UNIVERZA V MARIBORU

FILOZOFSKA FAKULTETA

Oddelek za prevodoslovje

DIPLOMSKO DELO

MOJCA BENKOVIČ

Maribor, 2012

UNIVERZA V MARIBORU

FILOZOFSKA FAKULTETA

Oddelek za prevodoslovje

Diplomsko delo

SAMOPOPRAVKI PRI SIMULTANEM TOLMAČENJU

Graduation Thesis

AUTO-CORRECTION IN SIMULTANEOUS INTERPRETING

Mentor: Candidate:

doc. dr. Klementina Jurančič-Petek Mojca Benkovič

Maribor, 2012

Lektorica slovenskega povzetka: Nina Peterka, prof. slovenščine

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my mentor, doc. dr. Klementina

Jurančič-Petek, for all her help, support, guidance and time spent on this diploma

thesis. I would also like to thank assistant dr. Simon Zupan for his non-selfish help

with the recordings.

A special appreciation goes to all my loved ones who have supported me

throughout my studies and guided me with their wisdom, each of them in their

own special way.

I would not be where I am today without you.

IZJAVA

Podpisana Mojca Benkovič, rojena 22. 7. 1988, študentka Filozofske fakultete

Univerze v Mariboru, smer Prevajanje in tolmačenje ‒ angleščina in slovenski

jezik s književnostjo, izjavljam, da je diplomsko delo z naslovom Auto-correction

in Simultaneous Interpreting pri mentorici doc. dr. Klementini Jurančič-Petek,

avtorsko delo.

V diplomskem delu so uporabljeni viri in literatura korektno navedeni; teksti niso

prepisani brez navedbe avtorjev.

__________________________________

(podpis študentke)

Kraj: Beltinci

Datum: 2. 5. 2012

ABSTRACT

This diploma paper, entitled Auto-correction in Simultaneous Interpreting,

consists of two main parts; the theoretical and the empirical part. The theoretical

part introduces the given problem, and focuses on the first language acquisition,

as well as on the psychological processes that occur in the human mind when

language is created, and how it deals with simultaneous perception and

production. This is then followed by the explanation of the second language

acquisition. We further focus on the theoretical explanation of interpreting, with

special emphasis on simultaneous interpreting, where we explain the specifics and

the main problems of simultaneous interpreting. This is followed by the

theoretical definition and the distinction between mistakes and errors as S. P.

Corder sees it.

The second part focuses on the empirical research which was conducted in order

to determine which types of errors occur with the students of simultaneous

interpreting. These errors were analysed with the help of sound recordings, and

are further outpointed at different levels, such as grammar, syntax, phonetics and

lexis. We also try to distinguish between errors and mistakes. The data collected

are presented and discussed at the end of the diploma paper.

The diploma paper was written in order to discover and describe different types of

errors that the second language learners make, which strategies they use in

correcting themselves, and how successful they are in doing it.

Key words: language, first language acquisition, second language acquisition,

simultaneous interpreting, errors, mistakes

POVZETEK

Diplomsko delo z naslovom Samopopravki pri simultanem tolmačenju je

sestavljeno iz dveh delov, in sicer iz teoretičnega in empiričnega dela. Teoretični

del predstavlja uvod v problematiko, zato se najprej osredotoča na pridobivanje

maternega jezika in psihološke procese, ki so povezani z ustvarjanjem jezika,

zanimalo pa nas je tudi, kako se um spopada z istočasno percepcijo in produkcijo

jezika. Sledi opis pridobivanja tujega jezika, nato teoretična razlaga tolmačenja, s

poudarkom na simultanem tolmačenju, kjer opredelimo tudi specifike in glavne

probleme simultanega tolmačenja. Sledi teoretična definicija in razdelitev napak,

ki je povzeta po S. P. Corderju.

Drugi del zajema empirično raziskavo, kjer nas zanimajo napake, ki se pojavljajo

pri študentih simultanega tolmačenja. Napake smo preučili s pomočjo zvočnih

posnetkov, in sicer na ravni slovnice in skladnje, kakor tudi na glasoslovni in

leksikalni ravni. Prav tako smo skušali razlikovati med napakami v kompetenci in

performanci. Ob koncu analize so zapisani izsledki in ugotovitve naše raziskave.

Diplomsko delo je nastalo z namenom ugotoviti in preučiti vrste napak tistega, ki

se uči tujega jezika, katere strategije uporablja pri popravljanju svojih napak in

koliko je sposoben svoje napake popraviti.

Ključne besede: jezik, pridobivanje maternega jezika, pridobivanje tujega jezika,

simultano tolmačenje, napake v performanci, napake v kompetenci

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1

2 HOW THE MIND WORKS ................................................................................ 2

2.1 The Mind Is the Language Organ ................................................................. 2

2.1.2 Speech Perception and Speech Production ............................................ 4

2.2 What Is Language? ........................................................................................ 6

2.3 Language and Interpretation ......................................................................... 7

3 ERRORS AND MISTAKES IN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION ........................ 8

3.1 First Language Acquisition ........................................................................... 8

3.2 Second Language Acquisition..................................................................... 10

4 INTERPRETING ............................................................................................... 13

4.1 Simultaneous Interpreting ........................................................................... 15

4.1.1 Specifics of Simultaneous Interpreting ................................................ 16

4.1.2 Problems in Simultaneous Interpreting ................................................ 20

5 LEARNER’S MISTAKES AND ERRORS ...................................................... 26

5.1 Mistakes ...................................................................................................... 28

5.2 Errors ........................................................................................................... 29

5.3 Error Analysis (EA) .................................................................................... 30

6 ERROR CORRECTION .................................................................................... 36

6.1 Auto-Correction .......................................................................................... 37

6.2 Learner as the Source of Feedback ............................................................. 38

7 EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ................................................................................ 40

7.1 The Purpose of the Research ....................................................................... 40

7.2 Research Questions and Hypotheses ........................................................... 40

7.3 Research Methodology................................................................................ 41

ii

7.3.1 Research Methods ................................................................................ 41

7.3.2 Research Sample .................................................................................. 42

7.3.3 The Data-Collecting Procedure ............................................................ 43

7.4 Results and Interpretation ........................................................................... 43

7.4.1 Errors in Grammar ............................................................................... 44

7.4.2 Errors in Syntax ................................................................................... 49

7.4.3 Errors in Phonetics ............................................................................... 52

7.4.4 Errors in lexis ....................................................................................... 57

7.4.5 Mistakes and Auto-Correction ............................................................. 62

7.5 Discussion ................................................................................................... 68

8 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 71

REFERENCES ...................................................................................................... 73

APPENDIX

iii

TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Broca's Area, Wernicke's Area and the Arcuate Fasciculus .................... 3

Figure 2: Speaker-Listener Relations ...................................................................... 5

TABLE OF GRAPHS

Graph 1: Auto-Correction of Mistakes ................................................................. 65

Graph 2: Errors vs. Mistakes ................................................................................. 66

TABLE OF TABLES

Table 1: Errors in Grammar .................................................................................. 45

Table 2: Errors in Tenses ...................................................................................... 47

Table 3: Errors in the Use of Double Negative ..................................................... 48

Table 4: Errors in Syntax ...................................................................................... 49

Table 5: Errors in Word Order .............................................................................. 50

Table 6: IPA Table ................................................................................................ 53

Table 7: Errors in Phonetics .................................................................................. 55

Table 8: Errors in Lexis......................................................................................... 59

Table 9: Auto-Correction in Simultaneous Interpreting ....................................... 64

1

1 INTRODUCTION

Globalisation has changed the world by enabling people, cultures, and economies

to become more connected than ever before. In today’s society, there is a constant

need for communication. Communication is a process that enables people to

interact with each other; however, this is not always easy. In order to overcome

language difficulties, countries and nations all over the world need translators and

interpreters to overcome those difficulties. Simultaneous interpreters are

especially needed at multilingual conferences, meetings, and similar occasions.

Simultaneous interpreting, in one way or another, has been a part of overcoming

language barriers for as long as humans can remember; however, just because it

has been around for a long time, that does not mean it has gotten any easier.

Simultaneous interpreting is a difficult task, and with difficult tasks, extensive

training is needed in order for one to be successful at it. Like in any type of

learning, errors and corrections are also a part of simultaneous interpreting. This is

why this diploma thesis focuses on errors and auto-correction in simultaneous

interpreting.

The diploma thesis is divided into two main parts; the theoretical part and the

empirical part. The theoretical part focuses on the amazing importance of the

human brain in language processing, and how speech perception and production is

important in simultaneous interpreting. It also presents different views on the first

and second language acquisition, how they are connected, and what their role in

error and mistake making is. Simultaneous interpreting is then defined, and

specifics and problems are outpointed. The empirical part focuses on the study of

auto-correction in simultaneous interpreting. We were interested in which types of

errors and mistakes occur with students of simultaneous interpreting, and how

successful the students are in self-correction. At the end, results and the

interpretation of the research are presented.

2

2 HOW THE MIND WORKS

In this chapter, we explain how the mind works and how understanding of such

notion is important for simultaneous interpreting. We turn to neurolinguistic

science for answers to such questions. We try to establish that there is an

important connection between the human brain, and language perception and

production. Only when we understand how language is produced, we are also able

to comprehend why sometimes our brain ‘plays tricks on us’ and why we make

mistakes and errors.

Language is one of the strongest ways to communicate, and in order to understand

how language is created, we must ‘take a look’ into the human mind. If we can

successfully explain how the mind works, we can get a better understanding of

how a person is able to create language and is thus able to communicate. We

explain that language creation starts with the human brain, so it can be simply said

that the mind is ‘the language organ’.

2.1 The Mind Is the Language Organ

George Yule in The Study of Language (1996) explains the way the brain

produces language, and which parts of the brain actually affect the human

language ability. In order to provide a more specific answer to this sort of

question, we have to turn to neurolinguistic science, which is a study of the

relationship between the brain and language. Neurolinguistic science has

contributed a great deal to the understanding of how the human mind works, and

this was done by studying the brains of people who were known to have specific

language disabilities. They discovered that these people had damage to specific

areas of the brain, so the scientists further researched these specific areas. People

with speech production problems had damage in the speech cortex which is

known as the Broca’s area, those with comprehension difficulties had damage in

the Wernicke’s area, and the crucial connection between these two areas is the

3

arcuate fasciculus. The latter is a large bundle of nerve fibres that connects the

two areas.

Figure 1: Broca's Area, Wernicke's Area and the Arcuate Fasciculus1

Figure 1 shows the location of the Broca’s area, which is usually associated with

the production of language, or language outputs; Wernicke’s area, which is

associated with the processing of words that we hear being spoken, or language

inputs; and the arcuate fasciculus. In simultaneous interpreting, the focus will be

on how the human brain works in pronouncing a word after hearing it. According

to the Geschwind-Wernicke model,2 when one person hears another speak a word,

it is perceived first in the auditory cortex, then passed on to Wernicke’s area.

Wernicke’s area associates the structure of this signal with the representation of a

word stored in one’s memory, thus enabling him to retrieve the meaning of the

particular word. This process is indicated by the arrows (→) in the above figure.

Wernicke’s and Broca’s area are both important in simultaneous interpreting.

Interpreting needs Wernicke’s area for perception of L1 and Broca’s area for

articulation of L2.

1 http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/i/i_10/i_10_cr/i_10_cr_lan/i_10_cr_lan.html

2 Further readings:

http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_10/d_10_cr/d_10_cr_lan/d_10_cr_lan.html#2

4

2.1.2 Speech Perception and Speech Production

There are two main components in simultaneous interpreting – listening and

speaking, in other words, speech perception and speech production. In between

these two components, there is a great deal of various complex processes. One of

these is the mental translation of a word from the language perceived into the

language produced. In simultaneous interpreting, this occurs, covertly, inside the

brain.

Michael I. Posner (1994: 118) notes that “processing of word sounds involves

both acoustic and articulatory components”, and that “the acoustic component is

related to hearing words and the articulatory component is related to the

production of speech”.

Let us note here that Pinker claims “speech perception is another one of the

biological miracles making up the language instinct” (1994: 161). It is indeed a

miracle because a person can not only recognise the sounds heard, but can also

identify which sounds are speech sounds, and can interpret them as meaning.

When dealing with simultaneous interpreting, one must therefore be concerned

with both sides of the story; on one hand, it is important that an interpreter has a

clear and accurate perception of the heard speech, and on the other, it is also

important that the interpreter in case produces the accurate or the correct type of

speech, may it concern grammar, syntax, lexis, or phonetics.

Kees De Bot (2000: 71) talks of the relations between three distinct levels of

representation when the human language production and perception are formed,

and these are: (1) the conceptual level (where all information about a concept is

stored); (2) the lemma level (where the semantic information needed for a match

with the conceptual and syntactic information needed to arrive at a surface

structure of the sentence are stored; (3) the word form level (where the morpho-

phonological information are stored).

5

The notion of speech perception and production relates perfectly to simultaneous

interpreting since it includes two sets of speaker-listener relation which occur

simultaneously. In the first set, the interpreter is the listener, and in the second set,

the interpreter is the speaker. Therefore, the interpreter finds himself playing both

roles at the same time, and that is one of the things that make simultaneous

interpreting an extremely complex process. This is just one of the facts that

distinct interpreting (especially simultaneous interpreting) from translating.

These two sets of speaker-listener relations can be shown by two simplified

diagrams:

(1) First speaker-listener relation

SPEAKER LISTENER

(INTERPRETER)

(speech production) (speech perception)

(2) Second speaker-listener relation

SPEAKER LISTENER

(INTERPRETER)

(speech production) (speech perception)

Figure 2: Speaker-listener relations

These two diagrams clearly show that in the first relation, the interpreter is the

listener, and in the second relation, the interpreter occupies the role of the speaker.

Chernov (2004) also deals with the problem of the interpreter being the Receiver

and the Addressee at the same time.

6

Isham (2000: 132) hypothesises “that because spoken-language interpreters

monitor their production as well as the incoming narrative, they must process two

speech streams simultaneously” and that “we know that they do listen to

themselves, for they regularly correct their own speech errors” (p. 136). This fact

will be of our particular interest, since we will be dealing with speech errors and

mistakes in chapter 5. The important thing he notes after conducting his

experiment is that “the inferior verbatim recall of spoken-language interpreters is

not so much due to two speech streams entering the system, but to the fact that

their vocal tract is engaged while listening” (p. 145).

Michael I. Posner (1994) asks an important question of what happens in the

human mind when someone hears or reads a certain word and is able to interpret

its meaning. Posner (1994: 109) states “[t]hat some matching process takes place,

in which the stimulus (the word seen or heard) triggers our memories of that

word, a process called lexical access. The study of lexical access is one of the

most active areas of cognition.” When an interpreter is faced with the

interpretation of a word from one language to another, he has to have quick access

to his mental vocabulary. This presents a difficult task, especially because he is

constantly under time pressure.

2.2 What Is Language?

After defining speech as a verbal means of communication, a personal language

phenomenon that involves perception (understanding) and production

(articulation), we can now begin to speak of language. The distinction between

the two is that of Ferdinand de Saussure between parole (speech) and langue

(language). Parole therefore concerns language performance and langue concerns

language competence. Chomsky (1965) says that linguistic theory is primarily

concerned with an ideal speaker-listener in a completely homogeneous speech

community. He created a distinction between what speakers know and what they

might say. According to Chomsky then, competence is the knowledge one

7

subconsciously possesses about how to speak a language, and performance is

one’s real linguistic output. Performance may reflect competence, but this is not

always so. For example, think of slips of the tongue; if a speaker utters “flutterby”

instead of “butterfly”, it does not mean that the speaker does not know the correct

form; in this case, the speaker’s competence is fine, but his performance let him

down. Chomsky’s distinction between competence and performance will be useful

in later chapters, where we will discuss the distinction between errors in

competence and errors in performance.

2.3 Language and Interpretation

Interpreting cannot exist without language. Teržan Kopecky (2001: 16) points out

that language consists of the correlation between the brain, neurons and the

speech apparatus (vocal tract, vocal folds, larynx). All three components must

therefore be efficient for interpreting to be successful, and the connections

between these three components are certainly complex. Different processes take

place in the mind, and we simply say that people have thoughts; however, these

thoughts must not be equated with language, and thoughts do not always turn into

speech. Similarly, a lot of thoughts run through the interpreter’s mind, but not all

eventually turn to speech. The interpreter constantly searches for the right

equivalent in the second language, and tries to properly convey a thought.

Pinker (1994: 58) poses an interesting idea:

Sometimes it is not easy to find any words that properly convey a thought.

When we hear or read, we usually remember the gist, not the exact words, so

there has to be such a thing as a gist that is not the same as a bunch of words.

And if thoughts depended on words, how could a new word ever be coined?

How would a child learn a word to begin with? How could translation from

one language to another be possible?

8

That “gist”, as Pinker calls it, is an important matter when it comes to

interpretation, especially because an interpreter is in a constant battle with time.

This battle forces him to make the most out of what and how something is being

said, and to convey that message in an appropriate and timely manner.

3 ERRORS AND MISTAKES IN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

The way in which human beings acquire a language is simply known as language

acquisition. Yule (1996: 191) explains the difference between (language)

acquisition and learning by defining acquisition as “the gradual development of

ability in a language by using it naturally in communicative situations”, and

learning as “a conscious process of accumulating knowledge of the vocabulary

and grammar of a language”.

Language acquisition itself is a complex process, and as such it has been a subject

of numerous debates (Chomsky, Yule, Pinker, Skinner, Kuniyoshi, Lightbown &

Spada, and others). Put simply, it is a process in which people are able firstly to

perceive, secondly to produce, and thirdly to use words to communicate. There is

no problem in understanding what language acquisition includes, but rather in the

definition of how all these processes occur. And there lies the complexity of the

problem.

To understand why mistakes and errors are made, we must then first understand

how language is acquired. To understand why a person interacting with another

person in a second language makes mistakes, and how he corrects these mistakes,

we must first understand how first languages are acquired and then move up to the

second language acquisition.

3.1 First Language Acquisition

First language acquisition (FLA) takes place in a person’s early childhood. It is a

remarkable process because it works fast at that time of a person’s life. A child

9

acquires an enormous amount of language information by the time he enters

elementary school and is already a sophisticated language user (Yule 1996: 175).

The facts that FLA happens at this rate, in such range and in all cultures, lead

scientists to believe that there is such a thing as an ‘innate’ predisposition in the

human infant to acquire language. Steven Pinker calls this an “instinct”. There

have been many theorists debating on how FLA works, when it takes place, how

long it lasts, how many stages it has, and why it happens in the first place.

Lightbown & Spada (1997: 3–14) name a few basic views on FLA. These are:

(1) behaviourists; they traditionally believed that language learning is simply

a matter of imitation and habit formation, they view imitation and practice

as primary processes in language development; however, they say that

children’s imitation is selective and based on what they are currently

learning;

(2) interactionists; their position is that language develops as a result of the

complex interplay between the uniquely human characteristics of the child

and the environment in which he develops;

(3) generativists; linguist Noam Chomsky claims that children are

biologically programmed for language and that language develops in the

child in just the same way that other biological functions develop;

Chomsky and his followers refer to the child’s innate endowment as

Universal Grammar.3

Another view on language acquisition concerns (4) cognitive linguistics, a

theoretical view which emerged as a reaction to the generativist theory.

Cognitivists understand grammar in terms of conceptualisation, they see no

deeper or surface structure in a language, and claim that knowledge of language

arises from language use. They are concerned with how the mind creates meaning

through language. In their view, an error caused by an individual can either be a

“slip” (an error as a result of an intended action but incorrect plan) or a “mistake”

(an error as a result of a correct plan but a result of an unintended action).

3 See also Teržan Kopecky (2001: 35–37).

10

Misuse of language certainly occurs in every language, may it be our mother

tongue or a non-native tongue, and may it concern mistakes, slips, or any other

type of error. Misuse of language occurs in the first language acquisition, it is

more common at an early age when a child is still acquiring the proper use;

however, the misuse is even more common in second language acquisition.

3.2 Second Language Acquisition

While first language acquisition occurs at a child’s early age, second language

acquisition usually occurs much later in a person’s life.4 However, after the

Critical Period (the notion that there is a specific and limited time period for

language acquisition) passes, it is very difficult to acquire another language fully.

Yule (1996: 191) says the crucial factor for this is the process of lateralization of

the brain.5

There are many barriers that pose a problem in second language acquisition, such

as

(1) acquiring a language after the Critical Period;

(2) psychological factors (lack of self-consciousness and motivation);

(3) first language interference (transfer of patterns).

These barriers are also the factors that contribute to making errors and mistakes

when using a second language. There has been much debate about the first

language interference in second language acquisition. Behaviourists claim that the

second language acquisition works similarly to the first language acquisition, that

is, through habits; that is why, for them, errors are seen as first language habits

interfering with the acquisition of second language habits; cognitive psychologists

disagree, and tend to see second language acquisition as the building up of

4 Children, whose parents speak different languages, or are frequently exposed to different

languages because of any other social circumstances, are an exception here. 5 Lateralization (defined by J. H. Stout) is the idea that the two halves of the brain's cerebral cortex

- left and right - execute different functions.

11

knowledge systems that can eventually be called on automatically for speaking

and understanding (Lightbown & Spada 1997: 23–26). Lightbown & Spada

(1997: 55) warn that “[t]he transfer of patterns from the native language is one

cause, but more significant is overgeneralization of the target language rules”,

and:

A number of studies show that many second language learners’ errors could

be explained better in terms of learners’ attempts to discover the structure of

the language being learned rather than an attempt to transfer patterns of their

first language.

We must understand that there are some errors of developmental nature, and this

means that they reflect the learner’s understanding of the second language system

itself, not an attempt to transfer characteristics of his first language. The influence

of the learner’s first language is in no way only habitual, but is a more complex

process of identifying points of similarity between the two languages. The learner

therefore weighs the evidence in support of some particular feature in the

language, and tries to see whether a certain feature seems to belong in the

structure of the target language.

Yule (1996: 194) also talks about the transfer of particular features from the first

language to the second language, and divides it into a positive and negative

transfer (interference). A learner can benefit from a positive transfer, and cannot

benefit from a negative transfer. Lightbown & Spada (1997: 21) similarly say:

All second language learners, regardless of age, have by definition already

acquired at least one language. This prior knowledge may be an advantage in

the sense that the learner has an idea of how languages work. On the other

hand, [...] knowledge of other languages can also lead learners to make

incorrect guesses about how the second language works and this may cause

errors which a learner of a first language would not make.

12

Because of this transfer from the first language into a second language, and this

alone not being the only reason, it is inevitable that errors in grammar, syntax,

lexis and phonetics will be made. Note, however, that L1 → L2 interference (and

vice versa) can be avoided by a sufficient degree of coherent situational context.6

As Paradis (2000: 21) says “implicit linguistic competence is acquired through

interaction with speakers of the language in situational contexts”.

Corder (1985) says that the processes of first and second language acquisition are

fundamentally the same. If the utterances of the first and second language learners

differ, it can be accounted for by differences in (1) maturational development, (2)

motivation for learning, and (3) the circumstances of learning.

It can be assumed that the first language will always be in some way incorporated

in second language acquisition, and especially in second language learning. There

is one true fact: the later the time that the learner is exposed to second language

acquisition, the stronger the dependence on the already existing structures of the

first language, into which the new language has to be integrated (Teržan Kopecky

2001: 119).

The process of acquiring (and learning) a second language can therefore also be a

factor for the learner’s errors in a second language. By studying the way these

processes work, we can find the reasons for making errors, and that can help

understand (and predict) errors a learner makes in the second language.

6 See Teržan Kopecky (2001: 114).

13

4 INTERPRETING

Interpreters were known to have an essential role in the time of Ancient Rome,

Greece and Egypt. They were an important link between the native speakers of a

certain language and the conquerors, either because of religion, political reasons,

conquering new territories or any other reason. Visson (2005: 51) explains that

“[a]t various times interpreters have served as missionaries, liaison officers,

military envoys, court interpreters, business couriers, and trade negotiators.” The

Geneva Conference in 1927 was the first big milestone for interpreting, since it

was there and then that simultaneous interpreting first took place. But due to an

extremely costly nature of this kind of interpreting, the practice almost

disappeared after that. However, since the Nuremberg Trials in 1945,

simultaneous interpreting has been on the rise again (Lopert 2010: 81–82).

Interpreting finally became a profession in the twentieth century. Since then there

has been an increase of academization of training. Groundbreaking efforts of

pioneer conference interpreters and psychologists have occurred in the 1950s and

1960s, academic foundations for the field were laid in the 1970s. Internal

reorientation toward more rigorous scientific investigation and a growing

diversification of its (interp.) professional domain then followed (Pöchhacker

2004: 44–45). The first school for interpreters was opened in Geneva in 1948, and

Moscow’s Thorez Institute began its interpreter training program in 1962 (Vission

2005: 52).

Since simultaneous interpreting became a profession, there were also theorists that

were concerned with defining interpreting. There has been much debated about

the exact definition of interpreting. Listed below are some definitions on

interpretation.

Nolan (2008: 2) says that interpretation “can be defined in a nutshell as conveying

understanding” and that “its usefulness stems from the fact that a speaker’s

meaning is best expressed in his or her native tongue but is best understood in the

languages of the listener”. He states that an interpreter “listens to a spoken

14

message in the source language and renders it orally, consequently or

simultaneously, in the target language”.

Pöchhacker (2004: 10) states:

Within the conceptual structure of Translation, interpreting can be

distinguished from other types of translational activity most succinctly by its

immediacy: in principle, interpreting is performed 'here and now' for the

benefit of people who want to engage in communication across barriers of

language and culture.

However, when defining interpreting, we must also bear in mind Kade's criteria,

which includes a statement that “interpreting need not necessarily be equated with

'oral translation' or, more precisely, with the 'oral rendering of spoken messages'.

Doing so would exclude interpreting in signed (rather than spoken) languages”.

Kade (1968) defined interpreting as a form of Translation in which: (1) the

source-language text is presented only once and thus cannot be reviewed or

replayed, and (2) the target-language text is produced under time pressure, with

little chance for correction and revision (taken from Pöchhacker 2004: 10–11).

From this, Pöchhacker thus concludes that “interpreting is a form of Translation in

which a first and final rendition in another language is produced on the basis of a

one-time presentation of an utterance in a source language” (2004: 11).

There are two main types of interpretation – consecutive interpreting (CI) and

simultaneous interpreting (SI). A consecutive interpreter listens to a speaker,

takes notes, and then reproduces the heard speech in the target language. Good

note-taking techniques and a good memory are very important in consecutive

interpreting. A simultaneous interpreter listens to a speaker through earphones

and, speaking into a microphone, reproduces the speech into the target language.

Pöchhacker (1995: 39) says that “there are numerous references in the literature

on interpreting to the effect that an interpretation should sound like an original

15

speech, and that it is at its best when listeners forget that they are listening to an

interpreter rather than the original speaker”. This, of course, is a very difficult task

to handle.

4.1 Simultaneous Interpreting

If we take in mind Pöchhacker’s (2004: 24) eight dimensions, we can say that

simultaneous interpreting has (1) a human and a machine medium, (2) can have

international and also intra-social setting, (3) according to the mode, SI usually

takes place in a booth, but can also be whispered by an interpreter sitting behind

the listener, or has an alternative form, (4) the directionality is variable, (5) the

language is spoken, (6) there are various discourses involved in SI, (7) the same

goes for the participants (but who are usually ‘non-equal’ representatives), (8)

interpreters are usually highly trained professionals (or at least should be).

Chernov (2004: 7) defines simultaneous interpretation as follows:

Simultaneous interpretation is a complex type of bilingual verbal

communicative activity, performed concurrently with audio perception of an

oral discourse offered once only, under conditions imposing limits on

available processing time and strict limits on the amount of information

which can be processed, its object and product to be observed in the semantic

(meaning and sense) structure of the verbal communication processed.

Theories on simultaneous interpreting clearly imply that it is first and foremost a

complex process; and wherever there is complexity, there are also specifics and,

of course, the correlating problems.

16

4.1.1 Specifics of Simultaneous Interpreting

Specifics of simultaneous interpreting need to be viewed from a perspective of all

those eight previously mentioned dimensions. Interpreting can be therefore

divided into subcategories based on mode (simultaneous, consecutive, relay,

liason, whispered), type (conference, medical, escort, judicial or court

interpreting, community interpreting etc.) and modality (on-site, telephone,

video). Specifics are defined by variable (cultural, historical, language etc.)

conditions that form simultaneous interpreting. Gile (2000:96) states the following

on interpretation conditions:

Interpretation is conducted under highly variable conditions, as regards

language combination, speech speed and density, speech technicality, speaker

prosody, the interpreter’s previous knowledge of the fields, the interpreter’s

training, experience and ethics, the interpreter’s physical and mental

condition, audience reaction, the stakes of the meeting, the interpreter’s

personal stakes [...].

There are, however, a few general specifics of simultaneous interpreting, and

these will be briefly discussed in the following sub-chapters.

Simultaneity

There has been much debate on the topic of simultaneity, one side saying that

simultaneous interpreting really cannot be completely simultaneous because the

interpreter does not start to speak about the exact same thing as the speaker at the

exact same time as the speaker. The other side agrees that there is indeed a time

lag (the average being 3 seconds7) in this process; however, as Chernov (2004:

14) concludes “SI is indeed simultaneous in the sense that perceptual and

production processes are concurrent”, because simultaneous interpretation is a

7 Chernov 2004: 14.

17

type of interpretation which starts before the source language utterance is

completed. Concerning the time lag, Chernov (2004: 15) says:

This lag, and the degree of simultaneity of perception and production, are

independent of the SI language combination, and only relatively dependent

on the speed of SL [source language] speech, and consequently, on the rate of

SI activity; but depend considerably on the level of professionalism of the

interpreter, i.e. the skills and strategies employed.

He discusses simultaneity because of its specific nature, and continues that “the

SL message is delivered only once and that its perception and reproduction are

concurrent” (Chernov 2004: 5).

In the ideal situation, the simultaneous interpreter would be a person, who has

specialised in one specific area, has perfectly mastered the knowledge of the

technical terms (lexis) of that area, is a good public speaker, has good technical

equipment available to him, speaks with no accent, who can interpret as much as

possible and as fast as possible, has a great amount of experience, is a keen

observer of the speakers, has an excellent memory, and the like. There are just too

many demands that make an ideal simultaneous interpreter (and such situation) to

enumerate them all. And the fact is that no such situation exists.

Sense and Meaning

Another specific in SI is that the simultaneous interpreter interprets the sense, not

the meaning of the words. To better understand, we must make a distinction

between these two points. Chernov (2004: 40) says that ‘meaning’ becomes

‘sense’ only within a certain context, therefore meaning + context = sense. To

understand sense, we thus need context, which means a predication has appeared,

we have a presumed theme of discourse, and we have a hint of the situation of

communication.

18

However, Pöchhacker (2004: 56) attends to this matter from another point of

view, and remarks that “[t]he idea of interpreting as ‘making sense’ does not

capture an aspect unique to the interpreter’s task; rather, its innovative force lies

in the prominent role attributed to (prior) knowledge”. He deduces his observation

from Seleskovitch (1976, 1978), who “argued that interpreting – and

understanding in general – involved the activation of previous knowledge which

combined with perceptual input to form a conceptual mental representation”

(taken from Pöchhacker 2004: 57). This means that sense making is a part of the

receptive stage of interpreting, and that the interpreter’s job is to grasp the sense

and express it in the verbal form best suited to understanding by the audience.

Prior Knowledge

Many argue that prior knowledge is the basic of any simultaneous interpreting. It

is almost impossible to interpret a speaker if the interpreter does not have any

prior knowledge on the related subject (theme of discourse). While it is useful to

specialize in a particular subject area, the reality is usually that, as Nolan (2008: 4)

says, “most translators and interpreters are of necessity generalists”. For one to be

a top-quality interpreter, one needs to be as educated and proficient in as many

subject areas as humanly possible. That is why it is of utmost importance that if an

interpreter interprets at a conference or any other similar event, where specific

kinds of speeches are held, he gets a copy of the speaker’s speech in advance, so

he can prepare himself accordingly. Sadly, that is not always the case, and even if

it happens to be, the speech can also take an unsuspected turn, a speaker starts

speaking spontaneously, and that can pose a problem for the interpreter. That is

why anticipation is another important specific to consider. The students in our

research will only be given basic information regarding the upcoming speech.

Anticipation and Prediction

Good performance in interpreting depends on sustained mental alertness of the

interpreter. This is where preparation and prior knowledge for the up-coming

19

speech is essential. If an interpreter is well prepared for the interpretation of the

speech on a certain topic, he can (to some extent) anticipate what is going to be

said.

Chernov (2004: 91) hypothesises that “the basic mechanism making SI possible is

the probability anticipation of the development of the message”. Put simply,

where there is enough information redundancy, there is also a good chance of

information prediction. Nolan (2008: 9) warns that every speech still has its

surprises (a novel idea, an unusual turn of phrase, a breakthrough in the debate, an

eccentric speaker, a spur-of-the moment argument, an impenetrable accent, a

mispronounced key word, poor sound quality, an obscure reference or acronym,

or deliberately ornate way of saying a simple thing etc.) Chachibaia (2005: 107)

adds that the interpreter “constantly makes linguistic, pragmatic and situational

inferences from speakers’ utterances and promotes anticipatory hypothesis of a

pragmatic, rather than strictly semantic, kind. S/he generates the TL message by

virtue of the principal mechanism of SI – probability prediction”.

Chacibaia (2005: 108) says that general sense is predicted at a higher level, and

the means of realising this programme of meaning is predicted at a lower level

,and adds that “a subsequent message is possible if the stream of speech consists

of interdependent units when the source of the message is repeated”.

Anticipation is therefore important because an interpreter can fill in the blanks,

relying on the context. If he cannot interpret the whole sentence, it is important to

at least interpret the main thrust of the message. Prior knowledge of our

respondents will show how efficient they are in anticipation and prediction.

Information Redundancy

Information redundancy or information abundance is one of the things that make

SI possible. SI often occurs in situations (such as conferences, scientific

discussions etc.) where the speaker has a pre-prepared speech, which can actually

20

also be helpful. Chacibaia (2005) notes that under the circumstances of SI “only

messages with an adequate degree of redundancy can be interpreted

simultaneously” (p. 101).

4.1.2 Problems in Simultaneous Interpreting

Chacibaia (2005) speaks of cognitive processes which define simultaneous

interpreting, such as speech perception and production, memory, attention,

information-processing. Although much has already been said, she says that “we

are still far from a thorough understanding of the cognitive processes involved in

interpreting” (p. 101). Similarly, Pöchhacker (2004: 24) also exposes simultaneity

(discussed above), memory, quality, stress, effect, and role as basic problems in

defining SI. There are of course many others. Below, we will list only a few

commonly spoken of.

Information Processing

Pöchhacker (2004: 55) finds that “cognitive psychologists hypothesized various

mental structures and procedures responsible for the processing of verbal data.”,

and continues that “some of the dominant research issues have included the

processing capacity of the human information processing system, the possibility

of dividing attention over various tasks (multi-tasking), and the structure and

function of its memory component(s).”

The first psychological processing model for SI was developed by Gerver (1971).

He drew up a flow-chart model of the mental structures and procedures involved

in input processing and output generation. Another model was proposed by

Chernov (1978, 1979/2002) – he has his basis on ‘prediction’ – probability

prediction, anticipatory synthesis (taken from Pöchhacker 2004: 101).

Ingrid Kurz (2002: 197) says that stressors (see below under Stress) have an

impact on the intake of information and information processing, as well as

21

information output. Intervening variables here are the following: personality

factors, subjective evaluation of the situation, anxiety, motivation and

helplessness.

Time Pressure

Quite obviously, one of the biggest problems of simultaneous interpreting is time

pressure. An interpreter in SI is exposed to severe time constraints, the pace of the

speaker (an interpreter’s decisions must be quick), and unequal conditions for

speech production between him and the speaker (the speaker often uses a pre-

prepared speech or reads the speech presented).

Chacibaia (2005: 106) says that “under extreme pressure of time, an interpreter’s

speaking rate is dictated by the speaker”. This is where information abundance

becomes useful because the redundancy of information allows the interpreter to

convey the basic idea of the message despite compressing the original.

Memory and Memory Overload

Memory plays an important role in simultaneous interpreting. There are two basic

types of memory, ‘primary’ or short-term memory (STM; information for

immediate usage) and ‘secondary’ or long-term memory (LTM; information for

later recall). Duong (2006: 10) says that “short-term memory is a system for

temporarily storing and managing information required to carry complex

cognitive memory”. Both types of memory take an important part in interpreting;

LTM contributes to the interpreter’s acquisition of knowledge, and STM enables

the interpreter to remember a message for enough time to convey it into L2, but

then quickly moves onto another message (often) without remembering what the

information in the previous message was. “The interpreter needs a good short-

term memory to retain what he or she has just heard and a good long-term

memory to put the information into context. Ability to concentrate is a factor as is

22

the ability to analyze and process what is heard.” (Phelan 2001: 4–5, ctd. in

Duong 2006: 19)

When discussing the role of memory in SI, we are talking about one specific

problem that occurs in such situation, and that is memory overload. There is

information that an interpreter must remember, besides also having to deal with

keeping or processing one type of information in the brain while possibly

speaking out loud about another.

In SI it is hypothesized that the interpreter breaks down the incoming messages

into chunks (not words or always individual sentences but rather syntactic phrases

or semantic units). This process helps him not to overload his memory too much,

simply by grasping the meaning of the incoming message and re-producing it as

correct/equivalent as possible. Chernov (2004: 17) importantly adds that the

situation of memory overload, which is so typical for SI, results in losses and

errors. This will more thoroughly be discussed in the chapter 5.

Stress

Stress and interpreting are without a doubt two very closely related subjects.

There are many factors that contribute to the level of stress in simultaneous

interpreting. An interpreter has to be very attentive to the speaker, the topic of the

speech, the environment etc. All this – and much more – creates a stressful

environment.

Ingrid Kurz studied stress factors in SI and found that there are numerous stress

factors that simultaneous interpreters are exposed to (especially in conference

interpreting). She differentiates between three types of stressors,8 and gives the

following specific examples within these categories of stressors: (1)

environmental: noise, heat, vibrations, lack of sleep, alcohol and hypoxia; (2)

8 She defines stressors as “stimuli producing stress responses” (Kurz 2002: 197).

23

mental: tasks requiring attention over long periods of time, decision-making and

monotony; (3) social: changes of social status, competition (Kurz 2002: 197).

While stressors are one thing, reactions of the body to these stressors (especially

in the work place) are another. Cooper, Davies & Tung (1982) conducted a stress-

related study in simultaneous interpreting. Based on the journals that interpreters

kept during the study, Cooper et al. (taken from Hartman 2011: 44–47) divided

the stressors into four following groups: (1) physical environmental factors:

cabins without appropriate equipment, noise; (2) task-related factors: high degree

of concentration, selfish speakers, pre-prepared speeches with complicated

vocabulary and syntax, highly professional topic; (3) interpersonal factors:

interpreter – interpreter relationship (2 working in a booth), interpreter – speaker

relationship; (4) home/work interface: the influence of private life on the

interpreter’s work.

There are numerous stressors that contribute to interpreters’ mistakes. We can

hypothesise that task-related stressors are those that cause mistakes most often.

However, we must note that stress can also be a positive thing. Professional

interpreters indeed see stress as a positive influence on their interpreting, while

students of interpreting do not.9

Our research will be based on students of interpreting which will be faced with a

simulation of the situation to the one professional interpreters find themselves in;

the students will be sitting in booths in a phonolaboratory, which is a situation

certainly not as stressful as that of, for example, conference interpreting.

Therefore, the stress factor will certainly not be the same as it would be in an

actual interpreting situation because students will be aware that if they make a

mistake/error, this will not result in serious consequences, but rather only in the

teacher’s evaluation. Nevertheless, students will face noise from other students

interpreting beside them, a speech with a slightly higher degree of register and

vocabulary, but they will not be distracted by interpersonal stressors and the like.

9 See Hartman (2011: 59–60).

24

Attention

Among others, being as much attentive as possible all throughout interpreting is a

very demanding task. Processability depends on the cognitive readiness of the

interpreters (and learners in general). Much more so because the interpreter must

not only be attentive to what is being said, but also to how it is being said. As

Nolan (2008: 18) states, “[c]areful observation of speakers’ gestures and

demeanour, as well as the reactions of listeners, will provide additional clues to

the intent behind the words.” Sylvie Lambert (2010) conducted a study where she

concluded that sight interpretation yielded significantly higher performance, and

that it does not necessarily interfere with a subject’s already overloaded capacity

to listen and speak simultaneously, but that in fact, it may even help the student’s

performance.

In our situation, gesture observation (sight interpretation) will not be possible

because students will only be exposed to sound recordings, and will then be a

different situation than that in which professional interpreters find themselves.

Therefore, students will have to depend on their other abilities and focus their

attention on the words spoken.

Culture

The essential task of an interpreter is to bridge the gap not only between two

different languages, but also between two different cultures. Knowing culture-

specific facts of both SL and TL is something that can save a lot of

embarrassment for an interpreter. This problem occurs when the interpreter is

faced with some kind of culture-related specific that cannot be conveyed into the

culture of the TL because it would not make sense, or because the target audience

would simply not understand the original message. This is where the interpreter

steps in, either by explaining a certain fact with other words, or choosing a

different solution. A number of the so-called untranslatabilities are the

consequence of inherent features of different cultures, not simply a consequence

25

of the interpreter’s individual abilities. As Vission (2005: 61–62) notes, “[w]hen a

speaker’s phrases bounce off the mirror of cultural differences, it is the interpreter

with a thorough knowledge of both language and culture, with experience gained

over time and through trial and error, who can provide a sparkling reflection

rather than a warped distortion of the meaning behind the words.”

The students in our research have the advantage of having taken English courses

throughout their studies (4–5 years in elementary school, 4 years in secondary

school, and 3 years at the Faculty of arts in Maribor, where they took courses such

as Interclutural studies). Being exposed to this and a large amount of every-day

information from the media, should prepare them enough for interpreting a speech

from Slovene to English.

Other Problems

There are numerous problems in translating, and there are even more problems in

interpreting, especially because an interpreter is under time pressure, and his

decisions must be quick. Other problems are also syntax, untranslatability of the

speaker’s tone, the correct diction, register and style, figures of speech

(metaphors, allegories, fables, parables, mottos, slogans, oxymorons etc.),

collocations, connotations, Latinisms, quotations, allusions, note-taking, just to

mention a few. All these can take a great deal of time, nerves and consideration

for a translator, let alone an interpreter. Figures of speech will also be relevant in

our study since the L1 speaker will use a few of them, and student interpreters will

try to tackle them.

When analyzing mistakes and errors of interpreters, and especially students of

interpreting, all of these possible problems must be taken into account. If we

understand the specifics and problems that can (and certainly will in one way or

another) occur during the complex process of interpreting, we can better

understand the mistakes and errors (and the reasons for them) that occur during

this process.

26

5 LEARNER’S MISTAKES AND ERRORS10

Since our sound material will consist of the recordings of student interpreting, i.e.

learner interpreting, this chapter is entitled Learner’s Mistakes and Errors.

Mistakes and errors of a learner most certainly differ a great deal from those of a

professional. However, interpreting is always a case of conveying a message from

one language to another, and in a sense, every interpreter remains a learner of his

second language all his life. We will put that assumption aside in our analysis, and

focus on the learner of interpreting, rather than simply a learner of language. This

will help us differentiate between a professional interpreter and a student

interpreter.

Whenever a language is acquired (or learned) it faces the problem of errors. Errors

are not to be overlooked but are rather something that needs to be addressed in a

scientific way. With the study of errors one can gradually reveal the strategies that

a learner uses in learning a language. Only by doing this, we can seek and asses

achievement. Corder (1985: 8) explains that “motivation and intelligence appear

to be the two principal factors which correlate significantly with achievement in a

second language”, and furthermore, “if the acquisition of the first language is a

fulfilment of the predisposition to develop language behaviour, then the learning

of the second language involves the replacement of the predisposition of the infant

by some other force”. The more a learner is motivated and the higher his

intelligence, the better his achievement will be, and he will make less errors.

However, errors are a crucial part of any language acquiring and learning because

they show the learner the difference between being wrong and being right. The

most important type of an error is the one that leads to misunderstanding.

Therefore, it is important not only to correct someone else’s errors but also to be

able to self-correct errors, so that – in SI – the listeners of the target language will

not be confused because of the ‘wrong’ interpreting. Edge (1996: 5) believes that

“[i]t is more important to correct mistakes which affect the meaning of several

sentences than to correct small grammatical points inside one sentence”.

10

Adopted from S. P. Corder (1985), unless stated otherwise.

27

Why are errors made?

1. Behavioristic theory of acquiring a second language says that the learner is

carrying over the habits of the mother tongue into the second language

(interference). Language is seen as some sort of habit structure.

2. Cognitivistic theory of acquiring a second language says that language

learning is some sort of data-processing and hypothesis-forming activity of

a cognitive sort (idiosyncratic sentences are a sign of false hypothesis).

Edge (1996: 9) defines the following causes for making “mistakes”.

1. Influence of the speaker’s first language. This is especially seen in

pronunciation; we can easily make assumptions where someone comes

from solely by their accent. It can also be seen in vocabulary and

grammar; Edge continues: “When people don’t know how to say

something in a foreign language, one possibility is to use words and

structures from their own language, and try to make them fit into a foreign

language.”

2. Learners think they know a rule, but in fact they don’t know quite enough.

3. People may say something that they know is not correct, because this is

still their best chance of getting their message across.

4. The speaker is in a hurry, tired or thinking about something else.

Until now, we have mentioned and talked about errors, mistakes, lapses, and

failures, without making much of a difference between one and the other. This is

also visible in defining reasons for mistakes and errors according to both Edge

and Corder. Meanwhile, in his research, Corder importantly differentiates between

mistakes and errors. He made this distinction because he believes that errors were

predicted to be the result of the persistence of existing mother tongue habits in the

new language, but what was overlooked or underestimated were the errors which

could not be explained in this way (1985: 1). According to Edge (1996: 9 –11), if

a speaker can i.e. knows how to correct himself, he makes a ‘mistake’; and if a

28

speaker cannot, i.e. does not know how to correct himself, he makes an ‘error’.

This implies that when making a ‘mistake’, the speaker knows he did something

wrong (think of slips of the tongue) and can indeed correct himself because he has

the ‘right’ knowledge to do so, and if he makes an ‘error’ it means that he knows

he did something wrong and he has no knowledge of how to correct himself, or he

simply does not even realize he has done something wrong.

5.1 Mistakes

According to Corder, mistakes are non-systematic errors. They can occur in one’s

native language as well as in the usage of the second language. Mistakes are

errors of performance, and Corder believes that they are not significant to the

process of language learning. Causes for these errors of performance are the

following: memory lapses, physical states such as tiredness, and psychological

conditions such as strong emotions. The most important feature that differentiates

mistakes from errors is that mistakes do not reflect a defect in our knowledge of

our own language. Think of slips of the tongue for example, which is only an

accidental, unintentional utterance, which does not reflect our (poor) knowledge

of a certain language (either the first or the second language). What happens when

a person makes a mistake is that this person is aware of the mistake, and can

immediately correct it. We presume that mistakes will surely occur in our SI

sound recordings, probably mostly in phonetics.

Fromkin (1973: 15) observes that most of the linguistic analyses speech errors11

deal with ‘phonological’ errors, and continues that many spontaneous errors

result in nonexistent words and can be explained phonological in origin, for

example: group three → greep three; my money is running out → my runny is

munning out; felony → fenoly; yesterday’s lecture → lesterday’s yecture.

MacKay found that final consonants are rarely reversed and initial consonants

frequently reversed, and that this reversibility is highly infrequent (taken from

11

A 'mistake' by Corder's definition.

29

Fromkin 1973: 20). Freud (1973: 48) suggests that “the disturbance in speaking

which is manifested in a slip of the tongue can in the first place be caused by the

influence of another component of the same speech – by an anticipatory sound,

that is, or by a perseveration – or by another formulation of the ideas contained

within the sentence or context that it is one’s intention to utter”. We will be

attentive to this type of mistakes in our student interpreting.

5.2 Errors

By Corder’s definitions errors are systematic. They occur in the usage of a second

language; and are errors of competence. This means that they reflect the progress

of our learning a second language, and show how competent we are in

communicating in L2. He believes that these errors are significant to the process

of language learning. These will surely occur in our recordings, probably mostly

in lexis, grammar and syntax.

Corder (1985: 8) explains that “a learner is using a definite system of language at

every point in his development [...]. The learner’s errors are evidence of this

system and are themselves systematic.” Errors are significant in three ways: (1)

for the teacher: they show a student’s progress; (2) for the researcher: they show

how a language is acquired, what strategies the learner uses; (3) for the learner: he

can learn from these errors.

According to Corder then, the students can only self-correct mistakes, but not

errors, only a teacher, or someone else who is more competent in L2, can do that.

By correcting a learner in his error, a learner is one step further to be more

sufficient in language use. In this way, we enable the learner to try to find the

right form, and this is evidence of the strategies he is using in the process of

learning a new language.

30

5.3 Error Analysis (EA)

Error analysis is a sort of an investigation of the language of second language

learners, and it shows valuable insight into how the language learning process

occurs. It aims at telling us something about the psycholinguistic processes of

language learning. EA has (1) a theoretical function (investigating the language

learning process), and (2) a practical function (guiding the remedial action).

Corder (1996: 30) explains that “what we are concerned with in ‘error analysis’ is

discovering the degree to which the learner expresses his ‘messages’ by means of

the categories and rules which the native speaker of the target language uses”.

Language is a system and errors that occur in the use of a language are themselves

systematic. This implies that EA must also be systematic. This can be achieved by

analysing errors through a set of stages as described below.

1. Recognition of idiosyncracy12

According to Corder, “erroneous” utterances are those which are either

superficially deviant or inappropriate in terms of the target language grammar.

Erroneous utterances can then be those with mistakes (pre-systematic), lapses

(post-systematic) or errors (systematic) in it. The distinction is not always easy,

but we can try it by correct interpretation of what the learners’ intentions are. In

teaching a second language, we could simply ask a learner what his speech

intention to was, however, this will not be a possibility in our case. In such

situations, we must do the interpretation ourselves. Corder calls this a ‘plausible

interpretation’ (this is done by studying the surface structure in conjunction with

the information derived from its context) and a ‘plausible reconstruction’ (the

utterances are reconstructed in order to convey what the learner could possibly

have intended to mean). We can often identify a sentence as an error if we do a

back-translation (we translate the sentence back to the mother tongue of the

speaker so that we can have a plausible interpretation, but this too is not always

12

Idiosyncratic sentences are a sign of false hypothesis about the target language.

31

possible). With this, we can at least try to compare what was said with what was

intended to be said.

2. Description

This is the stage where two languages are described in terms of a common set of

categories and relations, that is, in terms of the same formal model. He suggests

that we must look for errors that a learner uses consistently, in order to recognize

the rule that the learner is using and try to describe it. However, Corder warns us

that studies show learners are often inconsistent in making errors. We will try to

see if this will also be the case in our research.

3. Explanation

There are numerous classifications of errors. Corder describes the usual

classification of errors as errors of omission, addition, selection, ordering. All

these can be phonological, grammatical, or lexico-semantic. We will divide errors

into four following categories: grammar, syntax, phonetics, lexis.

Grammar

Grammar is a set of (structural) linguistic rules. If one does not obey those rules,

one makes errors. Some of the rules can be acquired by a L2 learner being

exposed to native speakers, or other L2 sources, such as books, magazines,

newspapers, TV, internet etc. Most grammatical rules can also be learned in class,

where a learner is warned about how grammar works, and what is the ‘correct’

way of saying something, while being exposed to, for example, native speakers is

not always the best way of learning grammar rules because native speakers do not

always use the correct grammar.

Knowing and mastering grammar rules often consists of the correct usage of

(modal, irregular, phrasal) verbs, (countable, uncountable) nouns, (comparison of)

32

adjectives, adverbs, articles, conditionals, tenses, prepositions etc. Note, however,

that while grammar can be a problem for an interpreter at times, its features can

also be of help (think of grammatical inversion for example).

Syntax

Corder believes that there is great evidence of interference of the mother tongue

with the learning of a second language in syntax, although the amount of

‘interference’ varies considerably from learner to learner. However, he does say

that the syntax the learner creates appears to be largely uninfluenced by his

phonological system. Corder (1985: 72) says studies “have now shown cases

where virtually no syntactic interference has been detected from the mother

tongue, and where such interference as is found is not principally or uniquely

from the mother tongue, but from some other second language known, however

partially, to the learner”. We can therefore say that errors in syntax will not be

caused only by interference of the mother tongue.

There is one issue in simultaneous interpreting that needs to be addressed when it

comes to syntax. Due to the interpreter’s time-bound task of conveying a message,

it is quite obvious that there will be choices made by the interpreter in order to

achieve as much success as possible; when speakers use long, complex structures

and deliver them at high speed, the interpreter’s task is greatly complicated, which

can lead to an omission and inability to catch up. To avoid this, the interpreter will

be forced to either simplify the syntax as he goes along (breaking longer sentences

and semantic units into shorter ones, organising lists of items by parallel

constructions etc.) or compressing items (leaving out redundant information,

reducing the number of words and syllables, avoiding unnecessary repetitions and

previously known variations etc.).13

These choices will not be considered as errors

if they will not fail to convey the intended message of the speaker, and

communication purposes will be achieved.

13

For more information, see James Nolan (2008), Interpretations: Techniques and Exercises.

33

Phonetics

Pronunciation is one of those areas in a language where knowing how to do it does

not necessarily lead to doing it the right way. We can very often easily identify

where a speaker comes from, relying only on his accent. Studies14

have shown

that older learners almost inevitably have a noticeable ‘foreign accent’, which

means that adults are, as a rule, not completely successful in acquiring native L2

speech. McAllister (2000: 51) defines foreign accent as a term that “refers

consistently to the inability of non native language users to produce the target

language with the phonetic accuracy required by the native listeners for

acceptance as native speech”. He also believes that native speakers, presumably

because they have extensive experience with the language, have no trouble

recognising the deviant phonetic realization of the language, i.e. ‘foreign accent’.

He broadens the concept of foreign accent by focusing on production as well as

perception. Such a thing as a foreign accent in perception can interfere with the

learning an L2 phonology. To the L2 user, therefore also to a simultaneous

interpreter, difficulties of comprehension caused in part by phonetic and

phonological factors can be as problematic in the everyday use of the L2 as the

difficulty in making oneself understood due to non-native pronunciation.

McAllister (2000: 59) says:

[F]oreign accent could be viewed as a result of an unsuccessful reorganization

of the system of contrastive phonetic identity of the categories. Thus, as

perceptual identity of the L1 categories is restructured, non-native phonetic

content consisting of residue from the L1 and/or features missed or not

correctly identified in the L2 input influence the phonetic make up of the

categories in the new L2 system. The result, then, is a system which causes

the L2 user to have a foreign accent both in terms of production and

perception.

14

See Lightbown & Spada (1997: 43) and McAllister (2000: 51).

34

He also warns that perceptual foreign accent would seem to be of considerable

interest in the practical domain of L2 acquisition and perhaps in the training of

simultaneous interpreters. Common L2 users, as well as simultaneous interpreters,

may suffer from the reduced ability to decode a speech signal because of various

conditions (ambient noise, motivation, identity, personality factors) in which they

find themselves. This (comprehension) ability to decode an L2 is an important

factor in how well L2 pronunciation is learned but there are other important

factors which mediate the success of learning L2 speech.

His conclusions are that (1) interpreters may suffer from the effects of foreign

accent, (2) factors which can influence the ability to decode another language can

be useful for training future interpreters (because foreign accent is not desirable in

interpreting), (3) perceptual training can be an important aspect of learning an L2

phonology, especially training in natural phonetic variations.

Lexis

Lexis is the area of language where meaning and grammar are combined. It takes

a lot to be a good (public) speaker, and it takes even more to be a L2 good

(public) speaker. The gradually built lexicon of a language is acquired mostly

through practice, especially through reading and listening to L2 users, or just

simply by being in touch with native speakers, and being motivated and interested

in what is happening in the world around us. The lexicon of a person’s first

language is probably richer, because it is presupposed that a person is more in

touch with other people speaking the same language, while L2 lexicon is

somewhat more delicate, especially if the learner is not in touch with other people

using what is to him an L2. This is where modern day life comes in useful; TV

and the internet, although not an ideal teacher, provide a good starting point to

learning L2 vocabulary. This is also true for our respondents.

L2 lexis can be a hard area to master correctly and effectively (and impossible to

master completely), but mastering L2 lexis in SI is an even more difficult task.

35

This is mostly due to the fact that SI more often than not takes place in a situation

that calls for good mastering of vocabulary in a specific, mostly professional

(scientific, technical, legal, commercial), area. Readings of works with

professional terminology can give valuable ideas, but that is often not enough.

Many words can be easily acquired in L2 because they may be similar or the same

in form and meaning of those in L1; however, there are other words which may be

the same in form but different in meaning, or vice versa, and these are the ones

that can pose a problem for the L2 user. These can be considered in sense as ‘false

friends’. Last but not least, there is also a matter of pragmatic implication, where

acceptability and appropriateness of sentences are important. An interpreter must

know what word to use in which context, he must get a sense of making a proper

choice in using the correct word or its equivalent in a certain (social) situation.

Another problem is the retrieval of the L2 lexis. The retrieval can sometimes be a

difficult task in L1, let alone in a (possibly) scientific L2 language. De Bot (2000:

83) tested the lexical knowledge of L2 learner by having learners hear a word and

its meaning and then try to reproduce it, and found that “the lexical knowledge

about the words tested was still present, but producing the words under time

pressure, especially in the L2, remains a problem, even for the advanced learners”.

He also found that “language production and language perception are basically

lexically driven, and both processes are highly dependent on the speed of

accessing of words in the lexicon” (de Bot 2000: 80), and that high frequency

words can be accessed more easily and faster than low frequency words.

Another issue we are concerned with is which from and into which language the

interpretation is taking place. According to experience, most interpreters seem to

have less trouble interpreting from L2 (weaker language) into L1 (dominant

language, presumably their mother tongue), but that does not mean that they are

more successful at it. For example, Kees de Bot (2000: 84) carried out a study,

and found that word translation is faster from L2 into L1, but an interpreter is

more successful in interpreting from L1 to L2. The students in our research will

be interpreting from L1 to L2.

36

6 ERROR CORRECTION

Edge (1996: 37) explains: “Making mistakes in language use is not only normal,

but necessary to language learning.” If we take in mind Edge’s statement, we can

then say errors are valuable. Valuable from the (language) researcher’s point of

view, not from the user’s point of view, that is. If we look at errors from the user’s

point of view, it is clear that they can cause a lot of problems, especially if they

lead to misunderstanding. When we test a person’s ability to perform in a foreign

language, we want to know how well they can communicate with other people,

and if their communication reaches its purpose, i.e. effectiveness.

Whenever errors in language learning occur, error correction is most likely to

follow. In the process of language teaching in particular, error correction is a

standard practise. Various studies were concerned with learners’ errors, either

focusing on which errors were corrected how frequently, how and why they were

corrected etc. In correcting someone else’s errors and in self-correcting of

mistakes, there are always at least two parties involved – the assessor and the one

being assessed. Researchers were interested in answering various questions

related to error correction, also in teaching and learning of SI. For example, Franz

Pöchhacker (1999) conducted a study on correcting student's errors at the

Department of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Vienna, where he

took into account eight issues relating to output quality. These were: 1) sense

consistency, 2) coherence, 3) correct target language, 4) technical terms, 5) syntax

and style, 6) delivery, 7) voice and articulation and 8) booth manners. The results

were clearly given to the first three aspects, followed closely by the fourth, and a

bit more behind was the fifth aspect, whereas the last three were rarely discussed.

The study was done on teachers of SI correcting their students, but now other

questions follow: Are Pöchhacker’s findings going to be related to our research of

auto-correction in any way? Will then students correct themselves also based on

these aspects? How successful will they be?

37

We will not be focusing on all the eight mentioned issues (not in the same manner

anyway), and the difference will also be that we will be focusing on auto-

correction, which indicates some kind of students’ self-involvement in correcting

erroneous utterances; however, we hope some of our findings will contribute to

discovering how auto-correction contributes to better output quality and

effectiveness of SI. We will try to focus on what happens when the assessor and

the one being assessed are one and the same.

6.1 Auto-Correction

In the beginning of chapter 6, we were dealing with error correction, especially

when errors are corrected from another source, not the L2 learner/user himself.

Those corrections tend to be somewhat different, especially if the one that corrects

the learner/user is the one that possesses more knowledge. In auto-correction,

however, the user of L2 corrects himself, which means his corrections are based

on his knowledge alone. Self-correction can therefore be defined as the process of

the identification and correction of errors by a learner. However, we must remind

that, according to Corder, self-correction is possible only when a learner makes a

mistake, so this is when an error is an error in performance (mistake).

SI is a speech-involving process, and speech is normally a two-way system of

communication. Auto-correction most often occurs when and if the learner

realizes his utterances will fail to communicate. After all, as Edge (1996: 73)

himself says, “we only become aware of our misinterpretation of the nature of

some feature of our environment when action on that interpretation leads to failure

of some sort”. There are, of course, other types of mistakes and errors which do

not lead to misinterpretation. Think for example when someone speaking an L2

utters a sentence, and then realizes that there was some grammatical, syntactic,

phonological or lexical mistake made, and then corrects himself (if he is able to).

Small grammar errors and mistakes usually do not lead to failure in

communication, but can be a disruptive factor in successful communication.

38

While various researches were conducted involving error making and error

correcting, not much research has been done on auto-correction of mistakes,

especially in SI.

6.2 Learner as the Source of Feedback

While a learner being the source of feedback can bring positive effects, it can

bring some negative ones as well. Underhill (1995: 84) makes the following

statement:

Offering the learner the opportunity to correct his own errors is something

that can be done in the course of more or less any oral test [...] The danger

of overuse is that the learner will start to monitor his speech much more

closely, and because less willing to speak, when, for example his fluency is

being tested.

Self-rating and self-monitoring can thus be positive if it heightens the learner’s

self-awareness and attention to the correct use of L2, and it can also be negative if

the L2 speaker monitors his speech too much, and is therefore in constant fear of

making an error.

When a teacher corrects an L2 learner, he/she (the teacher) is the source of

feedback. However, when correction comes from the learner himself, we can

speak of the learner as the source of feedback. There is at least one important

thing about the learner being the source of feedback, and that is, as Edge (1996:

35) says, that “[i]nvolving learners in making judgements about correctness helps

them become more accurate in their own use of the language”, and continues that

“self-correction is easiest to remember, because someone has put something right

in his or her own head” (Edge 1996: 24). This, of course, is the most important

aspect of it. Therefore, metalinguistic awareness is what we are focusing on.

39

Golonka (2000) provides examples of research that involved student self-

correction. She analysed three groups (nullgainers, gainers, high gainers) of L2

learners who went to study abroad in order to gain in L2 proficiency. She studied

their self-correction and found that high gainers (those who have progressed the

most) corrected themselves almost three times more often than nullgainers. She

argues for a connection between self-correction and higher L2 gain, and says that

the research result “implies that self-correcting behaviours are positive and

desirable and should be encouraged from a pedagogical and self-instructional

viewpoint” (Golonka 2000: 113, ctd. in Hogan & Vercellotti 2007).

The above statements and researches were connected mostly to learners correcting

themselves in a learning environment. If we transfer this to an SI learning

environment, we can try to get a sense of simultaneous interpreters correcting

themselves. Self-correction means that the interpreters will be modifying

their speech output by themselves, based on their own assessment (not

someone else’s). This might occur due to more or less serious mistakes during

their utterances, or simply because they will feel the need to improve the quality

or effectiveness of their utterances. Kees de Bot (2000) conducted an interesting

study on SI learners’ self-correction, where he discovered that interpreters also

tend to try to self-correct words and forms that were not wrong, and then let it

pass when they realized they had the correct word. De Bot says this happened

because “simultaneous interpretations almost automatically took over the cognate

word and then, fearing to have hit a false friend, reconsidered it and only after

more or less conscious check let it pass” (p. 78). We will be interested if this will

also be the case in our research. De Bot’s statement leads us to believe that the

student interpreters in our research will possibly also correct themselves on

occasions when their utterances will not be incorrect, because they will fear that

they have hit a false friend, but then they will not check it again (lack of time,

experience etc.), and this will lead to unnecessary self-correction.

40

7 EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

In chapter 7, we will focus on empirical research. This research will define the

purpose of the research, present research questions and methodology, and

interpret the data gathered from the recordings. In the end, the results will be

compared to those from studies carried out by Hogan & Vercelotti (2005–2007)

and Alenka Valh Lopert (2010). The first was a study on self-correction of speech

errors in communication from L1 to L2, and the latter was a study of the errors

that the SI students made during simultaneous interpreting from L2 (English) to

L1 (Slovene). Our research will be dealing with L1 to L2 interpretation.

7.1 The Purpose of the Research

In the empirical research, we addressed the issue of how students of simultaneous

interpreting correct themselves when making mistakes on different levels of

language. The aims were to investigate which errors and mistakes the students

would make, be able to identify, which strategies will they chose to correct them,

and how successful will they be in their correction.

7.2 Research Questions and Hypotheses

Research Question 1: In which area (grammar, syntax, phonetics, lexis) will they

make the most errors and mistakes?

Research Question 2: What mistakes will the students be able to identify?

Research Question 3: Of the mistakes identified, which ones will they be able to

self-correct most frequently?

Research Question 4: What strategy will the students chose to correct the mistakes

made?

Research Question 5: How successful will they be in their self-correction?

41

Based on the aims of our research, the following hypotheses were set:

1. Students of SI will make errors and mistakes on all levels. Errors and

mistakes will be represented rather equally in all the researched areas.

2. All the students of SI will be able to identify some erroneous utterances on

all the levels, although the ability will vary.

3. All the students of SI will be able to self-correct their mistakes, though the

ability will vary.

4. Students of SI will use various paths in their self-correction.

5. Students of SI will be rather successful in their mistake correction,

especially due to previous experience with SI.

7.3 Research Methodology

In Research methodology, we will present the research methods that were used in

order to complete our empirical research. Research sample and data-collecting

procedure will then be described.

7.3.1 Research Methods

Recruiting a representative sample;

Students were recruited to participate in a study on self-correction in simultaneous

interpreting. We wished to test more SI students but were not able to do so.

Therefore, only eight SI students, with around 40 hours of previous experience,

participated in the research.

42

Data collection

We collected data with the help of sound recordings which were collected during

student’s interpreting from L1 into L2 in a phonolaboratory, placed in an

appropriate interpreting environment and with the appropriate interpreting

equipment (booth, earphones, microphone). These recordings were converted into

computer files and then analysed.

Data analysis

Data were analysed with the help of linguistic research. Linguistic research

consisted of the four following researches: • grammar research, • phonetic

research, • syntactic research, and • lexical research. After counting and

describing the errors and mistakes, we observed how often and in which cases the

students would correct themselves; by doing this, we hoped to get a better idea of

their knowledge of L2 and their ability to correct their own mistakes.

7.3.2 Research Sample

The research sample was regrettably small, due to the fact that this experiment

was dependent on the students’ agreement with the participation in the

experiment. We were able to gather eight different recordings of SI students. The

data were recorded in a phonolaboratory at the Department of Translation Studies

at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Maribor, on 21 March 2012. The SI

learners, being 1st year students of the Master’s Programme of Translation and

Interpreting Studies, have had 40 hours of previous experience in simultaneous

interpreting and 40 hours of previous experience in consecutive interpreting.

Students in our research were required to simultaneously interpret from L1

(Slovene) to L2 (English).

43

7.3.3 The Data-Collecting Procedure

SI students were interpreting a speech from L1 to L2. The speech was entitled

Pravo v demokratični in pravični družbi (The Law in a Democratic and Just

Society), which was given by dr. Lovro Šturm, a Slovene lawyer and politician, in

2009. The students were acquainted with the theme of the speech, but were not

given the written speech, nor had they been informed about the specific

terminology used in the speech. The students used SI equipment; they listened to

the speech through earphones in a phonolaboratory and interpreted the speech into

their microphones. Their simultaneous interpretations were recorded on tape by

their teacher, who prepared the recordings for further (computer) use.15

7.4 Results and Interpretation

Errors (errors in competence) in grammar, syntax, phonetics, and lexis are

described and presented with examples. These examples are organized in tables

for better understanding. Where necessary, there is also a description and

explanation given below the table. Some examples are outpointed and discussed

in greater detail. A special section deals with mistakes (errors in performance),

and tries to differentiate between mistakes and errors. Examples of mistakes are

also given. The results are interpreted in each sub-chapter. Auto-correction is

assessed and discussed in a special section. In section 7.5, we discuss the results

of the research and answer the research questions, with the aim of connecting our

study to other similar or relevant studies and putting the research in a broader

context.

15

I hereby once again thank dr. Simon Zupan for his help with the recordings.

44

7.4.1 Errors in Grammar

The term ‘grammar’ includes a variety of language components; however, in this

chapter we deal with the errors that students made when formulating (modal,

irregular, phrasal) verbs, (countable, uncountable) nouns, pronouns, (comparison,

use, formation of) adjectives, adverbs, conditionals, tenses, using articles,

prepositions etc. Examples are presented in the table below. Specific problems are

outpointed by using examples from the table. An explanation as to why we

suppose they occurred is also given.

In Table 1, the first column gives the incorrect (interpreted) English version, and

the second column gives the correct or suggested English version of the

interpretation. The words in italics are those that need special attention.

INCORRECT CORRECT/SUGGESTED

we have slowly began to drown we have slowly begun to drown

the question is if we defeated the question is if we have defeated

we have to ask ourself we have to ask ourselves

seduced of the promises of others seduced by the promises of others

changes that promises justice changes that promise justice

the political options that firmly wants

and promotes changes

the political options that firmly want and

promote changes

this parties these parties

he saw that government didn’t he saw that the government didn’t

you are in the moment of a great

challenge

you are at the moment of a great challenge

come out from this position come out of this position

individual are individuals are

45

all nation all nations

we need and demand for legal country we need and demand a legal country

believe into this believe in this

we will be on the last place we will be in the last place

nobody will give us nothing nobody will give us anything

for realising those freedoms to realise those freedoms/ for the

realisation of those freedoms

we need to go to elections we need to go to the elections

the worst what can happen the worst that can happen

many Christians Slovenia are facing many Christians in Slovenia are facing

we have to chose we have to choose

Christian’s values Christian values

the government did do nothing the government hasn’t done anything

welcome to everyone welcome, everyone / a [warm] welcome to

everyone

we don’t do anything we are not doing anything

this challenge shows up new

opportunities (SLO: izziv lahko daje tudi

nove priložnosti)

this challenge can also bring forth new

opportunities

the American ambassador which said the American ambassador who said

we can come in a position we can come to / arrive at a position

our goal which we didn’t reached our goal which we haven’t reached

we can found ourself in situation we can find ourselves in a situation

Table 1: Errors in Grammar

The above table presents some (not all) of the examples of the students’ errors in

the course of SI. The results of the research have shown that errors mainly

occurred in the usage of articles, prepositions and tenses.

46

PREPOSITIONS

Students had the most problems with prepositions. There was a wide range of

misused prepositions (believe into this instead of believe in this; seduced of the

promises of others instead of seduced by the promises of others; you are in the

moment instead of you are at the moment), and we think this may be due to L1

interference. We can assume this because back-translation of the interpreted

version would give the preposition which was used in the Slovene version (come

in a position instead of come to a position → SLO: se znajdemo v položaju; in the

moment of instead of at the moment of → SLO: v trenutku).

ARTICLES

There were three types of errors in the usage of articles:

(1) definite article (a/an) instead of indefinite article (the);

(2) indefinite article (the) instead of definite article (a/an);

(3) zero article instead of definite/indefinite article (he saw that government

didn’t instead of he saw that the government didn’t).

The use of zero article was the most common error. Students were omitting the

articles where they should not have. This may be due to the fact that Slovene

language does not use definite/indefinite articles, and they have problems with

this particular grammar rule.

TENSES

There were also a great number of errors in the usage of tenses. Although other

errors in the usage of tenses occurred, students had the most problems with

differentiating between the simple past tense and present perfect simple tense. The

sentence below in Table 2 demonstrates this problem. The Slovene version

presents the whole (original) sentence, the correct English version presents only

those features of the English sentence which are necessary to understand the

47

relevance of the present perfect simple tense usage, and the most commonly

interpreted version shows only the interpreters’ usage of the tense.

SLOVENE VERSION

CORRECT

ENGLISH VERSION

MOST COMMONLY

INTERPRETED

VERSION

Da se ne bi uresničila

včerajšnja napoved

ameriškega veleposlanika, ki

je javno povedal, da je že

skoraj leto dni v Sloveniji, da

vlada ni naredila ničesar,

vse druge države in druge

družbe so dinamične, se

prilagajajo izzivom, ukrepajo

in se odzivajo, Slovenija ni

naredila ničesar, Slovenija

tone.

[...] the American

ambassador who publicly

stated that he has been in

Slovenia for almost a year

now, and that the

government hasn’t done

anything, all the other

countries and societies are

dynamic [...]

[...] that the government

didn’t do anything [...]

Table 2: Errors in Tenses

The emphasis in this sentence is put on the result (the government failed to do

anything in the course of one year, and this has an effect on the present political

situation), this action has an influence on the present situation, and that is why the

present perfect simple tense is needed.

We can assume the occurrence of this error is also due to the fact that the Slovene

language does not differentiate between these two tenses. All eight interpreters

used the simple past tense instead of the present perfect simple tense, and only

one interpreter corrected herself later in the speech.

48

DOUBLE NEGATIVE

The use of the double negative, which is considered incorrect in formal English,

but not in formal Slovene, is also present. That is why this is also considered to be

a case of L1 interference. Consider the next two examples:

SLOVENE VERSION

CORRECT ENGLISH

VERSION

INTERPRETATED

VERSION

1. nihče nam ne bo

ničesar podaril;

2. vlada ni naredila

ničesar

1. nobody will give us

anything;

2. the government didn’t

do anything / hasn’t

done anything

1. nobody will give us

nothing;

2. the government

didn’t do nothing

Table 3: Errors in the Use of Double Negative

OTHER

Other problems, such as omitting modality, erroneous use of number (changes

that promises), erroneous use of reflexive pronouns (we have to ask ourself),

erroneous use of inflection (Christian’s values) etc., occurred, but were not as

common as the above described errors.

Most errors occurred in grammar, and these errors prove that this is still the

biggest problem in the use of L2; however, it must be stated that, despite

numerous grammar errors, the text does not lack coherence. The speech can still

be understood, although some sentences are not completely the same in function

(think of the examples where modality is omitted, or the tense is incorrect).

49

7.4.2 Errors in Syntax

Syntax deals with sentence structure. We have already mentioned that in SI the

syntax of the speaker is usually more complex than that of an interpreter. We were

fully aware of that in our research and have taken that fact into consideration,

which means that the interpreter’s use of simpler syntax was by no means

considered as an error. The focus was on word order in the sentences, and how

well-formed the sentences were in SI.

SLOVENE

VERSION

INCORRECT

ENGLISH VERSION

CORRECT/SUGGESTED

ENGLISH VERSION

[...] osebna svoboda

[...]

[...] our personal own

freedom [...]

[...] our own personal freedom

[...]

[...] potem je zdaj

skrajni čas [...]

[...] then now it is the right

time [...]

[...] then it is now the right

time [...]

[...] iz nastalega

položaja se bomo

morali izviti [...]

[...] from the present

situation we will have to

stand up [...]

[...] we will have to stand

up/arise from the present

situation [...]

[...] / [...] [...] because only in such a

way we can show [...]

[...] because we can, only in

such a way, show [...]

[...] če bo šel razvoj v

taki smeri naprej,

potem bomo čez pet let

[...]

[...] if we continue to do

this, we will be in a few

years [...]

[...] if we continue to do this,

in a few years we will be [...]

[...] v Sloveniji smo šli

že [...]

[...] we went in Slovenia

[...]

[...] in Slovenia we went [...]

[...] potreben je nov

razvojni cikel [...]

[...] it’s needed a new

development cycle [...]

[...] a new development cycle

is needed [...]

[...] v družbi se

politična volja oblikuje

[...]

[...] in the country now the

political will is developed

[...]

[...] political will is developed

in the country/society [...]

[...] da smo počasi

začeli drseti navzdol

[...]

[...] and that slowly we are

drowning [...]

[...] and that we are slowly

drowning [...]

[...] to se nam ta

trenutek dogaja [...]

[...] that we are dealing

now [...]

[...] that we are now dealing

(with) [...]

[...] jasno je, katere

stranke [...]

[...] it’s quite clear what are

those parties [...]

[...] it’s quite clear which

those parties are [...]

Table 4: Errors in Syntax

50

Syntactic examples given in the table below are mostly a proof of incorrect word

order. The reasons for incorrect word order could be found in the fact that the

interpreted English word order follows the Slovene word order.

SLOVENE

VERSION

INTERPRETED

VERSION

CORRECT/

SUGGESTED VERSION

[…] iz nastalega

položaja se bomo morali

izviti […]

[...] from the present

situation we will have to

stand up [...]

[...] we will have to stand

up/arise from the present

situation [...]

Table 5: Errors in Word Order

Syntax analysis also proved that the syntax of the interpreters was certainly less

complex than the syntax of the speaker. Interpreted sentences were often shorter

than original ones, or contained more conjunctions, although it should be noted

that most of the original sentences were not too long or complex either. Consider

the below example (the sentences are transcribed exactly as they were given by

the interpreter, i.e. errors and mistakes included).

THE SLOVENE VERSION

V takšnem položaju, v katerem se vedno lahko znajde ali posameznik ali

družina ali pa lahko tudi, kot vidimo, ves narod ali država, se izredno izostrijo

tudi vprašanja ob pogledu na to, kaj je prav in kaj narobe, in v ospredje

prihajajo tudi zahteve po pravičnosti.16

THE INTERPRETED VERSION

We’re all aware, if we admit it or just think about it quietly, that we’re already

in the era of giving up, giving up things. In this situation, where everyone can

get, where everyone can be, all nation and are more and more allowed. More

questions about right and wrong are more and more allowed and demands for

justice are more and more allowed.17

16

The Slovene version consists of one sentence. 17

The English version consists of three sentences.

51

The number of repetitions that were present in most of the students’

interpretations is more obvious. This can also be seen in the above example (are

more and more allowed is repeated 3 times). This type of repetition was very

common (we have to [...] we have to [...] and we also have to). Consider the

repetition of the conjunction and in the below example as well.

THE SLOVENE VERSION

Vendar ne za vsako ceno, lahko jo tudi zamudimo in lahko se znajdemo v

položaju, kjer ugotovimo, da izzivom nismo kos, da ne napredujemo, da

pravzaprav niti ne ohranjamo sedanjega stanja, ampak da smo začeli počasi

drseti navzdol. In to se nam ta trenutek dogaja.

THE INTERPRETED VERSION

However, we can also miss some of the opportunities, and we can realize that

we cannot face all the challenges, and if we are not making progress, and that

we have slowly began to drown. And that is what is happening to us right now.

In the interpreted version, this particular conjunction (a cohesive element) is

repeated four times, probably in order not to lose the general coherence of the

text. On one hand, the conjunction could be repeated only once or twice, and the

text would still be coherent, but on the other hand, it can be argued that the

original sentence has the Slovene conjunction da (‘that’) repeated four times, so

the use of the conjunction and could be justified as an effect-giving feature.

There were numerous cases of repetitions in other examples; however, these were

not included for the effect, but were probably fillers, a way of the interpreter

ensuring himself enough time to remember a word or listen to the speaker’s

further notions, or even a way of auto-correction. Consider the following

examples: in the era of giving up, giving up things; we get confused, politically

confused; a situation where where we can’t handle the challenges; Slovenia has

passed, has passed harsh tests etc.

52

7.4.3 Errors in Phonetics

Errors in phonetics are the ones that enable a listener to tell the difference between

a native and non-native speaker. Table 3 (and notes) present the vowels and

consonants in IPA transcription with examples.18

International Phonetic Alphabet

VOWELS examples CONSONANTS examples

ʌ cup, luck b bad, lab

ɑ: arm, father d did, lady

æ cat, black f find, if

e met, bed g give, flag

ə away, cinema h how, hello

ɜ: turn, learn j yes, yellow

ɪ hit, sitting k cat, black

i: see, heat l leg, little

ʊ put, could m man, lemon

u: blue, food n no, ten

aɪ five, eye ŋ sing, finger

aʊ now, out p pet, map

eɪ say, eight r red, try

oʊ go, home s sun, miss

ɔɪ boy, join ʃ she, crash

eə where, air t tea, getting

ɪə near, here tʃ check, church

ʊə pure, tourist ɵ think, both

ʋ hot, rock (see

notes below)

ð this, mother

ɔ: call, four (see

notes below)

v voice, five

18

Table 3 is taken from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet_chart_for_English_dialects.

For further reading on IPA, see: http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm, and

O'Grady et. al., Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction (1997).

53

w wet, window

z zoo, lazy

ʒ pleasure, vision

dʒ just, large

Table 6: IPA Table

Notes on Table 3:

In əʳ and ɜ:ʳ, the ʳ is not pronounced in BrE, unless the sound comes before

a vowel (as in answering, answer it). In AmE, the ʳ is always pronounced,

and the sounds are sometimes written as ɚ and ɝ.

In AmE, ɑ: and ɒ are one vowel, so calm and cot have the same vowel. In

American transcriptions, hot is written as hɑ:t.

Almost half of Americans pronounce ɔ: the same way as ɑ:, so that caught

and cot have the same vowel.

In American transcriptions, ɔ: is often written as ɒ: (e.g. law = lɒ:), unless

it is followed by r, in which case it remains an ɔ:.

In British transcriptions, oʊ is usually represented as əʊ. For some BrE

speakers, oʊ is more appropriate (they use a rounded vowel) — for others,

the proper symbol is əʊ. For American speakers, oʊ is usually more

accurate.

In eəʳ ɪəʳ ʊəʳ, the r is not pronounced in BrE, unless the sound comes

before a vowel (as in dearest, dear Ann). In AmE, the r is always

pronounced, and the sounds are often written as er ɪr ʊr.

All dictionaries use the r symbol for the first sound in red. The problem

with this convention is that r in the IPA does not stand for the British or

American r; it stands for the “hard” r that is heard, for example, in the

Slovene word ‘tri’. The “proper” symbol for the red consonant is ɹ.

In AmE, t is often pronounced as a flap t, which sounds like d. For

example: letter. Some dictionaries use the t symbol for the flap t.

ʳ is not a sound — it is a short way of saying that an r is pronounced only

in AmE. For example, if you write that the pronunciation of bar is /bɑ:ʳ/,

you mean that it is /bɑ:r/ in American English, and /bɑ:/ in British English.

54

i is usually pronounced like a shorter version of i:, but sometimes

(especially in an old-fashioned British accent) it can sound like ɪ.

Examples: very /ˈveri/, create /kriˈeɪt/, previous /ˈpri:viəs/, ability /əˈbɪlɪti/.

ᵊn means that the consonant n is pronounced as a separate syllable (the

syllabic n, which sounds like a vowel), or that there is a short ə sound

before it. Examples: written /ˈrɪtᵊn/, listen /ˈlɪsᵊn/.

All interpreters chose to use the American English pronunciation, although there

were certain words that were pronounced in British English. Errors in

pronunciation were rather common, although the variety of phonetic errors differs

from one interpreter to another. Examples of this type of errors are given in the

table below. The first column presents the word, the second column gives the

incorrect pronunciation (the word as it was pronounced by the interpreter), and the

third column gives the correct pronunciation (standard AmE) of the word. The

second and the third column give the words in phonetic transcription (IPA). Table

4 presents both vowels and consonants, the correct/incorrect vowels/consonants

that are of special interest to us are underlined. The ' symbol in the word involved

represents the stressed syllable.

WORD INCORRECT

PRONUNCIATION

CORRECT

PRONUNCIATION

changes tʃændʒɪz tʃeɪndʒɪz

chasing tʃæsɪŋ tʃeɪsɪŋ

chose, choose tʃoʊs, tʃuz tʃoʊz, tʃu:z

country kʌntri kʌntʃ i

crisis k aɪzɪs k aɪsɪs

days dæjæs deɪz

era ɪ a æ a

equality ɪkualɪti ɪkuʌlɪti

face feɪz feɪs

55

Table 7: Errors in Phonetics

Note on Table 4: the k in kʌntʃ i is aspirated (kʰ).

involved 'ɪnvolvd ɪn'voʊlvd

least lɪst li:st

legislation lægɪsleɪʃᵊn lædʒɪsleɪʃᵊn

listened lɪstᵊnd lɪsᵊnd

missing misiŋ mɪsiŋ

need næd ni:d

our ʌ aʊ

path pæf pæɵ

pensions pænʒᵊns pænʃᵊns

price p aɪz p aɪs

speakers spɪkɜ: s spi:kɜ: s

situation sɪtueɪʃᵊn sitʃueɪʃᵊn

these ɵɪs ði:z

this dɪz ɵɪs

through tʃ u: ɵ u:

to tu tu:

together tugædɜ: tu:gædɜ:

two tʊ tu:

unwillingly ʌnwɪtɪŋli: ʌnwɪlɪŋli:

urgent ʌ dʒᵊnt ɜ: dᵊnt

use (noun) ju:s ju:z

vote woʊt voʊt

we, when vi:, væn wi:, wæn

56

The results have shown that errors in phonetics mostly occurred in the

pronunciation of i, u, o (vowels) and th (interdental sound ɵ). The letter i in, for

example, miss (also in: think, this, position, which, missing, promises, possible,

quick) was pronounced as i (a shorter version of i:) instead of ɪ. Also, i: in these

was pronounced as ɪ, which made the word sound like this, and could therefore be

perceived as grammatically wrong. Vowel o was pronounced in different ways,

either as u (short, as in Slovene ‘juha’) or ʊ (near-close/near-high central rounded

vowel) instead of u:. Another problem that occurred was the pronunciation of the

r; it was often pronounced as “hard” r (as in Slovene ‘kreda’), not the that

American speakers pronounce. There were also quite a few problems in

pronouncing th (compound letters), which was pronounced as ɵ instead of ð, or tʃ

instead of ɵ, or d instead of ɵ. The next error was in the pronunciation of w and v,

which were often swapped (w for v, and v for w), which also proved to be the case

with s and z sounds.

The results of the research show that all the interpreters used American English

pronunciation. We speculate that this is due to foreign media influence; students

are mostly in contact with American TV shows, films, music etc. Errors in

pronunciation were rather common, and they mostly occurred in the usage of

vowel sounds; however, there were also errors made in consonant sounds,

especially in compound letters, such as th which is a sound that the Slovene

language does not know, and we assume this is the reason why it was a problem

for the students.

57

7.4.4 Errors in lexis

Errors in lexis were also observed. Table 5 shows examples of these errors.

Gathered here are errors in the use of idioms and collocations, but mostly the

examples below present words that were used wrongly, either because they did

not fit into the context, situation, or were morphologically incorrect. The first

column in Table 5 presents the Slovene word/phrase/collocation etc., the second

column gives the incorrect/inappropriate word/phrase/collocation, and the third

column gives the correct or suggested word/phrase/collocation. The words that

need special consideration are written in italics.

SLOVENE

EXPRESSION

INCORRECT/

INAPPROPRIATE

EXPRESSION

CORRECT/SUGGESTED

EXPRESSION

politična zmeda (to get confused from a)

politic point of view

(to get confused from a)

political point of view

temeljna načela base principles basic principles

izviti se iz nastalega

položaja

have to go out of the

situation

have to get out of the situation

miselni zagon motivation of thoughts thought momentum

pravna država legal country / legal state (state governed by the) rule of

law

notranja nesvoboda inner closeness /

nonfreedomness

lack of inner freedom/ inner

unfreedom

katere stranke

prepričljivo zagovarjajo

krščanske vrednote

which political party is

for Christian values

which political party stands for

Christian values

napoved predictment prediction

smo že v obdobju suhih

krav

we’re in the period of

troubles / in the area of

separation

we’re in times of trouble / at a

difficult time / time of crisis /

between a rock and a hard

58

place (fig) / in deep water (fig)

kaj je prav in kaj narobe what is true/good and

what is wrong

what is right and what is

wrong

politika poetics politics

ko ugotovimo when we find out when we realize

načela freedoms principles

pogledi na the looks on the views on

med in mleko (fig) honey and milk (fig) (land of) milk and honey (fig) /

El Dorado / land of promise /

land of plenty / end of the

rainbow / over the rainbow /

happy valley

neodgovorno je it is not responsible it is irresponsible

ne za vsako ceno nothing is going to be

spared / not for every cost

not at any cost/price

izbrati tisto politično

opcijo

to choose a decision to make a decision / to choose

that political option which...

da nas ponovno zagrabi

politična zmeda

to meet a political mess

again

that we are faced with political

chaos again

se izredno izostrijo tudi

vprašanja

this puts up the questions this puts forward the questions

izziv lahko daje tudi

nove priložnosti

this challenge shows up

new opportunities

this challenge brings up /

brings forth new opportunities

smo začeli počasi drseti

navzdol (fig)

we took a step back we have begun to slide down

(sliding down)(fig) / slip

(slipping) / regress

notranja svoboda interior freedom inner freedom

iti na volitve to go on elections to go to the elections

ki bodo zagotovile

svobodno demokracijo

that will secure a free

democracy

that will ensure a free

democracy

59

ameriški veleposlanik the American US

ambassador

the American ambassador

na zadnjem mestu med

vsemi drugimi

vzhodnoevropskimi

državami

on the bottom of all

countries in Europe

at the bottom (fig) / in the last

place among all European

countries

Slovenija bo na zadnjem

mestu

Slovenia will decrease Slovenia will be in the last

place

vsi se zavedamo ali pa to

priznavamo

we all know about it we are all aware of it

ne napredujemo we’re not able to evolve we’re not able to develop

ustavna garancija constitutional right constitutional guarantee

politična volja se

oblikuje

political will is developed political will is formed

da bi dosegla in order to achievement in order to achieve

se prilagajajo izzivom are available to adapt to

issues

are able to adapt to challenges

čez pet let in fifth years in five years

v takšnem položaju, v

katerem se vedno lahko

znajde ali posameznik

in this position in which

one can always encounter

in a position in which one can

always find oneself

zahteve po pravičnosti questions of just the demands for justice

razvojni cikel developing cycle development cycle

čas je, da se streznimo it is time to come to the

reality

it is time to face the reality

nas ponovno zagrabi

malodušje

we become boring again we become bored again

veleposlanik prime minister ambassador

pokojnine pay checks pensions

Table 8: Errors in Lexis

60

The research shows that a great number of errors in lexis occurred because the

interpreters heard the Slovene word and translated it correctly, but the problem

was that the word did not fit into a certain context. Consider the adjective interior

‘being within, internal, inner’, which was used together with the noun freedom.

The phrase used was interior freedom; however, the more common collocation

here would be inner freedom. Another similar example was the phrase “politična

zmeda”, which was interpreted as “political mess”. The noun mess ‘a confused,

troubling, or embarrassing condition’ would in back-translation give the word

“nered”, which usually means ‘an untidy situation’ in Slovene. The more

appropriate collocation would probably be political chaos (Google gives it as a

more common collocation), and another fact is that chaos ‘a condition or place of

great disorder or confusion’ or maybe confusion ‘the act of confusing or the state

of being confused’ would be closer to the meaning of the original version. The

interpreted versions in these two examples were not completely incorrect, and

(probably) did not interrupt with the understanding of the intended phrase;

however, they were not the best collocations to use. One of the interpreters

interpreted “čas je, da se streznimo” with it’s time to come to the reality, when the

best collocation would be it’s time to face reality.

Another example was the Slovene phrase “ne napredujemo”, which was

interpreted as “we’re not able to evolve”; the verb evolve ‘to develop’ was used

incorrectly because the verb evolve can only be used in active voice (Wings

evolved in reptiles.), not in passive voice. In passive voice, the best solution is to

use the word develop (Reptiles developed wings.). Since the subject doing the

action in the sentence in our example is known (we), the correct verb would be

develop.

There were some unsuitable words regarding register. Consider for example the

Slovene expression “vsi se tega zavedamo” which was interpreted as we all know

about it instead of the more appropriate we are all aware of it. The verbs know

about and are aware were swapped even though they are not completely the same

in meaning. The speaker addressed the listeners at the beginning of the speech,

61

and one interpreter interpreted “pozdravljeni” as “hi”, which was inappropriate to

use in a formal context. The more appropriate address would be “welcome”,

“good morning/afternoon” etc.

Consider also the phrase “temeljna načela” which was interpreted as base

principles instead of basic principles. In this case, the noun base is used instead of

the adjective basic. The example with development cycle demonstrates the same

problem.

There were a few misinterpreted words that were used completely incorrect.

Consider the next examples: “ameriški veleposlanik” → prime minister instead of

ambassador; “pokojnine” → pay checks instead of pensions; “politika” → poetics

instead of politics; “načela” → freedoms instead of principles.

There were four figures of speech used in the original version of the speech, these

were: (1) “smo v obdobju suhih krav”, (2) “med in mleko”, (3) “črv, ki nas gloda”,

(4) “vrgli puške v koruzo”. Most of the interpreters did not keep the figurativeness

of the speech, which was not surprising because of the time pressure which did

not give them a chance of being very creative. This, of course, was not considered

as an error because most of the interpreters still managed to get the right message

across, either by losing the figurativeness; however, some interpretations resulted

in completely omitting the initial idea.

62

7.4.5 Mistakes and Auto-Correction

We have made the distinction between errors and mistakes, as Corder defines

them. Mistakes are considered to be non-systematic errors of performance that

occur randomly, and we observed this in our research. Listed below in Table 6 are

some of the examples of mistakes. The first column gives the example of a

mistake, the second column gives the students’ auto-correction, and the third one

assesses the appropriateness/correctness of the interpreter’s correction. The + sign

signifies the correction was appropriate/correct, and the – sign signifies that it was

not, and if the correction is inappropriate/incorrect, a comment has been made and

a possible solution given in the fourth column. Take special notice of the words

written in bold.

MISTAKE AUTO-

CORRECTION

ASSESS

MENT

SOLUTION

[...] that make chan [...] [...] make changes that

[...]

+

[...] if you want the

righteous society [...]

[...] a righteous society

[...]

+

In this situation, where

everyone can get [...]

[...] where everyone

can be [...]

–/+ OR: [...] everyone

can find themselves

in a situation like this

[...]

[...] all nation [...] [...] all the nation [...] – [...] all nations [...]

[...] if we’re just [...] [...] if we are not just

[...]

+

[...] this times [...] [...] these times [...] +

[...] inner close [...] [...] inner closeness

[...]

+

[...] to get the votes that

[...]

[...] the votes of the

people who believe

[...]

+

63

[...] the government

didn’t do anything [...]

[...] the government

hasn’t done anything

[...]

+

[...] other societies are

dynamic, and that they

[...]

[...] and that such

challenges ... Slovenia

didn’t do anything [...]

– Neither version was

correct, because it

was either

incomplete or did not

make sense.

[...] Slovenia doesn’t

deserve this [...], and we

have to show [...]

[...] and it has to show

that it needs change

[...]

+ NOTE: Both

versions would be

possible; “we” could

also mean “we, the

people of Slovenia”.

[...] a great challenge

against our future [...]

[...] in front of our

future [...]

– [...] in front of us / in

our future [...]

[...] questions about

what is true or wrong

[...]

[...] questions about

what is good or

wrong [...]

– [...] questions about

what is right or

wrong [...]

[...] in a search [...] [...] in a situation [...] +

[...] in this sit [...];

[...] Christ [...]

[...] in this situation

[...]; [...] Christian

[...]

+

[...] it is [...] [...] we need to [...] +

[...] troubled times [...] [...] troubling times

[...]

– The right collocation

is troubled times.

[...] which we didn’t ...

still didn’t [...]

[...] which we haven’t

[...]

+

[...] we need to chis [...] [...] we need to choose

[...]

+

[...] for free [...] [...] for freedom [...] +

[...] we did [...] [...] we do not wish

[...]

+

[...] eastern countries

[...]

[...] western countries

[...]

– [...] Eastern

countries [...]

64

[...] if we admit or not

[...]

[...] if we admit it or

not [...]

+/– NOTE: Both

versions are correct.

[...] a challenge can’t

give [...];

[...] this will be [...]

[...] can give new

opportunities [...];

[...] this won’t be [...]

+

[...] well, now is [...] [...] now it is time to

[...]

+/– NOTE: Both

versions are correct.

[...] a party that a

promise [...]

[...] a party that

promise [...]

– [...] a party that

promises [...]

[...] political mess [...] [...] political chaos [...] +

[...] which believe that

some things [...]

[...] which believe that

something [...]

+

[...] development cycle

[...]

[...] development

circle [...]

+ NOTE: Unnecessary

correction.

[...] this challenge

shows up [...]

[...] this challenge

brings up new

opportunities [...]

– [...] this challenge

puts forth/offers (a

chance for) new

opportunities [...]

[...] some people follow

some promises [...]

[...] follow the beliefs

and promises [...]

+

[...] chose this politic...

[...]

[...] that political

option [...]

+

Those are many

countries [...]

[...] many parties [...] +

[...] that fifth years from

now [...];

[...] in few years [...]

[...] five years from

now [...];

[...] in five years [...];

+

[...] problems in

Slovenia [...]

[...] that we are

dealing now in

Slovenia [...]

+

[...] these is [...] [...] these are [...] +

[...] by the former

government [...]

[...] by the current

government [...]

+

Table 9: Auto-Correction in Simultaneous Interpreting

65

The results show that students of SI corrected their mistakes on several occasions.

Different types of mistakes occurred while interpreting, for example false

beginnings, wrong use of number, subject omission (and other omissions), wrong

use of words, mistakes in pronunciation, ‘slips of the tongue’ etc. Most of the

mistakes occurred in lexis. Students corrected themselves; however, not all their

corrections were justified.

The students corrected their mistakes on 45 occasions, 8 (17.8%) of these were

wrongly corrected (they made the mistakes and corrected themselves

immediately, but their solutions were incorrect), and on 5 (11.1%) occasions the

corrections were unnecessary because the first version was not incorrect, the other

corrections (71.1%) were justified/correct. This is presented in Graph 1 below.

Graph 1: Auto-Correction of Mistakes

We also wanted to present the distribution between errors and mistakes that were

made, and we presented this in Graph 2. The graph gives us an idea of how many

utterances resulted in failure, how many of them were identified and then

corrected, and how many of them were not identified. Note, however, that this is

only an approximate estimate because errors in pronunciation are difficult to

recognize (the graph was created by the number of errors and mistakes). For more

detail, see Graph 2 and the explanation below.

Auto-Correction of Mistakes

Incorrect auto-

correction

Unnecessary auto-

correction

Correct auto-

correction

66

Graph 2: Errors vs. Mistakes

Graph 2 shows that there were a lot more errors (81.7%) made than mistakes

(18.3%). This means that for the majority of the time interpreters’ utterances

which resulted in failure were not identified and therefore not corrected. This

could be the result of many reasons; consider, for example, the following:

(1) SI students were not able to identify their errors because of time pressure;

(2) they realized they have made a mistake but had no time to correct it;

(3) psychological factors (tiredness, stress etc.);

(4) trouble with equipment, etc.

We speculate that if someone (for example a teacher) would warn the students

about the errors made, they would be able to correct them, at least some of them.

To be sure, we would of course have to verify this with a test. It is clear that, for

example, the interpreter who interpreted the word “ambasador” as “prime

minister” instead of “ambassador” is surely aware that the two are not equivalent,

but he has failed to correct himself in his mistake because the word was either not

retrieved fast enough from his mental lexicon or he was not paying enough

attention or maybe for some other reason. However, all these reasons for making

mistakes have to be overcome in order for students to become good interpreters

Errors vs. Mistakes

Errors

Mistakes

67

and to achieve the best possible performance in simultaneous interpreting. This

will surely – eventually – come with (enough) practice.

OVERVIEW

The study of auto-correction in SI has shown that most mistakes and most auto-

correction occurred in lexis. The students would often omit a certain word in a

phrase, (if we are instead of if we are not; some promises instead of beliefs and

promises), and if some of these would not be corrected, the interpretation would

definitely be wrong; they would use an antonym of the L1 word (former instead of

current), they would correct a word and switched it with a more suitable one

(political mess → political chaos).

There were also grammar mistakes that were auto-corrected; however, if these

were not corrected, they would usually not cause misinterpretation (example: this

times instead of these times – the listener would still be able to understand what

the intention of the speaker was), at least not in such a degree as a mistake in lexis

might.

Mistakes in pronunciation consisted mostly because of false starts. These were

corrected in a timely and appropriate manner.

The interesting fact is that mistakes in syntax were almost non-existent. This

means that there were certainly errors; however the SI students did not correct

themselves in their interpretations, therefore these errors were not considered as

mistakes, and it is not clear to what degree they would be able to identify and

correct them.

68

7.5 Discussion

It is not always easy to differentiate between mistakes and errors. The difference

between the two is still a non-resolved issue, usually dealt in literature concerning

second language acquisition. According to Corder’s definition, mistakes are the

errors that one is able to correct, because one knows that something is not right

with, for example, an utterance. Errors are made when one is not aware of the

“erroneous” nature of, for example, an utterance. We tried to categorize them with

this definition in mind; however, this proved to be a very demanding task because

the intention of the interpreter was often very difficult to identify. This is why it is

clear that in simultaneous interpreting, it is very difficult to differentiate between

mistakes and errors, because not all non-corrected errors are errors in competence.

This is to say, even if an interpreter does not correct himself, it can still mean that

he/she has simply made a mistake (error in performance), and not an error (error

in competence). The students made mistakes which were considered as errors

according to Corder’s definition (there was no self-correction), for which we

know are not errors, because the students were supposed to have acquired that

particular knowledge somewhere along their studies. The research has shown that

in SI we cannot say that auto-correction identifies mistakes and absence of auto-

correction proves errors. We can thus say that interpreting could be a means of

adding insight to the question of difference between errors in competence and

errors in performance.

In the beginning of chapter 7, we pointed out five research questions, and made

four hypotheses referring auto-correction in simultaneous interpreting. Our

research has given the results that enable us to confirm or correct these

hypotheses, as well as answer the research questions.

Most errors were made in grammar (especially in the use of pronouns, articles and

tenses) and lexis. Most mistakes were made and auto-corrected in lexis which was

followed by mistakes in grammar. The errors in syntax were common; however,

auto-correction of mistakes in syntax was not as frequent as we assumed it would

69

be. We also considered the strategies that the students chose to correct their

mistakes, and the results show that they were usually successful in their self-

correction; however, there were utterances which were not corrected successfully.

Our first hypothesis suggested that errors and mistakes will be made on all levels,

and that they will be represented rather equally. This proved to be so, although

most errors and mistakes occurred on the lexical and grammatical level. The

second hypothesis suggested that students will be able to identify erroneous

utterances but that ability would vary, and the third hypothesis suggested that they

will also be able to correct them, although the ability would vary, and both also

proved to be the case. The results show that SI students were able to identify some

erroneous utterances; however, most of them were not identified. The ability

varied from one interpreter to another. The fourth hypothesis suggested that

various strategies would be chosen in self-correction, and this was confirmed –

the corrections were either correct or incorrect, some of them were also

unnecessary. The fifth hypothesis suggested that students of SI would be

successful in their self-correction; however, we expected they would be able to

correct more of the erroneous sentences than they did.

If we compare our results to those from a study conducted by A. V. Lopert (2010),

we can draw some parallels, especially in connection to phonetic errors. Both

studies have shown that most pronunciation errors occur in pronunciation of

vowels. Other mistakes and errors also occurred mostly in lexis. Similarly, we

could draw some parallels between our study and the one carried out by Hogan &

Vercellotti (2007). They found that L2 students were able to identify some

mistakes and were able to correct them, and that most of the mistakes were made

in grammar. Also, their results – as well as ours – have shown that the students in

their study chose the right strategy in their self-correction; however, not in all

cases.

To conclude, the study has shown many useful results; however, in order to get

more specific results, we would have to include other variables in the study. This

70

means that for any future research, one should have to consider other factors that

could contribute to different results of the research. If anyone would ever wish to

conduct a similar study, they should consider the following:

the research sample needs to consist of at least 15–20 interpreters, in order

to get more representative results;

the research sample has to include groups of interpreters classified

according to previous experience in SI (SI students, SI professionals), so

that progress of simultaneous interpreters can also be observed;

the speech needs to be interpreted from L1 to L2 and vice versa, so that the

researcher will get comparable results;

mistakes and errors need to be analysed at several levels (including style,

coherence etc.);

possibly, the study should consider gender differences in simultaneous

interpreting sufficiency.

71

8 CONCLUSION

Language is a feature that separates human beings from other animals. It is a

complex form of communication that has impressed and puzzled many throughout

thousands of years. It has the ability to enable communication, but it can also

prevent a person from being successful at it. Most people acquire their first

language at an early age in their lives, and later, a great number of them also come

in contact with a foreign language. This contact can either have positive or

negative effects. To acquire a second (foreign) language does not mean simply to

know a few words of the L2 vocabulary; it means that a person masters an L2

vocabulary, grammar rules, the culture, and many other factors that contribute to

successful communication. An interpreter must be able to do all that, and much

more. His/her work includes being able to carry the message across, not only from

one language to another, but also from one culture to another. He/she is the bridge

between L1 and L2, he/she is the one who needs to fill in the gaps. To be

successful in what he/she does, he/she needs to not only master both languages

and cultures, but he/she also needs to master other psychological factors that are

inevitable in his/her line of work. An interpreter, especially a simultaneous

interpreter, does not become a good interpreter over night. He/she must gradually

gain as much experience as possible, and he/she can do this only by exposing

himself to situations that enable him/her to do so. In his/her training, as in all

other, he/she will stumble, face challenges, and also fail. The way he/she handles

his/her failures, will determine how good he/she will eventually become.

This diploma paper set out to study how the human mind works in perceiving and

producing language, and how it then proceeds to an even more complex task –

how a person, a simultaneous interpreter, is able to manage both these processes

at the same time, what problems he faces during it, and how successful he/she is.

In order to get the answers, we conducted an empirical research on auto-correction

in simultaneous interpreting. Before the study, we researched previous theories on

simultaneous interpreting, and especially on errors and mistakes. We chose to

apply Corder’s definition of errors and mistakes in our research, and the results

72

have clearly shown that his definition of errors cannot be applied to this kind of

research in simultaneous interpreting, because of the specifics of the field. We

found that in SI, we cannot say that auto-correction identifies mistakes and that

the absence of self-correction necessarily means the interpreter made an error (and

thus imply the lack of L2 language competence). We conducted the study also

with the aim of having a chance to see which types of errors will occur during

simultaneous interpreting, and how successful an SI learner will be in correcting

his/her own mistakes. We tested the abilities of eight SI students, and found that

most errors and mistakes occurred in grammar and lexis, and that the majority of

erroneous utterances were not corrected. The mistakes were corrected in the right

manner most of the times; while in the remainder, however, this was not always

the case. It is important to note that while many errors and mistakes occur, the

right messages were still carried across most of the time. The results were

consistent with other similar studies done by researches interested in speech errors

and mistakes, and their correction. At the end, we also gave a few helpful pointers

for future possible studies, so the results would be more representative.

To conclude, we must point out that mistakes and errors are not problems, and

should not be treated as such; they are very important learning steps that reveal

how languages are learned and enable us to understand the human mind. And this

should always be appreciated.

73

REFERENCES

Alexander, Louis G. Longman English Grammar. UK: Longman, 1998. Print.

Blaganje, Dana & Konte, Ivan. Modern English Grammar. Ljubljana: DZS, 1998.

Print.

de Bot, Kees. “Simultaneous Interpreting as Language Production.” Englund

Dimitrova & Hyltenstam. 65‒89.

Cambrige International Dictionary of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1995. Print.

Chacibaia, Nelly. “On the Mechanisms of Probability Prediction in Simultaneous

Interpreting.” On the Relationships between Translation Theory and

Translation Practice. Ed. Peters, Jeen. Frankfurt am Main: P. Land, 2005.

101–112. Print.

Chernov, Ghelly V. Inference and Anticipation in Simultaneous Interpreting: A

Probability – prediction Model. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Publishing

Company, 2004. Print.

Corder, Steven P. Error Analysis and Interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1985. Print.

Duong, Tran T. “How to Improve Short-Term Memory in Interpreting.” Hanoi,

2006. Web. 24. 4. 2012.

Edge, Julian. Mistakes and Correction. London: Longman Publishing, 1996.

Print.

74

Englund Dimitrova, Birgitta, and Kenneth Hyltenstam, eds. Language Processing

and Simultaneous Interpreting. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing

Co., 2000. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. “Slips of the Tongue.” Ed. Fromkin, Victoria. Speech Errors as

Linguistic Evidence, 1973. Google Books. Web. 29. 3. 2012.

Fromkin, Victoria, ed. Speech Errors as Linguistic Evidence. 1973. Google

Books. Web. 29. 3. 2012.

Gile, Daniel. “Issues in Interdisciplinary Research into Conference Interpreting”.

Englund Dimitrova& Hyltenstam. 89‒106.

Gonzales Davies, Maria. Multiple Voices in the Translation Classroom: Activities,

Tasks and Properties. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Publishing Company,

2004. Print.

Hartman, Miha. “Stres in čustvena inteligenca pri simultanem tolmačenju.”

Diploma thesis. Maribor: Univerza v Mariboru, Filozofska fakulteta, 2001.

Web. 2. 4. 2012.

Hogan, Jessica and Mary Lou Vercellotti. The Self-correction of Speech Errors

(McCormick, O’Neill & Siskin). LearnLab, 2007. Web. 3. 11. 2011.

<http://www.learnlab.org/research/wiki/index.php/The_self-

correction_of_speech_errors_(McCormick,_O%E2%80%99Neill_%26_Sis

kin)>

Jones, Daniel. Cambridge Pronouncing Dictionary. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1996. Print.

Karra, Maria. “Second Language Acquisition: Learners' Errors and Error

Correction in Language Teaching.” ProZ.com Translation Article

75

Knowledgebase. 24 March 2006. Web. 3. 11. 2011.

<http://www.proz.com/translation-articles/articles/633/>

Lambert, Sylvie. “Shared Attention during Sight Translation, Sight Interpretation

and Simultaneous Interpreting.” Meta Translators Journal, Vol. 49, Issue: 2.

Mendeley, Erudit, 2004. 294-306. Web. 2. 4. 2012.

McAllister, Robert. “Perceptual Foreign Accent and its Relevance for

Simultaneous Interpreting”. Englund Dimitrova& Hyltenstam. 89‒106.

45‒63.

Nolan, James. Interpretation: Techniques and Exercises. Toronto: Multilingual

Matters, 2008. Print.

O’Grady, William, Michael Dobrovolsky, Francis Katamba, eds. Contemporary

Linguistics: An Introduction. UK: Longman, 1997 (3rd

ed.). Print

Paradis, Michael. “Prerequisites to a Study of Neurolinguistic Processes involved

in Simultaneous Interpreting.” Englund Dimitrova & Hyltenstam. 17‒24.

Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct: The New Science of Language and Mind.

London: Penguin books, 1995. Print.

Posner, Michael I. Images of Mind. USA: Scientific American Library, 1997.

Print.

Pöchhacker, Franz. Introducing Interpreting Studies. London: Routledge, 2004.

Print.

Pöchhacker, Franz. Simultaneous Interpreting: A Functionalist Perspective. Web.

3. 11. 2011.

<http://download2.hermes.asb.dk/archive/download/H14_03.pdf>

76

Pöchhacker, Franz. “Teaching Practices in Simultaneous Interpreting.”

Interpreter’s Newsletter. Department of Translation and Interpreting,

University of Vienna, 1999. 157–176. Web. 3. 11. 2011.

<http://www.openstarts.units.it/dspace/bitstream/10077/2218/1/09Poechhac

ker.pdf>

Tarone, Elaine, and George Yule. Focus on the Language Learner: Approaches to

Identifying and Meeting the Needs of Second Language Learners. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1995. Print.

Valh Lopert, Alenka. “Pomen zavedanja socialne zvrstnosti slovenskega jezika za

študente tolmačenja in prevajanja.” Ed. Novak Popov, Irena. Vloge

središča: Konvergenca regij in kultur. Ljubljana: Zveza društev Slavistično

društvo Slovenije, 2010. 81–90. Print.

Vission, Lynn. “Simultaneous Interpretation: Language and Cultural Difference.”

Eds. Berman, Sandra & Michael Wood. Nation, Language, and the Ethics of

Translation. Princeton University Press: USA, 2005. 51–64. Print.

Yule, George. The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1996. Print.

1

APPENDIX

Pravo v demokratični in pravični družbi

dr. Lovro Šturm

Lep pozdrav vsem navzočim tukaj, hvala za povabilo in, seveda, čestitke tudi

obema uvodnima predgovornikoma.

Slovenci se nahajamo v teh dnevih, mesecih, v tem letu, kar v nekem trenutku

velikega izziva, pred svojo prihodnostjo. Vsi se zavedamo ali to priznavamo ali pa

po tihem o tem razmišljamo, da smo že v obdobju suhih krav, da smo že v

obdobju odrekanja. V takšnem položaju, v katerem se vedno lahko znajde ali

posameznik ali družina ali pa lahko tudi, kot vidimo, ves narod ali država, se

izredno izostrijo tudi vprašanja ob pogledu na to, kaj je prav in kaj narobe, in v

ospredje prihajajo tudi zahteve po pravičnosti. Gotovo bomo morali poiskati izhod

iz nastalega položaja, v položaju, v katerem nas je pahnila sedanja oblast, ki se

brezglavo in brezumno zadolžuje, in ni drugega izhoda, kot da najdemo pot s

pospešeno gospodarsko rastjo, z opiranjem na lastne sile, in s tem da ne

odganjamo tiste, ki so nam pripravljeni pomagati. Se pravi, potreben je nov

miselni zagon, vendar pa je potreben tudi zagon celotnega slovenskega

gospodarstva. Potreben je nov razvojni cikel. Vsaka kriza je izziv, in izziv lahko

daje tudi nove priložnosti. Vendar ne za vsako ceno, lahko jo tudi zamudimo in

lahko se znajdemo v položaju, kjer ugotovimo, da izzivom nismo kos, da ne

napredujemo, da pravzaprav niti ne ohranjamo sedanjega stanja, ampak da smo

začeli počasi drseti navzdol. In to se nam ta trenutek dogaja. V takem položaju,

kot sem že pravkar povedal, je seveda toliko bolj potrebno postaviti v ospredje

tudi temeljne zahteve po uresničevanju pravne države, in to pravne države, ki

temelji na pravičnosti. Kajti ne moremo govoriti o pravičnosti, če ne uveljavimo

tudi načelo enakosti, enakosti za vse, in če ne uveljavimo tudi načela pravičnosti.

Vse to v sedanjih časih hudo pogrešamo, ne bom vam našteval primere, poznamo

jih. Iz nastalega položaja se bomo morali izviti, v Sloveniji smo šli že doslej skozi

hude preizkušnje. Bodimo optimisti, prestali bomo tudi to. Toda nihče nam ne bo

2

podaril ničesar. Živimo v svobodni demokratični družbi, vsaj v okvirju, bom

rekel, ustavnih garancij, v okvirju ustavno-pravne ureditve, vendar si je treba za

uresničevanje temeljnih načel svobodne demokratične družbe seveda tudi

prizadevati. Prizadevati si je treba z lastno odgovornostjo. Z lastno osebno

odgovornostjo vsakega med nami posebej in skupaj, kadar se združimo, in

utemeljeno pričakujemo, da lahko uveljavimo poglede na temeljna krščanska

načela, ki naj pomagajo spremeniti nastalo situacijo. V svobodni demokratični

družbi, ki je naš cilj, in ki jo še nismo dosegli. Pred dvajsetimi leti smo bili

preveliki optimisti, nismo tega še dosegli, gotovo bomo, bodimo optimisti tudi

sedaj, vendar ne tako počasi. V svobodni demokratični družbi se politična volja

oblikuje z zahtevo po pravni državi in z zahtevo tudi po svobodnih volitvah.

Svobodne volitve imamo, vendar, ali smo premagali tudi notranjo nesvobodo? Ali

smo premagali malodušje? Ali smo premagali tisti črv, ki nas gloda, »saj je

vseeno, saj nima smisla, da sploh gremo na volitve«? Glejte, to so najhujši izzivi,

s katerimi se ta trenutek v Sloveniji spopadamo in s katerimi se spopadajo zelo

številni kristjani v Sloveniji. Če so mnogi od njih pri prejšnjih volitvah obupali ali

vrgli puške v koruzo, ali pa celo prisluhnili zapeljivim obljubam drugih ljudi, ki

so obljubljali med in mleko, recimo pokojnine vsakomur v višini najmanj tisoč

evrov, potem je zdaj skrajni čas, da se streznimo. Zelo neodgovorno je ostati

doma. Mislim, da bo treba iti na volitve in izbrati tisto politično opcijo, ki trdno

zagovarja spremembe, takšne spremembe, ki bodo pomenile korak naprej, ki bodo

zagotovile svobodno demokracijo, ki bodo zagotovile tudi resnično udejanjanje

pravne države in upoštevanje pravičnosti. Najhuje, kar se nam lahko zgodi, je to,

da nas ponovno zagrabi malodušje, ali pa morebiti tudi, bom rekel, neka politična

zmeda. Dokaj jasno je, katere stranke prepričljivo zagovarjajo krščanske vrednote.

Zaslužijo si te stranke, več jih je, to so stranke Pomladne opcije, da tudi dobijo

glasove volivcev, ki verjamejo v te vrednote, ki verjamejo, da je mogoče šele

potem nekaj spremeniti na bolje.

Uvodoma sem rekel, da pot ne bo enostavna, vendar zahteve po socialni

pravičnosti so tiste, ki bodo lahko usmerjale bodoči razvoj, bodoči razvoj mora pa

temeljiti na zdravih gospodarskih temeljih. Da se ne bi uresničila včerajšnja

3

napoved ameriškega veleposlanika, ki je javno povedal, da je že skoraj leto dni v

Sloveniji, da vlada ni naredila ničesar, vse druge države in druge družbe so

dinamične, se prilagajajo izzivom, ukrepajo in se odzivajo, Slovenija ni naredila

ničesar, Slovenija tone. Napovedal nam je celo, če bo šel razvoj v taki smeri

naprej, potem bomo čez pet let na zadnjem mestu med vsemi drugimi

vzhodnoevropskimi državami. Slovenija si tega ne zasluži, Slovenija se mora

otresti nekega malodušja in samozavestno pokazati, da spremembe potrebujemo

in da so spremembe nujne. Torej, odzvati se je treba z aktivno udeležbo, z

aktivnim nastopanjem, in seveda tudi z osebno ali pa s skupinsko odgovornostjo.

Hvala lepa!