Chapter 4 Findings and Discussions
4.1 Establishing Interpreting Context: Findings from Transcription Data
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Chapter 4 Findings and Discussions
This chapter presents major findings of this case study. The first part uses
transcription data to establish and explain the interpreting context. Subsequent sections
report on detailed findings from the user comment data in the order of different
comment type. When necessary, both transcription data and user comment data are
cross-examined to support the main arguments.
4.1 Establishing Interpreting Context: Findings from Transcription Data
Having complete access to public broadcasting content of authentic interpreting
performances is a key advantage in studying media interpreting events (Pöchhacker,
2011), and this applies to the subject of this case study, a live lecture webcasted on
YouTube. The researcher completed a transcription of both the source and target text
speech with the aim to document this unique interpreting event and establish the
interpreting context for detailed analysis.
Right in the beginning of Sandel’s speech, Sandel told the audience,
“You thought you were coming to a lecture. But, it's not the kind of lecture
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where the professor stands at a podium and reads from a text and gives you the
answers about big ideas. And I want to invite you to tell me what you think, and to
listen to one another, and to say whether you agree or disagree with what your
friends and colleagues had to say. So does that sound reasonable? Are you ready
to participate even you way back in the balcony?”
Reviewing the detailed transcription, the researcher would characterize this event
as a Socratic-style lecture filled with highly interactive, bidirectional, and even
multidirectional exchanges of ideas and comments, not only between the speaker and
the audience, but also among the audience members. The speaker-listener relationships
were multifaceted. For example, after elaborating on certain main issues, Sandel would
then ask the audience to vote and encourage audience members to stand up and express
and elaborate their viewpoints. Then Sandel built debates between two or more
audience members, asking them to challenge or persuade one another. Q&A sessions
occurred throughout the talk, and based on these Q&A sessions, Sandel completed his
highly interactive speech.
A quantitative analysis of the entire transcription presents the very interesting
structure and context of the lecture, as seen in Table 2. The entire lecture lasted 116
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minutes and included 182 segments. As defined in the Methodology section, each
lecture “segment” is one interpretation session by one interpreter and for one source
language speaker. So whenever there was a change of interpreter or source text speaker,
a new segment began. Based on this definition, 17 segments were established due to a
change of interpreters and 60 segments were established due to a change in target
language. The remaining segments were due to a change in source text speaker. In terms
of time length of each segment, the majority of them were very short, under 30 seconds.
Only 21 segments lasted for at least one minute, and those segments mainly were
Sandel’s introduction, conclusion, or summary remarks of the issues under debate. The
large number of segments, frequent change in segments, and more importantly, the
multiple factors behind segment changes indicated that the interpreters had to constantly
change their target languages, adapt to different speakers’ styles, and strategize
accordingly. Frequent interpretation turns implied that the interpreters had to stay
constantly alert and ensure smooth transitions, including the operation of the
simultaneous interpreting machine.
Table 2: A quantitative analysis of lecture transcription data
Total length 116 minutes
Total number of segments 182 segments
>10 minutes 2
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1 minute~10 minutes 19 30 seconds~1 minute 35
< 30 seconds 126 Segment change due to interpreter turns 17 Segment change due to language change 60 Total number of audience members who
expressed their opinions
24 audience members Audience members who spoke in Chinese 14
Audience members who spoke in English 7 Audience members who code-switched 3
Serving different source text speakers is another unique feature of this lecture. In
addition to interpreting for Sandel and the entire audience, the interpreters also had to
interpret for 24 audience members who participated in Sandel’s policy debate (see also
Appendix B). These 24 members not only represented different speaking styles, but also
spoke in different language and language combinations. Fourteen of them spoke in
Chinese, seven spoke in English, and three code-switched between the two languages.
Every time an audience member conversed with Sandel in Chinese, the interpreter had
to switch his/her target language. Even in fewer cases when the audience member spoke
in English, the interpreter still had to get accustomed to the member’s English accent.
Code-switching speakers were even harder to follow because of their accents and
unexpected time points of switching to a different language. Yet the different languages
used by the audience members reflected the increasingly common English as lingua
franca phenomenon, especially in Q&A sessions. As discussed in Chang and Wu (2009),
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when addressing English-speaking lecturers during Q&A sessions, Chinese-speaking
audiences often prefer using English. This necessary adjustment to different non-native
accents brings new challenges to interpreters.
Furthermore, the researcher found a very clear structure of the lecture, which could
be broken down into nine topical dialogues, plus Sandel’s opening and concluding
remarks (Table 3). Each dialogue was like a stand-alone argument following a certain
set of logic. Each dialogue followed a similar pattern—Sandel would introduce the topic
and the debate issue first, then he would ask the entire audience to vote, and ask
individual audience members to stand up and voice their opinions, challenge one
another, or address another audience member’s comment. After rounds of discussions,
Sandel would then summarize contrasting opinions, conclude the debate or discussion,
and move on to conduct his next conversation. Each dialogue differed in time length
and the number of audience members. Some dialogues were longer than others, and
involved more members in the discussion. For example, conversation #8 and #9
involved as many as six audience members in the debate plus Sandel, which meant that
the interpreters had to rapidly keep up with the multi-party conversation and adjust to
their different languages and speaking styles.
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Table 3: Main lecture segments
Dialogue # Segments Time length Speakers Interpreter(s)
Opening
73-76 0:03:34 Sandel Female Dialogue 4
Closing remarks 182 0:11:59 Sandel Female
Table 4, using Dialogue #8 as an example, is a detailed record that offers more
details of the back-and-forth interaction between Sandel and the audience members.
This dialogue was a debate about the impact of franchised convenient stores on local
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brick-and-mortar businesses, and involved a heated discussion between Sandel and the
six audience members. Among the six audience members, three spoke in English, two
spoke in Chinese, and one person code-switched between the two languages. In addition,
there were a total of 38 segments, interpreted respectively by the female and male
interpreters.
Table 4: Dialogue #8
Segment# Starting time Time length Speaker Interpreter Language direction
In summary this detailed, structural, and quantitative analysis of the entire lecture
carries multifold implications to the interpreters. The analysis illustrates the uniqueness
of this interpreting context-a highly conversational lecture filled with multi-directional
and interactive dialogues, and the interpreters carried an important role in bridging these
communicative interactions. To handle the many brief, under-one-minute interpreting
segments, interpreters had to maintain very short EVS. The interpreters had to
constantly adapt to different speaking styles, speed, and even language. Each language
change also involved switching the buttons on the interpreting machine, taking up extra
effort from the interpreters. The interpreting listeners also noticed the unique features of
this highly conversational lecture, which would be discussed in length in the following
sections.
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According to Alexieva (1997), there are different types of interpreter-mediated
events and these different types of encounters shape directly the role of interpreters.
Based on this typology and the transcription data presented in this section, this studied
event could be regarded as more “culture-specific”, because there was close proximity
between the speaker and the audience, great involvement of the participants, huge
number for audience and high orality (p. 170). In this type of event, the interpreter has a
very important role to play and has to “actively intervene in the communication to
prevent misunderstanding and smooth cultural differences,” because the communication
depends greatly on the interpreter’s ability to bridge dialogues, and to avoid or repair
communication breakdowns (p. 170). This is one of the possible explanations for why
there were so many YouTube comments devoted to interpreter-related issues, as
highlighted in the next section.