Тема: Роль перевода в общении

Interpreting: Perils of Palaver

When a Japanese sucks in his breath and tells a Westerner that "your proposal is very interesting and we will consider it carefully" — meaning. in a word, "no!" — what is the honest interpreter to say?

The answer is that the professional interpreter is duty bound to report the words of the Japanese as faithfully as possible. But according to Gisela Siebourg, who regularly interpreted For Chancellor Kohl of Germany, it would also be legitimate for the interpreter to draw his or her client¹ aside after the conversation and explain the complexities of Japanese double-speak.

Itwould depend on the degree of trust between the client and the interpreter, she said.

This illustrates the need for the interpreter to be taken into the client's confidence, Siebourg said. It also indicates the qualities required of an interpreter — the discretion of a priest in the confessional and the mental subtlety of a professional diplomat. Rule number one for the interpreter, she said, is never to repeat outside a meeting what was learned in it.

Siebourg is a president of the International Association of Conference Interpreters — set up in Paris in 1953 with 60 members, and now including 2,200 members — which is holding its triannual assembly here this week.

The association, which has worked since its inception to raise the standing of the interpreters' calling, thinks a lot about such ethical issues. as well as seeking better working conditions for its members.

The profession is at least as old as the Book of Genesis in which Joseph outwitted his brothers by, as the book says, speaking "into them by an interpreter." But the modern practice of simultaneous interpretation through headphones dates only from the post-war Nuremberg trials and the formation of the United Nations.

Before that, even in the League of Nations, speakers had to pause at intervals to allow the interpretation — a process known as consecutive interpretation. This is still the method most often used in tete-a-tete conversations.

The method is not suitable for large modern conferences at which several languages are used simultaneously.

Interpreting often is, but ought not to be, confused with translating. The translator has time and a battery of dictionaries at his or her command in order to find the precise word. The interpreter, by contrast, has to get across the right meaning rather than the exact wording (формулировка) without a second's hesitation. This often requires a deep knowledge of culture as well as language, an ability to understand expression as well as content.

Diplomats such as former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz of Iraq, who speaks excellent English, often work through interpreters either to conceal precise meaning or to give themselves time to think. In such cases, the interpreter must be careful not to go beyond the speakers' words, even if they make apparently little sense. As Confucius put it. "If language is not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success."

Being used as part of a negotiating ploy again points to the need for the interpreter to be taken into the diplomat's confidence. The interpreters association always tells clients that "if you are not prepared to trust an interpreter with confidential information, don't use one." The failure to provide in advance background information and specialized terminology involved in complex negotiations makes the interpreters' job all the more difficult, Siebourg said.

Several years ago the association — speaking either in English or French, its two working languages — started discussing improved contacts with colleagues in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe when the East was opening up. One difficulty is that the East European languages often contain no terminology to describe many of the private-market terms used in the West.

Russian interpreters also have practice of working from their own language into a foreign language, while most Western interpreters. Siebourg said, prefer to work from a foreign language into their mother tongue.

This avoids the kind of gaffes that can occur with less than intimate knowledge of a language. When Jimmy Carter visited Warsaw in December 1977, for example, he made the mistake of using a Polish-speaking American as interpreter rather than an English-speaking Pole. Siebourg said.

The result is that the interpreter, a State Department contract employee, spoke about sexual lust rather than desire and rephrased Carter's "when I abandoned the United States." The embarrassment was long remembered.

Barry James

• Текст можно использовать для перевода с листа по теме «Переводческая этика».

Комментарии

sucks in his breath— втягивает дыхание; duty bound= obliged; draw aside— отвести в сторону; double-speak— зд. что имеется в виду (см. "1984" by G.Orwell); to be taken into confidence— завоевать доверие; discretion of a priest in the confessional— такт исповедника; mental subtlety— тонкость ума; to raise the standing of the calling— зд. поднять престиж профессии; Book of Genesis— книга Бытия (Библия); outwitted— перехитрил; to get across— передать; expression as well as content— зд. форму и содержание; ploy— уловка (ср. ловушка); opening up— зд. расширяют связи; gaffe— «прокол», «накладка», «ляп»; lust— похоть (ср. desire); abandoned— покинул, бросил (ср. left).

Topics for discussion

Do you agree with all the ideas concerning interpreter's ethics?

What are the interpreter's main qualities? Do you share the point of view expressed in the text?

Breaking the Language Barrier

Для устного перевода «под запись»

At a recent business dinner a chief executive¹ was extolling the export achievements of his UK support services group. When China was mentioned, with regard to business, he looked askance at the very word. "God no," he said. "They don't even try to speak the language there."

Although there is some evidence of a growing awareness among UK companies of the importance of understanding other languages, their linguistic prowess still lags far behind that of European competitors.

Stephen Hagen, languages professor at the University of Wolverhampton and adviser to the UK's Department² of Trade and Industry (DTI), says, compared with its European partners, the UK is "the bottom of the pile of language ability."

Professor Hagen believes Europe's linguistic and cultural barriers are proving harder to break down than trade blocks. "There is a legal framework to enable us to export easily," he says. "The only thing that's preventing us from going further is that we don't have the cultural and linguistic competence to cope. "

A European Union-funded (financed; funds = money) survey of exporters, conducted in July, suggests that 49 per cent of companies have experienced language barriers. The survey of firms with up to 500 employees found a further 20 per cent which had encountered cultural barriers and 12 per cent which had lost business because of these barriers.

The survey also found that only 13 per cent of the companies had formulated any languages strategy to deal with the problem. Most — 83 per cent — used translators.

Several studies concur in the growing importance of cultural competence. Professor Hagen says, "When you ask exporters whether they need to learn German, they say no. When you ask whether they need to understand how the German mind works, they all say yes." The problem is that "in this country we don't link languages with culture enough."

However, there is evidence of improvement. With 60 per cent of the UK's exports going to non-English speaking countries, Robert Holkham, at the UK Department of Trade and Industry says: "There is a growing awareness that learning a customer's language and culture increases the chance of doing business overseas. "

A benchmark survey of 500 small to medium-sized companies conducted by the DTI in each of the past three years has found that while 34 per cent said they had no language proficiency two years ago, the figure had dropped to 30 per cent in 1996.

The campaign highlights the kinds of problems communication difficulties can cause. These range from the tale of receivers finding a large order written in German left unread in a collapsed company in the UK¹, to the non-English airline which boasted that it would "send your luggage in all directions." (См. Кунсткамеру «ляпов» на стр. 158.)

Studies suggest linguistic proficiency is related to company size, with those employing fewer than 250 suffering the most problems. Companies less than five years old with young managing directors are also more likely to employ linguists.

Many in the industry feel they have an uphill task. John Fergusson at the Association for Language Learning, says that with English considered a world language "there's a feeling that one doesn't need to put oneself out too much."

He puts part of the blame on an education system which, until recently, made just three years of language training compulsory until the age of 14.

He believes that the national curriculum, adopted in England and Wales in 1988, will improve matters, but only gradually. He also feels it did not go far enough — it should introduce language learning in primary schools, he said.

Professor Hagen says this is not "just a question about how Fred Bloggs sells apples into France." The meetings between European political leaders are indicative, he says. "The UK representative is always out on a limb, talking even to the Irish person."

Дата добавления: 2015-08-21