Last but not least, the third factor that is identified to pose impact on
directionality is the interpreting norms, which refers to what the interpreters believe their interpreting output should be like and what strategies are available to achieve the goal (Chang 2005). The interpreters in Chang’s study were found to share very similar ideas towards their interpreting output; for example, they believed interpreting should be “fluent, understandable, without long pauses, and in complete sentences.” (p. 104) They also indicated that literal translation should be avoided and the focus to convey important messages was the goal which Chang believed was the result of their training and years of experience.
The linkage here is, when interpreters hold a certain belief towards how to perform in a certain direction, such belief no doubt has an impact on that particular
direction. Donovan (2002) also mentions that most interpreters in the survey tend to focus on getting the message across instead of worrying too much about the style of their delivery as they worked into B. This may be the result of one of the teaching strategies adopted for interpreting into B known as the KISS principle: “Keep in short and simple.” (Adams 2002; Minns, 2002; Rejšková 2002)
“Stay away from colloquial expressions, they may be too colloquial or simply wrong for the native speakers of the language (including the interpreter relying on your input), and - replace idiomatic phrases,
proverbs with a more straightforward, less embellished message.”
(Rejšková 2002, p.33)
“However, a ‘B’ remains a B, when in doubt, students should “KISS”.”
(Minns 2002, p.37)
“When working into B, he is best advised to use only previously “verified" solutions, i.e. those which he had already heard uttered by native speakers. The booth is not the place to test whether the listeners understand linguistic solutions the interpreter tries out for the first time .” (Szabari 2002, p.17)
Interpreting norms like these which have been implemented to interpreters since they were beginners definitely shape the way they interpret in a certain direction.
This may also explain why Chang (2005) observed that the interpreters in her study were inclined to avoid unfamiliar phrases and adopt various strategies, such as paraphrasing and generalization, when work into B as mentioned earlier. Chang additionally marks the observation of the “language norms of the source and the target languages which also affect the interpreters’ comprehension and production process.”
(p. 105) The interpreters in Chang’s study paid more attention to their grammar, sentence structure and logical links when working into B. They also considered it was
“important to go beyond the surface of the original Chinese text and to express both the explicit and implicit message obtained in the text” when interpreting from Chinese
to English (p. 105). The present study suspects the fact that Chang reports more attention is allocated to “making cultural adaptations” when working into A (p. 105) may be due to the fact that B-A is less restricted to the effect of KISS principle as a possible explanation.
3.2.5 Experience
Compared to the inexperienced interpreters, Lawson (1967) believes the more experienced are less sensitive to the effect of directionality. Barik (1994) carried out a SI study examining the relationship between various proficiency levels of interpreters and omissions, additions and substitutions they make. Although directionality was not a concern in the study, Barik did reported an observation in which he discovered that the more experienced interpreters made “about the same omission measures” in both language directions, while the less experienced interpreters interestingly did better interpreting from A to B, “making fewer omissions and omitting less material in that situation than when translating from their weaker into their dominant language… … ” (p. 134) The amateurs were in fact even more likely to render a word-for-word
translation instead of “interpretation” of the source message in B-A comparing to A-B, while the professionals were “substantially more in agreement with the idiom of the target language.” (p. 135) Once again in terms of interpreting quality from user’s standpoint, let us not forget Donovan (2002), who clearly indicates that users do not want a literal translation from the interpreter; instead, they expect task be done in
“getting the speaker’s point across.” (p. 5) Therefore, Barik’s findings here may be referred to the fact that the less experienced interpreters rendered a better interpreting quality in A-B as far as users are concerned. Also when working in A-B, the less experienced interpreters on average showed fewer disruption and fewer serious errors
(p. 136) based on Barik’s error index (See Appendix I for Barik’s error index as summarized by this study). Although the experienced interpreters might be more seriously penalized by the error index compared to the less experienced in some cases, Barik did put foreword the fact that the error index itself was mostly concerned with changes in meaning, not the overall interpreting performance. This meant that the amateurs’ translations were less intelligible and those of the professionals were more flexible and thus prone to paraphrasing which was something that the error coding system could not reflect. Barik did admit that the error index was not to be taken as a perfect one since it only calculated errors in a general way and could not reflect the overall quality of the interpretation. In general, Barik’s study may suggest that the more experienced interpreters performed relatively steady in AB retour but the less experienced were less so in that A-B seemed to generate more satisfactory results.
A slight advantage of working in A-B was recorded by Tommola and Helevä (1998), who conducted a SI study (English/Finish) on directionality concerning linguistic complexity of the text with trainee interpreters. Tommola and Helevä (1998) assessed their performa nces with propositional accuracy. The results indicated a slightly higher accuracy in the interpreters’ renderings while in A-B than B-A.
“… linguistically more complex source texts produced a lower propositional accuracy score than did linguistically simpler and more redundant texts. However, there was no statistically
significant effect of the language direction in which interpretation proceeded, although the data revealed a slight trend suggesting that when the subjects were interpreting from their mother tongue into their B language, more propositions were correctly rendered.” (p. 184)
The two authors also suggest it is possible that source text complexity may pose less negative impact on more experienced interpreters because their lexical access and
syntactic parsing “are more automatized and modularized.” (p. 184) The implication here is that experienced interpreters can process a message more effectively than inexperienced interpreters “who may be faced with information overload which has an adverse effect on the quality of the performance.” (p. 184)
More recent psycholinguistic researchers, such as Kees de Bot (2000) who also believes that such asymmetry effect across language direction can be reduced with increased proficiency of the interpreter. Kees de Bot conducted a word
translation task (Dutch/French) for the groups of intermediate participants, advanced participants and near-native participants in terms of their language proficiency. While each group has 14 subjects, they “sat in front of a screen on which a stimulus word was presented. They had to say the translation of that word as quickly as possible” (p.
81). The results showed that a clear effect on translation direction but the “difference diminishes with increasing proficiency.” (p. 82) A verification task was also
conducted to test if participants had the lexical knowledge of the words tested but had difficulty rendering the translation in due course. The verification task had the same grouping but involved different individuals who mus t indicate if the Dutch word and the French word both shown on the screen were translation equivalents. The results showed a “significant effect of level of proficiency, in particular for the lowest level of proficiency” the reaction times were significantly prolonged (p. 83). What is important about Kees de Bot’s study is that although shorter reaction times were observed in the direction from the weaker into the dominant language, such effect was reduced as proficiency increased. Again Kees de Bot discusses the possibility that experience may be a factor that influences directionality; the more experienced
interpreters may be less sensitive to the effect of interpreting direction compared to the inexperienced.
In addition, Kurz and Färber (2003) conducted a SI study which involves seven native German interpreting students and seven native English interpreting students. Unlike Barik who applied error index as assessing criteria, Kurz and Färber measured the performance in terms of completeness and content accuracy. The results showed that students performed better in A-B and supported those of Barik in 1994 on the part that the less experienced interpreters seemed to perform more satisfactorily when working into B.
Lee (2003) had nine beginning SI students from Monterey Institute of International Studies to interpret a Korean speech into English and another speech in the opposite direction. Semantic error frequency, language quality & delivery parameters were the assessing criteria. Lee discovered that whe n student interpreters working into A, more meaning errors were observed than working into B. More language and presentation problems were found in A-B for these student interpreters.
Lee’s observation may also suggest that experience does play a part in the quality of directionality and that students are prone to producing more meaning errors in B-A.
Again to translate the results into Donovan’s findings based on users’ standpoint, the interpreting efficiency is probably higher in the A-B direction in this particular study since content accuracy is considered the basic requirement (As Donovan indicates) that a good interpretation cannot do without.
Leardini (2003) conducted an observational study investigating SI at two medical conferences. All the SIs were performed by the same group of interpreters who had English A and Italian B as they worked both ways. Frequency of departures and error types were measured in the study and the findings indicated that directionality did not affect these interpreters in the completeness and fidelity of their renderings. Once again more proof pointing to the direction that the more experienced interpreters seem less influenced by language directions. In other words, interpreters with more experiences seem less affected by AB retour while the less experienced ones generally show a more desirable performance in the A-B direction.
Bartlomiejczyk (2004b), after conducting a directionally study using questionnaires survey, provided results which showed that most professional interpreters preferred working into A but only half of the student interpreters felt the same way while 26% indicated they preferred A-B. Bartlomiejczyk attempted to offer an explanation for the phenomenon. Such a difference between the two groups “might be explained as a result of students having too high an opinion in their own mastery of their B language.” (p. 246) This means that students may not know the many errors they make in B but they do notice them when working into A. A second possibility contributing to the difference is that “there is a stage in interpreting training where students do perform better interpreting into a foreign language.” (p. 246) Professional interpreters generally thought that they performed better when working into A as 82.9% indicated so. No professional interpreters seem to suggest they perform better when working into B. More important, 39% of those professional interpreters who indicated a preference working into A actually reported that such difference (into A and into B) was small for them (reflected in grades by only one point).
This study found something interesting in Bartlomiejczyk’s study and before the discussion proceeds, the researcher of this study wishes to first explain why taking the group of student interpreters as an example for the following discussion instead of using the professional ones. The truth is, 35 out of the 40 professional interpreters involved in Bartlomiejczyk’s questionnaire survey were indeed AIIC members and whether their opinions regarding directionality stood neural was unclear but it was a concern noted also by Bartlomiejczyk. Therefore, this particular group of respondents was disregarded in the following discussion. The student interpreters were recruited from two different schools that did not particularly encourage work into A or into B and students were required to be able to work in both directions by the schools so their opinions were more likely to remain neutral on the issue.
Now, what’s interesting about Bartlomiejczyk’s survey results is that an indication of the 53 student respondents who show mixed opinions towards directionality is made. “26% of the students respondents thought themselves to be equally good (or equally bad) in both directions, and 74% made a distinction in their estimation depending on the direction: 48% though they interpreted better from B into A, 26% from A into B.” (Bartlomiejczyk’s 2004b, p. 242) The research of this study finds the disagreement intriguing and subsequently looks into the background information of these student respondents. Most of them had learnt interpreting for 3-4 terms and were between the age of 22~24. The only significant difference posed by these 53 student interpreters as could be viewed from the study was that they had different language combinations. As Bartlomiejczyk’ stated, 32 of the student respondents (From the University of Silesia) had Polish A and English B while some of them also had an additional B or C language(s). The other 21 subjects (From the
Vienna Institute) in fact had “a wide variety of A, B and C languages” (p. 242) while all of them had German as A or B. Other A and B involved including English, French, Hungarian, Polish, Russian and Spanish as listed by Bartlomiejczyk. While respondents/participants in many other studies as reviewed earlier in this study often indicated a consistent agreement concerning directionality and their language combination in each of these studies did not vary (Meaning only one language combination in each study was tested), the researcher became curious again in the possibility that specific language combination may be another factor at work when it comes to the issue of language direction in interpreting. The general observation in Bartlomiejczyk’s study is that students’ opinions are not similar to those of the professional interpreters in terms of interpreting across language direction and it remains consistent with what this study is inclined to suggest that experience as a factor is very likely to have affected interpreting across language direction.
It is important to note that this study certainly is not suggesting all inexperienced interpreters necessarily perform better in A-B (although it appears to be the general trend in the studies as reviewed) or all experienced ones always come up with nearly equal performance in both directions, but merely discussing the possibility that the less experienced interpreters can be more “sensitive” to the effect of language direction in SI in comparison to the more experienced ones who seem to perform more “steadily” and reduce the “gap” more effectively in AB retour. SI performance thus seems to be affected by their interpreting experience. Table 3.3 organizes the above studies that point to the direction suggesting experience may be a factor at work in AB retour.
Note that Donovan (2002) specified that users, other than demanding presentation quality, “went to the trouble” (p. 5) of pointing out by accuracy they expected an interpreter to convey the speaker’s message instead of rendering a literal translation. Such expectation for production is also found in the self-constructed norms that interpreters develop as their experiences increase and gradually change the way interpreters approach how they want to interpret/speak according to Chang (2005). To probe further into the matter, Chang states that self-constructed norms of interpreters can be established as the interpreter becomes more experienced and these norms have an impact on how interpreters wish to approach the task of interpreting.
For instance, many interpreters in Chang’s retrospective interview indicated that as they became more experienced in interpreting, they began to focus on the need of the audience (users) and the need to get the message across instead of worrying about how well they could translate the words or every word (Better quality in terms of content accuracy according to Donovan’s users expectations), as they gradually came to believe what interpreting should be like. Whether this may be one of the reasons that the more experienced interpreters perform more steadily in both directions than the inexperienced is another interesting point that no doubt deserves further research attention.
Table 3.3 Results of the Studies Pointing to the Factor of Experience
English/French Frequency of error and error types
French/Dutch Reaction times Shorter reaction times were observed in B-A and yet such effect was reduced as language
English/Korean Semantic error frequency, quality linguistic as well as presentation problems.
Source: Compiled by this study
3.3 Directionality: An Issue More than Native vs. Non-native
This chapter presents the discussion on directionality. Market reality for one, was and still is a fact today that AB retour in many parts of the world. Working into A could not have been a standard practice or a tradition if strictly putting it to work is practically difficult, if not totally impossible. Some places indeed consider working into B as a dominant practice under certain situations (i.e. Major international events) in Central and Eastern Europe (Szabari 2002) and there are those who basically stand neutral on the issue by indicating the necessity for AB retour (i.e. the Institute of English, University of Silesia, Poland and the Institute for Translation and Interpreting, University of Vienna, Austria, Bartlomiejczyk 2004b).
Directionality may be affected by various factors so the quality of AB retour, (content accuracy and presentation quality based on users’ account (Donovan 2002)), may not be consistently better or worse in either direction. Other than the fact that market reality demands AB retour in many places around the world, the interpreter’s experience, specific language combination, interpreting context, personal factors and norms together may determine SI directionality to a large extent. In other words, SI directionality is a complex issue rather than simply tangling on native and non-native languages can explain; the depth of the issue is very likely to have gone beyond the discussion of native vs. nonnative languages. Neither A-B nor B-A always produces a better interpreting quality; therefore under this rationale granting interpreting into A the standard status cannot effectively convince this study. All these raise further doubt that working into A was ever a worldwide standard put into practice by members in the interpreting community as it was suggested in the literature.