29.3242, Review: Applied Linguistics; Translation: Cirillo, Niemants (2017)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-29-3242. Wed Aug 22 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.3242, Review: Applied Linguistics; Translation: Cirillo, Niemants (2017)

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Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2018 13:45:36
From: Elen Le Foll [elefoll at uos.de]
Subject: Teaching Dialogue Interpreting

 
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/28/28-4695.html

EDITOR: Letizia  Cirillo
EDITOR: Natacha  Niemants
TITLE: Teaching Dialogue Interpreting
SUBTITLE: Research-based proposals for higher education
SERIES TITLE: Benjamins Translation Library 138
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2017

REVIEWER: Elen Le Foll, Universität Osnabrück

SUMMARY

This collaborative volume on the theory and practice of Teaching Dialogue
Interpreting published as part of the Benjamins Translation Library falls into
three sections. The first focuses on theoretical and methodological issues;
the second describes specialised interpreting courses for a range of diverse
professional settings; while the third section deals with recent trends in
dialogue interpreter education. The book is primarily aimed at dialogue
interpreting teachers and course designers in higher education, though the
editors also see public institutions, service providers and users of
interpreting services as potential users, specifically those interested in
offering on-the-job training opportunities.

In the introductory article 'Dialogue interpreting: Research, education and
professional practice', the editors, Natacha Niemants and Letizia Cirillo,
justify their use of the term 'dialogue interpreting' (hereafter DI), as
opposed to 'liaison interpreting' (cf. Gentile et al. 1996),
'community-interpreting' (cf. Hale 2007) or 'public-service interpreting' (cf.
Corsellis 2008) by highlighting the interactional dimension of dialogue
interpreting. They thus foreground the dialogic nature of dialogue
interpreting in contrast to the alleged ''prevalently monologic format of CI
[conference interpreting]'' (p. 4).

In their introduction, the editors note that in spite of research developments
over the past two decades, empirical studies in DI remain relatively scarce
and, in particular, the implications of their results have yet to have been
made widely available to DI teachers, course designers and professional
associations. Niemants and Cirillo thus attempt to ''cross
research-to-teaching boundaries'' (p. 3) by presenting an edited collection of
articles informed by recent research.
 
Part I brings together the teaching experiences of DI curriculum designers
from different institutions with very varied training needs and regulatory
frameworks. While they stress the holistic nature of DI, they also identify
specific sets of sub-skills and point to practical activities designed to
foster these sub-skills.

In the opening chapter, 'Anchoring dialogue interpreting in principles of
teaching and learning', Claudia Angelelli proposes to base DI curricula on the
fundamentals of dialogic pedagogy: foremost, student-centredness,
problem-based learning, interpreting pedagogy and Vygotsian educational
principles. In light of the wide range of contexts in which dialogue
interpreters intervene, Angelelli argues for the need to develop more flexible
codes of ethics and professional standards and to teach the saliency of power
differentials in dialogic interactions as part of DI curricula.
 
The second chapter, by Uldis Ozolins, is entitled 'It’s not about the
interpreter: Objectives in dialogue interpreting teaching'. These objectives
go over and beyond the development of professional language transfer skills.
DI is conceptualised as a ''constellation of skills'' (p. 47) that cannot
easily be divided into discrete skills, and thus meaningfully sequenced in a
DI course. A list of the most common pedagogical activities included in the
majority of DI courses is provided. The chapter concludes with the perspective
of the interlocutors or users of DI, using their needs and expectations to
inform DI curricula.
 
Annemiek Hammer and Beppie van den Bogaerde's contribution 'Sign language
interpreting education: Reflections on interpersonal skills' also focuses on
interpersonal skills in coordinating dialogue interactions. The authors
present the reasoning and pedagogical framework of a four-year bachelor
programme for sign language interpreters at the Utrecht University of Applied
Sciences. The curriculum is based on seven types of competencies and the paper
focuses on the development of trainee interpreters' interpersonal
competencies. Practical activities, both in-class and in the form of webinars,
are described. The authors draw on the role-space model (Llewellyn-Jones and
Lee, 2014) to encourage interpreter trainees to reflect on decision-making
processes in interpreting situations.

In 'Interpreting and mediation: Raising awareness by training', Mara Morelli
also provides an overview of a DI curriculum offered as part of translation
and interpreting degrees at the University of Genoa. The author begins with
some terminological and conceptual considerations on the two keywords from the
title of the chapter: 'mediation' and 'interpreting', arguing that whilst both
terms are certainly not synonymous, interpreters would do well to learn some
cultural mediation skills, and vice versa. The various DI course modules are
then presented, as well as the theoretical background behind the pedagogical
approach. Morelli also briefly reports on her experience of training mediators
in basic interpreting skills in a non-university context. Two
non-language-specific modules are summarised and examples of teaching
materials are presented.
 
The final chapter in Part I, 'Ideas for use of notes and other visual prompts
in dialogue interpreting classes' consists of a practical set of activities to
introduce basic note-taking skills and the use of other visual clues in DI
courses. Peter Mead first presents the rationale for introducing basic
note-taking skills even at an early stage of a DI course, thereby not
neglecting to point to some common pitfalls associated with note-taking. He
conceptualises notes as just one type of visual input that can support the
reception and rendition of the source speech. Consequently, Mead also proposes
a number of pedagogic activities that introduce other types of visual
supports, such as slides, catalogues and websites. 

Part II moves from the level of the curriculum to that of individual course
sessions or modules. 

The section opens with a sample teaching unit: '(Role-)playing fair(s):
Introducing interpreting students to business negotiations' in which Letizia
Cirillo and Maura Radicioni advocate the use of structured scripted role plays
as a learning tool for undergraduate DI students. They provide a comprehensive
overview of how such a simulation can be designed, prepared, executed and
debriefed in practice. The authors illustrate their approach with extracts of
an extended scripted role play. 

Having briefly delved into the world of fair trades, Raffaela Merlini takes us
to an entirely different interpreting setting in 'Developing flexibility to
meet the challenges of interpreting in film festivals'. The author describes a
three-step pedagogical approach that relies on raising awareness and
developing students' sensitivity to the very diverse requirements, constraints
and expectations of such a setting in order to encourage them to develop
''interpreting flexibility'' (p. 139).

In the following chapter, 'Dialogue interpreting on television: How do
interpreting students learn to perform?', Eugenia Dal Fovo and Caterina Falbo
pursue the discussion on the ''ethics of entertainment'' (p. 137). They focus
on the specifics of on-screen dialogue interpreting in talk shows. Their
three-step pedagogic method resembles that of Merlini. First, students are
encouraged to identify the salient features of DI on TV using conversation
analysis methods on authentic corpus data of interpreter-mediated TV
interaction. Activities are then proposed to support trainee interpreters'
critical reasoning and stimulate ''meta-translational and interactional
observations'' (p. 159), before introducing role play activities emulating
some of the situations analysed in the first phase. 
 
In 'Teaching interpreters and translators to work in educational settings: A
Chinese-Spanish case study', Carmen Valero-Garcés and Yanping Tan present a
number of practical resources and activities designed to teach the necessary
skills to act as an interpreter/mediator in this much neglected DI setting. 
 
The final two chapters of Part II deal with legal interpreting. In 'Teaching
legal interpreting at university level: A research-based approach', Sandra
Hale and Erika Gonzalez provide an overview of legal interpreting education
and training offered at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. They
paint a rather bleak picture of the working conditions of legal interpreters
in Australia and of the limited resources and constraints their teaching unit
therefore faces, before outlining the course structure, content and underlying
philosophy. 
 
As the title of the chapter suggests, 'Training legal interpreters in an
imperfect world' is equally rooted in realism. Isabella Preziosi and
Christopher Garwood deplore the lack of minimum standards in the provision of
legal interpreting services in Italy and, in light of the situation, propose a
''minimum'' professional development course aimed at currently practising, yet
untrained, legal interpreters. They briefly outline the course format and
content, as well as the selection process of trainees and trainers. Their
theory-based, learner-centred pedagogical approach is illustrated with four
practical tried-and-tested activities that are specifically designed to work
with groups of mixed working languages.

Part III highlights some recent trends in dialogue interpreter education and
begins with 'Telephonic dialogue interpreting: A short teaching course'. In
this chapter, María Jesús González Rodríguez and Nicoletta Spinolo describe a
20-hour telephone dialogue interpreting course. They briefly present the
market demand for telephone interpreting before describing their
methodological approach to the course and the necessary technical set-up. The
authors then go on to propose five role-play activities which may be adapted
to any language combination.
 
Demi Krystallidou reports on 'Non-verbals in dialogue interpreter education:
Improving student interpreters’ visual literacy and raising awareness of its
impact on interpreting performance'. She outlines a four-hour experimental
module taught as part of a Masters interpreting course at Ghent University.
This short module consists of exercises based on Visual Literacy techniques,
applied drama methods and, to conclude, the microanalysis of non-verbal
behaviour in the context of authentic interpreter-mediated dialogues in
healthcare settings.

In line with Krystallidou's approach, Mira Kadric's contribution 'Make it
different! Teaching interpreting with theatre techniques' also makes clear
that every interpreting action is the result of a choice between several
alternatives. She presents Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed and, in particular,
his Forum Theatre, as a method to create a ''safe space'' for interpreting
students to act, adjust and alter discourses in problematic situations in
interpreter-mediated dialogues. She illustrates this method by detailing how
she uses a short interpreting scenario from an asylum hearing in her own
teaching practice to encourage reflection, discussion and develop future
interpreters' self-reliance and self-confidence. 
 
In 'Using the Conversation Analytic Role-play Method in healthcare interpreter
education', Natacha Niemants and Elizabeth Stokoe propose a new take on
role-plays in interpreter training. Their approach relies on the turn-by-turn
presentation of video recordings of authentic interpreter-mediated dialogues.
The videos are regularly paused and students are then encouraged to formulate
the next turn and discuss possible strategies and ethical issues. The method
is illustrated with extracts of a transcript of an authentic exchange between
a patient and a midwife.

The volume's final chapter is entitled '''That we all behave like
professionals'': An experiential–dialogic approach to interpreter education
and online learning', in which Hanne Skaaden presents a Norwegian
blended-learning multilingual DI course. She uses the logs of real-time online
chats between the students and course facilitators to tap into how students
are able to critically reflect on the development of their own and their
peers' interpreting competence. 

CRITICAL EVALUATION

There is no doubt that this high-quality publication is a great addition to DI
education, and indeed to the field of interpreting research as a whole.

The contributors to the volume offer a broad European perspective on the
subject matter – with contributions from the UK, the Netherlands, Italy,
Austria, Belgium, Norway and Spain – flanked by contributions from Australia
and references to the U.S. American context. The inclusion of Hammer and van
den Bogaerde’s chapter on the design of a sign-language interpreting course is
most welcome and opens up fascinating cross-fertilisation potential, which the
interpreting education sphere as a whole would do well to continue to pursue
in future. The contributors to the volume are seasoned professional
interpreters, researchers and interpreting teachers, in the majority of cases
combining all three activities.

Although all the contributors dutifully refer to DI, it is evident that the
individual articles focus on rather different branches of the profession (if
it can, indeed, be considered as just one). When Angelelli describes the aim
of DI as affording access to services to non-societal language users, she is
clearly referring to community/public service interpreting and, indeed, many
contributions (Chapters 2-4 and 9-15) at least partially adhere to this
description. On the other hand, the professional profile of interpreters
working on stage at film festivals (Merlini, Chapter 7) or on television sets
in the context of talk shows (Dal Fovo and Falbo, Chapter 8) is rather
different and the proposals made in these two contributions are less likely to
be adaptable to a wider range of DI educational settings.

One recurring theme throughout the book is the idea that dialogue interpreting
is, by nature, a holistic activity (e.g., p. 47); yet, at the same time,
several contributions propose educational frameworks based on competence
models and/or suggest pedagogical activities designed to teach discrete
skills. 

The multiple overlaps of the seven types of competencies formulated by Hammer
and van den Bogaerde illustrate this paradox. For example, an indicator of
having reached ''Interpersonal Competencies Level 3'' is that ''the student
uses a register that is appropriate to the interpreting assignment'' (p. 68),
which clearly is dependent on language and cultural competence. It should also
be noted that the seventh set of competencies is labelled ''vocational
competencies'' (p. 67) which, at first sight, is difficult to distinguish from
other professional competencies featured in the framework, such as
interpersonal and organisational competences. However, it would appear that
the confusion arises from an unfortunate translation of the Dutch term. A
closer look at the original document detailing the course's curriculum
(Student Handbook Interpreter NGT, p. 23) reveals that this competence, in
fact, refers to language and cultural competencies. In general, a little more
detail on all seven competencies would help the reader gain deeper insight
into what is undoubtedly an innovative and attractive course design with a lot
of replication potential in other (signed and spoken) language combinations.

Among other aspects, the rationale behind the publication includes the
perceived need to distance dialogue interpreting from conference interpreting,
implying that, in the latter, the interpreter is associated with
''invisibility and neutrality'' and perceived as a ''conduit or voicebox'' (p.
1). A number of contributors directly or indirectly challenge professional
associations' ethics and codes of practice claiming that they require
interpreters ''to remain 'invisible' and neutral, two recommendations included
in many codes of practice'' (p. 99). If this is so - and, unfortunately no
such code is referenced - it goes without saying that action is urgently
required. However, the reader is sometimes left with a sense of discontentment
with current professional organisations without ever mentioning concrete
elements. Throughout Part I, the arguably unnecessary, yet currently factual,
professional divide between conference and community interpreters is palpable
without ever being truly addressed. Future publications may wish to take up
the issue. Indeed, cross-fertilisation potential between CI and DI education
has yet to be fully explored.

Part II and III give practical insights into how ethical considerations can
successfully be integrated in a range of DI course settings. For example,
Merlini (Chapter 7) gives a convincing account of how interpreting norms in
broadcast interpreting differ from other forms of interpreting. Her
pedagogical approach demonstrates how ''emancipatory translation'' can be
taught (p. 156). Thus, she teaches the norms and ethics of interpreting and,
at the same time, fosters student interpreters' ability to ''develop,
priority-wise, the ability to select the most suitable interpreting behaviour,
autonomously and in full awareness of the diverse 'environmental conditions'''
(p. 155).

Such considerations are sadly absent in the telephone interpreting module
described in Chapter 12 (González Rodríguez and Spinolo). According to the
authors,'''dirty' audio input should not only be seen as an obstacle, but as a
stimulus for the interpreter to make strategic choices which can facilitate
communication, as well as to infer the nature of the situation of the other
participants'' (p. 245). One might argue that a telephone interpreting course
should also address issues such as whether interpreters should continue to
''infer meaning'' in situations where the audio quality is objectively too
poor to genuinely understand the interlocutors.

Similarly, whilst serious considerations of the needs and expectations of DI
service users are undoubtedly desirable and necessary, the establishment of a
set of ''rules'' for the interpreter on the part of the interlocutors or
service users as proposed by Ozolins (p. 60) raises a number of ethical
questions. Most importantly, in a dialogic constellation with power
differentials, which party is to establish the ''rules''? The doctor or the
patient? The asylum seeker or the representative of the authorities? Should
the interpreter accept any ''rules'', so long as they are put forward by the
client? The chapter makes no mention of how the interpret can (or should?)
contribute to establishing such working guidelines.

‘Teaching Dialogue Interpreting’ promotes research-based teaching practice and
shows a great variety of research approaches to DI education. A few claims,
however, could do with more evidence. For instance, Ozolins mentions that
''chuchotage is also the mode of interpreting easiest to practise as
homework'' (p. 48). Since self-monitoring during whispered simultaneous
interpretation is notoriously difficult, effective chuchotage practice is
likely to be difficult without the support of a teacher/fellow trainees to
monitor the student's output. Feedback mode is another example. For instance,
Morelli writes: ''[a]ssessment is always sought in this order: first,
self-assessment immediately upon completion of the performance, then peer
and/or audience assessment (if present), and finally instructor assessment''
(p. 95). It would be interesting to find out whether other orders and/or forms
of feedback have been tested and compared.
 
'Teaching Dialogue Interpreting' is full of practical ideas which current and
future DI lecturers and trainers will no doubt find very insightful. A few
minor improvements could make the book's content even more accessible. For
instance, it seems a shame that Mead's choice of an example topic (rose
growing) can hardly be considered universally applicable to typical DI
settings (Chapter 5). However, this should not discourage DI teachers from
incorporating his innovative and well-explained activities in their courses.
The pedagogic approach presented by Niemants and Stokoe (Chapter 15), on the
other hand, whilst very convincing, may be difficult to implement:
Unfortunately, the feasibility of institutions being able to offer DI courses
with two interpreter trainers who are both well-versed in conversation
analysis and, crucially, have access to a large dataset of authentic (but
anonymised) video-recorded interpreter-mediated dialogues may be questioned. 

The reader will find that Cirillo and Radicioni's well-designed framework for
using scripted role plays to familiarise DI students with the challenges of
interpreting business negotiations (Chapter 6) can be applied to a whole range
of settings, as well as to non- or only partially scripted role plays. The
authors acknowledge that the inauthentic nature of scripts in role plays has
often been criticised. However, they justify their choice by pointing to
relevant practical aspects: scripts i) enable teachers to focus on students'
performance rather than their own acting skills, ii) facilitate discussion and
feedback, and iii) ensure fair assessments in test situations (p. 126). Whilst
all DI instructors will undoubtedly hear these arguments, one could equally
argue that students can greatly benefit from learning to act as interlocutors
in role plays, thus multiplying the learning effect in the context of limited
class time. In many cases, it is simply not feasible to have two DI teachers
present in class and, especially for English, one could argue that the added
difficulty of a non-native interlocutor is excellent practice for real life
interpreting. In their conclusion, Cirillo and Radicioni formulate the hope
that structured role plays may ''encourage [students] to abandon the myth of
interpreting as text production and focus instead on interpreting as
activity'' (p. 135). In the reviewer's experience, however, students are even
more tempted to focus on textual translation when presented with a script,
whereas its absence often motivates more holistic discussions during the
feedback section.

All of the contributors to this volume ought to be praised for their honest
portrayal of both DI markets and DI education offers. For example, in the
opening chapter, Angelelli does not shy away from thorny issues such as the
disparate levels of qualification and varied backgrounds of DI instructors,
the level of societal recognition and pay of community/public service
interpreters, or the widely disparate levels of language skills that DI
students bring. Ozolins, too, takes account of the diversity of DI trainees,
as well as the range and specificities of the settings in which dialogue
interpreters are called upon. Many contributions (in particular, Chapters 3,
4, 9, 11 and 16) paint a realistic, and consequently, rather bleak picture of
DI education in Europe, yet make practical no-nonsense suggestions to improve
the situation and share positive experiences that one can only hope will
inspire others. For instance, Preziosi and Garwood describe a multilingual
legal interpreting course that offers practical solutions to a highly
unsatisfactory and genuinely complex situation. 

'Teaching Dialogue Interpreting' sets out to ''suggest possible directions for
further cross-fertilization between DI research and interpreter education''
(p. 23) and certainly succeeds in providing highly valuable insights into a
field that has been grossly neglected in the past. Bearing in mind that DI
instructors very often receive very little training (if any) and are
predominantly on temporary contracts (cf., p. 92), the reviewer hopes that
this edited volume bringing together such a broad range of positive
suggestions may help DI instructors often left to their own devices to design
and teach DI courses based on sound research.

REFERENCES

Corsellis, Ann. 2008. Public Service Interpreting. The First Steps.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9780230581951

Dean, R. K., & Pollard, R. Q. 2013. The demand control schema: Interpreting as
a practice profession. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Gentile, Adolfo, Uldis Ozolins, and Mary Vasilakakos. 1996.Liaison
Interpreting: A Handbook. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Hale, Sandra. 2007.Community Interpreting. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
doi: 10.1057/9780230593442 

Studiegids Bacheloropleiding tot. Leraar / Tolk Nederlandse Gebarentaal
2014–2015 [Student Handbook Interpreter NGT]. In Dutch. Institute for Sign,
Language & Deaf Studies, Hogeschool Utrecht University of Applied Sciences.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Elen Le Foll is an English Didactics lecturer and PhD candidate at Osnabrück
University. She also teaches Dialogue and Conference Interpreting
(German-English) at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne and works as
a freelance conference interpreter.





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