Note-taking in consecutive interpretation; advantages and disadvantages of various techniques

The objective of this thesis is to investigate which contexts should be used for different kinds of note-taking and to study the evolution of the various types of note-taking. Moreover, the final aim of this thesis is to understand which method is used most commonly during the interpreting process, with a special focus on consecutive and community interpreting in the sector of public service and healthcare. The belief that stands behind this thesis is that the most complete method is Rozan’s, which is also the most theorized and used by interpreters. Through the analysis of the different rules of this practice, the importance of this method is shown. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates how these techniques can assist the interpreters in their jobs. This thesis starts from an overview of what note-taking means in the different settings of interpreting and a short history of note-taking is presented. The section that follows analyzes three different well-known types of note-taking methods outside the interpreting environment, that is: linear, non-linear and shorthand. Subsequent to the comparison, Rozan’s 7 principles are analyzed. To authenticate this thesis and the hypotheses herein, data was collected through a survey that was conducted on a sample of a group of graduated students in Linguistic and Intercultural Mediation at the University of Bologna “Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori”.

Le disfluenze e la percezione degli ascoltatori. Valutazione di tre interpretazioni consecutive.

This study aims at exploring listeners’ perception of disfluencies, i.e. ungrammatical pauses, filled pauses, repairs, false starts and repetitions, which can irritate listeners and impede comprehension. As professional communicators, conference interpreters should be competent public speakers. This means that their speech should be easily understood by listeners and not contain elements that may be considered irritating. The aim of this study was to understand to what extent listeners notice disfluencies and consider them irritating, and to examine whether there are differences between interpreters and non-interpreters and between different age groups. A survey was therefore carried out among professional interpreters, students of interpreting and people who regularly attend conferences. The respondents were asked to answer a questionnaire after listening to three speeches: three consecutive interpretations delivered during the final exams held at the Advanced School of Languages, Literature, Translation and Interpretation (SSLLTI) in Forlì. Since conference interpreters’ public speaking skills should be at least as good as those of the speakers at a conference, the speeches were presented to the listeners as speeches delivered during a conference, with no mention of interpreting being made. The study is divided into five chapters. Chapter I outlines the characteristics of the interpreter as a professional communicator. The quality criterion “user-friendliness” is explored, with a focus on features that make a speech more user-friendly: fluency, intonation, coherence and cohesion. The Chapter also focuses on listeners’ quality expectations and evaluations. In Chapter II the methodology of the study is described. Chapter III contains a detailed analysis of the texts used for the study, focusing on those elements that may irritate listeners or impede comprehension, namely disfluencies, the wrong use of intonation and a lack of coherence or cohesion. Chapter IV outlines the results of the survey, while Chapter V presents our conclusions.