Earticle

Conference interpreting research (CIR) has contributed conceptually to conference interpreter training, but cannot be expected to produce solid scientific findings to validate specific training theories and methods: the complexity of the interactions between relevant parameters, as well as the resulting variability, require large samples and many replications, which are beyond present possibilities in a small community of researchers and a small community of interpreters, many of whom are reluctant to participate in experiments. Studies with a local, descriptive focus, have been scientifically more productive than holistic theories and tests of hypotheses on methods, and some interesting findings of a general nature have also been published. CIR also has a non negligible social role in enhancing the status of the profession. On the other hand, some tension has been generated among interpreters and interpreter trainers by excessive claims of some researchers based on theory, but without actual findings to back them.

Interpreting research, like the profession itself, has been growing rapidly, both in sheer quantity and in diversity, with much of it being done by MA or PhD students who are also training to become practitioners. If in the past it was largely confined to conference interpreting in the simultaneous mode, interpreting research has now come to encompass the full range of modes, modalities and settings. While this trend is a welcome one, the implications for would-be researchers are daunting: how does one choose a topic? what paradigms and what neighboring disciplines does one turn to? how does one arrive at a realistic assessment of the time and resources required? how valid is an experimental study when it comes to such a real-life task? A list of twenty potential projects is presented along with a discussion of the methodology that may be best suited to each of them.

Until recently, product-oriented translation studies have been dominant among scholars. In this approach, translation products are examined in terms of their linguistic aspects. As interest in the cognitive processes of translation has increased, however, process-oriented translation studies have been gaining increasing attention over the last twenty years or so. Translation studies look into what is going on in the brain of a translator while translating. So, unlike the product-oriented translation studies, it looks for psycholinguistic validity. The think- aloud protocols (TAP) method, as an introspective method, is one of the methods adopted by process-oriented translation studies.This paper describes the TAP method ― its methodology and the methodological limitations, the findings of previous TAP studies and the implications of the findings for translation education. The TAP method, despite its limitations, has proved to be efficient in tapping into the translation process, thereby making it possible to capture those aspects of translation which could be ignored or lost by the product- oriented approach. The findings of translation studies could help establish a psycholinguistic model of translation. Eventually, it could contribute to changing the course of translation education, in which the product-oriented approach has been dominant, to a more process- oriented approach. It is hoped that more process-oriented studies are conducted using a TAP method.

Interpretation is a special procedure of information processing distinct from other forms of general information processing. Here, a special procedure of information processing is related to the role of interpreter. Interpreter does not deliver only a part of message. In order to understand the message in its entirety, an interpreter must consciously analyze the entire message, relying on the ability that surpasses the bounds of natural and automatic understanding. Hence the message must be analyzed very quickly, using a more intuitive analysis rather than a linguistic analysis. This is because the interpreter, unlike the audience, has the responsibility to deliver the whole message to the audience, however trivial the message seems or indifferent the interpreter may feel toward the message.However, it is not easy to clarify the cognitive process applied to interpretation, a special form of information processing, when general information processing and cognitive process have not been fully identified yet. Having attached excessive importance on the theorization, the currently available consecutive interpretation models and theories are somewhat distant from the consecutive interpretation observed on site. For example, the stage of consecutive interpretation in which linguistic transformation (linguistic transformation from the source language to the target language) takes place differs from theory to real life. There is a study that examined the correlation between the location of linguistic transformation and the note-taking language (whether to take notes in the source language or the target language). The reality is that there is a difference between this study and the note-taking method actually employed by interpreters.I believe that this is expected, considering that the relationship between interpretation and cognitive action to enhance the interpretation efficiency has not been fully investigated. A study of relationship between the information processing capacity of interpreter and note-taking would make an interesting study theme, particularly in the consecutive interpretation, in which interpreters information processing capacity is clearly revealed.

The writer has the experience that Korean interpreters and would-be interpreters whom he has met in the arena of interpretation and education have been unaware of words and phrases that any Chinese would know without exception. In order to solve this problem, a prospective interpreter should master the basics of interpretation involving Chinese.One way of doing so is to acquire Chinese culture-bound language. The Chinese learn a variety of knowledge on the Chinese classics and modern works through their regular education and make allusions to them in everyday life. Korean students of Chinese are advised to learn culture bound Chinese which is necessary for conducting daily conversations with Chinese, rather than learning only basic Chinese expressions. In other words, they should learn intermediate Chinese instead of beginners Chinese only.In a situation in which not every Korean student is fortunate enough to study in China and, even if so, the one to two years in China do not enable them to master culture-bound Chinese, the necessity of a textbook for learning culture-bound Chinese language is especially high. In this regard, students of the humanities who have received a regular Chinese education, students of Korean literature and students of Chinese literature should join forces to analyze the text books used in elementary, middle and high schools, and books for required reading as well as Chinese colloquial expressions. They should then study the frequency, degree of importance and difficulties of various language forms, so as to develop textbooks based on the data and set up a pertinent curriculum.

This thesis explores the types of mistakes trainees make during their class of interpretation of speakers whose mother tongues are Chinese dialects and the ways to solve the problems. Standard Mandarin which these speakers use is frequently interfered with by their dialect, particularly by the pronunciation rather than the vocabulary or sentence structure. Therefore, the mistakes these students make resulted from the speakers' pronunciation. They either omit or misinterpret when they find big differences in pronunciation between Mandarin and the speakers' dialects.In order to improve the ability to distinguish the pronunciation, the trainees need to correct the mistakes that they tend to make and prepare a data according to each dialect in addition to practicing interpreting the texts that these speakers use. To collect the data, the following three methods are effective: 1) the contrast and analysis of the dialect and Mandarin 2) the analysis of Mandarin of the speaker speaking a Chinese dialect 3) the analysis of the mistakes the trainees make.

This paper examines the possibility of utilizing linguistically coded information such as evidentiality markers to enhance re-expression quality in English-Korean simultaneous interpretation. It is widely recognized that interpreters draw on linguistic and extra linguistic knowledge to accurately analyze speaker meaning during the comprehension and deverbalization phases. This paper argues that interpreters can exploit grammatically or lexically marked information in utterances also in the re-expression phase with the aim to develop strategies for expression as well as effectively emphasize the speaker's message.The analysis of interpretation data particularly that of evidentiality markers suggest interpreters can benefit from evidential markers in several ways. First, evidentiality markers can be strategically exploited to relieve time and information processing constraints during the re-expression phase. Second, evidentiality can serve as a linguistic cue to efficiently analyze the speaker's attitude. Third, evidentiality makers enable interpreters to plan re-expression and motivate interpreters to utilize creativity in re-expression, as a result, improving the overall quality of the rendering to sound more natural and precise. Consequently, this study suggests that the motivation be trained and strengthened during the interpreter training.

This paper aims to find out objectives in training translation into Korean through theoretical considerations and to build strategies according to each objective.As translation training objects here are proposed to strengthen 1) language competence, which includes thorough comprehension of the source text and Korean text composition, as well as 2) non-language competence, which consists of research, use of technical tools, cooperation and professional attitude.Training strategies to attain these objectives are as follows: For thorough comprehension of the source text students need to accept the text as a whole, analyze intra-textual structure in various dimensions and when needed, take literal pre-translation process. Also for Korean text composition criticizing translations of others and student themselves, analyzing translation text structure, cohesion and coherence, repeated translation of the same text were proposed. Last but not least, to strengthen non-language competence strategies such as simulation of professional translation and practice of collaborative translation can be used.

Interpretation, both consecutive and simultaneous, is said to yield most desirable results when the interpreter works from a foreign language or the B language into the interpreter's mother tongue or the A language. However, for "exotic" languages such as Korean, it can be difficult to find interpreters who have an exotic language as their 'B' language and a more 'common' language as their 'A' language. Thus, many Korean interpreters are left with the task of performing the 'undesirable' interpretation into their B language. This paper attempts to explain one of the obstacles found in interpreting into a B language, which is the impact of interference on the performance of simultaneous interpretation. The paper will first define what interference is and examine how interference plays into the reproduction of the source text in an A language into the target text in a B language. By analyzing the obstacles in interpreting into the B language, this paper hopes to open the way to further detailed discussion on how interference can be effectively minimized in simultaneous interpretation and how the avoidance or prevention of interference can be reflected in developing and designing teaching methodology for simultaneous interpretation.

This paper starts from the assumption that "practice-driven inquiry" should constitute the fundamental focus of Translation Studies in order to encourage translators/translation teachers to reassess the variety of approaches and techniques that translators employ in actual practice. Thus, TT expansion is explored as one of such inquiry topics. The first part reviews different theoretical accounts of such phenomenon in order to establish a consensus as to the starting point of further research: TT expansion occurs as a result of the translator's decision to secure information equivalence between ST and TT. The underlying assumption is the existence of the gap between ST and TT regarding the extent of "retrievable knowledge" as well as identifies the different layers where the phenomenon is observable. The second part establishes the degree of shared knowledge as a variable that determines the degree of translator intervention and the consequent TT expansion. The third part acknowledges the need to consider "reader status" in relation to any attempt to determine the degree of TT expansion and sufficiency of translation. The conclusion acknowledges a need to introduce a new text typology that uses the degree of shared knowledge and presupposed reader design as two variables.