NGÂN HÀNG NHÀ NƯỚC VIỆT NAM TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGÂN HÀNG TP.HCM Giáo trình PHIÊN DỊCH THƯƠNG MẠI (BUSINESS INTERPRETATION) Chủ biên: TS. NGUYỄN QUANG NHẬT Thành viên: TS. Lê Thị Thùy Nhung ThS. Nguyễn Hồng Oanh ThS.
Phan Lê Vĩnh Thông Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, 2024 Over recent decades the explosive growth of globalization and regional integration has fueled parallel growth in multilingual interactions, leading to the fact that interpretation as a profession requires a comprehensive training process. Therefore, this skill-based manual is designed and compiled as the main material for the course “Business Interpretation” at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, HCM University of Banking (HUB). The material presented here aims to illustrate various aspects of interpretation in international interactions, covering an extensive range of theoretical aspects and supplementary tasks. The audio files are adapted from different sources to serve pedagogical and nonprofit purposes with careful citation and acknowledgements.
All of them are meant to help students gain an insight into interpreter training programs, particularly those who might choose interpretation as their career or participate in international and business settings. Upon the course completion, students are expected to be able to: - (1) improve their listening skills for their interpretation practice; - (2) enhance their note-taking and memory skills; - (3) demonstrate their abilities to adopt various reformulation strategies appropriately; - (4) interpret some business situations from the target language into the source language with understandable pronunciation, intonation, and acceptable fluency; and - (5) apply the language skills developed throughout the course to complete their interpretation assignments effectively. How to use the book The book consists of five chapters devoted to special skills of Business Interpretation. Most of the data and transcripts were taken from domestic and foreign newspapers.
Most audio files were created by the lecturers of the faculty or by electronic devices. In order to teach both English - Vietnamese and Vietnamese – English interpretation, the selections of audio files are presented in a few short paragraphs so that they can satisfy the time frame regulated in a classroom meeting and the capabilities of the students. Instructors are supposed to spend about 30-45 1 minutes for each task so that learners cannot only improve their interpreting skills but also develop their schemata knowledge. In each chapter, there are some major tasks with long speech, requiring more thorough preparations, longer time for interpretation practice, and more support/feedback from instructor(s) to help learners achieve their expected learner outcomes.
They could be seen as the main focus of each chapter and they are provided with detailed instructions (in the italic form) and practical suggestions for both lexical and domain knowledge. Instructor(s) should spend 45-60 minutes on these tasks for skill practice or lesson consolidation. In order to get satisfactory results, learners need to: - prepare the lessons in advance, read more materials to get background knowledge of the topics; - do the tasks again at home by translating from the source language to the target language simultaneously or consecutively, paying careful attention to the standards of pronunciation, intonation, fluency, timeliness, structure, and vocabulary; and - develop their repertoire of business terminology and vocabulary both in English and Vietnamese. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book expresses deepest and grateful appreciation to Ms.
Nguyen Ngoc Phuong Dung, Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages (HUB) with her aspiring guidance as well as detailed and extensively helpful feedbacks. Utmost gratitude is dedicated to other lecturers and studnets at HCM University of Banking for their support in audio recording as well as transcription of the texts in both languages. Acknowledgements are also extended to Mr. Chu Van Lam (Editor of the Vietnam Economics Times), Mr.
Khang Nguyen, (Collaborator of Saigon Times), and Mr. Minh Nguyen (Interpreter of HTV9) for their sources of business news (in the form of script summary), proofreading, and suggestions for interpretation skill updates. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF INTERPRETATION. Codes of ethics.
Criteria for a good interpreter. Types of interpretation. Modes of interpretation. 20 CHAPTER 2: PREPARATIONS AND LISTENING COMPREHESION.
The process of consecutive interpretation. Listening comprehension in interpreting training. 37 CHAPTER 3: NOTE-TAKING SKILLS AND MEMORY TRAINING. Note-taking skills in consecutive interpretation.
What to note. How to Note. 54 CHAPTER 4: SPEAKING SKILLS IN INTERPRETATION. Suggestions for voice training.
67 CHAPTER 5: RE-EXPRESSION SKILLS IN INTERPETATION. Re-expression skills in interpretation. Interpreting cultural-specific terms. Elements of cultural-specific terms.
Suggested strategies for dealing with cultural-specific terms. Asking for clarification or repetition. Reconstructing the segment with the help of the context. Paraphrasing or replacing a term with a general one.
Reproducing the sound heard in the source language speech. Informing the audience of the problem. Problems with microphones. Handling question-and-answer sessions.
5 CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF INTERPRETATION Lesson objectives At the end of the lesson, students are expected to be able to: - understand various aspect of interpretation as a professional career. - explain the codes of ethics of interpretation. - classify various types and modes of interpretation. - execute some simple interpretation activities.
Definitions Interpretation occurs during cross-cultural communication when two parties do not share the same language. Its usefulness stems from the fact that a speaker’s meaning is not only best expressed in his or her native tongue but also is best understood in the languages of the listeners. (Nolan, 2005) Interpreting is the oral transfer of messages between speakers of different languages. (Gentile, et al, 1996) Interpreting is the rendering of an orally delivered message from a source language to a target language.
Its aim is to bridge the language and cultural barriers in the intercultural communication. (Wikipedia) The activity of an interpreter, i., the oral transfer of a spoken message from one language into another, is maintaining its meaning and register as closely as possible. Historical background Interpretation has existed since people used the spoken language. It can be assumed that shortly after signs and gestures no longer sufficed for decent communication the first interpreters came along to facilitate understanding between the speakers of different tongues.
The oldest reference dated back from the Ancient Egypt when an epitaph from the 3rd century BC was found referring to a “headman interpreter”. Some documents showed that interpreters provided their services in administrations, trades, religious activities, and in the armed forces of Egypt. Likewise, in the Ancient Greeks and Romans interpreters were needed because very few Romans and Greeks stooped to learn the languages of the peoples they had conquered. Thus, the use of interpreters carried a political dimension in order to demonstrate Roman superiority; their roles were not respected as most of them were slaves or prisoners.
In some cases, interpreters might suffer a bad ending after their performances. The Roman Emperor Caracalla, for instance, is reported to have slaughtered his interpreters right after every allied agreement was signed. In Medieval Times, this profession was highly valued as interpreters were admired and even ended up as members of the courts. In addition to their important role in international negotiations, interpreters were also vital for the spread of trade expeditions and Christianity.
They were employed in monasteries staffed by monks of different nationalities and origins, and accompanied missionaries and preachers to faraway lands. Attempts were made to come up with universal languages, but by the end of the day the use of interpreters remained the only effective method of communication between peoples of different tongues. The era of great discoveries overseas and expansions worldwide in the 14t h-16th century were other heydays for this profession. Many empires employed the services of captured natives or their fellow conquerors who had been taken prisoners and later released by the natives whose languages had been learnt during the imprisonment.
These interpreters were essential for developing trade relations between the colonists and the natives. For example, Canada had its resident interpreters from the French natives who had settled with the Hurons/Iroqueans and were deemed more trustworthy than the Red Indians. 7 During the 16th-19th century, things took a similar course upon the exploration of the Asian continent. To facilitate communication with Chinese officials and intellectuals, the missionaries exploited the effectiveness of interpreters.
The 17th century saw one Greek interpreter embark on an astonishing career – Constantin Phaulcon, who after having started off as a ship’s boy, learnt English, French, Portuguese, and Siamese, joined the East-Indian Company where he quickly advanced to the highest rank, and ended up as Prime Minister at the court of the King of Siam. In Europe, whereas French was the lingua franca of the diplomatic world due to France’s predominant political power, many countries refused to use French and employed interpreters in their contacts with European countries to show their independence and army power. Thus, professional interpreter training institutes came into being. Constantinople, for example, set up the Dragoman School while in Vienna Empress Maria Theresia founded the Oriental, and both of these schools are still in existence today.
In the 20th century, interpreters continued to be used by missionaries and tradesmen, while diplomats up to WW I mainly relied on French. At the Paris Peace Conference followed WW1, negotiators requested the use of other languages and ended up employing the services of consecutive interpreters. The time between the two World Wars saw the speedy development of international institutions with a lot of high-level international meetings, thus multiplying the need for interpreting services. At first consecutive interpretation was chosen; however, this method took too long and extended meetings unbearably.
Soon efforts were made to develop a new approach that would be less time-consuming and more advantageous for everyone involved - simultaneous interpretation. This approach was developed almost at the same time both in the US and in the Soviet Union, providing a direct connection between speakers and interpreters who in turn translate simultaneously to the audience. At first, it was not popular with those who feared being condemned to demeaning tasks with a complicated system of cables, microphones, and headsets, repeating word by word without anytime to render elegantly. Later on, this new method proved indispensable since it not only considerably cut the time but also greatly improved the quality and accuracy of the message.
That was the triumph of simultaneous interpretation over 8 consecutive which by now is limited to special occasions such as dinner speeches when no interpreting systems are available or can be installed. Machine translation was introduced in 1990s. Though it is quite efficient, this method can never really understand language in all its nuances and subtle variations such as the underlying cultures, traditions and social conventions, the characteristics and moods of the speakers, or their implicit intentions, etc. Only human brains are fit enough to fully grasp the multi-faceted manifestations of these characteristics in the respective context and render them correctly.
In short, machine translation is now a useful assistant but cannot replace a human interpreter. (Adapted from http://lrc.edu/community_interpreting/pages/history.htm) Task 1: Work in pairs and choose the correct number (1-6) for each picture (A-F) based on the information of the text. the oldest reference to interpreters 4. the humiliating position of interpreters 2.
interpreters and the spread of Christianity 5. captured natives as interpreters 3. the introduction of simultaneous interpretation 6. first interpreter training schools (A) …………………………… (B)…………………………… (C) …………………………… (D)…………………………… 9 (E) …………………………… (F)…………………………… 1.
Translation Translation Interpretation 1. A translator studies written material in 1. An interpreter listens to a spoken the source language and reproduces it in message in the source language and renders written form in the target language. it orally in the target language.
A translator relies mainly on thorough 2. An interpreter relies mainly on the ability research with background materials and to get the gist of the message across to the dictionaries to produce the most accurate target audience on the spot. and readable written translation possible. A translator is usually held to a higher 3.