreters differs to a large extent. Can the main differences between these two types of linguistic mediators be identified? What criteria will be used?

MA theses in Prague

2. Describe the respective environments and working conditions for both professions. Get in touch with the various actors in the marketplace (professional associations such as ASKOT, JTP and Translator’s Union, translation and interpretation agencies, major private and public clients, governmental agencies, Professional Conference Organisers, etc.), and investigate their views about the two professions, using a questionnaire. On the basis of the specialised literature, prepare a table of central personality factors (such as found in Cattell’s list), and draft a questionnaire for the comparison of two groups from the respective populations (with at least 30 respondents from each to allow proper statistical analysis). 3. Illustration: carry out interpretation and translation experiments with each group (with a maximum of 6 participants from each population, due to objective technical limitations). Immediately after the experiment, distribute a questionnaire to participants for self-assessment. 4. Conclusions and recommendations for professional practice, and, if possible, for training and aptitude testing. In this case, the list of recommended readings also includes publications from psychology, and most of the references are in English, due to this students’ specific language combination. Publications in psychology are studied in consultation with a colleague from Bratislava who is working on a doctoral dissertation on a similar topic. It is clear that such a form cannot cover all problems that will be taken up in the thesis, but it will give the student a general idea of what to expect. Sometimes, when working on this form, supervisors and students realise that the topic is too wide and that the sights have to be set lower. In any case, the requirement sheet is the cornerstone from which the thesis will develop. When the student receives the form with the requirements, s/he is supposed to contact the supervisor so as to start the effective work and draw up a provisional timetable. Ideally, this should be done right away, but this seldom happens. Sometimes, several months elapse, as students feel they have ample time (with a statutory minimum of 3 semesters and a maximum of 7 semesters to the viva and the State examination, as set out in the Law on Institutions of Higher Education). The supervisor can choose to wait, or else take the initiative and set up an appointment to discuss with the student the timetable and the corpus (in the case of an empirical study).

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2.5 The literature review and students’ outline Actual work on the thesis starts with the reading of recommended publications on the list. Before that, supervisors should see the students and give them some guidance so that they can make better use of their energy, time and attention (see Gile 1999b). Students must understand that publications on the list are only a sample, constrained by space and by a specific language combination; they also need to look at publications listed as references in the recommended readings, at completed theses at the library of the Institute, and at current and back issues of bulletins and journals. They must learn to read selectively and to navigate rapidly in the documents so as to focus on the more relevant papers and/or sections. They also have to be reminded to take down the full bibliographical references for citations, including the names of authors, titles, page numbers, publishers and year of publication (see ISO 1985 and Norma CˇSN 1971). Files in A5- or A6-format are best suited for this purpose, since they are easy to handle. There is nothing more annoying than to remember having seen interesting and useful statements or information in a publication, but forgetting where it was retrieved and no longer having the document at one’s disposal (also see Gile’s paper on critical reading, in this volume). During the reading phase, students may feel that they need to refocus their topic, and discuss this with their supervisor. If all goes well, after having reviewed the available literature, students should be able to draft and submit to the supervisor a research proposal (about 5 pages — see Jettmarová 1998), which should include: – – – – – –

A brief review of the state of the art An indication of the objectives of the study and of their underlying rationale A definition of the research issue to be tackled and of the associated working hypotheses A description of materials and methods to be used A tentative outline of the future thesis A timetable for the various steps in the project

2.6 Collecting the corpus and preparing and implementing the project Once the student has studied the literature and drafted an outline and hypotheses, it is time to discuss the corpus and the way the project will actually be implemented. This is where the supervisor can come in effectively, by helping students do on the spot recording of authentic speeches at actual conferences or

MA theses in Prague

help distribute questionnaires, or even provide them with authentic recordings made in conferences with the help of technicians. It is imperative that one always ask the organiser’s permission to make recordings, and explain that they will be used for student research. In most cases, permission is granted by the organisers, but interpreters are rather reluctant to be recorded while performing professionally. I have stopped insisting, because such authentic material only represents a very small sample of one or two persons, each interpreting a different speech at a different moment. I prefer to recommend to students that they take recordings of the source speech and conduct an experiment later in the laboratory, where up to 6 subjects can interpret the same source speech at the same time. Obviously, the implications, and in particular the limitations associated with this experimental procedure, must be kept in mind. My recommendation to students is that they use one or two experimental groups composed of interpreting students (with a maximum of 6 persons each, the size being restricted by the number of interpreting booths in the laboratory), and then take professional conference interpreters as a control group. My role in this respect mainly consists in convincing colleagues from ASKOT, our association of conference interpreters, to come to the laboratory and serve as subjects. So far, I have been able to convince at least 3 or 4 each time, which is enough for the purpose of the theses. Possibilities also depend on the required language combination. For instance, there are only 6 members in the Association who have Russian as a B-language. When preparing experiments, students must know precisely what kind of results are sought, what should not be taken into account, what variables and parameters should be controlled, and what conditions and criteria must be observed so as to ensure the greatest possible degree of objectivity. Clearly the use of such small samples cannot result in final and generalisable results. Students must be alert to this fact and be very cautious when formulating their conclusions. They must always point out that theirs is just one experiment and that further studies should be conducted with other interpreter groups under the same conditions and with the same source speeches in order to confirm or falsify the findings. Students must transcribe all of the material they are going to use in their thesis, be very cautious when formulating conclusions, and make clear in their reports that they are aware of the fact that transcription necessarily implies the loss of part of the information (intonation, voice modulation, body language, face expressions, etc.). In theses based on questionnaires or interviews, the number of respondents

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must be much larger. But all depends on the context. For instance, knowing that in Prague, there are about 30 translation and interpretation agencies and a few Professional Conference Organisers, I urge students to get in touch with all of them, whether results are to be used for illustration purposes only or for full analysis. 2.7 The analysis stage After the student has conducted the experiment or collected the material from questionnaires or interviews, or else finished reading theoretical material and taking it down in notes, s/he must analyse the data (describe, define, compare, classify, quantify, pool data together, test, accept or reject hypotheses, etc.) so as to reach a conclusion on the research issue under consideration. Students must be careful not to fall into the trap of manipulating data or only choosing examples which support their hypothesis. Such hypotheses may well be falsified by the findings, in which case they must respect the data and try to explain the results. Recently, a student who was preparing a thesis on simultaneous interpreting strategies and had started out with the hypothesis that anticipation and longer ear-voice span were the most frequent strategies was proved wrong by her corpus, both as regards the experimental group and the control group. She found herself forced to accept the results and to acknowledge them as evidence contradicting her hypothesis, while maintaining caution and pointing out that the sample was too small for generalisation purposes. It is up to the supervisor to make sure that students abide by these principles. On the other hand, it is not possible to eradicate from a student’s thesis all signs of his/her subjective feelings in such empirical work. Supervisors must also make sure that in their theses, students do not simply illustrate their ideas or list examples without going into the next stage, that is proper classification and analysis. Tables, graphs and statistics are welcome. 2.8 Writing up the thesis This is the most sensitive part of the operation. After having analysed the corpus, students may sense that they have reached some results or conclusions, but these are scattered in a mass of notes and computer files, often in a rather unsystematic way. They now must write it all up in compliance with the relevant standards, in a text of at least 60 pages. From the methodology seminar, students are familiar with the rules, and if necessary, to brush up their memory,

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they can retrieve from the secretariat of the Institute the internal document which explains them (see Jettmarová 1998). However, experience shows that they often hesitate, do not know where to start, and wonder whether they will ever be able to fill the required 60 pages, and whether they really have anything to add to what has been said and done about the topic of their thesis before they came along. Supervisors sometimes have to come in firmly and virtually ‘force’ students to write at least a few pages to start with. It is important to explain to students that it is not necessary to write all parts in the order in which they will appear in the thesis, in particular as regards the introduction, which can well be written last, when all the rest is finalised. In other words, the order in which the different chapters are written is not critical. I recommend that students write what they see as consistent entities, starting with the theoretical part (about one third of the thesis in volume), and then move on to the empirical part. Students present their work to their supervisors regularly, and their progress is discussed. At present, with Internet and e-mail, communication is easier, but some students may flood supervisors with messages virtually every day, so that a few rules must be agreed upon from the start. I undertake to read everything that students write, though it is clear on both sides that texts sent to me are drafts and may have to be rewritten. In the beginning, supervisors should be very positive and help motivate students so that they feel encouraged to put their ideas on paper. The supervisor’s feedback is on substance, but also on form, as students often use newspaper style rather than scientific style. The use of citations and paraphrases, the number of examples given in the thesis, the structure and length of the various chapters, the students’ tentative conclusions, etc. are discussed. If the student’s ideas are in contradiction with the supervisor’s but the student can present a rationale to explain them, the supervisor accepts them but warns the student that they will have to be justified at the viva. Sometimes, when students only hand in a few isolated pages from different chapters of the thesis, it may be difficult for the supervisor to get a good sense of the whole text. I recommend that after finishing a first draft of their thesis, students set it aside for a while and then read it again. Likewise, it is important for the supervisor who has only seen bits and pieces of a thesis to have an opportunity to read it as a whole before it is submitted officially.

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2.9 Last preparations and the viva Once the thesis is written up, whenever possible (often, students do their work at the very last minute), a final check is made to ascertain that it contains all the required elements: the students’ declaration that all texts used from the literature are listed in the references, the table of contents, the introduction, the different chapters in the order in which they are announced (starting with the theoretical part, the description of the method or methods used, the empirical part, the corpus), the conclusions, an abstract in the student’s native tongue and in the relevant foreign language, the list of references, and if case need be, tables and appendices. When the thesis is completed, two bound copies are handed in to the secretariat. The supervisor receives one and must read it and write an assessment. Those students who have consulted regularly with their supervisor have a general idea of the content and tone of his comments, but the opponent may have different views. In fact, this opponent’s assessment is also an evaluation of the supervisor’s work, since the latter may have omitted or neglected this or that aspect of the work, be it a relevant variable, hypothesis or the like. The student receives these two assessments and prepares his/her response, to be given at the viva. During the viva, students present their thesis, describe their hypotheses and objectives, as well as their methods, and respond to criticism included in the assessments and to questions from the examiners. This is where the supervisor’s task ends, until the next thesis.

Reference bibliography on interpreting research This bibliography is distributed to students in the framework of the research methodology seminar. It is updated every year. Note that all students have already attended lectures on interpreting theory during 3rd year (26 hours of lectures over the 5th semester), and are familiar with the main authors and their publications. Gambier, Y., Gile, D. and Taylor, C. (eds). 1997. Conference Interpreting: Current Trends in Research. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Gile, D. 1989. “Perspectives de la recherche dans l´enseignement de l´interprétation.” In The Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Teaching Conference Interpreting, Gran, L. and Dodds, J. (eds), 27–33. Udine: Campanotto Editore. Gile, D. 1991. “Methodological Aspects of Interpretation (and Translation) Research.” Target 3(2): 153–174.

MA theses in Prague

Gile, D. 1994. “Methodological aspects of interpretation and translation research”. In Bridging the Gap: Empirical Research on Simultaneous Interpretation, Lambert, S. and Moser-Mercer, B. (eds), 39–56. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Gile, D. 1995a. Basic concepts and models for interpreter and translator training. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Gile, D. 1995b. Regards sur la recherche en interprétation de conférence. Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille. Gile, D. 1995c. “La lecture critique en traductologie”. Meta 40(1): 5–14. Gile, D. 1997. “Interpretation Research: Realistic Expectations”. In Transferre Necesse Est. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Current Trends in Studies of Translation and Interpreting, 5–7 September, 1996, Budapest, Hungary, Klaudy K. and Kohn, J. (eds), 43–51. Budapest: Scholastica. Gile, D. 1998. “Observational Studies and Experimental Studies in the Investigation of Conference Interpreting”. Target 10(1): 69–93. Gile, D. 1999a. “Variability in the perception of fidelity in simultaneous interpreting”. Hermes 22: 51–79. Gile, D. 1999b. “Use and misuse of the literature in interpreting research”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 9: 29–43. Gran, L. and Dodds, J. (eds). 1989. The Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Teaching Conference Interpreting. Udine: Campanotto Editore. Gran, L. and Taylor, C. (eds). 1990. Aspects of Applied and Experimental Research on Conference Interpreting. Udine: Campanotto Editore. Lambert, S. and Moser-Mercer, B. (eds). 1994. Bridging the Gap: Empirical Research on Simultaneous Interpretation. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Lederer, M. 1981. La traduction simultanée (expérience et théorie). Lettres modernes Minard: Paris. Moser-Mercer, B. (ed.) (1996, 1997, 1998, 1999). Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Pöchhacker, F. 1995a. “”Those Who Do…” A profile of Research(ers) in Interpreting”. Target 7(1): 47–64. Pöchhacker, F. 1995b. “Writings and Research on Interpreting: A Bibliographic Analysis”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 6: 17–32. Rejšková, J. 1999. “Establishing a Correlation between Performance in Consecutive Interpreting and Potentially Good Performance in Simultaneous Interpreting”. Folia Translatologica vol. 6: 41–60. Seleskovitch, D. 1975. Langage, langues et mémoire. Lettres modernes Minard: Paris. Setton, R. 1999. Simultaneous Interpretation. A cognitive-pragmatic analysis. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Snell-Hornby, M. 1988. Translation Studies: An Integrated Approach. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Target 7(1). 1995. Special Issue on Interpreting Research, guest-edited by Daniel Gile. The Interpreters’ Newsletters. EUT: Trieste. Tommola, J. (ed). 1995. Topics in Interpretation research. Turku: Centre for Translation and Interpreting.

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More generally, students are also referred to: –

–

–

The journals available at the library of the Institute of Translation Studies, namely Target, The Interpreters’ Newsletter, Meta, The IRN Bulletin, Babel, ToP, Interpreting, Parallèles, Hermes, Folia Translatologica, Tetradi perevodtchika. Proceedings of recent international conferences on interpreting research such as the meetings held in Turku, Prague, Vienna, Stockholm, Elsinore, Trieste, Saarbrücken, Budapest, etc. Previous MA theses completed at the Institute of Translation Studies, by I. Muller, D. Lazarovová, L. Sitárová, L. Šebánková, K. Židkovová, R. Varga, J. Rajmon, I. Murasová, T. Buchtele, J. Šatavová, M. Kurillová, I. Šípalová, D. Prˇichystalová, L. Joachimová, V. Jarolím, V. Kumstátová, P. Zárubová, etc.

References Cˇenˇková, I. 1980. Shody a rozdíly mezi prˇekladatelským a tlumocˇnickým procesem (Differences between and similarities in translation and interpretation processes), FF UK Praha, PhDr. thesis. Cˇenˇková, I. 1985. Teoretické aspekty procesu simultánního tlumocˇení (Theoretical aspects of the simultaneous interpreting process), FF UK Praha, CSc.thesis. Cˇenˇková, I. 1995. “La recherche en interprétation dans les pays d´Europe de l´Est: une perspective personnelle.” Target 7(1): 75–89. ISO 690. 1985. Bibliographic References. Gile, D. 1997. “Interpretation Research: Realistic Expectations.” In Transferre Necesse Est. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Current Trends in Studies of Translation and Interpreting, 5–7 September, 1996, Budapest, Hungary Kinga, K. and Kohn, J. (eds), 43–51. Budapest: Scholastica. Gile, D. 1999a. “Variability in the perception of fidelity in simultaneous interpreting.” Hermes 22: 51–79. Gile, D. 1999b. “Use and misuse of the literature in interpreting research.” The Interpreters’ Newsletter 9: 29–43. Jettmarová, Z. 1992. Pokyny pro vypracování diplomové práce (Recommendations for the MA thesis). Internal document. Prague: Institute of Translation Studies. Jettmarová, Z.1998. Zpracování diplomového úkolu (How to write an MA thesis). Internal document. Prague: Institute of Translation Studies. Norma CˇSN 01 0197 (1971) Bibliografické citace (Bibliographic citations) Rejšková, J. 1999. “Establishing a Correlation between Performance in Consecutive Interpreting and Potentionally Good Performance in Simultaneous Interpreting.” Folia Translatologica vol. 6: 41–60. Sofr, O. 1978. Analýza procesu tlumocˇení (Analysis of the interpreting process), FF UK Praha. PhDr. thesis.



MA theses in Prague

Synek, M. and Sedlácˇková, H. 1994. Diplomová práce. Metodický návod jak psát diplomové a seminární práce (Degree theses. A methodological handbook on writing theses and seminar papers), Praha: VŠE.

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Interpretation research at the SSLMIT of Trieste Past, present and future* Alessandra Riccardi, Anna Giambagli and Mariachiara Russo SSLMIT — University of Trieste, Italy

1.

How research developed

Flexibility has always been a key notion in the history of the SSLMIT of Trieste (Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori), since the Faculty first appeared in embryonic form as a special course for translators and interpreters within the Faculty of Economics and Business Studies of the University of Trieste almost 50 years ago. Its development into a fully-fledged University Faculty in 1978 required not only institutional changes but also the capacity of the teaching staff to conform to the teaching and research standards of the new university setting. In particular, it was necessary to integrate the exclusively practical aspect of teaching interpretation, successfully applied thus far to the training of interpreters, with a theoretical underpinning based on interpretation research, the condition sine qua non for the School to be a Faculty in anything more than name. It was essentially the transformation of the Interpreters’ School into a Faculty in its own right which created the need and the interest for research. Interpreting teachers suddenly found themselves university lecturers and it was the job of the newly-appointed Dean of the Faculty, flanked by three other full professors involved in setting up the new course of studies, to encourage research. The Dean, Franco Crevatin, professor of linguistics with a background in classical languages, always encouraged the new university staff to devote much of their time to research, an area in which they were comparatively inexperienced. His support and guidance was helpful, tireless, friendly and always insistent, in the teeth of resistance from colleagues who still remained within the ‘Interpreters’ School’ tradition, denying the

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importance of research into interpretation. Alongside this process of friendly persuasion, new impetus was given by members of staff coming from the more traditional academic world, usually linguists and translators, who were joining the school and were able to offer their own experience and contribute to research conceived as teamwork. The history of research at the SSLMIT of Trieste may be divided into three stages. The first began with the creation of the Faculty in 1978 and lasted until the end of the 1980s, the second refers to the 1990s, and the third, which will be discussed in Section 4, began in 1998 with the creation of the Department of Language, Interpretation and Translation Studies (DSLIT). The first stage saw the recognition within the Italian university system of interpreting and translation not only as professions but as academic disciplines subject to the rigours of scientific analysis, with the concomitant flourishing of international conferences and publication of research work by the teaching staff. Research at the SSLMIT has been the result of individual interest and intellectual curiosity concerning different aspects of both the process and the product of interpreting. Although there always were (and still are) continual contacts between the research staff on distinct areas such as transcription and analysis of oral texts, interpreting strategies and tactics and the application of linguistic theories to interpretation, each researcher has always been free to choose her/his own area of investigation and methodological approach. There was and still is, therefore, no ‘Trieste School of Thought’ nor any set interpreting model or teaching methodology. Although this basic attitude sometimes implies overlapping of research interests, it provided good ground for new ideas and original approaches. The opportunity to meet researchers in other fields when the School became a Faculty, the incentives offered by the first Dean to organize meetings with scholars from other disciplines, the desire to investigate the processes and products of interpretation, different personalities with different interests proceeding towards similar goals and the cooperation they were able to achieve, all contributed to an interest in research which has never waned. The early research activity of the SSLMIT staff reflected professional and teaching experience and concentrated on aspects of the teaching of consecutive interpretation (CI) (Gran 1981, 1982; Brozich-Lipizer 1981) of simultaneous interpretation (SI) (Lebhar Politi 1981; Boschian Schiavon 1983a, 1983b; Meak 1983) as well as on conference interpreting (Meak 1981; Snelling 1983). The first major research initiative taken by Franco Crevatin, Laura Gran and John Dodds was the organization of an international conference on conference interpreting in 1986. There had only been one previous conference

Interpretation research at the SSLMIT of Trieste

on interpreting, the Nato conference in 1977 in Venice, the idea of which was to bring researchers from different disciplines together to talk about interpreting research and new developments. The Trieste conference went further in that scholars were asked to concentrate on teaching issues in interpreting. The conference was called The Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Teaching Conference Interpretation (Gran and Dodds 1989) and was designed to bring professionals and academics together to a forum for discussion of how interpretation research and theory may be used to enhance teaching practice and, consequently, the profession itself.1 Around 1985, Laura Gran — who together with Lidia Meak, Vesta Boschian Schiavon, Giuliana Brozich Lipizer, Monique Lebhar Politi, Monika Maria Mechel, Edith Spiller Bosatra and David Snelling made up the original interpreting teaching staff of the SSLMIT — began to work on a new research area in an interdisciplinary context with the Institute of Physiology. Bringing together interests in language representation in the brain from a clinical point of view (i.e. studying aphasia, dyslexia etc.) and mental functions and their interaction in the interpreting process, Laura Gran, first with Antonio Bava and then with Franco Fabbro, began experimental studies with techniques such as dichotic listening, mental-manual coordination and dual tasks, which forcibly activated or inactivated one or the other cerebral hemisphere (Gran and Fabbro 1988, 1991; Fabbro et al. 1990, 1991). The literature on the subject of language representation in the brain produced very contradictory findings at the time, and the studies by Gran and Fabbro indicated that the whole brain is involved in the interpreting process. In particular, they found that the activation of certain cerebral areas in language comprehension and production differed from what had been formerly believed and that, apparently, there was a shift of language competence from one to the other cerebral hemisphere during language acquisition and training in interpreting. The aspects that gradually came into the picture were the role of memory (Gran 1990), the role of attentive strategies in the course of the process (Gran and Fabbro 1988; Gran 1989) and the acquisition of automatized reactions and strategies for certain parts of the interpreting process (Gran 1989). The success of this research lay in the convergence of interests on interpreting problems seen from different angles, neurophysiology on the one hand and interpreting on the other. Interpreting is a skill that requires the creation and activation of new neural circuits, as is the case for other complex tasks involving conscious and unconscious procedural skills in which different functions are coordinated. The different cerebral organization of languages during language

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acquisition may, therefore, influence the subsequent creation of neural circuits during the acquisition of interpreting skills. By shedding light on the complex mechanisms underlying bilingualism, language acquisition and cerebral language organization in bilinguals, Laura Gran’s research (1989, 1992) promoted a new awareness of possible approaches to the teaching of interpreting based on the kind of bilingual students involved. In those years, students began taking an active part in experimental research both as tested subjects and as co-researchers, and this awakened a greater interest in scientific investigations within the Faculty, not only in the neuropsychological aspects of the interpreting process, but also in other research areas (Gran and Taylor 1990; Snelling 1992). The second research stage of the SSLMIT is represented by the 1990s which witnessed a further evolution within the SSLMIT as former students were recruited as interpreter trainers going through the usual procedures of public competition’s exams. Thus, it was possible for them to continue lines of research already begun as students or find new areas of investigation. Young graduates who show an authentic interest in research are presented with a wide choice of opportunities and are encouraged to pursue their interpretation studies. They are also encouraged to take part in international conferences and workshops under the guidance of senior colleagues. The result has been a constant development of methodologies with an eye to the needs of new teaching, research and professional realities. During consecutive and simultaneous interpretation courses, theoretical concepts and models of interpreting, resulting from interdisciplinary research in linguistics, neurophysiology and psychologuistics, are integrated with practical aspects of actual interpreting. Before continuing the description of the history of interpretation research at the SSLMIT, reference must be made to the Italian academic context and recruitment system which has, to a certain extent, influenced events. The SSLMIT staff has always included professional interpreters. They were first employed temporarily on a private contract basis, but then became tenured university lecturers and professors after following the traditional procedures of public competition for the recruitment of Italian university teaching staff. Within the Italian university recruitment system promotion follows public competition and an assessment of publications. Thus, promotion is impossible if teaching experience and professional activity are not accompanied by research. At this stage, the desire to enter a university setting played an influential role in the development of research at the SSLMIT, which is not, however, sufficient to explain the subsequent flourishing of research. Career pressure

Interpretation research at the SSLMIT of Trieste

favours publication from the quantitative though not necessarily from the qualitative point of view.

2. The Italian academic context Since the University reform in 1980, three levels of career structure have come into being, integrating and changing the composition of university staff. The former ‘assistant’ (assistente
) has been replaced by the ‘research assistant’ (ricercatore
) and professorships have been divided into ‘full professors’ (professori di prima fascia
) and ‘associate professors’ (professori di seconda fascia
). Candidates for a post as research assistants must have at least a first level university degree but preference is given to those with a PhD. Initial selection is based on the evaluation of publications by a 3-member commission, followed by a second part which consists of a written examination. Selected candidates have an oral interview. Successful candidates are called by the Faculty and are employed as research assistants for an initial three-year period. Once the period has expired, a new commission examines their research activity and may confirm the appointment by conferring tenure. If the evaluation is not positive, they are re-assessed after two years and the assessment may be either positive or negative. Once they have a tenured post, research assistants may also take on teaching responsibilities. Similar procedures are envisaged for the other two levels, associate professor and full professor. Candidates for associate professorship — after selection on the basis of research, teaching and professional activity by a 5-member commission (2 associate and 3 full professors) — undergo a two-part oral examination. First, there is a discussion of research work, while, in the second part, the candidates are required to give a one hour-lecture on a topic selected from the five put forward by the commission. Three years after appointment, both teaching and research activity is evaluated by a 3-member commission. Finally, public competition for a full professorship consists in the evaluation of the candidates’ research, teaching and professional activity by a commission of 5 full professors. After three years’ activity, teaching and relevant publications are evaluated by another 3-member commission and then, if their judgement is positive, tenure is conferred. Otherwise — as may also happen at the associate level — there will be a new evaluation after two years, which again may be positive or negative.

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3. Research, didactics and the graduation thesis As already stated, many of our interpreting staff have become increasingly motivated by the university status of the SSLMIT and have actively engaged in research over the years, thus integrating the practical aspects of interpreting with a sound theoretical grounding. The result has been a beneficial influence on the didactic component: teaching consecutive and simultaneous interpreting now means training students not solely through savoir-faire but also through savoir. In other words, interpreting staff, while drawing widely upon their professional experience, supplement it with relevant input produced by research in order better to design a stepwise, targetted and carefully thought-out methodology for strategy acquisition and further the students’ awareness of and sensitivity to the overall linguistic and non-linguistic mechanisms involved in the interpretation process. In this sense, some didactic initiatives, such as the Introductory Seminars to Interpretation, which aim at highlighting the different volets of conference interpreting within a coherent pragmatic and theoretical framework of interpretation, have proved extremely useful and successful. Since 1993, these 40-hour seminars have been regularly held at the beginning of or during the year for all students irrespective of language combinations. They are centered on various topics specifically related to research on CI and SI and on more general issues relevant to conference interpreting, such as interpretation as communication, the conference as a communicative event, the different interpretation modes, reformulation, sight translation, differences between CI and SI, information retention and note-taking in CI, the interplay between long-term and short-term memory both in CI and SI, memory and attention, general and language-specific strategies in SI, the contribution of neuroscience to conference interpreting, remote interpreting, media interpreting and liaison interpreting. The contributions have been collected to form an introductory volume on interpreting which combines theoretical foundations and didactic methodologies (Falbo et al. 1999). Over the last 15 years, research has gained in importance not only within individual or joint research projects of the interpreting staff but also as a component of the graduation theses resulting from close cooperation between supervisors and students. Whereas theses in the late 1980s still concentrated on glossaries and linguistically-based analysis, there has been a gradual shift towards the investigation of specific interpreting features so that most theses now show greater awareness of experimental research issues. An overview of the stages involved in the preparation of a thesis will illustrate how this came about.

Interpretation research at the SSLMIT of Trieste

At the SSLMIT, after the final exams (CI and SI tests), the students must demonstrate competence in managing a given field of investigation under the guidance of a supervisor and a co-supervisor by means of a thesis, which is the last stage of their university career. It is generally the student who first contacts a teacher as her/his supervisor, and then a co-supervisor is chosen, depending on the subject matter of the thesis and thus on her/his specific or complementary expertise. In the case of highly technical subject-matters, an external expert is sometimes involved as well. The student her/himself often states her/his interest in a given subject; considerable time is therefore devoted to discussing ideas on the subject and the feasibility of the project. The work extends over a period of 12 months on average. The supervisor, who assumes primary responsibility for the work, regularly meets the student, together with the co-supervisor or separately, about once a month or more often, to set the basic guidelines, to define the overall plan and the different sections and chapters and critically assess the work in progress. The main body of the thesis may be written in a foreign language but Italian is the rule. There are periods in the year when students work on their own, while more frequent contacts are required during the later stages of their work. The nature and the frequency of contacts may vary from candidate to candidate depending on their capacity to organize their work themselves. There is, therefore, no fixed schedule for the meetings. On graduation day, the supervisor and the co-supervisor present the candidate and her/his work before an 11-member panel (as prescribed by Italian law) which expresses a joint evaluation based upon the objectives-methodology-results as defended by the candidate. Each member may give up to 10 points, hence the candidate may obtain up to 110 points overall. In case of an excellent thesis, the student receives full marks cum laude. The topic selected for a thesis is almost invariably consistent with the supervisor’s research area(s) and interest(s). Accordingly, the results achieved can sometimes provide additional insight to expand her/his own field of investigation. In most cases the supervisor is a teacher from the Interpretation section, and so is the co-supervisor, although in some instances one or both may belong to another section of the School (usually the Language section) according to the specific subject. The period spent on a thesis may indeed be considered an advanced stage of learning as far as theoretical issues of interpretation are concerned. Consequently, guidance is given to students to help them overcome difficulties such as identifying the correct methodological approach (materials and methods), selecting and organizing relevant bibliographical sources, focussing and sequencing the different chapters and mastering the

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written code, since for years they have been giving absolute priority to oral expression. It has been amply demonstrated that a talented young interpreter may actually not be endowed with the abilities and capacities needed for research. The opposite also applies. The topics selected at the SSLMIT may be subdivided into three main categories. Linguistic, pragmatic and descriptive interpretation studies account for 60% (e.g. specific aspects of language use for interpreting purposes; culturebound and intercultural aspects in discourse, strategies for the simultaneous interpretation of films), while glossaries, which are sometimes requested and published by the Documentation Service of the European Commission (e.g. Agriculture, Environment, Transport, Insurance) account for 25%. Experimental studies in interpretation account for about 15% (e.g. cognitive aspects of note-taking in CI, error analysis, preparatory excercises to interpretation, comparing and contrasting the different interpretation modes). Experimental research is generally very exacting and time-consuming, all the more so because no specific courses in research methodology are held for the students embarking upon a research thesis. Consequently, this line of investigation is recommended to those few students who really are researchoriented, possibly with an interest in a university career. As a follow-up to the work initiated with their theses, three of our former students now have a fouryear contract at the SSLMIT as research assistants (see Section 5 below) and two are currently following a PhD programme on simultaneous interpreting in Great Britain. Most graduates, however, leave the SSLMIT and look for jobs as interpreters or other high-profile jobs consistent with their course of study. The close cooperation between supervisor and co-supervisor sometimes mirrors, or is conducive to, a shared or complementary research activity. While research at the SSLMIT is conducted on a free, flexible basis following specific individual interests, joint research projects are currently underway as well (i.e. corpus-based research on orality in the interpretation process, interpreting for the media), where the participation of colleagues outside the Interpretation section is no longer the exception. As a consequence, significant thesis results are being fed back into training and sometimes even lead to the introduction of new courses. A course in public speaking was set up as part of a pilot study for a thesis on public speaking and its relevance to consecutive training (Bottan 1998). The way was, thus, paved for this year’s Course on Public Speaking run by an external expert, tailored to fostering extra-linguistic competence (non-verbal elements of oral communication) in consecutive interpretation by means of video recording. These initiatives also function as

Interpretation research at the SSLMIT of Trieste

precious validation tools of individual and/or joint research studies. In addition, there is a constant exchange of ideas and experiences among the teaching and research staff of the SSLMIT, and debates are organized in the form of internal conferences with the participation of students and guests from international organizations to focus discussion on interpreting studies and issues (Gran and Riccardi 1997; Viezzi 1999). As a corollary to specific training courses, in 1999 an Introduction to Statistics Methodology — lasting 10 hours — was conducted by a statistics expert with the objective of familiarizing students, especially those at the end of their studies, with the principles of statistical investigation with special regard to interpretation; psycholinguistically-based statistical methodology is indeed best suited to our needs in interpreting studies. The course, with an extended programme, has been repeated in the academic year 1999–2000; in future, it will possibly be included in the official SSLMIT curriculum. Research activities are now effectively coordinated by the newly established Department of Language, Interpretation and Translation Studies with the additional objective of fostering interdisciplinary research, which represents the beginning of the third research stage at the SSLMIT.

4. The Department of Language, Interpretation and Translation Studies Since December 1998, the SSLMIT has been included in a wider institutional framework, the Department of Language, Interpretation and Translation Studies (Dipartimento di Scienze del Linguaggio, Interpretazione e Traduzione — DSLIT). Affiliation is open to any professor, lecturer or researcher of the University of Trieste. This widens the scope of interaction between individuals committed to common research areas at the University of Trieste. The majority of the SSLMIT teaching staff belongs to the DSLIT. The DSLIT is the new coordinating body for research at the SSLMIT, both academically and administratively. It assesses individuals’ requirements and optimizes the management of human and financial resources allocated for its functioning. Its organizational structure envisages a Head of Department, a Department Board, a Departmental Committee, a Secretary and a Research Coordinator, who acts as a link between the Head and researchers and provides an updated overview of the research projects underway, pointing out academic areas and problems of common interest for the best possible use of available resources. The Departmental Committee suggests the general fields of research,

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with full respect, however, for individual researchers’ freedom. In particular, the prerogatives of this body relating to research include laying down the criteria for the use of funds (allocated to the Department by the University of Trieste and the Ministry for University and Scientific and Technological Research) and coordinating the use of personnel, equipment and facilities, the annual plan of research projects and the Head’s report on individual research activities. At the beginning of the academic year, it approves researchers’ academic projects and the programme of conferences, meetings, seminars and other initiatives associated with research organized by the Department. With respect to research facilities, the DSLIT is well equipped for experiments in interpretation (booths, computers, language laboratories, dual-track recorders etc.). As for specific experiments, whether neurolinguistic, psycholinguistic or otherwise, the equipment has so far been provided by our partners in the research project. However, the need is felt for supplementing existing equipment, given the ever-increasing number of researchers in our Faculty, and for more technologically-advanced hardware and software, especially in the field of voice and oral text recording and analysis. Furthermore, constant technical support for software applications and statistical analysis by specialized in-house technicians is deemed advisable.

5. Current research projects At present, the Interpreting section of the SSLMIT comprises 14 permanent staff members, including 2 full professors, 8 associate professors and 4 research assistants, who are personally engaged in research activities. Their academic commitment also includes the supervision of students’ experimental theses whose results may contribute to their own respective research projects (see Section 3). There are several research projects currently underway. The main areas are Conference Interpreting, Court Interpreting, Media Interpreting, Liaison Interpreting and Sign Language Interpreting. The majority of the projects relate to the first three areas: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Oral language analysis applied to interpretation corpora French: oral discourse in speech and writing Aptitude testing for conference interpreting Delivery and presentation in CI Interpreting from Spanish into Italian: error analysis and classification Recovery strategies and classification of additions

Interpretation research at the SSLMIT of Trieste

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Attention and concentration aspects in SI Role of short-term memory in SI Linguistic and cognitive strategies in SI Interpreting in political and judiciary institutions Dialogue interpreting and interpreter-mediated media events Electronic tools for translators/interpreters Languages for special purposes: cognitive mechanism acquisition and processing strategies

Recently, a new kind of research assistantship has been introduced into the Italian Higher Education System, the research assistant on a short-term contract (titolare di assegno di ricerca
), namely a researcher who receives a research grant for 4 years subject to the implementation of a specific research project agreed upon with a member of the Faculty, who then acts as advisor and project coordinator. This grant is open to any graduate who has won a public competitive examination. Unlike traditional research assistants who are permanent staff members and might also have teaching responsibilities once they acquire tenure, these new researchers are exclusively committed to their specific research projects and once the term expires and the project is finished they may be employed elsewhere. The Interpreting section of the SSLMIT has three such new researchers: one is involved in a project to develop a Computerized Interpreters’ Resource Information System, the second in a project involving the empirical validation of specific hypotheses on cognitive and linguistic strategies particularly relevant to the German-Italian language combination, while the third is carrying out a project on aptitude for conference interpreting with a view to developing a wider range of tests to be validated both in terms of predictiveness and costeffectiveness.

6. Concluding remarks Research at the SSLMIT has developed along similar lines to that of other Interpretation Schools around the world, except for one particular feature. Its specificity lies in the fact that, over the years, the whole teaching staff have engaged, to a greater or lesser extent, in interpreting research, creating a research network comprising individual as well as joint research lines. Various stages of research were necessary before it established its autonomy rather than

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being a complement to interpreting teaching. The first stage of research reflected personal experience in the profession and in teaching and was instrumental to a university career. Thanks to the pioneering work of the SSLMIT staff and their personal commitment, the second stage witnessed the integration of young researchers and the further development of research projects and experimental theses. Now, in the third stage, the DSLIT represents a research structure designed to grant even more autonomy to interpreting research. Research may once have been motivated by career prospects but it now reflects the desire to belong to a wider national and international research community as a framework and testing ground for insight gained from professional practice, research work and extensive reading. Since the creation of the SSLMIT, the staff have shown a flexible attitude towards the changes entailed in interpreting teaching, without which research into interpreting would not have been possible.

Notes * Although the article is a result of joint discussion, Riccardi is the author of Section 1–2, Giambagli of Section 3 and Russo of Sections 4–5. Section 6 was written jointly. 1. As a follow up to the Conference, 1988 saw the first of the annual publications The Interpreters’ Newsletter, the aim of which was to continue the exchange of information on research activity set up during the conference. The editors were Laura Gran and John Dodds (1988–1992), Laura Gran and David Snelling (1993–1998), and since 1999 have been Alessandra Riccardi and Maurizio Viezzi.

References Boschian Schiavon, V. 1983a. Interpretazione simultanea di discorso letto [Monografie n. 8]. Trieste: SSLMIT. Boschian Schiavon, V. 1983b. Velocità di parola e interpretazione simultanea [Monografie n. 20]. Trieste: SSLMIT. Bottan, L. 1998. La presentazione nell’interpretazione consecutiva: come sviluppare un’attività di base. Unpublished graduation thesis. Trieste: SSLMIT. Brozich-Lipizer, G. 1981. L’interpretazione consecutiva: considerazioni sulla versione tedescoitaliana. Trieste: SSLMIT. Fabbro, F., Gran, L., Basso, G. and Bava, A. 1990. “Cerebral lateralization in simultaneous interpretation”. Brain and Language 39: 69–89.



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Fabbro, F., Gran, B. and Gran, L. 1991. “Hemispheric specialization for semantic and syntactic components of language in simultaneous interpreters”. Brain and Language 41: 1–42. Falbo, C., Russo, M. and Straniero, F. (eds) 1999. Interpretazione simultanea e consecutiva — problemi teorici e metodologie didattiche. Milano: Hoepli. Gran, L. 1981. “La tecnica dell’interpretazione consecutiva”. Scuola e Lingue Moderne 3: 54–58. Gran, L. 1982. Annotazioni grafiche nell’interpretazione consecutiva. Trieste: SSLMIT. Gran, L. 1989. “Interdisciplinary research on cerebral asymmetries: significance and prospects for the teaching of interpretation”. In The Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Teaching Conference Interpretation, L. Gran and J. Dodds (eds). Udine: Campanotto. Gran, L. 1990. “Interaction between memory and note-taking in consecutive interpretation”. In Übersetzungswissenschaft und Sprachmittlerausbildung, H. Salevsky (ed.). Berlin: Humboldt Universität. Gran, L. 1992. Aspetti dell’organizzazione cerebrale del linguaggio: dal monolinguismo all’interpretazione simultanea. Udine: Campanotto. Gran, L. and Dodds, J. (eds) 1989. The Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Teaching Conference Interpretation. Udine: Campanotto. Gran, L. and Fabbro, F. 1988. “The role of neuroscience in the teaching of interpretation”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 1: 23–41. Gran, L. and Fabbro, F. 1991. “A dichotic-listening study on error recognition among professional interpreters”. In Translation, a Creative Profession [Proceedings of the XII World Congress of FIT], M. Jovanovic (ed.). Belgrade: Prevodilac. Gran, L. and Riccardi, A. (eds) 1997. Nuovi orientamenti negli studi sull’interpretazione. Trieste: SSLMIT. Gran, L. and Taylor, C. 1990. Aspects of Applied and Experimental Research on Conference Interpretation. Udine: Campanotto. Lebhar Politi, M. 1981. L’interprétation simultanée de l’italien au français: Apprentissage. Trieste: SSLMIT. Meak, L. 1981. L’interprete al congresso: Proposte per una metodologia di lavoro. Trieste: SSLMIT. Meak, L. 1983. La selezione dell’informazione per l’interpretazione simultanea della letteratura medica. Trieste: SSLMIT. Snelling, D. 1983. Interpretation: Theory vs Practice. Trieste: SSLMIT. Snelling, D. 1992. Strategies for Simultaneous Interpretation: from Romance Languages into English. Udine: Campanotto. Viezzi, M. (ed.) 1999. Quality Forum 1997. Esperienze, Problemi, Prospettive [SERT 13]. Trieste: SSLMIT.

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Small projects in interpretation research Ingrid Kurz University of Vienna, Austria

1.

Introduction

Although I have implemented some extensive research projects (Pinter 1969; Kurz 1996) and have participated in large-scale interdisciplinary research involving more than one university department, e.g. EEG mapping during simultaneous interpreting (Kurz 1994, 1995, 1996; Petsche & Etlinger 1998), much of my research work has focused on small projects. The following article basically draws on my experience with small projects in interpretation research, which are the outcome of my long-standing interest and efforts as a ‘one-person research team’. I will try to show that even small, simple projects can contribute significantly to the knowledge of interpretation because the field is still largely unexplored. The examples I have chosen include small studies that have triggered off subsequent large-scale investigations. This shows that it is possible for an individual researcher to set things in motion. While it is true that systematic, comprehensive studies may require the cooperative efforts of a research team (quite often interdisciplinary in nature) and presuppose the availability of an adequate infrastructure, small, well-designed studies, too, can yield valuable results and new insights. Of course, there are a great many studies by other authors that could have served as illustrative examples and would have merited to be quoted. Daniel Gile, in particular, has been advocating the usefulness of small research projects for years: “As far as research methodology is concerned, priority should be given to small, simple and practical projects directly useful to the interpreters engaged in them” (Gile 1990a: 226). He has also suggested a number of interesting topics and observational and experimental projects to be pursued. Since a selection has to be made for any article, however, I have opted for presenting the material that I am most familiar with — i.e. my own.1 Besides,

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the reasons that motivated me to embark upon a project may not apply to other researchers. Notwithstanding these constraints, I hope this personal account, which is mainly directed at young researchers, will provide them with some useful pointers or guideposts and will help them avoid some of the snags and pitfalls along the way.

2. General remarks The first question that comes to mind is: Why would anybody want to devote time and effort to do research into (the art, craft, science of) interpretation in the first place? As far as I am concerned, there is only one legitimate answer: curiosity. The desire to find answers to such questions as why? how? what — if? A similar view is held by Gile (1990a: 227): Why should interpreters, who are practitioners but not scientists, engage in research on their profession? Firstly, interpretation, and in particular simultaneous interpretation, is an unusual activity which generates curiosity and raises questions — it is only natural that interpreters would want to understand its processes. Furthermore, some insight into the processes is necessary in order to establish principles and methods for training purposes.

If curiosity is the motivation underlying your efforts as a young researcher, you should not have any problem in finding a topic. More likely, the problem is going to be one of narrowing down the scope of your investigation. My first advice, therefore, is: Watch out that you are not trying to do too much. I have witnessed repeatedly that one of the mistakes every young, fledgling researcher invariably makes is that he/she tries to discover it all. I had a student at the University of Vienna whose first idea for an MA thesis was to describe the changes in the English language in the 20th century. And he was not joking! I pointed out that more books than he would probably want to read had already been published on this subject and asked him whether he wanted to spend the better part of his life researching this intriguing topic or whether he was interested in getting his MA. (He ultimately wound up writing a thesis about community interpreting in medical settings, by the way.) I realize that some MA and PhD students find themselves in a very special situation. They are students in a university department that has its own welldefined research programme. Their supervisors expect them to pursue the line

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of research they themselves are interested in. This, of course, has its drawbacks as well as its advantages. The drawbacks are that you have to toe the line. You may not be able to pursue your own ideas or interests. The advantages are that you are integrated in a research community — with all the infrastructural support this involves. Obviously, those working in a setting as described above are not the primary target group of this article because they are already embedded in a research community. My contribution is addressed to those in search of a worthwhile research topic that can be successfully covered by an individual researcher within a reasonable time-frame. Let me stress from the start that I do not want anybody to get the idea that small research projects are easy sailing. They definitely do not imply less stringent or exacting scientific standards and must follow a well-defined series of steps. First, a problem is identified and relevant information or data is being gathered by careful observation of the phenomenon being studied. On the basis of that information a preliminary generalization, or hypothesis, is formulated, and the hypothesis is empirically tested. If the conclusions drawn from the original hypothesis successfully meet all these tests, the hypothesis becomes accepted as a scientific theory; if additional facts are in disagreement with the hypothesis, it may be modified or discarded in favour of a new hypothesis, which is then subjected to further tests. Even an accepted theory may eventually be overthrown if enough evidence comes to light. At the Seminar on Interpreting Research held at Aarhus, Denmark, in 1997, Henning Nølke highlighted the criteria on the basis of which the researcher’s approach can be considered scientific (carefully planned, systematic, impartial, logical, critical, open to sharing of knowledge, communicative), and Daniel Gile reviewed the criteria that ensure consistency and clarity in scientific writing (e.g. well-defined planning and objectives, coherent reasoning, careful checking of facts and citations, explicit statement of sources, overall clarity in stating one’s case, careful checking of the bibliography, …) (Gambetti and Mead 1998). Thus, anybody embarking on a research project — small or large — must be familiar with the ground rules of how to conduct (empirical) research. Would-be researchers lacking this kind of background, even with the very best of intentions, will need to read up on methodology before getting started. Gile (1990a, 1995) stresses the need for methodological guidance and has outlined some strategic principles: Priority should be given to projects which are methodologically simple, small (e.g. case studies and single experiments), and practical (relating to concrete aspects of interpretation).

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Without elaborating on this point, let me briefly recall some of the basic rules, even though they are fairly self-evident: –

–

Before tackling any research project — no matter what its size — you should, of course, have a thorough knowledge of what others have discovered and written about the subject you wish to investigate. Otherwise you might find yourself reinventing the wheel. Formulate your questions and expectations (hypotheses) as clearly as possible. Avoid trying to do too much and keep the number of variables small. Make sure your experimental design does not fall short of scientific standards.

The question I want to discuss in the following is: How do you find topics of interest? I will outline a few approaches which, in my experience, can successfully lead to the design of small research projects. Admittedly, this list is highly subjective and far from complete.

3. Useful approaches for researchers in search of a topic 3.1 Proving (or disproving) an intuitive impression Frequently, intuitive perceptions or impressions, particularly when shared by a large group or even a majority, are automatically viewed as objective truths. Of course, it is not unusual that subjective impressions are confirmed by objective parameters. However, intuitive impressions may also be misleading and may turn out to have face validity only. The only way to find out whether your intuitive, subjective perceptions or impressions are correct is to subject them to an empirical investigation. In fact, this was the approach I took in my first post-doctoral research in the early eighties when I was interested in environmental stress factors, more specifically, the room climate in interpreters’ booths. Adverse environmental conditions, such as high temperatures and humidity, constitute stress factors which are known to adversely affect individual performance (Hoyos 1944; Müller-Limroth 1980; Vaitl 1980) but can be eliminated or at least reduced by appropriate design of the working environment — e.g. by adequate ventilation/air-conditioning. At that time one could frequently hear interpreters complaining about feeling “hot” or “uncomfortable” in the booth. When judging the quality of the room climate, we usually rely on our subjective, intuitive impressions.

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The question I set out to answer was a very simple one: Are interpreters’ complaints about excessive temperatures in the booths justified or not? (Kurz 1981) It was possible that (a) there was indeed a good correlation between the interpreters’ intuitive impression and objective parameters, i.e. actual temperatures, or (b) interpreters’ intuitive impressions were not confirmed by the factual situation, i.e. temperatures might actually be lower than they thought. The experimental design, too, was simple and straightforward: Between the end of September and the beginning of November 1980, temperature measurements in interpreters’ booths were carried out at hourly intervals on a total of 20 conference days to gauge the changes throughout a day as a result of the interpreters’ occupancy of the booths. The investigation included both permanent booths (12 days) and mobile booths (8 days). The results showed that during the course of a conference day (maximum duration 8 hours) the temperature increase in the booths amounted to an average of 5.4 °C. Temperatures at the end of a conference day were around 26.4 °C on the average. It was interesting to note that in virtually all cases the initial temperature rise was very sharp (an average 2.2 °C within the first two hours, 4.7 °C within the first four hours) and temperatures remained high thereafter.There was no substantial decrease after the coffee and lunch breaks either. The temperature increase was generally higher for mobile booths than for permanent booths. This clearly showed that in all these cases the ventilation/air-conditioning was inadequate. A comparison between these objective temperature measurements and the interpreters’ subjective impressions showed that interpreters on the whole were very tolerant of such temperatures, as complaints (“too hot”, “unpleasantly warm”) were only being voiced on 6 days out of 20. I think this example shows that even a very modest investigation (requiring no ‘technology’ other than a thermometer) can yield useful objective data which interpreters can use in support of their argument when asking for an improvement of ventilation/air-conditioning. Of course, it might be argued that at a conference interpreters are not the only ones suffering from high temperatures but that delegates, too, are exposed to these adverse conditions. In order to test the validity of this argument, another study was carried out (Kurz 1983a) for the purpose of obtaining empirical, quantitative data that would permit an answer to the following questions:

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1. How do temperatures inside interpreters’ booths compare with temperatures in the conference room a. at the beginning b. at the end of a conference day? 2. Which of the four following alternatives is most commonly found? a. booth and conference-room temperatures satisfactory b. booth and conference-room temperatures inadmissibly high c. booth temperature higher than conference-room temperature d. conference-room temperature higher than booth temperature 3. Is there a difference between permanent and mobile booths? To this end, booth and conference-room temperature measurements were carried out at the beginning and at the end of a total of 20 conference days between mid-September and mid-November 1981, using two identical commercially available thermometers. As in the previous study, measurements included permanent as well as mobile booths. Again, the findings turned out to be very interesting: While at the beginning of a conference day booth and conference-room temperatures were nearly identical (the average difference being only 0.9 °C), this was no longer true at the end of the day when the average booth temperature was 4.3 °C higher than the average conference-room temperature. Interpreters, therefore, clearly work under more adverse climatic conditions than conference participants. This may help to explain interpreters’ complaints about “feeling groggy” or “uncomfortable” reported by other investigators (Jaggers 1981). The temperature increase for mobile booths was again generally higher than for permanent booths. The study clearly showed that in the cases under review it was neither an overcrowding of the conference room nor the general air-conditioning system that was responsible for the adverse booth climate, as conference-room temperatures were within normal range. Rather, the air-conditioning (or ventilation) system in the booths must have been inadequate. In a third small study carried out from 9–16 July 1983, measurements were extended to a second parameter, humidity, as it is well known that both temperature and relative humidity affect physical comfort and that high temperatures coupled with high relative humidity produce stronger feelings of discomfort than comparable temperatures accompanied by a lower degree of humidity (Kurz and Kolmer 1984). Meteorologists have developed an index reflecting the atmospheric conditions

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of temperature and humidity as a measure of comfort (or discomfort) during warm weather — the water vapour pressure, expressed in mbar. When this index is 16 mbar, most people feel comfortable; at values of 18.6 mbar or more, most are uncomfortable. No sophisticated measuring devices are necessary: The observer simply records temperature and relative humidity (a commercial Moco thermometer/hygrometer was used for all measurements) and looks up the corresponding water vapour pressure or ‘comfort index’ in appropriate tables. Except on two occasions (at the beginning of days 7 and 9) all measurements yielded a comfort index above the critical threshold of 18.6 mbar. These objective findings confirmed that interpreters’ complaints about “mugginess” and “oppressive heat” were justified and demonstrated the need for air-conditioning systems for the booths with sufficient capacity to cope with extreme summer temperatures. There are two reasons why I have described these small studies in fairly great detail. First of all, the AIIC (Association Internationale des Interprètes de Conférence) Technical and Health Committee considered the empirical investigation of environmental stressors that I had initiated with the above studies (plus a pilot study on CO² and O² levels with the use of borrowed equipment) sufficiently interesting to acquire the necessary equipment for the measurement of interior air quality (IAQ), viz. a small, portable Multi Gas Detector, with a view of conducting further similar studies on CO² and O² levels in booths (Kurz 1983b). It was recognized that it is important to have objective measurements of stress factors in the environment in order to be able to present valid arguments in the defence of interpreters’ working conditions — a point that was brought home again in the conflict between AIIC and the Federal Trade Commission. Second, these issues have lost nothing of their topicality. AIIC has commissioned a comprehensive workload study with the aim of investigating the job characteristics and work environment of interpreters in order to gauge the extent of physical and psychological stress under which interpreters work. Temperature, relative humidity and air quality (CO², O²) — factors that were first investigated in carefully designed small studies twenty years ago — are again on the list of parameters consultants have proposed to investigate. Even though a comprehensive workload study would go far beyond the means and capacity of an individual researcher, individual parameters can be

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successfully researched in several small studies, which, taken together, can certainly make a significant contribution to the overall body of knowledge. 3.2 Putting other people’s theories to the test Subjecting somebody else’s theories to close scrutiny is legitimate behaviour in the scientific community. Since there is no such thing as dogmatic truth in science, there is no such thing as heresy. Theory and experiment work together in science, with experiments often leading to new theories which in turn suggest further experiments. My suggestion is to read other people’s publications with an open, critical mind (see also Gile’s paper on critical reading, this volume). Don’t be overawed by what has appeared in print (even if the author is someone who has made a name for himself). There are numerous “personal” theories (Gile 1990b), many of which sound highly plausible but remain untested. The only way to find out whether they have more than face validity is to subject them to an empirical investigation. What tends to impress people who know nothing about interpretation most is the ability of conference interpreters to speak and listen at the same time. Seleskovitch and Lederer (1989: 168) contend that simultaneous speaking and listening is not the real problem in simultaneous interpretation: “Le problème de la simultanée semble être de parvenir à entendre et à parler en même temps. (…) Aujourd’hui on sait que le problème n’est pas d’entendre et de parler en même temps (…)”. Even though this statement sounded plausible to me, particularly since in my PhD research I had found that subjects with different degrees of practice showed significant differences in the skill of simultaneous speaking and listening, I decided to put it to the test. If Seleskovitch and Lederer were right, a longitudinal study would have to show a significant improvement of the skill of simultaneous speaking and listening after a reasonably short period of time. A longitudinal study was carried out at the University of Vienna in spring 1990 with first-year interpreter students (n = 5) as subjects (Kurz 1996). There were three types of monolingual (German) tasks with different degrees of difficulty: subjects had to repeat sentences and answer ‘yes’/’no’ questions and ‘why’ questions. All sentences and questions were between 10 and 12 syllables in length and had to be repeated/answered while subjects were listening to fresh input over headphones. Student performance was tape-recorded. Students were tested twice (with two parallel series of sentences and questions) — at the beginning and at the end of the summer term. During the

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four-month period between the first and the second trial they attended a weekly two-hour simultaneous interpretation training class. Since I had used the same material in my PhD dissertation (Pinter 1969), I could not only assess the influence of practice on students’ performance but could also compare their performance profile with that of the group of conference interpreters tested in Pinter (1969). The results clearly showed that after four months (a) students’ performance in all three simultaneous speaking and listening tasks had significantly improved and (b) the differences in the performance profiles of students and interpreters were no longer significant. This was an empirical proof of the hypothesis that simultaneous speaking and listening — which is not to be confused with simultaneous interpreting, of course — is a skill that can be acquired fairly rapidly. (A comparison of students’ and interpreters’ interpreting performance might have yielded a very different picture). 3.3 Reexamining other people’s conclusions It may happen that, even though you agree with somebody else’s approach and results , you are sceptical with regard to some of the conclusions drawn by the author. I feel that very often this is a good starting point for a fruitful small research project, as I will try to illustrate by yet another example from my own experience. Bühler (1986) devised a questionnaire containing a number of linguistic and extra-linguistic criteria and asked a total of 47 AIIC interpreters to rate these criteria as to their relative importance for the quality of interpretation. I concurred with her conclusion that an interpretation is good if it serves its purpose and that the ideal interpretation cannot be an absolute value. However, her conclusion that “the criteria as discussed in this paper reflect the requirements of the user as well as fellow interpreter in a (hopefully) wellbalanced mixture” (Bühler 1986: 233) was something I could not immediately subscribe to. First, there is no certainty that the ratings given by a sample of AIIC interpreters yield a true picture of user expectations. These can only be determined by asking the users themselves. Second, it might be suspected that different user groups attribute different weight to different criteria. Thus, one should preferably not speak of the user but should differentiate between different audiences. My hypothesis was that

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different user groups would have different expectations of interpretation. Based on these critical reflections, a bilingual (English/German) questionnaire was administered using the first eight of Bühler’s quality criteria (native accent; pleasant voice; fluency of delivery; logical cohesion of utterance; sense consistency with original message; completeness of interpretation; correct grammatical usage; use of correct terminology) in order to ensure comparability with her study among AIIC interpreters. Three different groups of listeners were examined: 47 participants in a conference on general medicine; 29 delegates in an international confererence on quality control; and 48 participants in a Council of Europe meeting. The study was designed to answer the following questions: 1. Is there a difference in the ratings of the above-listed quality criteria by conference interpreters on the one hand and delegates on the other hand? 2. Do different groups of users rate the individual quality criteria differently or do they all share the same expectations with regard to high-quality interpretation? 3. Can the alleged importance of situationality and communicative context in conference interpreting be empirically verified? The results have been discussed in several publications (e.g. Kurz 1993, 1996). By way of summary it can be said that different evaluation profiles were obtained from the three user groups. While there was fairly high agreement by all groups on the importance of some of the criteria, there was no unanimity between conference interpreters and users nor among different user groups regarding the assessment of other criteria. The validity of the theories that stress the importance of situationality and communicative context could be confirmed. Obviously, an individual researcher with no outside funding cannot hope to cover all the aspects involved in an area as complex and multi-faceted as that of studying the expectations of users of conference interpretation. What he/she can do, however, is to initiate a whole new line of investigation by drawing the attention of the research community to a particular topic that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. Indeed, an extensive survey of user expectations (on the basis of an elaborate questionnaire) was subsequently carried out upon commission by AIIC. (For results see Moser 1996.) 3.4 Repeating/modifying a previous study Gile points out the value of simply replicating studies carried out by other

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researchers in order to collect badly needed empirical data, the lack of which has been deplored repeatedly (e.g. Stenzl 1983; Kurz 1996), and considers them a legitimate complement to existing studies: “(…) replication is particularly important, as it provides the IRT [Interpretation Research and Theory] community with a means of assessing the representativeness of data obtained in the single studies” (Gile 1990a: 230).

Another useful approach is to modify one (or more) parameters of a previous study and see how this impacts the outcome. This can also be combined with an extension of the scope of investigation, i.e. the inclusion of another variable. The example given below is based on an exploratory experimental study carried out by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) together with AIIC in order to identify the special videocommunications requirements of conference interpreters (Böcker and Anderson 1993). The authors used a comprehensive questionnaire, which included questions designed to determine: 1. the benefit of the picture; 2. the experienced ‘social presence’, i.e. the ability to form an impression of the speaker, the feeling of being in the same hall; 3. fatigue as compared with interpreting in a face-to-face situation. Their findings served as the starting point of a follow-up study in which an important parameter was changed: The TV picture of the speaker was projected onto a two-by-three-metre screen, whereas 33-inch monitors had been used in the ETSI experiment. Besides, the experimental design provided for alternate picture-and-sound and sound-only periods in order to assess the benefits/ drawbacks of the availability/absence of visual input (Kurz 1997a). A unilateral, non-interactive communication setting, viz. a speaker giving a lecture, was chosen. It was expected that even in a situation with no interaction and audience involvement the presence/absence of the picture would make a difference to student interpreters. The subjects participating in the experiment (ten advanced student interpreters with a German “A” and an English “B” or “C”) were requested to provide a simultaneous interpretation from English into German. Five-minute periods with visual and acoustic input alternated with equally long periods of acoustic input only. Subsequently, subjects were asked to complete the relevant section of the questionnaire used in the ETSI study. Student interpreters found the picture even more helpful than the interpreters

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in the ETSI experiment with ratings of 2.9 vs. 2.3 on a scale from 1 (“not at all”) to 5 (“very much”). This may be due to the fact that a large screen was used instead of a monitor. The large-screen picture was also much more conducive to the feeling of being in the same hall as the speaker (‘social presence’), as witnessed by ratings of 3.7 vs. 2.1 on a scale from 1 (“not at all”) to 5 (“very much”). Even though the experiment lasted only twenty minutes, the ‘remote interpreting’ situation was regarded as more fatiguing than interpreting in a face-toface situation with 2.2 on a scale ranging from 1 (“not more fatiguing”) to 5 (“much more fatiguing”). Not surprisingly, the sound-only situation (lasting for a total of ten minutes) was considered to cause even greater fatigue (2.9 on a five-point scale). This confirms the view held by many conference interpreters that videoconference interpreting should preferably be confined to short periods. The subjectively perceived impact of the absence of the picture on the interpreting performance was 2.5 on a scale ranging from 1 (“not at all”) to 5 (“very much”), confirming that visual input matters even when the interpreting task consists in translating a monologue and involves no interaction. This was further corroborated by students’ comments, such as “not seeing the speaker calls for higher concentration”, “even though seeing the speaker was not essential in this case, it was more pleasant”, etc. More recently, the scope of this study has been further extended to a discussion-type setting involving several speakers. 3.5 Zooming in on a detail in a bigger study (and combining it with another question) Quite often, comprehensive studies, inter alia, refer to points of investigation that merit to be explored in greater depth and detail. This may turn out to be a good starting-point for a small project as witnessed by the following example. A large-scale, worldwide investigation on the sources of job stress among conference interpreters was carried out by Cooper, Davies and Tung (1982) with the support of AIIC. The extensive questionnaire also contained a section on job satisfaction. While most interpreters (88 %) felt that improvements could be made to certain conditions relating to their work, the large majority appeared to be fairly satisfied with their job. 88.3 % of the respondents disagreed that “they have to force themselves to go to work”. 83.6 % indicated that they were satisfied with their job “for the time being”. Most respondents did not dread their jobs, as

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evidenced by the fact that 86.6 % disagreed that “each day of work seems like it will never end” 75.9 % of the respondents indicated that they do not frequently “think about finding another job”, and only 14.7 % indicated that they “frequently think about finding another occupation than that of an interpreter”. These findings were used as the basis for two small studies in which a. a comparison was made between Austrian AIIC interpreters and the international group of AIIC interpreters in the Cooper study (Kurz 1983c); b. more information on job satisfaction among conference interpreters domiciled in Austria and elsewhere and on the prestige and desirability of their profession was obtained (Kurz 1991); c. an attempt was made to determine how interpreters view their profession and whether the interpreters’ assessment of their prestige is shared by noninterpreters (Kurz 1983c, 1991). To this end, subjects were asked to answer the questions on job satisfaction used in the Cooper study and to complete additional questionnaires developed by the author. It was found that job satisfaction in the Austrian sample was even higher than in the Cooper study, although only 40 % of the respondents in the Austrian survey were satisfied with the volume of work. There was a marked difference, however, between the respondents’ high general satisfaction with their profession and its perceived social prestige. This seems to indicate that although conference interpreters enjoy their work, they somehow feel it does not get the appreciation it deserves. On the other hand, the responses received from non-interpreters indicate a high regard for the interpreting profession. (For details see Kurz 1983c, 1991.) Since the number of subjects in these two studies was small (20 and 60 subjects, resp.), the results are not statistically significant, of course. In order to test their general validity, we would need more (small and big) studies on how conference interpreters view themselves and the prestige of their profession and how they are perceived by others. 3.6 Use calibrated psychological tests on interpreters There are numerous psychological tests with proven reliability and validity (Anastasi 1976) that can be usefully administered to interpreters, particularly since empirical studies regarding the personality of conference interpreters are scarce. The following example is an illustration of this approach.

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Among the personality traits considered necessary for or typical of interpreters, authors invariably mention the ability to work under stress, as witnessed by the following examples: “More often than not the interpreter (…) must in his profession stand a long and continuous strain which is hard to bear” (Herbert 1952: 6). “(…) interpretation requires that one have nerves of steel” (Gravier 1978: vi). “When he interprets, the interpreter is under pressure” (Seleskovitch 1978: 45). Longley (1989: 106) calls “the ability to work under pressure for long periods” one of the basic prerequisites of the profession. In the above-mentioned Cooper stress study (Cooper et al 1982) 45 % of the respondents indicated that over 40% of the stress in their lives was work related, and almost 20 % stated that over 60 % of stress was due to work. Despite the high level of work stress reported, however, the authors found a high degree of job satisfaction. These findings suggest that perhaps interpreters’ ability to cope with work-related stress might be a common denominator. Ergopsychometric studies (i.e. psychological testing both under neutral conditions and under load) carried out by Guttmann and collaborators at the Institute of Psychology of the University of Vienna (Guttmann 1982; Guttmann and Etlinger 1991) confirmed the well-known phenomenon that there are persons who show an unchanged or even increased performance level under load (socalled “consistent performers”), while others with an equally good performance level in a neutral, stress-free atmosphere tend to fail in stressful situations (socalled “training champions”, i. e. people who would qualify for a gold medal if they were judged on the basis of their performance during training rather than that shown in the competition). Conference interpreters clearly work under conditions involving what psychologists consider to be objective stress factors (constant information overload, the tremendous amount of concentration required, fatigue, the confined environment of the booth, etc.). It was, therefore, tempting to test the hypothesis that they belong to the group of “consistent performers”, i.e. persons who are able to maintain their performance level under load. Numerous publications suggest that highly anxious individuals perform less well under load than less anxious ones (Philipp 1988). According to Spielberger (1972), a distinction should be made between state and trait anxiety. State anxiety is defined as the anxiety experienced in a given situation, an emotional state characterized by tension, nervousness, and fear of what might happen. Trait anxiety, in turn, is defined as a general tendency to worry. Highly anxious individuals tend to consider more situations threatening and consequently respond with a higher trait anxiety.

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For the testing of state and trait anxiety, Spielberger et al. (1970) developed the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), a widely used self-evaluation questionnaire consisting of two sets of twenty statements each, reflecting different levels of state and trait anxiety. Testees are asked to indicate to which degree they identify with these statements. The first set of statements asks about their feelings “in a particular situation” (state anxiety). The second set of statements asks how subjects “generally” feel (trait anxiety). Interesting results with the STAI were obtained in studies on athletes. It was found that, unexpectedly, consistent athletes showed higher trait anxiety than “training champions”, i.e. they generally tended to be more anxious and to consider more situations worrisome. Their state anxiety, however, decreased under stress (Philipp 1988). The picture furnished by the STAI thus suggests that consistent athletes have better — inherent or learned — situation-dependent control over their heightened feelings of anxiety. Considering that conference interpreters have “(…) to focus on the transfer of the message without being handicapped by unfounded fears which create mental blocks or mental paralysis” (Coughlin 1988: 359), it was felt that the STAI could be usefully employed to test the hypothesis that interpreters, too, manage to control their state anxiety and do not unduly suffer from stage fright (Kurz 1996, 1997b). According to Seleskovitch (1978: 41), the impact of stress on the interpreter is a positive one: (…) even the best interpreters would be incapable of doing ‘cold’ what they manage to do at a meeting. (…) in simultaneous he must switch on his microphone as soon as the speaker begins to talk. This in itself would be a source of stage fright for many, and would leave them speechless; yet for the interpreter it is a stimulus that allows him to carry out the intense work of analysis needed.

In a pilot study I conducted, a sample of 32 conference interpreters (24 females, 8 males), all members of AIIC, were asked to complete the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). For the determination of their state anxiety they were asked to describe their feelings in the booth just before interpreting. One might argue that no two conferences are alike and that the stress experienced by conference interpreters in the booth varies as a function of numerous factors (e.g. working as a pivot, interpreting live on TV, doing a ‘routine job’, etc.). It was assumed, however, that in their answers respondents would indicate the average stress encountered at work. The majority of the subjects (66.6 % of the female subjects, 62.5 % of the

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male subjects) had significantly lower trait-anxiety scores than the age-matched reference groups, which indicates that they are low-anxiety individuals with a low habitual arousal level. Their state anxiety was higher than their trait anxiety, suggesting an increased arousal level in the booth. This can be regarded as a positive, performance-enhancing effect: They can be expected to maintain or improve their performance under stress. On the other hand, there was a numerically smaller goup of interpreters (approx. one third of the respondents) who scored high on trait anxiety. They can be regarded as persons who generally tend to be more anxious and have a high habitual arousal level. However, their state anxiety scores turned out to be significantly lower than those of the age-matched reference groups, indicating that in the booth they have their feelings of anxiety under control. They seem to be able to label their anxiety in a positive way and relax their mind, thereby clearing the way for maintaining their level of performance. Thus, even though the conference interpreters participating in this study did not constitute a homogeneous group in terms of their trait anxiety, they all qualified as consistent performers on the basis of their state-anxiety scores. These findings lend support to the hypothesis that, like successful athletes, conference interpreters have better situation-dependent control over their feelings of anxiety. This ability to control their arousal level or state anxiety may well be the reason why they are able to cope with difficult assignments that would most likely defeat someone linguistically as skilled but inhibited by fear and not ‘programmed’ to be a winner under adverse circumstances. 3.7 Serendipity Last, but not least it should be remembered that occasionally a researcher may be so lucky as to benefit from serendipity, allowing him/her to make an accidental fortunate discovery. Again, let me describe a case in point. When I was about to start my PhD dissertation in psychology, which happened to become the first doctoral thesis on interpretation written by an interpreter, interpretation research was not on my mind at all. My idea was to study the impact of teachers’ attitudes on their assessment of students’ performance. Unfortunately, my professor had no interest whatsoever in what would have been my preferred field of research at the time. Rather, he was into auditory threshold studies. Admittedly, this was a field I knew nothing about and was not even greatly interested in. My choice was to either look for another supervisor who would let me pursue my own ideas or start reading through the

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foot-high stack of literature my professor had given me. I opted for the second alternative and it turned into a case of “all is well that ends well”. While ploughing through the literature without great enthusiasm, I came across an article by Broadbent (1952) which gave me the idea for my PhD dissertation on simultaneous speaking and listening (Pinter 1969). In a study on air controllers, Broadbent (1952), one of the early cognitive psychologists, made his subjects answer a series of questions relating to visual stimuli. In the first part of the experiment questions were separated by a foursecond interval, allowing subjects to complete their answers before being confronted with another question. In the second part of the experiment some of the questions were immediately followed by another question so that occasionally subjects were hearing a new question while still answering the previous one. The third part of the experiment consisted of a series of questions without pauses in between, requiring subjects to speak and listen simultaneously all the time. While in the first part of the experiment, when there was no overlap between questions and answers, 98 % of the answers were correct, the number of correct answers dropped to 80 % and 70 %, resp. in parts two and three of the experiment (occasional or continuous overlap between questions and answers). Broadbent noted that even the saying of a simple series of words interfered with the understanding of a fresh message and concluded that we cannot attend perfectly to both the speech of others and to our own. All of a sudden I had found the topic for my PhD dissertation! Having completed my interpreter training and having already acquired some experience as a conference interpreter, I disagreed with Broadbent’s conclusion and decided to disprove it. In my PhD dissertation I set out to demonstrate the influence of practice on simultaneous speaking and listening by testing subjects with different degrees of practice (first-year interpreter students, advanced interpreter students, and experienced conference interpreters). If my supervisor had let me pursue my preferred field of research, it is most unlikely that I would have discovered Broadbent’s article. And who knows whether I would have developed an interest in interpretation research at all?

4. Conclusions One of the messages of the 1997 Aarhus Seminar on Interpreting Research was to “(…) appreciate the dangers of sweeping, intuitive conclusions and to

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maintain a responsible, critical attitude to received wisdom” (Gambetti & Mead 1998: 177). I hope to have demonstrated that, provided this advice is heeded, projects with simple objectives and methods can be very valuable. One of the major goals of this article was to show that there is ample scope for innovative ideas and methods even in small research projects. I would be extremely gratified if the approaches outlined above offered some guidance for those interested or engaged in research on interpretation.

Notes 1. From among the many good examples of small projects I would like to mention a classroom experiment by Gile (1995b) which suggests that fidelity assessment occurring in the field may be very unreliable, and a study of an authentic live TV interpretation by Pöchhacker (1995).

References Anastasi, A. 1976. Psychological Testing. 4th edition. New York: Macmillan. Böcker, M. and Anderson, D. 1993. “Remote conference interpreting using ISDN videotelephony: A requirements analysis and feasibility study”. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 37th Annual Meeting 1: 235–239. Broadbent, D. 1952. “Speaking and listening simultaneously”. Journal of Experimental Psychology 43: 267–273. Bühler, H. 1986. “Linguistic (semantic) and extra-linguistic (pragmatic) criteria for the evaluation of conference interpretation and interpreters”. Multilingua 5–4: 231–235. Cooper, C. L., Davies, R. and Tung, R. L. 1982. “Interpreting stress: Sources of job stress among conference interpreters”. Multilingua 1–2: 97–107. Coughlin, J. 1988. “Inside or Between Languages, Oral Communication Equals Interpretation”. In Languages at Crossroads. Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the American Translators Association, L. D. Hammond (ed.), 355–362. Medford, NJ: Learned Information. Eiff von, A. W. (ed.). 1980. Stress, Phänomenologie, Diagnose und Therapie in den verschiedenen Lebensabschnitten. Stuttgart/New York: Thieme. Gambetti, M. and Mead, P. 1998. “The Aarhus Seminar on Interpreting Research”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 8: 169–180. Gile, D. 1990a. “Research Proposals for Interpreters”. In Aspects of Applied and Experimental Research on Conference Interpretation, L. Gran and C. Taylor (eds), 226–236. Udine: Campanotto.

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Gile, D. 1990b. “Scientific Research vs. Personal Theories in the Investigation of Interpretation”. In Aspects of Applied Research on Conference Interpretation, L. Gran and C. Taylor (eds), 28–41. Udine: Campanotto. Gile, D. 1995a. Regards sur la recherche en interprétation de conférence. Lille: Presses Universitaires. Gile, D. 1995b. “Fidelity Assessment in Consecutive Interpretation: An Experiment”. Target 7(1): 151–164. Gravier, M. 1978. “Preface to D. Seleskovitch 1978”. In Interpreting for International Conferences, D. Seleskovitch. Washington, D. C.: Pen and Booth. Guttmann, G. 1982. “Ergopsychometry — Testing under Physical or Psychological Load”. German Journal of Psychology 6: 141–144. Guttmann, G. and Etlinger, S. 1991. “Susceptibility to Stress and Anxiety in Relation to Performance, Emotion, and Personality: The Ergopsychometric Approach”. In Stress and Anxiety 13, C. D. Spielberger and S. B. Sarason (eds), 23–52. Washington/London: Hemisphere Publ. Corp. Herbert, J. 1952. The Interpreter’s Handbook: How to Become a Conference Interpreter. Geneva: Librairie de l’Université. Hoyos, C. Graf. 1974. Arbeitspsychologie. Stuttgart/Berlin/Köln/Mainz: Kohlhammer. Jaggers, B. 1981. “Technical Committee Comments”. AIIC Bulletin IX(4): 43–44. Kurz, I. 1981. “Temperatures in Interpreters’ Booths — A Hot Iron?”. AIIC Bulletin IX(4): 39–43. Kurz, I. 1983a. “Temperatures Inside and Outside Booths — A Comparative Study”. AIIC Bulletin XI(2): 67–72. Kurz, I. 1983b. “CO2 and O2 Levels in Booths at the End of a Conference Day — A Pilot Study”. AIIC Bulletin XI(3): 86–93. Kurz, I. 1983c. “Konferenzdolmetscher: Berufszufriedenheit und soziales Prestige”. FIT Newsletter II(4): 130–135. Kurz, I. 1991. “Conference Interpreting: Job Satisfaction, Occupational Prestige and Desirability”. In Translation, a creative profession. Proceedings of the XIIIth World Congress of FIT, M. Jovanovic (ed.), 363–376. Belgrade: Prevodilac. Kurz, I. 1993. “Conference Interpretation: Expectations of Different User Groups”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 5: 13–21. Kurz, I. 1994. “A look into the ‘black box’ — EEG probability mapping during mental simultaneous interpreting”. In Translation Studies — An Interdiscipline M. SnellHornby, F. Pöchhacker, and K. Kaindl (eds), 199–207. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Kurz, I. 1995. “Watching the Brain at Work — An Exploratory Study of EEG Changes during Simultaneous Interpreting (SI)”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 6: 3–16. Kurz, I. 1996. Simultandolmetschen als Gegenstand der interdisziplinären Forschung.Vienna: WUV-Universitätsverlag. Kurz, I. 1997a. “Interpreting: Sound vs. sound and picture”. The Jerome Quarterly 12(1): 5–8 & 14. Kurz, I. 1997b. “Interpreters: Stress and Situation-Dependent Control of Anxiety”. In Transferre Necesse Est. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Current Trends

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in Studies of Translation and Interpreting, K. Klaudy and J. Kohn (eds), 201–206. Budapest: Scholastica. Kurz, I. and Kolmer, H. 1984. “Humidity and Temperature Measurements in Booths”. AIIC Bulletin XII(2): 42–43. Longley, P. 1989. “The Use of Aptitude Testing in the Selection of Students for Conference Interpretation Training”. In The Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Teaching Interpretation, L. Gran and J. Dodds (eds), 105–108. Udine: Campanotto. Moser, P. 1996. “Expectations of users of conference interpretation”. Interpreting 1 (2): 145–178. Müller-Limroth, W. 1980. “Die Beeinträchtigung der Leistung durch Stressoren am Arbeitsplatz”. In Stress, Phänomenologie, Diagnose und Therapie in den verschiedenen Lebensabschnitten, A. W. von Eiff (ed.), 82–92. Stuttgart/New York: Thieme. Petsche, H. and Etlinger, S. 1998. EEG and Thinking. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philipp, A. 1988. Ergopsychometrie im Leistungssport: psychologische Aspekte der Leistungstestung unter Belastung. PhD dissertation, University of Vienna. Pinter (Kurz), I. 1969. Der Einfluß der Übung und Konzentration auf simultanes Sprechen und Hören. PhD dissertation, University of Vienna. Pöchhacker, F. 1995. “Clinton speaks German: A case study of live broadcast simultaneous interpreting”. In Intercultural Communication. Selected papers from the EST Congress — Prague 1995, M. Snell-Hornby, Z. Jettmarová, and K. Kaindl (eds), 207–216. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Seleskovitch, D. 1978. Interpreting for International Conferences. Washington, D. C.: Pen and Booth. Seleskovitch, D. and Lederer, M. 1989. Pédagogie raisonnée de l’interprétation. Paris: Didier Erudition. Spielberger, Charles D. 1972. “Anxiety as an emotional state”. In Anxiety — current trends in theory and research Vol. 1, C. D. Spielberger (ed.). New York: Academic Press: 24–49. Spielberger, C. , Gorsuch, R. L. and Luchene, R. H. 1970. State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press. Stenzl, C. 1983. Simultaneous Interpretation — Groundwork towards a Comprehensive Model. M. A. thesis, University of London. Vaitl, D. 1980. “Leistungsminderung durch Stress”. In Stress, Phänomenologie, Diagnose und Therapie in den verschiedenen Lebenesabschnitten, A. W. von Eiff (ed.), 44–58. Stuttgart/New York: Thieme.



Doctoral work on interpretation A supervisee’s perspective Peter Mead SSLiMIT — University of Bologna, Italy “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.” Mark Twain

1.

Taking a roundabout route to postgraduate study

This personal account of an ongoing doctoral project on interpreting describes the experience from the supervisee’s viewpoint. The emphasis is on practical issues, such as motivation, initial difficulties (choice of university, supervisor and subject), contacts with the supervisor, criticism, involvement of colleagues as subjects, presentation of research in the medium of a foreign language, the relevance of statistics and the importance of time management. Since the impact of discussing such issues in a vacuum would be limited, this introductory section first provides some information about the project and the background against which it was born. For the last five years, I have been working as a part-time postgraduate student on research questions related to fluency in conference interpreting. The first stage was completion of the Diplôme d’Études Approfondies (DEA), a predoctoral qualification for which I studied between 1995 and 1997 at the Université Stendhal-Grenoble 3 (France). The topic of the research project I completed during this time was fluency in a sample of five Italian speakers, all final year interpreting students, the specific focus being the incidence of various disfluencies (e.g. pauses, false starts, repetitions) in consecutive interpreting and extemporaneous speech (Mead 1997). In October 1997 I transferred to the Université Lumière-Lyon 2 (France), where I am currently preparing a doctoral dissertation on fluency in the target speech. The study focuses on pauses in a sample of ninety consecutive interpretations, in Italian and English.

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Working towards a doctorate is actually one of three activities which I dismissed as remote and improbable prospects when I read French as an undergraduate in Britain, but which proved me wrong in subsequent years. In hindsight, it is difficult to say which of these prospects seemed least realistic at the time — my chances of becoming a conference interpreter, of doing so with a language I had yet to learn, or of studying for a doctorate (let alone on interpreting, with which I would experience my first contact well over a decade later). One reason I did not try interpreting sooner is that, when I graduated in the mid seventies, interpreter training was a little publicized option for those completing mainstream language degrees in the UK. After graduating, I spent two years studying in France, but then lost touch with the academic environment. Settling in Italy, where I still live, I had my first opportunity to develop proficiency in a foreign language other than French. For several years, I taught English for special purposes to Italian employees of an international pharmaceutical group. This experience allowed me to develop a knowledge of English and Italian medical discourse. While I had never envisaged any involvement in this field, I found it so interesting that translation of medical texts from Italian into English rapidly became a major part of my professional activity; it also proved a vital first step towards initial experience of conference interpreting in medical congresses. While medicine may seem a forbidding field in which to serve one’s apprenticeship as a self-taught interpreter, the prior knowledge I had gained as a teacher and translator actually made it more appropriate for me to begin with medical discourse than with apparently simpler subjects. Indeed, I came to understand that the rapid and dense speech typical of medical congresses is in some ways arguably less demanding than much non-specialist discourse — for example, in terms of attention to décalage, formal re-elaboration of expression and need to convey cultural references. As my interpreting work developed, a commitment as seemingly irrelevant to professional life as postgraduate research was far from my thoughts. Even had I been interested, I was sure that years away from study would not have seemed the best credential with which to compete for a place against able and motivated final year students. In 1992, I had some contact with the university environment through occasional supply teaching on an experimental postgraduate interpreting diploma organized by the University of Verona. The experience was of great interest, but my involvement was limited and the contact was curtailed by discontinuation of the course after its scheduled trial period.

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At about the same time, the University of Bologna was developing a School of Interpreting and Translation, disciplines in which no Italian university except Trieste had previously awarded degrees. As part of a move to decentralize courses and relieve congestion on established university premises, the new School was set up about 70 kilometres from Bologna, in Forlì. In the 1994/95 academic year, I started teaching at Forlì, initially as a temporary lecturer. At the time, permanent staff were limited to colleagues from mainstream university disciplines (mainly languages), while translation and interpreting courses were covered by professionals recruited on a temporary basis.

2. Finding motivation: better late than never… or better never than late? One unforeseen effect of the stimulating academic environment at Forlì was that it motivated me to think about working for a research qualification. There was no single, dominant reason for doing so. Indeed, I gave the matter considerable thought before going about the practical business of looking for a university, a supervisor and a topic. While a doctorate could arguably improve chances of a permanent appointment, colleagues with tenure advised me that the time it would take to complete a doctorate could equally be dedicated to a self-managed learning curve based on small research projects. A doctorate would allow time only for limited interim papers, whereas smaller projects could prove a good way of acquiring the confidence and experience to sustain a regular output of publications. Such advice was sound, but the idea of working on a doctorate (a prospect I had always shied from) nevertheless began to hold a perverse appeal. One reason was the thought that I might be able to do so at a French university, since I was concerned that linguistic reflexes I had worked hard on as a student in France might ultimately become dulled by lack of vigorous exercise. Another consideration was that, if I continued to teach in Forlì, I might become involved at some stage in students’ tesi di laurea (graduation theses). Currently, all lecturers can supervise such work. While this waiving of postgraduate research qualifications as a formal requirement for supervisors is arguably open to criticism, it allows many able colleagues to provide valuable input that a more rigidly structured system could not benefit from. In practice, most graduation theses are actually supervised by permanent staff with research experience and there is no obligation for temporary lecturers to

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contribute. Indeed, many colleagues understandably maintain that their priorities as professionals with an interest in translator and interpreter training are too pragmatic to prove consistent with the conventions of academic research. Nevertheless, the thought that I might begin to co-supervise some graduation theses made me realize that I could benefit from first being supervised through some sustained research myself. There thus seemed to be justification for at least entertaining idle thoughts of postgraduate research. At the same time, there were good reasons to dismiss as dauntingly unrealistic any prospect of putting these thoughts into practice. First, postgraduate study would require sustained time and effort over a period of several years — probably to the detriment of many other commitments, both personal and professional. Second, I had no idea of the expense it would involve. Both points are commented on below, in Section 9. Third, postgraduate work seemed a more appropriate choice for recent graduates than for someone already committed to a busy professional schedule. Finding the necessary time and motivation is arguably simpler for colleagues fresh from interpreting school — though their priorities may understandably be to concentrate on the often difficult task of establishing themselves as professional interpreters and/or to broaden their language combination. In the event, the arguments against undertaking a doctorate did little to curb my developing enthusiasm. Once I had decided in favour of postgraduate work and started to read about research into interpreting, the realization that I was entering a relatively little explored field became a source of motivation. Subsequent opportunities to meet colleagues who share this motivation have provided considerable impetus to my efforts over the last few years. It would be ingenuous to think that work submitted for a doctorate might establish any of us overnight as a major force in interpreting research. At the same time, the awareness that individual efforts will be critically reviewed by established scholars and can contribute to the overall development of our discipline can give a sense of purpose to the hours of solitary effort in front of the computer.

3. Finding a doctoral programme and setting to work After careful thought about the commitment postgraduate research would require, in the spring of 1995 I decided to look into the possibilities of enrolling for a doctorate the following autumn. The only Italian doctoral programme in Translation Studies of which I was aware was concerned with written translation

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and thus of little interest to prospective researchers wishing to focus on interpreting. Given my interest in combining work on a doctorate with sustained practice in French, my thoughts turned immediately towards France. While I realized that contacts with a supervisor in France might introduce an additional logistic variable, undertaking a doctoral programme at a British university would have entailed even greater difficulties in this respect. Since I had spent my two years as a student in France at Grenoble, I decided to contact the Université Stendhal for information on doctoral programmes. A faculty with a department of interpreting would have seemed a more obvious choice, but I thought that I would first see the lie of the land in Grenoble. After obtaining a prospectus from the Université Stendhal, I arranged to meet a senior member of staff whose courses I had attended sixteen years before. An informal interview provided the encouraging news that the Maîtrise I had previously obtained in Grenoble fulfilled the entry requirements for postgraduate research in Linguistic Science. Further good news was that provision was made for part-time study at Grenoble. Full-time study was an unrealistic option from the outset — given that a doctorate would not automatically bring tenure or career prospects, nothing seemed to justify considering that it should exclude existing professional commitments for several years. In addition, lack of any prospective financial support such as a grant made full-time study an unviable option. Though Grenoble had no specific expertise in Interpreting Studies, there seemed to be a reasonable prospect that work on interpreting could be accommodated within existing research areas such as language teaching. The reason I did not press for a firm commitment on this point was that I did not yet have a clear idea of what I intended to research into. I felt that this problem would probably resolve itself once I started work on the DEA qualification — the mandatory start to the troisième cycle, as the preparation of a doctorate is termed in French universities. The need to focus initially on the DEA not only made the search for a dissertation subject seem less pressing, but also gave me a confident feeling that my lack of a well defined topic could be readily addressed once I started to learn about research techniques. At the same time, I knew that I could not put off defining a suitable area of study indefinitely. Any prospective supervisor’s agreement to work with me on a doctoral dissertation would ultimately depend not only on my obtaining a reasonable grade in the preparatory qualification, but also on my ability to submit a project consistent with the university’s research expertise and interests.

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Normally a one-year qualification, the DEA combines taught courses on research topics and methods, seminars, assignments, some written examinations and a mémoire (a short predoctoral thesis). The weightiest item in the overall final mark is the mémoire, which the candidate presents to the examining commission in a viva. To accommodate students unable to attend the Grenoble DEA full-time, those who must take day release from employment can complete the qualification in two years. The division of the course into a number of distinct components means that this can be readily organized. Also, given that not all postgraduate students live in or near Grenoble, attendance requirements are often concentrated into one semester or even less, with lessons generally scheduled in the middle of the week. These timetabling provisions are complemented by the sensitivity of academic staff to the difficulties of part-time students in maintaining regular attendance throughout the course. I invariably found lecturers prompt in providing reading suggestions and additional material to help make up for missed lessons. This flexibility was a vital factor in maintaining my motivation to complete two academic years of quite frequent ‘commuting’.

4. Finding a supervisor and subject The DEA mémoire is in practice often a lead-in to the student’s envisaged dissertation and an opportunity to work in close contact with a potential doctoral supervisor. While it was not a problem to find a supervisor for my mémoire, which I intended to complete in the second year of the DEA, I continued to cast about with little sense of direction in search of a topic. My knowledge of Interpreting Studies was still sketchy, prompting me to entertain various possibilities, which I then had no idea how to develop. Ideas included a survey of interpreter training methods in different schools, but my inability to focus my thoughts more specifically meant that no viable research project emerged. A recent study by Pöchhacker (1999) shows one way in which such a survey can in fact be conducted — the obstacle which I could not negotiate at the time of the DEA being the need for clear definition of the ‘terrain’ (e.g. teaching practices in one or two institutions), research question (e.g. type of input material used in class, as in Pöchhacker’s survey) and methodology (questionnaires, interviews etc.). Reading Erving Goffman’s The Lecture (in Goffman 1981) as part of a Sociolinguistics module prompted interest in his description of public speaking,

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which I found strikingly relevant to interpreting (Mead 1996). Again, I had no immediate insight as to how this interest could be channelled into a structured research project, other than vague ideas about examining how speaking skills can be taught or assessed in interpreter training. The inconclusive nature of all these initial ideas seemed to highlight how hard I found it to define anything like a potential line of reasoning on which to base a good DEA mémoire — let alone a doctoral dissertation. What I did not realize was that, by the second year of the DEA, I had actually identified a viable research topic. The problem was that I still had no idea how to develop my subject. Only over the next year or so would I realize how well placed I now was to move ahead with the research project that continued to seem so elusive. In the early stages of the DEA, I wondered at times whether my supervisor for the mémoire should suggest a precise topic and framework for my research. At the same time, I was aware that a supervisor’s brief is to advise, criticize and correct, not to provide all the ideas. This is a point I later had occasion to think about from the supervisor’s perspective, when I began to help Forlì students in need of supervision for a graduation thesis on interpreting. Another reason for which I felt I should not expect too much input from my supervisor was our lack of frequent contact, given that my more or less fortnightly visits to Grenoble were not only taken up by lectures but also coincided with the busiest time of the week for staff involved in the DEA. This lack of time for discussion of research ideas with my supervisor was far from ideal. The research student cannot expect detailed, specific guidance without first taking time to give the supervisor some idea of the rationale for the study and of attendant expectations — particularly when the proposed area of study is outside the supervisor’s normal range of interests. One obvious answer to the problem of insufficient contact time with a supervisor is e-mail — provided that the volume of correspondence does not make unrealistic demands on the supervisor’s time. I became ‘converted’ to e-mail during the second year of the DEA, but my supervisor for the mémoire did not favour it as a means of communication. Three years later, at the time of writing, e-mail has arguably become an indispensable mainstay of communication within the academic and research environment. My final choice of subject for the mémoire was a study of fluency in a small sample of final year interpreting students at the University of Bologna. Ultimately, I left myself too tight a deadline for optimal planning and revision of the mémoire. This was a useful reminder about the importance of scheduling work more strictly if I intended moving on from the DEA to its logical sequel,

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a doctorate. Another important point to which I gave increasing thought as I neared the end of the DEA was whether my supervisor would agree — or wish — to supervise a prospective doctoral dissertation. The research field discussed at the seminars I attended was language teaching. While this orientation by no means precluded the possibility of a doctoral dissertation on interpreter training, I still had no clear idea of how this might be organized — indeed, I had found it hard enough to focus on the far more modest research project needed for the DEA. In January 1997, while still in the very early stages of the DEA mémoire, I attended the Aarhus Seminar on Interpreting Research. The experience, reported elsewhere (Basel 1997, Gambetti & Mead 1998), did not immediately provide me with the well-defined subject I was still in search of. At the same time, Aarhus was a point of no return in deciding whether I was better advised to remain at Grenoble after the DEA or have my doctorate supervised by an interpreting specialist. One lesson that emerged from discussion with the Aarhus tutors was confirmation that I should not expect a supervisor to provide a tailor-made research topic without considerable input from myself. Apart from the stimulus that the week at Aarhus gave to my work, an important outcome of the seminar was Daniel Gile’s willingness to be involved or consulted if my supervisor at Grenoble proved amenable to the idea of an interdisciplinary contact with Interpreting Studies. My supervisor’s advice at this point was that I should explore the possibility of transferring to Lyon after the DEA. This would give me the opportunity of preparing my dissertation under the supervision of Daniel Gile, who could in the meantime be asked to act as external examiner at my DEA viva. Such an arrangement seemed an appropriate way not only of having my work assessed by a specialist in Interpreting Studies, but also of giving him the opportunity to see a representative sample of my work with a view to judging my suitability for postgraduate research at Lyon. The proposal was acceptable to all concerned and, after completing my DEA, I was able to transfer from Grenoble and start work on my doctorate at the Université Lumière-Lyon 2. The DEA provided a useful introduction to postgraduate research, as well as a chance to acquire a feel for the associated challenges and difficulties before starting the doctoral project. A predoctoral qualification like the DEA also has the advantage that it can provide a natural cut-off point for those who realize only after enrolling that the prospect of completing a doctorate is no longer tenable. Similarly, doctoral students in the Anglo-Saxon system in some cases opt (or are advised) to complete a master’s qualification rather than a full doctorate.

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Introductory postgraduate programmes specifically targeted to doctoral work in interpreting and translation are probably the most advisable option for those wishing to undertake sustained research in Interpreting Studies. If French is the medium of study, the ESIT in Paris and, more recently, the ETI in Geneva both offer DEA programmes specifically designed for this purpose. Many universities offer similar qualifications in fields like Linguistics or Cognitive Sciences. While these can provide an introduction to interesting research paradigms, they do not focus explicitly on interpreting and the onus will thus be on the student to identify a specific area of study. Whether this will prove tenable within the discipline concerned depends on both the student’s ability to define a topic and the potential supervisor’s willingness to negotiate unfamiliar terrain.

5. Liaising with the supervisor Given that the focal point of the last three years has been the doctoral dissertation, this second stage of my postgraduate experience has not involved the same need to travel and attend courses as the previous two years at Grenoble. Longdistance commuting has thus ceased to absorb time, energy and savings. Yet I have not been left to my own devices, contacts with my supervisor having been frequent and purposeful. Our main medium of communication has been e-mail, which has allowed a regular flow of questions, answers, advice, suggestions and criticism — all vital elements in supervised research. Many queries have been resolved by exchanges of messages, while work of several pages to be scrutinized by the supervisor has been sent as attachments. Occasionally, we have also agreed beforehand that more substantial pieces of work should be sent by ‘snail-mail’. The frequency of correspondence has varied, with understandable discontinuation of messages during the parts of vacation periods when at least one of us has been away on holiday. Other than these infrequent breaks, it is rare that more than two weeks go by without some contact. Sometimes, when points cannot be clarified in a single question-and-answer exchange, several messages may be concentrated into a few days. Such sustained contact is not necessarily representative of supervised research in general. Some supervisors may prefer less frequent contact — either because supervision is not a priority for them or because they realize that the research student is best left to work independently. It is thus unsafe to generalize as to the normal (or ideal) frequency of contact.

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E-mail provides an excellent format for highlighting relevant items in a message received and answering them point by point in the reply. In my experience, it has proved a reliable medium of communication, with almost no messages going astray in almost three years. I find it a good policy to give my supervisor advance warning, a week or so beforehand, when I intend to send work. Though he does not insist on this, it makes sense for both parties — the supervisor does not receive large pieces of work unexpectedly and the research student can work to a self-imposed deadline. Occasional overrunning of such deadlines is not a disaster, but consistent failure to meet them would indicate a lack of reliability which should raise serious concern about whether the proposed doctorate is ever going to be completed. Initial exchanges focused on the need to identify a more clearly defined area of study than a vague idea about the evaluation of fluency in interpreters and interpreting students. The focus then shifted to description and criticism of fieldwork, complemented in recent months by increasing attention to the study’s theoretical background and analysis of data. Fieldwork consisted in recording consecutive interpretations by students and colleagues, with all subjects interpreting the same two source speeches (one in English, one in Italian). Subjects were interviewed after each interpretation, to obtain their impressions of the reasons for apparent hesitations. All pauses were later inventoried on a software package able to isolate speech segments and provide measurements in hundredths of a second (SndSampler™ 3.7.1, © Alan Glenn, Midland Mi, USA), used on a Macintosh iMac™. Supervision has helped me in several ways. First, my supervisor has never stood by for too long without asking me what I am doing, or reminding me that time is passing and that I should quickly complete (or sometimes start!) work which cannot be delayed without serious repercussions on my overall schedule. In this respect, the DEA helped me appreciate the problems of organizing parttime research over a period of months. While the time available for a doctorate is considerably longer, an academic year passes all too quickly. Thinking that the three years (plus possible extensions) of a doctorate allow ample time to plan and complete a good research project on a part-time basis is realistic only if the student is determined and organized. The need to recognize how much time a doctorate demands is discussed in some detail below, in Section 9. While I was prepared to work from the beginning, if necessary at week-ends and during vacations, my overall time management would not have been sufficiently attentive if my supervisor had not reminded me now and then of its importance. These reminders about the need

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to plan the timing of work on at least a mid-term basis have been vital. The proverb admittedly advises us to cross bridges when we come to them, but it is useful to check the route to the bridge beforehand and be sure that it is open. Input from the supervisor about planning of work has focused not only on its timing, but — perhaps more importantly — on the definition and development of my research topic. This advice has proved relevant both to the study as a whole and to various parts such as the literature review, the first draft of which prompted suggestions from the supervisor about how to work from an inappropriately structured initial text towards a more targeted, incisive presentation of my subject. With regard to overall planning of the study, my initial idea about studying fluency in the target language lacked a precise focus. My intention was to consider a number of languages, in both the simultaneous and consecutive modes, evaluating fluency through a variety of disfluencies such as pauses, false starts and repetitions. Discussion of the project with my supervisor provided the focus that was lacking, encouraging me to concentrate on one language combination (Italian ‘A’ and English ‘B’), one mode of interpreting (consecutive) and one form of disfluency (pauses). Initial failure to limit the scope of the planned dissertation to a project of manageable dimensions, often a problem for inexperienced researchers, was thus a point on which critical feedback proved fundamental. Other major points on which the supervisor’s advice has proved decisive include the recognition that the time was right to move from theorizing to collection of data. Choice of sample size and type of test material was fully discussed before the practical part of the study started. A certain amount of negotiation is normal in such discussions. As the focus became better defined, I found myself increasingly volunteering proposals regarding points such as the choice of source speech or initial organization of data. In discussion of other practical details, hints and suggestions from the supervisor provided the initial impetus. For example, one major item suggested by the supervisor was the analysis of subjects’ perception of the reasons for which they had paused during the consecutive interpretations they recorded for the study. My initial reservations regarding the suggestion were quickly dismissed by subjects’ willingness to provide detailed information on this point.

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6. Seeking criticism and an outside perspective from the supervisor Aspects of the research based more on input from myself and approval or criticism from the supervisor include items such as the specialist literature on pauses and choice of software for measurement of pause duration. Undertaking a literature review on pauses was particularly stimulating, in that I had to identify relevant sources and organize my ideas before submitting them to the supervisor. In this respect, two important considerations are the role of criticism and the possibility that interdisciplinary research may embrace a discipline or topic outside the supervisor’s normal range of teaching and research interests. On the first of these points, criticism from the supervisor — irrespective of whether he was dealing with areas of personal expertise or exploring the less familiar terrain of ‘pausology’ — has been fundamental to the development of the dissertation. The research student should not be ‘touchy’ in this respect, constructive criticism being a vital part of the learning process. Much study at school level (and even in the early years of some university disciplines) is based on assimilation of declarative knowledge, with little or no attempt to encourage independent, constructive thought about what is assimilated. While disciplines requiring procedural skills (like languages, translation and interpreting) should allow the teacher more scope to develop comments beyond a simple “right” or “wrong”, the tendency to equate criticism with hostility is all too frequent. The function of good criticism should nevertheless be to assess or distinguish, not to attack or demolish. This principle is essential to the success of research. The rationale, aims and methodology of a study must be based on consistent, rigorous, informed reasoning, ideally honed only by regular critical input from the supervisor. Inspired thinking in the bathtub is not enough and, irrespective of how sensational results may seem, what really counts is the way they are obtained. Some beginners in research may produce such outstanding work that little or no criticism is needed, but such individuals are surely rare. In a field like Interpreting Studies, most of us have no background in scientific reasoning and set out without the necessary skills. The purpose of criticism is to help us acquire those skills as our work progresses. Without such criticism, the danger is that we may realize the deficiencies in our work only when it is rejected by the examining commission. Even for those of us who take criticism badly, the consolation is that any praise received becomes all the more meaningful by contrast. Three years of non-committal “that’s ok” or “that’s not too bad” comments are not helpful to the research student who really wishes to learn.

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A supervisor who has a reputation as being hard to please is therefore not to be shied away from. Again, there is no hard and fast rule. The research student with a highly developed capacity for self-criticism may produce an excellent dissertation with slack guidance. Most of us probably benefit from stricter supervision. It is a question of knowing one’s own strengths and limitations. Regarding the possibility of research into a discipline or topic outside the supervisor’s normal range of expertise and interests, the need for background reading on pausology arose because looking at why interpreters say “umm” and “ah” implied prior study of why speakers in general make such hesitations. To neglect this preliminary work would have meant starting without a knowledge of theories, research methods and findings which could prove relevant to my research. At the worst, it is not inconceivable that I might have spent several years researching into a question about which the last word had effectively been said years before by experts in Applied Linguistics or Psycholinguistics. Fortunately, preliminary reading about pauses highlighted that there is still much work to be done within and around the field of pausology. Irrespective of this, my bibliographic forays into the discipline gave me experience of acquiring, organizing and presenting knowledge on a subject outside my supervisor’s field of specialization. The experience proved interesting, in that it was necessary to present arguments and counter-arguments to the supervisor in a clear, purposeful manner. It would be an exaggeration to state that I became an expert in Psycholinguistics or Applied Linguistics — indeed, my supervisor advised me not to become so absorbed in reading within these and related disciplines as to lose sight of my research goals or venture out of my depth. My reading therefore focused on pauses, the aim being to construct a balanced literature review which would provide an appropriate overview of the discipline as a starting point for research questions and hypotheses regarding interpreters’ pauses. My practical work on pauses with the SndSampler™ software, able to visualize the acoustic patterns of audio files as oscillograms, was another part of the dissertation which I completed independently and reported to the supervisor. It is not unusual for the research student to develop such niches of expertise in which the supervisor has no specialist knowledge — indeed, if work on the dissertation was restricted to issues already covered exhaustively by the supervisor, there would be little room for any added value. What is important is that the work should be adequately reported and explained. If the research student cannot illustrate the work satisfactorily to the supervisor, something is surely wrong.

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My theoretical and practical study of pauses has thus been assessed by the supervisor as a critical outside reader, rather than an acknowledged expert. Even in Linguistics, pausology seems to constitute a specialist niche rather than a well-explored area of study. Irrespective of its epistemological status, the study of pauses has been relevant to the dissertation as a perspective from which to focus on interpreting, not as a topic of research in its own right. The issue has thus not created problems for either the supervisor or myself. Had the relative weighting of pausology and interpreting in the dissertation been more in favour of the former, it would have made sense to work under a specialist in Psycholinguistics or Cognitive Sciences. This would have meant that the supervisor could give no input regarding the literature on interpreting. The interdisciplinary ideal would theoretically be to work with both an interpreting specialist and a pausologist. Apart from the need for considerable luck or perseverance in organizing such a combination, the research student would not necessarily find it as satisfactory in practice as in theory — the two specialists’ priorities might prove difficult to reconcile. At Grenoble, I had the experience of preparing a DEA with a supervisor who had no specialist knowledge of interpreting. That the resulting mémoire has its faults and limitations does not mean that I would question the general acceptability of teaming up with a non-interpreter, since my reservations about the work I produced are based on retrospective awareness of having left insufficient time for adequate planning and revision. Teaming up with a noninterpreter can surely be successful, but the onus will be on the research student to give the supervisor clear input about Interpreting Studies to be used in the practical design of the study (population, sample, type of analysis etc.).

7. Seeking a little help from my friends Students at Forlì and Trieste were willing, enthusiastic subjects. Though I did not expect to find quite the same willingness in professional colleagues, fellow interpreters actually proved co-operative and helpful. Logistic difficulties made it unfeasible to involve some colleagues and limited the potential reserve of willing subjects available for recruitment, but those whom I asked to participate were almost invariably pleased to do so. There were probably two main reasons for this willingness to participate. The main reason was almost certainly that participation involved limited time and inconvenience. Of the fifteen professionals who participated, seven were

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fellow lecturers who were recorded and interviewed during free time at School. Three of the remaining eight live in Forlì and were able to visit the School without wasting time in traffic or on trains. In another three cases, I visited colleagues at their homes. Another colleague provided her contribution at the end of short simultaneous assignments we had completed together. The last of my fifteen subjects had never met me, but sportingly agreed by telephone to an appointment at the School (the subject concerned was a friend of other colleagues who had already participated.) Minimizing inconvenience and sparing colleagues the need to travel meant that none of them was reluctant to participate. I would have travelled to visit more colleagues at home, but many have professional and family commitments which would not allow this to be arranged without intruding unduly on their leisure time. How far material can be collected by visiting colleagues at home also depends on the study. For questionnaires and interviews, it is perfectly acceptable. A colleague’s home is also as good a setting as any for studies like mine, concerned with consecutive interpreting. On the other hand, recordings of simultaneous interpreting will in many cases have to be collected in the booth (e.g. for two-track recordings, studies of relay interpreting etc.). In some cases, however, even simultaneous interpreting can be organized satisfactorily with two tape recorders in a reasonably quiet environment. The second factor facilitating recruitment was that several professional subjects were either fellow lecturers or former students. As such, they proved sympathetic to a colleague’s interest in research (or possibly thought it unsporting to refuse!). One or two participants admitted to a slight feeling of trepidation beforehand, particularly at the prospect of my ‘judging’ their English. Whether or not they voiced such misgivings, I took care to specify that I was not interested in quality judgments or in establishing a ‘top ten’, and that subjects would not be named in my study. Colleagues generally discussed their hesitations during interpretation freely and exhaustively. Most were also interested in hearing about my study once we had completed the recordings and interviews. One highly experienced colleague with no academic association or interests commented afterwards that research, having exhausted the subject of what the interpreter says and why, must apparently now maintain its impetus by studying what happens when the interpreter says nothing. The comment was delivered — and received — in a tone of humorous reprimand, not of hostility.

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8. Co-ordinating more efforts: Language and statistics Other aspects which have proved challenging in the preparation of the dissertation have been the need — or, depending on the perspective, the opportunity — to write in a foreign language and to learn a little about statistics. As postgraduate research in Interpreting Studies gathers impetus, both concerns will probably become increasingly relevant to scholars who wish to make their contribution. Publishing in a language other than one’s own is nothing new among authors dealing with interpretation. With increasing internationalization of academic contacts and exchanges, research through the medium of a foreign language could also become a common experience for interpreting scholars in the next few years. Lack of research opportunities in some countries, or the wish to work under acknowledged specialists abroad, can provide the stimulus to undertake postgraduate study in a foreign language environment. This has long been the case in disciplines like medicine. The experience of presenting sustained scientific or academic reasoning in a foreign language is not a challenge to be underestimated, but it is an excellent incentive to ensure a consistent emphasis on proficiency in the language concerned. This should include sensitivity to the conventions of academic prose, developed by wide reading and constant practice in writing. While it is not a doctoral supervisor’s brief to mark chapters of a dissertation as if they were essays for language examinations, some feedback on the quality of expression can be expected. When the content of the dissertation is practically finalized, it makes sense to have the entire manuscript read by a native speaker with experience in scientific writing. Minor formal shortcomings need not cause undue concern in earlier drafts, but consistently poor expression will be wearing for the supervisor and could obscure the quality of the content. It is therefore sensible to ascertain beforehand that one’s language skills are up to the task. Working in a foreign language can also have advantages, since it arguably leaves little room for temptation to embellish expression as an end in itself. Different languages may also prove advantageous in specific ways. Personally, I find that the premium on clear expression in French is a constant reminder of the need to prune away any digressions — the temptation to indulge in them being stronger when I use my native English. Similarly, many may consider that the simplicity of basic English syntax can help non-native users present facts and concepts in a plain, uncluttered fashion. With regard to statistics, research with a simple practical basis may be

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thought to require no particular processing of data. My study is a case in point, the material examined being nothing more complicated than two consecutive interpretations by each subject (one into English, one into Italian). The source speeches were the same for all subjects. Despite the need for an accurate system of pause measurement, the study was thus not based on a complex experimental design. At the same time, the quantity of data generated was formidable. In ninety consecutive interpretations, lasting about four minutes each, the minimum frequency of pauses was about fifteen per minute; in many cases it was far higher. There were data regarding the time spent pausing per minute of speech, the proportion of this time made up by pauses of different durations, and the reasons subjects gave for their pauses. I had originally thought that I would not subject the data to statistical analysis, nor had my supervisor been insistent in this respect. However, he suggested that I might think about doing so if I could take advantage of statistical expertise at Forlì. I was fortunate enough to be helped in this respect by a colleague with statistical skills. This part of the study proved instructive. One lesson I learned was that, even with appropriate data processing software, statistical analysis can take far longer than I had imagined. I thought that a summary account of the study would allow my colleague to choose the most suitable statistical analysis, and that he would be intent at all costs on identifying definite trends in my data. Actually, he was interested in knowing far more than I expected about the study. While he did not live up to my caricaturized vision of the statistician as reducing everything to a search for demonstrable trends, the purpose of his many questions was to express my categories of data as variables on a matrix. In a study as simple as mine, the resulting matrix was not complex; despite this lack of complexity, I found it interesting to appreciate how little my initial explanations of the study had helped my colleague visualize the matrices best suited to presentation of the data. The research was methodologically simple and had generated a variety of readily available information (frequency and duration of pauses, subjects’ explanations of the reasons for pauses). My comments on the study rationale and data were thus sufficient to allow statistical verification of hypotheses once data had been collected. In sophisticated experimental studies, such an approach would not be acceptable and the statistician would have to be consulted from the outset on study design (number of subjects, variables, comparisons, questionnaires etc.). Indeed, it would be rash to undertake experimental work known from the start to require statistical analysis without first asking for the

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opinion of a statistician. In my case, the study methodology had been agreed with the supervisor, who therefore knew that the data would lend themselves to statistical analysis. However, the supervisor cannot always be expected to have a knowledge of statistics — particularly in a field like Interpreting Studies, where many scholars have a non-scientific background. In such cases it is particularly important to obtain advice about statistical issues from the very start, rather than discover too late that the study design is unsuitable for meaningful statistical analysis. The researcher who consults a statistician only after collecting data may learn that s/he has recorded too few subjects for a meaningful analysis. In addition, the researcher may not understand the usefulness of agreeing study design beforehand with a statistician and the statistical implications of an intuitive preference between different forms of comparison may thus come as a surprise. For example, comparing interpretations of both impromptu speakers and readers by ten subjects is statistically not the same as comparing interpretations of impromptu speakers by ten subjects with interpretations of readers by another ten subjects. The difference is not only the obvious consideration that twice as many subjects are needed in the second case, but also that the intrasubject or intersubject nature of such comparisons will affect the choice of applicable statistical tests. The researcher who does not realize this before starting a study may find it an unwelcome surprise to be told afterwards by a statistician that certain tests have to be ruled out because they are unsuitable for the type of comparison involved. One interesting outcome of several evenings poring over data with my colleague is that we plan to work together on future projects. He found the type of data generated by my study interesting to work with, while I had the opportunity to understand how effectively data can be examined and presented with help from a statistician. Inferential statistics are not automatically appropriate (Gile 1998), but they can be a great help when averages and ranges alone fail to give a representative view of events.

9. Taking into account time and expense Important — and all too independent — variables to be considered when thinking about starting doctoral work are time and expense. The time requirement, difficult to gauge beforehand, should be considered from two perspectives. First, there is no escaping the fact that a doctorate takes

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several years to complete. Second, just how much time it requires — in the evenings, at weekends, during holidays — can be fully appreciated only once work is under way. In my case, the initial decision to undertake postgraduate study had been entirely my own and commitment to the project had been strong from the outset. Lack of opportunity for sustained and leisurely study was not a problem in the early stages of the DEA, largely dedicated to taught courses, seminars and assignments. This reassured me that the second year at Grenoble would be more than sufficient for the mémoire. However, when the time came to work on it, organizing and carrying out a modest research project proved more demanding than co-ordinating the range of clearly defined, relatively minor tasks that I had been required to complete during the previous year. The need to manage time efficiently became an increasingly dominant issue, as I learned that organizing research and maintaining reasonable continuity of effort is not only a question of willingness. Part-time study, by definition, presupposes optimum use of limited time. Pre-existing personal and professional responsibilities cannot be pushed to one side or taken lightly; an extended sabbatical from the booth would imply not only reduced earnings and selfimposed exile from the professional circuit, but also loss of the practice under pressure that interpreters should thrive on. Given my determination not to become complacent in this respect, I was particularly keen to maintain regular interpreting assignments. Nevertheless, my experience was consistent with Birgit Strolz’s description of research sometimes pushing aside all other commitments (Strolz 1995). Striving to keep a sometimes precarious balance between research and other commitments meant that work on the DEA mémoire progressed in spurts. This would also prove to be the case later, with the doctoral dissertation. In part-time study, it seems almost inevitable that even agreeing on realistic deadlines with a supervisor requires considerable organization. At the outset it may seem realistic to promise that a limited part of the overall project, like a literature review or an analysis of data, will be ready within a month. However, the experience of working in short bursts quickly taught me that the outcome of study does not depend only on the number of hours spent burning the midnight oil. Other things being equal, study is more purposeful and productive when divided into regular, sustained sessions than when crammed into bursts of an hour or two at a time between other commitments or late at night. While much reading can be done during the occasional free hour, tasks such as data analysis or drafting of a discussion require continuous, sustained

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reasoning. Spreading such work over a large number of short sessions means frequent interrupting and restarting. At the start of each session, time must be dedicated to regaining momentum lost by curtailing the previous session just as it got into its stride. Time allocation is not the only factor determining efficient study. Work like a literature review requires access to bibliographic sources, easier at home or in a library than on a train or in breaks during a busy day in the booth. Eight hours of study notched up at different times while commuting or working are unlikely to prove as effective as a full day in a well-stocked library. Admittedly, a portable computer (or even files on a diskette) can help the itinerant scholar maintain a degree of continuity in drafting or editing texts. Nevertheless, I have found the rare periods of the year offering a break from regular travel by far the best time for sustained research effort. A further aspect of postgraduate study which should not be overlooked is how much it costs. University fees in France are still very reasonable, but can be far higher in other countries. In addition, meetings with supervisors or attendance at courses and seminars can involve expenditure on travel and accommodation, as well as loss of earnings if such commitments clash with potential interpreting assignments. A further possible expense may be the purchase of software for specific purposes, such as acoustic analysis or statistical processing. In this respect, the package I used for creation of oscillograms was surprisingly inexpensive, but I did have to buy a computer able to run it. Irrespective of hardware requirements, programmes for applications like data processing are generally costly. A doctorate can thus prove financially more demanding than is generally realized — particularly if the student is not supported by a grant. It therefore seems advisable to quantify foreseeable expenditure beforehand and ascertain whether any items can be offset by availability of institutional resources. For example, lecturers involved in part-time research can probably have frequent access to recording equipment, computers and journals, without incurring personal expense. For self-employed colleagues, it is also a good idea to ask a tax consultant for advice on whether items such as university fees or travel and accommodation expenses incurred for study purposes can be set off against taxation. While tax savings on individual expenses may not be great, their cumulative effect over a period of several years could be appreciable.

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10. Using the experience to advantage An initial reason for my wanting to undertake a doctorate was the wish to become involved in supervision of the graduation theses, often based on research projects, which final year undergraduates must complete in the Italian university system. The opportunity to work on a number of these has provided an interesting complement to my experience as a research student. Some research projects submitted for graduation purposes are of a very high standard and reflect considerable capacity for independent research. In most cases, however, the student needs much initial guidance in choice of subject and reading. While keeping abreast of the literature sufficiently to give such advice is a welcome task, working on a doctorate has given me an even greater incentive to do so. More important, the difficulties I have encountered at different times in planning and organizing my research have helped me appreciate the problems students face in their projects. Since the time normally taken to complete a graduation thesis is about a year, reading around the subject in search of a topic is possible only to a certain extent. In addition, students may be discouraged from undertaking research on interpreting if left entirely to define their own topics, as work in ‘rival’ fields like terminology tends to fall into a fairly standardized format which allows projects of a good standard to be comfortably completed in less than a year. Willingness to suggest topics is therefore important if the School wishes to maintain a consistent output of research on interpreting. The experience of working on a doctorate has enabled me to appreciate better how the topic, scale and timing of viable research projects can be negotiated with students. Some students who participated as subjects in my doctoral study were interested to hear about my methodology and findings. Two of them are now starting research on a number of the recordings in my corpus — obviously with the prior consent of the subjects concerned. The two students are working on topics not only distinct from that of my research, but also requiring different methodological approaches. Pooling recorded material so that it can be analyzed from different perspectives means that the effort required to collect recordings can be shared. It might be objected that the students using my recordings have not experienced fieldwork. Given that they not only participated in the study but also provided recordings for previous pilot work, I feel that the decision to let them work on the material concerned was justified. Such situations give students a feel for shared research effort and help them appreciate to what extent collaboration with a supervisor is a joint effort.

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The colleague who has dedicated so much time to my statistics has now started to provide methodological help with graduation research projects. His input is particularly important not only for statistical analysis, but also for study design and for questionnaires. The prospect of continuing joint efforts in interpreting research is exciting. It also carries responsibility, in that students ideally undertake projects on interpreting with a desire for reasoned guidance and criticism. Fulfilling these expectations takes time, thought and sustained interaction. While I would advise colleagues interested in a doctorate not to wait too long before starting, undertaking postgraduate work at a later stage in one’s career can be rewarding. Time pressures are admittedly a major difficulty, since family and professional commitments cannot be swept aside for the several years a part-time doctorate requires. At the same time, it is unlikely that a colleague one or two years out of interpreting school would have ready access to a broad sample of student and professional subjects ready to participate in a research project. In this respect, a network of professional contacts and friendships developed over a period of many years can prove an enormous advantage. Collecting data in the field allowed me to share many hours of discussion with students and colleagues, whose comments on difficulties in finding the right word or deciphering illegible notes provided much useful information (often with a note of good-humoured self-reproach). Despite a keen desire to finish the doctorate, I realize that similar opportunities to channel such sustained effort into a project that has been my own from the outset may prove elusive once the work is complete. While the inroads that postgraduate study makes into normally ‘free’ time should not be underestimated, I would therefore not hesitate in encouraging colleagues to share the experience.

References Basel, E. 1997. “Research-Based Teaching”. The Jerome Quarterly 12(2): 8–9. Gambetti, M. and Mead, P. 1998. “The Aarhus Seminar on Interpreting Research”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 8: 169–180. Gile, D. 1998. “Observational Studies and Experimental Studies in the Investigation of Conference Interpreting”. Target 10(1): 69–93. Goffman, E. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Mead, P. 1996. “Action and Interaction in Interpreting”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 7: 19–30.



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Mead, P. 1997. Évaluation du débit en langue maternelle chez des étudiants italophones suivant un cursus d’Interprétation de Conférence: comparaison d’un discours improvisé et d’une interprétation consécutive. Mémoire de DEA. Université Stendhal-Grenoble 3. Pöchhacker, F. 1999. “Teaching Practices in Simultaneous Interpreting”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 9: 157–176. Strolz, B. 1995. “Une Approche Asymptotique de la Recherche sur l’Interprétation”. Target 7(1): 65–74.



Beginners’ problems in interpreting research A personal account of the development of a PhD project Friedel Dubslaff The Aarhus School of Business, Denmark

1.

Introduction

In this paper I want to discuss some of the problems newcomers to the field of interpreting research may meet when writing a doctoral dissertation. It is not the aim of the paper to give a complete account of beginners’ problems. Instead, I shall draw upon my own experience because, when writing my dissertation, I encountered a number of difficulties which, I believe, are illustrative of beginners’ problems in interpreting research in general. Thus, although this paper is a personal account, I hope that it may make readers aware of some common sources of frustration. Before discussing the problem areas in detail, however, I shall briefly account for my personal background, as insufficient background knowledge was one of the reasons why I met relatively many problems (the role of insufficient background knowledge and research training is described in the papers by Gerzymisch-Arbogast and Gile on topic selection, this volume). My prior experience of academic writing was largely confined to an MA thesis on the works of a German novelist as part of my graduation from the University of Hamburg in 1970. In the sixties, language studies at many German universities really meant studying literature. After a few years of teaching German (and English) at a secondary school in Hamburg, I found myself in Denmark teaching German as a foreign language, giving classes on German society and culture and training students in interpreting skills as a part time lecturer at the Aarhus School of Business. Teaching interpreting was a completely new experience for me and required — apart from close cooperation

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with a colleague who was both a native speaker of Danish and a practitioner — that I read a lot of basic informative and didactic literature. This, in turn, brought about the wish to learn more. As my Danish interpreting colleague was not interested in research, my interest in the field was mainly due to inspiring guest lectures by Hella Kirchhoff from the Institute for Translation and Interpreting Studies at the University of Heidelberg. In the late eighties, the Faculty of Modern Languages at the Aarhus School of Business decided to include interpreting in its research profile. In 1990, there was an opportunity to apply for a PhD grant based on a project on interpreting, and I was one of the first to obtain such a grant in Denmark.

2. Problem areas In the following, the problem areas will be discussed in ‘chronological’ order, i.e. following the main phases in working on a research project. However, as not all projects, including my own, progress in the canonical order, some deviations from the usual chronology will occur in the discussion of the working phases in Sections 2.1 to 2.8. The most striking deviation is due to the fact that I found the topic for the final version of my project only after I had collected the data. In other words, my dissertation (Dubslaff 1996) differs considerably from the project which I had outlined in 1990, when I applied for the PhD grant. At the time, I did not know that my dissertation would be about the use of anaphoric reference by means of pro-forms in simultaneous interpreting from German into syntactically asymmetric languages (for an explanation of pro-forms, see Section 2.4 below). 2.1 Supervision There was no supervisor at the Faculty who was an interpreting researcher. My supervisor’s research field was grammar and translation studies. This constellation is not uncommon even today, because interpreting research is still a young discipline as compared to translation research. Having a non-interpreting expert as a supervisor is by no means a problem in itself. As Gile (1990: 230) points out, when talking about simple projects, any experienced researcher, no matter what his research field is, can help newcomers to avoid “methodological deviations from common sense and logic”, an extremely useful kind of feedback, even for beginners with larger projects. I was

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lucky enough to receive much feedback of this kind. What I did not get, however, was feedback concerning the design of my project. As I had many years of teaching experience within interpreting, my supervisor regarded me as the expert in the field and I was perfectly free to choose what I wanted to do and how. Through my teaching activities I had become interested in the syntactic differences between German and Danish, and the aim of my PhD project was to investigate how these differences would affect target texts in simultaneous interpreting from German. I was planning a comparison of the information structure in source and target texts using as my frame of reference Functional Sentence Perspective (a concept developed by the Prague School to describe the theme-rheme or topic-comment structure of sentences). I assumed that, due to syntactic differences, the information structure of the source texts would be changed which, in turn, might result in wrong renderings in the target texts. Errors in the topic-comment structure are quite common in target texts produced by students in translation courses, and my supervisor used to stress the importance of this aspect in his courses. Therefore, it was only natural that he approved of my project. He had confidence in my ability to decide whether or not my plans were also applicable to a project on interpreting. Hence, I started reading literature on Functional Sentence Perspective, collecting potential source texts with interesting examples of special German word order and trying to apply an elaborate transcription system for thematic versus rhematic elements (Eroms 1986) on my source text examples. However, my supervisor’s approval eventually turned out to be a drawback. It took me quite some time to realize that the project which I had already been working on for several months would not be a useful contribution to interpreting research after all. But before I took the final decision to abandon the information structure project, I asked both an external interpreting researcher and a practitioner for advice. My doubts about the relevance of the project were confirmed and I decided to look for another project. (For a more detailed explanation of why I abandoned the project, see Section 2.5). This experience shows that there are very good reasons for Gile’s (1991: 171–172) advice to researchers who are non-practitioners, namely that they ought to consult interpreters before deciding about the set-up of a project on interpreting.

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2.2 Selecting a topic As I did not myself have alternative ideas as to how to proceed immediately after I had given up information structure and Functional Sentence Perspective, I was open to suggestions. One of these was to develop a comprehensive integrated model for written and oral translation, i.e. written translation, consecutive interpreting and simultaneous interpreting. The idea was to use the concept of units of translation as a common denominator for all three modes of translation. Having read Kirchhoff (1976) on simultaneous interpreting, I was familiar with her notion of functional units in simultaneous interpreting, a flexible kind of unit of translation the maximum size of which is dependent (among other criteria) on the capacity of working memory. I was attracted by the idea of trying to define functional units for consecutive interpreting and translation as well, and started reading what I could find about all sorts of language processing units, first of all German scholars on units of translation (Übersetzungseinheiten
) like Krings (1986), Königs (1987), Lörscher (1989) and Thiel (1990), but also Lederer (1978) on units of meaning, Miller (1956) on chunks, Goldman-Eisler (1972) and Dejean Le Féal (1980) on input segmentation (or Satzsegmentierung
) etc. However, it gradually became clear to me that I was not ready to meet the challenge inherent in this type of theoretical project although I found the topic fascinating. As a beginner, I lacked the profound knowledge of the research literature on the three modes of translation involved. Moreover, it would take me a very long time to read the vast amount of literature on language processing in both comprehension and production which I felt was necessary in order for me to decide what kind of processing unit would serve my purpose best. But the main reason was a basic problem in theoretical research: How could I find a concept of units of translation which was general enough to cover both translation and interpreting without being so void of content that it would be useless in practice? I would have to find the link between two extremes, the full text as the unit of translation on the one hand and some sort of small unit, e.g. at clause or sentence level, which would be realistic in simultaneous interpreting on the other hand. There was yet another reason for feeling uncomfortable with the idea: Being a newcomer without a network of people I could ask for help, I doubted whether I would be able to obtain the data for all three forms of bilingual mediation. Even though it was a theoretical project I had in mind, I would still need empirical data to which I could apply the model. And last, but not least, I

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was not at all sure what would be the appropriate methodology. Looking back today, it seems that Think-Aloud-Protocols and retrospection would have been one possible way of getting empirical data about units of translation. But I hesitated to apply this tool to my own work because, in those days, introspection and retrospection were still fairly new ways of collecting data and they seemed to be used for translation only — at least, at the time, I had not heard of anyone trying to apply retrospection to interpreting. After careful deliberation, I decided not to embark on this project. I still think that the concept of units of translation is both interesting and productive (for a case in point, see Zhu 1999). Nevertheless, it was a sound decision for me to give up the idea at the time. Experienced supervisors like Kurz (this volume) warn young researchers against “trying to do too much” and Gile (paper on topic selection, this volume) recommends prospective PhD students to “avoid setting their sights too high” by being too ambitious and trying to develop new theories, models or laws. In the end, I decided to return to the original idea: an investigation of how linguistic differences between the source and the target language affect the output in simultaneous interpreting. 2.3 Reading research literature According to the standard chronology of working phases, the next step after having selected a topic would be reading the relevant literature. In this phase, it is quite normal for beginners to encounter problems. My own problems in this field were due to inappropriate organization of the reading process and to an uncritical attitude towards some of the literature. The most serious problem concerning the organization of the reading process was unrealistic time management. As a PhD student I had only few teaching obligations and limited administrative work. This made me feel that I had all the time in the world to engage in extensive reading in order to acquire solid and systematic knowledge of my research field. After many years of teaching, this was a temptation I could not resist. Besides, I had the oldfashioned idea that it was best having read most of the literature en bloc before starting to write. This led to a prolonged reading phase at the expense of other working phases, especially the writing phase at the end of the project. The problem was not so much a matter of what I read, but when and how. As interpreting studies is an interdiscipline, I started reading classics in linguistics, textlinguistics, syntax, semantics, speech comprehension, speech produc-

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tion and, of course, translation studies. All of this was useful, some of it a must. But it would have been better if I had acquired the baseline expertise before actually starting the PhD project. As it was, I spent too much time reading. Moreover, under the circumstances my reading technique, namely thorough reading instead of quick reading for orientation, turned out to be inappropriate — and the more so as only one of the classics, de Beaugrande and Dressler’s introduction to textlinguistics (1981), eventually turned out to have a direct bearing on my project (see Section 2.4 below). Another problem connected with organizing the reading process was that I had not written down and archived the enormous amount of information systematically enough while I still had the books and journals. One (out of many) examples of lost information was the origin of the German term Fremdbestimmtheit, denoting the fact that the content of the texts produced by interpreters is always determined by somebody else. I would have liked to use this precise one-word term, but I could not remember where I had found it. This situation was partly due to the fact that, at the time, modern computer technology had not yet come to my office. If I had used a data base with my own key words and interesting quotations with page numbers — together with the basic information necessary for the list of references — it would have been much easier to avoid the problem of inadequate information storage. For details about writing notes for this and similar purposes, see the papers by Cˇenˇková and Gile (on critical reading) in this volume. The other type of problem connected with the reading process was uncritical use of the literature. One example of this was my way of using Kirchhoff (1976), an article which I had read in connection with the author’s guest lectures at the Aarhus School of Business during the eighties. Kirchhoff (1976) is a concise ten-page article containing a description of the essentials of simultaneous interpreting including a simple sequential model and its most common variations, i.e. the use of special strategies such as deliberate storing of source text segments in working memory for later use. This article was not only one of the first publications on simultaneous interpreting I ever read. It was also the source of inspiration for the topic of my original PhD project, namely word order differences in a specific language pair and some special syntactic strategies (including the ones mentioned by Kirchhoff) which interpreters would use to cope with word-order related difficulties. Kirchhoff (1976) was definitely not the most recent research literature when I started in 1990 and there were also some inconsistencies in the paper. But to me, Kirchhoff’s ten pages were almost

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like chairman Mao’s little red book for the Chinese. Consequently, I overestimated the importance of Kirchhoff’s strategies in general and syntactic strategies in particular. Another example of a publication which I read thoroughly but uncritically is Baaring (1984) — the only monograph on simultaneous interpreting written in Danish at that time. This was in itself a good reason for me to read it thoroughly. Moreover, it is based on Kirchhoff’s basic model of phases in simultaneous interpreting. Baaring’s main concern is the question of how the encoding phase relates to the decoding and production phases in the model. Although this issue was not relevant for my project, I took it for granted that it was essential to have an opinion on the number and contents of phases and, therefore, I continued to focus on this question in my further reading. To sum up, it is advisable to start by reading the most recent literature, to be critical when assessing the relevance of existing literature to one’s own project and make sure to store references and quotations systematically. It is also advisable to start writing drafts of parts of the dissertation as early as possible. 2.4 Selecting the theoretical framework Ideally, deciding upon an appropriate theoretical framework should belong to the early stages of a research project. However, I made the decision rather late in the process. This was not the result of a deliberate choice but the consequence of various problems. Of course, one of these problems was the change of topic. But even after I had decided to return to word-order-related difficulties in simultaneous interpreting, I only had a vague idea of what I was looking for. None of the theories and models I had become acquainted with so far seemed to be a convincing candidate. The skopos theory, for instance, as described in Reiß and Vermeer’s (1984) general theory of translation and interpreting (discussed by Pöchhacker, this volume) was attractive at first sight because the main idea — the functionality of the target text as the most important assessment parameter — is broad enough to comprise both translation and interpreting. On the other hand, the theory is clearly designed for translation, whereas interpreting is only referred to briefly a few times, when the authors state that their account of translational rules and laws is also applicable to interpreting. But the skopos theory cannot account for the role of important variables in the interpreting process, let alone of processing conditions in simultaneous interpreting. Models especially designed for simultaneous interpreting seemed to be a

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better choice. As I was interested in ‘waiting for the verb’-phenomena and possible ensuing memory problems, the above-mentioned model by Kirchhoff (1976) would have suited my purpose. Apart from offering a simple sequential model with four basic processing phases (decoding, encoding, output production and monitoring alongside with listening to new input), Kirchhoff includes a variant with a storing operation. Thus, Kirchhoff takes into account the role of working memory. She also addresses the issue of memory limitations by providing, in terms of seconds, a definition of the theoretical maximum size of the segments which the information processing system is able to process — as opposed to an optimal segment size which is the size interpreters prefer in practice. Thus, the limitations of working memory are mentioned by Kirchhoff, and I might have adopted her models as my theoretical framework. However, the aspect of memory limitations is not a salient feature of the basic model, nor of its variant. The main focus is on the sequence of phases in the processing of information, and memory limitations are only mentioned in the explanation of the models, but are not represented in the models themselves. Therefore, I was not fully satisfied with Kirchhoff’s models for my special purpose. Another example of a model which I might have used is Moser’s (1978) well-known flow chart model of simultaneous interpreting, which gives a complete account of all possible stages in source and target language processing operations located in numerous memory stores. The model includes many yes/no decision points where the processing system, in case of insufficient input, can go back to a previous step before executing the next. I might have exploited this feature of the model but, at the time, I was not aware of its potential. As it did not address processing difficulties explicitly, I could not see the possible relation between the model and my project. Hence, about mid-way in working on my PhD, I had still not found a satisfactory theoretical framework. But then I came across an early version of Gile’s (1985) Effort model for simultaneous interpreting. This model differs radically from the models by Kirchhoff and Moser in that it does not focus on the chronology of phases or stages in an abstract processing system, but on the cumulative effect of three competing and demanding efforts, which require sufficient processing capacity on the part of the individual interpreter in order for her/him to meet the varying requirements of a given task at any point in time. This model (and later versions of it) was convincing as the framework for my research project because the issue of limited processing capacity is the key issue and not only a more or less implicit aspect. Therefore, the model matched my interest in processing difficulties perfectly.

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The Effort model seemed to be a good choice for yet another reason, although I did not become aware of this until much later in the process. Due to the interdisciplinarity of interpreting studies, the theoretical framework for research projects within interpreting will often include models or theories from other disciplines, which have to fit together. Thus, in the final version of my PhD project, the theoretical framework consists of models/theories taken from three disciplines, namely — apart from interpreting studies — textlinguistics in the form of de Beaugrande and Dressler’s (1981) text-world model and pragmatics in the form of Ariel’s (1990) accessibility theory (the background for this choice will be explained below). It did not cause any problems to combine the Effort model with the text-world model and accessibility theory. In all three models/theories, (working) memory and the ease or difficulty of processing information play a prominent role. I could use the Effort model to predict that some interpreters would prefer not to wait for the verb in German source texts in order to avoid memory overload. I could also use the Effort model to account for my assumption that interpreters who have started rendering a source text segment before they are sure about the meaning of the utterance as a whole, might wish to correct or otherwise improve their output immediately afterwards, provided that this would not cost too much in terms of processing capacity. A linguistically economic way of referring to the previous output would be to use the most common referring expressions such as personal pronouns and demonstratives, so called pro-forms, which are defined by de Beaugrande and Dressler (1981: 64) as being short, almost void of content and suited to replace considerably bigger content blocs without repetition. I could use these authors’ text-world model to account for the efficiency of pro-forms in discourse processing, their main function being to keep a current text-world entity present in working memory with a minimum of processing resources (1981: 69). Finally, in order to describe not only the cognitive implications of various pro-forms, but also their relations to other referring expressions, I could use Ariel’s accessibility theory and her notion of referring expressions as accessibility markers, which indicate the availability (or activation level) of a given referent in the speaker’s and/or listener’s mind, thereby indicating the ease of retrieval from memory. For an explanation of when and how I found out that the final version of my project would be about pro-forms, see Section 2.7. In essence, not knowing what the theoretical foundations of one’s PhD work will be until late in the process may not be the optimal order of things. However — at least in empirical work — this does not necessarily mean that no

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progress can be made before the final decisions about the theoretical framework are taken. A late decision may even be an advantage if the researcher wishes to take into account new and important literature which appears mid-way in his/her working process, or — as in my own case — existing relevant literature which he/she becomes aware of. Besides, a late decision makes it easier to write (and to avoid rewriting) the chapter on theory as a coherent whole, especially if the researcher has chosen an eclectic approach. 2.5 Choosing the method The Effort model was not only convincing as (part of) the theoretical framework for my dissertation, it was also an eye opener and helped me choose an appropriate method. Of course, I knew that the simultaneous interpreting process is dependent on many variables, but I did not fully understand the complex reality of my research object and its methodological implications until I became acquainted with the Effort model’s notion of limited processing capacity, which can be allocated in different ways by different interpreters. The model made me realize that using syntactic or other strategies, for instance, is not only dependent on the nature of the task at hand, but is also a matter of the individual interpreter’s personal processing capacity management. This, in turn, made it clear to me that only empirical data could contribute to producing new and relevant knowledge about dealing with linguistic difficulties in the booth. Thanks to the Effort model, I had finally learnt a lesson which would normally be regarded as trivial knowledge, i.e. that the most appropriate method for a project aiming at investigating the impact of word-order differences on target texts in simultaneous interpreting would be to conduct an empirical study. In this section, I shall not describe details about the methodology in the final version of my project, but focus on problems concerning the methodology of my first project, i.e. the original project on information structure mentioned in Section 2.1. My point in the following is that it was not the topic, but the methodology which was wrong. The inspiration to investigate information structure came from translation studies, especially from a study by a scholar from the East-German Leipzig School, who claims that the topic-comment-structure of source texts has to be maintained in the target texts (Koenitz 1987). If I had chosen to carry out an unbiased comparison of the information structure in source and target texts on the basis of authentic data or data derived from an experiment, it might have

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been possible to demonstrate special features of information structure in the target texts which could be attributed to the simultaneous interpreting process. In this case, the investigation would have been a relevant contribution to interpreting research. But this was not the method I had decided to use. Instead, I had taken several methodological decisions which, in fact, made it hard or even impossible to gain new insight. Firstly, I had decided to use written material as my source text data. Moreover, the data would not be coherent texts, but a collection of many small passages taken from many different texts. The rationale was that the source texts had to contain many specific word-order phenomena. This meant that my source text material was far removed from authentic conditions in spite of the fact that the small passages were taken from speeches which actually had been presented and interpreted at the European Parliament. Secondly, I had decided that the target texts should be constructed solutions to my collection of word-order problems, provided by myself and a few colleagues who were interpreter trainers. One of the reasons for this decision was that I did not have access to interpreters who could serve as subjects. But I did not regard this as a serious drawback, because I felt that discussing constructed solutions was a legitimate way of producing data, since I wanted to get a collection of different types of solutions, both exemplary and non-exemplary ones, and then use the results of the analyses to suggest ways of teaching students how to avoid errors in the topic-comment structure of their output. Thirdly, I had decided to investigate only the effects of a limited number of syntactic strategies such as the use of passive constructions, open-ended sentences, word-order changes and similar strategies which, I believed, would alter and, perhaps, distort the information structure in the target texts. The rationale was to find out whether there were safe information-structuring strategies which could be recommended to students, e.g. the well-known topic markers Regarding x … or As to x … or constructions which were more frequent in the target language (Danish) than in the (German) source language, e.g. clefts as comment markers. To sum up, all this would have been relevant in a project on contrastive grammar, but its relevance for simultaneous interpreting was doubtful. Because of the prescriptive methodology, the project could not contribute anything new to interpreting research. As there was nothing wrong with the topic as such, I might have decided to carry on with information structure applying more appropriate methods, but my interest in the subject had decreased considerably and I was no longer motivated enough to go on with it.

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However, I still wanted to investigate the impact that syntactic differences between the languages involved would have on the target texts. But the new version of the project would have to be an experimental study, because I still had to use source texts which contained relatively many instances of ‘waiting for the verb’-phenomena and other features of German word order such as noun phrases with heavy pre-modifications, which are potential problem triggers for similar reasons. These texts would then have to be presented to interpreters in a laboratory setting. 2.6 Collecting the data Preparing the source texts was the least difficult part of the data collecting phase, although it took me some time to find texts containing a variety of the linguistic phenomena mentioned above and, at the same time, having as high a degree of authenticity as possible under the circumstances (a number of complete short speeches originally presented by delegates from the European Parliament on issues which were discussed in the mass media at that time and thus did not require preparation on the part of the prospective subjects). These source text data could be provided without help from people outside my own institution, contrary to the target text data. As I wanted to find out — among other things — whether there was a difference in the way students and professionals would handle the task, I had to recruit subjects for each group. However, as mentioned previously, I did not have immediate access to professional interpreters. Nor did I have access to advanced student interpreters. The students at my own institution were absolute beginners in simultaneous interpreting and it would not have made much sense to present them with the test material because it would have been too difficult for them. Therefore, I had to look for help at the Centre for Conference Interpreting at the Copenhagen Business School, the only institution in Denmark which offered a postgraduate training course. I was reluctant to take this step because, being a newcomer to the field of interpreting research and a non-practitioner, I felt that I lacked the status which would have made it easier to ask a colleague whom I did not know very well for help. Moreover, I would have to ask for immediate help because of time constraints: the six months’ training course in Copenhagen would soon be over and at least eight months would elapse before there would again be an opportunity to recruit advanced students for the experiment. However, it turned out that my colleague in Copenhagen, Inge Baaring, was very kind and ready to

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support my project without hesitation, although it was inconvenient for her, as the course instructor, to let me conduct the experiment in one of the last sessions before the exams. I was also dependent on help from the outside when recruiting the professional interpreters. At that time, I did not have a network of colleagues whom I could ask to do me a favour and come to the laboratory at the Aarhus School of Business in order to participate in an experiment. But I had a connection to Brussels via a former student who had been an interpreter at the European Parliament for several years before he decided to work as a translator. He acted as an intermediary between me and the head of the Danish booth at the European Parliament. Fortunately, the latter took an interest in my project, maybe because it was the first PhD project on interpreting involving Danish. So he made four experienced freelance interpreters sacrifice one of their Monday mornings off duty to meet at work and interpret the recording of my source texts from the session in Copenhagen. He also helped me with other practical arrangements such as getting a visitor’s permit to enter the EU building. However, for technical assistance, I had to make my own arrangements. I was told that there were no recording facilities in the booths, and since I did not know that this problem could easily have been solved by the EU technicians, I travelled from Aarhus to Brussels with four big tape recorders to make sure that I would get the data. The collecting of data for this project totally depended on help from both Copenhagen and Brussels, and I had been worried whether it would be possible at all to get the necessary support. Therefore, I was very relieved and grateful to get positive response when asking for help. I do not know whether this positive experience had anything to do with the fact that the Danish community of interpreting practitioners and researchers is small and that its members are possibly more likely to help each other than members of larger communities. In any case, it seems that the feasibility of research projects, as far as access to interpreters is concerned, may be less problematic than beginners without a network might believe. 2.7 Analysing the data When I collected the first part of my data, i.e. the target texts produced by the students, I still did not know exactly what the object of my investigation would be. I knew, though, that I wanted to find out what the subjects had actually done in the booth and — if possible — why. However, I still had an expectation

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bias because of my firm idea about the importance of syntactic strategies. Therefore, when I first listened to the tapes, I expected to find clefts, passives, constructions with topic-markers etc. — but, apart from a few isolated examples, the data showed that the subjects had managed without them. This would have been an enormous disappointment if it still had been my intention to investigate the effect of these strategies on information structure. As it was, the data only proved what I had found out already — that my original project on information structure was remote from reality and would not have yielded new and relevant knowledge about simultaneous interpreting. But still, I was in the rather undesirable situation of having the data before I knew what I wanted to look for. However, as the experiment was designed according to my special interest in word-order differences, it turned out that the data could provide new knowledge about this issue, once I had found out how to pose new questions. Thus, examining the data once more and posing new questions led to the generation of my final hypothesis. As indicated above, I had not been able to find what I was looking for, when examining the data for possible errors in the topic-comment structure and other flaws in the coherence of the target texts which might be due to syntactic differences. This made me wonder how the subjects succeeded in producing coherent target texts under the given conditions. This, in turn, led me to look for anaphoric pronouns and demonstratives, because these are described in textlinguistics as one of the most common means of signalling textuality and, in particular, coherence. This, finally, seemed to be a promising object of investigation. The target text data seemed to contain many minor additions as compared to a hypothetical (written) translation of the source texts, and these additions seemed to be linked to the previous context by anaphoric pronouns and demonstratives. And, last but not least, these additions seemed to be concentrated in the renderings of the ‘interesting’ source text passages which contained wordorder-related problem triggers. Now I was able to formulate the hypothesis I would want to test, namely that in simultaneous interpreting from German into a syntactically asymmetric language such as Danish, the target texts would contain more anaphoric pronouns and other functionally comparable proforms than the source texts. Categorizing the data and trying to assign different functions to the additions I had found took me a long time and caused much trouble. However, I shall not go into details about analysing data, but just mention that, as a positive side effect, I learnt much about information structure in the target texts as compared to the source texts.

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To sum up, it is worth remembering that an invalidated hypothesis does not necessarily invalidate the whole project, because carefully collected data can give answers to more than just one specific question. It might even be a good idea, from the outset, to take into account the possibility of having to change direction at a rather late stage in the process. Planning alternative routes when starting research for a degree is recommended by Gile (paper on topic selection, this volume), because it gives the researcher the chance to use much of the work already done in case changes are required. 2.8 Writing The writing phase was an uncomfortable period for me because of constant time pressure. The repeated changes of topic and problems with time management in the reading phases had delayed the project considerably. The main problem was, however, that I had underestimated the time and effort necessary to formulate ideas in writing. I had given priority to reading because I assumed that, by reading all the relevant literature first, I would get a fairly complete idea of the whole dissertation, while the act of writing just would be a minor effort. However, during the last phase of the project, I discovered that it had been relatively easy to write short outlines of the project and to give oral presentations of the aims and results of the study. But formulating a vast amount of thoughts in a logical sequence of steps turned out to be a very demanding and time-consuming task. As a consequence, I was not able to finish the project within the given time frame and had to complete it under less favourable conditions, when the happy days as a PhD student with reduced work load had gone. As Gile points out (in his paper on topic selection, this volume), underestimating the time required to writing up the dissertation is a common phenomenon, and beginners should be aware of this when planning the time frame of their project.

3. Conclusion Struggling with numerous problems during your first research project can be a very long process and an extremely unpleasant experience. Although some detours in the working process may contribute to deeper insight into particular fields of study and into doing research in general, there are predictable beginners’

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problems which can and should be avoided. As many predictable problems, including the ones discussed in this paper, are due to insufficient background knowledge and research training, better preparation before embarking on a PhD project would solve some of these problems. Several contributors to this volume have outlined preparatory research seminars which seem to be promising measures in this respect (see Gerzymisch-Arbogast, Gile, paper on topic selection, and Cˇenˇková on seminars at MA level).

References Ariel, M. 1990. Accessing Noun-Phrase Antecedents. London and New York: Routledge. Baaring, I. 1984. Om omsætningsprocessen ved simultantolkning med tysk som udgangssprog. (On the encoding process in simultaneous interpreting with German as the source language), [ARK 21]. Copenhagen Business School. Beaugrande, R.-A. de und Dressler, W. U. (Hg.) 1981. Einführung in die Textlinguistik [Konzepte der Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft 28]. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Dejean Le Féal, K. 1980. “Die Satzsegmentierung beim freien Vortrag bzw. Verlesen von Texten und ihr Einfluß auf das Sprachverstehen”. In Sprache und Verstehen [Kongreßberichte der 10. Jahrestagung der GAL], W. Kühlwein und A. Raasch (Hg.), Bd. 1, 161–168. Tübingen: Narr. Dubslaff, F. 1996. Die Wiederaufnahme durch Proformen beim Simultandolmetschen aus dem Deutschen. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. The Aarhus School of Business. Eroms, H.-W. 1986. Funktionale Satzperspektive [Germanistische Arbeitshefte 31]. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Gile. D. 1985. “Le modèle d’efforts et l’équilibre d’interprétation en interprétation simultanée”. Meta 30(1): 44–48. Gile, D. 1990. “Research proposals for interpreters”. In Aspects of Applied and Experimental Research on Conference Interpretation, L. Gran and C. Taylor (eds), 226–236. Udine: Campanotto. Gile, D. 1991. “Methodological aspects of interpretation (and translation) research”. Target 3(2): 153–174. Goldman-Eisler, F. 1972. “Segmentation of input in simultaneous interpretation”. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 1(2):127–140. Kirchhoff, H. 1976. “Das Simultandolmetschen: Interdependenz der Variablen im Dolmetschprozeß, Dolmetschmodelle und Dolmetschstrategien”. In Theorie und Praxis des Übersetzens und Dolmetschens, H. W. Drescher und S. Scheffzek (Hg.), 59–71. Frankfurt und Bern: Lang. Koenitz, B. 1987. Thema-Rhema-Gliederung und Translation [Übersetzungswissenschaftliche Beiträge 10]. Leipzig: VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie. Königs, F. G. 1987. “Was beim Übersetzen passiert: Theoretische Aspekte, empirische Befunde und praktische Konsequenzen”. Die neueren Sprachen 86(2):162–185.



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Krings, H. P. 1986. Was in den Köpfen von Übersetzern vorgeht: Eine empirische Untersuchung zur Struktur des Übersetzungsprozesses an fortgeschrittenen Französischlernern [Tübinger Beiträge zur Linguistik 291]. Tübingen: Narr. Lederer, M. 1978. “Simultaneous interpretation: Units of meaning and other features”. In Language Interpretation and Communication [NATO Conference Series III 6], D. Gerver and W. Sinaiko (eds), 323–332. New York: Plenum. Lörscher, W. 1989. “Strategien des Übersetzungsprozesses”. Linguistische Berichte 119:53–84. Miller, G. 1956. “The magical number seven plus or minus two”. Psychological Review 63, 81–97. Moser, B. 1978. “Simultaneous interpretation: A hypothetical model and its practical application”. In Language interpretation and communication [NATO Conference Series III 6], D. Gerver and W. Sinaiko (eds), 353–368. New York: Plenum. Reiß, K. und Vermeer, H. 1984. Grundlegung einer allgemeinen Translationstheorie [Linguistische Arbeiten 147]. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Thiel, G. 1990. “Übersetzungseinheiten. Theoretisches Prinzip — didaktisches Instrument”. In Übersetzungswissenschaft: Ergebnisse und Perspektiven. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag für Wolfram Wilss, R. Arntz und G. Thome (Hg.), 184–190. Tübingen: Narr. Zhu, C. 1999. “Ut [sic] once more: The sentence as the key functional unit of translation”. Meta 44(3): 429–447.

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The manipulation of data Reflections on data descriptions based on a product-oriented PhD on interpreting Helle V. Dam The Aarhus School of Business, Denmark

1.

Introduction

As a research trainee, you easily get the impression that when conducting an empirical study, you basically need to do two things with your data: collect them and analyze them. The experience I gained when I was working for my PhD, however, made it clear to me that there can be a rather extensive phase between data collection and data analysis, namely a phase in which you prepare the collected data for analysis. Accordingly, I would prefer to say that data work falls into (at least) three phases: (1) collection, (2) preparation for analysis and (3) analysis. The focus of this paper will be on the second stage of data work, which I shall also refer to as the phase of manipulation for reasons which will be explained below. I cannot, and will not, give an exhaustive account of the preparatory manipulations required for all types of interpreting data. Rather, I shall limit my discussion to the type of studies (and data) in which I know from experience that such manipulations can be both important and problematic, namely in comparative product studies, i.e. studies in which the basic method consists in comparative analyses of source and target texts produced in interpreted communication. The point of departure of my discussion will be the piece of empirical research I conducted to obtain a PhD in interpreting (Dam 1995), and my account will therefore be personal and illustrative, rather than general and abstract. In spite of this limited scope, the paper will hopefully contribute to drawing attention to an aspect of data work which I have found to be of importance, but which has been somewhat neglected in the literature on

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interpreting so far. I will begin the paper by giving some background information on my PhD project and some of the factors that shaped it (Section 2). Like in the rest of the paper, the emphasis in this section will be on the question of data. I will then briefly outline how the issue of data has been dealt with in the literature on interpreting (Section 3). Afterwards, I will discuss the status of data in research projects in general and in projects on interpreting in particular (Section 4). Finally, I will present and discuss some examples of preparatory data manipulations from my PhD dissertation (Section 5), including transcription (5.1), translation (5.2) and segmentation (5.3).

2. Background: Choice of data, method and topic When I started doing research for a PhD in interpreting in 1991, the field had recently experienced a shift in paradigms. Whereas the predominant paradigm prior to the 90s had been conceptual analysis, or what in our particular field also manifested itself as “personal theorizing” or even “speculation” (Gile 1990), the early 90s saw a massive call for empirical work. While it was therefore clear enough that empirical research was hot, whereas (purely) theoretical research was not, it was less clear how one should, or could, ‘go empirical’ because of the distinct lack of empirical tradition in the field. To a novice interpreting researcher who wanted to embark on an empirical project, like myself, one of the first questions therefore was: what kind of data do I want to work with? — a question which is of course intrinsically linked with the choice of general methodology. As a logical point of departure, I started ploughing through the literature to find methodological inspiration in existing studies on interpreting. I soon realized that what the existing empirical studies on interpreting lacked in number, they could muster in methodological diversity: the wealth of different methods (and therefore data) that had served scholars in their empirical scrutiny of interpreting was truly impressive — and somewhat daunting to a beginner. In the sophisticated, interdisciplinary productions emanating from the Trieste School, for example, one could acquaint oneself with methods, and data derived therefrom, such as the verbalmanual interference paradigm (Fabbro et al. 1990) or dichotic listening tests (Fabbro et al. 1991) — see also the paper by Riccardi, Giambagli and Russo in this volume. Other examples of methods reported in the literature included pupillometry (Tommola and Niemi 1986), recall and recognition tests (Lambert

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1989), questionnaire-based surveys (Altman 1990), studies based on interpreters’ notes (Seleskovitch 1975), etc. Apart from this wide array of methods and data, there were of course also examples of studies in which the products for or of interpreting, i.e. source and/or target texts, served as data, even if many of these studies had very different foci of interest (e.g. Gerver 1974; Shlesinger 1989, 1994; Gallina 1992). I quickly decided to opt for the type of study in which product data enter the picture somehow. This was as much a result of opting out as of opting for a method, because while I had no knowledge whatsoever of neurolinguistic, psycholinguistic or sociological methods, I was quite familiar with the basically linguistic enterprise of textual analysis. As you may have inferred from my account, I actually decided what basic data, and therefore method, I wanted to work with before I chose a topic, although this could certainly be viewed as a deviation from the canonical order of the steps involved in setting up a research project (see also Gile on topic selection, this volume). My choice of PhD topic was as incidental as any. While I had this general idea that I wanted to apply textual analysis to product data derived from interpreting, I had no specific idea of what I wanted to look into at the beginning. In fact, my search for a topic was not successful till I took a course in general linguistic theories, models and methods approximately one month after I enrolled as a PhD student. During that course, I became acquainted with i.a. Teun A. van Dijk’s theory of macrostructures in discourse (e.g. van Dijk 1980), which has been used extensively for the study of summaries by both linguists and psycholinguists. I then started working on the idea that (many) interpreted texts are (likely to be) more or less condensed versions of their source texts, i.e. that they may in fact be qualitatively very similar to summaries. My project thus slowly began to take shape: the topic was to be text condensing in interpreting, and it was to be approached i.a. by applying van Dijk’s model of macrostructures to interpreting data. Since I assumed that consecutive was the type of interpreting that was most likely to result in condensed target texts, the data were to be drawn from an experiment of consecutive interpreting. Thus equipped with a topic and a clear idea of a general methodology, I was ready to start my data work. But at that point I realized that I still had very little idea about how to actually proceed. This was in part because of my own lack of research training in interpreting, but, again, the general lack of empirical tradition of the field was certainly also a factor.

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3. The issue of data in the literature on interpreting Although scarce, some papers dealing explicitly with interpreting research methodology, including the issue of empirical studies and therefore data, had actually been produced by the beginning of the 90s, notably by Daniel Gile (e.g. Gile 1990a, 1990b, 1991). These writings gave systematic accounts of many of the problems and pitfalls involved in empirical research on interpreting, such as the notoriously difficult access to interpreting data, problems of ecological validity and representativity, etc., and, as such, they were very valuable sources of information for the young researcher embarking on an empirical interpreting project at the time. However, abstract accounts as they were, not linked with actual empirical projects, these papers naturally tended to focus on general sampling issues and especially on the problems involved in the selection and collection of data for interpreting projects, whereas they did not discuss the next natural step in data work, namely the preparation of data for analysis, i.e. what I referred to as the second phase in data work — or the phase of manipulation — in the Introduction. In fact, the preparation of data for analysis was hardly a subject in any publication on interpreting, not only because of the tendency in the methodology literature to focus on data selection and collection, but also because the few empirical studies that had actually been carried out in the early 90s were either reported in PhD dissertations which remained largely unpublished, and therefore largely inaccessible,1 or published as condensed accounts in short papers, which inevitably left little space for descriptions of how the data in question had been prepared for analysis. Thus, brief descriptions of data preparations like for example: “the data were transcribed and analyzed according to …” were the rule rather than the exception in the published papers on empirical research. And in that respect, little has changed since the early 90s. All in all, when I started the empirical part of my project, I was not surprised to learn that data selection and collection was both difficult and problematic, since this was repeatedly stressed in the literature on interpreting. But I was certainly surprised to learn how extensive, time-consuming and decisiondemanding the preparation of data for analysis turned out to be. It is against this background that my paper sets out to discuss the very basic question: what do you actually do with your (product) interpreting data, once they have been collected and deemed both sufficiently valid and sufficiently representative for the study you are about to conduct? In other words, how do you prepare your data for analysis?

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I admittedly have no hard and fast answers to this question, but in the following I shall present some of the choices I made in the course of my own PhD work. As will become clear from my account, I made my choices in the process, as the needs for the different types of data preparation presented themselves. In the ideal world, the preparation of data should of course be planned and the relevant decisions be made from the very beginning — just like any other aspect of a research project. In order to set the scene for the description of how I prepared my data for analysis, I shall first briefly discuss the status of data in research.

4. Data vs facts The scientific environment I became part of when I enrolled as a PhD student happened to take a keen interest in the question of data and their status in research. It so happened that the period in which I started doing research coincided with the upsurge of corpus linguistics. The new corpus linguists tended to claim that the huge corpora they had managed to collect by means of computer technology gave them access to so many hard and solid data that they would be able to draw conclusions about language(s) which would be almost impossible to challenge. To many of the more classical linguists at my institution — among them my own supervisor, Henning Nølke — the conception of data underlying such claims was very provocative, to say the least. These scholars therefore felt a need to re-launch the discussion of the nature and status of data, and, as is natural, they came to insist very strongly on the importance of the data issue also in their contacts with their research students, including me. I therefore received my research training in an environment in which the scholars insisted on making a sharp and principled distinction between data and facts. As they would say, facts are “out there in the real world”,2 whereas data are the researcher’s representation of a selection of facts that are relevant for his research (Jensen, Sørensen and Vikner 1989: 183). This distinction has several implications. For one thing, it stresses that the set of data is finite, whereas the set of facts is infinite. This statement is hardly controversial, but it does remind us (and the corpus linguists) that no matter how large sets of data we collect, we will never know all the relevant facts. More importantly in this context, the above distinction reminds us that the nature of data is different from that of facts. While facts may be conceived of as

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fairly solid real-world phenomena, data are only a selection of facts which the researcher has subjected to a description and thereby assigned a structure and an interpretation (Nølke 1994: 26). Not till the selected facts — which we may also refer to as raw data — have been given such an interpretative description do they become real, operational data. Note that it is precisely this descriptioncum-interpretation of the raw data I have earlier referred to as the second phase in data work, the phase of preparation of data for analysis, or the phase of manipulation of data. The reason why I also refer to it as the phase of manipulation is for the sake of the argument: to stress the fact that the description-cuminterpretation to which the researcher subjects his raw data can never be objective. In other words, when preparing his data for analysis, the researcher, to a greater or lesser extent, manipulates his data and therefore ultimately what used to be ‘hard and solid’ facts.3 This further means that even if data are supposed to represent real-world facts, they are rarely particularly ‘hard and solid’ per se. Rather, data can be said to have the status of hypotheses about the facts the researcher intends them to represent (Jensen, Sørensen and Vikner 1989: 183). More specifically, data can be described as the output of the so-called external hypotheses (e.g. Nølke 1994: 26), that is a set of hypotheses which are external to a given study in the sense that they do not constitute or form part of the object of study as such — as opposed to the so-called internal hypotheses, which are those most of us would normally understand as hypotheses, namely those we explicitly formulate for and set out to test in a given study. As (external) hypotheses, our data are either true or not — or somewhere in between, one may add. And like their internal counterparts, the external hypotheses — and therefore our data — are only as true as their subsequent testing shows. But how do we go about testing such external hypotheses? In principle, just like we would test any ‘normal’ (internal) hypothesis. If there is no waterproof, natural-science-type of method available — which there rarely is when the object of study is language(s) or text(s) — a softer, humanities-type of test will have to do, i.e. one that relies on intuition and/or the construction of powerful arguments (Jensen, Sørensen and Vikner 1989). In order to make the subjective concept of intuition more objective, we have the possibility of resorting to collective intuition for verification of our (external) hypotheses (Nølke 1994: 27). This basically means that, instead of relying on our own intuition only, we can go out and ask others if they agree that a given datum is a true description of the real-world fact it is supposed to represent. If they agree, we have a situation of intersubjective consensus, which is

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still not objective, of course, but which is at least a shared kind of subjectivity. More or less the same goes for the argument-based method of validating (external) hypotheses and therefore data. No matter how convincingly we argue that a given datum corresponds to a real-world fact, there is no way of testing objectively that this is indeed the case. But strong arguments may serve to convince others that what we have is a true datum, i.e. a true representation of its real-world counterpart: a fact. Thus, if our argumentation is powerful enough, it may allow us to obtain intersubjective consensus about the truth of the datum in question. To sum up, when we describe our raw data in order to prepare them for analysis, we should try to make our descriptions correspond as much as possible to the real-world facts they are supposed to represent. However, no matter how careful we are when describing our data, there is no guarantee that the output of our descriptions is indeed a true representation of the real world, i.e. that the required correspondence between data and facts has actually been achieved. It is therefore important to argue explicitly and convincingly for the choices we make, and, if possible, to have our intuitions about the truth of our data, or the underlying hypotheses, backed by others. More than to any other type of data, I believe that the above observations apply to the type of data we extract from the products involved in interpreting, i.e. source and target texts. In fact, one of the most salient characteristics of data derived from the products of interpreting is the fact that there is (normally) a long way from their raw form, in which they take the shape of an audio- and/or videotaped string of transient sounds, to their final representation, which the researcher must give them in order to make them permanently and adequately accessible to analysis. This distance between their raw and their operational form means that interpreting data often need to undergo a whole series of descriptions-cum-interpretations before they reach their final representation. These descriptions can take various forms, depending on the nature of the study in question. In the following section, I will present some of the descriptions — or manipulations — I performed on my set of raw data in order to turn them into operational data.

5. Examples of manipulations of product data in a comparative study Before I start explaining the conceptual characteristics of the set of raw data I worked with in my PhD project, and describing the manipulations that were

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required as a consequence of those characteristics, I shall say a few introductory words about the data and the purpose of the study. The set of data I worked with in my doctoral dissertation were drawn from a Spanish source text as rendered consecutively into Danish by five interpreters, who thus produced five target texts of the same source text, all of which were recorded on audiotape (Dam 1995, 1996). As mentioned in Section 2, the topic of the dissertation was text condensation, and the questions I set out to answer were basically the following: are the target texts condensed versions of their source text, and, if so, how were they condensed, and why? The study thus had two major methodological characteristics: (1) it was based on the products involved in interpreting, and (2) it was comparative in nature, insofar as an important part of the method was to compare a source text with its corresponding target texts. Both these features had implications for the descriptions — or manipulations — I had to perform on the raw data in order to establish an adequate basis for analysis, as we shall see in the following subsections. 5.1 Transcriptions Like all product data drawn from interpreting, my data were oral and, in their rawest form, they therefore basically consisted of a string of sounds. As such, they were evidently both too volatile and too undifferentiated to constitute a useful basis for careful and thorough analyses. As a minimum, some kind of transcription of the recordings was therefore required before the phase of analyses and internal hypothesis-testing could begin. But what kind of transcription would be suitable? The lack of empirical tradition and/or of accessible documentation on previous empirical studies on interpreting (cf. Sections 2 and 3) meant that resorting to the existing literature on interpreting research was not very helpful when it came to determining an adequate transcription system. At the same time, the calls for interdisciplinarity in interpreting studies were at least as strong in the early 90s as they are today (e.g. Gran and Dodds (eds) 1989; Gile 1991, 1994, 1999). Both of these circumstances convinced me that I should seek inspiration outside interpreting, in a field in which experience with transcription systems was available. Initially, I therefore turned towards the field of conversational analysis (CA), a subbranch of (socio)linguistics which is dedicated to the investigation of social order as revealed through people’s talk, and which is therefore very concerned with the transcription of talk. A basic characteristic of the transcription systems developed within CA is

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their completeness: they are extremely detailed written records of speech (e.g. Jefferson 1984, 1989; MacWhinney 1991; Du Bois 1991; Ehlich 1993). Thus, many of the systems try to capture all aspects of oral communicative behaviour — both verbal, prosodic, paralinguistic, and extralinguistic features. Initially, this seemed like the right approach to me. Not only was there a certain consensus, at least within CA, that this approach would lead to a description of data that could be considered a ‘true’ one. At a first glance, the principle of completeness also seemed to be in line with the principle of the highest possible degree of correspondence between the output of the transcriptions, i.e. the data, and the real-world facts these data were supposed to represent (cf. Section 4).4 Initially, I therefore represented in my transcripts not only words, but also intonation, stress, speed, pauses, voiced hesitations and other features that are characteristic of oral language production. However, I gradually became convinced that adopting the CA-based transcription systems to my study was a mistake. Not only did their completeness make transcribing an extremely time-consuming enterprise and render the transcripts virtually illegible. More importantly, it also became clear to me that I had mistakenly taken the notion of correspondence to be tantamount to completeness. It took me a while to realize that a description of a set of data can easily correspond to the relevant set of facts, i.e. it can indeed be accurate, without necessarily being complete. In other words, there is nothing wrong with a selective transcript per se. It is just important that the selection involved in transcribing follows a criterion of relevance, that is that the aspects of speech we choose to represent in a (selective) transcript are (all) those that are relevant for the study at hand. In the context of a research project, relevance is determined by the purpose of the project, which in turn determines the features which are to be analyzed subsequently. This wisdom I owe primarily to Daniel O’Connell and Sabine Kowal (1994), who — on the basis of a very enlightening analysis of existing transcription systems — recommend that transcriptions be governed by a principle of economy for reasons of readability, time and relevance. I happened to come across this paper only very late in my PhD process, approximately one and a half years before I was to hand in my dissertation. This gave me just enough time to change my transcription system, but I recommend anyone who takes up interpreting research that requires the use of transcripts to read this paper from the very beginning, preferably together with some later papers by the same autors (O’Connell and Kowal 1995a, 1995b, 1999). As the main purpose of my study was to identify certain verbal changes, i.e. verbal manifestations of text condensation, performed by the interpreters when

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going from source to target text, the aspects of speech which were to be analyzed, and which were therefore deemed relevant in the context of my study, were in fact only the verbal features. Conversely, neither prosodic, paralinguistic nor extralinguistic5 features were considered relevant. In the end, I therefore decided to document only the verbal aspects of the speeches I was going to analyze via my transcripts. This basically means that I registered only actual words, whereas I eliminated from the transcripts virtually all other aspects of speech, including for example intonation, stress and filled as well as unfilled pauses. In fact, I eventually decided to eliminate all ‘non-words’, including for example unfinished words. Again, I chose to do so because these phenomena were not relevant for my study, and the only effect of representing them would therefore be to make the transcripts less readable. Incidentally, this first part of my account of my learning process as a transcriber, importing methods from CA at first and abandoning them later, may serve as a small caveat regarding interdisciplinarity. I agree, of course, with the scholars who recommend that we engage in interdisciplinary activities for methodological inspiration and support in the relatively new field of interpreting studies. But we should always be aware of the fact that, whichever other disciplines we choose to resort to, their scholars often work within entirely different research programmes in which altogether different approaches and methods may be relevant. It is therefore important not to start importing methods without carefully considering the larger context within which they have been developed. In other words, we need to make sure that methods from other disciplines either fit or can adequately be adapted to our own purposes. The transcription selections I have described above were not the only type of data manipulation I performed in the process of transcribing, however. I also represented the sounds of the raw data by means of standard orthography, which is evidently an abstraction. Clearly, there is no single way of putting words into writing, but among a large number of possible representations, we can use either a notation which is basically phonetic or one that is basically orthographic. Thus, the same utterance can be encoded as for example jeatchet or as did you eat yet? (O’Connell and Kowal 1999: 106). I chose orthographic notation both because I found it increased the readability of the transcripts and because there is ample consensus that this is in fact an adequate representation of speech — a(n external) hypothesis which I was able to verify by asking a number of language users around me. We may note that this consensus is not established exclusively on the basis of an actual correspondence between data and facts, but also through a long history of usage.

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The different manipulations I performed on my data no doubt resulted in a set of transcripts which were, in some respects, embellished representations of the actual sounds on my tapes. It could be argued that such transcripts constitute distorted representations of the raw data and therefore form an inadequate basis for analysis. In a way this is true. But the point I am trying to make here is that data are, by definition, more or less ‘distorted’. If they had not been manipulated, they would not be data — or at least not useful data. Besides, my transcripts were the results of both a relevance-based selection and a consensusbased type of notation, which had the further advantage of making the transcripts easy to read and not too time-consuming to prepare. Still, the manipulated nature of transcripts means that it is always a good idea to keep going back to the actual recordings to check for correspondence during the subsequent analyses of data. 5.2 Translation of the source text When I had transcribed my texts, I thought I was finally ready to start analyzing my data. This turned out to be too optimistic, however. At this point it was no longer the oral nature of the raw data, but the comparative nature of the study which posed problems. Thus, I found that the basic programme of ‘comparing source and target texts’ actually sounded much more simple than it was. This observation is in fact logical. Since source and target texts are by definition expressed in different languages, they are not directly comparable. Just like you cannot treat elephants and apples as if they were the same type of units and compare them directly, as the math teacher of my childhood used to insist, you cannot perform a direct comparison between a text expressed in, say, Spanish and one expressed in Danish, as was my case. Nevertheless, direct comparisons between source and target texts have been performed, explicitly or implicitly, by dozens of interpreting scholars, and interestingly enough, we do in fact take such comparisons to make perfect sense. When we do not think of them as absurd, I would venture, then it is because we construct and/or accept an underlying translation of either the source or the target text, or use some other kind of tertium comparationis, which enables us to make comparisons. Like any other method or underlying reasoning process, I think this ‘mental translation’ (or whatever it is) should be made explicit, so that others become able to assess its validity and thereby more generally to control analyses and results. Such transparency in methods, analyses and results is in fact one of the basic principles in research (e.g. Gile 1990a:29).

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It may be possible to think of several types of data descriptions which could provide a suitable basis for comparative analyses of source and target texts. Although I was aware that it was going to be highly problematic, my choice of data description at this point was to make a minimalist translation of the source text (for a description of the principles governing the translation, see below).6 I found that for my purposes translating the source text into the target language was the most simple way of establishing a tertium comparationis which could effectively neutralize language differences and thereby secure comparability. In this context it is important to note that the main purpose of my study was to identify manifestations of text condensation which were determined by interpreting and not by differences in the underlying systems of the two languages involved.7 It was therefore essential to eliminate purely languageinduced differences of length between source and target texts, so that only differences which could be assumed to be a result of the interpreting process would be represented in my final data. As a simple example of a languageinduced difference of length, I may mention the Spanish term for ‘yellow’ (amarillo
) and its formal equivalent in Danish (gul
). It is quite obvious that the latter term contains fewer characters and syllables than the former, but it is also obvious that, even if the Danish term is shorter, there would be little point in analyzing it as a manifestation of condensation in the context of my study. Nor would it for example be appropiate to categorize the Danish expression for, say, ‘the police’ (politiet
) as a manifestation of condensation in relation to its formal equivalent in Spanish (la policía
), even if the former demonstrably contains fewer words than the latter. However, as explained, I found that such purely language-induced differences of length between source and target texts could in fact effectively be neutralized through a (special kind of) translation of the source text, against which source and target texts could be matched. The reason why it was the source text — and not the target texts — which was chosen as the text to be translated was partly practical, insofar as there was only one source text whereas there were several target texts, and partly methodological, insofar as the actual objects of study were the target texts, and not the source text;8 it was therefore of importance to subject the former texts to as little manipulation as possible in order to obtain the highest possible degree of correspondence between (important) data and facts (cf. Section 4). The translation was elaborated according to two criteria which were, in principle, oriented in opposite directions. On the one hand, the translation should reflect the formal structures of the target language, and it should therefore be target-language-oriented in terms of morphology, syntax and lexis.

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This first criterion reflected the very purpose of this particular translation, that is to make the source language text structurally comparable to the target language texts. On the other hand, the text should be a direct translation of the source text in all other respects, and it should therefore be source-languageoriented particularly as regards conventions of language use at text level. This criterion was defined in order for the translation to reflect as much as possible the point of departure of the subjects’ performance and, most importantly, for the manipulated data to correspond as much as possible to the raw data and ultimately to the facts they were to represent. An obvious objection against performing comparisons via a translated source text would be that there is never one and only one translation of a text, and that no translation can therefore be completely objective but will always reflect the translator’s interpretations, preferences, norms, etc. In other words, it is extremely difficult to use a translation as a tertium comparationis and still obtain a set of data which corresponds with reasonable accuracy to the set of facts we want them to represent. This weakness can, however, be reduced substantially if a set of criteria for the translation to follow are predefined, as they were in my case, and provided that a number of (quasi)experts from outside agree that the end-product indeed follows these criteria and, more generally, accept the validity of the translation as a basis for the subsequent analyses. A series of colleague linguists and translators, whom I consulted on the issue of the minimalist translation of the source text, did in fact provide the necessary intersubjective support for this method and the way I had implemented it. I should like to add that in spite of the fact that I have been experimenting with other types of tertium comparationis in some of my later research projects (e.g. Dam 1998), I have not been able to come up with a better suggestion for a tertium comparationis than the minimalist translation I have described here. 5.3 Segmentation As a third and final step in the preparatory manipulations of my data, I proceeded to divide source and target texts into a series of smaller units. I chose to refer to this procedure as segmentation, but this term should not be mistaken to refer to the chunking of the source text as performed by interpreters in action — a procedure which is often referred to as segmentation as well (e.g. Goldman-Eisler 1972). Consequently, a segment should not be understood as a processing unit here, but as a unit of analysis. The purpose of segmenting the data was basically to establish a unit of

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analysis which was, on the one hand, small enough to make systematic in-depth analyses possible and, on the other hand, homogenous enough to make comparisons between source and target texts possible. Thus, the basic rationale of dividing data into smaller units is that it is not possible to just ‘take two texts and compare them’. In some cases, the texts involved in interpreting may indeed ‘segment themselves’, so to speak, as would probably be the case in dialogue interpreting, where each turn may for example be seen as a selfdefined unit of speech. But this is not the case when the interpreted texts are (long) monologues, as in my case. I therefore had to divide my data into smaller and more manageable units prior to the analyses. Again, the question of defining a relevant unit of analysis for studies on interpreting had virtually not been dealt with in the literature when I started working on my PhD in the early 90s. A few attempts had been made, though, to investigate interpreting on the basis of propositional analysis, i.e. using semantic propositions as the basic units of analysis. Not surprisingly, these attempts had been made by scholars with a background in cognitive psychology (Lambert 1989; Dillinger 1990), a field in which propositional analysis has been a standard tool in studies on text comprehension and recall for decades by now. Since van Dijk (e.g. 1980), whose theory of macrostructures I drew upon in an important part of my analyses, also proposes the proposition as a basic unit of analysis, my initial intention was to apply propositions to my study as well. In van Dijk’s version of propositional analysis (1980), which is pretty standard, a proposition is the basic unit in a representation of the semantic structures of a text.9 A proposition consists of a predicate and one or several arguments. The predicate is the central element of the proposition and it usually denotes a property of or a relation between individual objects. These objects are the arguments of the proposition. A simple example like the (surface) expression John loves Sheila would thus be represented as the following proposition in van Dijk’s notation: loves (John, Sheila) (van Dijk 1980: 17), loves being the predicate, and John and Sheila being the respective arguments in an ordered series. Even if this propositional notation is basically an attempt to represent the semantics behind the surface text, we may note that it is not a semantic representation in a strictly logico-semantic sense. Thus, the propositional model does not reflect a semantic analysis into context-independent semantic primitives expressed in a formal language, but rather a direct transmission of the contextdependent surface expressions as they occur in a natural language — in this case English. This, fairly current, version of propositional analysis can therefore be

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characterized as a relatively unformalized, but semantically oriented variant of natural language. As I became wiser, I came to realize that the proposition would not be an adequate unit of analysis for my purposes. For one thing, the propositional model is inherently problematic because it has all the disadvantages of a formal representation system, whereas it seems to lack the advantages such a system should ideally have. Ideally, a formal system should be able to yield a completely objective description of the meaning of the text. The propositional model I have described above is, however, far from this ideal, as it does not capture the context-independent, invariant meaning of the text, but reproduces the linguistic expressions as they appear on the surface of the text. On the other hand, the model certainly exhibits the main disadvantage of a formal — or semiformal — system: the analyses are extremely complicated and timeconsuming to perform. In my experience, it takes hours to analyze a few lines of text into propositions, and it is a highly interpretation-based enterprise. And I am not the only one who has this objection, apparently. After just one illustration of the proposed propositional analysis, van Dijk himself gives up the “cumbersome (though already extremely simplified) atomic proposition notation we have illustrated” (van Dijk 1980: 66). In the rest of the book, van Dijk simply segments the texts he analyzes into sentences.10 Apart from the inherent complexity of propositional analysis, a specific problem was involved in applying it to my study. For one thing, one of my subsequent analyses was to be an analysis of form and, for another, syntactic descriptions were to be included in parts of the analyses. I therefore needed a unit of analysis which reflected the surface structure of the text, which means that the semantic proposition would under no circumstances be an adequate unit of analysis in my case. The unit of analysis — or segment — I eventually decided to work with in my study, then, reflected the surface structure of the text. The segment was inspired by, but not identical with, a unit which was proposed in the context of a study on summaries in a Norwegian doctoral dissertation (Fløttum 1989). Basically, the segment I used could be characterized as a series of words grouped around a verb. This central verb could be either finite or non-finite. In the cases in which the verb was finite, there were no problems of delimitation, since the segment would then correspond to a normal, grammatical clause, be it a main or a subordinate clause. In the cases in which the verb was non-finite, the segment no longer corresponded to an ordinary clause, and some additional principles of delimita-

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tion therefore had to be defined. Basically, I decided that a segment which was based on a non-finite verb should begin with the verb itself, only preceeded by conjunctions, prepositions and/or adverbs attached to it, if any (for example: […]//or to rapidly define a useful segment
). The reason why I let non-finite verbs elicit segments of their own, instead of basing the analyses exclusively on standard clauses, and therefore finite verbs only, was that divisions based on finite verbs only tended to yield segments which were too long for detailed comparisons. In addition, in most cases nonfinite verbs and the elements attached to them turned out to form syntactically and semantically coherent units of their own. For example, when using both finite and non-finite verbs as segment-constituting elements, it was possible to define two segments for a relatively long sentence like the following: I then divided the texts into a series of smaller units//in order to make in-depth comparisons possible. As an exception from the general rule of ‘one verb, one segment’, some non-finite verbs did not trigger a new segment, namely those non-finite verbs which appeared together with (finite) modal and other auxiliary verbs. Rather, such non-finite verbs formed part of the segments in which their modal and/or auxiliary verbs were located. According to this principle, the following expression would constitute just one segment, although it does in fact contain two verbs, namely a finite modal and an non-finite verb: in the following I shall describe the units of analysis. I chose to let the (modal) auxiliaries stay together with the verbs they were auxiliary to because of the inherent unity between them. Under the above definition of the segments, the only systematic problem in terms of achieving comparability across source and targets text segments in my data was that the interpreters tended to include more verbs in their texts than were originally present in the source text. Thus, for example source text nominalizations were rather systematically verbalized by the interpreters, so that for example development would become substituted for develop. Such shifts, which are in fact typical of the shift from the written to the spoken language register (e.g. Chafe 1982), may have been particularly frequent in my data because the source text was originally a written text, which therefore exhibited the register typical of writing, whereas the target texts were inherently oral (see also Shlesinger 1989). Anyway, these shifts were not too much of a problem, insofar as it was possible to solve it simply by occasionally compounding two (or sometimes more) target text segments into one. In this way, the crucial comparability between source and target text segments was restored.

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The system I have outlined above was basically the result of a procedure which can best be described as trial and error. I tried out different principles of segmentation — and abandoned them again when they turned out not to work. Using the verbs — finite and non-finite, except from the (modal) auxiliary verbs — as segment-constituting elements just turned out to yield units of a manageable size and which were generally homogenous both within and across texts, which means that they were generally useful as units of comparison. The main advantages of the system — apart from the fact that it seems to work11 — are that it reflects the surface structure of the texts, which means that it gives access to analyses of form without therefore preventing analyses of meaning, that it is simple and very easy to use, and that it requires less manipulation of the data than a highly interpretation-based representation like for example propositional analysis.

6. Concluding remarks Through transcription, translation and segmentation, my raw data had been turned into operational data, and the phase of analyses could finally begin. There are mainly two things I hope to have shown with this account. Firstly, that there can be a rather extensive phase between data collection and data analysis, namely a phase in which you prepare the collected data for analysis. It is important to be aware of the existence and extent of this part of data work and to include it in the planning of a research project, unlike what I was able to do. Secondly, that the preparation of data for analysis involves a high degree of selection, abstraction and interpretation — in short, manipulation. This manipulation is essentially what separates data from facts: as the output of a researcher’s interpretation, data are very similar to hypotheses and therefore not particularly ‘hard and solid’. Consequently, data need to be argued for, tested and validated as much as possible — much like conventional hypotheses do.

Notes 1. When I started out in 1991, only two PhD dissertations had been published (Seleskovitch 1975; Lederer 1981). And today, almost a decade later, the situation has not changed much: so far, only a good handful of dissertations have been published worldwide (source: Daniel Gile’s bibliography on interpreting).

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2. This conception of facts as purely real-world phenomena may be regarded as somewhat of a simplification by some scholars, but because it has a high explanatory value for the basic point I wish to make in this paper, I have chosen to represent and adopt it in an unmodified version here. 3. There are, of course, manipulations involved also in the phase of data work prior to the phase of preparation for analysis, i.e. in the selection/collection of facts which are to serve as raw data. These are, however, not the type of manipulations I am interested in here. 4. It is hardly reasonable to claim that experimental data such as mine have ever had the status of (real-world) facts, but for the sake of the argument, I shall do so anyway in this paper. 5. Several extralinguistic features (e.g. gaze and gesture) could not be documented anyhow because this would have required the use of videorecordings, whereas my raw data had only been recorded on audiotape. 6. There are in fact examples of studies on interpreting in which translations of either source texts, target texts or both are used, but in these cases such translations most often function as a means of making non-English data accessible to readers, i.e. as English glosses, as they are often referred to (Setton 1999; Dam 1998, 2000; Wadensjö 1992). But see also Wadensjö’s reflections (in this volume) on the additional function of such translations as analytical tools, and Schjoldager (this volume), who also used a translation of the source text as a tertium comparationis in her doctoral work. 7. This is important because it places the study within interpreting studies and not within comparative linguistics. 8. The study was of course comparative and both source and target texts were therefore relevant, but the principal objects of interest were the target texts, because the main purpose of the study was to gain insight into what interpreters do, and not what speakers do. 9. Apart from the proposition, van Dijk also introduces a more complex unit of semantic representation, that of FACTS, which are “conceptual units that assign hierarchical structure to sets of propositions” (van Dijk 1980: 17). Basically, FACTS correspond to larger units of surface expressions such as clauses and sentences, whereas propositions typically cover somewhat smaller units of expression, like for example phrases or parts of phrases. 10. Two other researchers, who applied propositional analysis to interpreting at a later point in time, apparently found it more rewarding than I did (Tommola and Lindholm 1995). Thus, Tommola and Lindholm refer to their version of propositional analysis as “moderately straightforward” (1995: 125). But I think that the descriptions and illustrations of the propositional model that they present in the ensuing part of their paper reveal that these authors are not blind to the complexity of the propositional system either. 11. One possible explanation why the system works, i.e. why it creates comparable units in source and target texts, is that the units of analysis seem to correspond fairly well to the typical processing units in interpreting, where verbs seem to be crucial in interpreters’ segmentation of the source text (Goldman-Eisler 1972).

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References Altman, J. 1990. “What Helps Effective Communication? Some Interpreters’ Views”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 3: 23–32. Chafe, Wallace L. 1982. “Integration and Involvement in Speaking, Writing, and Oral Literature”. In Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy, D. Tannen (ed). Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex. Dam, Helle V. 1995. Tekstkondensering i Foredragstolkning: Formel og Sproglig Analyse på Grundlag af Spansk-Danske Tolkninger [Text Condensation in Consecutive Interpreting: Formal and Linguistic Analyses Based on Spanish-Danish Interpretations]. PhD dissertation, Aarhus: Faculty of Modern Languages, Aarhus School of Business, Denmark. Dam, H. V. 1996. “Text Condensation in Consecutive Interpreting: Summary of a PhD Dissertation”. Hermes 17: 273–281. Dam, H. V. 1998. “Lexical Similarity vs Lexical Dissimilarity in Consecutive Interpreting. A Product-oriented Study of Form-based vs Meaning-based Interpreting”. The Translator 4(1): 49–68. Dam, H. V. 2000. “On the Option between Form-based and Meaning-based Interpreting: The Effect of Source Text Difficulty on Lexical Target Text Form in Simultaneous Interpreting”. In Översättning och Tolkning, B. E. Dimitrova (ed). University of Uppsala: Ekonomikum. van Dijk, Teun A. 1980. Macrostructures. An Interdisciplinary Study of Global Structures in Discourse, Interaction, and Cognition. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. Dillinger, M. 1990. “Comprehension during Interpreting: What do Interpreters Know that Bilinguals Don’t?”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 3: 41–58. Du Bois, John W. 1991. “Transcription Design Principles for Spoken Discourse Research”. Pragmatics 1: 71–106. Ehlich, K. 1993. “HIAT — a Transcription System for Discourse Data”. In Talking Data: Transcription and Coding in Discourse Research, J. A. Edwards and M. D. Lampert (eds). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. Fabbro, F., Gran, L., Basso, G. and Bava, A. 1990. “Cerebral Lateralization in Simultaneous Interpretation”. Brain and Language 39: 69–89. Fabbro, F., Gran, B. and Gran, L. 1991. “Hemispheric Specialization for Semantic and Syntactic Components of Language in Simultaneous Interpreters”. Brain and Language 41: 1–42. Fløttum, K. 1989. La Nature du Résumé Scolaire. Analyse Formelle et Informative. Doctoral Dissertation, Trondheim: University of Trondheim. Gallina, S. 1992. “Cohesion and the Systemic-Functional Approach to Text: Applications to Political Speeches and Significance for Simultaneous Interpretation”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 4: 62–71. Gerver, D. 1974. “The Effects of Noise on the Performance of Simultaneous Interpreters: Accuracy of Performance”. Acta Psychologica 38: 159–167. Gile, D. 1990a. “Scientific Research vs. Personal Theories in the Investigation of Interpretation”. In Aspects of Applied and Experimental Research on Conference Interpretation, L. Gran and C. Taylor (eds). Udine: Campanotto Editore.

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Gile, D. 1990b. “Research Proposals for Interpreters”. In Aspects of Applied and Experimental Research on Conference Interpretation, L. Gran and C. Taylor (eds). Udine: Campanotto Editore. Gile, D. 1991. “Methodological Aspects of Interpretation (and Translation) Research”. Target 3(2): 153–174. Gile, D. 1994. “Opening up in Interpretation Studies”. In Translation Studies. An Interdiscipline, M. Snell-Hornby, F. Pöchhacker and K. Kaindl (eds). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Gile, D. 1999. “Doorstep Interdisciplinarity in Conference Interpreting Research”. In Anovar/Anosar. Estudios de Traducción e Interpretación, A. Álvarez Lugrís and A. Fernández Ocampo (eds). Vigo: Servicio de Publicacións da Universidade de Vigo. Goldman-Eisler, F. 1972. “Segmentation of Input in Simultaneous Translation”. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 1(2): 127–140. Gran, L. and Dodds, J. (eds) 1989. The Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Teaching Conference Interpretation. Udine: Campanotto Editore. Jefferson, G. 1984. “Notes on a Systematic Deployment of the Acknowledgement Tokens “yeah” and “mm hm””. Papers in Liguistics 17: 197–216. Jefferson, G. 1989. “Preliminary Notes on a Possible Metric Which Provides for a ‘Standard Maximum’ Silence of Approximately one Second in Conversation”. In Conversation: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, D. Roger and P. Bull (eds). Clevedon, United Kingdom: Multilingual Matters. Jensen, Per A., Sørensen, F. and Vikner, C. 1989. “Data, Corpora, and Linguistic Research”. Hermes 2: 179–186. Lambert, S. 1989. “Recall and Recognition among Conference Interpreters”. In The Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Teaching Conference Interpretation, L. Gran and J. Dodds (eds). Udine: Campanotto Editore. MacWhinney, B. 1991. The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. Nølke, H. 1994. Linguistique Modulaire: de la Forme au Sens. Louvain: Peeters. O’Connell, D. C. and Kowal, S. 1994. “Some Current Transcription Systems for Spoken Discourse: A Critical Analysis”. Pragmatics 4: 81–107 O’Connell, D. C. and Kowal, S. 1995a. “Basic Principles of Transcription”. In Rethinking Methods in Psychology, J. A. Smith, R. Harré and L. Van Langenhove (eds). London: Sage. O’Connell, D. C. and Kowal, S. 1995b. “Transcription Systems for Spoken Discourse”. In Handbook of Pragmatics, J. Verschueren, J. O. Östman and J. Blommaert (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. O’Connell, D. C. and Kowal, S. 1999. “Transcription and the Issue of Standardization”. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 28(2): 103–120. Seleskovitch, D. 1975. Langage, Langues et Mémoire. Études de la Prise de Notes en Interprétation Consécutive. Paris: Minard. Setton, R. 1999. Simultaneous Interpretation. A Cognitive-Pragmatic Analysis. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.



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Shlesinger, M. 1989. Simultaneous Interpretation as a Factor in Effecting Shifts in the Position of Texts on the Oral-Literate Continuum. MA-thesis, Tel Aviv: Department of Poetics and Comparative Literature, Faculty of the Humanities, Tel Aviv University. Shlesinger, M. 1994. “Intonation in the Production and Perception of Simultaneous Interpretation”. In Bridging the Gap. Empirical Research in Simultaneous Interpretation, S. Lambert and B. Moser-Mercer (eds). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Stenzl, C. 1983. Simultaneous Interpretation. Groundwork towards a Comprehensive Model. MA-thesis, London: University of London. Tommola, J. and Niemi, P. 1986. “Mental Load in Simultaneous Interpreting: An On-line Pilot Study”. In Nordic Research in Text Linguistics and Discourse Analysis. Papers from the First NORDTEXT Symposium, L. Evensen (ed). Trondheim: Tapir. Tommola, J. and Lindholm, J. 1995. “Experimental Research on Interpreting: Which Dependent Variable?”. In Topics in Interpreting Research, J. Tommola (ed). Turku: University of Turku, Centre for Translation and Interpreting. Wadensjö, C. 1992. Interpreting as Interaction. PhD dissertation. Linköping: the University of Linköping.

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Approaching interpreting through discourse analysis Cecilia Wadensjö University of Linköping, Department of Communication Studies, Sweden

In 1978 I obtained a university diploma in interpreting between Russian and Swedish from Stockholm University. The interpreter training programme there was among the first of its kind. The courses were oriented towards interpreting in face-to-face situations within the fields of medicine, law, business, and social welfare. However, when I experienced interpreting in practice, in hospitals, courts and so forth, it became evident to me that reality was much more complex than it ever had seemed in class. I felt the need for a closer link between the theories of interpreting and the everyday work of interpreters. The social practice known to me and my colleagues was practically undescribed and unexplored in the existing literature.

1.

Finding a relevant university programme

Hence, my choice of an academic career was much directed by a concern for a particular kind of social practice and for the interpreting profession. Having studied the work of interpreters for several years now, I realize that there is much more to be explored than I ever thought. The more you learn, the more you become aware of what you actually do not know. In my view, interpreting deserves to be studied in its own right, and from various theoretical points of departure. Moreover — and this is what I find particularly interesting — interpreter-mediated communication can be used as a magnifying glass for a more general study of face-to-face social interaction. I am not sure, however, that I would have engaged in a PhD project, had it not been for the Department of Communication Studies at Linköping University (Sweden). In 1984 I learned about the existence of this department and about

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the cross-disciplinary studies of talk in social interaction carried out there. In these research projects I noted an interest in language and language use which was different from what I had seen at the language departments of the two other universities where I had studied at undergraduate level. In 1986 I applied to be included in the Linköping doctoral programme, and I was admitted to the programme with a project on interpreting as a communicative phenomenon.

2. Having a problem and looking for a research method My own practical experience was thus what had made me concerned with interpreting as a communicative phenomenon. I knew how you are supposed to act as an interpreter: render the message as closely as possible and perform in a neutral way. In reality, however, working in police interrogations, social service interviews and mental health-care encounters, I had experienced situations where it was far from self-evident how these principles of interpreting should be understood. Moreover, working as an interpreter I had become aware of how people understand and use language, and use me as a language mediator, in different ways, and I had seen how different people’s different views of my work influence my working conditions. Clients, patients and suspects, health-care providers, people in the legal profession, etc. talked in accordance with what they wanted and expected from a situation and from those involved in it, including the interpreter. I had thus experienced the importance of both linguistic and social knowledge when performing as an interpreter, and I had also realized how deeply these various types of language knowledge interconnect. Most literature on interpreting which I had read at that point aimed at shedding light on mental processes taking place in the interpreter’s brain. It discussed interpreting as the mental work of the performing individuals and explored the cognitive constrains inherent in the activity of interpreting as well as the cognitive skills used in the process of interpreting. This approach implies psycholinguistic theory and associated research designs, some of which are described in other parts of this book. Few authors focused on the social processes I was concerned with, however. I wanted to study interpreting as a linguistic and social phenomenon of human communication, taking into account a wider linguistic context than words and sentences in two languages, and a wider social context than that of the individual interpreter. I set up a research project to explore interpreting as interaction in socially and culturally defined situations

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and found various approaches to discourse analysis relevant to my methodological platform. When I started to work on my PhD project I had only vague ideas about discourse analysis and about how and why it could be applied in research on interpreting. I came across the concept not through literature within the field of Translation Studies, including works on interpreting, but thanks to courses in communication and talk in social interaction. The present paper gives a brief outline of the kind of approach I have since then applied. To start with, however, I will provide some general information about the rather heterogeneous field of discourse analysis.

3. What is discourse analysis? As becomes evident when you read van Dijk’s (1985) Handbook of Discourse Analysis, the term discourse has come into wide use in various academic disciplines, such as linguistics, anthropology, sociology, psychology and philosophy. The four volumes of van Dijk’s Handbook reflect the state of this multi-disciplinary field in the mid-1980s, held together by a common attention to language use, texts, and conversational interaction under the label of discourse analysis. You sometimes also find text linguistics and pragmatics as cover-terms for the same field of research. Schiffrin (1994) traces the label discourse analysis back to Zellig Harris. In 1952 he published a paper in a US linguistic review with this title. His project was to extend the theory and method of linguistic structuralism, a branch of linguistics with a quite different programme from what has later been labelled discourse analysis. Under the heading of discourse analysis you find inquiries into both structures of discourse (discourse seen as consisting of textually defined units), content of discourse (semiologic approaches) and into dynamics of human interaction (discourse seen as activities). The direction of academic language studies towards language use rather than — or in parallel with — language structure has a much longer history than that of discourse analysis, however. For instance, it can be seen in the works of the Prague School and in the British empirical tradition at the beginning of the 20th century. The focus on everyday use of language owes a lot to ethnographers active in the early 20th century (cf. J. R. Firth 1968), not least the social anthropologist Malinowski. He worked out an approach to ethnographic fieldwork which is now commonplace, the so-called participant observation

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approach. It meant that Malinowski went native, so to speak; he lived and talked like the people he studied, for instance at the Trobriand Islands. A key argument of his was that linguistic analysis of the talk of the Trobrianders could not be carried out by simply inserting English words for native ones. Language use, he observed, is tied to the situation in which it occurs as well as to the current customs and social psychology of the participants (Malinowski 1923). His ideas about linguistics being concerned with how people actually talk in ordinary situations were picked up and developed by UK language scholars such as J. R. Firth and M. A. K. Halliday. It is also reflected in the work of Wittgenstein, whose key argument in his Philosophical Investigations was that the meaning of words lies in their use (Wittgenstein 1958), and in the work of Austin, whose focus on the connection between word function and word meaning was presented in the book How to Do Things with Words (1962). Both these language philosophers have had a great impact on the development of discourse analysis as a branch of academic research. Schiffrin (1994), in her book Approaches to Discourse, clarifies the theories and methods of a variety of discourse analytical traditions, and she explains how they relate to the rest of linguistics, to which, in her view, discourse analysis “remains a vast and somewhat vague subfield“ (Schiffrin 1994: viii). Her book includes chapters on a range of academic traditions such as Speech Act Theory, Ethnography of Communication, Conversational Analysis and Variation Analysis, all with roots in a combination of two or more academic disciplines. As Schiffrin argues, all discourse analysis assumes some underlying model of communication, and, as she shows, the approaches to discourse differ quite substantially in terms of which model they assume. In a concluding chapter of her book, Schiffrin distinguishes three different models of communication — a code model, an inferential model and an interactional model, and suggests that each of the various traditions be assigned to one of them (1994: 391–405). Her starting point in the description of each model is the role of the person who initiates communication. In other words, the code model assumes an actor (a speaker) who transmits thought. The inferential model, in turn, focuses upon the individual actor’s (speaker’s) capacity to make his or her intentions obvious to others. The interactional model of communication, finally, shifts the focus from speaker to listener, or rather to the communicative behaviour of both actors (interlocutors). In this model, communication can occur regardless of the interlocutors’s intentions. To express the gist of the interactional model, Schiffrin quotes the key argument of the communication researchers Watzlawick et al., that “one cannot not communicate“ (1967: 48–9).

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4. My approach to interpreter-mediated discourse Depending on what units you consider the starting points and main objects of study, the research methods will vary, of course. In a study where the individual is seen as the main unit of study, you may want to use a discourse analytical approach combined with an experimental or quasi-experimental research design. In my research, I have so far exclusively applied a non-experimental research model. The assumed model of communication is an interactional one, and the main unit of study is what I call the interpreter-mediated encounter, and not interpreting (as, say, an individual’s transmission of the thoughts of others) or the interpreter (as, say, the individual as displayer of the intentions of others). When setting up non-experimental research projects on interpretermediated interaction, I have started from the open question of how interpreting happens. I have not asked whether or not interpreting happens in certain ways, in which case I would have assumed a hypothesis to be verified or falsified. My collection of data has been organised to include a certain set of institutions, actors, and languages, but these features were not expected to be controllable or stable variables. This analytic terminology belongs to an experimental research design. Comparability between each encounter recorded has not been automatically possible, and not always of interest. Exploring the nature of interpretermediated interaction, I have rather been asking, as part of my analyses, how control and responsibility for a communicative exchange is distributed between interpreters and those for whom they work. A central methodological issue in non-experimental discourse studies concerns which layers of what contexts are significant to the analysis you intend to undertake. For instance, you may want to consider how, as a researcher, you affect the objects of study, or to which extent the data gathering situations represent what ordinarily happens in the kind of activity the study is designed to explore. This can be thematised as the naturalness of the documented interaction (for detailed discussions on the issue of how to define limits of relevant context, see e.g. Drew & Heritage 1992, Duranti & Goodwin 1992, Silverman 1993). When I started in 1987, the research field referred to as conversational analysis (CA) became a major source of inspiration in my work. This school was founded by Harvey Sacks, who worked at the University of California in Los Angeles between 1964 and 1975. His Lectures on Conversation (Sacks 1992) was later published by his principal collaborators, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jeffersson. The goal of CA is to investigate the levels of social order that can be

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revealed in the everyday practice of talking, and the methods people use to accomplish particular things in interaction with others. The scientific method used to explore these issues is to record and transcribe naturally occurring talk. The recording of a given conversation undoubtedly makes it possible to describe it in exact detail, and much more so than a reconstruction of the conversation from memory can allow for. Recordings make it doable to observe the same sequences of a conversation again and again. Not just a single researcher — as, for instance, in the case of participant observation — but many researchers can analyze the same data, and at different times. Thus findings can be controlled, and alternative analyses tested. This is a key argument for CA to be a rigorous empirical discipline (Sacks 1984: 26). My main method of exploring the question of how communication — and miscommunication — occurs in interpreter-mediated interaction has thus been to record and transcribe naturally occurring conversations, i.e. encounters where people would have been talking regardless of my presence as a researcher. They have carried out their duties as professionals or have dealt with their private affairs as clients or patients with the assistance of an interpreter. Before starting this kind of project you need to carefully think through the practical problems of recording and transcribing the data. One such practical issue is often how to get access to the settings where encounters of the needed kind take place.

5. Practical problems: Getting access to data and selecting people When outlining a research project, you might already have an insight into the routines of the institution or organisation you wish to visit as a researcher, for instance if you have already worked there as an interpreter or a language expert. My advice, for what it is worth, is that you should not ask permission to carry out research on data you have been entrusted with in a capacity other than that of the researcher. This is to avoid giving someone the impression that you have interests of your own when you work in this other function. When I planned my recordings, I wrote a short outline of the research project, specifying the main research issue, the number and types of recordings needed, and any other possible way in which I plan to collect information (interviews, fieldnotes, etc.). With this document in hand, I then asked permission to collect my data. As regards the number of recordings needed, a corpus of twenty encounters can be considered quite large as the main data for the research issues I have

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worked with. To someone used to experimental studies, such as testing the frequency of a certain phenomenon in a given situation, this might appear to be a low figure. A case study exploring an aspect of human interaction can, in principle, be done on a single recording, however. When asking permission to record conversations, I have always tried to address a person responsible at the highest level of the organisation in question. Having received the general permission from the institution — which means that someone in the organisation takes responsibility for your presence in the role of researcher — you may go ahead. You may still, ocassionally, feel like an intruder, but you have the permission to be there. When collecting discourse data, you may need people who can provide information about when and where encounters with a suitable profile are to take place, and through which you can distribute information to the individuals taking part in these encounters. At this stage, already established contacts within an organisation can be of value to the researcher. The suitability of any given encounter depends on the current focus and research issue, of course. In my selection of encounters, I have generally asked for what my contacts — officers and health-care staff — would consider everyday cases. This has been to avoid focusing too much on the content of talk instead of on how it was interactively organised and managed. And, it has also been to avoid the resistance I have sometimes encountered when I have asked permission to record and explore more exceptional or spectacular cases. Regardless of the general permission, all the people you want to include in the research project must give their personal consent before the recordings begin. For ethical reasons, I have normally asked permission from lay people through a letter which was distributed via the institution they were about to visit, informing them in this way that I had no access to their cases without their explicit compliance, whereas I have normally contacted the interpreters directly. Being an interpreter myself, I have access to a large network of professional interpreters. The participants in the selected encounters should be guaranteed the option to suspend being observed and recorded at any time and also be guaranteed full anonymity. Some people may claim that they do not care about confidentiality, that they have nothing to hide. Nevertheless, I have always preserved anonymity, keeping my initial premise, and keeping in mind that three individuals involved in the same recording may not at all points, always and for ever agree. Finally, I think you should be careful not to ask interpreters to select the meetings to be recorded, or to let them secure permission by themselves from

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professionals or lay persons. Asking the interpreters for this kind of service may increase the risk of them being accused of being obtrusive. Working with languages in which you are fluent yourself, you will be able to ask each person directly for their permission. There are a number of methodological and analytical implications of the language combinations selected for a study. First of all, transcribing interpretermediated interaction demands that the researcher (and/or a research assistant) has advanced skills in both languages chosen. When I started my PhD project, the question of languages did not have a self-evident answer. My supervisor first had an idea that I should look at conversations where Finnish and Spanish were involved, since these were frequently used languages, which would mean a good supply of possible recordings, and since he had already established contacts with language experts that could help with transcriptions. Partly for economic reasons, you need extra resources to hire language experts, but mainly for practical and analytical ones, I decided to use only Russian-Swedish material for my PhD project. The kind of investigations I wanted to work with demanded linguistic and cultural competence in both languages. It was frustrating not to be able to understand everything people said in the Spanish-Swedish material I actually recorded, but had to have someone else transcribe it, and it was therefore all the more rewarding to uncover analytical points in the process of transcribing the Russian-Swedish conversations. In my experience, the strongest reason why you should select a particular language combination for a study would be your own command of these languages.

6. Transcriptions — the main analytical tool Exploring recordings as primary data thus implies a certain amount of transcriptions. My first experience in transcribing spontaneous spoken interaction was eye-opening in many respects. I transcribed my own talk recorded in a situation where I had acted as interpreter. At first I felt embarrassed to discover that my interpretations were clumsy and imprecise. I consoled myself, however, with the fact that the primary interlocutors spoke ‘erroneously’. Transcribing made me realise, for one thing, how significantly written language norms differ from spoken language conventions, and secondly, how strongly I had internalized written language norms into my preconception of interpreting. By forcing

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myself to write down exactly what people said, and not what they should have said, had they spoken ‘correctly’, I learned to listen more carefully and sharpened my sense of detail. Listening very carefully to what people actually say, and how they do it, you become aware of phenomena to which you would not normally pay attention. Such findings in the process of transcribing research data can be considered indicators of what it may be worth including in a more systematic analysis. In my work with interpreter-mediated interaction I found the exercise of translating transcriptions into a third language an helpful additional analytical tool. Translating from both Russian (a second language) and Swedish (my first language) into English (a third language) helped me distance myself equally from both versions, and thus see both of them in a clearer light. Transcribers sometimes discuss whether variation in pronunciation, stress, and pitch should be reflected in the text. My position has been to mark these features only at points where they are of importance to the current analysis. One reason is that transcriptions are hard to read anyhow because the orthography usually deviates from ordinary written language. For instance, punctuation symbols are used to mark communicatively relevant prosodic (intonation) terminals rather than grammatical boundaries. Spelling may also be nonconventional, to reflect variations in pronunciation. Moreover, transcribing is extremely time consuming, so sticking to conventional writing when possible is a way to gain time and readability. (See also Dam’s paper, this volume). Transcription as a method and a theory has been prospering since the seventies. Papers discussing the analytical effects of transcriptions as texts, and transcribing as an interpretation (in the broad sense) process have, for example, been written by Jefferson (1973), Ochs (1979) and Edelsky (1981). Duranti (1997: 122–61) and Hutchby & Wooffitt (1998: 73–91) have instructive chapters on transcription techniques in their respective books. It is repeatedly argued that when you analyze discourse data, the transcript must be used in close combination with the recordings. It is also made clear that transcribing implies the application in practice of certain theoretical standpoints. For instance, in my transcriptions of recorded talk (cf. e.g. Wadensjö 1998a), people have real names — that is, fictive ones, to secure anonymity — and are not just mentioned as category members. This is to reflect the theoretical assumption that nobody, neither the interpreters nor any other individual actor, is automatically taken to be representative of a certain social category in all respects. Transcription of spoken interaction implies a transformation of tape-

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recorded voices into written texts. The transcribed texts are a mayor tool for the structuring of empirical discourse data. When analyzing transcriptions, you may be tempted to see the participant interlocutors as text producers. However, to regard people’s talking as text production invokes a cognitive perspective. When you apply an interactive model of communication, focusing on the behaviour of the interlocutors, it is more relevant to distinguish such participant activities as, for instance, joking, complying, providing feed-back and initiating turns at talk. A talk-as-text approach is useful in the analysis process, but used without thorough understanding of what it entails, it can be misleading (for further discussion, see Wadensjö 1998a: 94–101).

7. Recording naturally occurring talk When I started to record interpreter-mediated interaction in the mid-1980s, it was much easier to introduce audio- than video recordings. I considered it much less intrusive, primarily because of the less bulky shape of a tape recorder as compared to a video camera. It was also considered by many others to be less threatening to the integrity of the individual, not least important in settings where the practice is subject to an official secrets act. Recording human interaction, you need the confidence of those you wish to observe and document. In recent years we have seen a rapid development of video technology: small video-cameras which are relatively easy to handle and give good quality in low light, and today many people have a quite relaxed attitude towards the use of cameras in their presence. The technology implied when working with videorecorded data in computerised form has also developed a lot. For instance, when needed, there are many and efficient techniques for anonymising the persons appearing on the tape. Collecting data for studies of human interaction, some people may prefer to use audio, for various reasons, others video. There are advantages and disadvantages, possibilities and difficulties connected with both techniques. The choice must primarily depend on which kind of research issues you wish to focus on, and which kind of information you need for this purpose. Video-recordings give more information, information of a more detailed kind, and of both verbal and non-verbal activities. With sound-recording only, you are left without documentation of gestures and other features of non-verbal communication, but if you do not need this information, then why spend time and money recording it? Moreover, if you are allowed to be present when the recording takes place, you

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will still be able to register details such as people’s movements and handling of objects. You may also notice their embarrassment, relief and other subtleties which may otherwise have been lost, even on videotape.

8. Where to start? I will here not discuss in further detail the practical issues related to recording human interaction in natural settings. For those who are just about to start doing it, I can recommend two existing sources worth looking at. Goodwin (1993) gives a personal and concrete guidance on a range of basically technical issues, including how to handle recording equipment, how to keep order in your tape library, and how to use segments of recordings in lectures. In an appendix to his text-book Linguistic Anthropology, Duranti (1997: 340–7) also gives some helpful hints on the recording of interaction; how to avoid beginners’ mistakes and how to guarantee a good enough quality. Recalling the frustration I felt at times during periods of fieldwork, I realize how valuable it would have been to read this kind of practical guidance at an early stage of my PhD project. Studies of various types of discourse is a rapidly growing field. Since the early 1970s, when recording equipment became generally accessible, recordings and transcriptions of spoken interaction have been extensively used to generate scientific knowledge about language use and human interaction. The amount of research based on recordings of interpreter-mediated talk, however, is still quite scarce. To mention some, there are studies exploring discourse data from interpreted courtroom interaction (Berk-Seligson 1990; Jansen 1995; Hale 1997; Brennan 1999), from interpreted medical encounters (Englund Dimitrova 1997; Bührig and Meyer 1998; Wadensjö 1998a; Cambridge 1999; Pöchhacker and Kadric 1999; Tebble 1999), from police interrogations (Wadensjö 1997, 1998a, 1999; Krouglov 1999), from educational settings (Roy 1993, 2000; Apfelbaum 1997, 1998a), from business settings (Apfelbaum 1998b) and from mental health-care encounters (Wadensjö 1998b). The work of courts, customs offices, the police, businesses, educational institutions, and health care as well as mental health-care institutions is all to some extent coloured by the presence of interpreters, and of people’s ideas about the nature of the interpreters’ work. Many aspects of human interaction in these and other settings where multilingualism is more the rule than the exception, still remain to be described and explored. Recording, transcribing

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and analyzing spontaneous spoken interaction is one way to gain and systematize knowledge of the nature of language and language use, performed by interpreters or in interaction with interpreters.

References Apfelbaum, B. 1997. “Der Umgang mit interkulturellen Konflikten in Gesprächen mit Dolmetscherbedarf. Beispiele aus einer deutsch-französischen Industriekooperation”. GAL-Bulletin 26
: 63–78. Apfelbaum, B. 1998a. “Instruktionsdiskurse mit Dolmetscherbeteiligung. Aspekte der Turnkonstruktion und Turnzuweisung”. In Neuere Entwicklungen in der Gesprächsforschung. Vorträgedes Pragmatischen Kolloquiums Freiburg, A. Brock and M. Hartung (eds.), 11–36. Tübingen: Narr. Apfelbaum, B. 1998b. “’I think I have to translate first…’ Zu Problemen der Gesprächsorganisation in Dolmetschsituationen sowie zu einigen interaktiven Verfahren ihrer Bearbeitung”. In Fremde im Gespräch, B. Apfelbaum and H. Müller (eds), 21–45. Frankfurt am Main: IKO — Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation. Austin, J. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Berk-Seligson, S. 1990. The Bilingual Courtroom. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Brennan, M. 1999. “Signs of Injustice”. The Translator 5(2): 221–246. Bührig, K. and Meyer, B. 1998. “Fremde in der gedolmetschten Arzt-Patienten-Kommunikation”. In Fremde im Gespräch, B. Apfelbaum and H. Müller (eds), 85–105. Frankfurt am Main: IKO — Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation. Cambridge, J. 1999. “Information Loss in Bilingual Medical Interviews through an Untrained Interpreter”. The Translator 5(2): 201–219. van Dijk, Teun A. (ed). 1985. Handbook of Discourse Analysis. London/Orlando, FL: Academic Press (four volumes). Drew, P. and Heritage, J. 1992. “Analysing Talk at Work: An Introduction”. In Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics 8. Duranti, A. 1997. Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duranti, A. and Goodwin, Charles (eds). 1992. Rethinking Context — Language as an Interactive Phenomenon. Studies in Social and Cultural Foundation of Language 11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edelsky, C. 1981. “Who’s Got the Floor?”. Language in Society 10: 382–421. Cambridge University Press. Englund Dimitrova, B. 1997. “Degree of Interpreter Responsibility in the Interaction Process in Community Interpreting”. In The Critical Link: Interpreters in the Community, S. E. Carr, R. Roberts, A. Dufour, and D. Steyn, 147–164. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Firth, J. R. 1968. Selected papers of J. R. Firth 1952–59 edited by F. R. Palmer. London/ Harlow: Longman.

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Goodwin, C. 1993. “Recording Human Interaction in Natural Settings”. Pragmatics 3(2): 181–209. Hale, S. 1997. “The Treatment of Register Variation in Court Interpreting”. The Translator 3(1): 39–54. Harris, Z. 1952. “Discourse Analysis”. Language 28:1–30. Hutchby, I. and Wooffitt, R. 1998. Conversation Analysis. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Jansen, P. 1995. “The Role of the Interpreter in Dutch Coutroom Interaction and the Impact of the Situation on Translational Norms”. In Translation and the Manipulation of Discourse: Selected Papers of the CERA Research Seminar in Translation Studies 1992– 1993, P. Jansen and A. Robyns (eds), 133–155. Leuven, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Publications of the CERA Chair for Translation, Communication and Cultures 3. Jefferson, G. 1973. “A Case of Precision Timing in Ordinary Conversation: Overlapped tagpositioned address terms in closing sequences”. Semiotica 9: 47–96. Krouglov, A. 1999. “Police Interpreting: Politeness and Sociocultural Context”. The Translator 5(2): 285–302. Malinowski, B. 1923. “The problem of meaning in primitive languages”. In The Meaning of Meaning, C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards (eds), 296–336. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World. Ochs, E. 1979. “Transcription as Theory”. In Developmental Pragmatics, E. Ochs and Bambi B. Schieffelin (eds). New York: Academic Press. Pöchhacker, F. and Kadric, M. 1999. “The Hospital Cleaner as Healthcare Interpreter: A Case Study”. The Translator 5(2): 161–178. Roy, C. 1993. “A Sociolinguistic Analysis of the Interpreter’s role in Simultaneous Talk in Interpreted Interaction”. Multilingua 12–4: 341–363. Roy, C. 2000. Interpreting as a Discourse Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sacks, H. 1984. “Notes on Methodology”. In Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, John M. Atkinson and John Heritage (eds), 21–7. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sacks, H. 1992. Lectures on Conversation. Introduction by Emanuel Schegloff, (ed.) Gail Jefferson. 2 vol. Oxford: Blackwell. Schiffrin, D. 1994. Approaches to Discourse. Oxford UK/Cambridge USA: Blackwell. Silverman, D. 1993. Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analysing Talk, Text and Interaction. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage Publications Ltd. Tebble, H. 1999. “The Tenor of Consultant Physicians: Implications for Medical Interpreting”. The Translator 5(2): 179–200. Wadensjö, C. 1997. “Recycled Information as a Questioning Strategy: Pitfalls in InterpreterMediated Talk”. In The Critical Link: Interpreters in the Community, S. E. Carr, R. Roberts, A. Dufour, and D. Steyn, 35–54. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Wadensjö, C. 1998a. Interpreting as Interaction, London/New York: Longman. Wadensjö, C. 1998b. “Erinnerungsarbeit in Therapiegesprächen mit Dolmetschbeteiligung”. In Fremde im Gespräch, B. Apfelbaum and H. Müller (eds) , 47–62. Frankfurt am Main: IKO — Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation. Wadensjö, C. 1999. “Telephone Interpreting and the Synchronization of Talk in Social Interaction”. The Translator 5(2): 247–264.



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Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J. H. and Jackson, D. D. 1967. The Pragmatics of Human Communication. New York: Norton. Wittgenstein, L. 1958. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.



Working within a theoretical framework Franz Pöchhacker University of Vienna, Austria

1.

Introduction

Interpreter trainers and would-be interpreters enrolled in university-level training programmes for (translation and) interpreting tend to be a practiceoriented lot. While the outlook of the former, who are expected to be interpreters themselves, is shaped by the realities of professional practice, the latter focus on learning (to interpret) by doing, on acquiring a skill on the basis of lots of practice. In a number of interpreting programmes, though based at universities, theory hardly enters the picture. And yet, it is interpreters-cumtrainers (‘interpretrainers’) and graduate-level students in interpreting schools who account for most of the research output in interpreting studies (cf. Pöchhacker 1995: 49f. and the successive issues of the IR(TI)N Bulletin edited by Daniel Gile). If research has anything to do with theory, then, at some point, those carrying out interpreting research will have to deal with theoretical issues. Or do they? In this chapter, I will reflect on the role of theory and, more specifically, a general theoretical framework in interpreting research at the PhD level. In line with the overall orientation of this volume, my account will be highly personal. Rather than attempt to elaborate on constructs from the philosophy of science, I shall draw on my own academic background and experience and make explicit reference to my own PhD project as a case study of interpreting research within a theoretical framework. I will begin by discussing the concept of theory as such and the status of theory in interpreting research. A personal history of my own road to research will serve as background to some more systematic reflections on the variables shaping one’s choice of a theoretical framework. Drawing again on personal experience, I will highlight some major issues in theoretical research, including

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the challenges involved in exploring and assessing theoretical work relating to interpreting (here referred to as analyzing
) and elaborating on concepts to construct an analytical framework (modelling
). Finally, I will briefly address what is often seen as the crucial issue surrounding ‘theoretical research’ — the relationship between the theoretical component and empirical data in a given interpreting research project (testing
). Neither in my conclusion nor in the article as a whole will I claim to provide those with less experience as researchers with a set of hard-and-fast rules on what to do or not to do in theoretical research. Still, if we believe in learning by critical reflection on the basis of examples, the personal account offered below should at least be helpful in sharpening awareness of some theoretical concerns and options and thus facilitate informed choice.

2. ‘Theory’? At the most general level, ‘theory’ in interpreting is anything that is not practice. In this abstract antonymic sense, interpreting theory is more or less synonymous with the field of research as such. This use of ‘theory’ is well documented also for translation studies, where it was questioned early on by Kade (1977: 28) as a sign of the uncertain status of that discipline. With the benefit of Holmes’ (1988) “Map of Translation Studies”, adapted for interpreting studies by Salevsky (1993), we can reserve ‘theory’ to the designation of the theoretical branch of ‘pure’ interpreting studies and follow Holmes in his distinction between general and partial theories. We would thus conceive of a “general theory” (or a number of them) as relating to the entire object of study, i.e. interpreting, and “partial theories” restricted to specific aspects or problems. Given the complexity and diversity of interpreting as an object of study, it is readily apparent that a “general theory” accounting for interpreting as such would have to be very general indeed, most probably limited to a definitional description of key concepts and factors as well as the relationships between them. Though usually restricted to conference or simultaneous interpreting (and thus not sufficiently ‘general’), this is what one finds in the work of authors like Salevsky (1983, 1987) and Stenzl (1983) — or Seleskovitch (1968, 1978), for that matter. And this is where the problem begins: Do such insights, assumptions and pronouncements as put forward by these ‘theorists’ actually deserve the label theory
? And if so, do such general theories really have a place in interpreting research? Let me take up these two

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questions in turn. The most prominent case in point is the so-called théorie du sens, the school of thought formed and led by Danica Seleskovitch at ESIT in Paris in conjunction with Marianne Lederer (cf. e.g. Seleskovitch 1975; Lederer 1981; Seleskovitch and Lederer 1984). The approach championed by Seleskovitch that the translation process hinges on the intermediate stage of nonverbal sense and, among other things, is little more than a combination of natural understanding and speaking processes, was held in high esteem for about two decades and has served as the theoretical foundation of a considerable number of academic publications on interpreting (and translation). As criticism of the Paris School and the unsubstantiated claims of its theory became more outspoken, however, it increasingly acquired a bad name and came to be referred to as “personal speculation” and “speculative theorizing” (Gile 1990:29, 1995a:15f). Measuring it by the rules of scientific investigation, Moser-Mercer (1994: 17) characterized such “general theorizing” as “explorations which involve the intellect in a less logically rigorous manner”. Most strikingly perhaps, the disciple of the Paris School who originally coined the label (García-Landa 1981) declared that “la théorie du sens does not exist and has never existed” (García-Landa 1995: 390). Theory, poor theory, or no theory at all? — The question is not trivial, since Moser-Mercer (1994), for one, cites not only Seleskovitch as an exponent of liberal arts theorizing but also Vermeer (1978, 1983), whose theoretical framework serves as the main point of reference of the present article. As brought out clearly by Moser-Mercer (1994) in her account of two separate research communities, the meaning attributed to theory can vary widely and does so especially according to various spheres of academic endeavour. While an approach from the (natural) sciences tends to focus on predictive theories, ideally corroborated by hypothesis testing through experimentation (cf. Lambert 1994: 6; Fabbro and Gran 1994: 307; Massaro and Shlesinger 1997: 14–18), work in the humanities is often done on a more general level, with an emphasis on definition and description (and lots of “labelling”) as well as abstract explanation of the phenomenon under study. Since the affiliation of interpreter training programmes — and interpreting researchers — is usually with some school (faculty) of arts or humanities while the interpreting studies community is largely bent on “scientific research” as carried out in cognitive psychology or other experimental disciplines, it is not surprising that there should be tension over what constitutes a theory, or that the word theory itself has come to be so stretched. Under these circumstances, and especially for the purpose of the present discussion, it seems advisable to take an inclusive point

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of view and construe theory extremely broadly as “a judgment, conception, proposition, or formula (as relating to the nature, action, cause, or origin of a phenomenon or group of phenomena) formed by speculation or deduction or by abstraction and generalization from facts” (Webster’s 1986: 2371). There may thus be different kinds of theories, arrived at by different kinds of methods, and though they will “do” different things at a given level of description, there seems little point in arguing over which ‘conception’ more deserves to be called a theory. Recalling the distinction between general and partial in Holmes’ theoretical domain, the issue in this article is not whether a general theory is a theory, but what one can do with it in a PhD-level research project — which brings me to the second basic question raised above, i.e. whether such general theories really have a place in interpreting research. Ever since the 1986 Trieste Symposium, which is said to have ushered in a Renaissance period of (empirical) interpreting research (Gile 1994) after decades of dominance by the théorie du sens, there has been considerable skepticism of “general theorizing”. Gran and Snelling (1993: 1), for instance, in an editorial of The Interpreters’ Newsletter, declare themselves “suspicious of the omni-comprehensive theory[,] fearing that constant application of same could lead to stifling aridity”. Similar reservations are voiced by Gile (1995b) with regard to integrative theoretical frameworks as proposed by Salevsky (1983, 1987), Stenzl (1983) and Pöchhacker (1994): “(…) on peut craindre que ces structures soient trop vastes, trop éloignées de la vérification empirique, qu’elles restent insuffisamment dynamisantes et productives” (Gile 1995b: 235).1 As a more productive alternative, Gile (1991a, 1995b) proposes empirical work for the collection of facts, and Gran and Snelling (1993: 1) feel that “collection of a wide range of data must precede the processing of same and transformation of the results into principles claiming general validity. We wish to retain our eclectic approach and analyze the results rather than produce or apply ‘theory of interpreting’”. Based on the broad concept of theory adopted above, it does not take much to show that the apparent dichotomy between (productive) empirical research and (stale) theory is a spurious one. Any empirical research on interpreting is preceded by and based on some conception of the nature of the phenomenon under study, and only some notion of the whole permits the isolation of parts (and partial theories). The theory, in this sense, will always be there, though it may not be made explicit, and there is not an opposition between research and theory, but a close linkage. An interesting reflection of this could be seen in Gile’s (1996) decision to discard his original coinage “Interpretation Research

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and Theory (IRT)” on the grounds that “Theory is part of research, and talking about Research and Theory does not make sense” (Gile 1996: 1). More categorically, Toury (1991: 185) states that “only studies which are indeed carried out within a defined theoretical framework deserve to be regarded as ‘research activity’, in the first place”. How, then, does one find — and work with(in) — a defined theoretical framework? Let me offer my own PhD research experience as an example from which some more general insights might be gleaned.

3. The road to research: A personal history When I did my “translator and interpreter training” at the University of Vienna in the 1980s, theory hardly ever came up as something related to the object of my studies. Surprising as it may seem, I would say that I completed my nine semesters of university study without any encounters of the theoretical kind. And things were hardly different during my post-graduate training in conference interpreting at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. Despite this apparently atheoretical academic background, or maybe precisely because the entire realm of theory was still left for me to explore, I embarked on a project of independent study at the Monterey Institute to read and reflect on what I had been trained to do. One of the few more substantiallooking volumes on the sparsely filled library shelf devoted to “Interpreting” was the collection of NATO Conference papers edited by Gerver and Sinaiko (1978). Though intimidating to the newcomer in the depth and breadth of its scientific account of interpreting, the book was certainly an ideal starting point for my first flirt with research. The model by Barbara Moser (1978), with fascinating concepts imported from the then emerging interdiscipline of cognitive science, and the papers by Lederer (1978) and Seleskovitch (1978) on the théorie du sens, among others, strongly stimulated me to speculate about the intricacies of the (simultaneous) interpreting process. At about the same time, I was inspired by some German translation scholars of the functionalist school championed by Hans Vermeer (1978; Reiß und Vermeer 1984) to give some thought to basic concepts of translatorial activity like “text(s)”, “situation” and “culture” in the process of communicative interaction. Vermeer’s focus on definitional rigour in his endeavor to formulate universal “rules” governing the product and process of (written and oral) Translation did not fail to impress me, bearing in mind that I was still largely

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uninitiated to the weighty conventions of German-style wissenschaft. There it was then, the great variety of research in Gerver and Sinaiko (1978), or what I managed to make of parts of it, right next to the functional theory of Translation, in which interpreting (as one particular form of Translation) was treated mostly by way of implication. Without any metatheoretical yardsticks at hand, I had little way of differentiating between the various approaches or assessing to what extent and how they fitted together. It was in this postmodern state of mind that I travelled up the West Coast to Seattle to attend the 29th Annual Conference of the American Translators Association, where one Daniel Gile gave “An Overview of Conference Interpretation Research and Theory”. He spoke of PhD projects in the 1970s which “formulated general theories and models and did not test particular hypotheses by experimental methods” (Gile 1988: 364) and a subsequent shortage of “proper research”. As much as that lecture helped me give some structure to what I had picked up about previous work on interpreting, it pointed to a seemingly unbridgeable gap between (“proper”) research on the one hand and theory — or what was later called “personal theorizing” (Gile 1990) — on the other. It was through the good offices of Jacky Harmer in Monterey that I found reconciliation between the two approaches in the MA thesis by Catherine Stenzl (1983), in which a theoretical model of the interpreting process was combined with a rousing call for verifiable empirical (observational) research. With these and other sources of inspiration, the stage was set for me to undertake (empirical) interpreting research within a theoretical framework. Following my successful application for a position attached to the newly created Chair of Translation Studies at the University of Vienna, I started work in late 1989 on a four-year contract involving the completion of a doctoral thesis. This made the incumbent to the chair, translation scholar Mary SnellHornby, my logical choice of PhD supervisor. This academic positioning had far-reaching implications for the way in which my research project — which was to be based on an audio-recording of a conference with German/English simultaneous interpretation — was to take shape. One of my first tasks as a rookie universitätsassistent was to organize my professor’s inaugural lecture and send out announcements (“invitations”) to most of the ‘big names’ in Translation Studies. When many of them actually came to Vienna to attend that event, my professor confidently introduced me to people like Hans Vermeer and Justa Holz-Mänttäri as her assistant with this idea about interpreting and translation theory. I was absolutely terrified when Hans Vermeer then invited me to give a talk in his research seminar at the

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University of Heidelberg on the implications of his theory for interpreting. No better way than this to focus one’s work on (a particular) theory!

4. Choosing a (general) theoretical framework As evident from my autobiographical sketch, choosing one’s theoretical framework for a PhD or similar research project in an academic institution is not necessarily a matter of objective selection from among a number of potential candidates. On top of predisposing factors like prior knowledge and academic socialization, some powerful personal, sociological and cultural forces may push and pull the aspiring researcher towards — or away from — a particular approach. As much as you will have to take full responsibility for your choice of approach, especially since you are likely to be drafted into a certain ‘school’ by academic peers, it should be admitted that the PhD researcher’s choice of theoretical framework is often subject to incidental factors associated with the particular socio-academic and institutional environment. A key player in this is of course one’s supervisor, whose attitude may range from complete laissez-faire on one end of the spectrum to a “see-what-you-can-dowith-my-theory” mandate on the other. In the latter case, one’s choice of supervisor is tantamount to opting for a particular theoretical framework. While explicit supervisor preference need not be a bad thing per se, it will have some implications on what you will (be able or required to) do with the theory in question. Ideally, the would-be PhD researcher chooses both the professor supervising the project and the theoretical framework which best fits the needs of the study to be carried out, much like ‘shopping around for a theory’ in a wellstocked supermarket. In reality, though, there will often be no other place to turn to than the ‘local grocer’, where choice may be rather limited. In my own case, there was no choice regarding supervisor, but a very open attitude on the latter’s part. While Mary Snell-Hornby’s excellent contacts with leading representatives of the German Functionalist School did push me, ever so gently, towards that theoretical approach, the choice was ultimately my own, as she adopted the role of a critical reader overseeing individual development rather than questioning arguable choices or enforcing personal preferences. Clearly, though, such openness on the part of the supervisor puts the burden of charting one’s course fully on the supervisee. Deciding what to read, which sources to use, and where to look for essential inspiration. The following

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sections will give a more detailed account of this process, and I will once again make extensive reference to my own PhD project. Following a description of my original research proposal, I will discuss analyzing, modelling and testing as major issues in research within a theoretical framework.

5. Issues in theoretical research Back in 1989, uninitiated into any particular research paradigm, I wanted — or needed — to base my study on personal (conference interpreting) experience. My object of study was to be a two-day conference with English/German simultaneous interpretation of which the organizers, a German-American political foundation, had made an audio-recording of the proceedings in both languages. All three of us on the team of interpreters had found the assignment particularly challenging, even frustrating, but none of us was able to say just why. The idea therefore was to account for the interpreting services rendered at that event on the basis of the recordings. But what needed to be ‘accounted for’? What aspects of the phenomenon had to be documented and analyzed — and how? Hence the need for an overall conceptual and analytical framework. From the available literature I short-listed Stenzl (1983) and Salevsky (1983, 1987) as dealing more explicitly with situational and contextual variables than authors focusing on processing issues such as Moser-Mercer (1978) and Lederer (1981). The first stage of my work, then, as steps were being taken to obtain permission from the conference organizers, was to take a good look at the theoretical frameworks and models already there. 5.1 Analyzing Greatly encouraged by the ideas I found in Stenzl (1983) and Salevsky (1983, 1987), I proceeded to take a critical comparative look at the two theoretical conceptions. Both authors aimed at drawing up a comprehensive/integrative model of interpreting as an activity in the context of communicative interaction, with translation theory as their point of departure and several key references in common (e.g. works by Kade, Leontiev and Stein). Most importantly, both posited socio-cultural, situational and textual dimensions as shaping the process and product of interpreting. But there were also differences, of course: Salevsky’s work, I noted, was informed mainly by Soviet psycholinguistics and Kade’s (1968) approach to translation from communication studies, while

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Stenzl’s was based more immediately on Stein’s (1980) textlinguistic (“text theoretical”) model of translation in terms of “instruction linguistics” (i.e. the view of text as an ordered complex of instructions to the receiver, who understands the text through realizing these instructions and thus completes the process of communication). While Salevsky’s representation of the target text and its variables (1987: 33) was designed to account for Translation (i.e. translation & interpreting) in general and thus turned out somewhat more abstract and static (though certainly flexible enough to represent different relationships), Stenzl (1983: 46) depicted the overall communicative process of (simultaneous) interpreting in a more dynamic information flow model. Still, both conceptions were set on a textlinguistic and psycholinguistic rather than a sociological level, foregrounding texts and knowledge structures (e.g. of the interpreter and receivers) rather than the interacting parties as such (as in Gile 1991b, for example). Most critically, perhaps, both authors presented and discussed their models without actually applying them to a particular corpus of empirical data. While doing so may have been beyond the scope of Stenzl’s 60-page MA thesis, Salevsky devoted the remainder of her study to processing issues and went on to discuss problems of contrastive grammar and syntactic strategies on the basis of sentence-length (authentic) examples. So much for my findings from an analysis of the two models, in which I had asked what the authors had aimed to achieve, what theoretical conception they had come up with, and on what sort of theoretical foundation, and what they had not done in or with their models. Now what? Various options for how to go on would seem available at that stage: (1) “adopt (one) and apply”, (2) “adopt (one or both) and refine”, and (3) “reject (both) and construct”. The first option was ruled out on ‘pragmatic’ grounds: While the application of existing models and methods to new data is most appropriate for graduation/MA theses, PhD-level research is usually expected to provide some degree of theoretical and/or methodological innovation. Even so, I might have chosen to focus my study on new methods and data — had it not been for the fact that permission for using the audio-taped corpus was not forthcoming. With nothing to apply the model to for the time being, I was quite ready to go more deeply into the theoretical domain. “Adopt and refine” would suggest itself as the approach to take, but there were problems with this option as well. These had less to do with identifying perceived weaknesses and suggesting modifications and/or extensions of the model (such as a more explicit focus on the agents in the interaction or the specifics of simultaneous interpreting) than with the theoretical heritage underlying each model, i.e. text theory and

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psycholinguistics, among other things. In her own review of existing theoretical approaches, Salevsky (1987: 11ff) weighed the contribution of textlinguistics/text theory to the study of (translation and) interpreting and, with explicit reference to Stein (1980), found it wanting. What is more, Stenzl (1983: 18) herself acknowledged that Stein’s (1980) approach from instruction linguistics had drawn some criticism, such as voiced by Hans Vermeer (1983). One should also bear in mind that the textlinguistic approaches at issue were relatively recent then, essentially dating from the mid-1970s. For someone working one or two decades later, the most critical issue would seem to be the status of antecedent theories with regard to the current state of the art. Have any of the theoretical premises been invalidated by subsequent developments? Has the theory been called into question only by a rival school of thought or is there a wider consensus within the discipline that a particular paradigm has ‘had its day’? Have the authors themselves revised and updated their work? (Cf. Gile’s versions of the Effort Models from 1985 to 1997 and, presumably, beyond.) Obviously, answering these questions presupposes considerable familiarity with a wide range of research approaches and theoretical developments, and the task becomes all the more daunting if reference is made to disciplinary frameworks beyond one’s own academic turf. In the case of Salevsky’s (1983, 1987), there is not only a disciplinary but also an ideological gap to be bridged: What is the current status of Soviet psycholinguistic work from the 1960s and 1970s? Has any of its substance been shaped (distorted?) by overriding political considerations? How are we to assess, to take a marginal example, the significance of Anochin’s (1966, cited in Salevsky 1987) thesis that any activity has three components, which Salevsky (1987: 25) uses to distinguish reception, transposition and realization as the three speech actions constituting the activity of Translation? How much effort is to be expended on probing antecedent theories which partly shape the model one might want to use? The crucial question here is whether it is legitimate to adopt (and adapt) a model irrespective of where it came from and on what theoretical premises, empirical findings and/or reasoning processes it was based. At the PhD level, such an approach seems intellectually questionable and certainly increases one’s vulnerability to criticism when the dissertation is to be defended. On the assumption that I had to be accountable for any of the theoretical premises of the model to be adopted, I decided that the cost of examining the antecedents of Salevsky’s (1983, 1987) work, most of which were available only in Russian, was greater than the potential benefit to be derived from her generic

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model of the target text for my descriptive purposes at the conference level. For Stenzl’s (1983) model, the task was much easier: Throughout her thesis there are references to Vermeer’s (1983) work, with which I was already familiar. Its antecedent model of translation, founded on a text theory in terms of instruction linguistics (Stein 1980), was contained in a single 30-page essay, ostensibly based on the textlinguistic theory of Schmidt (1973). Based on my critical reading of these works, though, I ultimately adopted the third option, i.e. “reject and construct”, also for Stenzl’s model — for several reasons: One was the above-mentioned critique of instruction linguistics by Vermeer (1983), which, coming from a senior professor of linguistics, I was not going to take lightly. Another was the explicit acknowledgment by Stein (1980), that his model could account for translation only on the assumption of “invariance of higher-order variables” (cf. Stein 1980: 49), and that for anything beyond this “special case” one would have to refer to the more comprehensive “matricial theory” of — any guesses? — Vermeer (1978). Indeed, Stenzl (1983) moves in precisely that direction with her own model, prefacing her discussion with phrases like “In contrast with Stein’s model of translation we can’t assume…” or “we therefore can’t assume as Stein does…” (Stenzl 1983: 46). Since she does not accept the assumption, crucial to Stein’s (1980) model, that higher-order variables will be “constant” in the communicative constellation of interpreting, her choice of Stein’s (1980) model seems like a detour. Why, then, did she opt for Stein — assuming that he was not her supervisor — and his “very preliminary model, where almost everything has yet to be defined” (Stenzl 1983: 21), while drawing so enthusiastically on Vermeer’s (1983) insights in her discussion? In her own words, “It would no doubt be premature to attempt to draw up a detailed model of the entire process that emerges from Kirchhoff’s and Vermeer’s wide perspectives” (Stenzl 1983: 44). Considering that the collection of Vermeer’s essays cited in her bibliography is dated 1983 and that she submitted her thesis in June of that year, one might also speculate that it was not premature but too late to work with Vermeer. (On the other hand, she would have had access to Vermeer’s seminal article as published in 1978 in a widely accessible journal, so we may never know for sure — unless we send Catherine Stenzl an e-mail and ask her!) The point of this speculation here is obviously not to find out the ‘real’ reason, but to draw attention once again to the fact that any model or theory one might like to work with is ‘dated’ and that working within a theoretical framework requires careful ‘up-dating’ with reference to the state of the art. (This is not to say of course that an older model could not be found superior to a new-fangled one, subject to a thorough

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‘historical’ and contrastive examination.) With my own theoretical research dating from around 1990, it seemed less premature to do what Stenzl (1983: 44) had actually suggested, i.e. draw up a comprehensive model on the premise of Vermeer’s wide theoretical perspective. Clearly, though, the decision not to apply an existing model to a corpus of empirical data but to construct my own for that purpose implied a substantial shift in the objective(s) of my study, from analyzing the data towards analyzing the theory and using it to build the conceptual tools to account for “simultaneous interpretation seen not as a sequence of mental operations performed by an interpreter, but as an interlingual communicative task involving the speaker, the interpreter and the target language receiver in their situational context” (Stenzl 1983: 1). Back to square one, then, to analyzing existing theoretical work. New object of analysis, i.e. Vermeer’s (1978) skopos theory, same analytical procedure: What did he want to achieve, what did he come up with and on what theoretical basis, and what had he not done in his grand theoretical design? The basic tenets of Vermeer’s general theory of (all and any) Translation (translation & interpreting) — essentially, the primacy of the purpose (skopos) of a Translation for a particular audience, the need to “make sense” in the target culture (intratextual coherence) overriding the need to guard a particular relationship with the source text (intertextual coherence) when and as indicated by the skopos — are by now well described (cf. Nord 1997; Schäffner 1998) and need not be discussed here in terms of substance. Nor did the theory’s action-theoretical foundation represent a particular challenge — apart from requiring a heavy dose of reading on epistemological and philosophical issues. What was more challenging was the developmental nature of the theory, a special kind of ‘dated-ness’, if you like. Vermeer (1978) and (1983), part one of Reiß und Vermeer (1984), Vermeer (1986), (1989) and (1990) all furnished me with similar and yet different representations of the theory. Where, then, and which was the most valid formulation? Was I free to choose? To what extent could I make eclectic use of a theoretical œuvre extending over more than a decade? In the event, I did my best to track key elements of the theoretical conception, collating and comparing the respective definitions and statements. (For the concept of skopos, for instance, the most revealing treatment was found in Vermeer 1989: 101f.) And yet, more than this internal development of the theory, it was its external linkage, if not merger, with another, even broader conceptual framework that made me plunge ever more deeply into theoretical analysis. As of 1986, the skopos theory had become so closely intertwined with

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Holz-Mänttäri’s (1984) theory of translatorial action that ‘buying’ the one also got you the other — though not for free, as I would soon discover. To cut a long story short, Holz-Mänttäri’s socio-communicative conception, which, among other things, draws on systems theory to model role constellations, required yet another round of analyzing. Coming to grips with her 1984 book, which is riddled with translatological newspeak and highly abstract ideas, proved a very taxing experience, but one I would not want to have missed for broadening my conceptual horizon. Having extended my theoretical focus to the “skopos theory of translatorial action”, the essential analytical challenge for my theoretical endeavour remained unchanged: How to ‘apply’ the general theory of Translation to simultaneous interpreting? And did (all of) it fully apply to that form of Translation? With Vermeer (1986: 198) himself stating that nearly everything discussed in his book held true also for interpreting, another round of critical reading was called for — and yielded some incompatibilities, such as HolzMänttäri’s (1984: 127) claim that a full and thorough source text analysis necessarily precedes target text design. Overall, though, the general conception seemed sound enough as a foundation for an interpreting-specific modeling effort. The task before me, as I saw it, was to specify the conceptual structure, including key elements like skopos, situation, text and coherence, and say what exactly was different when something “applied mutatis mutandis to interpreting” (cf. Vermeer 1989: 15). 5.2 Modelling According to Massaro and Shlesinger (1997: 20), “Models are usually considered to be a somewhat more constrained and specific form of a theory”. What is more (and makes me particularly fond of them), is that they are often associated with some pictorial form of representation which gives a schematic and synoptic view of the constituent concepts and relationships. Stenzl’s (1983: 45) model would be a perfect illustration, and so is Moser’s (1978) hypothetical process model or Gile’s (1985) modèle d’efforts (which I recently saw referred to in a course syllabus as “Gile’s Efforts-Theory of Interpreting”). I began my specification task by modelling the various conceptual levels which I felt needed to be addressed in my comprehensive framework. The result looked something like Figure 1 below. In essence, the conception stresses that an analysis of simultaneous conference interpreting would first of all need to account for the specifics of the

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Figure 1.Comprehensive analytical framework for (conference) interpreting

“communicative event” (cf. Beaugrande and Dressler 1981). Within this “hypertext” of the conference, at any given point in time, there would be a specific “situation” or constellation of interacting parties producing and receiving “texts”. The basic assumption represented in the overall model should be rather obvious: The texts processed by the interactants are inextricably bound up with a greater whole; therefore, an analysis of individual texts or text elements cannot afford to ignore the higher-order variables of the conference setting and the situation and their potential impact on the process and product of communicative interaction. Like any theoretical construct, the model verbalized and depicted here is a hypothesis. To what extent it can be tested depends on the degree of operationalization of the concepts at various levels of analysis — which in turn requires a great deal of more specific conceptual modelling. For that I found it useful to shift the focus of my analytical work from “vertical” to “horizontal”, i.e. from an in-depth examination of one particular line of thought to a broad screening of the literature, in translation and interpreting studies as well as in other disciplines, for existing and at least potentially relevant conceptual modelling solutions. For the level of the conference setting, for instance, I was happy to find Namy’s (1978) and Gile’s (1989) typological contributions and use “information flow” as one of the criteria by which to distinguish between

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and thus describe different conferences. Still, I felt that there had to be ‘more out there’ on conferences as a form(at) of interaction. Maybe I had not been looking hard enough (in those days before Internet access to searchable on-line library catalogues), but I actually came up with very little on conferences as seen in communication studies and sociology (e.g. Bales 1972). It may have been just as well, for I would soon be engulfed in a seemingly endless reading task for crucial concepts like “situation” and “text” and their constituent features. Whereas the interpreting literature yielded little, if any, systematic analytical treatment of situational and textual variables, translation theorists and linguists who had taken the ‘pragmatic turn’, not to mention discourse analysts and psychologists focusing exclusively on situated oral communication, offered much more than seemed possible to digest. Indeed, the ensuing process of critical reading and eclectic utilization of numerous works contributing (what I regarded as) insights into the nature of the phenomena of situation and text, would not lend themselves to a full description. Thus, rather than give an account of ‘the making of ’ my models, I will try to draw on that experience for bringing out one or two more general methodological issues (not lessons, I’m afraid). The fundamental question permeating the entire process of conceptual refinement and modelling is: How far does one have to go? How far, firstly, in the sense of in-depth analysis, and, secondly, how far afield in consulting the literature of other disciplines? Concepts like situation and text may seem like extreme examples of course, but the problem may well be similar for many other ‘big topics’ which could come up for scrutiny by the interpreting researcher, like language acquisition and learning, role behaviour, expertise, discourse comprehension, or prosody in speech, to take a few random examples. Answering the second sense of the question largely depends on one’s choice and conception of disciplinary framework. Those considering themselves to be working within a very established discipline, with little need for resorting to others for methods and models, will find it easier to draw the line. (Psychologists working on interpreting, for instance, often seem quite satisfied with citing only Gerver or other champions of psychological research into interpreting, and then going on to do their own thing.) If, however, one professes to work on an interdisciplinary basis or even within an ‘interdiscipline’, which I actually think is not a very desirable affiliation at this point in the development of interpreting studies (cf. Kaindl 1997), it will be much more difficult to decide whether literature from the disciplines routinely cited as relevant (such as cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics; cf. Gile 1995a: 18) can safely be ignored. In

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the absence of a clear preference on the part of the supervisor, this matter of research policy is a rather weighty one to be decided by the would-be PhD. As regards ‘how far to go’ in the sense of depth of analysis (which also includes dealing with contributions from other disciplines), the basic criterion is of course the purpose of the study. Rather than trying to supply the ultimate definition, once and for all, one can limit one’s modelling ambitions to making the key analytical concepts operational for a given — descriptive or explanatory — purpose. In my case, I felt I needed some rather rich models for the situational and textual levels, whereas I gave short shrift to some more subordinate notions. The concept of role, for instance, was dealt with by referring to a 1960s classic on the topic (i.e. Dahrendorf 1960) without further reviewing the state of the art in sociological research. In a study on liaison rather than conference interpreting, the emphasis would probably have been quite different. Operationalization for the purpose of one’s study not only constrains the depth and breadth of one’s conceptual analysis and modelling effort, but, at this point in my article, also points to the critical link between theory and data, which I would like to address here as the last “issue in theoretical research”. 5.3 Testing Strictly speaking, testing a hypothesis or, to put it more generally, applying a model is of course not a matter of theoretical research but, rather, the essential principle of empirical study. Nevertheless, the two dimensions of the scientific (‘knowledge-making’) process are certainly linked and must be considered inseparable as regards the methodology of an empirical discipline. Within a given research project, the balance between the theoretical and the empirical component may well be tilted to either side. In fact, though it may or may not be clear from what has been said so far, I would regard purely theoretical work, which Tommola and Lindholm (1995) aptly label “conceptual analysis”, as “a valuable scientific act per se
”, to appropriate Gile’s (1991a: 166) words for a different proposition. No need to apply empirical research methods if the researcher can achieve innovation with new ideas and cogently argued insights into descriptive or explanatory concepts and relationships?! If one finds such work (more) intellectually stimulating and is prepared to live with the bias, held in large quarters of the interpreting research community, that only empirical research is ‘proper’ research — why not? By all means! The trouble is that ‘real’ innovation, however defined by one’s supervisor and later on by reviewers, is hard to come by (and I would refer to my own models as examples of this

Working within a theoretical framework

difficulty). It is thus advisable for the theoretically inclined to hedge their bets and innovate on the empirical side as well, assuming that the models developed are operational for that purpose. Moreover, applying and validating one’s own (e.g. descriptive) models is a very safe bet, and there would be little sense in presenting them as potentially applicable only, or leaving it to other authors to first put them to the test. The more concrete and specific the model or hypothesis, the more the theoretical-empirical balance will shift to the latter, though there should never be any doubt that even experimental hypothesis-testing presupposes ‘work within a theoretical framework’. My own PhD research experience, though starting out as a corpus-based project of large-scale observation, description and, if possible, explanation, ultimately focused on the theoretical component. Pegged to the level of general Translation theory, my empirical work was mostly of the model-validating kind, for which I used an excruciatingly comprehensive case-study approach. Nevertheless, I did attempt also to test a few specific assumptions of the (general) theory against my authentic data. The claim of target-text autonomy in the target culture (cf. Reiß and Vermeer 1984: 115), for instance, was overwhelmingly challenged by different types of examples from the corpus, in which source-text elements and source-cultural conventions become part of the message received by the interpreter’s audience. Apart from demonstrating this textual hybrid status of the interpretation, I also applied my conception of the interactants in the communicative event to the actual conference data and was thus able to show that the interpreter’s target audience can be so socio-culturally heterogeneous as to render vacuous the skopos-theoretical injunction to target the interpretation to the intended receivers and their socio-cultural knowledge base. My conclusion in the doctoral dissertation was that the theoretical framework I had chosen to work with(in) provided a sound and broad enough foundation for developing interpreting-specific models and descriptive tools which could be used to overcome the lack of observational research unanimously deplored ever since — and often in the words of — Stenzl (1983: 47); my conclusion here will follow below. 6. Conclusion Based on my own PhD research experience as well as a decade of personal contacts with peers in the interpreting research community I have offered some

215

216 Franz Pöchhacker

thoughts on working within a theoretical framework for those undertaking doctoral research on interpreting. The main points of discussion can be summarized as follows: – Since any research implies or presupposes theory, even the most empirically inclined should define for themselves, and make explicit for the readers, the conceptual framework or theory within which their study is set. – One’s choice of theoretical framework is not necessarily the result of objective assessment but is often subject to powerful personal and socioacademic forces in a given institutional environment. – Theoretical research essentially implies analyzing existing theoretical work in terms of objectives, solutions (models), conceptual foundations (antecedent theories), and shortcomings, if any. – An appreciation of theories and models, particularly from other disciplines, presupposes a good knowledge of research approaches and the state of the art in the respective field(s) of inquiry, i.e. a great deal of critical reading. – Following a thorough analysis of existing models, one may decide to “adopt & refine” or “reject & construct”, but, either way, the process of conceptual refinement and modelling will usually benefit from a broadly interdisciplinary examination of the literature for existing solutions. – While conceptual analysis in and by itself can certainly be a valid route to innovation, it is ultimately more convincing to apply one’s theoretical models to a set of empirical data so as to validate their descriptive or explanatory power. – The more concrete and specific the model or hypothesis to be tested, the more one can concentrate on ‘bringing new data to the theory’ rather than ‘bring new theory to the data’, though going in either direction means travelling on the road of research. The seven items listed above are not intended as any sort of checklist of do’s and don’ts in (theoretical) research. Nevertheless, I would hope that some of it can be helpful in sharpening awareness of different options and challenges and thus facilitate informed choice.

Notes 1. “(…) such structures might be too general, too remote from empirical testing, with insufficient dynamic and productive potential”.

Working within a theoretical framework 217

References Bales, R. F. 1972. “How people interact in conferences”. In Communication in face-to-face interaction, J. Laver and S. Hutcheson (eds), 364–373. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Beaugrande, R.A. de and Dressler, W.U. 1981. Introduction to Textlinguistics. London: Longman. Dahrendorf, R. 1960. Homo Sociologicus. Ein Versuch zur Geschichte, Bedeutung und Kritik der Kategorie der sozialen Rolle. Köln/Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Fabbro, F. and Gran, L. 1994. “Neurological and Neuropsychological Aspects of Polyglossia and Simultaneous Interpretation”. In Bridging the Gap: Empirical research in simultaneous interpretation, S. Lambert and B. Moser-Mercer (eds), 273–317. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Benjamins Translation Library 3. García-Landa, M. 1981. “La «théorie du sens», théorie de la traduction et base de son enseignement”. In L’enseignement de l’interprétation et de la traduction: de la théorie à la pédagogie, J. Delisle (ed.), 113–132. Ottawa: Éditions de l’Université d’Ottawa. Cahiers de traductologie 4. García-Landa, M. 1995. “Notes on the epistemology of translation theory”. Meta 40(3): 388–405. Gerver, D. and Sinaiko, H. W. (eds). 1978. Language Interpretation and Communication. New York: Plenum. NATO Conference Series III 6. Gile, D. 1985. “Le modèle d’efforts et l’équilibre d’interprétation en interprétation simultanée”. Meta 30(1): 44–54. Gile, D. 1988. “An overview of conference interpretation research and theory”. In Languages at Crossroads. Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the American Translators Association, D. L. Hammond (ed.), 363–371. Medford NJ: Learned Information. Gile, D. 1989. “Les flux d’information dans les réunions interlinguistiques et l’interprétation de conférence: premières observations”. Meta 34(4): 649–660. Gile, D. 1990. “Scientific Research vs. Personal Theories in the Investigation of Interpretation”. In Aspects of Applied and Experimental Research on Conference Interpretation, L. Gran and C. Taylor (eds), 28–41. Udine: Campanotto. Gile, D. 1991a. “Methodological Aspects of Interpretation (and Translation) Research”. Target 3 (2): 153–174. Gile, D. 1991b. “A Communication-Oriented Analysis of Quality in Nonliterary Translation and Interpretation”. In Translation: Theory and Practice. Tension and Interdependence, M. L. Larson (ed.), 188–200. Binghamton NY: SUNY. ATA Scholarly Monograph Series V. Gile, D. 1994. “Opening up in Interpretation Studies”. In Translation Studies — an Interdiscipline. Selected papers from the Translation Studies Congress, Vienna, 9–12 September 1992, M. Snell-Hornby, F. Pöchhacker and K. Kaindl (eds), 149–158. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Benjamins Translation Library 2. Gile, D. 1995a. “Interpretation Research: A New Impetus?” Hermes. Journal of Linguistics 14: 15–29. Gile, D. 1995b. Regards sur la recherche en interprétation de conférence. Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille. Gile, D. 1996. “Editorial”. The IRTIN Bulletin 12: 1.

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Gile, D. 1997. “Conference Interpreting as a Cognitive Management Problem”. In Cognitive Processes in Translation and Interpreting, J. H. Danks, G. M. Shreve, S. B. Fountain, and M. K. McBeath (eds), 196–214. Thousand Oaks/London/New Delhi: Sage. Gran, L. and Snelling, D. 1993. “Editorial”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 5: 1–2. Holmes, J. S. 1988. Translated! Papers on Literary Translation and Translation Studies. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Approaches to Translation Studies 7. Holz-Mänttäri, J. 1984. Translatorisches Handeln. Theorie und Methode. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia. Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae B 226. Kade, O. 1968. Zufall und Gesetzmäßigkeit in der Übersetzung. Leipzig: VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift Fremdsprachen I. Kade, O. 1977. “Zu einigen Grundpositionen bei der theoretischen Erklärung der Sprachmittlung als menschlicher Tätigkeit”. In Vermittelte Kommunikation, Sprachmittlung, Translation, O. Kade (ed.), 27–43. Leipzig: VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie. Übersetzungswissenschaftliche Beiträge 1. Kaindl, K. 1997. “Wege der Translationswissenschaft — Ein Beitrag zu ihrer disziplinären Profilierung”. ex con ex 11 (= NF 1): 221–246. Lambert, S. 1994. “Foreword”. In Bridging the Gap: Empirical research in simultaneous interpretation, S. Lambert and B. Moser-Mercer (eds), 5–14. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Benjamins Translation Library 3. Lambert, S. and Moser-Mercer, B. (eds). 1994. Bridging the Gap: Empirical research in simultaneous interpretation. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Benjamins Translation Library 3. Lederer, M. 1978. “Simultaneous Interpretation — Units of Meaning and other Features”. In Language Interpretation and Communication, D. Gerver and H. W. Sinaiko (eds), 323–332. New York: Plenum. NATO Conference Series III 6. Lederer, M. 1981. La traduction simultanée — expérience et théorie, Paris: Minard-Lettres Modernes. Massaro, D. W. and Shlesinger, M. 1997. “Information processing and a computational approach to the study of simultaneous interpretation”. Interpreting 2(1/2): 13–53. Moser, B. 1978. “Simultaneous Interpretation: A Hypothetical Model and its Practical Application”. In Language Interpretation and Communication, D. Gerver and H. W. Sinaiko (eds), 353–368. New York: Plenum. NATO Conference Series III 6. Moser-Mercer, B. 1994. “Paradigms Gained or the Art of Productive Disagreement”. In Bridging the Gap: Empirical research in simultaneous interpretation, S. Lambert and B. Moser-Mercer (eds), 17–23. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Benjamins Translation Library 3. Namy, C. 1978. “Reflections on the Training of Simultaneous Interpreters — A metalinguistic approach”. In Language Interpretation and Communication, D. Gerver and H. W. Sinaiko (eds), 25–33. New York: Plenum. NATO Conference Series III 6. Nord, C. 1997. Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches Explained. Manchester: St. Jerome. Translation Theories Explained 1. Pöchhacker, F. 1994. Simultandolmetschen als komplexes Handeln Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Language in Performance 10. Pöchhacker, F. 1995. “’Those Who Do…’: A Profile of Research(ers) in Interpreting”. Target 7(1): 47–64.



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Reiß, K. und Vermeer, H. J. 1984. Grundlegung einer allgemeinen Translationstheorie. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Linguistische Arbeiten 147. Salevsky, H. 1983. Allgemeine und spezielle Probleme des Simultandolmetschens als einer spezifischen Art der Redetätigkeit. Dissertation B. Berlin: Humboldt-Universität. Salevsky, H. 1987. Probleme des Simultandolmetschens. Eine Studie zur Handlungsspezifik. Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR. Linguistische Studien Reihe A 154. Salevsky, H. 1993. “The Distinctive Nature of Interpreting Studies”. Target 5(2): 149–167. Schäffner, C. 1998. “Skopos theory”. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, M. Baker (ed.), 235–238. London/New York: Routledge. Schmidt, S. J. 1973. Texttheorie. Probleme einer Linguistik der sprachlichen Kommunikation. München: Fink. Seleskovitch, D. 1968. L’interprète dans les conférences internationales. Problèmes de langage et de communication. Paris: Minard-Lettres modernes. Cahiers Champollion 1. Seleskovitch, D. 1975. Langage, langues et mémoire. Étude de la prise de notes en interprétation consécutive, Paris: Minard-Lettres modernes. Seleskovitch, D. 1978. “Language and Cognition”. In Language Interpretation and Communication, D. Gerver and H. W. Sinaiko (eds), 333–341. New York: Plenum. NATO Conference Series III 6. Seleskovitch, D. and Lederer, M. 1984. Interpréter pour traduire. Paris: Didier Érudition. Collection Traductologie 1. Stein, D. 1980. Theoretische Grundlagen der Übersetzungswissenschaft.Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Stenzl, C. 1983. Simultaneous interpretation: Groundwork towards a comprehensive model. MA thesis, University of London. Tommola, J. and Lindholm, J. 1995. “Experimental research on interpreting: Which dependent variable?”. In Topics in Interpreting Research, J. Tommola (ed), 121–133. Turku: University of Turku, Centre for Translation and Interpreting. Toury, G. 1991. “What are Descriptive Studies into Translation Likely to Yield apart from Isolated Descriptions?” In Translation Studies: The State of the Art, K. van Leuven-Zwart and T. Naaijkens (eds), 179–192. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi. Approaches to Translation Studies 9. Vermeer, H. J. 1978. “Ein Rahmen für eine allgemeine Translationstheorie”. Lebende Sprachen 23: 99–102. Vermeer, H. J. 1983. Aufsätze zur Translationstheorie. Heidelberg [Selbstverlag]. Vermeer, H. J. 1986. Voraussetzungen für eine Translationstheorie — Einige Kapitel Kulturund Sprachtheorie. Heidelberg [Selbstverlag]. Vermeer, H. J. 1989. Skopos und Translationsauftrag. Heidelberg: Universität Heidelberg. Translatorisches handeln 2. Vermeer, H. J. 1990. “Texttheorie und Translatorisches Handeln”. Target 2 (2): 219–242. Webster’s. 1986. Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, unabridged. Springfield MA: Merriam-Webster.



Reflective summary of a dissertation on simultaneous interpreting Anne Schjoldager University of Aarhus, Denmark

1.

Introduction

In August 1996, I defended my PhD dissertation on simultaneous interpreting (Schjoldager 1996) at the Aarhus School of Business. The following summarizes the contents of this dissertation and offers some self-critical comments. In addition, based on my own experience, I attempt to give some specific advice to people embarking on a PhD project themselves. Though technically-aided simultaneous interpreting has been practised for quite a while now, we remain rather ignorant of its nature as many aspects still need investigating. Unfortunately, but interestingly, such investigations are made difficult because the field still lacks an established research tradition, with a comprehensive, coherent theoretical and methodological framework. In view of this, I see the main contribution of my PhD dissertation as that of suggesting one possible framework for the empirical study of simultaneous interpreting. I regarded my task as interdisciplinary: as there was no ready-made framework for me to use, I sampled ideas and methods from related fields, mainly translation studies and linguistics, and established a framework which suited my own investigation. Furthermore, whereas most empirical work on simultaneous interpreting has been process-oriented, my own approach was productoriented in so far as I confined myself to comparing the subjects’ target texts (TTs) with the source text (ST) — just as Dam and Dubslaff did (see this volume). Also, my approach was descriptive and exploratory. Thus, I was mainly interested in observing, ie analyzing and categorizing, the data rather than evaluating the subjects’ performances; and, as opposed to a hypotheticaldeductive approach, I wanted to suggest hypotheses, rather than verify or falsify already-formulated ones. More specifically, the aim of the investigation was

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defined as follows: (1) to identify some characteristic TT/ST relations in simultaneous interpreting, in order (2) to hypothesize about translational norms in Toury’s sense (Toury 1980 and 1995).

2. Data During 1991, I recorded, transcribed, and analyzed performances by student interpreters and contrasted these with translations. The TTs used for my investigation (for various reasons, some were disregarded in the final analysis) were delivered by eight beginner-interpreters, five advanced students of interpreting, twelve beginner-translators, and two professional translators. In all cases, these subjects worked from Danish into English With the benefit of hindsight, I would say that the set-up of the investigation was far from ideal. Admittedly, my reasons were mainly practical: these were simply the people who were available and willing to help me at the time; and, when deciding which data to include in the final analysis, I gave priority to multiplicity and comparability over authenticity.

3. Constructing the methodological framework I would like to mention that I see my participation in a particular PhD seminar in 1993 as a turning point for my project — namely the summer programme of the CERA Chair for Translation, Communication and Cultures in Leuven, organized by José Lambert and with Daniel Gile as the 1993 CERA Professor. Though I had expected mainly to be interested in what the CERA Professor had to say about interpreting research, I soon discovered that the programme offered many other interesting ideas concerning theory and research methodology. Most of the contributing scholars, except perhaps Daniel Gile, saw themselves as working within Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS), and many seemed to organize their own work around the search for norms.1 The seminar was certainly an eye-opener to me in a lot of ways. I realized that there were some serious, methodological flaws in the set-up of my project, and, more specifically, I became aware of the concept of norms and decided to explore this as a methodological tool. Actually, by 1993, I was contemplating dropping my corpus of data altogether in order to start from scratch again; I could then regard my previous work as a pilot study, conducted in order to test both the

Reflective summary of a dissertation on simultaneous interpreting 223

set-up and the overall aim of my project. However, and this was the overruling factor, as I was approaching the end of my PhD scholarship, I had to realize that I would not have time to start afresh. I would simply have to make the most of the data already collected. Thus, when constructing a suitable methodological framework for my investigation, I was greatly inspired by what I had learned in Leuven. First of all, I was influenced by Gile’s ideas about processing capacity, especially his Effort model of simultaneous interpreting (eg Gile 1991), which describes how the process consists of a set of competitive operations (Efforts), between which the interpreter has to share his/her attention. In my analyses, I used this model as an explanatory tool. I was also inspired by Dirk Delabastita’s interpretation of Toury’s (1980 and 1995) tripartite model of translational relationships with the levels of competence, performance, and norms: competence denotes potential TT/ST relations, performance existing ones, and norms the intermediary level of transfer rules. Using this framework, the categories of my own model of TT/ST relations (see 4., below) described the level of performance, ie actual translational behaviour. Having carried out a description at this level, I hoped to discover some regularities which would enable me to generate some interesting hypotheses about the level of norms. When constructing the categories of my own model, I drew specifically on Delabastita’s (1993) doctoral dissertation on the translation of Shakespeare’s wordplay and his article on film and TV translation (Delabastita 1989), especially his use of the general system of transformation categories — substitution, repetition, deletion, addition, and permutation — which he cites as stemming from the ancient rhetoricians (Delabastita 1993: 33).

4. The model of TT/ST relations I based my definitions and headings on taxonomies suggested by other people, especially, as mentioned above, Delabastita (1993) and (1989) — but also Wadensjö (1992: 71ff), Barik (1969: 20) and (1972: 5), and Pedersen (1987: 115). But the categories themselves were generated, as it were, from the data themselves. Thus, my method of analysis could be described as a process of looking for similarities in TT/ST relations, grouping these, and deciding on relevant definitions and headings. Throughout, the analyses were based on my own intuition, a method which is not uncommon within the field. An alternative and more objective method, though I did not consider it possible at the time,

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would be to employ a panel of referees to test the reliability of your analyses. My model of TT/ST relations contains categories of TT items according to their relations to the ST. Table 1 gives an overview of these categories. Table 1.
The model of TT/ST relations Main category

No Minimal informational impact informational impact

Significant informational impact

A/

Repetition

A1/ Repetition Proper A2/ Semantic Repetition

–

–

B/

Permutation

B1/ Syntactic Permutation

-

B2/ Permutation Proper

C/

Addition

C1/ Syntactic Addition

C2/ Explicating Addition C3/ Elaborating Addition

C4/ Addition Proper

D/ Deletion

D1/ Syntactic Deletion

D2/ Explication Deletion

D3/ Deletion Proper

E/

Substitution

E1/ Contextual Substitution E2/ Paraphrastic Substitution

E3/ Specifying Substitution E4/ Generalizing Substitution

E5/ Overlapping Substitution E6/ Substitution Proper

?/

Ragbag

–

–

–

The left-most subcategories are perceived as describing standard behaviour, the right-most ones as describing ‘deviating’ behaviour, and the ones in the middle as describing neither standard nor particularly ‘deviating’ behaviour. In this way, the subcategories are poles on a cline between similarity to and difference from the ST. If a TT item is categorized as A/
Repetition, it is thought to bear formal relation to its ST item. A1/ Repetition Proper is used when ST and TT items are identical, whereas A2/ Semantic Repetition is used when the items are thought to be semantically similar. B/
Permutation occurs when a TT item is placed in a textual position which is different from that of its ST item. If it has no informational impact, the permutation is categorized as B1/ Syntactic Permutation, whereas it is categorized

Reflective summary of a dissertation on simultaneous interpreting 225

as B2/ Permutation Proper if it has significant informational impact (note that no permutation is categorized as having minimal informational impact). C/
Addition has no direct antecedent in the ST. An addition may have no informational impact, in which case it is referred to as C1/ Syntactic Addition. If a TT item is categorized as C2/ Explicating Addition it is thought to have minimal informational impact and constitutes explication of ST meaning. C3/ Elaborating Addition also has minimal informational impact, but constitutes elaboration (for instance if an interpreter adds something which seems to explain or modify what s/he has already said). A TT item is categorized as C4/ Addition Proper if it is thought to have significant informational impact. D/ Deletion occurs when no TT item bears any direct relation to a given ST item. If this is thought to have no informational impact, the deletion is categorized as D1/ Syntactic Deletion, whereas it is categorized as D2/ Explication Deletion if it is thought to have minimal informational impact or D3/ Deletion Proper if it is thought to have significant informational impact. A TT item categorized as E/ Substitution bears no formal relation to its ST item. In the case of E1/ Contextual Substitution, the TT item has the same contextual function as its ST item. E2/ Paraphrastic Substitution also has the same contextual function, but is a paraphrase. E3/ Specifying Substitution is more specific than its ST item, whereas E4/ Generalizing Substitution is less specific. With E5/ Overlapping Substitution, TT and ST items seem to originate in similar lexical fields, but their potential and contextual meanings are rather different. To be categorized as E6/ Substitution Proper, a TT item must convey information which is signficantly different from that of its ST item. ?/ Ragbag is used if a TT item cannot be categorized as one of the abovementioned TT/ST relations — for instance if the interpreter says a nonexistent word. 5. TT/ST comparison The TT/ST comparison was carried out with the help of a so-called adequate translation as tertium comparationis, a method which was based on Toury’s (1980: 112ff) suggestions for the comparison of a literary text with its translation. In my investigation this adequate translation, TT-1, was defined as a

226 Anne Schjoldager

hypothetical TT in which only obligatory changes have occurred, for syntactic or idiomatic reasons. TT-1 was then supposed to help me discover some interesting optional changes in the TTs of the corpus — changes that might be norm-governed. According to Vanderauwera (1982: 178/9), this use of a tertium comparationis may be criticized for unnecessarily complicating the analyses as well as distorting the results because it presupposes a clear-cut distinction between obligatory and optional shifts, which is an impossibility. Interestingly, Toury himself eventually rejected this method, his “own old-time hobbyhorse”, because it was based too much on the value of shifts, ie a “negative kind of reasoning” (Toury 1995: 84; see also Hermans 1999: 57). Though it is certainly true that the distinction between obligatory and optional shifts is a problematic one, I do not think that my use of TT-1 distorted my results in any way. As I see it, my TT-1 was a rather helpful tool in at least two ways: Firstly, constructing TT-1 helped me explicate ST potentials in the target language, thus aiding the comparative analyses. Secondly, having constructed TT-1 helped me in the writing process: as I wrote my dissertation in English and dealt with a Danish ST and its English TTs, I could use TT-1 as a frame of reference for what is sometimes called a gloss or a back-translation, ie to explain the (linguistic) meaning of a given ST segment.2 Example (1) shows the TT-1 of a ST sentence which proved particularly interesting. Example (1)TT-1 ST

(1)

Mens (2) jerntæppet (3) brasede sammen (4) i (5) øst (6) kunne (7) man i (9) alverdens (10) medier (11) se (12) Gorbatjov (13) drikke gravøl (14) i (15) vest. (8)

TT-1

(1)

While (2) the iron curtain (3) was collapsing (4) in (5) the east (8) in all the world’s (10) media (7) you (6) could (11) see (12) Gorbachev (13) participating in the wake (14) in (15) the west.

(9)

In this sentence, most subjects seemed to stumble on the rendition of ST item “drikke gravøl”, whose literal translation (drinking grave beer) is unidiomatic and non-sensical. The closest linguistic equivalent is probably “participating in the wake”, as in TT-1, though this may not render the humorous and ironical connotations of the Danish word “gravøl” (see for instance Schjoldager 1995a: 80–81). Example (2), with various renditions from my corpus of this ST item, may serve to illustrate my method of categorization: (13)

Reflective summary of a dissertation on simultaneous interpreting 227

Example (2)ST item “drikke gravøl” TT item

Comment

A2/

“participating in the wake”

Semantically similar

E1/

“were participating in the funeral feast”

Same contextual function

E2/

“were drinking a funeral celebratory drink”

Paraphrase — emphasizing drinking

E4/

“were at the funeral”

Less specific — leaving out the irony

E5/

“were sad”

Potential and contextual meaning rather different — missing the point

E6/

“was orientating himself towards”

Significantly different information

The last TT item in example (2), above, categorized as E6/ Substitution Proper, was produced by an advanced student of interpreting (whose native language was English). It is interesting to note that, though the rendition is thought to convey significantly different information from that of the ST, in some sense, on a higher level, it is actually quite loyal to the speaker’s message. Example (3), below, gives the whole sentence and also illustrates how the interpreter was lagging considerably behind the ST speaker. Example (3)TT item “was orientating himself towards”: lagging behind ST speaker: Mens jerntæppet brasede sammen i øst ………………………… kunne man i alverdens medier se Gorbatjov drikke gravøl i vest. ………………………… ………………………… ………………………… Det var tydeligt, at Mikhail Gorbatjov var tilfreds

Interpreter: …………………………… …………………………… As the iron curtain collapsed in the east …………………………… it could be seen in the media throughout the world that Gorbachev was orientating himself towards the west.

6. Results All TTs were analysed and categorized in accordance with the model of TT/ST relations. This led to the tentative conclusion that TT items with significant

228 Anne Schjoldager

informational impact seemed to be characteristic of simultaneous interpreting. I then selected those segments (usually the same as sentences) which seemed to be of particular interest for a comparative analysis of simultaneous interpreting and translation: First, I noted which interpreters’ TT segments showed an overrepresentation of items with significant informational impact, or, rather, I selected those ST segments which tended to produce such TT segments — a total of 22 ST segments. Then, the corresponding translators’ TT segments were selected. The selected TT segments — a total of 594 – were then subjected to an in-depth analysis. As a result, I had hoped to find some regularities which would allow me to generate hypotheses about the subjects’ translational norms. Unfortunately, statistically speaking, the outcome of this in-depth analysis proved rather meagre and only led to a set of very general and rather unsurprising results. However, I would like to think that my findings did lead to some interesting observations. Of particular interest may be that many interpreters, but none of the translators, produced TT items which were categorized as E6/ Substitution Proper. Let us therefore look at example (3) again. Why did this particular interpreter render ST item “drikke gravøl” with a TT item which is (almost) unrelated to ST meaning? There are at least six explanations: 1. The interpreter thinks this is how the ST item should be rendered. 2. The interpreter misunderstands the ST item and renders it accordingly. 3. The interpreter (who is not a native speaker of Danish) does not know the ST item and guesses its meaning. 4. The interpreter has no time to find a proper rendition. 5. The interpreter cannot hear the ST item and guesses its meaning. 6. The interpreter forgets the ST item and has to reconstruct its meaning. Obviously we can never know for sure why the interpreter did as s/he did. The choice may not even have been deliberate, in the sense that s/he knew what s/he was doing, ie explanations 1. and 2. On the other hand, it might have been deliberate, in the sense that the interpreter knew that there was a problem and had to make a conscious choice when attempting to solve it, ie explanations 3. to 6. Also, the latter explanations may actually be more prevalent in simultaneous interpreting than in translation. Furthermore, explanations 4. to 6. may be regarded as typical of (if not exclusive to) simultaneous interpreting, and they may be analysed in terms of Gile’s (eg 1991) Effort model of simultaneous interpreting, ie cases of capacity saturation in connection with: 4. the production Effort, 5. the listening Effort, and 6. the short-term-memory Effort.3

Reflective summary of a dissertation on simultaneous interpreting 229

Consequently, in view of the considerable time-lag in example (3), I would suggest that explanation 6. may be the more likely one: as the interpreter was lagging behind the speaker, s/he forgot the ST item and used his/her contextual knowledge to reconstruct its meaning. In the dissertation, I saw this kind of behaviour as norm-governed and used it as a basis for the formulation of the following norm, which was thought to be characteristic of simultaneous interpreting (here in a slightly changed version): If it is necessary to make the TT plausible, simultaneous interpreters are allowed to choose TT items that would be categorized as E6/ Substitution Proper. Others have pointed out that (professional) interpreters sometimes produce TT items which they know to be of little or no resemblance to a given ST item when “working conditions are particularly bad” (Gile 1995: 201), probably for reasons of self-preservation. This would be an interesting starting point for further research into the different characteristics of interpreting and translation.

7. Final remarks: Some advice When starting out on a PhD project, you need not think that your overall objective is to produce an infallible end-product. Rather, you should regard your research as an excellent opportunity to learn, ie a process enabling you to develop the necessary research skills and to acquire the relevant knowledge in your field. With the benefit of hindsight, one might always claim that certain aspects of a PhD project should have been approached in a different way, even that particular choices were downright wrong and that some results were misinterpreted. However, this is not the same as to invalidate the whole project. Let me finish by offering some general reflections on my PhD work, which I hope will be of use to others. Data. In Section 2., I mentioned that my data collection entailed a number of problems. My work shows, I hope, that settling for what is feasible may sometimes be the best strategy, provided that the whole project is not invalidated. However, this does not mean that you should not try to achieve the best possible conditions for your data. The best advice in this connection is that you should consider your aims carefully before you start. If you do not, you may endanger the whole project by collecting data which are unsuitable, either because you have inadvertently influenced the data in an unpredictable way or because you have simply collected data which turn out not to match your expectations. Furthermore, as already mentioned, it is a good idea to collect a

230 Anne Schjoldager

few data first and do a pilot study on these before going on to collect your whole corpus. Methodological framework. Given the epistemological status of our research field, an interdisciplinary method is probably advisable. In my case, the framework was a mixture of Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS), linguistics, and general interpreting research (especially Daniel Gile’s work). This was a sound basis for the project. However, throughout the analyses it was probably a handicap that I could not draw on any ready-made method. For instance, I now think that intuition played too great a part in the TT/ST comparison because it made my results scientifically vulnerable. Therefore, if at all possible, you should seek some sort of help with the analyses, to help you focus on essentials and to test the reliability of your results. It is not sufficient to seek the advice of your supervisor. You also need the help of people who are not, as it were, involved in your project — people who do not know your specific aims and who will look at your data in an “unprejudiced” way. If it is relevant, you might employ a panel of referees or at least ask your colleagues (say, fellow PhD students) to conduct independent analyses on selected aspects. Drawing on other people’s expertise like this may help you offset the lack of an established research tradition within interpreting. Approach. As mentioned in the introduction, my approach was defined as exploratory and descriptive, very much under the influence of what I had learned in Leuven in 1993. This approach suited the aim of my investigation: (1) to identify some characteristic TT/ST relations in simultaneous interpreting, in order (2) to hypothesize about translational norms. However, I would now regard this aim as too broad, mainly because I never really reached the point where I could begin to hypothesize about norms as such (see Section 6., above). My advice would therefore be that you should narrow your interests to a specific point, for instance by answering a (set of) question(s) or proving or falsifying a hypothesis, if possible. Thus, rather than simply searching for norms in general, I might have decided from the very beginning to concentrate on one particular aspect, substitutions for instance, and then tried to ascertain if these occurrences might be norm-governed. Furthermore, perhaps I was so infatuated with the DTS paradigm that I ended up over-interpreting it. For instance, I may have been so excited about discovering the concept of norms that I over-used it as an explanation. The theory of norms certainly addresses an obvious aspect of translational behaviour, which, until recently, was sadly overlooked by many scholars, but there are, of course,

Reflective summary of a dissertation on simultaneous interpreting

instances where the concept of norms is less relevant, or even irrelevant. Another example is that I may have tried too hard to remain descriptive and refrained too much from evaluating. As I see it now, the issue of my subjects’ different levels of competence should have been investigated more thoroughly before I started to hypothesize about their respective norms. I might even have found that a few of the beginner-interpreters were still struggling so much with fundamentals that their performances were rather unsuitable as input for general hypotheses. Of course, true scholarhip means that you should avoid a normative (prejudiced) attitude — no doubt about that — but it does not mean that you cannot, or should not, evaluate your data. Surely, it depends on the aims you choose for your project. To sum up, my general advice would be that you should not become so overwhelmed by a new theory or approach that you start over-interpreting its recommendations and ideas: I was right in choosing DTS as a source of inspiration for my work, but not in thinking that the theory of norms would explain most occurrences in my corpus and that all evaluation was to be avoided.

Notes 1. Inspired by a collection of essays, The Manipulation of Literature, edited by Hermans (1985), this approach was also dubbed The Manipulation School (eg Snell-Hornby 1988: 22; see also Schjoldager 1995b). Sometimes it is also referred to as the Polysystem approach, the Tel Aviv-Leuven axis, the Low Contries group or, rather confusingly, just Translation Studies (see for instance Hermans 1999: 7–9). 2. It is true that back-translation is sometimes used in this broad sense, but it actually denotes a translation of the TT back into the source language. Therefore, strictly speaking, my TT-1, which is a target-language version of the ST, cannot be described as a backtranslation. For a similar use of translation, see also the papers by Dam and Wadensjö, this volume. 3. According to Gile (1991: 17), the process of simultaneous interpreting comprises three components/Efforts: “L: listening to and analyzing the source language speech. P: producing a target language speech. M: short term memory storage and retrieval of information for strategic or linguistic reasons (when storage of information for a certain time before restitution is required because of differences between languages)”.

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References Barik, H. C. 1969. A Study of Simultaneous Interpretation. Unpublished thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Psychology. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Barik, H. C. 1972. “Interpreters Talk a Lot, Among Other things”. Babel 18(1): 3–10. Delabastita, D. 1989. “Translation and mass-communication: film and T. V. translation as evidence of cultural dynamics”. Babel 35(4): 193–218. Delabastita, D. 1993. There’s a Double Tongue: An investigation into the translation of Shakespeare’s wordplay, with special reference to ‘Hamlet’. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Editions Rodopi B. V. Approaches to Translation Studies. Gile, D. 1991. “The Processing Capacity Issue in Conference Interpretation”. Babel 37(1): 15–27. Gile, D. 1995. Basic Concepts and Models for Interpreter and Translator Training. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hermans, T. (ed.). 1985. The Manipulation of Literature: Studies in literary translation. London/Sydney: Croom Helm. Hermans, T. 1999. Translation in Systems. Descriptive and System-oriented Approaches Explained. Manchester: St. Jerome. Translation Theories Explained 7. Pedersen, V. H. 1987. Oversættelsesteori. Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur. Schjoldager, A. 1995a. “An Exploratory Study of Translational Norms in Simultaneous Interpreting: Methodological Reflections”. Hermes 14: 65–87. Schjoldager, A. 1995b. “Interpreting Research and the “Manipulation School” of Translation Studies”. Target 7(1): 29–45. Schjoldager, A. 1996. Simultaneous Interpreting: Empirical Investigation into Targettext/Source-text Relations. A PhD dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Modern Languages, the Aarhus School of Business, Denmark, April 1996. Aarhus: The Aarhus School of Business. Snell-Hornby, M. 1988. Translation Studies. An Integrated Approach. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Toury, G. 1980. In Search of a Theory of Translation. The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, Tel Aviv University, Jerusalem: Academic Press. Toury, G. 1995. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Vanderauwera, R. 1982. “Review: Gideon Toury. In Search of a Theory of Translation (Tel Aviv, Israel: The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics), 1980”. In The Art and Science of Translation, A. Lefevere and K. D. Jackson, (eds), 177–179. The University of Michigan. Dispositio 7:19–20–21. Wadensjö, C. 1992. Interpreting as Interaction: On dialogue-interpreting in immigration hearings and medical encounters. Linköping: Linköping University.



Conclusion Issues and prospects Daniel Gile, Helle V. Dam and Anne Schjoldager

The very first paper of this volume, “Selecting a topic for PhD research in interpreting”, describes by way of an introduction a whole range of issues, steps and decisions that are part of the PhD process. This overview, based on the author’s experience as a research supervisor, is fairly general and does not assign specific weights to each component of the process. Most other papers, which were written by their respective author(s) independently, are more specific and report on their authors’ experience as PhD students. It therefore seems interesting and potentially useful to see, on the basis of these personal reports, to what extent the issues mentioned in the introductory paper can also be found in the personal accounts, whether there seems to be some hierarchy in their relative importance, and whether useful conclusions and strategies can be derived from the exercise.

1.

The difficulty of the PhD process

What we found striking even before going into a detailed analysis of the papers is the general impression that the PhD process as reported by the authors was difficult, not a more or less automatic progression from step to step to the conclusion. Essentially, authors describe a lengthy, sometimes difficult process, fraught with uncertainty, self-doubts, stress and dissatisfaction with one’s own performance. Moreover, though some difficulties mentioned are technical as expected (those problems having to do with data processing methods, the choice of a theoretical framework, etc.), many are ‘logistic’ and organisational, and involve strategic decisions by the students rather than technical considerations. Those authors who contributed to this volume managed to overcome their difficulties and complete their doctoral work, sometimes under less than ideal

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conditions; for many others, however, the problems are too formidable, and they give up, sometimes after years of hard work. It is difficult to say just how many doctoral dissertations are started and never completed, but we know enough such cases to consider it possible that more than half, and possibly much more than half of the dissertation projects accepted by the respective host universities in the field of translation and interpreting, never see the light of day. When they do, their pre-natal diseases sometimes leave them barely viable. In this sense, individual impressions in different countries and different universities turn out to be remarkably similar, and suggest the need for some action to help PhD candidates in the process. One should note that these observations were made within interpreting and translation (the latter to a lesser extent in this volume). We do not claim that the problems are similar or as severe in all disciplines, but we do have some experience with dissertations in other fields in the humanities and behavioural sciences, and from discussions with many colleagues in these fields, we get the distinct impression that their drop-out rate in doctoral dissertations is just as high. The comments and suggestions below are meant to be taken as interpretation- (and translation-) specific, but we suspect that many are more widely applicable.

2. Issues 2.1 Research skill baseline From the accounts in the contributors’ papers, it appears that in general, in Translation Studies, including interpreting research (see Gerzymisch-Arbogast’s paper for the case of research into translation), most PhD students are complete beginners or nearly-complete beginners in research principles and methodology, and have not only to learn specific theories, data collection methods, processing methods, etc., but also to acquire the most basic skills and, more importantly, a mindset, which might be called ‘scientific thinking’. Gerzymisch-Arbogast’s students mention this as a major issue, and the absence of a suitable research background and of a research tradition in the field are also referred to by other authors in this volume. PhD students in translation and interpreting are thus in a position similar to that of undergraduate students undertaking research for graduation theses in other cases (as described for the Czech Republic by Cˇenˇková and for Italy by Riccardi, Giambagli

Conclusion 235

and Russo). Note that in empirical disciplines such as sociology, psychology, education science, biology, chemistry and physics, research principles and methods are taught early on, in undergraduate courses, and PhD students do not face similar problems. 2.2 The use of the literature Linked to the lack of a research background, an issue that is often mentioned in this volume is the students’ lack of expertise in using the literature properly (see in particular Gerzymisch-Arbogast and Cˇenˇková), that is, navigating in the sea of available publications in order to find what is most relevant and useful to them on one hand, and being able to use such texts critically on the other. This causes much waste of time, as students read literature which does not lead them in the right direction or which they do not use critically enough and “overinterpret” (see Dubslaff’s and Schjoldager’s accounts), and do not advance as efficiently as they could. 2.3 Topic Selection Against the background of this lack of a firm foundation in research principles, the case studies presented in this volume confirm that, as stated in the introductory paper devoted to topic selection, one major difficulty for PhD students is precisely that early part of the process. Many spend much time working on a topic before realising that the envisaged project is not feasible (see for example Schjoldager, Dubslaff, and Cˇenˇková’s description of how the Institute of Translation Studies at Charles University, Prague, has overcome this problem for MA theses). We know several cases of students who never had a chance to even start their dissertation, because their topic was obviously far too ambitious, or even too difficult to operationalise into a research project (see an example in Kurz, in this volume). In this respect, the system developed in Prague, which includes the yearly preparation of a list of potential MA topics, is an interesting and positive option, especially in view of the fact that the proposed topics are optional, and students are free to submit their own topics — the Czech and Italian cases apply to graduation theses, but the principle could also extend to doctoral dissertations (as is often the case in the natural sciences).

236 Daniel Gile, Helle V. Dam and Anne Schjoldager

2.4 Supervisors One reason why topic selection is so difficult for PhD students is that without research training and experience, they cannot anticipate the problems, assess their impact and devise strategies to overcome them. Against this background, the potential role of supervisors appears as particularly important (as stressed in particular by Gerzymisch-Arbogast and Mead). As can be seen from several papers in this volume, not only will they have to supervise the students technically, as is the case in other disciplines, but they often have to guide them into research principles and methods, sometimes at an elementary level — and possibly also provide them with some psychological support (GerzymischArbogast refers to the “blues” that doctoral students suffer from). Actually, under the circumstances, the supervisors’ support can make, and often does make all the difference between success and failure, no matter how motivated and intelligent the student may be. In order to act efficiently, supervisors have to be competent researchers in the relevant paradigm on one hand, and have the necessary knowledge of interpreting and its literature on the other. As explained in Gile’s paper on topic selection and illustrated in several other contributors’ papers, at this time, this dual qualification is difficult to find, since interpreters rarely have the necessary methodological expertise, and non-interpreters rarely have the required familiarity with interpreting and interpreting literature. The individual experience of various authors in this volume suggests that this may have caused major problems for them, with costs in terms of both time and quality of work. A further point is the interdisciplinary nature of many research projects in interpreting, which requires supervisors to have expertise in a cognate field as well. The issue is addressed institutionally in Trieste and Prague (see Riccardi et al. and Cˇenˇková respectively), where close links have been established with other departments at the university and allow students to work with co-supervisors from other disciplines, but is more problematic elsewhere, and requires independent personal initiatives by the students. Mead, for instance, had to decide for himself whether he wished to work under the supervision of an interpreter or that of an expert from another discipline, and managed to find a statistician at his own university to support him in his statistical data processing.

Conclusion 237

2.5 Time Linked to this issue, in the field of interpreting, judging by the authors’ contributions, PhD students left largely to themselves apparently take a long time to select their topic, and, as mentioned above, often spend much time going in the wrong direction and then have to backtrack (see in particular Dubslaff’s contribution). Besides this issue, time constraints seem to be perceived as particularly important in their experience, both with respect to total time-tocompletion, especially when part of the time was used inefficiently in a trialand-error mode, and with respect to time management (see GerzymischArbogast, Mead, Dam, Schjoldager). Part of the problem is linked to the fact that many PhD students in the field of interpreting are interpreters themselves and cannot afford to give up interpreting altogether for several years (as explained by Mead, who is the only one who refers explicitly to the financial cost of the doctoral project to the student). Another part of the problem is linked to inexperience, which makes it difficult for them to assess time requirements for each phase of their work. Again, the supervisor’s role as a guiding hand seems particularly important.

3. A Synopsis Interestingly, these issues differ rather significantly from problems PhD students generally encounter in established empirical disciplines: time management problems and total duration constraints are the same, but in most established empirical disciplines, there are more technical issues at stake (that may have to do with materials or specific research methods), as well as financial ones, especially when field trips, laboratory equipment, and remuneration for subjects taking part in experiments are required. In interpreting research, there are less costs, and many of them are covered by the PhD students themselves, insofar as they have income from interpreting, whereas generally, PhD students in other empirical disciplines do not have professional income outside university (see however Mead’s comments on this issue). It also seems that in established empirical disciplines, especially those where research laboratories and teams are institutionalised, topic selection, supervision and “doctoral blues” are less of a problem: the technical and institutional structure is there, along with a favourable human environment composed of peers working on similar issues as the student and/or one or several experienced researchers working on related

238 Daniel Gile, Helle V. Dam and Anne Schjoldager

topics, who can support the beginner. Another interesting point is that none of the contributors to this volume complained about difficult access to subjects and/or data, an issue that is often mentioned in the literature. Not that they were not aware of them (see Dam and Cˇenˇková), but they seem to have planned their project accordingly, and several (in particular Mead, Wadensjö, Dubslaff and Cˇenˇková) actually report a cooperative attitude from colleagues — which some of them seem almost surprised to find. Nevertheless, on the whole, this collection of accounts definitely generates a sense of difficulty which points to the need to improve the present setting for PhD work.

4. Prospects How can one improve the situation and help PhD students? The issue of the students’ insufficient research skill baseline is difficult to address: it does not make sense to introduce several years of research method training into an interpreting (or translation) curriculum, and a one-year research seminar may not be sufficient if it only represents one course out of several in the syllabus. Short intensive courses like the CE(T)RA program and the Aarhus Seminar, which was at the basis of this volume, are certainly a good step in the right direction. So are doctoral seminars (‘Doktorantenseminar’) such as organised by Gerzymisch-Arbogast in Saarbrücken with the participation of experts from German and other universities, as well as Czech research seminars as reported by Cˇenˇková, and other seminars organised in Italy, Spain, Finland, etc., but they are not enough. The only viable way for interpreters who are not trained in other disciplines such as cognitive psychology, sociology, etc. to acquire the necessary research skills for their doctoral project at this time is probably the apprenticeship mode, that is, working closely with an experienced supervisor. This in turn poses two interrelated problems: Firstly, as mentioned above and illustrated in a number of papers in this book, there are still very few qualified supervisors for PhD work in interpreting research (with the required research qualifications and knowledge of interpreting and the relevant literature), probably not much more than a dozen world wide, and obviously none at all in most universities. Secondly, national laws and regulations often require supervisors to be affiliated with the same university as the candidate, or with a university in the



Conclusion 239

same country. Thus, candidates often find themselves unhappily supervised by an unhappy supervisor who does not know much about interpreting, or by an interpreter who is not a highly qualified researcher. The unsatisfactory, but only realistic solution to the problem at this point seems to be co-supervision. It is unsatisfactory not so much because of technical problems, since modern technology has solved many of these and e-mail based supervision is effective (see Mead, this volume), but because supervision represents much work, and willing co-supervisors (who are — generally — not financially compensated for their commitment) may be difficult to find, depending on their work load at their local university and on their availability (note however that Cˇenˇková and Riccardi et al. do not mention this as problematic in their respective environments). It is hoped that with time, enough qualified PhD holders in the field will be available to take care of prospective students. This may well take at least the better part of a decade, and possibly much longer. Meanwhile, patience and dedication are the best options, and advice through international seminars and texts such as this one may be of some help.



About the contributors

Ivana Cˇenˇková Currently employed as associate professor at the Institute of Translation Studies, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. Head of the Department of Theory and Didactics of Interpreting. Practising conference interpreter (graduate of the Institute of Translation Studies, Charles University, with Czech, French and Russian, 1978). PhDr (1980, Prague) and CSc (equivalent of PhD; 1986, Prague) both in theory of interpreting. Habilitation in the same academic field in 1993. Academic interests: research in simultaneous interpreting, training of trainers, improvement of the quality on conference interpreter training. About 90 publications on interpreting (theory, practice, didactics, reviews, reports, etc.) mostly in Czech. E-mail address: ivana.cenkova@ff.cuni.cz Helle V. Dam Associate professor of interpreting at the Aarhus School of Business, Denmark, Department of Spanish. MA in Spanish (LSP), translation and interpreting, 1990. Certified translator and interpreter (Spanish—Danish). PhD in 1996, with a dissertation on consecutive interpreting submitted to the Aarhus School of Business, Faculty of Modern Languages, in 1995. Academic interests: interpreting research (in conference and community interpreting, consecutive and simultaneous), with particular reference to empirical, product-oriented studies on interpreting; text linguistics; interpreter training. Consultant member of the editorial board of Hermes, Journal of Linguistics. E-mail address: [email protected] Friedel Dubslaff Associate professor within interpreting and translation studies in the German Department of the Aarhus School of Business, Denmark. MA in German from the University of Hamburg (Germany), 1970, and from the University of Aarhus (in German as a foreign language), 1979. PhD from the Aarhus School of Business with a dissertation on simultaneous interpreting, 1996. Academic interests: simultaneous interpreting with focus on linguistic differences between source and target texts, community interpreting, translation, text linguistics. E-mail address: [email protected] Yves Gambier Currently professor and head of the Centre for Translation and Interpreting, University of Turku, Finland. Doctor in linguistics (University of Rouen, 1986), habilitation in linguistics (Rouen, 1990). Main academic interests: discourse analysis, LSP, theory and history of translation, screen translation, translator training, socioterminology, bilingualism, language policy. About 130 publications. President of the European Society for Translation Studies

242 About the contributors

1998–2001, President of the European Association for Studies in Screen Translation 2000–2002, Chair of the FIT-Media Committee since 1996, member of the Finnish association of translators and interpreters (SKTL). Member of different advisory boards, including Language International, Terminology, Hermeneus, Benjamins Translation Library. E-mail address: yves.gambier@utu.fi Heidrun Gerzymisch-Arbogast Currently professor in linguistics and translation at the University of the Saarland, Saarbrücken, Germany. Previous positions at the University of Heidelberg, Institute for Translation and Interpreting, and at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Former translator and interpreter (graduate of the University of Heidelberg, 1969). PhD in English language and linguistics from the University of Mainz in Germersheim, 1986. Habilitation in translation studies, University of Heidelberg, 1992. Research interest: translation, text linguistics, languages for special purposes. Editor of the Yearbook series of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Übersetzungs- und Dolmetschwissenschaft (German association for translation and interpreting research). E-mail address: [email protected] Anna Giambagli Currently associate professor of consecutive interpreting and translation from French into Italian at the Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori, University of Trieste, Italy. Degree in political sciences and diploma of conference interpreter (University of Trieste 1977). Former staff translator at the Economic and Social Committee of the European Union (Bruxelles 1980–1983). Free-lance conference interpreter and editorial translator since 1983. The author of about 30 articles on interpreting and translation. Main research interests: propedeutics to interpreting, strategies for information retention in consecutive interpreting, the role of non-verbal signals for oral communication, processing capacities of specialized languages in oral and written translation. E-mail address: [email protected] Daniel Gile At present, professor at Université Lumière Lyon 2, France. Previous positions at the Japanese and Korean Department of INALCO (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales), Paris, and at ISIT (Institut Supérieur d’Interprétation et de Traduction), Paris. Former mathematician. Former scientific and technical translator. Conference interpreter (ESIT graduate, Paris, 1979). PhD in Japanese (INALCO, Paris, 1984), PhD in Linguistics (Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, 1989), habilitation (Université Paris-Nord, 1994). Main academic interests: research into simultaneous interpreting, translator training, interpreter training, training in research methods. Editor of the IRN Bulletin, co-editor of the EST Newsletter. About 150 publications on translation and interpreting. E-mail address: [email protected] Ingrid Kurz Ingrid Kurz is associate professor of interpreting studies at the Department of Translation and Interpreting of the University of Vienna, Austria, and has been working as a freelance conference and media interpreter for over thirty years (graduate of the University of Vienna). Holds a PhD in psychology with a doctoral dissertation on the influence of practice and

About the contributors 243

concentration on simultaneous speaking and listening (University of Vienna 1969), and a habilitation with a post-doctoral thesis on simultaneous interpreting (University of Vienna 1992). Main research interests: conference and media interpreting, with particular reference to cognitive, psychological and (neuro)physiological aspects; the history of interpreting. Is the author and editor of books and has published numerous articles in international collective volumes and journals. E-mail address: [email protected] Peter Mead Research associate at the University of Bologna, Forlì (Italy), teaching consecutive interpreting. Born and educated in the UK, graduated in languages at Oxford (1975) and Grenoble, France (1979). Former teacher of specialist English courses in the pharmaceutical industry and medical translator. Since the late 80s, extensive experience as a free-lance conference interpreter, particularly on medical and industrial topics, including work for the WHO and the Milan Stock Exchange. Started lecturing in 1994, at Forlì. Currently researching into pauses in consecutive interpreting, subject of a doctoral project to be completed in 2001 at the University of Lyon 2, France. E-mail address: [email protected]. Franz Pöchhacker Associate professor of interpreting studies at the University of Vienna (Austria), Department of Translation and Interpreting. Conference interpreter (graduate of Vienna T&I 1987 and Monterey 1988). PhD with doctoral dissertation on simultaneous conference interpreting (University of Vienna 1993). Habilitation with post-doctoral thesis on interpreting studies and community interpreting (University of Vienna 1999). Academic interests: interpreting research, interpreter training, history of interpreting, translation theory. Secretary general of the European Society for Translation Studies from 1993 to 1998. Some 40 publications on interpreting. E-mail address: [email protected] Alessandra Riccardi Since 1993 employed as associate professor for German-Italian interpreting at the SSLMIT — Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori of the University of Trieste (Italy), Department of Language, Interpretation and Translation Studies. Diploma as conference interpreter (German and English) at the SSLMIT, University of Trieste, 1979. Graduated in Germanistic studies at the University of Venice, 1984. Between 1979 and 1993 freelance interpreter. Main research interests: simultaneous interpreting, the interpreting process, strategies and quality issues. Further research fields are language pair problems in German-Italian simultaneous interpreting and interpreting didactics. E-mail address: [email protected] Mariachiara Russo Associate professor of simultaneous interpreting (SI) from Spanish into Italian at the Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori (SSLMIT) of the University of Trieste, Italy. Conference interpreter (SSLMIT graduate, academic year 1986/87, University of Trieste). Currently teaching interpreting also at the SSLMIT of the University of Bologna, Forlì. Research interests: SI aptitude testing, morpho-syntactic interferences between Spanish



244 About the contributors

and Italian during SI, Spanish text typology and SI, film interpreting. E-mail address: [email protected] Anne Schjoldager Currently employed as assistant professor within translation studies in the English Department of the University of Aarhus, Denmark. Previous positions within interpreting at the Aarhus School of Business. MA in English (LSP) and official translator and interpreter in English, 1990. PhD from the Aarhus School of Business with a dissertation on simultaneous interpreting, 1996. Research interests: interpreting, translation, and foreign language teaching. Schjoldager is currently working on a project on translation as a teaching and testing tool. E-mail address: [email protected] Cecilia Wadensjö Currently employed as assistant professor at the Department of Communication Studies, Linköping University, Sweden. University diploma in interpreting from Stockholm University, 1978. Certified interpreter (Swedish—Russian), the Swedish Board of Commerce, Stockholm, 1979. PhD from the Department of Communication Studies, Linköping University, with a dissertation on dialogue interpreting, 1992. At present involved in a research project on media interpreting. Main academic interests: research into interpreting as a form of intercultural communication in face-to-face interaction, pragmatics, method and theory within the field of interpreting and translation studies. Member of the International Committee on Community Interpreting. E-mail address: [email protected]



Abbreviations and acronyms AIIC

Association Internationale des Interprètes de Conférence (International Association of Conference Interpreters)

ASKOT

Asociace Konferencˇních Tlumocˇníku˚ (Czech Association of Conference Interpreters)

ASL

American Sign Language

CA

Conversational Analysis

CE(T)RA

Research Centre for Translation, Communication and Cultures, initially named CERA after a leading Belgian Bank, hence the “(T)”.

CI

Consecutive Interpreting

CIUTI

Conférence Internationale d’Instituts Universitaires de Traducteurs et Interprètes (an international umbrella organization for translator and interpreter training programs)

DTS

Descriptive Translation Studies

ELC

European Language Council

ESIT

École Supérieure d’Interprètes et de Traducteurs (University of Paris III)

ESL

English Sign Language

EST

European Society for Translation Studies

ETI

École de Traduction et d’Interprétation (University of Geneva, Switzerland)

FIT

Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs (International Federation of Translators)

IMRD

Introduction, Material and Method(s), Results, Discussion (standard structure of reports on empirical studies in scientific journals)

IRN

(Conference) Interpretation Research (Information) Network

IRT

Interpretation Research and Theory

ISIT

Institut Supérieur d’Interprétation et de Traduction (Paris)

JTP

Jednota Tlumocˇníku˚ a Prˇekladatelu˚ (Czech Association and Trade Union of Translators and Interpreters)

LSP

Language for Special Purposes



246 Abbreviations and acronyms

PCO

Professional Conference Organizer

SI

Simultaneous Interpreting

SKTL

Suomen Kääntäjien ja Tulkkien Liitto (Finnish Association of Translators and Interpreters)

SSL(i)MIT

Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori (Italian university school of interpreting and translation)

ST

Source Text

T&I

Translation and Interpreting

TT

Target Text



Name index

A Adam, J.-M., 40 AIIC, 107, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 115, 119, 120, 245 Altman, J., 165 Anastasi, A., 113 Anderson, D., 111 Apfelbaum, B., 195 Ariel, M., 153 ASKOT, 77, 79, 245 Austin, J., 188 B Baaring, I., 151, 156 Babbie, E., 30 Bales, R. F., 213 Barik, H. C., 223 Basel, E., xiv, 1, 128 Basso, G., 89, 164 Bastin, G. L., 54 Bauwelinck, E., 53 Bava, A., 89, 164 Beaugrande, R.-A. de, 150, 153, 212 Beavin, J. H., 188 Berk-Seligson, S., 53, 195 Boschian Schiavon, V., 88, 89 Bottan, L., 94 Bourdieu, P., 39, 46 Brennan, M., 195 Broadbent, D., 117 Bromley, D. B., 12 Bronckart, J.-P., 42 Brozich-Lipizer, G., 88, 89 Brunette, L., 54 Bühler, H., 109, 110 Bührig, K., 195 Böcker, M., 111

C Cambridge, J., 195 Cˇenˇková, I., ix, 69, 70, 71, 150, 160, 234, 235, 236, 238, 239, 241 CE(T)RA, vii, , 222, 238, 245 Chafe, W. L., 178 Choi, J., 18 CIUTI, 67, 245 Colin, J., 54 Collados Aís, Á., 8 Coolican, H., 12, 18 Cooper, C. L., 112, 114 Cooper, H., 45 Coughlin, J., 115 Crevatin, F., 87, 88 D Dahrendorf, R., 214 Dam, H., vii, xii, 163, 170, 175, 180, 233, 237, 238, 241 Davies R., 112, 114 Dawrant, A., 2 Delabastita, D., 223 Déjean Le Féal, K., 3, 148 van Dijk, T. A., 165, 176, 177, 187 Dillinger, M., 3, 16, 176 Dodds, J., xi, xiv, 5, 88, 98, 170 Dressler, W. U., 150, 153, 212 Drew, P., 189 Du Bois, J. W., 171 Dubslaff, F., vii, xii, 145, 146, 235, 237, 238, 241 Duranti, A., 189, 193, 195 E Edelsky, C., 193 Eiff, A. W. von, 118

248 Name index

Ehlich, K., 171 ELC, 50, 67, 80, 138, 141, 245 Englund Dimitrova, B., 195 Eroms, H.-W., 147 ESIT, x, 21, 22, 75, 76, 129, 201, 242, 245 EST, 120, 242, 245 ETI, x, 129, 245 Etlinger, S., 101, 114 F Fabbro, F., 89, 164, 201 Ferrando, A., 54 Firth, J. R., 187 FIT, 99, 119, 242, 245 Fløttum, K., 177 G Gallina, S., 165 Gambetti, M., vii, xiv, 1, 103, 118, 128 Gambier, Y., ix, x, xiv, 4, 39, 53, 241 Garcia-Landa, M., 201 Gerver, D., 165, 203, 204 Gerzymisch-Arbogast, H., x, 55, 58, 63, 145, 160, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 242 Giambagli, A., xi, 87, 98, 234, 242 Gile, D., vii, ix, x, xiv, 1, 3, 4, 12, 14, 23, 24, 27, 31, 58, 63, 101, 102, 108, 110, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 152, 159, 160, 164, 166, 170, 173, 199, 201, 202, 204, 207, 208, 211, 212, 213, 214, 233, 236, 242 Goffman, E., 126 Goldman-Eisler, F., 148, 175, 180 Gonzales, D. R., 53 Goodwin, C., 189, 195 Gorsuch, R. L., 115 Gran, B., 89, 164 Gran, L., xi, xiv, 5, 88, 89, 90, 95, 98, 164, 170, 201, 202 Gravier, M., 114 Guttmann, G., 114 H Hale, S., 195

Halliday, M. A. K., 188 Harris, Z., 187 Herbert, J., 114 Heritage, J., 189 Hermans, T., 226, 231 Holmes, J. S., 200 Holz-Mänttäri, J., 211 Hoyos, C. Graf, 104 Hutchby, I., 193 Hyöna, J., 3 I Ilg, G., 53, 54 IRN, 76, 84, 242, 245 Isham, B., vii ISIT, 242, 245 J Jackson, D. D., 188 Jaggers, B., 106 Jansen, P., 195 Jefferson, G., 171, 193 Jensen, P. A., 167, 168 Jettmarová, Z., 72, 74 JTP, 77, 245 K Kade, O., 200, 206 Kadric, M., 195 Kaindl, K., 213 Kiraly, D., 53 Kirchhoff, H., 146, 148, 150, 151, 152 Koenitz, B., 154 Kolmer, H., 106 Kowal, S., 171, 172 Krings, H. P., 148 Krouglov, A., 195 Kurz, I., xi, 27, 101, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 113, 115, 235, 242 Königs, F. G., 148 L Lamberger-Felber, H., 2 Lambert, S., vii, 53, 164, 176, 201 Lebhar Politi, M., 88, 89

Name index 249

Lederer, M., 108, 148, 179, 201, 203, 206 Levi, J. N., 53 Lindholm, J., 180, 214 Longacre, R., 40 Longley, P., 114 Lörscher, W., 148 Luchene, R. H., 115 M Mackintosh, J., 53 MacWhinney, B., 171 Malinowski, B., 187 Martinsen, B., vii Massaro, D. W., 9, 201, 211 Mead, P., vii, xiv, 1, 103, 118, 121, 127, 128, 236, 237, 238, 239, 243 Meak, L., 88, 89 Mechel, M. M., 89 Meyer, B., 195 Miller, G., 148 Mizuno, A., 18 Morrill, C., 53 Morris, R., 54 Moser, B., 9, 18, 110, 152, 203, 211 Moser-Mercer, B., 53, 201, 206 Mudersbach, K., 62 Musacchio, M. T., 53 Müller-Limroth, W., 104 N Namy, C., 212 Niemi, P., 27, 164 Nord, C., 210 Nølke, H., vii, 103, 167, 168 O Ochs, E., 193 O’Connell, D. C., 171, 172 P Padilla, P., 2, 8, 17 Pedersen, V. Hjørnager, 223 Petsche, H., 101 Philipp, A., 114, 115 Pinter, I., xi, xiv, 2, 5, 101, 109, 117

Pöchhacker, F., xii, 3, 53, 118, 126, 151, 195, 199, 202, 243 R Reiss K., 151, 203, 210, 215 Rejsková, J., 72 Riccardi, A., xi, 87, 95, 98, 234, 236, 239, 243 Robson, C., 12 Roy, C. B., 54, 195 Russo, M., xi, 87, 98, 235, 243 S Sacks, H., 189, 190 Salevsky, H., 200, 202, 206, 208 Sawyer, D., 53 Schäffner, C., 210 Schiffrin, D., 187, 188 Schjoldager, A., vii, xii, 221, 231, 233, 235, 237, 244 Schmidt, S. J., 209 Sedlácˇková, H., 74 Seleskovitch, D., 108, 114, 165, 179, 200, 201, 203, 210 Setton, R., 3, 18, 180 Shlesinger, M., vii, xii, 54, 165, 178, 201, 211 Silverman, D., 189 Sinaiko, H. W., 203, 204 SKTL, 242, 246 Snell-Hornby, M., 231 Snelling, D., 88, 89, 90, 98, 202 Sofr, O., 71 Spielberger, C. D., 114, 115 Spiller Bosatra, E., 89 SSL(i)MIT, xi, xii, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 121, 246 Stein, D., 206, 208, 209 Stenzl, C., 111, 200, 202, 204, 206, 208, 209, 210, 211, 215 Stubbs, M., 53 Synek, M., 74 Sørensen, F., 167, 168



250 Name index

T Taylor, C., x, xiv, 4, 90 Tebble, H., 195 Thiel, G., 148 Thiéry, C., 2, 8 Tirkkonen-Condit, S., vii Tommola, J., 3, 27, 164, 180, 214 Toury, G., xiii, 203, 222, 225 Trosborg, A., 40 Tung, R. L., 112, 114 V Vaitl, D., 104 Vanderauwera, R., 226 Vermeer, H. J., 151, 201, 203, 208, 209, 210, 211, 215

Viezzi, M., 53, 95, 98 Vikner, C., 167, 168 W Wadensjö, C., xii, 53, 54, 180, 185, 193, 194, 195, 223, 238, 244 Walker, A. G., 53 Watt, I., 46 Watzlawick, P., 188 Werlich, E., 40 Wittgenstein, L., 188 Wooffitt, R., 193 Z Zhu, C., 149



Concept index

A aborted dissertations 1 access to materials 7 access to subjects 7, 134–135, 155, 156–157, 190–192, 238 access to the literature 6–7, 58 accessibility theory 153 activity outside university 5 alternative routes 13, 14, 159 anonymity of subjects 191 answers to research questions 4 areas of interests 8 asking authors for clarification 36 assessing presentation 32–34, 47 assessing form, see assessing presentation assessing reported facts 30, 31 assessing structure 47 assessing the contribution 47–48 attitude of interpreters towards research 7 audio vs video recordings 194 authentic speeches 78–79 available resources 8 B background expertise 234–235 background information 24 background knowledge 57, 58, 160, 165 background literature 8, 13, 14 baseline expertise 7, 8, 9, 13 bibliographical items 31 C calibrated psychological tests 113–116 canonical steps 15,16 case studies 12 cognate disciplines, see interdisciplinarity

communicational parameters of scientific texts 41–42 conceptual contributions 3, 199–216 condensed reviews 49–50 confirmation of findings 2 confounding variables 18 contribution of a research project 2 conversational analysis 170, 189–190 cooperation from subjects 134–135 corpus collection 78–80 corpus sharing 141 correction of findings 2 cost of research 140, 237 co-supervision 12, 56, 93, 239 creative thought 57 criteria for readers of scientific texts 46–48 critical reading 108 critical reading (functions of) 23 criticism 57, 132–134 CsC and PhD dissertations 71–72 D data (manipulation of) 166, 168 data (preparation of) 166 data (status of) 167 data analysis 80, 157–159 data collection 156–157 data vs facts 167–169 DEA (Diplôme d’Études Approfondies) 121, 125–126, 128–129 differences between PhD research and other research 12, 13 difficulty of the PhD process 233–234 discourse analysis 187–188 doc-blues 58, 60 doctoral seminar 56 dogmatic truth 108

252 Concept index

double-checking 25 DTS 222, 230, 231 E ecological validity 18 editorial process 42–44 Effort model 76, 152–153, 208, 211, 223, 228–229 empirical contribution of a research project 2 empirical research 15 environmental stress factors in interpreting 104–107 ergopsychometric studies 114 established empirical disciplines 20 expectations from a research project 2 experimental paradigm, see experimental research experimental research 14, 18, 19 expertise 6, 16, 63, expertise and assessment 30 explaining interpreter behaviour 228–229 exploratory objectives 8 exploratory tools 3 F feasibility 5–6, 7, 29, 74, 229, finding a doctoral programme 124–126 finding a host university programme 185–186 focus (of project) 131 focused objectives 8 frustration 60 functionalist school 203, 205 functions of scientific discourse 39–40 G generalisability 10, 11, 12, 79 genres of scientific texts 42 German academic environment 55–56, 66, graduation thesis 93, 123 guidance 9, 57 H habilitation dissertations 72

heresy 108 human factor 59–61 hypothesis (internal vs external) 168 I inferences 32, 34 information about reviewers 48–49 innovation 2, 214 institutional dimension of reports on scientific texts 44–46 institutional obstacles 12 interaction with other doctoral candidates 60 interdisciplinarity 3, 7, 16, 17, 18, 132–134, 153, 170–171, 172, 230, 236 international cooperation 63–64 internet communication with supervisors 81, 129–130 internet publishing 43–44 interpretive theory 75 intersubjectiveness 168 introspection 3 intuition 104, 168–169, 223, 230 Italian academic context 91 J joint research projects 94 L language selection 192 learning research 20, 24 linguistic availability 31 literature (exploration of) 24 literature (reading the) 148, 149–151 literature (reading) 78 literature (use of) 235 literature review 31, 78 logic 57, see also inferences, rationale M media (speeches from) 7 medium of a text 42 method (selection of) 8, 154–156 method assessment 29, 30

Concept index 253

methodological contributions 3–4 misperceptions 24, 28 modelling 211–214 models (interpretation) 151–153, 154 motivation 5, 19, 20, 59, 81, 102, 123–124, 145–146, 155, 185–186, 203–205

provincialism 30 psychological tests 113

N naturalistic studies 19 neurophysiology 89–90 non-experimental research 189 norms for critical reading 24 norms (translational) 222–223, 229, 230–231

R random sampling 10 rationale, see inferences rationale of a text 47 reader bias 25, 28 reading reports 36 reality of research 20 refereeing 23 references 47–48 refocusing the topic 78 reinventing the wheel 104 relevance (in transcription) 171 replication 2, 110–112 representativeness 9, 10, 29 requirements from a research study 4 research and didactics 92, 94–95 research as a learning process 229 research assistant 97 research expertise 12 research method courses 94 research methodology seminar 72 research norms, see research standards research objectives 1, 4, 10 research proposal 78 research question 1 research standards 13 research topic, see research question research topics, lists of 1 research training 58–59, 70, 238

O objectives (assessing the) 28, 29 objectives of a text 42 objectives of reviews 45–46 on-line notes 35 open-ended design 14, 15 opponent in a viva 82 opportunism of science 5 to 6 order of steps in research 146, 165, overall assessment 34 overly ambitious projects 4 (misunderstanding), 102, 104, 235 P panel of referees, 230 see also intersubjectiveness permission to record 191 personal theorizing 164 personality of the critical reader 23 PhD contract 64–65 PhDr theses 70–71 pilot study 230 pre-doctoral training 128–129 prep school 61–63 preparatory learning 9, 160 presentation standards 33 professionalism 34 project planning 7–12, 229 propositional analysis 176–177, 180

Q quality expectations 109–110 questions for readers of scientific texts 46–48

S sample 9, 10, 11, 12 sample size 14, 15, 29 sampling bias 10 scale of the study 14 scientific community 39 scientific norms 17, 18, 19, 103

254 Concept index

scientific standards, see scientific norms segmentation 175–179 selective reviews 51–52 seminars 63–64 serendipity in topic selection 116–117 situational parameters of scientific texts 41–42 skopos theory 151, 210–211, 215 small samples 12, 79 social dimension of scientific texts 39, 40 source text and target text comparison 225–227 source text and target text relations 223–225 sources of job stress 112–113 space saving 41 speculation 164, 201 STAI (State and Trait Anxiety Inventory) 115 statistics 11, 34, 35, 137–138 statistics training 95 supervision, supervisors 7, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 56, 60, 61, 64–65, 70, 116–117, 123, 236, 238–239 supervisor (attitude) 205 supervisor (finding a) 126–128 supervisor (selection of) 205 supervisor (working with) 129–131 supervisors (non-interpreters) 146–147 systematic reviews 50–51 T tertium comparationis 173, 225–226 testing theories by other researchers 108–109 text linguistics 40, 150, 153, 187 theoretical background 16, 57 theoretical contributions, see conceptual contributions theoretical framework (selection of) 151–154 theoretical research, see conceptual contributions theory 15, 90, 201–203

theory (choosing a theoretical framework) 205–206, 207–211 theory and experiment 108 theory of norms 222–223, 229, 230–231 theory of sense (théorie du sens) 18, 75, 201–203 theory-related seminars 57–58 theses in the Czech Republic 69–70 thesis proposal form 74–75 Think-Aloud Protocol 149 time 8, 13, 177, 237 time constraints 5 to 6, 156, 159, time management 58, 59, 130, 138–140, 149–150 time to publish 43, 48 topic selection 73, 93, 104–113, 126–129, 148–149, 165, 235 topic selection (training in) 20 topics 70 transcription 79, 170–173, 192–194 translation of the source text 173–175, 193, 226 trial and error 179 Trieste School 88, 164 U understanding the author’s objective 25, 26 understanding the results and conclusions 27, 28 understanding the method 26, 27 units of analysis, see segmentation units of translation 148, 149 use of the literature (assessing the) 31, 32 usefulness of research 74 V value for space 32 to 33 value of reports on scientific texts 44 variability, variation 11, 14 videocommunications requirements 111–112 violence of reviews 46 visual dimension of scientific texts 40 viva 82



Concept index 255

W writing 6, 58, 80–81, 159 writing in a foreign language 136

Z zeroing in on the topic 74

In the BENJAMINS TRANSLATION LIBRARY the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 1. SAGER, Juan C: Language Engineering and Translation: Consequences of automation, 1994. 2. SNELL-HORNBY, Mary, Franz POCHHACKER and Klaus KAINDL (eds): Translation Studies: An interdiscipline. Selected papers from the Translation Congress, Vienna, 9–12 September 1992. 1994. 3. LAMBERT, Sylvie and Barbara MOSER-MERCER (eds): Bridging the Gap: Empirical research on simultaneous interpretation. 1994. 4. TOURY, Gideon: Descriptive Translation Studies — and beyond. 1995. 5. DOLLERUP, Cay and Annette LINDEGAARD (eds): Teaching Translation and Interpreting 2: Insights, aims, visions. Selected papers from the Second Language International Conference, Elsinore, 4–6 June 1993. 1994. 6. EDWARDS, Alicia Betsy: The Practice of Court Interpreting. 1995. 7. BEAUGRANDE, Robert de, Abdulla SHUNNAQ and Mohamed Helmy HELIEL (eds): Language Discourse and Translation in the West and Middle East. Selected and revised papers from the conference on Language and Translation, Irbid, Jordan 1992. 1994. 8. GILE, Daniel: Basic Concepts and Models for Interpreter and Translator Training. 1995. 9. REY, Alain: Essays on Terminology. 1995. 10. KUSSMAUL, Paul: Training the Translator. 1995. 11. VINAY, Jean Paul and Jean DARBELNET: Comparative Stylistics of French and English: A methodology for Translation. 1995. 12. BERGENHOLTZ, Henning and Sven TARP: Manual of Specialised Lexicography: The preparation of specialised dictionaries. 1995. 13. DELISLE, Jean and Judith WOODSWORTH (eds): Translators through History. 1995. 14. MELBY, Alan with Terry WARNER: The Possibility of Language. A discussion of the nature of language, with implications for human and machine translation. 1995. 15. WILSS, Wolfram: Knowledge and Skills in Translator Behavior. 1996. 16. DOLLERUP, Cay and Vibeke APPEL: Teaching Translation and Interpreting 3. New Horizons. Papers from the Third Language International Conference, Elsinore, Denmark 9– 11 June 1995. 1996. 17. POYATOS, Fernando (ed.): Nonverbal Communication and Translation. New perspectives and challenges in literature, interpretation and the media. 1997. 18. SOMERS, Harold (ed.): Terminology, LSP and Translation. Studies in language engineering in honour of Juan C. Sager. 1996. 19. CARR, Silvana E., Roda P. ROBERTS, Aideen DUFOUR and Dini STEYN (eds): The Critical Link: Interpreters in the Community. Papers from the 1st international conference on interpreting in legal, health and social service settings, Geneva Park, Canada, 1–4 June 1995. 1997. 20. SNELL-HORNBY, Mary, Zuzana JETTMAROVÁ and Klaus KAINDL (eds): Translation as Intercultural Communication. Selected papers from the EST Congress – Prague 1995. 1997. 21. BUSH, Peter and Kirsten MALMKJÆR (eds): Rimbaud’s Rainbow. Literary translation in higher education. 1998. 22. CHESTERMAN, Andrew: Memes of Translation. The spread of ideas in translation theory. 1997.

23. GAMBIER, Yves, Daniel GILE and Christopher TAYLOR (eds): Conference Interpreting: Current Trends in Research. Proceedings of the International Conference on Interpreting: What do we know and how? 1997. 24. ORERO, Pilar and Juan C SAGER (eds): Translators on Translation. Giovanni Pontiero. 1997. 25. POLLARD, David E. (ed.): Translation and Creation. Readings of Western Literature in Early modern China, 1840–1918. 1998. 26. TROSBORG, Anna (ed.): Text Typology and Translation. 1997. 27. BEYLARD-OZEROFF, Ann, Jana KRÁLOVÁ and Barbara MOSER-MERCER (eds): Translator Strategies and Creativity. Selected Papers from the 9th International Conference on Translation and Interpreting, Prague, September 1995. In honor of Jirí Levi and Anton Popovic. 1998. 28. SETTON, Robin: Simultaneous Interpretation. A cognitive-pragmatic analysis. 1999. 29. WILSS, Wolfram: Translation and Interpreting in the 20th Century. Focus on German. 1999. 30. DOLLERUP, Cay: Tales and Translation. The Grimm Tales from Pan-Germanic narratives to shared international fairytales. 1999. 31. ROBERTS, Roda P., Silvana E. CARR, Diana ABRAHAM and Aideen DUFOUR (eds.): The Critical Link 2: Interpreters in the Community. Papers from the Second International Conference on Interpreting in legal, health and social service settings, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 19–23 May 1998. 2000. 32. BEEBY, Allison, Doris ENSINGER and Marisa PRESAS (eds.): Investigating Translation. Selected papers from the 4th International Congress on Translation, Barcelona, 1998. 2000. 33. GILE, Daniel, Helle V. DAM, Friedel DUBSLAFF, Bodil MARTINSEN and Anne Schjoldager (eds.): Getting Started in Interpreting Research. 2001. 34. GAMBIER, Yves and Henrik GOTTLIEB (eds.): (Multi) Media Translation. Concepts, practices, and research. 2001. 35. In preparation. 36. SCHMID, Monika S.: Translating the Elusive. Marked word order and subjectivity in English-German translation. 1999. 37. TIRKKONEN-CONDIT, Sonja and Riitta JÄÄSKELÄINEN (eds.): Tapping and Mapping the Processes of Translation and Interpreting. Outlooks on empirical research. 2000. 38. SCHÄFFNER, Christina and Beverly ADAB (eds.): Developing Translation Competence. 2000. 39. CHESTERMAN, Andrew, Natividad GALLARDO SAN SALVADOR and Yves GAMBIER (eds.): Translation in Context. Selected papers from the EST Congress, Granada 1998. 2000. 40. ENGLUND DIMITROVA, Birgitta and Kenneth HYLTENSTAM (eds.): Language Processing and Simultaneous Interpreting. Interdisciplinary perspectives. 2000. 41. NIDA, Eugene A.: Contexts in Translating. n.y.p. 42. HUNG, Eva (ed.): Teaching Translation and Interpreting 4. Building bridges. n.y.p.