Note-taking for Consecutive Interpreting Note-taking for Consecutive Interpreting: A Short Course is the essential step-by- step guide to the skill of note-taking. The system, made up of a range of tried and tested techniques, is simple to learn, consistent and efficient. Each chapter presents a technique, with examples, tasks and exercises. This second edition has been extensively revised throughout, including: • an updated chapter on speech analysis • new chapters on comparisons and links • revised example speeches and notes • a summary of other authors’ note-taking guidelines for comparison and reference (Part III).
The author uses English throughout – explaining how and where to locate mate- rial for other languages – thus providing a sound basis for all those working in the areas of conference interpreting and consecutive interpreting in any language com- bination. This user-friendly guide is a particularly valuable resource for student interpreters, professionals looking to refresh their skills and interpreter trainers looking for innovative ways of approaching note-taking. Andrew Gillies is an interpreter-trainer, a trainer of interpreter-trainers and gives skills enhancement courses for freelance and staff interpreters for both the Inter- national Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) and the European Parlia- ment. He is also the creator of the website Interpreter Training Resources (http:// interpreters.fr/), which is one of the key references in the conference inter- preter training field.
He is also the author of Conference Interpreting: A Student’s Practice Book (Routledge, 2013) and has translated Rozan’s seminal La Prise de Notes into English. Translation Practices Explained Series Editor: Kelly Washbourne, Kent State University, USA Translation Practices Explained is a series of coursebooks designed to help self- learners and students on translation and interpreting courses. Each volume focuses on a specific aspect of professional translation practice, usually corresponding to courses available in translator-training institutions. The authors are practicing translators or translator trainers.
Although specialists, they explain their profes- sional insights in a manner accessible to the wider learning public. Each volume includes activities and exercises designed to help learners consoli- date their knowledge, while updated reading lists and website addresses will also help individual learners gain further insight into the realities of professional practice. Titles in the series: Note-taking for Consecutive Translating for the European Interpreting 2e Union Institutions 2e Andrew Gillies Emma Wagner, Svend Bech, Jesús M. Martínez Introduction to Court Interpreting 2e Holly Mikkelson Revising and Editing for Translators 3e Translating Song Brian Mossop Peter Low Audiovisual Translation An Introduction to Audio Description Frederic Chaume Louise Fryer Scientific and Technical Translation Translating Children’s Literature Explained Gillian Lathey Jody Byrne Localizing Apps Translation-Driven Corpora Johann Roturier Federico Zanettin User-Centered Translation Medical Translation Step by Step Tytti Suojanen, Kaisa Koskinen, Vicent Montalt, Maria Tiina Tuominen González-Davies For more information on any of these and other titles, or to order, please go to www routledge.com/Translation-Practices-Explained/book-series/TPE Additional resources for Translation and Interpreting Studies are available on the Routledge Translation Studies Portal: http://cw.com/textbooks/ translationstudies Note-taking for Consecutive Interpreting A Short Course Second Edition Andrew Gillies Second edition published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Andrew Gillies The right of Andrew Gillies to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published by St.
Jerome Publishing 2005 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Gillies, Andrew, 1971– author. Title: Note-taking for consecutive interpreting : a short course / by Andrew Gillies. Description: Second edition. | Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, [2017] | Series: Translation practices explained | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016045281 | ISBN 9781138123199 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138123205 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315648996 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Translating and interpreting.02—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.gov/2016045281 ISBN: 978-1-138-12319-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-12320-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-3156-4899-6 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC Visit the eResources: https://www.com/9781138123205 More often than not, the “greats” will tell you that consecutive interpreta- tion cannot be learnt and that note-taking depends upon the personality of the interpreter. I am afraid my own experience shows otherwise. If the fundamentals. are in place then note-taking can easily be learnt.
Rozan, 2003:11 [1956:9] The oft repeated argument that notes are an entirely personal affair, and the implicit suggestion that they cannot therefore be taught, does not hold water. Andres, 2000:58 [D]ecades of research. has made it abundantly clear that students can and will profit from a structured conscious and systematic introduction into note-taking as a seminal skill in consecutive interpreting. Dingfelder, 2015:165 Contents About the new edition xii PART I The basics step-by-step 1 Introduction 5 What is consecutive interpreting? 5 When is consecutive interpreting used? 5 Community, liaison, medical and court interpreting 6 About this book 7 Note-taking for consecutive interpreting 8 About the notes 12 About the examples 13 How to use the book 14 Practice 16 Miscellaneous 17 1 Speech analysis 20 Mind maps 21 Sections 25 Section diagrams 29 Mini summaries 32 2 Recognizing and splitting ideas 37 What is an idea? 37 Identifying ideas 39 viii Contents 3 The beginning: diagonal notes 43 Subject, Verb, Object 43 1.
Note shorter synonyms 51 2. Note a different SVO group with the same meaning 55 3. Noting only two of the three elements in SVO 56 4. Make several short sentences out of one long one 58 4 Links 60 Why are links important? 61 Finding links 62 Families of links 64 Noting links 67 Moving on.
72 5 Verticality and hierarchies of values 80 Parallel values 1 81 Shifting values 88 Parallel values 2 92 Use of brackets 94 6 Symbols 100 What is a symbol? 100 Why use symbols? 101 What to note with symbols 101 How to use symbols 104 Organic symbols 105 Where to find symbols 109 How many symbols? 109 Similar but not the same 111 7 Noting less 113 Structure reminds us of the obvious 113 When what comes next is obvious 116 Things right in front of you 121 Note the simple for the complicated 122 Stories and jokes 123 It depends on what you already know 125 8 What to note 127 Contents ix PART II Fine-tuning 129 1 Clauses 131 Reported speech 131 Additional information 133 2 Rules of abbreviation 136 Abstractions 137 Plurals 137 Different languages 138 Phonetic spelling and misspelling 138 3 Verbs 139 Verb conjugations 139 Verb tenses 139 Modal verbs 140 Nouns as verbs 141 4 The recall line 143 5 Uses of the margin 146 Who? 146 Structural elements 148 Dates 153 Anything important! 155 6 More on links 156 Adding implicit links 156 Dropping link words that aren’t links 159 Though and although or but and however 161 Temporal links 163 7 Comparisons 165 One and the other 165 Pairs 166 Not only. but also 167 8 Pro-forms 170 x Contents 9 Noting sooner, or later 172 Noting detail sooner 172 Numbers 173 Word order 174 Noting detail later 176 Noting lists 177 10 How you write it 178 Writing big and bigger 178 Capital letters for proper names 179 Phonetic spelling and misspelling 180 11 More on symbols 182 Improvising symbols 182 Symbol of relation / 184 The exclamation mark 184 12 Things you didn’t catch 188 Omissions 188 Questions to the speaker 189 13 The end 192 The last thing the speaker says 192 The end of your notes 192 PART III The back of the book 195 1 Notes with commentary 197 Speech 1 – Lumumba 198 Speech 2 – Soros 211 Speech 3 – McCulley 218 Speech 4 – Hasanov 226 Speech 5 – Tsujimura 236 2 Versions of the tasks set 247 Chapter 1 Speech analysis 247 Chapter 2 Recognizing and splitting ideas 249 Contents xi Chapter 4 Links 250 Chapter 5 Verticality and hierarchies of values 253 3 The examples 260 4 Where to find practice material 265 5 Note-taking according to other authors 267 Rozan 267 Seleskovitch 269 Thiéry 270 Matyssek 271 Ilg and Lambert 275 Jones 276 Andres 276 Oblitas 277 Glossary 279 Further reading 282 Bibliography 284 Index 287 About the new edition This new version of the book is the result of ten more years training interpreters since the original was first published in 2005, a desire to refresh the book for a new generation of interpreters and the forthcoming publication in 2018 of my new book on consecutive interpreting as a whole. In short, the major changes are as follows: • The chapter on analysis has been changed to include only types of speech analysis that impact directly on note-taking. The parts that have been removed will now appear in the new book.
• All of the example speeches and associated notes have been updated. • A chapter on comparisons and a second chapter on links have been added. • A summary of other authors’ guidelines for note-taking has been included in Part III for comparison and reference. • Elsewhere, there are other useful edits and additions that I hope will make the book more user-friendly.
You will find more ideas on how to practice conference interpreting in my book Conference Interpreting: A Student’s Practice Book (Routledge, 2013). Part I The basics step-by-step Introduction 5 What is consecutive interpreting? 5 When is consecutive interpreting used? 5 Community, liaison, medical and court interpreting 6 About this book 7 Note-taking for consecutive interpreting 8 About the notes 12 About the examples 13 How to use the book 14 Practice 16 Miscellaneous 17 1 Speech analysis 20 Mind maps 21 Sections 25 Section diagrams 29 Mini summaries 32 2 Recognizing and splitting ideas 37 What is an idea? 37 Identifying ideas 39 3 The beginning: diagonal notes 43 Subject, Verb, Object 43 1. Note shorter synonyms 51 2. Note a different SVO group with the same meaning 55 3.
Noting only two of the three elements in SVO 56 4. Make several short sentences out of one long one 58 2 The basics step-by-step 4 Links 60 Why are links important? 61 Finding links 62 Families of links 64 Noting links 67 Moving on. 72 5 Verticality and hierarchies of values 80 Parallel values 1 81 Shifting values 88 Parallel values 2 92 Use of brackets 94 6 Symbols 100 What is a symbol? 100 Why use symbols? 101 What to note with symbols 101 How to use symbols 104 Organic symbols 105 Where to find symbols 109 How many symbols? 109 Similar but not the same 111 7 Noting less 113 Structure reminds us of the obvious 113 When what comes next is obvious 116 Things right in front of you 121 Note the simple for the complicated 122 Stories and jokes 123 It depends on what you already know 125 8 What to note 127 [I]f we are to teach, we must teach something, and that something must be simple and methodical. Rozan, 1956:9 [translation 2003:11] Introduction What is consecutive interpreting? Consecutive interpreting is one of the three modes§ that go to make up what we call conference interpreting.
It involves listening to what someone has to say and then, when they have finished speaking, reproducing the same message in another language.