Tarjima nazariyasi va amaliyoti fakulteti tarjima nazariyasi va amaliyoti kafedrasi

Chapter II. Simultaneous translation
2.1. Historical overview of simultaneous translation
Representatives of one of the first professions of the ancient world – translators spoke in a “thousand languages” and laid the foundation for their careers from the time of the Tower of Babel. This was soon after the golden age when there was one language and one dialect on the whole earth. But then communications, and hence translation, began to play (and are now playing) a key role in relations between people and states. The latter applies especially to contacts between leaders of leading powers today, when an oral means of communication has become a condition of mutual understanding and trust. Leading scientist in the field of translation theory, V.N. Komissarov wrote: “The great need for translators and translators will cause the further spread of international contacts, exchanges in the field of culture, sports, tourism, holding various international forums, meetings and negotiations, not to mention the representation of our country in numerous international organizations, governmental and non-governmental.”⁵
However, it is amazing to what extent the participants in international meetings and contacts themselves do not understand or greatly underestimate the work of those who give them the opportunity not only to communicate and get to know each other, but also to develop and sign documents and agreements. If modern simultaneous translation with microphones, headphones and recording equipment is a relatively new phenomenon, then the art of translation is as ancient as humanity itself.
Since ancient times, the activities of translators are diverse: they worked as missionaries, messengers, couriers and negotiators. During the Punic Wars, negotiations were often conducted by translators, and 12^th-century dragoman, the official translators appointed by the local authorities, were experts in international relations, who were often trusted to conduct very delicate conversations. Acting in all these roles, translators translated the language of foreigners as well as their culture and politics.
French dragomans, who were fluent in Oriental languages, had to not only translate, but also to explain to their politicians the meaning of different words and phrases in foreign languages, that is, in fact, provide a translation from the language of one culture into the language of another. Columbus sent young Indians from the New World to Spain to study translation, so that later they could work for him.
In medieval Europe, the Latin language was a means of communication throughout the continent, and until clearly distinct national spoken languages ​​appeared, there was no urgent need for translators.
In Europe in the 19^th century there was no particular need for top-level translators, since French was the common language of diplomats and all educated people.
In our century, a great need for the institutionalization of translation activity arose during a series of international and regional conferences, where not all delegates were highly educated people who came from the aristocratic elite. They were a multilingual audience, no longer able to do without linguistic intermediaries. In 1919, the Paris Peace Conference first practiced consecutive translation, and the first experience of using simultaneous translation in the USSR took place in 1928 at the 6^th Congress of the Comintern. The first patent for equipment for simultaneous translation was issued in the name of radio engineer and employee of the American company IBM Gordon Finley, after which the microphones and headphones were no longer exotic, and began to improve gradually.
Since the 20s, simultaneous translation has developed rapidly in the Soviet Union. In 1935, at the XV International Physiological Congress in Leningrad, an opening speech by Academician I.P. Pavlov could be listened to in English, French and German. Simultaneous translation was carried out in six languages ​​at the XX Congress of the Communist Party, and already at 184 at the XXI Congress.
The first “large-scale experiment” to prove the reality of simultaneous interpretation was the Nuremberg trial of Nazi war criminals, which began in 1945. For the first time, simultaneous translation aroused great interest in the international community. Many of the translators who worked in this process — emigrants and refugees from different countries who, to one degree or another, owned Russian, French, and German — transferred to the staff of the newly created United Nations after the process was completed. The Soviet translation expert who participated in the Nuremberg trials said what their linguistic baggage and knowledge was: “A significant part of them were emigrants who had lived for many years in England and the USA, people for whom two or three foreign languages ​​were in relatives of emigrants. White emigrants got involved in the role of translators. Some of them lived for a long time in France, then emigrated to the United States and translated from French into English and vice versa. These people, deprived of their homeland, forgot how to speak Russian. “Russian language” is replete with a large number of foreign words and archaisms, because of the strong accent it is sometimes even difficult to understand what they are talking about.”
In Russia, simultaneous translation began to be practiced since the end of the 20^th century, which was some completion of the era of consecutive translation. The new method has gained tremendous popularity, due to its practicality and rationality. Intellectual and, as a result, economic progress played an important role in the establishment of simultaneous translation, making it possible to prepare the technological base – one of the foundations of a well-organized event with the involvement of specialists in this field. Accessibility and an infinite number of other positive characteristics of simultaneous translation contributed, among others, to the rapid development of international business. Having thus predetermined the dynamic development of the market both within one state and throughout the world. Simultaneous translation, as a symbol of respectability and responsibility, has firmly entered the cycle of business activity. This provided the negotiation process with the necessary saturation and reduced to a minimum the amount of time spent on preparing and implementing projects in all areas of business, not to mention the policy, whose representatives were the first to feel the convenience and practicality of simultaneous translation. It was not until the twentieth century that conference interpreting as known today emerged as a profession. According to Herbert, the 1919 Peace Conference in Paris witnessed the birth of conference interpreting as French ceased to be the lingua franca of international diplomatic negotiations when several senior American and British negotiators did not have good command of French and wanted to use English instead. In the 1930s, conference interpreting became a haracteri and established profession⁶.
However, research into interpreting studies, which is only about five decades old as it started to appear in the late 1950s, is a relatively young discipline. Some scholars argue that even the term Interpreting Studies (IS) itself only came into existence in 1992 when it was first used by Gile at the Translation Studies Congress in Vienna, and by Salevsky at the 8^th Conference on Translation and Interpreting at Charles University, Prague, 1992, but Salevsky is the first to use the term in a major publication. Works by the Paris School researchers (e.g. Seleskovitch) contain an earlier reference to interpreting as an area of scientific investigation⁷.
In-depth studies of the problems of the theory and practice of simultaneous interpreting began only in the 1960s. The number of publications that appeared on the topics of simultaneous translation was, however, extremely small; the authors of these publications were psychologists, as well as linguists and simultaneous interpreters. These include Z.A. Kochkina, Oleron and Nanpon, A. Trizman, D. Seleskovitch, M.Y. Zwilling, F. Goldman-Eisler, B.A. Benediktov, A. Sh. Barik, D. Gerver, G.V. Chernov, O. Kade and K. Cartelieri, A.F. Shiryaev and etc.
The pioneering professionals such as Herbert, Rozan, van Hoof and Seleskovitch produced the first textbooks of interpreting, and interpreter training programs throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
From the 1990s onwards, IS research has continued to grow rapidly as an international academic discipline in different parts of the world (e.g. Japan and North America). The leading representative of the Paris School, interpreting scholar Daniel Gile divides the development of conference interpreting research throughout these fifty years into four periods: the pre-research, experimental psychology, practitioners’ and renewal or ‘renaissance’ periods⁸. According to Gile, the essential characteristic of the pre-research period (the 1950s) is that production was based on personal experience rather than scientific or academic research. Some of the best works produced at that time have identified most of the central issues being studied by researchers at present. Among these is Herbert’s “The Interpreter’s Handbook” written in 1952 which is the earliest best known publication on interpreting.
The experimental psychology period (the 1960s and early 1970s) is haracterized by studies based on experiments carried out by such psychologists and psycholinguists as Oléron and Nanpon, Triesman, Goldman-Eisler, Gerver, Barik, etc. Oléron and Nanpon’s achievement in developing a method of time lag measurement, 2-10 seconds, between the original and the interpreter’s output is considered as a pioneering investigation into SI. Along with Gile, Pöchhacker and Shlesinger argue that the most prominent figure in this period is Gerver who conducted experiments on the interpreter’s short-term memory (STM), intonation, stress, noise, SL presentation rate, etc. which have later formed the basis for many studies by various researchers of different orientations. Moreover, he was the first to develop a complete information-processing model of SI in 1976. The practitioners’ period was dominated by professional interpreters and teachers of interpreting, especially coming from High School of Interpreters and Translators (ESIT) researchers in Paris. A number of serious researches have been carried out, including Danica Seleskovitch’s theory of sense, Moser’s information processing models, Gile’s processing-capacity oriented ‘Effort-Models’, and other studies on such aspects of interpreting as training, processes, improvised and read speeches, etc. From the late 1980s onwards begins the ‘renaissance’ period because it is only in this period that the earlier calls for more scientific and interdisciplinary investigation have been seriously echoed by many researchers who have been attempting to benefit from findings and ideas from Translation Studies and cognitive sciences. This period has witnessed more proliferation of research into interpreting, communication and cooperation among researchers from different regions and research orientations⁹.
The first interdisciplinary gathering on theory and practice in conference interpreting is the 1977 NATO Symposium which was attended by many representatives from such fields as psychology, linguistics, translation, anthropology, sociology, etc. The symposium aimed at identifying the professional and research interests, and establishing cooperative research.
Another collective call for interdisciplinary in conference interpreting research came from the University of Trieste, Italy, during the Conference on the Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Teaching Interpreting. The conference aimed at presenting the latest findings of neurophysiological experiments and studies, comparing teaching methods with non-European training schools, and motivating further research to encourage researchers to exchange information and experience. Participants in this conference included researchers from other fields and interpreting researchers from other parts of the world such as the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Japan, etc., which allowed these researchers to compare their work with that of Western European researchers¹⁰.
2.2. Difficulties of simultaneous translation
What makes this complex activity possible? Usually we are talking about a combination of certain abilities, knowledge and skills: fluency in languages, erudition, good reaction, the ability to quickly “go out” to a more or less acceptable option in difficult situations – in general, all this is no different from what any one should have interpreter. However, the possibility of simultaneous translation, when in many cases the translator does not know how the phrase ends, the beginning of which translates, should be provided by some mechanism.
A satisfactory simultaneous translation becomes possible when it is possible with a reasonable degree of probability to assume “where the speaker is” driving – both at the level of the whole (goal, main idea of ​​the whole speech), and at the level of a separate sentence, phrase, grammatical construction. So, simultaneous translation is largely possible thanks to what is called probabilistic forecasting, which underlies many types of human activity.
In order for the likelihood of simultaneous translation to be as high as possible, you must first of all have a good idea of ​​the topic (subject) that is being discussed at this conference, seminar or round table. Other things being equal (approximately the same language skills, reactions, practical experience), a person who is “savvy” in a given field translates immeasurably better than an amateur. Therefore, the study of not only terminology, but also the essence of the matter, is a prerequisite for the synchronist.
Why did simultaneous translation displace consecutive interpretation from the most important international congresses and conferences? For one reason only. Because after the Second World War, the number of working languages ​​in the meeting rooms of representatives of various countries increased several times. The Soviet Union, China, and Latin America came to the forefront of international life. Before the Second World War, international organizations in their work were limited to two languages ​​(French and English), but after the Allies defeated the Nazis, Russian, Chinese, and Spanish became the working languages. It is quite obvious that in such conditions consecutive translation would require five times more time for meetings (five official working languages) than simultaneous translation. As for the quality of the translation, without a doubt, if there are qualified translators, consecutive translation will give better results in terms of accuracy, completeness, expression, expression and normativity of the text of the translation.
Many of us have never seen the classic consecutive translation with notes. The paragraph-phrase translation, in which they interrupt even in the middle of a statement, breaking both the style and expression of speech, has nothing to do with the work of a professional translator with a capital letter. Most likely, for this reason, an interpreter of the highest qualification, we are called a simultaneous interpreter. In French and English, another name is adopted – “conference interpreter”.
Let us dwell on one more advantage of simultaneous translation. For its effective work, the simultaneous interpreter needed to be isolated from the noise of the conference room, and his speech made available to each recipient (listener). So there were synchronizer booths and telephone installations built into the seats of delegates, allowing them to choose the language that they understand best. Typically, these settings include 5-6 working languages. However, here we were ahead of the rest. If at the XX Congress in 1956 the hall of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses was equipped with seven working languages ​​in mind, then by the end of the 60s it allowed to use thirty working languages ​​at conferences and congresses. Of course, all thirty languages ​​have never been used, especially since the first booths for simultaneous interpretation were equipped completely closed for fear of terrorist acts. The tightness of the booths depressed translators who were deprived of the opportunity to observe the speaker, and, therefore, better understand him. Later, these booths were equipped with televisions, and new ones were already built with a glazed side, which allowed the translator to observe what was being done in the hall, on the podium and how the speaker made his speech.
At the same time, a radio version for simultaneous translation was created abroad. It functioned as follows: at the entrance to the hall, all participants received small radios that could be hung around the neck; they had their own phones in the form of plastic plugs, which were inserted into the ears and which were connected to the receiver by a wire; there was a switch on the receiver itself, allowing you to select one of the working languages.
Simultaneous translation quickly began to “suit” both speakers and translators. Speakers, since he expelled a translator from the rostrum, who often emphasized the speaker’s illiteracy and tongue-tearing by his professionalism, relegating him to the background and aggravating his pride. Translators, since their retreat and speech juggling in two languages ​​gave them a halo of exclusivity and granted certain independence.
It is impossible not to add to the above that really complex that exists in the profession of simultaneous translator.
Firstly, the work of a translator in synchronization mode requires constant mobilization of attention and continuous speaking. And this leads to the fact that after 20-30 minutes of translation the synchronist appears to be tired of the articular apparatus, the language becomes “cottony”, self-control decreases and serious errors appear in the translation text. For this reason, the mode of operation of simultaneous interpreters involves at least a forty-minute rest after twenty minutes of work, and therefore the creation of groups or teams of 3-4 people for each booth.
The second difficulty of simultaneous translation is associated with the reaction of the translator, and more precisely, with its reactivity. The synchronist is forced to instantly respond to perceived by ear words, or rather phrases, every second.
That is why simultaneous translation scares away slow-moving people, although they are fluent in a foreign language. Good knowledge of two or more languages ​​is not a prerequisite for the success of the simultaneous translator. Rather, such a condition is the presence of an indispensable supply of equivalent pairs of lexical units interconnected by a symbolic link, allowing translation not through analysis and synthesis, but in terms of the “stimulus – reaction” model, i.e. not through thinking, but through conditioned reflexes. It is in this direction that the training of simultaneous interpreters should take place, which we will talk about in more detail.
These difficulties of simultaneous translation redeemed his invisible advantage. To work as a simultaneous interpreter do not have to own an immaculately usual, the usual set of spoken foreign language standards. And it is this aspect of speech of a foreigner with accent betrays his “foreignness” when communicating with native speakers. And if the pronunciation if you want you can work in the most boring phonetic exercises, to memorize and to correctly use the gender of a noun, conjugation of irregular verbs, and most importantly – endless exceptions to the rules, even for a person with exceptional memory in isolation from the corresponding language environment task extremely difficult.
So, to sum up from the position of the common provisions on simultaneous interpreting. Simultaneous translation really is carried out simultaneously with the speaker’s speech that gives a significant gain in time and out of the halls of the conference minutes and hours of endless longing, which covered present waiting to be translations of speeches made in an unknown language. That is why simultaneous interpretation has become a mandatory attribute of a solid international conferences.
To work in simultaneous translation requires some stamina and suitable preparation, is capable of producing speech the reactivity of the translator. Simultaneous interpretation is easier and better when translating from English to the foreign language, and not Vice versa, as many believe. Given all this, we can say that “election” a simultaneous interpreter is only in this training, which is known to be necessary for any specialist.