Alisher navoi tashkent state university of uzbek language and literature department: english language

3.3 Psychophysiological load during simultaneous translation. 
The purpose of this section is to consider the problem of assessing 
the psychophysiological load during simultaneous translation and to 
describe the existing points of view on the time limits for the work of 
simultaneous interpreters. 
In the organization of work, an important aspect is the level of 
psychophysiological load and ways to regulate it to maintain human 
health and maintain its performance. However, there is no single 
definition, as well as a method for assessing the level of 
psychophysiological load, which creates certain difficulties in codifying 
labor standards. 
According to the standards of the Russian Federation, the number of 
psycho-physiological dangerous and harmful factors of production 
includes physical (static and dynamic) and neuropsychic overloads, 
which, in turn, are divided into mental overstrain, overstrain of analyzers, 
monotony of work, emotional overloads [System of labor safety 
standards]. 
It is known from theory and practice that simultaneous translation is 
accompanied by a strong psychophysiological load. What kind of mental 
processes take place during translation (in particular, synchronous) is still 
not clear. Siegfried Ramler, translator of the Nuremberg trials, describes 

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the state in which the simultaneous interpreter is during translation, as a 
kind of stream in which he moves after switching to the same wavelength 
with the speaker [Ramler]. Therefore, it is possible to evaluate various 
aspects of the joint venture only in a practical way according to external 
manifestations. Simultaneous translation workload research began in the 
1960s. Researchers and translators could not come to a consensus 
regarding the assessment of the level of psychophysiological stress in ST. 
“The number of interpreting scholars who consider simultaneous 
interpreting to be a significant cognitive load (e.g., Gile 1995; Hyona et 
al. 1995; Massaro and Shlesinger 1997; Moser-Mercer 1997; De Groot 
2000), greatly exceeds the number of those who would consider this 
statement nothing more than a “primitive idea” and a “cliche”” [Sieber, 
2013, p. eighteen]. 
A reliable and objective assessment of the psycho-physiological 
load is necessary for an adequate distribution of the simultaneous 
interpreter's work time. As K. Sieber and B. Moser-Merser points out, 
mental or cognitive load dominates among the factors of 
psychophysiological load in ST. Cognitive load is assessed based on the 
performance assessment method, as well as analytical, subjective, and 
psychophysiological methods. 
In practice, the main thing is to identify factors that affect the 
psycho-physiological load of the translator. The following conditions 
definitely affect the level of psychophysiological stress and can both 
facilitate the task of an interpreter and create unnecessary stress: 
1) cabin air temperature and quality; 
2) sound insulation and sound quality in the cabin; 
3) time limits; 
4) relationship with the customer; 
5) relationship with a cockpit colleague; 
6) degree of language proficiency; 
7) depth of knowledge of the topic of translation; 

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8) features of the speaker's speech (accent, illegible, incoherent 
speech). 
The working space and working conditions of translators are fixed 
in regulatory documents. For example, ST booths must comply with the 
ISO 4043 standard, and there must be no more than three interpreters per 
booth [Technical specifications …]. 
The duration of work in the mode of simultaneous translation is 
considered the main variable in the regulation of the psychophysiological 
load. However, despite the fact that the standards for the work of 
simultaneous interpreters have been fixed in official documents for a long 
time, there are still disputes on this issue. 
There are cases when the need to translate for a long time had a 
negative impact on the translation and the condition of the translator. For 
example, at a meeting of the UN General Assembly in 2009, Muammar 
Gaddafi's speech lasted over 2 hours. At the 75th minute of continuous 
work, the personal translator of the leader of the Libyan opposition said 
into the microphone that he could no longer stand it, after which he 
fainted. One of the UN translators in his interview for the NY Post said 
that he witnessed such a situation for the first time in 25 years of work 
[Own aide baffled…]. It should be noted that, according to other 
translators, Gaddafi is not the best speaker for the ST due to some features: 
not quite logical statements, sometimes illegible and fuzzy speech. As 
mentioned above, this is one of the factors that increase the 
psychophysiological load during translation. 
For simultaneous interpreters, work rules have been developed. 
These include, for example, restrictions on the duration of work of 
simultaneous interpreters - “Translating simultaneously for more than 15 
minutes and resting for less than 30 minutes is impossible according to 
labor protection standards”. The professional standards of the 
International 
Organization 
of 
Simultaneous 
Interpreters 
AIIC 
(Association internationale des interprètes de conférence) contain clauses 
on the minimum number of interpreters: “... there must be at least two 
interpreters in each booth that works without breaks ... It is accepted that 

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interpreters should not work alone in the simultaneous booth translation 
without colleagues to help them if needed. 
There is another view on the time limits for the work of simultaneous 
interpreters. Contrary to popular belief, an interpreter can translate for 
more than 30 minutes without experiencing significantly more stress and 
tension than with a standard work scheme, when a colleague replaces him 
after 15-30 minutes. Kirill Eltsov, a long-time simultaneous interpreter, 
an employee of Omnica, spoke about this at the Summer Translation 
School in 2014. He calls the idea of the impossibility of a long joint 
venture the “anti-solo concept”. 
We are not talking about beginner synchronized swimmers, and not 
about all synchronized swimmers in general - each person has individual 
psychological and physiological data and experience. However, there are 
no sufficient grounds to deny the possibility of a joint venture alone for a 
long time. 
Kirill Eltsov provides an analysis of the Workload Study [Interpreter 
workload study, full report] conducted by the AIIC to validate the anti-
solo concept and justify the time limits and minimum number of 
interpreters in one simultaneous translation booth. In this work, AIIC 
refers to the work of B. Moser-Merser [Moser-Merser, 1998], which 
examines the negative impact of prolonged SP on the quality of translation 
and the psycho-physiological state of the translator. K. Eltsov came to the 
conclusion that the work of B. Moser-Merser considers a special case. At 
the same time, the author does not claim that the results of the study can 
be taken as a rule for simultaneous translation in general. 
Taking into account some conditions of the experiment described in 
the publication of B. Moser-Merser, this study cannot be considered a 
sufficient justification for the impossibility of high-quality and safe single 
simultaneous translation. For example, the participants in the experiment 
were informed about its purpose [Moser-Merser, 1998, p. 53], which is 
known to lead to the so-called ‘guinea pig effect’ (the effect of the guinea 
pig), when the behavior of the subjects changes due to the presence, 
actions or comments of the experimenter. In addition, participants 

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translated from their native English into passive German [Moser-Merser, 
1998, p. 50], which had a negative impact on the quality of the translation. 
Challenging the "anti-solo concept", K. Yeltsov relies on personal 
experience and on the experience of his colleagues. In a practical way, he 
proved the possibility of translating in the cockpit several hours a day with 
normal working breaks. The data obtained showed that the scheme of 
work can be as follows: 1.5 hours of work, 1 hour of rest, 1.5 hours of 
work, 30 minutes of rest, 1.5 hours of work, 30 minutes of rest. At one of 
the conferences where he worked as a simultaneous interpreter in this 
mode, K. Yeltsov used the psychophysiological method and 
simultaneously conducted an experiment - he did pulsometry for himself, 
not only during translation, but also during breaks. Throughout the 
working day, the pulse was even, in the range of 60-80 beats per minute. 
Only once the measurement showed 120 beats per minute, which was 
associated with food intake. We consider it appropriate to note that before 
the experiment, K. Eltsov already had experience of long-term 
simultaneous translation, so the body did not respond to such working 
conditions with stress reactions. 
Based on the above, we can conclude that a simultaneous interpreter 
is able to continuously interpret alone for more than 30 minutes, but no 
longer than 1.5 hours. Not every person is capable of working in this 
mode, however, if the simultaneous interpreter is experienced, does not 
experience health problems on the day of interpretation, is able to 
adequately assess his strength, then long-term simultaneous interpretation 
is feasible with virtually no damage to the mental and physical condition 
of the interpreter. It should be noted that at the moment there are no studies 
that can substantiate the concept of "antisolo" as the only possible one. 

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