Chapter2 Listening techniques in translation

The following three techniques used in the training of translators and interpreters at the Monterey Institute seem especially suitable for advanced language study:

1. Conceptualization . One of the basic premises for successful translation and interpretation is recognition of the principle that the working unit is not a word or word group but the concept, the idea. In contrast to shorthand, which aims at a verbatim reproduction of a text, the various note-taking systems used for consecutive interpretation provide, as it were, “basic training” in conceptualization. They are compression systems, used to record only the essential concepts of a speech and its organizational or linkage pattern. As these concepts are orally translated into the other language, they are again expanded into complete sentences and given the appropriate stylistic and verbal framework. By requiring that the student write down not complete sentences or word groups, but only minimal significant concepts and linkages--and there is no time to do more--such note-taking encourages the conceptualization without which effective consecutive interpretation cannot occur.

There is, of course, no need for every language student to learn interpretative note-taking, though I consider it an extremely beneficial skill. It improves essay planning and writing skills, leads to better note-taking at lectures, increases awareness of parallel or divergent ways of expressing ideas in two languages and thus develops sensitivity toward style, and, most important, it encourages analytical and systematic thinking.

Once the principle of conceptualization is understood, there are many ways to employ and practice it: prйcis-writing; oral and written text summaries; oral enumerations of the salient points of a speech, an essay or a discussion; the selection of appropriate titles and headings for articles and news items; and brief or extensive recapitulation in the same language or another of speeches, lectures, articles, or stories read or heard. Much of the work should be done orally, to increase the student's listening comprehension while at the same time providing an incentive for a critical reception of the presented text. In addition, teachers trained in the use of an interpretative note-taking system may find it rewarding to introduce such a course in their schools for the benefit of students and colleagues.

2. Stylistic transposition . Stylistic transposition is usually practiced in preparation for written translation of stylistically sensitive texts. In an oral adaptation, it is also used to prepare students for simultaneous interpretation. I believe it can also provide a valuable technique for advanced language training.

There are many ways to practice stylistic transposition, and I will suggest only a few. Students can write “eyewitness accounts” of an event as seen by a child, an uneducated person, a newspaper reporter, a politician, a poet, a philosopher. They can rewrite a stylistically sophisticated essay in simplified form, or a realistic account poetically. They can be asked to single out and analyze those components of an essay that are responsible for its stylistic coloring. They can study, evaluate, and imitate styles of different writers, or compare different approaches applied to one theme or subject. Finally, they can translate stylistically significant texts and compare their translations with those of their classmates or with published translations.

3. Sight translation . Sight translation is frequently considered an unpardonable sin, an unmentionable outrage against the canons of psychologically sound language teaching methodology. If practiced without supervision, sight translation usually results in clumsy, literal translation with atrocious syntax and abominable style, full of gaps and approximations. If undertaken with the teacher's assistance, it tends to become a tedious, time-consuming process, a laborious and frustrating search for the right word or word order, in the course of which all one's carefully hidden linguistic sins--long forgotten grammatical and syntactical rules or never properly understood words--come to the fore. Despite these handicaps, which are real enough, I have found sight translation into a foreign language to be the most effective vocabulary builder, and sight translation into English the best possible speedy review of grammatical principles and problems. Moreover, if undertaken systematically, sight translation gradually produces a fluency and sophistication of expression in the foreign as well as the native language that is often superior to that of the average resident of a foreign country, or even a native speaker in his own country. Gile, D, 1992, Basic Theoretical Components in Interpreter and Translator Training, in Dollerup, C and Loddegaard, A (eds), pp.185-194

The reasons for this are simple. If a language is used primarily for self-expression, a very limited vocabulary, if handled skillfully, may be adequate and thus remain constant. Sight translation, on the other hand, forces the student to work with someone else's vocabulary and terminology, while mustering all of his linguistic and intellectual resources in order to find suitable or possible equivalents. As a result, terms encountered in one language, and improvised in the other only yesterday, may crop up in the second language today and be recognized and assimilated into active vocabulary. Observation and memory improve as the student struggles to convey special expressions in the other language, and he is forced to appreciate their uniqueness and felicity. Finally, if texts on different topics provide the “raw material” for sight translation, vocabulary begins to extend beyond the terminology of the individual's own specialization or interests and brings him closer to a total mastery of the language.

I have found the following method of practicing sight translation most effective, if used in a combination of self-study and supervised performance:

· Sight translate aloud for about twenty minutes a day, preferably seven days a week. The time should be subdivided into ten-minute practice sessions to and from the target language.

· Use any current newspapers or magazines, preferably different materials each day or week. At first, sight translate only one or two paragraphs of various articles, making sure that they range over a considerable spectrum of topics--politics, economics, brief news items, society gossip, sports, theater or film, book reviews.

· Sight translate as evenly as possible, to create the illusion of a read text. Skip, improvise, or simplify as needed, but try to convey the message accurately and in complete sentences.

· Do not pause to look up words or phrases, but underline special troublemakers or unknown terms (while guessing at them) in order to check them out and learn them later.

· Sit down and learn such terms once you have collected twenty or thirty, and review them on days when there are no new lists to memorize.

· Listen to your oral presentation while sight translating, and force yourself to use the foreign language as correctly and as literately as you can, and your native language as elegantly and appropriately as possible.

· Avoid, if at all possible, terms or constructions in the foreign language that an educated native speaker would not be likely to use. (You can try such terms in your written translations or compositions where they can be corrected or discussed, and where they can contribute to the development of a style of your own. Here your aim is meaningful and correct communication presented smoothly and clearly.)

· Do not be discouraged if you get hopelessly stuck and have to summarize a paragraph in a short, simplistic, and vague sentence, or not at all. Summarize as best as you can, then skip to another article or essay. Keppelk, G., and Underwood, B., 1962. "Proactive Inhibition in Short-term Retention of Single Items", in Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, pp. 153-161.

Long before the emergence of most academic translation and interpretation programs, sight translation was practiced systematically in the language school in Vienna where I studied English and French. My regular practice of it, coupled with consistent vocabulary memorization, resulted in my arrival in the United States with so extensive an active English vocabulary that it proved embarrassing, and I quickly reduced it to a less conspicuous level. But what better goal could there be for language teachers than that of preparing our students to face similar embarrassments in a country whose language they have learned here at home? H.L. MENCKEN used to tell the story of a state legislator who clinched his argument against a proposed allocation of funds for foreign language instruction by declaring proudly, “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me.” Funny perhaps, but it is hard to keep smiling when similar expressions of smug obscurantism continue to crop up with embarrassing frequency and in the most surprising places. The deputy superintendent for instruction in the Washington, D.C. system, James T. Guines, was quoted in the Washington Post (4 September 1977) as saying that a cut in the school budget meant that such luxuries as foreign language classes in elementary schools would be the first to go. After all, he explained, “Even if you go abroad now, you don't need a language. The dollar speaks louder than anything.” Lambert, S & Moser-Mercer,B, 1994, Bridging the Gap: Empirical Research on Simultaneous Interpreting, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins pp.511-512

A brief trip to Europe might assist Mr. Guines in acquiring a better appreciation of the value of foreign languages--and of the dollar. But before we become too self-righteous, we should remember that there is another side to this question. We may agree that foreign languages have intrinsic value, but that value will remain untapped unless and until it is transmitted correctly. Another Mencken anecdote may clarify the point. He recalled studying French for two years in high school and looking forward to his first visit to France; much to his dismay, he discovered that no one in Paris understood “high school French.”

Charity begins at home. We must put our own house in order. Foreign language instruction needs improvement at all levels, but the crux of our problem lies in the elementary and secondary schools. This is where languages should be taught, not in the colleges. I am convinced that the long-range solution to the plight of foreign languages in this country will come with improvement of instruction at the high school level and with coordination of an effective transition from high school to college. However, in the meantime we must face the situation as it is and do the best we can.

Our present prospects are, unfortunately, not very happy. There is no need to rehearse the litany of complaints, but it is worth reiterating that the plight of foreign languages reflects a larger problem that threatens the educational system as a whole. I am speaking of the continued decline in verbal and mathematical skills among young people, demonstrated by the drop in SAT scores over the past few years. To no one's surprise, a special commission charged with studying the matter attributed the lower scores to several factors, including too much television. My own feeling is that two important underlying causes are, or have been, a creeping anti-intellectualism in the public at large and a loss of confidence among teachers.

As a result of this fatal combination, many students receive high school diplomas that are not worth the paper they are written on. Large numbers of so-called graduates are functional illiterates, incapable of even balancing a checkbook. They can hardly read and write their own language, so what hope do they have of learning another? The gradual abandonment of the emphasis on the three R's has been encouraged by the “quick fix” mentality and the introduction of “innovative” ideas, whose chief purpose appears to be to persuade children that learning requires little or no effort. No one is suggesting that we return to the bad old days, but surely the pendulum has swung too far from Grad grind to the Good Humor Man.

The Good Humor Man approach is intellectually dishonest (children are not fooled, by the way), and it does the children a terrible disservice, as many of them come to realize later in life. Many boys and girls accept tough discipline in sports, and anyone who can learn “plays” in basketball can learn “plays” in English or mathematics. I do not believe that young people who discipline their bodies cannot also discipline their minds. But of course boys and girls have a right to an education; they do not have any right to play for their school in basketball or tennis, so they try harder.

Unfortunately, in too many schools sports dominate all other activities. We are drifting away from the Greek ideal, which like so much in the Classical heritage comes down to us in a Latin tag: “Mens sana in corpore sano.” We need to give high school teachers something of the authority enjoyed by the football coach. It might help, too, if we could focus more attention on educators rather than “educationists” or organizers of teaching, and also get school boards and PTA's off the teachers' backs. Perhaps a little “teacher power” would lead to more respect for teachers--and for the learning process--on the part of the students.

I may appear to have drifted from the topic of foreign language instruction, but I am trying to make the point that we share a community of interests with our colleagues in English and mathematics, and indeed with all teachers at the secondary school level. Foreign languages are the most fragile and vulnerable part of the humanities curriculum. All of us man the front line in a constant battle against obscurantism and the Madison Avenue mentality, but high school teachers are in the trenches. Foreign language instruction is bound to suffer if verbal and mathematical skills decline and if the Good Humor Man approach continues to flourish. Anyone involved in FL teaching also has a stake in the maintenance of high standards of oral and written skills in the English language, because the level of those skills determines the quality of the students we see in our own classes. A foreign language can, of course, be taught well or badly, like any other subject, but learning must involve effort, memorization, precision, and a good knowledge of how one's own language works. That is why we should all welcome the “back to basics” movement that appears to be gaining ground in various parts of the country. Both students and parents are beginning to realize that all the fancy talk about innovation and creative freedom does not help much if a graduate cannot read and write beyond the eighth-grade level and therefore cannot get a job. Frustrated by this discovery, some parents have threatened to sue high schools for awarding diplomas under false pretenses--which is precisely what some schools have done.

Perhaps those of us in Russian studies are more aware of the shared community of interests and of the need for students to have a solid grounding in basic verbal skills. We certainly have more to gain, first, because Russian is such a late arrival on the American educational scene, and second, because Russian requires a good understanding of grammar and syntax (not that one can do without this understanding in learning other languages).

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