Miriam Shlesinger

Shifts in Cohesion in Simultaneous Interpreting

AbstractAny text hangs together by virtue of a network of relations which establish links between its various parts; these links, or cohesive ties, enable the reader or hearer to process the text in a coherent way. For the simultaneous interpreter, the process of recognizing cohesive ties is encumbered by various constraints which are intrinsic to simultaneous interpreting, including speed of delivery (which the interpreter cannot control), linearity (the fact that the text becomes available only gradually), and the interpreter’s own limitations in terms of accessing background information assumed by the speaker to be available to his/her audience, including the interpreter. This study examines shifts of cohesion which occur in simultaneous interpreting, using data drawn from an eleven-minute piece of spontaneous discourse as rendered by thirteen student interpreters. Preliminary findings suggest that shifts do occur in all types of cohesive devices, particularly in those perceived as not essential to the...

Identifying universals of text translation

Abstract Straightforward quantitative analyses of authentic texts have allowed linguists and translation scholars to discern patterns in individual languages as well as features which set translations apart from originals (Baker, 1993; Chesterman, 2004). A language can also be studied statistically, an approach epitomized by the application of Zipfs Law (Zipf, 1949), which states that word-frequency distributions follow an almost identical curve regardless of language. To date, no universal behaviour governing the joint probability distribution of words in two or more languages has been either proposed or observed. This study identifies new universals which characterize the mutual overlaps between a corpus of original English and three corpora of translated English. Specifically, it suggests a remarkable similarity in (a) the number of types unique to each translated corpus, and (b) the number of types common to the original-English corpus and each of the translated corpora. We argue that these universal behaviours can be used both to determine the ontological status of an unidentified language (whether it is an original or a translation) and to identify the source language of a translation.

Evaluation Issues in Interpreting

Based on an online process, in which ‘suppliers’ and ‘consumers’ as well as ‘bystanders’ are often in physical proximity and (ostensibly) in a position to evaluate the ‘product’, the interpreter’s performance is often subject to scrupulous review. Yet, the transient nature of interpreting makes it particularly elusive and difficult to evaluate. The books and papers included in this list attempt to tackle issues in the evaluation of interpreting from various vantage points. Some, reporting on questionnaire-based empirical research, focus on the users’ point of view. Some aim at defining the makings of excellence. Still others adopt the position of the interpreter, or examine ways in which the intrinsic constraints on performance can be taken into account. While most studies and writings to date have dealt with (spoken) conference interpreting, some of these papers reflect an interest in other modalities (from/ into signed languages) and in other settings.

Translational conflicts between cognate languages: Arabic into Hebrew as case in point

Abstract In this study we examine ten hypotheses related to stylistic features of two Semitic languages, Hebrew and Arabic. Our assumption was that these hypotheses would enable us to discriminate texts written originally in Hebrew from those translated from Arabic. The ten hypotheses take into account a contrastive analytical view as well as recent research in Translation Studies. Being cognate languages, Hebrew and Arabic share morphological, phonetic and semantic features; consequently, certain Arabic forms trigger similar forms in Hebrew. We see this as accounting for the predominance of interference in the case of this (cognate) language pair and as evidence of an overarching hypothesis, whereby translation between cognate languages will entail interference, often superseding the norm of adherence to target-language standards. Eight of the ten hypotheses were borne out, to varying extents.