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MECHANISM OF ANTICIPATION IN SIMALTANEOUS
INTERPRETATION
Ivan Buneev
student, Uzbekistan State World Languages University
No matter how well the translator knows the native and foreign languages;
linguistic knowledge alone is not enough for successful work as an interpreter,
especially as a simultaneous interpreter. A professional simultaneous interpreter is a
walking encyclopaedic references book. In his work, the translator encounters the
terms of political negotiations, geography, literature, and world history. At scientific
conferences where simultaneous translation services are in great demand, problems
of medicine, programming and other natural sciences are discussed, which means
that a simultaneous interpreter must be well versed in these topics.
The method of anticipation in simultaneous translation is most often
successfully used in the case when the interpreter knows the topic well. It is equally
important to have an understanding of the procedures and rules for conducting
meetings. Ceteris paribus, a simultaneous interpreter who possesses the relevant
knowledge will cope with the translation much easier and better than his less
knowledgeable colleague.
Major corpus-based account of anticipation was produced by Lederer in
1981 in which she argues that anticipation is ubiquitous in SI regardless of the
language pairs involved, postulating that anticipation is a non-language specific
phenomenon. Lederer also offers a distinction between different kinds of anticipation,
namely cognitive and linguistic anticipation and another form of anticipation which
she calls “freewheeling interpretation” (or “en roue libre”). In the latter, the interpreter
has decided on the meaning of the speaker’s utterance and listens to the original
merely to verify the accuracy of her own « production » in order to make the
necessary corrections. According to Lederer, therefore, even instances in which the
interpreter utters a constituent a few seconds after the speaker, should sometimes
be considered as instances of anticipation. The author of this paper agrees that there
may in fact be instances, in which the interpreter commits to a certain sentence
structure at an early stage of her interpretation and uses the original merely to verify
the suitability of her interpretation.
In the broadest sense, anticipation is seen as a general ability to predict a
plausible continuation of the source language speech (e.g. Gile, 1995; Chernov,
1994 and 2004), which is a crucial mechanism of simultaneous interpreting
functioning on the basis of omnipresent redundancy in human discourse as well as
on the basis of the interpreter’s preparation for a specific event by means of studying
conference documentation, gaining more knowledge about the subject area etc. It is
disputable whether anticipation described in this way can be treated as strategic
behaviour, as this depends on how we define an interpreting strategy (i.e. as always
problem-oriented or not necessarily so).
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The implementation of simultaneous translation in conditions of time pressure
means higher than in other types of translation, the rate at which a message in FL is
converted into a message in TL.
Deficit time is considered as a factor extreme due to the fact that there are
limits to the human ability to process information per unit of time. Any processing of
sensory information is associated with the passage of impulses through neurons,
which requires a certain amount of time. In a unit of time, the human brain capable
of processing from 25 to 100 bits of information per second. So, with an average
speech rate of 120 words per minute and an average typewritten page in English of
400 words, a simultaneous interpreter will process approximately 5,000 to
20,000 bits of information per page of text; page read-tempo is 3.3 minutes, or about
200 seconds. This is gives the maximum amount of information that any person is
able to process in this time.
With regard to simultaneous translation, the essence ideas of anticipation is
the fact that in the process of auditory perception of speech the translator puts
forward hypotheses about one or another meaning mental or verbal development or
completion the author’s intentions.
Anticipation of successive speech units is possible only if the speech stream
consists of interdependent units, which in turn means that “the source of the message
is repeated”. As J. Miller points out, “... If successive units in a message are
interconnected, if the probability of the appearance of any unit depends on the
previous units, these relationships reduce the amount of information that one unit can
carry... Contextual dependencies mean, that the source of the message is repeated...
We note this fact
by saying that most languages are redundant...”.
The redundancy of language manifests itself at different levels. An example of
redundancy at the level of phonemes: in Russian, a vowel should appear after one
or two consonants. The anticipation of a Russian word like the Armenian surname
Mkrtchyan is so small that it can be taken equal to zero. Redundancy also manifests
itself at the level of grammatical meanings. In the text of the phrase “Since the
repeating elements of any interconnected chain of events do not carry new
information...”, there is a phenomenon of repeated agreement of words in gender,
number and case, i.e. repetition of indication of gender, number and case in a few
words. In turn, the union since implies the obligatory appearance of a sentence
containing a consequence.
In practice, a simultaneous interpreter deals with the redundancy of a coherent
message, while the coherence is based on the unity of the topic and the
communicative intention of the speaker. The higher the redundancy, the closer the
connection between the communicative intention of the speaker and the unity of the
topic, therefore, the greater the likelihood of using lexical units that the interpreter
can predetermine according to the meaning of the speech. In a poetic work, the level
of redundancy is much lower, and the amount of information per symbol is higher.
Hence, there is little likelihood of an acceptable simultaneous translation of a poetic
work, except in those cases where the simultaneous translator knows some of the
most famous passages by heart and can quote them from memory without much
difficulty. For example, at several conferences, one of the speakers liked to quote the
last verse from B.
Pasternak’s Hamlet:
Но продуман распорядок действий,
И не отвратим конец пути.
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Я один, все тонет в фарисействе,
Жизнь прожить – не поле перейти.
And yet, the order of the acts has been schemed and plotted,
And nothing can avert the final curtain’s fall.
I stand alone. All else is swamped by Pharisaism.
To live life to the end is not a childish task.
In this case, it was easy to predict the end of this quatrain, ending with the
catchphrase “To live life to the end is not a childish task”. The simultaneous
interpreter who had the task of translating the passage mentioned above knew it by
heart, which is far from always the case. But even in this case, the probability of
forecasting is very high. With a high degree of anticipation, one can predict how the
verse will end, which begins with the words
“And yet, the order of the acts has been
schemed and plotted
”.
The presence of context increases redundancy, which enables the simultaneous
interpreter to anticipate with greater accuracy. “Getting into context, the Russian word
form loses on average 1.6 dv. grammatical information contained in the forms of an extra-
textual word”. He and other researchers established the causes of redundancy:
1) repetition in the flow of speech of certain elements;
2) the interdependence of the linguistic components of the message, the fact
that the sequence of message components (sounds, words, phrases, sentences and
meanings) is formed on the basis of certain rules, which makes them interdependent,
and boils down to the fact that the source of the message is repeated. Such
conclusions are also the main provisions of the theory of communication.
We studied the mechanism of anticipation, which in fact we use not only in
simultaneous translation, but in all our activities. Thanks to this mechanism, the
interpreter can perceive the original and translate at the same time. It is important to
note that this is a multi-level and hierarchically organized mechanism. This is due to
the fact that speech is an unusual sequence of homogeneous components.
REFERENCES:
1. Lederer
M. (1978/2002), “Simultaneous Interpretation: Units of Meaning and
O
ther Features”. In: D. Gerver and H.W. Sinaiko (eds.), Language Interpretation and
Communication. Reprinted (2002) in: F.
Pöchhacker and M. Shlesinger (eds.), The
Interpreting Studies Reader, London and New York: Routledge: 131
–140.
2. Chernov
G. (1994), “Message Redundancy and Message Anticipation in
Simultaneous Interpretation”. In: C. Lambert and B. Moser-Mercer (eds.), Bridging
the Gap: Empir.
3. Gile D. (1995), Basic Concepts and Models for Interpreter and Translator
Training. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
4.
В.В. Сдобников, О.В. Петрова: Теория перевода – М.: АСТ: Восток-
Запад, 2007
5.
Чернов Г.В. Теория и практика синхронного перевода. М: Меж.
отношения, 1978.
6.
Пиотровский Р.Г.
Информационные
измерения
языка.
Наука.
Ленинградское отделение. 1968.
