How To Tackle Main Problems In Comprehension Interpreting

The consecutive language interpreting process involves 6 major skills, i.e. active listening, memorizing, note taking, analyzing discourse, paraphrasing and reformulating. Of all the interpreter's essential skills above, listening and analyzing discourse are considered our weakest ones. The aim of this report is to recognize the reasons that led to our weakness, along with identifying the solutions that will possibly help us improve the ability of active listening and analyzing discourse.

I/Active listening skill

1/ Reasons for the problems of active listening

The problems relating to active listening skill will be identified in this section.

To begin with, they are the subjective causes that brought about our difficulties in active listening. The first objective one is the limitation of vocabulary. Due to the lack of terminology, we could not fully understand the messages of the speakers. Another subjective reason that should be noted is the low frequency practicing listening skills and communicating with English-speaking speakers. Not withstanding, unexpected negative feelings, such as tenseness and nervousness, can possibly affect us- the amateur interpreters.

Other reasons that should be concerned are the objective ones. For instance, interpreters usually have to work in a variety of environment and rarely do they listen to the speakers clearly in such “perfect conditions”. With the appearance of the impacts from the surroundings such as noises, distraction might be unavoidable. Therefore, the interpreters find it difficult to listen and fully understand the messages of the speaker unless they stay focus on only what the speakers is saying. Moreover, the variation of English accents makes us confused when listening. We get accustomed to hearing the recordings of standard British English and American English accents with very clear utterance for a majority of English learners. However, in common communication, we have to deal with a variety of English accents from many different countries. The speakers will perform their dialects that could be very difficult for the interpreters to catch the words. The speed of utterance is also considered the barrier in the first step of consecutive language interpretation. Assuming this, active listening is seemed to be one of the most complicated tasks in the consecutive language interpreting process. Needless to say poor listening skills leads to many difficulties in interpretation.

2/ Solutions for the problems of active listening

Based on the problems above, some solutions are identified to enhance the ability of active listening. The first possible solution is to take more effort on enriching our vocabulary. The more words we have, the more words we listen. In addition, practicing listening skills in a higher frequency is indispensable, which helps us improve not only the listening skills but also our vocabulary. Finally, having a clear mind during active listening is very important for us to grab the messages of the speakers. There is no doubt that all these solutions will enable us to be active and confident interpreters.

II/ Memorizing skills

1/Reasons for the problems of memorizing skills

The problems relating to active listening skill will be described in this section and divided into two main parts, due to types of reasons.

First of all, the lack of concentration in the procedure of listening creates difficulties in memorizing. It is comprehensible that amateur interpreters can not memorize the main ideas mentioned in the speech unless we pay full attention to the speakers. The second subjective reason that should be pointed out is the lack of background knowledge of the topic revealed in the speeches.

Beside the subjective reasons, some objective ones are also identified. The length and the complexity of the speech are two of the factors that created the obstacles in memorizing. While translating long and complicated speeches, some details in the speeches may be easily forgotten. Take me as an example. In a recent visit to Sapa in April, I met some American tourists whose luggages were stolen and they were trying to explain to the local police about this. In their quite long speeches, there were so many details that I couldn’t memorize all when reproducing to the local police. Furthermore, as the common reason of all weaknesses, the laziness in practicing memorizing skills leads to the limitation in short-term memory.

2/ Solutions for the problems of memorizing

Memorizing, along with active listening, caused obstacle in interpretation. However, memorizing is not something that cannot be mastered. By hard-working and regular practicing, everyone in general and interpreter in particular can improve his memorizing skill. In order to comprehend and memorize information effectively, it is also crucial to listen to a variety of recordings from various sources. We should choose the topics most interesting first and then move to other less interesting ones. Different types of exercise also greatly contribute to our improvement. For instance, you can listen to anything you like and then try to memorize as much information as you can. Obviously, these solutions above can help you enhance you memorizing skills.

ELK - The Most Important Factor In The Comprehension Process Of Interpreting

Being a good interpreter could be considered as the top target of every foreign language learners. However, reaching that standard requires a lot of skills from the learners, “more than just knowledge of two languages” (Xiao Dan, 2006, p.25). And it is also recognized that the comprehension of the source language is more than just the 2 basic elements: recognition of words and linguistic structure. In his Basic Concepts and Models for Interpreter and Translator Training, Daniel Gile combined the necessary factors for an interpreter to have a good comprehension in the formula: C=KL + ELK + A in which C stands for Comprehension, KL represents Knowledge of the Language, ELK for Extra-Linguistic Knowledge and A - Analysis of the interpreter (Ping Li & Zhihong Lu, 2011, p.4). To us, ELK is the most important factor in the comprehension process of interpreting.

Firstly, ELK means background knowledge or subject knowledge that is believed to “play an integral part” in interpreting. “ELK can be pre-existing” (Xiao Dan, 2006, p.25) that interpreters should have learned before the interpreting tasks and that could not be taught in language schools or universities. The truth is that in many cases, the interpreters are not to work in ideal situations; i.e. their tasks are unfamiliar, or abstract or even very difficult to understand, the interpreters have to combine all their skills, knowledge to convey the ideas, massages in the easiest way to understand to listeners. That’s when their background knowledge is called upon. If the interpreter’s level is high, then he will cope with the situation with ease that would very much satisfy the employer. On the contrary, without sufficient knowledge that is needed, even a very good language user could find it struggled in interpreting what the speaker says. For example, when the task is to interpret for a construction conference, but the interpreter did never approach anything related to construction would misunderstand the ideas or massages that leads to misinterpreting when he faces the jargons like “shop drawings”… in brief, background knowledge (ELK) is such a real importance that could define the interpreters from good to bad because interpreting is not all linguistic language.

Secondly, cultural and specialized aspects are common problems that most interpreters are permanently faced with, as stated in The Nature and Role of Norms in Translation, “Translation is a kind of activity which inevitably involves at least two languages and two cultural traditions." (Toury, 1978, p.200). Therefore, merely understanding the linguistic aspects does not significantly help interpreters in delivering the information in source language (SL) to the audiences of the target language (TL). For instance, when working in a construction workshop between Vietnamese and American corporations, an inexperienced interpreter can misinterpret major concepts even though he has very good knowledge of both Vietnamese language and English language. In this case, is it no doubt that ELK is of great importance? Meanwhile KL just helps understanding the sounds of the speeches, not the contextual content of them. On the other hand, the cultural implications for translation may take several forms ranging from lexical content and syntax to ideologies and ways of life in a given culture. The translator also has to decide on the importance given to certain cultural aspects and to what extent it is necessary or desirable to translate them into the TL.

The definition of "culture" as given in the Concise Oxford Dictionary varies from descriptions of the "Arts" to plant and bacteria cultivation and includes a wide range of intermediary aspects. More specifically concerned with language and interpreting, Newmark defines culture as "the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression" (1988:94), thus acknowledging that each language group has its own culturally specific features. He does "not regard language as a component or feature of culture" (Newmark 1988:95). Hence, understanding the linguistic aspects is just the first step of interpreting process. The most important step is to comprehend what is really meant by the words or speeches of speakers, which can be combined only by having broad background knowledge of fields such as social sciences, natural sciences, health, medicine, economics, etc.

Another fact supporting the outstanding role of extra-linguistic (ELK) compared to knowledge of language (KL) and analysis (A) is that even an interpreter with good analysis skill cannot fully comprehend all the speeches of the speaker. Because he may know lexical and syntactic aspects of the language well, or he can logically analyze what is being said by the speaker, he does not know exactly what the specifically cultural or specialized points that the speaker means.

In conclusion, though all of the three components in the formula C = KL + ELK + A are of great importance, ELK seems to be the most important one. Also, cultural and specialized aspects obviously are the main problems in which ELK is involved in the interpreting process. Good understanding about the extra linguistic combined with good linguistic knowledge and logical analysis skill can help us, interpreters, accomplish interpretation tasks easily and effectively. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that we should make our efforts to equip ourselves with basic knowledge for latter career right from now.