Simultaneous Interpretation: Language and Cultural Difference
LYNN VISSON
Though modern simultaneous interpretation with its microphones, earphones, and sound equipment is a relatively new phenomenon, it certainly has ancient analogues.1 In the first Letter to the Corinthians St. Paul orders, “If any man speak in an unknown tongue let it be by two, or at most by three … and let one interpret” (14:27). At various times interpreters have served as missionaries, liaison officers, military envoys, court interpreters, business couriers, and trade negotiators. The French drogmans (dragomans), who were trained in Oriental languages, were required not only to translate what was said but also to advise French officials as to the meaning of specific words or situations, to provide “cultural interpretation.” Columbus sent young Indians from the New World to Spain to be trained as interpreters so that he could use them as go-betweens.
In nineteenth-century Europe there was little need for high-level interpretation, since French was the universal language of diplomacy and educated discourse. Consecutive interpretation was first used at the Paris peace conference of 1919, and simultaneous in 1928 at the Sixth Congress of the Comintern in the former Soviet Union. The first patent for simultaneous interpretation equipment was given in 1926 to Gordon Finley at IBM for his device based on an idea of Edward Filene’s (founder of Boston’s Filene’s department store), and in 1933 booths were used at the plenum of the executive committee of the Communist International.2 In Leningrad at the Fifteenth International Physiology Congress in 1935, academician Pavlov’s introductory speech was translated from Russian into French, English, and German. In the 1920s the use of simultaneous interpretation expanded rapidly. At the Twentieth Party Congress interpretation was provided into six languages, and at the Twenty-first Party Congress into eighteen.3 Simultaneous interpretation first emerged on the world scene in 1945 at the postwar Nuremberg trials. Many of the interpreters who worked there, emigrés and refugees with a knowledge of Russian, French, German, and English, later went on to become staff members at the United Nations. A Russian scholar gave the following description of the Americans who interpreted at Nuremberg:
Znachitel’nuiu chast’ ikh sostavliali emigranty, prozhivshie mnogo let v Anglii i SShA, liudi, dlia kotorykh dva ili tri inostrannykh iazyka byli v ravnoi mere rodnymi. V roli perevodchikov podvizalis’ i belye emigranty. Nekotorye iz nikh dolgoe vremia zhili vo Frantsii, a zatem emigrirovali v SShA i na protsesse perevodili s frantsuzskogo na angliiskii i obratno. Eti liudi, lishennye rodiny, razuchilis’ govorit’ po-russki. Ikh “russkii iazyk” pestrit bol’shim kolichestvom inostrannykh slov i arkhaizmov, iz-za sil’nogo aktsenta inogda dazhe trudno poniat’, o chem oni govoriat.4
The need for interpreters became more urgent as international organizations and private conferences increasingly required their services. In 1948 the first school for interpreters was opened in Geneva, and Moscow’s Thorez Institute began its interpreter training program in 1962. Today sophisticated and timesaving telecommunications networks, satellite technology, television space-bridges, and videoconferencing have opened up new opportunities for simultaneous interpretation.
How does the simultaneous interpreter work? Condensation, deliberate omission and addition, synecdoche and metonymy, antonymic constructions, grammatical inversion, and the use of semantic equivalents are a few of the tools that help do the job. As one professional noted, deliberate omission and condensation are quite different from omission errors resulting from noncomprehension:
There are so many tiresome repetitions, such a great number of pyramided systems, that the interpreter feels it certainly will do no harm, maybe even help, if a few words are left out. How strong this temptation may be can well be appreciated by anyone who has sat through after-dinner speeches or other similar long-winded discourse and wished, in a rage that had to remain unspoken, that there were some way to amputate the wildly sprouting verbiage. The interpreter has that power.5
The very nature of simultaneous interpretation is predicated on a certain amount of judicious pruning. One study has shown that the average length of sentences in simultaneous interpretation is one to two words shorter than in written translation, and that syntax tends to be simpler.6 If the Russian material, for example, is redundant, adds nothing to meaning, or if the speaker is racing along, the interpreter must resort to lexical or syntactical compression (rechevaia kompressia) to keep from falling too far behind or omitting important segments. He may drop one or more of a series of adjectives, or may engage in semantic condensation: na mezhdunarodnom, natsional’nom i mestnom urovniakh may become “on all levels” or “on several levels.” Abbreviations such as UN for the United Nations or CPRF for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation may be useful timesavers.
The ability to condense is crucial to successful interpretation. A specialist in interpreter training has written that “an interpreter who cannot abstract is very much like a soldier who, once out of ammunition, doesn’t know any better than to surrender.”7 A flair for editing is particularly important for Russian-English interpreters because both the length of the individual words and the grammatical constructions make for longer phrases in Russian. For example, reshenie nachat’ zabastovku becomes “strike decision”; programma kosmicheskikh issledovanii can reduce to “space program.”8
While key nouns and verbs must be translated, adjectival phrases and modifiers are prime candidates for condensation or omission. In simultaneous interpretation as opposed to written translation, “chashche upotrebliaiut sushchestvitel’nye, glagoly, prilagatel’nye i narechiia za schet umen’sheniia doli mestoimenii, chislitel’nykh, predlogov, soiuzov i chastits.”9 But here, too, context is the decisive factor: in some situations a noun or verb may have to go. Gossekretar’ predlozhil sozvat’ konferentsiiu can become “The secretary of state proposed a conference” (which is obviously going to convene and not to disband).10 Prosmotr sostoitsia 22-go sentiabria: “The showing is on September 22” rather than “will take place on,” an economy of several syllables. My khoteli by s” ezdit’ k vam v Kanadu can shorten to “We would like to visit you” (or “your country”) rather than the clumsy “We would like to come to you to your country,” as one interpreter announced. Eto bylo opublikovano v gazete Niu-Iork Taims sounds simply silly as “This was published in the newspaper the New York Times.” “This appeared in the New York Times” is more idiomatic and saves syllables. If the publication is not well-known, however, the word “newspaper” should be retained.
Expressions such as v oblasti—for example, v oblasti ekonomiki‚ v sviazi s chem, v chastnosti, kak izvestno, pri etom, can also easily be dropped. V oblasti ekonomiki reduces to “in economics.”11 Connectives and superfluous interjections, along with such verbal voda as nu, vidite, i tak and other devices that allow the speaker to prepare the next utterance can safely be dropped. Adjectives such as predstavlennyi, vysheupomianutyi, or sushchestvuiushchii can often be safely dropped and replaced by the English definite article or by “this”:
Predstavlennyi doklad poluchil podderzhku bol’shinstva delegatov.
[The/this/draft was supported/backed/by the majority of the delegates/]
Rassmatrivaemyi doklad soderzhit piat’ glav.
[This report contains/has/five chapters/sections.]
With a very rapid speaker more drastic cuts may be needed:
V svoem poslanii vsem delegatam nashei konferentsii Prezident Soedinennyukh Shtatov Bill Klinton skazal:
[In his message to us, President Clinton said:]
or
Peru, Argentina, Urugvai, Boliviia i mnogo drugie strany latinoamerikanskogo kontinenta vystupili za …
[Many countries of Latin America favored …]
Natalya Strelkova used the following types of examples to teach her students at the former Maurice Thorez Institute how to turn literal translations into idiomatic English. Though these sentences are intended for translators, interpreters can “edit” orally, taking care not to drop important points.12
Russian text:
Etot vizit, podcherkivaetsia v kommiunike, iavliaetsia vazhnym vkladom v delo dal’neishego ukrepleniia i razvitiia druzhestvennykh otnoshenii i bratskogo sotrudnichestva.
The visit, stresses the communique, is an important contribution to the cause of further strengthening and developing friendly relations and fraternal cooperation.
Edited version:
The visit is an important contribution to friendly relations and (fraternal) cooperation, says the communique.
In the last sentence “fraternal” can be omitted to save time. Or the interpreter could begin the sentence thus: “The visit, states the communique, is an important contribution,” etcetera.
Russian text:
Eti soglasheniia predusmatrivaiut sozdanie neobkhodimykh uslovii dlia dal’neishego razvitiia ekonomicheskogo sotrudnichestva i ispol’zovaniia preimushchestv mezhdunarodnogo razdeleniia truda.
Literal translation:
These agreements envisage the creation of the necessary conditions promoting the growth of economic cooperation and the utilization of the advantages offered by international division of labor.
Edited version:
These agreements will promote economic cooperation and make full use of the advantages offered by international division of labor.
Russian text:
Eti mery podchinili proizvodstvo interesam udovletvoreniia potrebnostei naroda.
Literal version:
These measures have subjected the interests of production to the interests of satisfaction of the needs of the people.
Edited version:
These measures have geared production to the needs of the people.
Though the interpreter does not have time for reflection and review and is less likely than the translator to risk major rearrangements of the components of a sentence, such oral editing is crucial for the generation of an idiomatic English sentence. While Russian-English interpretation tends to condense rather than to expand, English grammar and structure may require the addition of articles, auxiliaries, or modals in compound tenses (e.g., we shall have been doing this) or pronouns and possessives: podniala ruku—“She raised her hand.”
Another technique involves metonymy and synecdoche, making the general specific and the specific general. When there is no equivalent in English for a general concept in Russian, or if the interpreter has missed a word, substitution of a more specific term is a good solution. Nuzhno dobavit’ zelen’ v sup could be rendered as “parsley and other herbs.”13 And a specific term can often be successfully used to replace a general one. The interpreter who fails to understand aiva in a list with iabloki, grushi i persiki would be quite safe in referring to “another fruit.” “A bird” is better than saying nothing for lastochka, and translating cheremukha as a “flowering tree” is better than embarrassed silence if “bird cherry” does not spring to mind. “We’ve eaten” will do nicely for my pozavtrakali particularly if the interpreter is not sure whether the speaker has in mind breakfast or lunch, and the English “student” can cover student, uchenik, or uchashchiisia.
An approximate synonym can also cover an interpreter’s sudden memory blank. If the speaker is going on about the need for razriadka napriazhennosti v interesakh mira and the interpreter has forgotten “detente,” or “lessening of tensions,” he or she can talk about the need to improve relations. Or if “as wise as Solomon” does not come to mind for sem’ piadei vo lbu the interpreter can say “he paid him a compliment.” The ultimate degree of such descriptive avoidance of specific items occurs when the interpreter simply has no idea of what the speaker has said. Following a delegate’s statement, “A seichas ia budu govorit’ o———” if “———” is incomprehensible, short of shutting off the microphone and bursting into tears, a solution is, “There is another point I would like to raise,” or “There is something else I wish to say.” More often than not in the next sentence the speaker will go into detail and clarify the thought.
Antonymic inversion, changing positives to negatives and vice versa, is a very useful device for avoiding literal translation. Ia vse pomniu can be rendered as “I haven’t forgotten anything,” or Vy dolzhny molchat’ as “You mustn’t say anything” rather than the more literal and awkward “You must be silent.” Tam bylo ochen’ neplokho can be “It was great there” or “Things were fine.”14 Such flips, of course, depend on context, and there is often no reason to reverse a positive or negative statement. This is a matter of idiomatic usage. Take the Russian Ia ikh ponimaiu. “I understand them” would be perfectly acceptable for explaining why people did something fairly neutral—decided to study English or moved to a bigger apartment. But if these people were being criticized for their apparently rational actions, then “I for one/myself/ personally don’t blame them” comes closer to the real meaning. Or Eto neredko byvaet implies “This happens often.”15
Grammatical inversion and the switching of grammatical categories, translating a verb by a noun, a noun by a verb, or an adjective by an adverb is another way of avoiding mot-à-mot interpretation. For example:16
Podniat’sia okazalos’ legche, chem on ozhidal.
[The climb was easier than he had expected.]
I v promyshlennom, i v voennom otnoshenii, eti plany nashei strany …
[Militarily and industrially, our country’s plans …]
Ikh bylo bol’she.
[They prevailed.]
On chelovek nachisto lishennyi moral’nykh tsennostei.
[He has no moral values at all/whatsoever.]
Etot forum mog by kvalifitsirovanno i s neobkhodimoi glubinoi rassmotret’ vsiu sovpokupnost’ voprosov razoruzheniia.
[This forum could engage in/provide competent and in-depth consideration/analysis of the whole/entire/full range of disarmament questions.]
My s ponimaniem otnosimsia k ikh stremleniiam.
[We feel for/empathize with/side with/support their desires/wishes/aspirations.]
The use of semantic equivalents and the search for expressions that avoid mot-à-mot renderings are vitally important to sounding idiomatic. Russians are gluboko ubezhdeny, but Americans are firmly—rather than deeply—convinced. A soderzhatel’nyi report is “informative” to an English speaker. Idti komu-to na vstrechu is to accommodate someone. Ne kazhetsia li does not necessarily require the verb “seem”; “Isn’t it likely?” will get the point across. Sluchainye liudi v politike are not random individuals but laymen or outsiders in politics; belye piatna in our knowledge are “gaps.” Politicheskoe litso mira can be rendered as the political realities, situation, or configuration in today’s world. A few more examples:17
Zloveshchie plany [sinister prospect(s)]
On snial trubku [he answered the phone]
Syntactic and/or semantic equivalents can provide an idiomatic English rendering of the Russian:18
On skazal ei svoe mnenie o nikh.
[He told her what he thought of them.]
Poslali za vrachom.
[The doctor has been summoned/called/sent for.]
Vasha zhena prekrasno gotovit.
[Your wife is an excellent cook.]
Here nouns replace verbs (gotovit/cook), syntax and active and passive moods are reversed (poslali za/has been summoned), and a noun replaces a verb (mnenie—thought). Fixed formulaic phrases can be rendered through carefully chosen equivalents:19
Ob” iavliaiu zasedanie otkrytym. | I call the meeting to order. |
Ne veshaite trubku. | Hold on/Just a minute. |
Ia vas slushaiiu. | Hello (if on the phone)/What can I do for you?/I’ll take your order (if in a restaurant). |
These Russian and English idioms are so different that literal translation would sound comic. Hardest of all is the search for cultural rather than for purely linguistic or semantic equivalents, for though these are often vastly different in the two languages, the role of cultural interpretation is the interpreter’s most important and most difficult function.
The specific nature and structure of a language determine the way its speakers view the world, and serve as an organizing principle of culture. As Whorf has posited, “Facts are unlike to speakers whose language background provides for unlike formulation of them.”20 Of crucial importance to the interpreter is the fact that “the grammatical pattern of a language (as opposed to its lexical stock) determines those aspects of each experience that must be expressed in the given language.”21 For example, the Russian sentence Ia nanial rabotnitsu conveys immediate information concerning the sex of the employer and the sex of the employee, which are lacking in the English statement “I hired a worker.” The effect of grammatical categories on the semantic impact of such a Russian sentence is enormous and, as Jakobson has pointed out, “naturally the attention of native speakers and listeners will be focused on such items as are compulsory in their verbal code.”22 An excellent example of the problems grammar imposes on semantics—and on the interpreter—is the sentence, “Ty otkuda prishla, s verkhu, iz Nizhnego, da ne prishla, po vode-to ne khodiat” from Gorky’s Detstvo. Gender, aspect, motion verbs, and the play on upper-lower verkh-Nizhnii create a chain of translation problems.23 The absence—or existence—of entire categories of words in one or another language creates a major problem for the interpreter. Russian lacks articles and a complex tense system. English does not have aspect, case endings, or the Russian system of prefixation. The article may be indicated by words such as odin or tot:
Tot muzhchina, kotoryi tol’ko chto voshel–ee brat.
[The man who just came in is her brother.]
Odin ego drug skazal mne eto.
[A friend of his told me that.]
Words that characterize the life, culture, and historical development of any given country often have no precise equivalents in other languages. It has even been argued that only proper names, geographic, scientific, and technical terms, days of the week, months, and numerals have full lexical correspondence in several languages.24 Obed translated as “lunch” may suggest a sandwich and a cup of coffee to an American but oily chunks of beet and carrot, a watery soup, a slab of meat and fried potatoes to a Russian. The taste and texture of kotlety are closer to American meat loaf than to “cutlets” or even to hamburgers. This difficulty of cross-cultural equivalents has been beautifully illustrated by the translator Richard Lourie:
The translator’s heart sinks at the sight of words like kommunalka which he knows he must render as “communal apartment.” He is willing to lose all the coloration of the original—the slightly foreign kommun, as in kommunizm, made Russian by the kiss of the diminutive suffix ka, here expressing a sort of rueful affection. The English term conjures up an image of a Berkeley, California kitchen, where hippies with headbands are cooking brown rice, whereas the Russian term evokes a series of vast brown rooms with a family living in each, sharing a small kitchen where the atmosphere is dense with everything that cannot be said and the memory of everything that shouldn’t have been said, but was.25
This problem of cross-cultural communication was nicely demonstrated by a Japanese-speaking American professor who assumed at the end of a faculty meeting he had chaired on a strike-torn Japanese campus that the group had finally reached agreement, since all the professors had spoken in favor of the item under discussion. “All this may be true,” his Japanese colleague remarked at the end of the meeting, “but you are still mistaken. The meeting arrived at the opposite conclusion. You understood all the words correctly, but you did not understand the silences between them.”26
Cultural communication was particularly complex in Soviet-American contacts, and is still an issue in Russian-American relations today. Edmund Glenn gives an excellent example in his brilliant essay, “Semantic Difficulties in International Communication”:
It is too often assumed that the problem of submitting the ideas of one nation or cultural group to members of another national or cultural group is principally a problem of language…. Soviet diplomats often qualify the position taken by their Western counterparts as “incorrect” nepravil’noe. In doing so, they do not accuse their opponents of falsifying facts, but merely of not interpreting them “correctly.” This attitude is explicable only if viewed in the context of the Marxist-Hegelian pattern of thought, according to which historical situations evolve in a unique and predetermined manner. Thus an attitude not in accordance with theory is not in accordance with truth either; it is as incorrect as the false solution to a mathematical problem. Conversely, representatives of our side tend to promote compromise or transactional solutions. Margaret Mead writes that this attitude merely bewilders many representatives of the other side, and leads them to accuse us of hypocrisy, because it does not embody any ideological position recognizable to them. The idea that “there are two sides to every question” is an embodiment of nominalistic philosophy, and it is hard to understand for those unfamiliar with this philosophy or its influence.27
This heavy use of nepravil’noe led many Western diplomats to see the Soviet side as stubborn and dogmatic, while Soviets perceived the American insistence on looking at both sides of the question either as deliberate attempts to avoid taking a position or as a way of covering up a stand. Unless the interpreter had time to explain Hegelian theory to Western listeners, he could say “we disagree” or simply “no,” instead of “that’s wrong” or “that’s incorrect,” thus rephrasing the Soviet position in Western linguistic-cultural terms. Soviet references to opredelennaia stadiia of a historical process or a meeting could mean “this particular stage,” “another stage,” or nothing more than “some stage.” The words “definite” or “determined”—all too frequent translations of opredelennyi—sound odd and dogmatic to a Western listener. “It fits in with the Marxist interpretation of history according to which evolution proceeds necessarily from one ‘well-determined phase’ to another,” writes Glenn.28 In Marxist political writing opredelennyi does and can convey a notion of determinism, but in ordinary speech the word is semantically quite neutral and should be translated as such: opredelennye idei—“certain ideas,” opredelennye liudi—“some people.” Here a problem arises when a text (or term) oriented toward the bearer of one culture is aimed at a foreign receiver. A Soviet listener would have had no problem with nepravil’no or opredelennaia stadiia.29 It is ironic that so many texts aimed at foreign audiences—for example, Moscow News, Soviet Life, speeches delivered abroad—were written using a terminology intended for Soviet readers and listeners.
The question of linguistic and cultural identification is particularly relevant for compound and coordinate bilinguals.30 While compound bilinguals have acquired their two languages from childhood, they are not generally familiar with the culture of one of the languages—for example, an American who learned Russian entirely in the United States in a Russian-speaking home but had little or no contact with Russian life. Coordinate bilinguals acquire the second language somewhat later than the first, associate words with empirical referents, and maintain two distinct linguistic systems—for example, an American of Russian background from a family with a strong interest in Russian culture, who, even if Russian was not spoken a great deal at home, has spent much time in Russia. Theoretically, the coordinate bilinguals will produce interpretation with greater equivalency than the compound group because of their separate referent systems for the two cultures.31 To a compound Russian-English bilingual the word restoran as used for an eatery in Soviet Russia may conjure up the image of a place where people gather to eat and drink, while a coordinate will see the huge smoke-filled room, dance floor, orchestra, din, and lengthy meals that were part of Soviet dining out. Both groups may be subject to role strain if for intellectual, emotional, or psychological reasons they identify more strongly with one of the cultures and try—consciously or unconsciously—to tilt the outcome of negotiations in that side’s favor.
A Russian-English interpreter must have an excellent knowledge of realii, the phenomena of daily life, politics and culture in Russia and the United States. Such Russian realii have been defined as “words that stand for realities that do not exist in the West and have no ready verbal equivalent in English (e.g., predsedatel’ kolkhozam, subbotnik, or “those words that, though they do exist in English, mean something else, and … are used in a different context (pafos sozidaniia).”32 Idealizm used by a Soviet speaker referred to a philosophical trend of thought opposed to materialism, while for an American the word means the advocacy of lofty ideals over practical considerations. Some such realii may need fleshing out in English for clarification:
Dnem oni poshli s druz’iami v ZAGS, a vecherom svad’bu spravili v restorane “Arbat.” [In the afternoon they went to sign the marriage registry, and in the evening they had a reception in the Arbat restaurant.]
The cultural context of realii must be maintained in the English translation. Just as a Chinese-English interpreter would not turn rice into bread, the Russian-English interpreter should not turn Russian limonad (fruit-flavored soda) into American lemonade, or the Komsomol into the Boy Scouts. For a Russian, obshchestvennaia zhizn’ means various kinds of civic and public activities, including volunteer or community work, while, as a Russian commentator noted in the United States, “ ‘social life’ oznachaet vsiakoe otnoshenie s liud’mi, vkliuchaia poseshchenie platnykh kursov, teatrov i restoranov.” Nor does Russian obshchestvennaia rabota with its political and educational connotations have much in common with English “social work,” which “oznachaet, v osnovnom, pomoshch’ bedniakam, obychno oplachivaemuiu mestnymi vlastiami.”33 Today, however, as Western concepts and words intrude into Russian life and language an enormous number of English-language realii require translation into Russian, but aside from recognizing them in order to translate them from Russian back into English this is not our subject here. Many of these English words have already taken firm root in Russian, for example, brifing, imidzh, kholdingovaia kompaniia, displei, pleier.
The sentence My dolgo stoiali v ocheredi na kvartiru was once translated by an interpreter as “We stood on line for a long time for an apartment,” creating the impression that one could obtain housing by patiently standing in the street. What is meant is “For a long time we were on a waiting list.” The interpreter must both know realii and be able to recode quickly. A woman saying, “U nas dve komnaty i obshchaia kukhnia s sosediami” is not referring to a “common kitchen,”—a phrase with a possible double meaning. She means “We share the kitchen with the other people in our communal apartment.” Sosedi is a lozhnyi drug perevodchika, for to the American ear “neighbors” imply only the people in the next apartment, not in one’s own. Or take a complaint about the nizkaia kul’-tura protivochatochnykh sredstv u nas. The “culture of contraceptives” sounds bizarre indeed. The speaker is referring to the poor quality of, and lack of knowledge concerning, birth control devices. “Our problems with birth control devices” would cover both categories.
Another word that often causes misunderstandings is “friend,” for here the literal translation and cultural connotations are worlds apart. For an American a friend can be an old college roommate one sees every five years, a business associate with whom one plays golf every week, or someone who attends the same church. Americans tend to see friends as people with whom they engage in activities, such as tennis or going out to dinner. For a Russian a friend is a soul mate, a trusted confidant, a bulwark against the outside world. It is not a word used lightly. There are separate words in Russian for a casual acquaintance (znakomyi), a closer acquaintance or friend (priatel’), and a real friend (drug). Americans take minutes to make friends. Russians take months or years.
A word such as kollektiv needs explanation. Nash shkol’nyi kollektiv might refer to a class or a sports team, depending on context, while kollektiv nashego instituta is the staff and kollektiv nashego zavoda the employees. The word could mean group, personnel, staff, colleagues, coworkers, associates, or all those who work at X.34 The eminent Russian interpreter G.V. Chernov has suggested descriptive translations for a series of such realii:35
stazh | seniority, period of service |
medalist | honor student |
vrednaia professiia | hazardous occupation |
ZAGS | civil registry office |
kursy povysheniia kvalifikatsii | refresher courses, advanced training courses |
subbotnik | an unpaid weekend/stint/volunteer effort/community effort/donation of a day’s work.36 |
This list could be continued indefinitely. L. A. Cherniakhovskaia, a Russian specialist on Russian and English syntax, gives several good examples of translation-explanations of realii:
Oni nadeiutsia, chto nedalek tot den,’ kogda v strane budut otkryty krupnye zalezhi. [They hope that large deposits will soon be discovered in Kazakhstan.]37
We know from context that Kazakhstan is the particular republic referred to, and the name is much less confusing than “the country.” Nedalek tot den’ could, of course, be rendered literally—“the day is not far off when”—but English usage tends to bring this kind of lofty Russian prose down to earth. Cherniakhovskaia suggests “they hope eventually to discover,” but “soon” is shorter and closer to the original nedalek. Or:
22 iuniia on ushel dobrovol’tsem na front.
[On June 22, the day Nazi Germany attacked, he went to/volunteered for the front.]
The interpreter’s decision here must be based on the audience. For an audience of historians, adding “On the day Nazi Germany attacked” would be insulting, but to say only “On June 22” to a group of American farmers might be confusing.
The interpreter may also change Soviet historical terms to those used in the West, for example, rendering Velikaia Otechestvennaia Voina as “World War II.” Contemporary realii as well as historical references may require such cultural conversion of terms. For example:
Nashi kurorty funktsioniruiut kruglyi god.
[Our health resorts are/stay open all year round/year round.]38
The literal rendering, “Our resorts function the whole year,” does not work. Or:
Eti tri goda dali nam glavnoe, chto neobkhodimoe dlia molodykh liudei—pole dlia aktivnoi deiatel’nosti.
[These three years gave us what (the) young people needed most/what was most important for young people, a chance to do big/important/great things/to build the country/to make full use of their abilities/gave young people a chance to work and grow.]
The literal rendering, “a field for active activity” is comically repetitive. While to a native speaker a Russian fixed expression may sound quite normal, to the English listener it may seem pompous or odd. Recoding can even out such stylistic differences.
The dangers of cross-cultural mot-à-mot rendition are particularly clear for those cognates that are lozhnye druz’ia perevodchika. Here are a few examples of such words that can—and do—regularly entrap interpreters:
adresnyi | targeted, specific (adresnye rekomendatsii, sanktsii) |
aktual’nyi | topical, pressing, relevant, immediate, important |
argument | reasons, convictions (not disagreement) |
artist | any performing artist |
avantiura | a shady or risky undertaking |
dekada | ten days, not ten years |
dekoratsii | stage sets |
diversiia | military diversionary tactic, subversion, sabotage |
ekonomnyi | thrifty, frugal, practical |
fal’shivyi | artificial, forged, imitation, counterfeit |
kharakter | nature, disposition (a character in a work of literature is a personazh) |
kharakteristika | description, a letter of recommendation |
konkretnyi | actual, specific, positive, definite |
kur’eznyi | amusing, odd, intriguing, funny |
manifestatsiia | public mass demonstration |
miting | mass public demonstration, rally (never a get-together of a few people) |
moment | period of time, element, point, aspect (odin iz momentov ego vystupleniia) |
normal’no | well, properly (on vel sebia normal’no) |
operativnyi | effective, quick, practical, current, timely |
pafos | excitement, inspiration, enthusiasm, emotion, thrill |
personazh | character in a literary work |
perspektivnyi | promising, future, long-range |
poema | a long epic poem, not short verses (stikhi) metaphorically—something wonderful: Etot tort—poema |
pretendovat’ | lay claim to, have pretensions to: On pretendoval na imushchestvo svoego soseda |
simpatichnyi | nice, pleasant, sweet |
titul | title for the nobility (e.g., duke, count) |
tsinichnyi | crude, shameless, ruthless, amoral39 |
Many of these cognates are clearly very far apart in meaning, but this distance is one precise measure of cultural difference.
In interpreting language and culture the interpreter is constantly seeking the middle ground of understanding, trying to convey the speaker’s meaning through a rendering that takes cultural context into account. At the same time, even when shifting and condensing, the interpreter must not replace the original with something the speaker never said. When a speaker’s phrases bounce off the mirror of cultural differences, it is the interpreter with a thorough knowledge of both language and culture, with experience gained over time and through trial and error, who can provide a sparkling reflection rather than a warped distortion of the meaning behind those words.
1. For the history of simultaneous interpretation see G. V. Chernov, Teoriia i praktika sinkhronnogo perevoda (Moskva: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1978), pp. 3–8; E. Gofman, “K istorii sinkhronnogo perevoda,” Tetradi perevodchika, 1, 1963, pp. 21–26; Jean Herbert, “How Conference Intepreting Grew,” in Language Interpretation and Communication, eds. David Gerber and H. Wallace Sinaiko (New York and London: Plenum Press, 1977), pp. 5–10; Henry Van Hoof, Théorie et pratique de l’interprétation (München: Max Hueber Verlag, 1962), pp. 9–23; Patricia E. Longley, Conference Interpreting (London: Pitman, 1968), pp. 1–5.
2. Gofman, p. 20.
3. Chernov, p. 5, and N. D. Cheburashkin, Tekhnicheskii perevod v shkole, izd. 4-e (Moskva: Prosveshchenie, 1983), pp. 154–55. See also Vadim Grebenshchikov, “Traductions, théories et traducteurs en URSS,” Meta 12(1), 1967, pp. 3–8.
4. Gofman, p. 22. “A significant proportion of them were emigrants who had lived in England and America for many years, who spoke two or three languages with native fluency. ‘White’ emigrants also worked as translators. Several of these lived in France for a long time, and then emigrated to the US, and as a result were able to translate from French to English and vice-versa. These people, deprived of their homeland, unlearned their language. Their ‘Russian’ is dotted with a large quantity of foreign words and archaisms, and because of their strong accent, it was sometimes even hard to understand what they were talking about.”
5. Ekvall, Robert, Faithful Echo (New York: Twayne, 1960), p. 104.
6. A. F. Shiriaev, Perevod i lingvistika (Moskva: Voennizdat, 1973), p. 126.
7. Sergio Viaggio, “Teaching Beginners the Blessings of Abstracting (and how to save a few lives in the process),” unpublished paper, ATA 1989 Conference, Washington, D.C.
8. T. G. Seidova, “Vybor ekvivalenta semanticheski nepolnykh atributnykh slovosochetanii pri perevode s angliiskogo iazyka na russkii,” Tetradi perevodchika, 11, 1974, pp. 59–61.
9. A. F. Shiriaev, “O nekotorykh lingvisticheskikh osobennostiakh funktsional’noi sistemy sinkhronnogo perevoda,” Tetradi perevodchika, 19, 1982, pp. 73–85. [Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are used more often at the expense of pronouns, numerals, prepositions, conjunctions, and particles.]
10. L. S. Barkhudarov, Iazyk i perevod (Moskva: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1975), p. 222.
11. See S. Ia. Shmakov, “Iazyk sovetskikh gazet glazami anglichan (po povodu uchebnogo posobiia R. Genri i K. Iang),” Tetradi perevodchika, 23, 1989, pp. 172–73.
12. N. S. Strelkova, Uchebnoe posobie po prakticheskoi stilistike angliiskogo iazyka i stilisticheskomu redaktirovaniiu perevoda (Moskva: MGPIIIA), 1984), pp. 19–21.
13. See R. K. Min’iar-Beloruchev, Obshchaiia teoriia perevoda i ustnyi perevod (Moskva: Voenizdat, 1980), p. 105.
14. Ibid, p. 106.
15. Barkhudarov, Iazyk i perevod, p. 214.
16. Translation: Theory and Practice (Tashkent: Ukituvchi, 1989), pp. 20–21; V. N. Komissarov, Ia. I. Retsker, V. I. Tarkhov, Posobie po perevodu s angliiskogo iazyka na russkii. Ch. I (Moskva: Izdatel’stvo literatury na inostrannykh iazykakh, 1960), pp. 34–47; G. G. Yudina, Improve Interpreting Skills (Mosvka: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1976), pp. 95–96; A. D. Shveitser, Teoriia perevoda. Status/problemy/aspekty (Moskva: Nauka, 1988), pp. 134–35.
17. Shveitser, Teoriia perevoda, pp. 85–86, 125–26; Translation: Theory and Practice, p. 29.
18. Ibid., pp. 82–84.
19. Ibid, p. 129.
20. Quoted by Roman Jakobson, “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation,” in On Translation, ed. Reuben A. Brower (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 234.
21. Ibid., pp. 235–46.
22. Ibid., p. 236.
23. See J. C. Catford, A Linguistic Theory of Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 96–98.
24. See C. I. Vlakhov, Neperevodimoe v Perevode (Moskva: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1980), p. 55.
25. Richard Lourie and Aleksei Mikhailov, “Why You’ll never Have Fun in Russian,” The New York Times Book Review, June 18, 1989, p. 38.
26. Helmut Morsbuch, “Words Are Not Enough: Reading Through the Lines in Japanese Communication,” Japan Society Newsletter, 36(6), March 1989, p. 3.
27. Edmund S. Glenn, “Semantic Difficulties in International Communication,” in The Use and Misuse of Language, ed. S. I. Hayakawa (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, 1962), pp. 47–48.
28. Ibid., p. 63.
29. See A. D. Shveitser, “Sotsiologicheskie osnovy teorii perevoda,” Voprosy iazykoznaniia 5, 1985, pp. 18–20.
30. See Bruce W. Anderson, “Perspectives on the Role of Interpreter,” in Translation: Application and Research, ed. Richard W. Brislin (New York: Gardner Press, 1976), pp. 208–27, and Georganne Weller, “Bilingualism and Interpretation: An Under-Exploited field of Study for Research,” in Languages at Crossroads: Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference, ATA, 1988, pp. 407–13.
31. Anderson, “Perspectives,” p. 215.
32. N. S. Strelkova, Prakticheskaia stilistika angliiskogo iazyka i stilisticheskoe redaktirovanie perevodov, Ch. 3 (Moskva: MGPIIIA, 1982), p. 33.
33. L. T. Mikulin, “Zametki o kal’kirovanii s russkogo iazyka na angliiskii,” Tetradi perevodchika, 15, 1978, p. 63.
34. Strelkova, Prakticheskaya stilistika, p. 44.
35. G. V. Chernov, “Voprosy perevoda russkoi bezikvivalentnoi leksiki (“sovetskikh realii”) na angliiskii iazyk na materialakh perevodov sovetskoi publitsistiki.” Kandidatskaia dissertatsiia (Moskva: MGPIIIA, 1958).
36. Strelkova, Prakticheskaya stilistika, p. 51.
37. L. A. Cherniakhovskaia, Perevod i smyslovaiia struktura (Moskva: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1976), pp. 241–48.
38. Ibid., pp. 241–48. Translations mine.
39. Examples are from Anglo-russkii and russko-angliiskii slovar’ “Lozhnykh druzei perevodchika,” ed. V. V. Akulenko (Moskva: Sovetskaiia entsiklopediia, 1969); E. K. Popova, Tekhnika perevoda s angliiskogo iazyka na russkii (Leningrad: LGU, 1959); S. K. Shmakov, “Iazyk sovetskikh gazet glazami anglichan (po povodu uchebnogo posobiia R. Genri i K. Iang),” Tetradi perevodchika, 23, 1989, p. 174; and the author’s personal experience.