TrIn 3101: Introduction to Interpreting Unit 3 continued: A. Linguistic, Cultural, Situational and Professional Tasks of Interpreting B. Memory Topics

Unit 32 Modified homework due 9/29/04 Read the following articles: Vásquez pp The Interpreting Process pp General Issues pp Write one thought question for each article. Read again the article “The Problem with Interpreters: Communicating with Spanish-Speaking Patients” by Vásquez and Javier (text pp ). Write the answers to the questions on handout 3-6 from Unit 3 (9/22/04).

Unit 33 Unit 3 continued: Goals 1) Review: Definition of culture 2) Identify culture issues that impact communication (video) 3) Identify possible cultural conflicts in an interpreted encounter in a community setting 4) Identify some of the linguistic issues in finding appropriate equivalents in a cross-cultural medical encounter 5) Memory topics, memory enhancement techniques and exercises

Unit 34 The Bilingual Medical Interview II: The Geriatric Interview The scenes depict medical interviews by physicians with non-English speaking geriatric patients. Each of the segments is an edited version of a complete visit, including a history, physical exam and review of medicines.These vignettes are designed to highlight points of interest regarding geriatric clinical issues, cross- cultural concerns and techniques for the bilingual interview.

Unit 35 Cultural issues: a review As each scene is shown on the video dealing with geriatric medical interviews: a) circle the cultural areas of conflict observed b) briefly identify the specific conflict(s) demonstrated in each vignette c) How might/should the interpreter deal with each conflict?

Unit 36 Video: the geriatric interview Scene 1 House call: Mature daughter interprets for elderly Spanish- speaking mother who is a bilateral amputee with an unstable heart condition Age/status Gender Beliefs and values Verbal and non-verbal communication

Unit 37 Video: the geriatric interview Scene 2 hospital room: young nephew interprets for elderly Chinese uncle Age/status Gender Beliefs and values Verbal and non-verbal communication

Unit 38 Video: the geriatric interview Scene 3 house call: Hindi-speaking female nurse interprets for elderly female patient Age/status Gender Beliefs and values Verbal and non-verbal communication

Unit 39 Video: the geriatric interview Scene 4 Male physician + male interpreter pre-interview consultation interview with elderly Spanish- speaking male Age/status Gender Beliefs and values Verbal and non-verbal communication

Unit 310 Discussion of cultural issues: areas of potential conflict Handout 3-3 (group of 3-4): From his/her native culture perspective, each student will first identify at least one category in each of the four listed areas that may cause a conflict in a medical interview. Individually, please share with the group what those conflicts entail. Discuss how an interpreter might resolve each conflict.

Unit 311 Linguistic issues Group application activity 3-5 (from week 9/22) 1. Divide into groups of 3-4, preferably with individuals from at least two different cultures. 2. Answer the following questions on your handout based on the norms of your “native language” culture. Assuming a medical encounter in a doctor’s office, give one answer for each question. 3. How might any of these factors influence an interpreted encounter?

Unit 312 Linguistic Issues: discussion 1. Introductions (verbal and non- verbal) 2. Concept of time 3. Seating arrangements- spatial intimacy? 4. Appropriate vs. inappropriate questions and topics

Unit 313 Linguistic issues: discussion 5. What is said at the beginning of an interaction? 6. Addressing each other: first, last names, titles? 7. Who makes the decisions? 8. How to signal an encounter is over?

Unit 314 Linguistic issues: discussion 9. How formal or informal are people? 10. What is the polite way to interrupt? 11. How can age, status or gender affect an interaction? 12. How important is “saving face”?

Unit 315 Cognate comedy A TA was trying out her English, and said to a professor, "Excuse me, may I molest you for a moment?" We have 2 adopted children who were 11 and 13 when we adopted them in Costa Rica. One had a detention at school after he had been in the US for about 6 months - he kept telling other children that they shouldn't "piss" on the grass. (pisar = to step on)

Unit 316 How many of these items do you recall after 10 seconds? In English? In Spanish?

Memory Topics for Interpreters

Unit 318 Objectives The student should be able to: Review/identify the three stages involved in memory Describe the four phases of memory tasks Discuss general properties of memory Explain the Stroop Effect Apply techniques and mnemonic devices for memory enhancement in interpreting: Association Visualization Acronyms

Unit 319 Power of the human mind: The paomnnehil pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig eh?

Unit 320 Memory Flow Chart The flowchart for the theory of memory indicates that all incoming information first passes through Sensory Memory (SM) before it enters Short­Term Memory (STM). There it can be maintained by rehearsal and either successfully encoded for storage in Long­Term Memory (LTM) or forgotten. In retrieval, the information passes from LTM back to STM, where it enters our consciousness.

Unit 321 Three Stages of Memory

Unit 322 Types of Memory Short Term Memory - Where sensory data is first transmitted to for processing and evaluation - Aging impacts the depth of processing that occurs in STM, sending less to LTM

Unit 323 Types of Memory Long Term Memory - Where STM is encoded for long-term storage and future retrieval How quickly and reliably we recall it depends on:  Activation: How long since we last used the information.  Strength: How well we have practiced it. Archival Memory (a type of LTM) - Used in the ultra-long term storage of memories

Unit 324 Long Term Memory

Unit 325 Working Memory Why can we rehearse only limited information at a time? Rehearsal limitations are due to limits in how long it takes verbal material to decay, not how many items we can store. Hence, the faster we can rehearse, the more we can store (Baddeley, 1986).

Unit 326 Memory terms Memory is a complex mental function having four distinct phases: (1) encoding or learning (2) retention (3) recall/retrieval (4) recognition Clinically, it is usually subdivided into immediate, recent, and remote memory.

Unit 327 Retention The persistence to perform a learned behavior (facts or experiences) after an interval has elapsed in which there has been no performance or practice of the behavior.

Unit 328 Memory Theory Recognition vs. Recall Issues - Recognition - seeing something and knowing what it is - Recall - very construction oriented; requires making connections The process whereby a representation of past experience is elicited. - As we age, our recognition abilities get stronger while recall weakens - Recognition scenarios (like multiple choice exams) are better for older learners

Unit 329 Mnemonic 'Mnemonic' is another word for memory tool. Mnemonics are methods for remembering information that is otherwise quite difficult to recall. The basic principle of mnemonics is to use as many of the best functions of your brain as possible to store information.

Unit 330 Use Your Whole Mind To Remember By coding language and numbers in striking images, you can reliably code both information and the structure of information. You can then easily recall these later.

Unit 331 You can do the following things to make your mnemonics more memorable: Use positive, pleasant images. The brain often blocks out unpleasant ones. Use vivid, colorful, sense-laden images - these are easier to remember than drab ones. Use all your senses to code information or dress up an image. Remember that your mnemonic can contain sounds, smells, tastes, touch, movements and feelings as well as pictures.

Unit 332 Mnemonics continued... Give your image three dimensions, movement and space to make it more vivid. You can use movement either to maintain the flow of association, or to help you to remember actions. Exaggerate the size of important parts of the image Use humor! Funny or peculiar things are easier to remember than normal ones. Similarly rude rhymes are very difficult to forget! Symbols (red traffic lights, pointing fingers, road signs, etc.) can code quite complex messages quickly and effectively.

Unit 333

Unit 334 How does our memory work? We remember things by association. Every piece of information in our memory is connected to other pieces in some way or another. For example, if you are given the word "apple", what do you think of? Perhaps something like this: APPLE: red, round, sweet, teacher, tree, fruit But it's unlikely that we might see "apple" and think of "dog". And what if you were asked what the 7th letter of the alphabet was? Chances are, you wouldn't know that "G = 7," but you could easily think to yourself, "A B C D E F G," and then say "G". You used association to get to the letter G, because you knew A was the first letter, then you kept choosing the next letter in the sequence until you got to the right one.

Unit 335 Association If memory works by association, we actively work to create an association between two bits of information. For example, for the plane that we need to catch at 2 P.M., we can imagine the plane in our mind, and notice that it has 2 wings. Two wings, 2 P.M. There's an association by means of a visualization. We are now ten times more likely to remember the take- off time long after it has faded from our short-term memory.

Unit 336 Association When pieces of information are not obviously related in any way, however, we have to be a bit more creative in linking things together. But it isn't as hard as it seems. Most of us learned rhymes and acronyms in school that helped us remember things. Do any of the following look familiar to you? i before e except after c, or when sounded like a as in neighbor and weigh (rule for remembering ei or ie) ROY G. BIV (colors of the rainbow) All Cows Eat Grass; Every Good Boy Does Fine (notes of musical scale) Never Eat Sour Watermelons (directions on a compass)

Unit 337 Association exercise To demonstrate how effectively this works, look at the following list of words, and try to come up with an association between the left word and the right word of each row. Some will be easy; others may be harder. As an example, for the first pair, you might want to imagine a mouse that has a long, wavy tail that is in the shape of the letter S.

Unit 338 Association exercise mouse S fur R train bridge moat boat popcorn chair elephant pancake toothbrush canal umbrella triangle

Unit 339 Association exercise After you have formed the associations, cover up the right side of the list and then try to name the word associated with each word on the left. If you formed vivid, clear associations, you may be surprised at how quickly and easily you were able to remember everything!

Unit 340 Association exercise mouse fur train moat popcorn elephant toothbrush umbrella

Unit 341 Other properties of memory: Law of Recency: We are more likely to remember things that happened recently than those that happened a long time ago. You can probably remember what you had for dinner yesterday, but not what you ate for dinner two weeks ago today.

Unit 342 Law of Recency A list of 20 words will be read. Try to remember as many of the words as possible. Write down the words that you can remember immediately after reading the list.

Unit 343 List of words cat apple ball tree square head house door box car king hammer milk fish book tape arrow flower key shoe

Unit 344 Law of Recency... and Primacy This type of experiment provides evidence that there are 2 types of memory processes. It is thought that memory is good for the words read last because they are still in short term memory - this is the recency effect. Memory is good for the words read first because they made it into long term memory - this is the primacy effect.

Unit 345 Memory properties Law of Vividness: We tend to remember the most spectacular or striking impressions rather than those that are more ordinary. You can probably remember what you did on your last birthday, or perhaps the events of 9/11, but not what happened on the previous day of those occasions (unless, that too, was a "special" occasion).

Unit 346 Law of Vividness: We are much better at remembering pictures than we are at remembering words and names. There are probably biological and evolutionary reasons for that. When subjects are asked to recognize a small set of photos that they saw the previous day from a larger set, they typically recognize around 97%.

Unit 347 Concrete Words, Abstract Words and Nonsense The ability to recall a word depends on how meaningful the word is to a person. Along with the meaningfulness of a word, the "concreteness" of a word is important for memory. Concreteness refers to the ability of a word to form a mental image. A word with high concreteness is easy to "see"; a word with low concreteness (an "abstract" word) is difficult to visualize.

Unit 348 Concrete words Here are three lists of words: concrete words, abstract words and nonsense words. See which list is easier to memorize. You could also read these lists to other people to see how many words from each list they remember.

Unit 349 Concrete words alligator apple arrow baby bird book butterfly car corn flower hammer house lemon microscope ocean pencil rock shoes table window

Unit 350 Abstract words anger belief boredom chance concept effort fate freedom glory happiness honor hope idea interest knowledge mercy mood moral theory truth

Unit 351 Nonsense words ator botam crov difim firap glimoc gricul hilnim jolib kepwin lumal mib natpem peyrim rispaw stiwin tubiv vopec yapib

Unit 352 Memory properties Law of Frequency: We tend to remember things we experience the most often, rather than those we experience only once in a while. You are much more likely to remember your name or your phone number than the square root of 3 (unless you are a mathematician).

Unit 353 Short Term Memory Test Directions You are about do a small short term memory test. A few letters will flash on your computer monitor for 3 seconds. Your job is to write down as many letters as you can remember after they disappear

Unit 354 U M

Unit 355 T Z L D

Unit 356 K X C E J O

Unit 357 A V C Y I S E H

Unit 358 L B F Q R P M A U X

Unit 359 Z Q ETC BUM ON RV

Unit 360 STM exercise How did you do? Compare your results with the table on your page. How many letters from each trial did you remember? Is there a "pattern" to the letters that you remembered? For example, did you remember the first few letters better than the middle letters? Did you remember the last letters?

Unit 361 STM exercise Trial#lettersTotal lettersYour # 1 2UM 2 4TZLD 3 6KXCEJO 4 8AVCYISEH 5 10LBFQRPMAUX 6 12ZQETCBUMONRV

Unit 362 Short Term Memory Test - Pictures Draw a 4x4 grid of boxes. Look at the objects that you should remember. The objects will stay on your screen for 30 seconds. Then write down the names of all the items you remember inside the appropriate boxes.

Unit 363 Here are the pictures...

Unit 364 Picture test How many objects did you remember? Were the objects that you remembered also placed correctly on the grid? What categories of objects did you remember: animals, food, building, animated objects, piano

Unit 365 Interference: The Stroop Effect Don't read the words on the right--just say the colors they're printed in, and do this aloud as fast as you can.You're in for a surprise! red yellow green blue red blue yellow green blue red

Unit 366 The famous "Stroop Effect" is named after J. Ridley Stroop who discovered this strange phenomenon in the 1930’s. If you're like most people, your first inclination was to read the words, 'red, yellow, green...,' rather than the colors they're printed in, 'blue, green, red...' You've just experienced interference. When you look at one of the words, you see both its color and its meaning. If those two pieces of evidence are in conflict, you have to make a choice. Because experience has taught you that word meaning is more important than ink color, interference occurs when you try to pay attention only to the ink color.

Unit 367 Forgetting: Gone, or Inaccessible? Do we forget because the information is gone, or do we forget because we can't access information that is still there? It is difficult to distinguish the two. However, there is evidence that we retain more than we can retrieve.

Unit 368 How to Improve Your Memory There are many things you can do to improve your memory, among them the use of certain mental techniques, as well as special care with nutrition and medicines.

Unit 369 To stimulate memory Use your memory to the utmost. Challenge a novelty. Learn new skills. If you work in an office, learn to dance. If you are a dancer, learn to deal with a computer; if you work with sales, learn to play chess; if you are a programmer, learn to paint. This could stimulate your brain's neural circuits to grow.

Unit 370 Pay attention Don't try to memorize all the facts that happen, but focus your attention and concentrate in what you consider more important, avoiding all other thoughts. Exercise: take any object, such as a pen, and concentrate on it. Think on its various characteristics: its material, its function, its color, its anatomy, etc. Don't allow any other thought to occupy your mind while you are concentrating on that pen.

Unit 371 Relax It is impossible to pay attention if you are tense or nervous. Exercise: hold your breath for ten seconds, then release it slowly.

Unit 372 Associate facts to images Learn mnemonic techniques. They are a very efficient way to memorize large quantities of information.mnemonic techniques Visualize images: See figures with the "eyes of your mind".

Unit 373 Foods Some vitamins are essential for the proper working of memory: thiamin, folic acid, and B 12 vitamin found in bread and cereal, vegetables and fruits.

Unit 374 Water Water helps maintain the memory systems working, specially in older persons. According to Doctor Turkington, lack of water in the body has an immediate and deep effect on memory; dehydration can generate confusion and other thought difficulties.

Unit 375 Sleep To be able to have a good memory, it is essential that we allow the brain to have enough sleep and rest. While sleeping, the brain disconnects from the senses, and proceeds to revising and storing memory. Insomnia would produce a chronic fatigue and would impair the ability of concentration and the storing of information.

Unit 376 Medication Some medicines can cause loss of memory: tranquilizers, muscular relaxants, sleeping pills, and anti- anxiety drugs, such as valium. Some medicine for the control of high blood pressure (hypertension) may cause memory problems and depression.

Unit 377 Alcohol Alcohol interferes specially with short-term memory, which impairs the ability of retaining new information. Studies have shown that even the ingestion of low quantities of alcoholic beverage during one whole week will interfere with the ability of remembering.

Unit 378 Smoking Studies have shown that, when compared with non-smokers, individual smokers of one or more packs of cigarettes a day had difficulties remembering people's faces and names in a test of visual and verbal memory (Turkington, 1996).Turkington, 1996

Unit 379 Caffeine Coffee and tea have a very positive effect to maintain attention and to end sleepiness, but the excitation promoted by these drinks may interfere with the memory function.

Unit 380 Practice Practice improves memory, but how you practice also affects it. The same amounts of practice, but distributed in the one case and massed in the other, lead to different outcomes. Distributed practice is when practice is spread out over time. For example, you may study a total of 12 hours for a test but you did so over 6 days. Massed practice is when practice is done all at once. For example, you study 12 hours the night before the test. Many studies have confirmed that the first strategy is the better one. Subjects remember more and for longer periods of time when they distribute their practice.

Unit 381 Over-learning Over-learning is when practice is continued beyond the criterion of one error-free trial. Actors over-learn their lines. They will rehearse far beyond the time necessary for the criterion above. In the military, drills constitute over-learning. In all of the cases above, over-learning helps to negate the negative effects of stress on memory. Over-learned items can be recalled under higher levels of stress than can items that were not over-learned.

Unit 382 How many of these associations do you recall now? mouse fur train moat popcorn elephant toothbrush umbrella

In conclusion... For the most part, memory does a magnificent job for us. Every time you spell a word, drive a car or pick up a telephone and recognize your mother's voice, it's a wonder.

Unit 384 Quiz preparation Date: October 6 Length: min. Points: 50 total Content: definition of terms (2 pts. each) short essay answers (3-10 pts. each)

Unit 385 Expectations for the quiz: Definition of terms plus the following essay topics: Why is literal translation or interpreting usually meaningless? Why should the interpreter speak in the first person (“I”) while interpreting? What are the roles of the interpreter? Define culture and explain why the interpreter should be knowledgeable of both cultures. Contrast and/or compare translating and interpreting in 4 ways. What knowledge, skills and qualities does a competent interpreter need to have? Explain the phenomenon of transference in the interview.

Unit 386 Assignments due on 10/6/04 Quiz (50 pts) Write one thought question for each article from the text: Codespp. 1-4, 5-13 Rulespp NAJITpp

Unit 387 Until next Wednesday...