Professional interpreters’ note taking in consecutive interpreting

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER PROFESSIONAL INTERPRETERS’ NOTE-TAKING IN CONSECUTIVE INTERPRETING Supervisor: Nguyen Ninh Bac, MA Student: Duong Thi Thu Huong Year of enrolment: QH.2009.F1.E24 Hanoi, May 2013 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA TIẾNG ANH SƯ PHẠM KHOÁ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP TỐC KÝ CỦA PHIÊN DỊCH VIÊN CHUYÊN NGHIỆP TRONG DỊCH KẾ TIẾP Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Thạc sĩ Nguyễn Ninh Bắc Sinh viên: Dương Thị Thu Hương Khoá: QH.2009.F1.E24 HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2013 I hereby state that I: Duong Thi Thu Huong from group 09E24, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarians for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper Duong Thi Thu Huong Hanoi, 4th May 2013 ACKNOWLEGEMENTS In the completion of this paper, I owe my appreciation to many people My first and foremost thank goes to my supervisor and dedicated teacher for the last two years, Mr Nguyen Ninh Bac, for his enthusiastic support, valuable guidance and research advice Besides, I would like to send my gratitude to our teachers at Translation Division – FELTE, ULIS for building up in me thorough background knowledge in interpreting and inspiring me to carrying out this research My sincere thanks are saved for Mr Lam Quang Dong and Mr Lam Minh Chau for providing me their notes and audio – useful material for my research I would like to express my deepest thankfulness to Ms Nguyen Thi Cam Linh and Ms Ngo Ha Thu for providing me with priceless suggestions and advice in interpreting and note-taking skills through the interview I am also grateful to the friendly librarians of ULIS for providing me interesting reference material After all, my special thanks are for my family - my parents, brothers and sisters – who have always encouraged me I want to say thanks to my classmates, my friends for being by my side during the whole process of conducting this study Without them, never could I win this challenge i ABSTRACT Note-taking has proved itself to be important in consecutive interpreting training However, this skill presents serious challenges for interpreting students which explained clearly in empirical researches Therefore, to offer suggestions for students to solve their problems, the study sought to investigate strategies of professional interpreting through analyzing their notes and audio in consecutive interpreting Analysis of data, previously collected and classified, indicated that each interpreter used different note-taking strategies which depended on his background knowledge, his memory capacity and interpreting conditions Based on practical interpreting experience, note-taking was regarded as a supporting technique to help consecutive interpreters retrieve part of information of the source text and relieve strains on the memory To fulfill this function, notes of interpreters should be as clear and brief as possible It was important to emphasize that notetaking was not governed by any single rules It was highly personal Moreover, interviews with professional interpreters provided valuable advice for students to improve their note-taking skills The study was expected to support individuals who were interested in this topic and interpreting student at the University of Languages and International Studies in their interpreting training For further study, it would be better if note-taking is examined together with other related skills and techniques in a larger scale of subjects ii Table of Contents Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the research 1.2 Research aims and research questions 1.3 Significance of the research Chapter 2: LITERRATURE REVIEW 2.1 Interpreting 2.1.1 Definition 2.1.2 Types of interpreting 2.2 Note-taking in consecutive interpreting 2.2.1 Note-taking and memory 2.2.2 Form of notes 2.2.3 Language of notes 17 2.2.4 Contents of notes 18 Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 22 3.1 Selection of subjects 22 3.2 Data collection instruments 22 3.3 Data collection procedures 23 Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 25 4.1 Interpreters‟ choice of forms for their notes (language vs symbols) 25 iii 4.2 Language to note 30 4.3 Contents of notes 32 4.4 Implications for note-taking in training interpreting students 34 4.4.1 Relation of note-taking, active listening and short-term memory capacity 34 4.4.2 Individuality in the choice of note-taking form and contents 35 4.4.3 Time to note 37 4.4.4 Language to note 37 4.4.5 Preparation skills 38 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 39 5.1 Summary of key findings 39 5.2 Limitations 40 5.3 Suggestions for further studies 41 REFERENCES 42 APPENDIXES 44 Appendix 1: TRANSCRIPTION OF INTERPRETER 44 Appendix 2: TRANSCRIPTION OF INTERPRETER 55 Appendix 3: TRANSCRIPTION OF INTERPRETER 58 Appendix 4: TRANSCRIPTION OF INTERVIEW WITH INTERPRETER 60 Appendix 5: TRANSCRIPTION OF INTERVIEW WITH INTERPRETER 65 iv Appendix 6: NOTES OF PROFESSIONAL INTERPRETERS 70 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1: List of Commonly Used Abbreviations 11 Table 2: List of Names of Vietnamese Agencies and Offices in Acronyms 12 Table 3: List of Names of Countries in Abbreviations and Acronyms 14 Table 4: List of Commonly Used Symbols 15 Table 5: Symbols or abbreviations for the links 20 Table 6: Distribution of interpreters‟ notes over the categories of note forms 25 Table 7: List of Abbreviations used by interpreters 28 Table 8: List of Acronyms used by interpreters 29 Table 9: Distribution of interpreters‟ notes over contents of notes 33 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: The distribution of interpreters‟ notes over language 31 vi Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the research Interpreting, as a factor promoting trade and travel between countries and regions, has become a vital service in communications Thanks to interpreters, participants at international conferences and meetings could express their ideas and get opinions of other people without difficulties due to the language gap The matter of training competent interpreters gains the concern of many countries in the world through studies, interpreting courses and training programs However, it seems to be a novel concept in Vietnam and draws little attention of its experts and scholars To be qualified enough for this demanding and challenging job, professional interpreters have to master quite a few skills and techniques Among a variety of skills, note-taking plays an important role in the successful performance of interpreters Note-taking, closely related to interpreting training, has been considered as an essential skill for consecutive interpreting Note-taking supports memory efficiency and facilitates interpreting process Developing an accurate and workable system of note-taking is essential to become skilled consecutive interpreters Although there were some graduation papers of previous researchers studying the topic of note-taking, they only gave the general knowledge about notetaking, the significant role of this skill in student‟s performance and their notetaking problems working in a certain subject for a long time for example in finance or banking They are very fluent and knowledgeable in that field I have seen some interpreters not their notes Besides, it would be the case that they have known the speaker for a long time and they know the way the speaker will deliver the speech, or the method, or the issue talked in the speaker‟s speech They can follow the speaker very well without using notes INTEERVIEWER: Yes Another important factor that affects the quality of notes is the language INTERVIEWEE 1: Accent you mean? INTEERVIEWER: I mean the source language and the target language, because some interpreters prefer to use their mother-tongue language in their notes What is the language the interpreter should use in their note? Or maybe they should combine them? INTERVIEWEE 1: Yes I think they may combine because for my experience, I combine both the source language and the target language When the interpreters take notes, they try to write down as effectively as possible I mean we have to keep it short and simple; we cannot have lots of time to note down many words Many phrases in Vietnamese are shorter than in English In that case you should note what come to your mind first For example if the speaker is a Vietnamese and he has a phrase “ ộ ao động Thương binh Xã hội” It could be a quite long ut you note down it as an abbreviation in English as MOLISA It is possible If the speaker is Vietnamese, the source language is Vietnamese, the interpreter can note and vice versa In the case of “non-performing loans”, it could be noted as “nợ xấu” in Vietnamese If you note down it as “nợ xấu” is possible INTEERVIEWER: Can you suggest some other tips for students to improve their notetaking skill? INTERVIEWEE 1: They should be more active I mean when they listen to the speaker, they should analyze the information, and try to anticipate the information that perhaps is spoken It is difficult, if the students put themselves under pressure Sorry I have not had that idea enough The interpreter should never wait They could be passive in the way that they note down information, and they interpret from their note but they not understand So it is not active The active means that you listen to information and you analyze information in your mind Then, you transfer it from into the other language That is the 63 way I think about active listening So from my observation, a lot of students just note down the words, and they interpret from the notes not from the brain You see, so they not understand the message It is not good for interpreting It‟s not human work INTEERVIEWER: Thank you very much INTEERVIEWEE 1: Hope it help 64 Appendix 5: TRANSCRIPTION OF INTERVIEW WITH INTERPRETER NTEERVIEWER: Thank you for taking part in my interview I am doing the research on “Professional interpreters‟ note-taking in consecutive interpreting” I have some questions for you to help students improve their note-taking skill First of all, what you think about the role of note taking in consecutive interpreting? INTERVIEWEE 2: Note taking in consecutive interpreting, technically, is very important, especially when you have to interpret for speakers who are fond of speaking in long sentences, long speeches, you cannot memorize it all at once So you have to take note, and then you produce your translation But if with speakers that tend to speak in a shorter chunk of information, you can remember at once Note-taking is not that important But generally, it plays a very important role for consecutive interpreting It depends on theme, topics as well And it depend on Memory capacity of interpreter as well because once I have been told that some interpreters can memorize quite well without any kind of notetaking, they can still produce their translation quite fluently because they have good memory With other interpreter, for example some just memorize 5-10 sentences for a time, so they have to take note And it depends on the types of information as well If the speech contains a lot of numbers, figures and proper names, all source of information that you‟ve ready known from lesson relating to note-taking So you cannot memorize everything so you have to note down the thing that you tend to forget INTEERVIEWER: Tend to forget? INTERVIEWEE 2: Right Who knows If suddenly, that is the bad day of your, you cannot remember anything, Health condition not good as usual Normally, you have good memory, but due to lack of sleep of previous night when you‟re performing your interpretation, you cannot remember as well as usual So it depends on speakers, types of information, memory capacity of interpreters, right Yeah, internal and external factors, a lot of things ut it‟s still very important INTERVIEWER: What you think about knowledge of interpreters about the topic they interpret? Does it also affect the quality of their note-taking? INTERVIEWEE 2: For sure, the background of interpreters, it can affect every aspect of their jobs not only in note-taking skill but also in their performance generally because you 65 can hardly to take notes or remember if you know little about something For example, with familiar topics, you not need to take notes as much as strange topics With strange topic, you have little information about that topic, for example, for me I know little about finance and banking If I have to interpret for a conference in finance and banking, I would be very stressful and I would pay more attention to new words, tense psychologically very, you tend to take note so many things because it is quite difficult to you to predict information, anticipate information So you have to take notes a lot to get information, to understand what the speaker wants to say But for example, you know a lot of information related to education; know about that project, that they are conducting during the conference So you have already everything in your mind So you not have to memorize so much information happening during the conference so you will take less note, but you still produce quite good translation If you know more, you would take less note INTERVIEWER: Students tend to note very much but they cannot translate from or read back their notes Can you suggest some ways to choose information from what speaker said to note? INTERVIEWEE 2: Actually the answer is skill The problem I think students always face when they their note-taking is that they note everything that they hear from the passage And as I told you earlier when you encounter a strange topic, with a lot of new words, you tend to take note the new words so you forget that when you take note, you should take note of the message not the words But because there is a dilemma of English learners, you are prone to catch new words When you hear some kinds of new words, strange words we tend to memorize it rather than listen to the whole message Sometimes, it‟s my situation as well People or students tend to take note of everything that they hear, new words as well The result is that they have a piece of paper full of words but those words are sentences So they cannot make sense They can‟t understand what kind of message through those separate words The skill I think is important is that they have to bear in their mind that they take note of the message not the words They only take note what they cannot remember INTERVIEWER: It‟s non-contextualized information INTERVIEWEE 2: Non-contextualized information? 66 INTERVIEWER: Yeah, it is like numbers, figures, list of things INTERVIEWEE 2: No, it depends on memory capacity Normally, most people cannot remember figures and numbers but some people are good at numbers, but they find it difficult to memorize things like terminology or they cannot remember proper So it depends on different people What they cannot remember For example, you can memorize numbers very well, so you not know numbers For me, it is very necessary for me to take notes number because I‟m very bad at memorizing numbers That the key point and it varies among interpreters, students And sometimes you have to take note of the message, the notes of the interpreter does not contain much words and information Sometimes, you just find some kinds of bullet of points, some sorts of signs, abbreviations They just mark down and try to keep track of their memory and the information they‟re listening to INTERVIEWER: What is the best time for students to note? INTERVIEWEE 2: When you start noting, right? INTERVIEWER: Yeah INTERVIEWEE 2: You should not take notes as soon as the speaker starts speaking because they haven‟t formed any kind of meaning or message When translating you your weaknesses, it comes to the thing that we know that you cannot remember, you take notes and when you find that the speaker starts talking about meaningful things, start to deliver a certain message, you start your note It is quite abstract and difficult for you to image Based on my own experience, I find it difficult to memorize figures and numbers, so for example when the speaker starts talking about the history of his company and he started saying like in 1994, we started our company with some types of partners, for example I started taking my note “1994” because I know that year - that number would slip out of my brain later ut then I didn‟t take note “we” and „started our company”, I just note the name of the partner It will take student‟s time to practice and choose when start I hope that example will illustrate my point Start with the thing that you cannot remember and start when you find the message INTERVIEWER: Do you think the form of the note affect the quality of the interpreting? INTERVIEWEE 2: The form? 67 INTERVIEWER: Yes, the layout INTERVIEWEE 2: Should it go vertical? INTERVIEWER: Do you think it affect the quality of notes? INTERVIEWEE 2: Not much based on my experience But, the important thing is that you should take only short notes And Try to make it suit your requirement, suit yourself You not have to anyone‟s rules You create your rules as long as you‟re comfortable because anyway theory is theory It‟s a big gap from the theory to practice You cannot force yourself to note vertically when you‟re under pressure, time pressure and a lot of people looking at you at that time as long as you can understand your message, your notes It‟s ok I myself, when I started my interpreting jobs, I spent quite a lot of notebooks Sometimes each section costs me a note-book I wrote big letters Sometimes, one sentence cost me or pages because I wrote too big letters and very quick So I keep turning, turning, turning It is not good example for anyone to follow As long as it helped you at that time, it‟s ok, totally ok So you not follow anyone INTERVIEWER: The last question is about the language of the notes Some interpreters prefer their mother-tongue language in their notes Which language you often you in your notes INTERVIEWEE 2: Kind of combination, Vietnamese and English and sometimes Chinese characters as well INTERVIEWER: The third language, right? INTERVIEWEE 2: It takes less time to produce my note What I want to emphasize here is that you don‟t have to force yourself to take notes in the target language because I know that, in some kinds of guide books for interpreters, they encouraged the interpreter to take notes, for example in English if you have to translate from Vietnamese to English It‟s totally ok for you to take note in just Vietnamese I mean you can take note in whatever language that you find it is comfortable and helps you understand the massage and memorize the message correctly As long as you look back your notes, you can understand what you note so far It just suits yourself 68 INTERVIEWER: Can you give me other tips for students to improve their note-taking skills? INTERVIEWEE 2: Uhm I think the important thing, I mean, skills are inter-related If you want to take notes well, your listening comprehension must be good If you want to listen well, you have to understand the way the language being spoken For example, in English, they have word stress, sentence stress They have intonation and sorts of rhythm, you know many features You have to understand the mechanism or the way that language is spoken, the way that language works So you can improve your listening comprehension skill When you can understand, when you listen well, you will know what kind of message that the speaker want to deliver Then you take notes One of most difficulties faces students is their listening comprehension skill They tend to listen to every word in a sentence When they fail to so, they feel like they cannot understand the sentence Meanwhile, if they know that the sentence has stress, or they pronounce the word correctly, they can get the meaning from the key words I think that it is not the tips It is recommendations and advices that students have to improve their listening skill, listening comprehension, focus more on communicative aspect of the language So you have to listen to understand, not to exercises, not to get good marks in examinations That‟s the difference between a learner and an interpreter earners tend to focus more on new words but interpreters tend to focus more on global meaning of the sentence So you have to learn how to skip new word to understand the whole message That‟s the difference It‟s quite difficult for English learners as I told you earlier When you are an English learner, you want to learn new things Oh, this structure is very nice; this word is very strange I never heard about it ut when you‟re an interpreter, you have to understand You have to forget new things, focus more on general ideas so that you can explain for other people That the difference Once students can figure and understand that difference, they will have right strategy to listen to the passage that they have to interpret They will know how to take notes correctly INTERVIEWER: Thank you very much INTERVIEWEE 2: OK Hope that it will help you somehow 69 Appendix 6: NOTES OF PROFESSIONAL INTERPRETERS 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 ... disaster Consecutive interpreting is typically used for press conferences, afterdinner speeches and similar occasions 2.2 Note- taking in consecutive interpreting 2.2.1 Note- taking and memory Taking notes... REVIEW 2.1 Interpreting 2.1.1 Definition 2.1.2 Types of interpreting 2.2 Note- taking in consecutive interpreting 2.2.1 Note- taking and memory ... for note- taking in training interpreting students 34 4.4.1 Relation of note- taking, active listening and short-term memory capacity 34 4.4.2 Individuality in the choice of note- taking