Modelación de flujos

In the previous section, I examined literature on semantic shifts in interpretation and translation; this is closely related to the literature that examines interpretation shifts from a pragmatic point of view which section 2.2.2 dwells on. Utterances have a pragmatic as well as a semantic aspect to them. This research hypothesizes that it is often difficult for the interpreter to convey the pragmatic meaning of the Source Language into the Target

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Language. The works examined here show some examples of pragmatic meanings shifts.

This section also examines how the illocutionary force of an utterance is affected by interpretation. Searle (1969) defines the illocutionary force as the act the speaker performs as a result of making an utterance such as insult, apologize, show surprise, and disgust among other emotions.

Another different type of courtroom error identified is when there are discrepancies between pragmatic and semantic equivalence in interpreted discourse within the courtroom. Several researchers namely Hale (1997a, 1997b, 2002, 2004), Berk-Seligson (2002), and Jacobsen (2003) illustrate that there are discrepancies between the semantic and pragmatic equivalence of original speech by witnesses from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and the interpreted rendition. These researchers note that in many cases, the interpreter may pass across the semantic meaning but ignore, misunderstand or simply not convey the pragmatic meaning. Pragmatic meaning refers to the meaning of a particular utterance in context. For example, “goodbye” is a word whose meaning may differ according to the context. If a visitor has overstayed his welcome for example, the host may use the word goodbye to give the pragmatic meaning of good riddance whereas the semantic properties of the word imply go well.

Jacobsen (2003) conducts research on pragmatics in court interpreting and specifically studies additions where the two languages concerned are Dutch and English. The conclusions reached are that interpreters modify texts through addition. Jacobsen’s study categorizes additions according to their impact on the semantic and/ or pragmatic content of the source text. The additions observed are such as: elaborating additions, emphasizing additions, down-toning additions as well as new information additions. An example taken from Jacobsen (2003) illustrates the way in which the illocutionary force of an utterance can be lost. In this example, the source text is in Dutch and the target text is English. The example is recounted here:

ST-DC: Var der nogen maerker eller noget ef:er øh at du havde fået knive n holdt øh mod struben?

FT: Were there any marks or anything after er you had had the knife held er against your throat?

TT-I: Were there any bruises or marks after the: the knife was held against you? Your neck?

(

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Jacobsen then goes further to explain that the deviation identified here is an addition through repetition, which adds a degree of hesitancy to the interpreter’s target text and thus has a potential to decrease or down tone the force of the original utterance. This effect comes about because the interpreter repeats the definite article the and noticeably lengthens the sound of the /e/ in the first “the”. Jacobsen’s research findings are particularly useful to my study as they lend the methods of research as well as give an example of how to classify the different types of meaning shifts that were discovered in the data collected.

From Jacobsen (2003) I found a classification and sub classification of additions which is an interpreter modification. The first category is additions with no impact on the semantic and/

or pragmatic content of the ST. These are: repetitions, silent pauses, voice-filled pauses and false starts.

The second category of additions are those that have minimal impact on the semantic and/or pragmatic content of the ST which are: repetitions, fillers, paralinguistics, explicit additions, (obvious information additions, connective additions and additions explicating non-verbal information/ culture bound information) and elaborating additions. The last category of additions is those with significant impact on the semantic and/or pragmatic content of the ST which are: emphasising additions, downzoning additions and new-information additions.

Jacobsen’s findings give a useful insight into analysis of additions in the interpreted courtroom discourse.

Hale (1999) discovers that most of the problems interpreters face in the courtroom are completely unrelated to the specialized terminology but relate mainly to the pragmatic aspects of the discourse such as being able to achieve equivalence of illocutionary force and levels of politeness or equivalence of register of the testimony. Hale concludes in the mentioned study that in courtroom discourse and specifically in lawyers’ questions, discourse markers can serve as cohesive devices but more importantly as devices of argumentation, combativeness and control. However, she observes that these markers are often omitted in most interpreters’ renditions. The discourse markers that Hale observes in her paper are: well, now, and you see, which she determines are the most frequently used in lawyers’ questions and the most often omitted in the interpreted version. She observes that the omission of these discourse markers does not change the propositional content of the utterance but could alter the utterance’s illocutionary force. She gives an example that I recount here:

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A: No le he dicho que no estoy seguro? Ha pasado tanto tiempo.

(Haven’t I told you that I’m not sure? It’s been so long.)

INT: I have said I am not sure; it was so long ago(Hale, 199, P.10).

(Here, A refers to the answer given by a witness in response to a question from a lawyer. The answer is given in Spanish. In brackets, we have the exact words of the speaker as reported by Hale (the researcher.) The conversation introduced by INT is the exact rendition given by the interpreter.)

In this example, Hale illustrates that the question asked has been interpreted in a less emphatic and less confrontational way than how the witness actually gave it. The original answer of the defendant as Hale observes is a direct personal confrontation with the lawyer

“Haven’t I told you” but the rendition is “I have told you” which uses a softer/less confrontational tone. Even though Hale’s study is done in Australia and uses English-Spanish courtroom interpretations, the findings are important for this study. Firstly, I borrow the process of the study such as methods as well as data analysis techniques and secondly, I also make useful comparisons using the two studies.

Hatim and Mason (1999) also show that sometimes it is only some aspects of an utterance that are translated and others missed out. They claim “It is possible for the interpreter to translate competently the locutionary act involved in the utterance (in the sense of finding appropriate equivalents for the Source Text words and relating them correctly and appropriately in the Target Language syntax) while failing to perceive or otherwise misrepresenting the illocutionary force of the utterance in context” (Hatim and Mason in Hale, 1999, P.1). My study shows findings that concur with Hatim and Mason.

Lee (2009) also contributes to the debate on interpretation by adding a type of courtroom error in interpretation. She points out that inexplicit source language can be a source of wrong rendition. Her argument is that the courtroom language is by its nature “a highly institutionalized form of discourse that is constrained by evidentiary rules. Legal discourse is often characterised by explicitness and precision and does not tolerate ambiguity or multiple interpretations” (Lee, 2009, P.4). The layperson may not be aware of this nature of the courtroom language thus may lack understanding of the expected language style as well as lack the skill to communicate in the courtroom context. Lee further argues that due to this lack of knowledge and experience, the layperson may produce ambiguous and incoherent speech by not providing enough information. In her study, Lee is able to identify four

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grammatical features of Korean that may be problematic in courtroom interpretation namely 1) There is no strict marking of singularity and plurality in Korean 2) Korean does not have a single form that indicates definiteness 3) Korean predicates do not agree in number, person or gender with their subjects but ending forms mark varying degrees of deference and politeness and 4) Korean makes frequent use of ellipsis (Lee, 2009, P.5). Lee’s study is very useful here in that even though the two languages compared in his study are English and Korean, my study can borrow from the manner Lee’s research was conducted. It points out areas that I could pay attention to such as difference in the syntax of the two languages as well as difference in style. Lee’s study also acts as point of comparison.

The literature cited above is useful for my study in the quest to determine the syntactic categories that when omitted, substituted, added or summarised in interpretation result in pragmatic shifts leading to meaning loss. They also help in the quest of this study to determine which styles when omitted, substituted or added result in semantic shifts leading to loss of meaning.