See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/341121038

Consecutive Interpretation Training: Challenges and Solutions

Article · May 2020

DOI: 10.22034/efl.2020.227897.1036

CITATIONS READS

0 192

3 authors:

Ahmad Al-Harahsheh Ekrema Shehab

University of Sharjah An-Najah National University
28 PUBLICATIONS   54 CITATIONS    14 PUBLICATIONS   30 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Rafat Mahmoud Al Rousan

Yarmouk University
15 PUBLICATIONS   4 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Responding to Gratitude View project

Semantic and Syntactic Challenges in Translating Political News Reports from English into Arabic and vice versa: A Linguistic Approach View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Ahmad Al-Harahsheh on 04 May 2020.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Translation Studies,
ISSN: 2645-3592 Vol. 5, No.1, pp.85-102 85

Consecutive Interpretation Training: Challenges and Solutions

Ahmad Mohammad Al-Harahsheh*

Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, Translation Department,
Faculty of Arts, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan
[email protected]
Ekrema Shehab
Associate Professor in Translation Studies, Department of English Language,
Faculty of Humanities, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine
[email protected]
Rafat Al-Rousan
Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics, Translation Department,
Faculty of Arts, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan
[email protected]

Abstract
Consecutive interpreting (CI ) requires a lot of parallel cognitive
and affective processes, which are challenging for the interpreter
who has to deal with them concurrently . This study focuses on the
problems trainee interpreters encountered in their CI sessions. An
analysis of the strategies they used to weigh whether they have been
successful in completing their task is also given. The sample of the
study consists of 50 senior students of Translation enrolled in CI
course (English-Arabic) in the Fall Semester 2018/2019 at the
Translation Department at Yarmouk University, Jordan. The
Source Text (ST), which was divided into one-minute period for
each time, was given to students for interpretation and then the
Target Text (TT) was recorded. Most of the challenges encountered
by trainee-interpreters were linguistic problems, memory problems,
note-taking and reproducing the ST into the TL. It is imperative
therefore that interpreter training should be as effective as possible
and interpreters should develop a series of skills and strategies such
as chunking and joining, shadowing, anticipating, listening and
recalling and paraphrasing that can be used to solve the problems
encountered.
Keywords: Consecutive Interpretation, Effort Model of
Consecutive Interpretation, Trainee-Interpreters, Challenges,
Solutions

Received: 2020-04-20 Accepted: 2019-05-04

Available Online: 2020-05-44 DOI: 10.22034/efl.2020.227897.1036

* Corresponding author
 86 Consecutive Interpretation Training: Challenges …

Introduction

Translation is an interdisciplinary field of study; it is associated with all

fields of knowledge. Due to globalization, there is an urgent need for oral
interpretation all over the world. Therefore, the interpreters should have
certain skills that enable them to perform their task professionally.
Training interpreters is necessary to provide them with 'tactics and
strategies' that will help future qualified interpreters to solve the problems
they encounter (Ribas, 2012). The quality of interpreting relies on certain
skills and strategies that should be adopted by practice training."
Consecutive interpreting entails a large number of almost concurrent
cognitive, psychomotor and affective processes, all of which pose major
challenges for the interpreter who has to deal with them simultaneously”
(Ribas,2012,p.813).That is, consecutive interpreters encounter problems
such as mental processing related to short-term memory, self-confidence
problems as well as linguistic problems.
Phelan (2001,p.9) states that CI is “useful for a question and answer
session, a press conference or an after-dinner speech,” as the interpreters
shall stand up in front of the audience to interpret what has been said in ST
into TT and vice versa. CI is practiced in public contrary to simultaneous
interpretation where the interpreter will be in a separate booth. In addition,
During CI, the interpreter can take-notes while listening to the ST to help
him/her recall what has been said.
Formal training for translators and interpreters is very essential because
it develops "their performance to the full realization of their potential" and
helps them develop their translation skills more rapidly than through field
experience and self-instruction, which may involve much groping in the
dark and learning by trial-and-error" (Gile, 2009,p.7). Formal training
should be organized, directed and systemized to prepare qualified
interpreters. Furthermore, formal training raises the professional standards
of translators and interpreters in the marketplace; it lifts their social status,
and it introduces them to the prospected organizations and clients, and
provides them with self-confidence (Gile, 2009). The focus of this paper is
on the challenges that Jordanian trainee-interpreters encounter during CI
from English into Arabic. It also suggests strategies to develop the
interpreters' capabilities in consecutive interpretation. The paper attempts
to answer the following questions:
1- What are the challenges that Jordanian trainee-interpreters
encountered in CI from English into Arabic?
2-What are the appropriate strategies to overcome these challenges?
 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Translation Studies,
ISSN: 2645-3592 Vol. 5, No.1, pp.85-102 87

Consecutive Interpretation
Russell (2005,p.136) defines CI "as the process of interpreting after the
speaker or signer has completed one or more ideas in the source language
and pauses while the interpreter transmits that information." To Illustrate,
it is unlike simultaneous interpretation as the interpreter has time to think
of what has been said before rendering it into the Target Language (TL);
s/he may take-note as a supportive tool to remember what has been said
during the reproduction process.
CI is the act of explaining what has been said by one interlocutor to
another one who does not understand the first's language. So, the
interpreter is a facilitator or a mediator between two speakers who
completely speak different languages, and his role is to transfer what has
been communicated from one party to another. Also, the interpreter should
master both languages accurately. In addition, he must be faithful in
rendering the SL message, as any fault in interpreting this message may
lead to a conflict between the two interlocutors. For example, when ex-
president Morsi visited Iran in 2012, he said "we must stop the bloodshed
in Syria"; the Iranian interpreter translated this as "we must stop bloodshed
in Bahrain," as most Bahraini people are Shiite and the interpreter, who is
Shiite, practiced ideology. This requires Iran to officially apologize for this
intended mistake that may lead to a diplomatic rupture between the two
countries.
Hatim and Mason (1997) suggest three modes of interpretations:
simultaneous, consecutive and liaison (bilateral). Russell (2005, p.136)
defines simultaneous interpretation as "the process of interpreting into the
target language at the same time as the source language is being delivered."
By way of explanation, in simultaneous interpretation the interpreter will
be isolated in a booth and s/he should render directly and spontaneously
what has been said; simultaneous interpretation is from ear to mouth. The
interpreter does not have time to think and there is a lot of pressure on the
simultaneous interpreter. Therefore, the simultaneous interpreter should be
quick-thinking (Listiani, 2010). However, in CI, the interpreter can take-
note and process what has been said before producing it. Therefore, the
focus of this paper is on CI only.

Interpreter's Training

Interpreting is a hard task; it is more complicated than translation due to

the time pressure and limit. Many studies focus on the strategies and tactics
that should be taught to interpreters to enhance their capacities (Gile, 1995,
2009; Ribas, 2012; Setton & Dawrant, 2016; Wu & Wang, 2009 ). Setton
 88 Consecutive Interpretation Training: Challenges …

&Dawrant (2016,p.9) point out that "conference interpreting is a craft and

a service to which the interpreter brings language, knowledge, skills and
professionalism." Also, the trainer's task is to develop these competences
in the trainee-interpreters; the combination of these parameters will lead to
successful interpretation. That is, the trainee-interpreters should acquire
the linguistic knowledge of both SL and TL that enables them to reproduce
meaningful sentences or utterances; they should recognize the differences
of the grammatical system of SL and TL. In addition, trainee- interpreters
should acquire certain strategies and skills that enable them to cope with
problems they encounter during the encoding and decoding processes such
as mental processing and self-confidence problems. Therefore, these
strategies will enhance their capacities toward professionalism.
Setton and Dawrant (2016, pp.63-64) indicate that researchers drew
on sociology, cognitive psychology and linguistics as models of
interpreting; however, these models are still intuitive because of the
complexity of the data. "Cognitive process models focus on the
interpreter’s mental operations, and typically draw on cognitive
psychology to model such component processes as speech comprehension
and production, memory, attention/resource allocation and coordination."
This model can be effective when focusing on developing the interpreter's
self-confidence, training his/her short-term memory as the man's memory
is a muscle that needs certain exercises to enhance or activate its capacity.
The second model is that "social or relational models focus more on the
shifting dynamics of the communicative relationship between participants
in the mediated event, including the interpreter. “It takes into consideration
the relationship, distance and formality between the interpreters and the
speakers.” Again, these two models can be applied individually; they
should be applied with other models to have a comprehensive model.
Therefore, the present study relies on Gile's (2009) Effort Model of
Consecutive Interpreting in analyzing the data.

Effort Model of Consecutive Interpreting

Gile (2009,pp.175-176) proposes a model for consecutive interpretation

called an' Effort Model of Consecutive Interpreting'; this model is
"performed in two phases the comprehension phase (or listening and note-
taking phase), and the Speech Production (or Reformulation) phase."
Phase one (the perception) includes Listening and Analysis (L) of the ST,
Note-taking (N), Short-Term Memory Operations (M) and Coordination
(C). During this phase, the text is being heard by the trainee-interpreters
who take note and try to memorize and understand the ST. Phase two:
Target-Speech Production includes Remembering, Note-reading,
 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Translation Studies,
ISSN: 2645-3592 Vol. 5, No.1, pp.85-102 89

Production and Coordination. This phase is more difficult than the first one
as the trainee-interpreters should recall information from the long-term
memory and read his/her notes which also can be problematic for some
trainee-interpreters as they may not be able to read their notes. Then, the
trainee-interpreters should produce the message into TT and this message
should be coordinated. The following diagram will illustrate the two
phases of CI (Gile, 2009, p.175):

Phase one: listening and note-taking

Interpreting= L + N + M + C
LListening and Analysis
N Note-taking
MShort-term Memory operations
C Coordination

In this phase, L effort is like Listening and Analysis effort in

simultaneous Interpretation, M effort is related to the time “between the
moment it is heard and the moment it is written down.” Regarding the
Production effort, it is dedicated to produce notes.

Phase two: target-speech production

Interpreting = Rem + Read + P + C
Rem Remembering
Read Note-reading
P Production

Phase two is more difficult than phase one as it requires more memory
processes. In this phase, Rem relates to the retrieval of the parts of speech
from the long-term memory. If the notes taken by the interpreters are good,
they will reduce the Rem processing operations. In addition, the interpreter
should employ the visual memory to retrieve the speech (Gile, 2009).

Method and Procedures

This study is meant to shed light on the actual perception and reproduction
problems that trainee-interpreters encounter while consecutively
interpreting from English into Arabic. It also focuses on the role of Gile's
(2009) Effort Model of Consecutive Interpreting to highlight and solve
these challenges. For this purpose, data was collected and analyzed as
detailed below.
 90 Consecutive Interpretation Training: Challenges …

Data Collection

There are two compulsory interpretation courses in the BA study plan of

Translation; one is from English into Arabic and the second is from Arabic
into English. These courses focus on consecutive and simultaneous
interpretation at the same time. The sample of the study consists of 50
students of Translation enrolled in CI course. : They are senior students of
Translation at the Department of Translation at Yarmouk University. They
are supposed to complete 90 credit hours over four years of study for their
BA in Translation. They have already completed several courses in
language, linguistics, literature, translation (Arabic/English) and Arabic
linguistics. The students already had extensive practical training in
translation and interpreting. The data were collected during the first
semester 2018/2019 by two tools: first, the training materials were
downloaded from VOA (Voice of America) Learning English Website; the
types of text varied and some of them were political, social, educational,
historical and news, words and their stories. The listening materials were
divided into equal periods, 30 seconds to one minute for each. The trainee-
interpreters could listen to the ST; then, they were given one minute to
reorganize their ideas. After that they were asked to record their
interpretation using Sanako devices. Their errors were evaluated and
discussed individually. Second, a questionnaire was designed by the
researchers and administered to recognize the challenges that trainee-
interpreters encountered during CI sessions. The questionnaire aimed to
elicit information about the perception and reproduction problems
encountered by the trainee-interpreters such as concentration, previous
knowledge about the topic, memory-related problems and linguistic
problems such as structure, terminology and so on.

Data Analysis

The data were collected, transliterated and analyzed to highlight the

mistakes committed by the trainee-interpreters. These mistakes were
categorized into linguistics problems such as lack of knowledge of both
languages, listening problems, note-taking and note-reading problems,
Memory problems (loss of concentration), and reproduction of the target
text.
The data was analyzed to detect the problems encountered by the
trainee-interpreters. These problems were classified into: perception
problems (i.e. listening, understanding, concentration, short-term memory,
and technical problems), reproduction problems (i.e. semantic problems,
lexical equivalence, and numbers). Gile's (2009) Effort Model of
 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Translation Studies,
ISSN: 2645-3592 Vol. 5, No.1, pp.85-102 91

consecutive interpreting (see section 4 above) was employed as a

theoretical framework.

Findings and Discussion

The process of CI goes through three stages: first, the trainee interpreters
listen carefully to the source text for one minute. Second, they can take
notes and organize their thoughts. Finally, they record the ST into Arabic.
The discussion consists of three selected excerpts from trainee-interpreters'
CI. Additionally, this section will not only highlight the problems
encountered by the trainee-interpreters but it will also offer solutions to
these challenges.
Challenges and Solutions

This section presents the challenges encountered by trainee-interpreters

and offers solutions which, hopefully, will give trainers some insights into
how to run CI course. These challenges are divided into four categories:

Lack of Knowledge in both Languages (Linguistic Problems)

It is beyond any doubt that mastering both SL and TL is a precondition for

interpreters to communicate semantically and grammatically correct
messages in the working languages. . This study found most of the trainee-
interpreters are not competent in both Arabic and English and the reason
behind this problem is that language skill courses are geared towards
offering trainee-interpreters general rather than specialized skills.
However, beginning interpreters need to be equipped by special linguistic
skills that enable them to produce well-grammatical and comprehendible
sentences. Most of the trainee-interpreters showed linguistic problems in
written translation although in this mode they have time to think and to
consult dictionaries. This can prove our view that trainee-interpreters, or
even translators, may not need to have so much theoretical, abstract
linguistic background; they should acquire basic applicable skills that may
serve them well in their actual interpretation sessions.
Apparently, the trainee-interpreters’ poor academic achievement in
written translation can affect their performance in oral interpretation. That
is, training on CI provides trainees with certain strategies and tactics of
interpretation rather than providing them linguistic knowledge; trainee-
interpreters who work hard to develop their linguistic skills are successful
in translation and interpretation as well. Example (1) below highlights
some linguistic problems encountered by the trainee-interpreters.
 92 Consecutive Interpretation Training: Challenges …

Excerpt (1) was quoted from VOA Learning English Website entitled
"WHO: 10 Percent of Drugs in Developing Countries Are Fake."
The World Health Organization (WHO) says one of every 10 medicines
sold in (1) developing countries is either fake or of poor quality (2). In a
report this week, WHO officials said fake or substandard drugs are to
blame for tens of thousands of children dying (3). These deaths could be
easily prevented, officials said. Trying to understand the problem, experts
looked at 100 studies (4), all of which were completed between 2007 and
2016(5). The studies examined use of more than 48,000 drugs(6).The
experts found that 10.5 percent (7) of the drugs (8)were not what they
appeared to be(9).
It has been observed that trainee-interpreters encountered semantic
problems, especially lexical problems, as they gave inadequate meaning of
the ST lexical terms. For example, some of them rendered segment (1) as
[10 faked doctors in the developing countries] ‫عشرة أطباء في البلدان النامية‬
‫مزورة‬, the word medicines [medicines] ‫ عالجات‬was rendered as [doctors]
‫أطباء‬. Many of them mistranslated segment (2); they provided inadequate
renditions such as [poor characteristics, useless] ,‫ دون جدوى‬,‫خصائصها فقيرة‬
instead of [poor quality] ‫ جودة رديئة‬.However, some of their renditions for
this segment can be acceptable and semi-adequate such as [weak
quality]‫ جودة ضعيفة‬. A lot of them translated the word drugs ‫[أدوية‬medicines]
as [drugs]‫ مخدرات‬. Some of them mistranslated segment (9) as they
rendered it as [It should be not shown for show/ they do not feel the things
they want to be ] ‫يجب أن ال يظهر للبيع‬/ ‫ ال يشعرون بهذه األشياء التي يريدونها أن تكون‬/
but it can be translated as [it does not seem as it is] ‫ليست كما تبدوا‬. Another
semantic problem is the inappropriate use of words in CI. For example, a
few of them rendered the clause “the studies examined" in segment (6) as
[The studies study]‫ درست الدراسات‬instead of ‫[ فحصت الدراسات‬The studies
investigate].
They have problems in rendering sentences that contain numbers. That
is, they have a problem in both rendering the numbers and the words
surrounding these numbers. For example, many of them translated segment
(3) inadequately as / ‫ موت المئات و االالف من األطفال‬/‫وفاة عشرة األف من األطفال‬
‫ [ عشر االف طفل‬The death of 10 thousands children/ the death of hundreds
and thousands of children/ 10 thousands child]instead of ‫[ موت عشرات‬The
death of tens of thousands of children].‫االالف من األطفال‬. Some of them
tended to omit the number [tens of thousands] ‫عشرات االالف‬.Some of them
translated segment (4) as ‫[ ألف دراسة‬one thousand studies] instead of [one
hundred studies]‫ مائة دراسة‬and some of them omitted the number [one
hundred] ‫مائة‬. Moreover, a lot of them have problems in rendering
percentages; they rendered segment (7) inadequately as ‫ عشرة وخمسماية‬/
 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Translation Studies,
ISSN: 2645-3592 Vol. 5, No.1, pp.85-102 93

‫ [ عشر وخمس‬ten and five hundreds/ ten and five]and a few of them omitted
it from their translation. In addition, a few of them tended to omit the
number 48,000 in segment (7) and some others rendered it as ‫أربعة‬
‫[االالف‬four thousands]. It seems translating numbers can be a challenge for
trainee-interpreters.
In addition, trainee-interpreters had difficulty in rendering complex
and long sentences into Arabic. Linguistic knowledge is a corner stone in
translation and interpretation, as mastering ST and TT will facilitate the
process of interpretation and increase its accuracy. Here, we are
highlighting the importance of contrastive linguistics in the field of
interpretation, as the trainees should recognize the phonetic, phonological,
semantic, syntactic and morphological systems of both ST and TT.
Moreover, interpreters should not only focus on the literal meaning of
utterances, but they can also concentrate on the context of situation of the
ST, as the context determines the intended meaning i.e. the pragmatic
meaning. They should have the ability to infer other speakers’ intentions
and meanings relying on intonation, signs, and facial expressions (Setton&
Darwant, 2016). It was observed that most of them tend to provide the
literal meaning of words neglecting their pragmatic meaning, or to be more
specific most of them do not have the pragmatic competence. This does
not come over a night; there should be a systematic and a comprehensive
approach to prepare and qualify interpreters with the required linguistic
competence.
Therefore, there should be specific courses that emphasize certain
language skills in both ST and TT. Linguistic course designers in Arabic
are to blame, as they emphasize the theoretical use of Arabic language
rather than the applied one. The language courses should be designed to
meet the needs of different field studies. In translation and interpretation,
the focus should be on contrastive linguistics of both ST and TT rather than
the theoretical aspects.
Listening Problems
Interpreters should not split attention when listening and taking notes; they
should develop active listening skills. In his model of interpretation, Gile
(2009,p.160) uses listening and analysis effort as a separate component of
interpreting process; he defines it as “consisting of all comprehension-
oriented operations, from the subconscious analysis of the sound waves
carrying the source-language speech which reach the interpreter’s ears
through the identification of words to the final decisions about the
‘meaning’ of the utterance.” It depends on the interpreters’ linguistic
 94 Consecutive Interpretation Training: Challenges …

knowledge of the SL that enables them to recognize the sound sequence

and then the meaning of these words and utterances in the TL.
The listening materials were in American English; most of the trainee-
interpreters encountered problems in listening and understanding the
source speech. Some trainee-interpreters do not practice listening skills
daily; therefore, they have listening problems. Another reason can be the
speed of delivery of the source speech; they are unfamiliar with the topic
of the listening material as the topics are different in every session.
Listening problems can also be due technical problems as voice quality,
technical device, headphones and microphones.
The solution for the listening problem lies in practicing certain tasks
such as “phonetic or semantic shadowing (repeating, or rephrasing,
without a change of language), or talking about what the speaker is saying
instead of translating (‘reportage’ or ‘bavardage intelligent’)” (Setton &
Darwant, 2016, p.61). Lambert (1992,p.262) defines shadowing as “a
paced, auditory tracking task which involves immediate vocalization of
auditorily presented stimuli, i.e. word-for-word repetition, in the same
language, parrot style, of a message presented through headphones.” That
is, the trainee-interpreters should listen to the ST, imitate the speaker of the
ST to learn how to listen and speak simultaneously. People have different
cognitive abilities and differ in the speed to store, retrieve and manipulate
information. Then, the trainee-interpreters should paraphrase the ST into
their own language to make sure that they understand it. They were
encouraged to shadow daily by asking them to listen to materials in
American English and to try to paraphrase the ST into their own words.
The practicing of shadowing was of a great benefit for those trainee-
interpreters who practiced more exercises at home; it helped them in
improving their pronunciation, understanding and paraphrasing abilities.

Note-Taking Problems

Note-taking is important in CI, but trainee-interpreters should not write

every single word of the text; they should write abbreviations for the
cornerstone words in the text. It is “a means to help overcome memory’s
shortcomings and could be likened in a crutch.” ; its use therefore should
be limited to difficult information that can be restored or retrieved from the
memory such as figures, names and numbers (Lambert & Ilg,
1996,p.78).Rozan (1956) suggests seven principles for note-taking
technique in consecutive interpretation: Noting the idea and the word, the
rules of abbreviation (abbreviation of words, indicating gender and tense
and abbreviating the register), links, negation, adding emphasis, verticality
and shift. Liu (1994, p.107), cited in Setton & Dawrant (2016), observes
 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Translation Studies,
ISSN: 2645-3592 Vol. 5, No.1, pp.85-102 95

that it is “too vague to be of practical use in a Consecutive class […]

because students do not really know how to economize on their notes if
they are not properly guided.” That is, trainee-interpreters should 'write
less words'. "The Standard Method of Note-Taking for Consecutive is in
many ways a unique intellectual and cultural phenomenon. The fun of
learning, inventing and using symbols and pictures and layout to help
capture and faithfully render a speaker’s message should be irresistible to
most bright, thinking people with a linguistic turn of mind" (Setton &
Daawrant, 2016, p.171).Therefore, trainee-interpreters were trained to
invent their own note-taking system such abbreviations i.e. (X for one time,
xx for many times and so). They should be creative in inventing using the
simplest signs and abbreviations that they can easily understand and
remember.
Most of them encountered problems in note-taking and in
understanding these notes during the reproduction process. When they
have lack of understanding of the source speech, this can affect their notes,
as the interpreters write numbers wrongly, especially numbers of more
than three digits. In addition, they are trying to write the whole words and
sentences rather than focusing on the idea of the discourse. Therefore, this
will distort their thinking and understanding. Moreover, when they do not
understand the meaning of a certain word this will affect the rest of the
listening material. To put it other words, they are trying to write everything
they heard, and this is an impossible task. Also, the study finds that some
trainee-interpreters were unable to understand their own notes, because of
the lack of connectors, unclear notes of memory problems. Most of
listening problems occur with numbers of two digits, for example, 57 is
interpreted as [fifty seven] ‫ خمسة وسبعون‬instead of [seventy five] ‫سبعة‬
‫وخمسون‬.
Note-reading lies in the lack of understanding and concentration, as
they write symbols or abbreviations unconsciously. Most of the trainee-
interpreters state that at the beginning they were unconvinced of the
significance and effectiveness of note-taking in consecutive interpretation.
Also, they relied on short-term memory in storing and retrieving the
information. However, after doing the tasking, they were highly convinced
about its effectiveness. In addition, those who relied on note-taking
provided successful interpretations. This result is supported by Lambert’s
(1983) finding that subjects who took notes during the experiment showed
significant scores than those who did not.
The trainee-interpreters should create their easiest note-taking system
as this will facilitate the process of interpretation and leads to adequate
interpretation through time. Furthermore, they should keep in mind that
they can retain third of the input in their notes and discard the two-third of
 96 Consecutive Interpretation Training: Challenges …

the input (Lambert, 1983). To illustrate, some information can be

redundant or repetitious, and it is impossible to record all the ST. Also,
some theorists argue that the trainee-interpreters should take-notes in the
TT not in the ST because this will facilitate the process of note-reading and
understanding. However, Gile (2009) states that the time between listening
to the ST and taking notes is short; thinking in TL equivalent for ST during
the listening process needs extra processing capacity and ‘increases risks
of saturation.’
Memory Problems
Training memory in CI is essential; “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 the ability to analyze and process what is heard" (Phelan, 2001,
pp.4-5). Gile (2009,p.165) states some operations of STM: the time-lag
“between the moment speech sounds are heard and the moment they are
interpreted;” and the time for speech production such as choosing the
suitable words and syntactic structures and producing speech; the
characteristics of the speaker’s speech, “if the speech is unclear because
of its logic, information density, unusual linguistic structure or speaker’s
accent, the interpreter may wish to wait for a short while before
reformulating it” (Gile, 2009,p.166) and language-specific factors such as
‘inversions in determination sequences.’
It has been noticed that some trainee-interpreters lost their
concentration during the process of listening and reproduction. Most of
them lost their concentration during the reception process due to several
reasons such as distraction, forgetting, carelessness, thinking of what has
been said before and what is being said. This may happen when they listen
to a difficult word that they do not know its meaning, and this may distract
their attention. Firstly, we should keep in mind that Arabic and English are
two remote languages, as they have different syntax, grammar, and
morphology. Therefore, Arab interpreters encounter difficulties in the
process of production. The biggest challenge that trainee-interpreters have
is that they are trying to know the meaning of every single word. However,
they were informed that focus should be on the whole message rather on
every single word. As a result, they lose concentration and they miss what
has been said; they render the message incompletely or wrongly. In
example (2) below, which lasted for one minute, one student rendered the
first paragraph nearly correct. However, the next paragraph was rendered
wrongly by some respondents as they inserted ideas or words which do not
exist in the ST. For example, some of them added [On Wednesday, Obama
 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Translation Studies,
ISSN: 2645-3592 Vol. 5, No.1, pp.85-102 97

did several phone calls] ‫يوم االربعاء عمل اوباما عدة مكالمات‬. Another one added
the phrase‫ [ سيغادر اوباما الى شيكاغو‬Obama will move to Chicago] and ‫[ شكروه‬
people thanked him for these news] ‫ الناس لهذه األخبار‬. However, these do not
exist in the ST. In addition, trainee-interpreters omitted the word
[celebrities] ‫ مشاهير‬, [farewell speech]‫ خطاب وداع‬because they seem not to
know their meanings.
Example (1) quoted from VOA and titled "Michelle Obama Surprises
Supporters on 'Tonight Show'.
Barack and Michelle Obama are saying their goodbyes, as their time in the White
House comes to an end. The President and First Lady have been making their
final speeches and television appearances. Michelle Obama recently did
a farewell interview with television host Oprah Winfrey. Barack Obama gave
his farewell speech to the American people in Chicago on Tuesday night. And on
Wednesday, Michelle Obama had some fun with late night television host Jimmy
Fallon on “The Tonight Show. “One part of the show the first lady took part in is
called “Thank-You Notes.” It is a popular segment. In it, Fallon usually writes
humorous “Thank-You Notes” to celebrities, people in the news or strange things
he notices about life.
According to Gile (2009), psychologists differentiate between three
types of memories: Short–Term Memory (STM), Long-Term Memory
(LTM) and Sensory Memory (SM).Human memory consists of STM ,
where people can store and retrieve information for a short period of time
that could be 6 - 12 seconds (Peterson & Peterson,1959), or 30 seconds as
mentioned by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) and Hebb (1949),and Lo LTM
where people can store information for a long period of time such as
childhood memories and so on. Zhong (2003,p.2) states the characteristics
of STM as a) input of information, the time taken for the information
entered STM, ”a result of applying attention to the stimulus”, is about 30
seconds, b) capacity, it has limited capacity, c) modality, when storing
information in STM, it must be programmed. D) Information Loss from
STM occurs because of: (1) displacement the old information with the new
one when the storage capacity of STM is full (Waugh and Norman, 1965)
(2) Decay or fade information across the time (Baddeley, Thompson and
Buchanan, 1975), as cited in (Zhong, 2003), that is, information will be
stored for a short period of time and then it will disappear. (3) the
interference of the new information with the original one and changing it
(Keppel and Underwood, 1962), as cited in (Zhong, 2003).E) the Retrieval
of information from STM by: (1) Serial search where items in STM are
checked once until the wanted information is retrieved (Sternberg:
1966),as cited in (Zhong, 2003). (2) Activation of an item to reach a
significant point (Monsell: 1979, Goodhead: 1999), as cited in (Zhong,
2003).
 98 Consecutive Interpretation Training: Challenges …

We should keep in mind that the difficulty of ST is varied. Therefore,

there should be certain exercises to activate the effectiveness of the short-
term memories and concentration such as counting reversely from one
hundred to zero, and if the trainee makes a mistake, s/he will repeat from
the beginning, reading a paragraph from the bottom to the head or from
right to left or vice versa and instead of writing To Do List, trying to
imagine it in mind. Another exercise is writing a list of words on a piece
of paper, looking for these words for two minutes and then putting the
paper a way and trying to remember them and their order. All these
exercises will boost the capacity of STM and concentration.

Reproduction of the Target Text

The most important stage in CI is the reproduction process or expressing

and reformulating the ST into TT. This stage is called by Gile (2009, p.164)
as production effort. Gile (2009) discusses some problems in the
production effort process such as using SL structure and lexical choice in
rendering the message in TL, due to the grammatical difference between
the two languages; “the danger of linguistic interference between the two
languages, be it gross interference resulting in grammatical errors,
mispronunciations and false cognates, or more discrete interference that
will make the interpreter’s speech more hesitant, less idiomatic, less clear,
less pleasant to listen to,” and the risk of rendering the surface meaning of
the TL message. If the interpreter misunderstands the ST, this will
negatively affect the TT. This is regularly happening with some
interpreters, especially when they lose concentration, they tend to render
unrelated information.
The misunderstanding level can be partial, i.e. the interpreter misses
the meaning of a sentence or a word, and it can be whole, i.e. the interpreter
misses the whole message. Moreover, the psychological state of the
interpreter affects his performance in interpretation, as some interpreters
feel nervous during the reproduction process, as they aim to produce a
well-developed TT. In addition, some interpreters have lack of confidence;
even when they know the right interpretation, they hesitate sometimes
during the reproduction process. They are worried about the consistency
or accuracy of their interpretation. Consider the following interpretation of
a trainee to example (2) above, it clearly indicates how the trainee-
interpreter misunderstands the ST.
(hesitation ( ‫حدث اليوم باراك اوباما حدث اليوم باراك اوباما وميشيل يودعون أخر يومهم في‬
‫) اقترب أخر يوم لهم في‬hesitation( ‫يودعون اخر يومهم في البيت االبيض يقول أنه قد اقترب‬
‫البيت أصبح قريبا يتحدث اوباما الى شعب أو أعطى خطاب لشعب أمريكا في شيكاغو فيه أنه ليلة‬
‫الثالثاء أعطى أوباما خطابا لشعب أمريكا في شيكاغو االحتفال بالسيدة األولى ميشيل فقد شكرت‬
 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Translation Studies,
ISSN: 2645-3592 Vol. 5, No.1, pp.85-102 99

‫) في الخطاب األخير لها فقد شكرت على العرض الذي عملوه‬hesitation( ‫على العرض في‬
‫) جيمي فالن سيعرض في حلقة سيعرض في حلقة جيمي فيلين ليلة‬hesitation( ‫في التلفاز عنها‬
.‫األربعاء في عرض المساء عن الخطاب األخير لهم وشكرو مالحظات الناس على االحتفال بهم‬
Today's event Barack Obama Today's event Barack Obama and Michelle
bid farewell to their last day in (hesitation) they bid farewell to their last
day in the White House saying that it has approached (hesitation)
approached their last day in the White House became soon Obama
becomes talking to people or gave a speech to the people of America in
Chicago in which he Tuesday night, Obama gave a speech to the people of
America in Chicago to celebrate First Lady Michelle. She thanked for the
show in (hesitation) in her last speech. She thanked for the show that they
made on TV about (hesitation) Jimmy Fallen will be shown in an episode
that will be shown in the episode Jimmy Feelen Wednesday night in Show
the evening about their last speech and thank the people’s comments on
Celebrate them.
Having a closer look at this interpretation, it seems that the trainee-
interpreter lost her concentration, and she misunderstood the ST.
Therefore, her interpretation was full of repetition, hesitation and
grammatical mistakes. Apparently that affected the reproduction process
and resulted in producing unrelated TT. For example, ‫ [أعطى خطاب‬gave a
speech for the people of America in Chicago] ‫ لشعب أمريكا في شيكاغو‬instead
of ‫ [ ألقى خطاب الوداع للشعب االمريكي في شيكاغو‬He delivered a speech for the
American people in Chicago]. In addition, the italicized section is
completely irrelevant.
Lambert (1989), as cited in Lambert (1992,p.264), suggests twelve
pedagogical techniques that interpreter should exercise before starting CI
and Simultaneous Interpretation; namely: “listening and recall ;
shadowing; dual-task training or parallel processing; paraphrasing;
abstracting or telescoping; closing; sight translation; sight interpreting ;
lagging; anticipating; processing digits, names, acronyms; ear preference
and hemispheric processing.” Lambert and Ilg (1996) emphasize
practicing sight translation technique using unilingual exercises of written
texts before starting the training stage for CI. This will give the trainees
the ability to restructure and paraphrase these texts in auditory ones.
Therefore, trainees will be able to process and analyze verbal texts quickly
whether they are well- structured or not. After that trainees can develop
anticipating abilities that help them to anticipate the following meanings
associated with certain utterances. Also, they should concentrate on the
process of speech comprehension and production as this will enable them
 100 Consecutive Interpretation Training: Challenges …

to develop active listening skills; they will be able to rearrange their

thoughts to produce a coherent and reasonable interpretation.
The use of chunking and joining strategy was helpful in the reproduction
process. That is, the trainee-interpreters should segment the ST into
smaller chunks focusing on the keywords of each utterance, then joining
these chunks to form a whole story. This strategy was effective, as it
increased the trainees’ understanding of the ST. Another significant
approach is practicing sight translation before doing CI, as it will enhance
the trainee’s abilities to produce text effectively.

Conclusion
The study finds that misunderstanding the ST and memory problems were
the most prominent challenges encountered by the trainee-interpreters.
They also have linguistic problems such as providing the equivalent words,
synonyms, collocations, word orders, grammatical mistakes and numbers.
In addition, they have other problems such as the lack of knowledge in
both Arabic and English, this can be evidenced from the poor and
incoherent translation provided in Arabic. Other problems appeared in the
datat analysis such as listening problems, lack of confidence (hesitation),
note-taking and loss of concentration, this can be evidenced by the omitting
of important information in the translation. To overcome these challenges,
the trainee should practice certain strategies that enhance their listening
skills such as shadowing, sight interpretation and listening and recall.
Furthermore, trainees are encouraged to listen to English news TVs such
as CNN, BBC, Voice of America, etc. In addition, they should exercise
their memories on daily basis to train themselves on keeping and retrieving
information quickly. Besides, there should be intensive language training
courses, and trainees should be inspired to practice consecutive
interpretation daily because three hours of training in a week is not enough
to master consecutive interpretation skills.
 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Translation Studies,
ISSN: 2645-3592 Vol. 5, No.1, pp.85-102 10
1
References

Atkinson, R.L., and Stiffrin, R.M. (1968) Human memory: A proposed

system and its control processes, in K.W. Spence and J.T. Spence
(eds.), The psychology of learning and motivation.(Vol. 2, 89-
195). London: Academic Press.
Baddeley, A.D., Thompson, N., and Buchanan, M. (1975). "Word Length
and the Structure of Memory", in Journal of Verbal Learning and
Verbal Behaviour, I, 575-589.
Ellis, Rod (2003). The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Gile, D.(2009).Basic Concepts and Models for Interpreter and Translator
Training. Revised edition. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John
Benjamins.
Hebb, O.D. (1949). Organization of Behavior.New York: Wiley & Sons
Lambert, S. (1983).Recall and Recognition among Conference
Interpreters. Unpublished PhD Doctoral Dissertation, University
of Stirling, Scotland.
Lambert, S. (1992) Shadowing. Meta. Vol.37, No.2, pp. pp. 263-273.
Lambert, S. &Ilg, G. (1996). Teaching Consecutive Interpreting.
Interpreting. Vol 1(1), pp.69-99.
Listiani, Ni Made Ari (2010).Note Taking in Consecutive Interpreting. MA
Thesis.Udayana University, Denpasar.
Liu, Minhua. 1994. Transition from preparatory exercises to consecutive
interpretation: Principles and techniques. Fu Jen Studies 27: 104–
116.
Peterson, R.L., and Peterson, M.J., 1959. "Short term retention of
individual items", in Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58, 193
- 198.
Phelan,M.(2001). The Interpreter's
Resource. Clevedon,Buffalo,Toronto,Sydney: Multilingual
Matters Ltd
Ribas, Marta Arumí(2012).Problems and Strategies in Consecutive
Interpreting: A Pilot Study at Two Different Stages of Interpreter
Training.Meta LVII, Vol.57, 3, pp. 812-835.
Rozan, Jean-François. 1956. La prise de notes en
interprétationconsécutive. Genève: Georg.
Russell, Debra (2005).Consecutive and Simultaneous Interpreting. In
Janzen, Terry (Ed.),Topics in Signed Language Interpreting
(p.135-164). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing
Company
 102 Consecutive Interpretation Training: Challenges …

Setton, R. and Dawrant, A. (2016). Conference Interpreting: A Trainer's

Guide. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing
Company.
Zhong, W. (2003).Memory Training in Interpreting. Translation Journal,
Vol.7, No.3, pp.1-3.
Waughw, N.,and Norman, D.,1965. "Primary Memory", in Psychological
Review, 72, 89-104.
Wu, G. & Wang, K. (2009). Consecutive Interpretation: A Discourse
Approach. Towards a Revision of Gile’s Effort Model. Meta,
54(3), 401–416

View publication stats