translation studies - Facultatea de Litere - Dunarea de Jos

LINGUISTIC AND NON-LINGUISTIC ASPECTS IN COURT INTERPRETING
42
Ramona Cioranu
Şcoala cu clasele I-VIII, Vădeni, jud. Brăila
1. On interpretation and interpreting
Little research has been made on interpreting throughout history, the reason for this
being most often the lack of written record of the spoken language. This explains the
insufficient evidence for the interpreters’ work. Even if the presence of an interpreter was
obvious in many instances, historical documents do not make specific reference to the
people performing this activity. Moreover, the fact should be mentioned that the people
performing this activity were not specially trained for this profession. They were either
linguists or diplomats who had been asked or had offered themselves to act as mediators
between speakers belonging to different language cultures.
Interpreting is known to have existed for a long time. Whenever people belonging
to different language cultures met, they had to find a way to communicate. At first, they
used the sign language but later, it became essential that someone who could speak the
languages brought into contact be found. Things were easier for those who had a bilingual
background, either because they had grown up and lived in border areas or because their
parents belonged to different cultures and spoke different languages. Not few were the
instances when people moved from one country to another acquiring thus, a second
language. Such people are likely to have been the first interpreters. They probably found
themselves in this position by accident, being obliged to act as mediators simply because
they were the right person at the right place and time. The constant presence of
interpretation in everyday life gradually led to the emergence and development of a
specific discipline taught and researched in universities.
Interpreting is generally agreed to be a very demanding job. Interpreters cannot
afford to have bad days because it is entirely on them that the success of a conference or
trial depends. Bad interpreters can easily ruin a court session and turn an innocent person
into a guilty one. Hence, the necessity to form well-prepared and trustworthy specialists in
this field arises.
Moreover, mention should be made that the quality of the interpreting process very
much depends on interpreters’ memory. Short-term memory helps interpreters capture and
store the received information, whereas long-term memory facilitates the appropriate
transfer of this information into the target language. Ability to concentrate is a factor just
as important as it is the ability to analyze and process the information transmitted by the
source language speaker.
Successful interpreting is also conditioned by previous preparation. In order to
avoid unacceptable mistakes, interpreters have to inform themselves about the domain in
which they are to work and then make up a domain-related glossary to be used whenever
necessary. Moreover, their theoretical preparation has to be doubled by solid extra
linguistic knowledge in the two language cultures in which they operate. In other words,
the success of interpreters’ activity is influenced by the way in which their linguistic
competencies mingle with non-linguistic ones. As far as the linguistic aspects are
concerned, mention should be made that, interpreting presupposes on the one hand,
appropriate decoding of the message in the source language and abstracting, and encoding
of the original message into the target language culture, on the other. From the mosaic of
non-linguistic factors, cultural and social specificity seem to be the most problematic ones.