Facultad : Traducción, Interpretación y Ciencias de la Comunicación

Curso : Taller de Interpretación V

Profesora : Marisa Mantilla Suárez
Ciclo :X
Semestre : 2011-II

Interpreter Training Resources

Reformulation ideas

There are as many ways to turn one language version of an idea into target language version as
there are ways of expressing the same idea in the target language irrespective of the original.
Below are just a few ideas, they are not the only way to do things but rather a limited
demonstration of how reformulation can be used as a problem solver by the interpreter.

Reformulation - generative strategies/examples

1 word order 3 negative and affirmative 5 lists in reverse order

2 parts of speech 4 editing the irrelevant 6 easy bits

1. WORD ORDER

a) changing word order in a clause

b) changing clause order in a sentence

a) changing word order in a clause

i) hold the first idea in a German sentence and tag it on at the end

Am 15.Nov entschied sich das Parlament fuer… The Parliament decided on 15th Nov that.…
.
In Deutschland werden weitere Fortschritte Further progress is being made in
gemacht Germany

ii) German prefers the order...

TIME... MANNER... PLACE Sie haben sich letzte Woche in Muenchen wiedergefunden.
English prefers the order...

PLACE... MANNER... TIME They met up in Munich last week.

iii) unbundling complex German qualifiers...

die am 4. marz an der Sitzung in Rom On 4th march a contract was signed in
unterzeichnete Vertrag wurde.... Rome, which was...

iv) English likes compound nouns...

methodes de collectes de donnees data collection methods

b) changing clause order in a sentence

(see also James Nolan on changing the order of adverbial clauses. )

when we met in berlin last week, we ratified we ratified the committee’s draft opinion,
the committee’s draft opinion when we met in berlin last week

2. PARTS OF SPEECH

i) Changing parts of speech

change nouns into verbs keine Vereinbarung failed to agree

change adjectives into verbs sont reeligibles may be re-elected
change nouns into adjectives c'est un probleme de... it's difficult to...
etc. etc.

ii) changing active verbs to passive and vice versa

(this can be a useful when you are waiting for the verb in German.)

wir haben das Parlament anschliessend zu dem am 15.
erfolgreich abgeschlossenen Sitzung schriftlich
informiert.
ca se fabrique en Italie
wir haben einige sehr interesante Dokumente
entwurfen
Following the successful meeting of
15th the Parliament was informed in
writing
It's made in Italy
Some interesting documents have been
drafted (by our team)

iii) "did" can be used in the normal affirmative sentence in English. It may add potentially
undesired emphasis but it can help you when working for languages in which the verb can come
very late in the sentence (like German).

The UN did the UN did , at its General Assembly Meeting Some interesting documents have
in Geneva on the 11th May , agree that… been drafted (by our team)

3. NEGATIVES AND AFFIRMATIVES

Change affirmatives for words meaning the opposite in the negative...giving the same meaning.
(or vice versa.)

plus que limité less than generous

Limité not boundless
Es geht mir nicht aus dem Kopf It's always on my mind
Das ist nicht Dein Ernst? Are you serious?
Aucun piste n'a été priviligié nothing has been ruled out

4. EDITING THE IRRELEVANT

i)

en ce qui concerne les tarifs , nous sommes d'accord

we agree on tarifs
jezeli chodzi o tarify, jesteœmy tego samego zdania

5. LISTS IN REVERSE ORDER

Lists do not always have to be given in the same order as the speaker gives them. Many lists
contain 3 elements, as this is an oratorial technique often used, reproducing the list 1, 2, 3, in the
order 1, 3, 2 can considerably ease the burden on short term memory

6. EASY BITS

You can do at least three things with stuff like "let me just say " or "in 1998" or "I talked
to John about this on Monday"

i) hold onto it to the very end of the section, because it requires almost no effort to remember it

ii) get it out of the way as quickly as possible, because it is not the crux of the intervention

iii) leave it just where it was in the original, risking sounding as inarticulate as the original, if,
as is often the case, the phrase has been thrown in mid-sentence.