Mihaylova L.V.

The Pridneprovsk State Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture

The Institute of continuous special education

PROBLEMS OF ORAL TRANSLATION

Translation means an interlingual communication. The translator makes possible an exchange of information between the users of different languages by producing in the target language a text which has an identical communicative value with the source (or original) text .

Consecutive translation is not full by definition. Firstly, even unique memory of some legendary interpreters is hardly able to keep all the details of a long speech, let alone the memory of mere mortals. Secondly, the consecutive translation is fulfilled basically denotatively, i.e. this is not a word-for-word translation of source text but its more or less free interpretation. This either suggests differences and incompleteness.

In consecutive translation the interpreter should rely on as much as possible set of wide and universal equivalents, on the context and on maximally full common and special knowledge base. Context plays the most important role in consecutive translation in contrast to simultaneous translation where the wide context practically absent and the choice of equivalents given by the dictionary is to be made according to the situation and background knowledge.

Professional simultaneous translation is the type of oral translation at international conferences which is realized at the same time with the perception of the message by ear given instantaneously at the source language. The interpreter is at the booth which isolates him from the audience. During the simultaneous translation the information of a strictly limited volume is being processed in the extreme conditions at any space of time.

Simultaneous translation is always connected with huge psychological works and often with stress and it is quite natural, because to listen and to speak simultaneously is impossible for a usual man it is a psychological anomaly. It is impossible to translate simultaneously without special equipment. The translator needs earphones, a special booth and most of all he needs skills and translation devices. During the translation the reporter speaks or reads his text to the microphone in one language and the interpreter hears it from the ear-phones and translates it into another language simultaneously with the speaker. When the interpreter speaks to his microphone the audience, which hears his translation from the ear-phones, must gain an impression that the speaker reporter speaks in their language.

The specialists pay special attention to the following factors which determine the difficulty of simultaneous translation:

- Psychophysiological discomfort caused by the necessity to listen and to speak simultaneously;

- Psychophysiological strain connected with irreversibility of that the reporter has said into the microphone. The reporter won’t be stopped and asked to repeat;

- Psychological strain connected with big audience and irreversibility of the translation. It is impossible to excuse and to correct;

- Psychophysiological strain caused by quick speech. The simultaneous interpreter must always speak quickly without pauses otherwise he will be left behind. But the pauses in speech bring not only semantic but psychophysiological work: to take breath, to collect one’s thoughts.

- Difficult linguistic task of tying up the utterances in the languages which have different structure during the simultaneous translation, when the context is extremely limited and there is lack of time for translation;

- A difficult linguistic task of speech compression which helps to compensate the translation into the language which has long words and verbose rhetoric.

These factors work in the ideal case when the reporter speaks in a usual speed in a clear literal language, when his pronunciation is standard and he understands that he is being translated and he is interested in that the audience to understand him. But this happens rarely.

The simultaneous interpreter must always be ready morally and professionally that

the reporter will speak very fast or will read the text of his speech;

the reporter’s pronunciation will be indistinct or nonstandard;

the reporter will use nonstandard abbreviations in his speech, which weren’t entered beforehand, or professional jargon words or expressions.

All these difficulties may undoubtedly present at consecutive translation but there always exist a feed-back with the reporter. The interpreter may ask again, ask to repeat and there is always a contact of the interpreter with the audience where is surely someone who knows the language and subject of the speech and he will always prompt and correct benevolently, as a rule, if the translation is well in general.

There are main devices which were formed during the long development of oral translation and they are used in the work of simultaneous interpreter. They are speech compression, omission and addition of the material. During the oral translation from Russian into English the compression is required when there are repetitions, words of little importance or when the speaker is too fast. In order not to be behind the speaker and not to miss important segments of his speech the interpreter has to choose between lexical and syntactical equivalents which must be compressed.

References:

1. Коптілов В.В. Теорія і практика перекладу. – К., 2003.

2. Арнольд И.В. Основы лингвистических исследований: Учеб пособие. – М.:Высш.шк., 1991.

3. Казакова Т.А. Translation techniques. – С-Петербург: Союз, 2004.

4. Калинина В.Д. Теория и практика перевода. – М.: РУДН, 2008.