1. An Investigation of Interpreting Strategies When Overlapping Dialogue Occurs in the English Source
By: Abby Jackson INT 492
Spring 2016
Introduction
Results/Analysis
Context
# of Strategy Type/ People Phrase Omitted Talking (if any)
Additional Notes
Rapid turn-taking 2
Omission “Thank you”
Non-imperative utterance dropped
Sidebar 2
conversation
happening right next to the interpreter as someone else is addressing the room.
Omission “That’s Pretty”
Non-imperative and unrelated to what is being addressed to the class
Highlighting a 4-5
specific employee as
the winner of an award, comments are made about the employee by multiple people around the room at the same time.
Omission “Thank you” x2 Other comments (inaudible)
All other audible and pertinent info is interpreted accurately.
Trying to connect with someone via video conferencin 3 g.
Summary
TRY AGAIN is
interpreted for “I can try to see if I can get him”. A bit of a delay on that interpretation (from the time the English is produced to the time the ASL interpretation was made).
Main presenter 2
speaking, man next
to her adding in a comment reaffirming what she is saying
Interpret all
None
Participant asks 2
question to
presenter, presenter gives a brief response to one part of the question.
Omission
“Not necessarily”
Talking about a 4-5
clarification of a
specific “form” used, lots of people interjecting which form it is
Omission (all except for main presenter’s utterances)
Interpreter doesn’t show that any other ideas were being suggested (form 48, form 58).
Discussion/Conclusions
My interest was sparked in this topic during my senior internship because I worked with an agency that holds many government contracts which exposed me to many staff meetings and other group setting scenarios.
Overlapping Dialogue occurs often in interpreted interactions and creates a challenging scenario in which interpreters must make decisions and use strategies.
By observing video data, I hoped to find out what types of strategies are available and how many of each are used.
Overlapping dialogue is natural in human language and occurs often.
The data collected using the source video show that when overlapping dialogue occurs, interpreters decide to use the “omission” strategy more than the other strategies (71%).
The “omissions” were insignificant to the message and meaning, but that only applies to this video.
Limitations
Very limited video data
No live staff meetings or other data that would require IRB approval
Only two interpreters
Only 7 instances of overlapping dialogue to analyze (small sampling)
Lit Review
Dean & Pollard “Demand-Control Schema” for how interpreters identify and categorize demands (2001).
Daniel Gile’s “Effort Model” to identify the cognitive process and how much mental energy interpreting requires (1995).
Lorraine Leeson’s discussion about “strategic omissions” and “paraphrasing” (2005).
Recommendations
More video data with group settings/interactions
More research about each of the strategies
Qualitative data from the interpreters about the strategies they decided to use when overlapping dialogue occurs and why.
Data Collection
Video source: one video from NCIEC website
Group setting “Interpreting a VR Staff Meeting”
Two interpreters seen in the video.
When overlapping dialogue was present, collected time codes, how many people were talking, strategy used, and notes.
Strategy categories: omission, summary, interpret all, or clarify.
References:
Dean, R. & Pollard, R. (2001). “Application of demand-control theory to sign language interpreting: implications for stress and interpreter training”. Journal of deaf studies and deaf education 6:1. University of Rochester.
Gile, D. (1995). “The effort models in interpretation”. In Gile, Basic concepts and models for interpreter and translator training (pp ). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Leeson, L. (2005) “Making the effort in simultaneous interpreting”. In Terry Janzen (Ed.).
Topics in signed language interpreting (pp.51-68). Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
NCIEC. (n.d.). “A VR staff meeting”. Retrieved from:
a-vr-staff-meeting/ `