Abstract

Abstract

Introduction: Translating (written text) and interpreting (spoken text) are complex skills used by a bilingual intermediary when two (groups of) language users, A and B, who do not understand each other’s language, want to communicate. The go-between takes text in the source language, A, as input and outputs a faithful semantic equivalent of the decoded message in the target language, B. Translators may avail themselves of dictionaries, terminology lists and encyclopedias to find the best possible translation equivalents. Interpreters generally have to deliver their rendition of the input speech on the spot, with minimal delay. Although interpreters can conduct background research in preparation for an interpreting task, there is no time to consult any resources once the interpreting has begun. Background of the study: An important role of prosody in speech processing is that it guides the division of the continuous stream of speech into smaller units that can be processed separately. Prosody allows the listener to find sentence boundaries, phrase boundaries and sometimes even word boundaries. The listener needs these boundaries in order to reduce the number of competing representations of the incoming structures he has to entertain in working memory. Prosody is a safety catch for the native listener. The native listener will trust prosodic information more than poorly defined segments because experience has taught the native listener that prosody is more robust against noise and distortion than segmental information. For successful decoding of input speech and encoding speech output in the non-native language interpreter trainees may benefit from an explicit comparison of the prosodic properties of their native language and those of the L2. The present study set out to examine the interaction of gender in English prosody awareness for enhancing interpreting performance. The gender issue and its effect on interpreting depends on which society we are studying and what the cultural norms of that society are about women and men in the use of language. This issue demands much more investigation in different cultural settings. If we look at interpretation as a transfer of meaning and ideas in the form of cross-cultural communication then the role of gender would be more evident since in different societies the expectations people have about the choice of structures and words from women and men in transferring their intentions are different. Methodology: Sixty BA interpreter trainees were chosen randomly for the experiment, and later were divided into two groups (e.g., control and experimental groups) by random sampling. The control group were trained the strategies of interpreting performance and practical tasks as well. The experimental group received less instruction of issues covered by control group and instead received English prosody training for 20 minutes per session. At the end of the training program students took posttest in interpreting performance. Three professional experts in this area rated students’ performance. The ten evaluation criteria are defined and motivated as follows:

(1) Accuracy: Interpreters should be faithful to the meaning of source language. An optimal

and complete message should be output such that the content and intent of the source

language is preserved without omission or distortion.

(2) Omission: Interpreters may intentionally omit part of the source language and

concentrate on transferring the essence of the message (Jones 2014). In our study

omissions were not counted against the interpreter as long as the interpretation

preserved the content and intent of the source language; if not, they were scored as

errors.

(3) Overall coherence: Coherence is the extent to which the interpreter’s output is

meaningful and purposeful. Message coherence includes conceptual connectedness,

evaluative and dialogical consistency and textual relatedness.

(4) Grammar: An attempt was made to evaluate the speech production of the participants

observing the standard structural rules of Farsi.

(5) Expression: Utterances should be a manifestation of appropriate use of the target

language given a specific target audience, e.g., in terms of formality and informality.

(6) Word choice: The choice of words in the target language should match the genre of the

source language. The expectations of the audience (in relation to the social class they

belong to) should be taken into account as well.

(7) Terminology: Interpreters should be familiar with technical terms of the subject matter

they are interpreting. An attempt was made to see to what extent the participants were

choosing the technical terms when transferring the message.

(8) Accent: Since the interpreter’s intelligibility will depend on the quality of his/her

pronunciation of the target language, the strength of the interpreter’s accent was judged

(in the case of recto interpreting, this criterion applies more or less vacuously – and will

vary only in so far as a strong regional accent would compromise the interpreter’s

intelligibility).

(9) Pace: An intuitive judgment was made of how optimal the interpreter’s rate of delivery

was, i.e. neither very slow nor so fast that intelligibility would be compromised.

(10) Voice: An interpreter with a pleasant and relaxed voice is more appreciated than one

with a strained or nervous voice. A global judgment was made of the extent to which

the interpreter’s voice was appropriate for transferring the message.There was not significant differences between two genders in the interpreting performance. Conclusions: The findings will be applied in training future qualified interpreters so that there would be no bias in the choice of different genders for the professional practice in interpreting performance. The contribution of the present study to the growing body of literature on pronunciation teaching is that increased conscious attention in pronunciation materials to training students to monitor their production through the teaching of formal rules, noticing the differences, providing constructive feedback, and reflective activities result in the enhancement of speaking skills. The results have pedagogical implications for interpreter training curriculum for the appropriate choice of materials in English prosody teaching to enhance perception and production skills of interpreters. Further research needs to be done to fill the gaps in gender-related studies in interpreting since in the study of gender effects in interpreting cultural aspects of societies play the important role. Therefore, the gender issue and its effect on interpreting depends on which society we are studying and what the cultural norms of that society are about women and men in the use of language.