英汉同声传译与职业翻译与翻译职业阅读报告

英汉同声传译与职业翻译与翻译职业阅读 《英汉同声传译》与《职业翻译与翻译职业》 阅读报告 Reading Report: English-Chinese Simultaneous Interpretation and Profession Traducteur 1. Introduction I have read two books, and their names are English-Chinese Simultaneous Interpretation (written by Zhang Weiwei) and Profession Traducteur (written by Daniel GOUADEC and translated by Liu Heping and Wen Yun). These two books have inspired me in different ways, and they will help me much with my study, work and career pursuit. Now I will present my point of views about them respectively. 2. English-Chinese Simultaneous Interpretation This book first introduced the history of interpreting by telling us that interpreting was originated from the WWI and then was used in international conferences and formal meetings. Comparing to consecutive interpreting, simultaneous interpreting can largely shorten the length of time of meetings and maintain a consistent flow of thoughts of the speaker. With its advantages, simultaneous interpreting was widely used and many organizations were founded to cultivate a good many of excellent interpreters to meet the needs of global communication. There are high standard requirements for the interpreting equipment so that this process can work well. This book also gives a clear-stated standard for the output by the interpreters: accuracy, smoothness and timeliness, and their importance decreases one by one while interpreters’ workload increases one by one. For interpreting, the basic and most important requirement is to correctly deliver the speaker’s thinking. And then, his or her articulation should be made with coherence. Last but not the least, the interpreter should start to speak closely following the pace of the speaker, or the listeners will not like it and find it strange. According to these several standards, we can get to know there are some qualities that an interpreter should have. Firstly, he or she should have solid foundation in vocabulary, sentence structure and so on and excellent ability in oral expression. Secondly, the interpreter should have good reaction to the change of language use, flow of ideas, large amount of information and speech styles so that he or she can do well. Thirdly, the interpreter can enter into a good state as soon as possible and will not be affected by the surrounding environment. If the interpreter is kind of intimidated or not well prepared, he or she will not be able to handle the meeting well. Therefore, the interpreter should have a strong mind, stay calm and will not be easily affected by others. Fourthly, the interpreter should be a knowledgeable person. A large amount of knowledge accumulation and background knowledge will help the interpreter grasp the key of a speech and finishes his or her job excellently. Besides, teamwork spirit and professionalism are needed. After that, the author introduces the differences between English and Chinese and reveals the basic laws of English-Chinese interpreting: syntactic linearity, making adjustments according to the circumstances, predicting when possible and using the second-best utterance when necessary in an appropriate extent, and message equivalence without having to be perfect. These several laws are principles that we can follow in the fieldwork. The next part comes with some tactics and skills that interpreters can use, such as segmenting a long English sentences into several small Chinese ones, waiting for some time until a most appropriate interpreting point appears, conversing word classes in interpreting, repeating a word, phrase or a message, adding or vomiting some unimportant words or phrases, putting the key information at the end of a Chinese sentence, directly making a summary of several sentences, and paying close attention to the intonations and tones of the speaker and expressing them as good as possible. Except for all these strategies, the author also introduces some methods to deal with passive voice, sentences starting with “it”, numbers, and some other tactics to deal with dilemma in the process of interpretation. At the appendix of this book, the author attaches several articles I find interesting. There is a survey named Portrait of the “Ideal” Interpreter as Seen through Delegates’ Eyes. In this article, the author points out that there are three aspects thought to be the most important in interpretation: clarity of expression (97.3%), correct terminology (87%), and completeness of rendition (86.6%). This means articulation is the most important and we need to train our utterance of words and sentences so that listeners and audience will recognize our efforts. These above mentioned chapters and content have inspired me a lot. Personally, I care a lot about what people think of me, which will often affect my performance at work and even exams. Besides, I am kind of an introverted person, and I am hardly a talkative person. Therefore, there will be some obstacles for me to overcome. I should try to handle my problem by improving myself in daily life or “practice” in real meetings. It is challenging, but if I make it, I will be so proud of myself. These skills and tactics have also become guidelines and principles for me to follow in my interpreting training. In addition, the author mentions something about the interpreter’s EQ so that he or she can perform well as a professional interpreter. I like this book because the author does not mention too much about interpreting theories, and he gives some really good examples to illustrate his point. However, I think it is a pity that this book does not provide some CDs or Mp3s. If the author chooses some appropriate listening materials, I think it will better help us to master the strategies he mentioned. 3. Profession Traducteur The author of this book is the one of the most recognized and respected professors in France. He has rich experience in translation teaching, and he has published many books about translation training and translation profession. This book was first published in 2002, which won great welcome and enjoyed great popularity since then. Therefore, the author added some latest updates and published it again in 2009. That this book is so popular is because of its rich content and being practical and instructional, which can be applied into real conditions. In the preface of this book, the author listed some data about translator in France. For example, the business volume of translation market in France in 2012 was expected to be 24 billion US dollars in 2009 and the annual average growth rate can be 14.6% from 2008 to 2012. The largest translation company in France, Hewlett-Packard ACG has 121 employees with an annual return of 23 million US dollars. All these data are both surprising and inspiring to me, thinking of the industry that I am working in will be so promising. However, I do not think there are translation companies in China, which have such a big scale or high business volume. On the other hand, the number of translation freelancers was about 50,000 in France, and their age distribution is an upside-down pyramid with a small number of people younger than 30 years old (since they will have to accumulate experience and professional knowledge in the enterprises), and most of the interpreters are aged from 35 to 39, 40 to 44 and 45 to 49. On the other hand, most of the interpreters are women (women: men=3:1), which seems to a universal phenomenon in every country. The group enjoying highest income is male aged from 35 to 44 (28,000 euros) and female aged from 45 to 54 (23,000 euros). Translators with lowest income are those who are younger than 35 years old. Besides, the author mentions that a certified translator will always enjoy advantage and will not be easily weeded out in the competition. There are some qualities an excellent translator should possess: excellent editing capabilities, curiosity and rigorousness so that a translator can handle all the difficulties well, a good mastery of some increasingly sophisticated hardware and software, good skills in managing good relations with counterparts and relevant people, and good knowledge in marketing and financial management. In the following parts, the author carefully analyzes the materials awaiting translation and emphasizes the importance of high-quality translations, saying that they may decide whether a product can become a good selling and whether a brand can be well promoted among consumers. In addition, the author gives a detailed classification of translation for translators to better position themselves. A detailed analysis of translation process is listed as well, which is given then as a flow chart. In the flow chart of the author, the author points out there should be pre-translation process, and the material should be read, edited, and then analyzed. That means the translator should read many relevant books and search for terminology, phrases and expressions used in this field to ensure the readability of the translation. After that, the translation should be well revised to eliminate any errors or mistakes. Reading this chart, I find there are many problems when I have translated materials, because there are steps and measures that I have never adopted before. Without this step, a translation will not be perfect. For example, when I open the document provided by the client, I will translate it directly without doing preparation work for it. I think my translation will not be so readable and it does not conform to the style of the original material. Besides, I am too lazy to recheck my translation. In the next part, the author categorizes translators according to different standards, but I am most interested in the language A, B and C part. A is the mother tongue of the translator: B and C are foreign languages a translator has. Comparing to C, the translator has a better mastery of B. With this regard, A and B are active languages for the translator and C will be a passive one. Therefore, there will be three combinations of language use: A-B, A-C, C-B. In general, the first two combinations will be more frequently used, because they involve the use of mother tongue, which may improve translation quality. To differentiate translators with profession is a new theory I learn from this book. The author says the specialized-subject translation is better paid than the general translation, and the more specialized the subject is, the less competition a translator may encounter. As a student who learns medical English as an undergraduate and who works as part-time medical translator I cannot agree more with the author, because I have feel these advantages by myself. There is something new about translation and translation profession that I have never been taught before. For example, the author gives an in-depth analysis on the identity of translators and he thinks a freelancer is an individual operator. This self-employed person should also pay taxes of this kind to the government. Besides, the author tells translators about how to join in insurance for his or her family and themselves. His advice gives me some hint on what I have been so long confused about, that is insurance. However, I have to worry about something else now, because the laws and rules about translation industry are not so well established in China. Even if I want to buy insurance for myself from the government, I do not know which kinds are most appropriate for me. Translation market is also well introduced here. He tells readers about different kinds of companies and organizations, which has demand for translation and how translators can deal with them and defend their benefits. After all that, the author place great emphasis on keeping up with the technological development and pursue self-improvement all the time, because there are some software and translation memory that can greatly promote working efficiency and competitiveness of translators. And then, translators should keep an eye on the development trend of the world so that he or she can make adjustments when needs be. I have learned a lot from this book. For example, I now have a better understanding of medical translation and its requirements. I get to know what kind of organizations I can work for in the future. Besides, the key in working as a medical translator or interpreter is to read as much original English medical literature as possible. The taxation and insurance part can also become a good reference to China. There is no doubt that translation industry in France is well developed and much more mature than that of China. We have a long way to go to establish this industry. On the other hand, this book mainly introduces something about material translation but not interpreting and interpreting industry, which is kind of pity for me because we need more knowledge about it. In general, these two books are valuable to me, and I think a second reading or even a third is necessary. I would like to recommend them to my classmates so that we can make improvements together.