Dominika Vargová

Media interpreting. Specifics of simultaneous interpreting of a television discussion

Dominika Vargová

Abstract

Media interpreting. Specifics of simultaneous interpreting of a television discussion. The paper synthetizes
available information about media interpreting. Observations from practice of performing a specific type of media
interpreting – simultaneous interpreting of a television discussion, add to the presented theoretical knowledge.
The paper deals with conditions, in which an interpreter, in the given communication situation, carries out the
interpreting assignment. The performance of an interpreter is evaluated from the perspective of the preparation
before the event, the role of speakers and lastly, perspectives that were applied or could have been applied. In this
part, the author gives specific examples of speakers’ utterances and the interpreter’s version of translation and
evaluates the strategies applied.

Kľúčové slová: mediálne tlmočenie, simultánne tlmočenie, televízna diskusia, príprava, rečník, tlmočnícke
stratégie
Keywords: media interpreting, simultaneous interpreting, television discussion, preparation, speaker, interpreting
strategies

Introduction

The demand for interpreters in the media has significantly increased in connection with the development of
technologies that enable the broadcasting of audio-visual media throughout the world. In this way, the audience
expanded, not only in terms of quantity, but also in terms of linguistic diversity. The language barrier needs to be
overcome in press conferences, live broadcasting and streaming, reports, television debates and other formats of
audio-visual broadcasting.
Compared to other types of interpreting (e.g. community interpreting, conference interpreting etc.), the
interpreter finds himself in a significantly different situation. The audience is unlimited and the interpreter does
not receive feedback from it, his speech can be recorded and then compared with the original and, last but not
least, can be the subject of further processing, e.g. can be published in print media (Kurz 1995: 194). “The
interpreter thus faces the evaluation of television viewers, accustomed to the fluent speech of moderators, without
realizing that they often use help of a reading device. They may consider the interpreter as “a “failed” host or a
“bad speaker”, and his discourse may seem unnatural or artificial to them. They have no idea or do not realize that
the work of an interpreter is diametrically opposed to the work of a host, that [an interpreter] uses different
procedures and techniques, and mentally processes several processes at once. [...] However, the direct client of an
interpreter (if we do not take into account the television in the role of a client, which is represented in the person
of a producer, director or playwright) is the audience – TV viewers, who assess (and at best, appreciate) the
interpreter's performance.” (Vertanová et al. 2015: 98). Another feature of interpreting a broadcast that does not
get the viewer's attention around is that male speakers can be interpreted by a female interpreter and, the other way
around, women's speech can be mediated by a male interpreter. “The translation does not attempt to create an
illusion that it is the original sound; rather, it is perceived as a sort of oral subtitle coexisting with the event and is
accepted for the sake of information.” (Kurz 1990: 169) The focus lies in the content of the statement, in the
information that is interpreted.
These factors contribute to the increase of the interpreter's mental exertion, which affects his performance,
all the more so when it is broadcast live. According to Müglová (2009: 198), media interpreting is “probably the
most difficult genre of interpreting”.
In our paper, we would like to add information about media interpreting, more precisely about
interpreting a discussion in a television studio. In the first part, we describe the conditions in which this type of
interpreting takes place. Subsequently, we focus on selected specifics, accompanying simultaneous interpreting in
each of its phases – preparatory, receptive and productive. We believe that with personal experience with this type
of simultaneous interpretation and our observations, we will contribute to translatological research in the field of
interpreting.

Interpreting a television discussion

The conditions for interpreting a television discussion vary depending on several factors. The first is the workplace
– studio or exterior spaces, then it is the presence of an audience or its absence, the format of the broadcast and
 Dominika Vargová

the allocated broadcasting time, technical equipment, the number of speakers requiring interpreting and, finally,
the customs of a particular media institution (Castillo 2015: 289).
Simultaneous mode of interpreting is frequently used when interpreting live TV programs. It usually takes
place in a booth, but the interpreter can also perform his/her work in a separate area of the television studio, which
was also our case. At this point, we would like to draw attention to the peculiarities of technical equipment and
the participants of the event in the studio. The interpreter has its place in a separate space, which is equipped with
a monitor and an interpreter console. Through the screen, the interpreter has visual contact with the speaker he or
she is interpreting and also sees other participants of the communication act. However, the speakers do not see the
interpreter, they are connected with him only through sound. In addition to controlling the microphone and
headphones, the interpreter has the opportunity to connect with the sound engineer, or another technician who can
assist him/her in setting the console, or deal with disturbances that the interpreter cannot influence on his/her own.
We can confirm how important it is to test the functionality of the technical equipment before the start of the
interpreting thanks to the recent experience when all participants of the event had facemasks on their faces due to
the observance of anti-epidemiological measures. Subsequently, besides adjusting the bass, centre, treble and
balance, it was also necessary to adjust the position of the head microphone to better capture the speakers' speech.
However, we have to point out that apart from the usual non-linguistic constraints encountered by the interpreter
(mentioned unlimited audience, indirect contact with participants, incorrect microphone placement, etc.) (Viaggio
2001: 29), it is possible, given the current situation related to coronavirus, to add the presence of a facemask on
the faces of discussion participants, or more specifically, handling facemasks (touching or repositioning it) by the
speaker during the speech, which we classify as an unfavourable non-linguistic factor affecting the interpreters'
performance.
Due to the extremely high demands and the high cognitive load, simultaneous interpretation normally
requires the work of two interpreters, who take turns interpreting, usually after 20 to 30 minutes. However, it is
also necessary to take into account that for various reasons (e.g. financial) the interpreter may be on his/her own.
Our case was interpreting a television debate in which, in addition to the host, three guests participated. One of
them was a foreigner whose speech had to be interpreted from English into Slovak. The English translation of
Slovak speakers was mediated into his headphones. The audience therefore heard Slovak speakers, a Slovak
interpretation of a foreign guest’s speech, whereas the original soundtrack of his speech in English was audible
merely in the background. As a result, the interpreter performed bilingual interpreting for 64 minutes without a
break.
To define the discussion more narrowly as a genre of journalistic style, we would define its three
characteristics that are relevant to us as translators: spontaneity, emotivity, and information saturation.
The television discussion usually responds to current topics that resonate in society. It can be assumed
that the audience is more or less familiar with the topic, but the participants in the discussion are selected with the
intention of bringing a professional perspective to the issue and communicating information as “insiders”. Each
having own viewpoint on the matter, speakers confront each other; this exchange of views is largely spontaneous,
despite the presence of the scenario: the speakers react to each other and at the same time answer the questions of
the host leading the discussion. Their statement can then be “marked” by incorrect word order, emotion (intonation
or repetition, which also gives them space to think about other statements), or filler (also known as planner or
hesitation marker).
Within the mentioned spontaneity and due to emotional bias, the speech of guests may also be emotional
– reactions to communication partners are based on logical argumentation, but are also accompanied by
expressions that indicate their personal attitude to the topic. Besides the given facts, the participants present their
personal opinions in the discussion, on the one hand unwittingly, but on the other hand intentionally in order to
gain the sympathy of the audience. This results in the use of metaphors, comparisons, particles, etc.
Another feature of discussions is their information saturation. Due to the limited time of the broadcast,
the complexity of the topic and the efforts of the speakers to clarify or explain the issue, its level can be relatively
high. This results in complex sentences and other "complications" associated with them, e.g. in the form of illogical
statements of the speakers. The demand for interpreter's general knowledge, ability to concentrate, memory
capacity and vocabulary increases in direct proportion to this.
Most of the mentioned attributes do not represent any burden for the interpreter during interpreting.
However, some of them serve as the starting points on the basis of which the interpreter can prepare for his/her
interpreting performance. For example, when interpreting figurative language, it is crucial to make the right choice
of strategy; in the case of complex sentences, a suitable time lag between the voice of the speaker and the voice of
the interpreter; and in the case of a complex topic, through thorough expert preparation. We deal with the selected
procedures in more detail in the following part our contribution.

Preparation
 Dominika Vargová

In the case of interpreting a television discussion, communication with the client ordering interpreting services,
who is in charge of the production of the program, whether it is a playwright or a producer, is extremely important.
It is crucial for the interpreter to be provided with all available materials for preparation. In addition to the main
topic, an interpreter may be informed on e.g. themes, structure and scenario of the discussion. The archive of the
TV program, if available, can also help the interpreter. Based on the obtained materials, the interpreter will conduct
a research and complement his/her knowledge on the discussed topic. It is necessary to cultivate the habit of
thorough preparation in case of students of interpreting already during their studies. This is confirmed by the
Šveda’s experiment (2016: 68), who, based on its results, states that even a natural degree of self-confidence,
which depends on the level of preparation, leads to better interpreting results and, conversely, insufficient or only
partial preparation and lower self-confidence resulting from it cause lower quality of interpreting in the case of
information-saturated speeches. The importance of contextual preparation for interpreting performance through
the so-called ad hoc or short-term preparation for a specific situation in order to increase productivity is also
pointed out by Klobušická (2020).
In the framework of this preparation, we also distinguish terminological preparation, which, according to
Gile (2009: 132), is “the quest for information for the purpose of gaining better understanding of specialised terms
and finding acceptable equivalents in the target language.” and we completely agree with his definition. Kalina
(2005: 777-778) suggests that besides knowledge, information about circumstances of the event and its participants
prior to the event, also terminological follow-up or self-evaluation after it function as crucial factors for the quality
of interpreters’ output.

Speakers

Regarding the receptive phase, or, as Keníž (1980: 77) calls it in his model of simultaneous interpreting - in the
phase of receiving the source text and understanding it, we will focus on the speakers we have interpreted. It is
extremely important to obtain information about the speakers already during the preparation for the interpreting:
the interpreter should know how many speakers will attend the event, what their education or profession is, their
age, what language they will speak, and the purpose of their participation in the event. What was extremely
important for us and what we confirmed even during the interpreting to be a fundamental factor influencing our
interpreting performance was the fact whether they will speak in their mother tongue or the language they have
learned as a foreign language. After obtaining these initial data, we searched for public speeches of the mentioned
persons in order to find out what is their oral expression, diction, pace of speech, etc.
For the purposes of our paper, we will focus on two participants of a television discussion, neither of
whom was the native speaker of the language in which he spoke. We interpreted one from English into Slovak
(the mentioned foreign guest, hereinafter referred to as “S1”) and the other from Slovak into English (only into
the headphones of a foreign guest, hereinafter referred to as “S2”).1
From our point of view, we would call the S1 speaker our partner, who cooperated with us as interpreters.
He approaches the prototype of an ideal speaker, which Müglová (2009: 138) characterizes with these words: “...
he is a responsive, experienced speaker who is used to speaking through a mediator. This type of speaker is
foresighted and knows that the success of his speech depends on the interpreter. He thinks of his alter ego already
in the phase of preparation of his speech. He tries to avoid the frequent repetition of what has already been said,
unnecessarily exaggerated expressions (pleonasms), [and] formulates his speech in such a way that it has internal
logic and is syntactically cohesive.” We give an example of his utterance:

S1: I wish to underline that this has been already decided. // Prime minister of X, // Y president // and Z president,
/ they agreed that X will withdraw from these territories. // Internationally displaced persons, refugees will return,
// and territories, control over territories will be restored by Y. So, // now I suggest these gentlemen to support this
but not to think about the past narratives. Also, // I suggest the other international community, the other countries,
the Slovak Republic to support implementation // implementation of the statement, trilateral statement, // because
this is the objective: to withdraw troops, to return the people and start coexistence because people have to
normalize their life in the region.

In the speech of the S2, we observed language transfer, or so-called interlingual interference, as the linguist Uriel
Weinreich first called this phenomenon. He describes it as a violation of the rules of the norm in the languages
spoken by bilingual speakers, which is as a result of the command of several languages and of linguistic contact
between them" (Weinreich: 1953). The language of the S2 speaker was influenced by the fact that Slovak is not
his mother tongue. In addition to the accent, i.e. the phonological level (which we recorded literally and without

1 As far as our paper deals with interpreting and the topic of the TV discussion is not decisive in that matter, we decided to
anonymise the names of the program, participants, countries and nationalities. We use capital letters D, M, S, V, X, Y, Z
instead.
 Dominika Vargová

adjustments according to the phonetic rules of the Slovak language), we also observed interference in the
grammatical, lexical and syntactic level.

S2: No, pán V veľmi dobre vie čo ja hovorim. Vy zničili celú X kultúru koľko mohli. // Vy zničili deseťtisič
križkamňov // taký križkameň ktory ja dal v centre Bratislavy // a ešte krásne ako moj križkameň ktory ja dal
v centre Bratislavy. // Bratislavčania Slováci vedia o čo ide. // Deseťtisič križkameňov zničili, a tam dali streľnicu
// a novinar nemožet isť aspoň pozreť že ten stary fantasticky ten region kde boli križkamni, to je jeden najvyšši
uroveň X kultury a zničeno. O čo ide.

Due to the lower number of pauses, it is clear that the speech rate of the S2 was higher than that of the S1. Even
due to the pressure of time, we would not be able to identify the meaning of the word “križkameň” without
preparation. In order to be able to process the main idea of this extract, we also chose a longer ear-voice span. We
were therefore able to reconstruct this segment with the help of the context knowledge and longer decalage. We
will comment on the specific strategies we applied during the interpreting in the following part of the paper.

Strategies

When describing the productive phase of our interpreting performance, we will focus on those interpreting
strategies that we have made the most of. Along with the excerpts of the speech of both speakers, we include
examples of the strategies application by the interpreter (hereinafter referred to as “T”) in the target language.
We will follow up on the above passage from the speech of the speaker S2. We worked on the
reconstruction of what was uttered through the application of two strategies – explication and at the same time
compression. We used the explication (highlighted in T in bold) to explain the term “križkameň” and we were able
to compress the statement thanks to the set decalage. What was subject to compression is underlined in the
utterance of the S2. In the target text, we tried to transfer the most important facts from what was said:

T: Mr. V knows what I am talking about. The X culture was destroyed to the great extent, // including number of
cross-stones, ancient decorative X slabs. One, put by me, can be seen in Bratislava. // Not one of such cross-
stones, proving high level of the X culture, remained in the precious historical region.

In the case of the S2, we would like to list another example of using compression and, in addition, a combination
of the strategy of anticipation and stalling. Stalling, which is “very similar to waiting, as both aim to buy time,
during which the interpreter may receive more input before the integration and encoding stage. Whereas waiting
normally results in a period of silence in the interpreter’s output, which may be perceived as uncomfortable by the
listener and/or the interpreter, stalling postulates the production of “neutral padding” which fills the gap without
adding any new information...” (Seeber 2011: 193). In case of languages which are syntactically different, we
consider this strategy to be convenient. Partly compressing the original statement (the compressed part is
underlined), we anticipated what could be said and used this assumption as the “padding” (marked in bold). That
gave us time to wait for the end of the utterance and correctly identify the meaning of the phrase “v/stať na nohy”
(orig. from Russian “стать на ноги” – mobilize, become independent) from the context.

S2: Ďakujem. Pán V neviem // robí diplomatickú hru alebo alebo nerozumel otázku. // Musíme trošku vysvetliť aby
on ešte // ehm // dal korektne odpoveď. My hovorime: // po padu Sovietskej zvezy všetci krajiny mali pravdu a všetci
narody // mať svoju suverenitu. // Pán M veľmi dobre dal otázku. // A ihneď stal na nohy X, 82% ja myslim vtedy
žili X v K v tom času // vstali na nohy a vyhlasili presne taku nezavislosť, ako ostatne krajiny.

T: Thank you. Mr. V either plays a diplomatic game or does not understand the question. // We’ll explain for him
to answer. What we’re saying is // that after the fall of the Soviet Union all countries had right to sovereignty. // //
K followed their lead. I think that about 82% of X were living in K at that time, so they mobilized and also declared
independence.

In this part of the paper, we will present the strategies we have used or which we could use when interpreting the
S1 speaker from English into Slovak. In the first selected excerpt of speech, it was compression and simplification
(by simplification we mean what is called “kondenzácia” in Slovak, but cannot be translated to English as
“condensation” because English does not make any distinction between condensation and compression). We have
compressed the meaning of the text by omitting parts that have been repeated and in which the speaker corrected
himself (underlined). By simplification we mean shortening the means of expression (in bold).

S1: In line with the withdrawal of the D troops, the X, I am sorry, in the line with the withdrawal of the X troops
from the occupied territories, D peacekeepers will be deployed along the line of contact. This will put a definite
 Dominika Vargová

end to the fighting. // The next step will be to implement humanitarian measures and both sides agreed to exchange
prisoners of war, detainees, as well as dead bodies. These processes will pave the way for the peace in our country.

T: Zároveň so stiahnutím X vojsk z okupovaných území sa na líniu kontaktu vyšlú D mierotvorcovia. Tým sa
definitívne ukončia boje. Ďalším krokom bude zavedenie humanitárnych opatrení. Obe strany si vymenia
vojnových zajatcov, zadržané osoby a telá obetí. Uvedené zaistí mier v našej krajine.

Regarding simplification, we would like to state that we do not consider it to be the ideal choice in our case.
Lexical simplification, used by us to shorten the phrases “put an end” and “pave the way” can become, as Štubňa
(2018: 111) writes, more demanding and require higher level of concentration from the interpreter as well as bigger
effort than the possible word-for-word translation of the original utterance, because expressing the same idea
through smaller number of words, its reformulation, is a difficult lexical, syntactical, structural and semantic
operation.
Despite the fact that it was not necessary in our case, the following excerpt would be an exemplary model
of the generalization strategy application. In the event of time pressure, we would use it as an “emergency strategy”
in the underlined parts of the speech.

S1: We have thirty thousand X living in A, B, in the south of Y. // And we have their churches, we have their
libraries or whatever they’re using.

T: Tridsaťtisíc X žije na rôznych miestach Y. Krajina im umožňuje využívať ich inštitúcie.

Conclusion

With the given paper, we attempt to contribute to the issue of one of the interpreting genres, media interpreting,
while we narrowed our analysis to a specific type of interpreting in the media - simultaneous interpreting of a
television discussion. Based on the theory we studied and our practical experience, we can unambiguously confirm
the importance of preparation before the interpreting performance. However, it is important to understand this
preparation in the context of the complexity of the event in which the interpreter will participate. This preparation
does not only include the study of the provided materials, which result from the topic of the discussion. It goes
beyond gathering information and preparing terminology; it is understood much more broadly: during it, the
interpreter also takes into account the surrounds in which the communication act takes place, the role of the
speakers and the available interpreting strategies. Self-reflection of the interpreter is equally important, the revision
of the strategies used (or the evaluation of their absence) and the addition of any new terms to the glossary. It is
important that the interpreter is aware of the factors that affect his/her performance and is able to take them into
account with each new interpreting opportunity. In the last part of our paper, we focused on the receptive phase of
interpreting and evaluated the procedural side of simultaneous transfer in terms of the strategies used. Our analysis
was accompanied by demonstrations of speakers’ and interpreter’s utterances. It follows that there are a number
of variables that affect the success of an interpreter. Some of them can be influenced by the interpreter, some are
solved only through crisis strategies during their performance. With our paper, we have drawn attention to those
attributes of interpreting performance that are linked to the simultaneous interpretation of a television discussion.
By drawing attention to them, we would like to encourage a discussion on setting the quality evaluation criteria
for this type of interpreting.

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Contact:

Mgr. Dominika Vargová, PhD.

Katedra jazykovedy a translatológieDepartment of Linguistics and
Translatology
Fakulta aplikovaných jazykov Faculty of Applied Languages
Ekonomická univerzita v Bratislave University of Economics Bratislava
Email Address: dominika.vargova@euba.sk

Citation:
Vargová, D (2021): Media interpreting. Specifics of simultaneous interpreting of a television discussion. In:
Adamcová, S. (ed). Einblicke in die angewandte Linguistik Forschungsparadigmen und Anwendungsbereiche.
Brno: Tribun EU, p.104-115.