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Summary and Sight Translation

Agrifoglio (2004) pp 50-61

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ENG 201: English Grammar I

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Sight translation and interpreting

Interpreting 6:1 (2004), 43–67.

issn 1384–6647 / e-issn 1569–982X�©John Benjamins Publishing Company

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A comparative analysis of constraints and failures

Marjorie Agrifoglio

This experimental research describes sight translation by comparing it to simultaneous and consecutive interpreting. Since the beginning of interpret- ing research, sight translation has mostly been considered as a pedagogical exercise and interpreters are rarely trained in this task per se. However, sight translation, consecutive interpreting and simultaneous interpreting are performed under different conditions, and these determine how cognitive resources are managed and what strategies are adopted. The study compares the performance of six professional interpreters in sight translation, simulta- neous interpreting and consecutive interpreting with a view to identifying particular constraints and problems. Results show that interpreters face different difficulties and use different efforts in each mode. Sight translation emerges as a complex and unique technique, whose cognitive demands on the interpreter are by no means less than those of simultaneous and consec- utive.

Keywords: sight translation, simultaneous interpreting, consecutive interpreting, constraints, efforts, reading, listening, oral language, written language

Introduction

At the boundary between translation and interpreting, sight translation (ST) appears as a hybrid and rather unexplored phenomenon, used in various contexts and with different definitions. For many scholars, ST is just a pedagog- ical exercise for getting started in the techniques of consecutive interpreting (CI) and simultaneous interpreting (SI), an exercise by which interpreter trainees can learn to react quickly and improve their oral skills (Spilka 1966;

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44 Marjorie Agrifoglio

Curvers et al. 1986; Weber 1990; Falbo 1995; Viaggio 1995). Some of these

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authors acknowledge the differences between ST and interpreting from an oral message,1 but nevertheless recommend introducing the exercise in the early stages of an interpreter training program.

Ever since Jean Herbert (1952) characterized ST as a type of simultaneous

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interpreting, it seems to have been treated as such, at least from a theoretical standpoint. ST, CI and SI all have the same end product: an oral re-expression of the source message in the target language. However, the differences between these tasks should not be underestimated. The sight translator reads a written text, whereas the interpreter, in both the consecutive and the simultaneous modes, listens to a speaker. In interpreting from an oral message, source segments disappear once they are uttered. In ST, on the other hand, the source text remains visually accessible to the translator. Finally, as suggested by research in the field of cognitive psychology, the processes of reading and listening are not entirely similar.

This research is based on the hypothesis that there are significant differences between ST and interpreting with regard to information reception, processing, and production. The study2 compares ST to SI and CI by analyzing the performance of six professional interpreters in each mode, with special regard for the type of failures and difficulties observed in each case. This comparison should provide the basis for underlining the specificity and complexity of ST, so that its particular obstacles and efforts are taken into account in interpreter training.

Interpreting and sight translation constraints: The Effort Models

The Effort Models of Gile (1997) were developed to describe the interplay of

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different sets of cognitive operations involved in ST, SI and CI. These sets of operations are grouped into “Efforts”, which compete for a limited amount of processing capacity. The Listening and Analysis Effort (L) includes all reception and comprehension operations; the Memory Effort (M) designates the storing of information in the interpreter’s short-term memory for the time interval between the moment the speech is heard and the completion of its formulation; and the Production Effort (P) represents all operations extending from the mental representation of the message to its actual formulation in the target language. In SI, these three efforts make demands on the interpreter’s process- ing capacity at any point in time, together with a Coordination Effort (C), which represents the additional cognitive load required for managing the three

Sight translation and interpreting 45

efforts simultaneously. When the sum of available capacity exceeds total requirements, the necessary cognitive balance between the Efforts is disrupted, which results in failure sequences with different errors and omissions. SI can be modeled as follows:

SI = L + M + P + C

In CI, speech comprehension and production are separated into two phases. The L Effort and the M Effort involved in the first phase of CI are similar to the L Effort and the M Effort in SI. The P Effort is obviously absent in this phase, but there is a Note-taking Effort (N), which involves selecting the essential information to be noted and implementing an efficient note-taking technique.

CI (first phase) = L + M + N + C

In the second phase, there is a Rem component, which consists of recall from long-term memory, and a Read component, or deciphering of the notes. The P Effort is the same as in SI.

CI (second phase) = Rem + Read + P

According to Gile, only the first phase is critical in terms of cognitive competi- tion among the efforts. In the second phase, the interpreter produces his/her speech at his/her own pace and therefore does not have to manage processing capacity under as much time pressure as in SI.

In ST, the L Effort is replaced by a Reading and Analysis Effort (R). Accord- ing to Gile, while the P Effort is similar to that of SI, there is no M Effort as in SI and CI, since the information remains available all the time on paper. Moreover, as ST is not paced by a speaker, the interpreter can decide when to allocate more processing capacity to the R or the P Effort, as the need arises.

ST = Reading + Production

However, as some of our results might suggest, there seems to be a Memory Effort involved in ST as well, similar to the short-term memory demands of SI. In both tasks, the Reception and Analysis operations overlap with the Produc- tion phase, so the interpreter produces a target-language version of sentence A while reading/listening to sentence B. Although in ST the interpreter can control his/her rhythm of perception, smooth delivery is possible only when s/he starts reformulating while still reading. Moreover, syntactic differences between languages may force the interpreter to store some information in memory until it can be appropriately inserted in the target-language speech.

46 Marjorie Agrifoglio

Therefore, while some of the most important constraints of consecutive and simultaneous interpreting are absent, ST has some added difficulties, as Gile himself points out. In the R Effort, for instance, sight translators are not helped by the prosodic features of oral language (tone, hesitations, pauses) and may need more time and effort to understand complex written sentences with embedded clauses while translating aloud at a smooth pace. ST also poses a greater risk of source-language interference, as words and phrases remain before the sight translator’s eyes.

The risk of source-language interference in ST has been pointed out by several authors. After observing that sight translators experienced many problems of expression when they were working into their mother tongue, Brady (1989:182) concludes:

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It would therefore seem that, as regards source-language interference, sight translation is a considerably more hazardous operation than simultaneous interpretation. (…) It should be more difficult to retain only the meaning of the message when the words that carry it are in black and white in front of one’s eyes.

Martin (1993:404) makes a similar point:

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Although the instant comprehension factor and the need for instant analysis of cognitive content present in interpreting is similar in sight translation, the hybrid nature of the latter requires more effort to be put into attaining independence from the source language text than is the case with written translation and interpretation.

But what exactly makes ST different from SI and CI? And why does ST seem to be a more demanding task for the interpreter? The studies by Viezzi (1989a,

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1989b, 1990) provide the basis for our assumption that different mental processes may be at play. Viezzi followed up a line of research based on the depth-of-processing hypothesis (Craik & Lockhart 1972), which suggests that

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information retention in memory depends on the depth of the analysis required to encode the input. Lambert (1989) had found higher retention scores after CI than

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after SI, and concluded that retention was adversely affected by the concurrent vocal production in SI. Viezzi replaced CI with ST, expecting this task to yield a higher retention score than SI, because it does not involve the processing of two audio signals. However, information retention rates were lower in ST than in SI. Based on the Craik and Lockhart hypothesis, Viezzi argued that process- ing takes place at a deeper level in SI, and that the processes of ST and SI differ from the outset, since information is presented in different ways in each case.

Sight translation and interpreting 47

This unexpected finding indicates that the difference between sight translation and simultaneous interpretation does not lie only in the perception modes or in the processing leading to comprehension. (…) In sight translation, informa- tion is constantly available to the interpreter who does not immediately need to process the incoming information chunks, storing them for some time before articulating the translation. In simultaneous interpretation, the form in which the message to be translated is presented imposes on the interpreter behaviour patterns leading to longer and deeper processing. (Viezzi 1990:58)

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Oral and written language

The two main differences between the input in ST and in interpreting from an oral source are related to the opposition between oral and written language, and between the reading and listening processes.

To a large extent, the interpreting process is shaped by the nature of oral language. For Seleskovitch and Lederer (1989), oral language facilitates the

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instant comprehension of ideas, and its “evanescence” makes it easier for the interpreter to retain only meaning and forget words. At the linguistic level, there are differences in the mechanisms used by oral and written language to convey a message. Chafe and Danielewicz (1987) suggest four main analytical

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parameters by which oral and written texts clearly differ: lexical variety, sentence construction, level of vocabulary, and involvement and detachment. Oral language tends to rely on hypotaxis, because the capacity of listeners’ short-term memory is limited. In contrast, written language favors parataxis, and subordinate clauses are also common. Readers can always go back and read a sentence again. The vocabulary of a written text is generally richer than that of an improvised speech, since writers have time to weigh every word, look up synonyms, and search for elegant constructions. Oral speeches make more use of popular expressions, idioms and neologisms. Finally, the author of an oral speech is likely to be more involved with the audience, because of its presence during the actual creation of the speech.

Does this mean that written language is more complex than oral language and that, because of this, ST is more complicated and more difficult to perform than interpreting from an oral source? As Halliday (1987) points out, oral and written

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language are both complex; each has its own particular mechanisms and specifici- ties. Therefore, it is argued here that the main difficulty of ST lies not in the written nature of the source text, but in the smooth coordination of the R, M and P Efforts, while struggling against increased visual interference from the source language.

48 Marjorie Agrifoglio

Reading and listening

According to some research in the field of cognitive psychology, auditory and visual stimuli are not processed in exactly the same way:

The mechanics of perception are somewhat different for audition and vision. Listeners receive a continuous signal over which they have very little control. They are forced to process the signal immediately regardless of whether they are prepared to receive new information or whether they are still processing the immediately preceding signal. Readers, in contrast, receive successive “snap- shots” from eye fixations that are under their control (Danks & End 1987:276).

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These differences in the reception of the signal have an obvious impact on how it is processed and stored. Readers can manage their rhythm of perception; in other words, they can decide to invest more time in a difficult sentence, or go back and read the paragraph again. Listeners depend on the speaker’s pace; their reception is mono-sequential. Consequently, readers and listeners do not concentrate on the same elements. While listeners are bound to pay attention to the gist of the message, readers tend to recall the actual words of a text. Several empirical studies in the field of cognitive psychology have confirmed this divergence (Hildyard & Olson 1984; Sachs 1974; Crowder 1972). Hildyard

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and Olson (1984), for example, explain it in terms of the “Enabling Inferences”, or the informal inferences which the reader or listener must draw to understand the text/speech. Both readers and listeners make these inferences, but readers tend to differentiate the statements (what was actually said) from the inferences derived and try to remember the former. Although the experimental subjects were not interpreters or translators, these studies can support our hypothesis regarding the higher risk of source-language interference in ST.

In summary, there are several important differences between ST and interpreting from an oral source. Information is presented in a different way, using different linguistic resources (punctuation in the written text vs. prosodic features in the oral speech, etc.). The message is processed differently because of different time constraints and cognitive operations, and components stored in memory also seem to vary in each case. Table 1 summarizes and highlights the specificity of ST compared to the consecutive and simultaneous modes of interpreting.

Sight translation and interpreting 49

Materials and methods

Table 1.�Differences between SI, CI and ST

SI CI ST

Reception conditions

Input = oral speech Input = oral speech Input = written text

Presence of speaker Presence of speaker Absence of author

Prosody Prosody Punctuation

High demand on short- term memory

Use of long-term mem- ory and notes

Continuous access to information in the text

Attention-sharing be- tween two parallel audio signals

Attention-sharing be- tween audio signal and notes (first phase)

Attention-sharing between visual input and oral production

Sequential reception (message is perceived only once)

Sequential reception (message is perceived only once)

Non-sequential re- ception (reader can go back)

Speaker-paced Speaker-paced Interpreter-paced

Production conditions

Simultaneity of SL speech production and transla- tion

Short time delay be- tween SL speech pro- duction and translation

Considerable time delay between SL text production and trans- lation

Coordination of Listen- ing, Memory and Pro- duction Efforts

Separation of the Lis- tening and Production Efforts

Coordination of Reading and Produc- tion Efforts

Monitoring production while listening

Monitoring production while using notes

Monitoring produc- tion while reading

Progressive access to new information while refor- mulating

Access to information prior to production

Progressive access to new information (no previous reading) Prior access to infor- mation (previous reading)

High risk of interference Low risk of interference Extreme risk of inter- ference

Speaker-paced Interpreter-paced Interpreter-paced

Possibility of help by colleague in booth

No help of colleague No help of colleague

The experiment was designed to compare constraints, obstacles and efforts in ST, SI and CI on the basis of the types of failures observed in each case. Six professional freelance interpreters, all of whom had at least nine years of experience, participated in the study. The subjects (Interpreters 1 to 6) were

50 Marjorie Agrifoglio

divided into three groups: each group interpreted three different texts on a rotating basis: one text in SI, one text in CI and another one in ST. In other words, all six interpreters translated the three texts, and all six performed the three tasks, but the mode in which each one of the texts was interpreted/sight translated (SI, CI and ST) differed, depending on the group. This design was adopted to assess individual performance in each task and the translation of the same three texts in three different modalities by different interpreters.

The interpretation was done from English into Spanish, the mother tongue of all six subjects. The three texts (Text A, Text B, and Text C) were excerpts from chapters of a single report on the North American Free Trade Agreement, “NAFTA at seven”, published by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington in 2001. Texts had 806, 836 and 786 words respectively (8 to 10 minutes, read at 110 wpm on average). The experiment was conducted in interpreting laboratories, in Caracas, Venezuela, and Montreal, Canada.3 For the SI test, texts were tape-recorded, and the interpreters listened to the speeches through headphones. For the CI test, the speech was read aloud, with the reader pausing every 3–4 minutes to give the interpreter time to translate. Although presenting the speech for CI in three sections could be viewed as methodologically prob- lematic, we think that our design is in line with interpreters’ typical working conditions in CI these days. Furthermore, this approach was used in another experiment comparing SI and CI, by Viezzi (1993), who justifies it as follows:

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“(…) contrary to M. Lederer’s statement, in the experience of the author of this paper, when working in CI, most interpreters prefer translating speeches divided into relatively short segments or even on a sentence by sentence basis” (p. 390).

Texts were “oralized” for the simultaneous and consecutive interpreting tasks. For example, written punctuation marks such as colons, parentheses or dashes were replaced by “this means”, “in other words”, etc. Long phrases with several embedded clauses were simplified (see sample text in Appendix). For the ST task, interpreters had less than five minutes to read the text before starting to translate it aloud. This was done for two reasons. First, in real professional situations interpreters often have some time to quickly read the text prior to sight translating. Second, as Gile (1995) points out, one of the main coping

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tactics in ST is to mark text difficulties before starting the translation, such as segmenting long sentences, identifying main verbs and subjects, etc. For our experiment, the interpreters were not specifically advised to mark up the text, but were given a pen and told that they could, if needed, write or underline elements. As a result, their marked texts would provide some hints to the strategies used and the difficulties encountered.4

Sight translation and interpreting 51

We acknowledge that our design put sight translators at an advantage regarding source-text content, and we were aware of this from the beginning. But, as mentioned before, our intention was also to analyze the professional subjects’ approach to a written text and to have a written record of what the

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