LINA FARSIA

Z3444911
SELF EVALUATION ASSIGNMENT

“INTERPRETING DISCOURSE MARKERS”

INTRODUCTION

Having been interpreted for the last two years, I always thought that being able to
speak English and Indonesian was enough and never get myself bothered for
participating in interpreting training or courses. However, when doing this self-
evaluation project I found that it is very important to get trained to be
professional. In this report, I would like to discuss about linguistic aspect that
should be taken into account when interpreting so the interpreter can produce
accuracy of the interpretation without changing the meaning. The linguistics
aspect that I want to discuss is “Discourse Markers” (DMs).

DMs have been much studied for many years including in interpreting and
translating field. DMs sometimes have no meaning and yet sometimes the
speakers themselves are unconsciously use them and are not aware that they use
them in their daily conversation. However, Schiffrin (1987) states that discourse
marker play an important role in understanding discourse and information
progression. Furthermore, Hale (1999) also propose the same idea about the
important of DMs, she states that even when DMs carry no propositional content,
they are important in portraying a speaker’s intentions and adding tone and force
to their utterance. Here, it can be concluded some people use DMs on purpose
and they have something they want to say by using them in their utterances. For
example, some use of the DMs because they want to be polite and others use
them as mitigator to lessen the imposition of their utterances.

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The reason why I choose DMs is that because the presence of DMs is most of the
time ignored by interpreter. As an example form the research done by Hale in
court interpreting. Hale (2004) suggests that interpreters often fail to perceive the
pragmatic/discourse value of such elements and, by omitting them, tend to alter
the witnesses’ style “either to their benefit or to their detriment”. Therefore, it is
very important for me to know deeply about the DMs interpretation not only n
court but also in all fields of interpretation.

DISCUSSION

In my recording I found that I did not interpret the DMs from Indonesian into
English and vice versa. In this recording the both patient and doctor were using
DMs for many times. The doctor used “well” discourse marker several times and
the patient used discourse marker “aduhh” several times. However, at no time
were they interpreted. The following is the example and I provide the back
translation in brackets.
Example 1:
P :jadi saya harus gantikerja saya yadok? ( So, I have to change my job, don’t I
doctor)
I: so, I have to change my job, don’t I doctor?
D :oh well, perhaps. .

I: mungkin (perhaps)

Here, the doctor tried to usequantity hedges “well” to express information which
is not the might be expected by the patient.Lakoff (1972) explained that one of
the uses of quantity hedges is to express a piece of information given by speaker

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is not precisely the same or the information provided is not the same as it might
be expected by hearer. The doctor was aware that what she was trying to say
might become a bad news for the patient. She used “well” to lessen the
imposition so that it is not heard like an order that the patient is forced to do so.
However, I, as the interpreter have failed to maintain the doctor’s intention. I did
not interpret the discourse marker “well”. Therefore, the interpretation become
less polite which consisting of the stronger imposition than the original version.

Example 2:

D :please comeback next two week so I can check your ears to see if there is
serious problem.

P :aduh.. saya harus periksa telingasaya ..( oh my god..i have to get my ears
checked?)

I: I have to get my ear checked?

Again in this example I did not interpret the discourse marker “aduh” used by the
patient. In this situation “aduh” express that he was shocked very worried that he
has to do a test for his ear.

From the two examples, I ignored all the DMs because it was hard for me to find
the equivalent words in Indonesian I was pausing several times before starting to
interpret the DMs to think which words can I use but finally I ended up not
interpreting them. I was not aware about the consequences of missing it. Here, if
the interpreter fails to interpret the DMs it may lead to misinterpretation of
participant causing the uncomfortable situation.

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From what I have done here, in the real life interpreting if I do not translate the
DMs properly I might fail to maintain the politeness of the doctor. A s Schourup
(1982) mentions that one of the purposes of using DMs is to be more polite,
though it will not change the grammatical meaning. In this case the patient will
be offended because he thinks that the doctor is heartless asking him to quit his
job whereas this is the only job he does for a living. The patient will not feel
comfortable and might refuse comeback to that doctor anymore.

From the second example, I did not interpret the discourse marker which shows
shock and worry. Here, in real life the doctor must think that the patient is just
fine with what she said and he understand well what she means. While in fact the
patient is shocked and worried about the news. If the interpreter is successful to
interpret the DMs with the intention of the patient the doctor will explain more
about that to reduce his worry but I did not interpret a clue so the doctor might
not be aware about what should she do to overcome the shock and worry. In line
with this to Fraser (1988, p.22) ‘the absence of the discourse marker does not
render a sentence ungrammatical and /or unintelligible. It does, however, remove
a powerful clue about what commitment the speaker makes regarding the
relationship between the current utterance and the prior discourse.

Therefore, in real life I have to be very careful about the DMs used by the
participant of the interpreting. Improving the knowledge about the use of DMs in
both English and Indonesian what, why and when people use DMs can be very
useful for me. Trying to find the equivalent words or phrases to be used in both
languages for discourse marker and learn the pragmatic beyond those words ad
learn the context of the language used. Mason (1999, p. 149) states that meaning
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is not a static entity but is constantly subject to negotiation between the

participants involved.

CONCLUSION

In this paper, I have reported the DMs analysis in the medical setting background.

I found that the interpretation of DMs “well” and “aduh” are one of the important

aspects to be taken into account because speakers might have their own

intention to use certain DMs. If the interpreter fails to interpret the DMs it means

that she or he fails to deliver the intention of the speakers which causes the

consequences of misunderstanding the intention and the meaning of the speech

is not delivered accurately.

REFERENCES

Fraser, B. (1988). Types of English discourse markers. Acta Linguistica Hungaria.

38. 19-33.

Hale, S (1999). Discourse Markers in courtroom questions.P.hDReseach.

Macquarie University

Hale, S. (2004). The discourse of court interpreting.Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John

Benjamins Publishing Company.

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Lakoff, G. (1972). Hedges: a study in meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy
concepts. Papers from the 8th regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic
Society. Chicago. P. 183–228.

Mason, I. (1999). Introduction. The Translator. 5(2). 147-160

Schiffrin, D. (1987) DMs, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schourup, L.C. (1982). Common discourse particles in English conversation.

NewYork: Garland.

APPENDICES

Transcription

INTRODUCTION

I: hi Doctor, my name is Lina Farsia. I’ll be the Ierpreter for Mr.Tanzir maskar

D : hello. I’m Felicia

I: Docter Felicia. okay. so. I will Ierpret everything umm you say umm. so. umm it’s
???/ confidential everything happened in the… in the. in the surgery.

D: okay

I: thank you. so I need to talk to P first

D: okay

I: halo pak tanjir.

P: iya

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I aa. saya. aa lina farsia, saya akan jadi Ierpreter bapak,

P: bagus bagus

I: bagus, saya juga akan menterjemahkan semua yang bapak bilang, so. saya juga
umm. memIa bapak untuk ngomong tidak terlalu cepat, dan mungkin saya nnati
akan menyetop bapak kalau bapak ngomong terlalu cepet dan terlalu panjang.
karena. saya maunya bapak ngomong pendek-pendek jdi sayan bisa
menterjemahkan dengan betul, bagaimana pak? Setuju?

P: boleh boleh, setuju terimakah

DIALOGUE

D: hallo how’re you feeling now?

I: (0.7) hhh- hallo (0.8)hhh- bagaimana kabarnya pak tanjir, bagaimana

keadaannya?

P: saya. akhir akhir ini. punya masalah dengan pendengaran, saya ee tidak bisa
dengar orang orang ngomong kecil kecil, telfon juga harus ngomong besar-besar.

I: okay, lately I got a problem with my ummm. hea::::ring (11)hhh-. I can’t hear
what people umm speak to low and also I got the problem umm on the phone on
the phone.

→ D: oh well, how long does this last?

→I : sudah berapa lama pak tanjir?

D: (hesistate) sudah sekitar dua bulan terakhir ibu, saya sejak bekerja sebagai
cleaner di kampus, juga dengar-dengar music, sejak kerja di kampus

I: it has been happening for the last two months. since I have been working at as
a cleaner service in the Uni and also when I listen to the music

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D: umm do you live in a place with much noise …

I: apakah bapak tinggal di tempat yang agak (.) bi::::sing?

P: umm.↓ enggak juga dokter, tapi kebanyakan saya ya gara-gara bekerja sampe
4 jam dengan vakum yang bising

I: okay ↑, ↓ I don’t really live in the noisy places but hmmm maybe (0.6)hhh-
because ummmm I work 4 hours a days and using the vacuum and maybe the (.)
vo::: voice of the vacuum cause my problem with hearing.

→ D: well, I think that are the problem

I: sorry Doctor say it again!

D: I think umm that’s the problem the loud of noise affect your ears, but.

I: can you stop please Doctor? Umm. mungkin um. Itu masalahnya, itu
penyebabnya. suara vakum yang (.) ter::::lalu keras yang menyebabkan umm
pendengaran bapak agak terganggu.

P: (nodding) oo gitu ya ! Gimana itu? Bagaimana itu bisa terjadi? Saya harus
bagaimana dokter?

I: Is it so! That’s the cause of my hearing problem. How can it happen? What
shoud I do?

→ P: ⁰ aduh ↓ jadi saya harus ganti kerja ya kan dokter ↓⁰

I: so, I have to change my job, don’t I doctor?

→D: oh well, perhaps↓

→I: Mungkin.

D : uh well. Perhaps you have to change your job or umm. Change your habit. The
use of earphone, but umm. We have to do umm hearing test first then we can
make a diagnosis of your illness.
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I: mungkin umm bapak harus umm mengganti pekerjaan bapak, dan juga umm
mengurangi pemaikan earphone tapi kita juga harus melakukan tes jadi kita umm
mendiagnosis atau kita bisa melihat umm apa yang kita bisa lakukan dengan
masalah bapak.

→P: Aduhh!, saya harus periksa telinga saya↑?

I: I have to get my ears checeked?

D: yes.

I: ya.

D: [[ so next

P: [[bagaimana

I: [[jadi

D. well. could you come next week?

I: a::::pakah bapak bisa datang minggu depan?

P: baiklah↓ doctor. Apakah saya harus mendaftar dulu dokter bertemu dokter?

I: okay↓ . Do I have to make an appointment doctor?

D: Yes. You have to call the hospital to make an appointment. Or you can now talk
to the receptionist to make an appointment for next week.

I: Iya. Bapak harus menelepon rumah sakit untuk membuat janji bertemu dokter
atau bapak bisa ke reseptionis untuk mebuat janji untuk minggu depan.

P: thank you doctor.

I: terimakasih doctor

D: Thank you. Get well soon.

I: Terimakasih. Semoga cepat sembuh.

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