Grice suggests that co-operative speakers strive to be maximally relevant (ìMake your contributions relevantî Grice 1975). Co-operation is all fine and well when you have two native speakers of a given language striving to communicate (though difficulties do arise). In terms of day to day communication, Blakemore (1992, p.20) notes that in communication "misunderstandings occur when there is a mismatch between the context envisaged by the speaker and the one selected by the hearer."
Things become more dangerous when two speakers - one native, one non native - attempt to communicate and is nigh impossible where you have two non native speakers of a language trying to decode each others ponderings in an attempt to establish some kind of working lingua franca. But, when an interpreter is introduced, the traditional twosome becomes a threesome and misunderstandings based on the interpreterís attempt to appropriately contextualise information often ends with hilarious results - but more often than not, only if you are the kind of individual who chooses to laugh instead of cry! Add to this another factor - that there exists a mismatch between a person's knowledge of his / her language and her knowledge of the world. For an individual, this mismatch maybe highlighted only occasionally but for an interpreter it is an everyday occurence when working in disparate fields which he has no expert knowledge of - as happens regularly.
One such story of maximum relevance not being attained on the interpreterís
part has been told by a BSL interpreter. Interpreting
at a Trade Union conference, she thought she heard the speaker become
very angry and say ìbolloxî. Being a ìgoodî interpreter, she pondered the
situation and thought, ìO.K. - Iíll appropriately reflect the speakerî
... She signed ìBOLLOXî three times before realizing that the speaker had
actually said "bulletsî. On clarifying this with the Deaf audience,
they broke into hysterics leaving a very bewildered hearing speaker and
a very embarrassed interpreter.
The problem for interpreters is that they have absolutely no control over the source language (SL) message, but must reflect the meaning, intent and cultural information evidenced in the SL to the target language (TL) in real time and more often than not in an environment where they are not ìexpertî.
If we adopt Griceís Maxim of Relevance and apply it to the task of interpreting in a court of law where the interpreter treads a tightrope between adhering to a code of ethics, understanding the proceedings to a level which permits successful interpretation to occur and maintain the favor of the court - well, somedays it can be difficult to find ANYTHING of relevance to anything at all or even know ìyer arse from yer elbowî as they used to say in my neck of the woods...
Judge: Iíll instruct the jury to disregard that. Miss Easman, please do not translate those can[sic] statements. He is only entitled at this stage to make comments, not make statements.
Interpreter: When the defendant starts to speak, I donít know if it is a question or a statement. I donít have any way of knowing.
Judge: Wait until you hear the end of it. Donít start translating until you know it is a question or a statement. When the governmentís putting in itís case, heís entitled to ask him questions on it, but not make statements. If he wants to take the statement and make the statement when the government is finished, he can do it.
Interpreter: Your honor, may I wait until he is finished , then you will instruct me if I should state it ?
Judge: If you canít tell whether its a question or
a statement, then come up here and I will instruct you.
This implies that the interpreter must edit a defendantís statement - and this is seriously dodgy ground on the ethical violation scale (Factor 10!). It also shows a lack of awareness on the part of the presiding judge about the role of the courtroom interpreter.
When brought to appeal, the appellate court ruled that the trial judge in this case had erred in judgment. It was their opinion that ìthe interpreter s duty is to translate all statements without restriction by the courtî.(Berk-Selingson, 1990, p.212) I think we could read ìutterancesî for ìstatementî as thatís where the difficulties with relevance began!
This is quite a staid example of missing the turn on the road to successful
interpretating practice. Other examples demonstrate more succinctly what
can happen when the cyclist takes a wrong turn but thinks her map
reading skills are fine.... So what happens if regardless of contextual
cues, the interpreter feels she has provided an appropriate interpretation
but another L2 speaker present in the court - worse still, a juror - thinks
she has made an error in judgment ?
Juror: I understand the word ìLa Vadoî - I thought it meant ìrestroomî . She translates it as ìbarî.
Interpreter: In the first place, the jurors are not to listen to the Spanish, but to the English. I am a certified interpreter.
Juror: You are an idiot.
Whats an interpreter to say to that - while maintaining maximal relevance to the point at hand of course! This example illustrates the difficulties at the heart of providing relevance in an interpreted dialogue and demonstrates the fact that two listeners interpretations of comments can be very different.
This would really be the place to slam on the brakes and ask a local for directions - if you were riding a bike that is.... But sometimes local customs can land an interpreter in trouble too!
Making your contribution as informative as required for the current purposes of exchange without becoming superfluous is Griceís recipe for success if you want to win friends and keep conversation partners. This is also known as the Maxim of Quantity. With an interpreter in the court room though, protective custody is required at all times!
Still in the courtroom, we find an Irish Sign Language Interpreter at work with a Deaf defendant in the dock. The prosecution, in an attempt to establish marital status asks ìAre you single?î. The interpreter, knowing that in the Irish Deaf community, this concept is not approached in exactly the same way as it is in English signs ìYOU MARRIED?î (ìAre you married?î)- the appropriate cultural adjustment. The Deaf defendant shakes his head and signs ìNOî. The interpreter translates ìYesî..... The judge, having seen the shake of the head assumes that (of course) the interpreter is lying. Explanations are in vain. The case is thrown out of court (along with the interpreter) and the Maxim of Quantity is the rogue to blame for the confusion.
The interpreter HAS been as informative as required to ensure the understanding of the defendant in his native language. She has not been more informative than the L1 speaker. After all, the primary aim of interpretation is to ensure mutual understanding between the L1 and L2 speakers (or signers). But sometimes interpreters feel that they just are not understood!
The Maxim of Quality states that we should try to make our contributions truthful. Grice suggests that you, dear reader ìdo not say that which you believe to be falseî nor ìthat for which you lack adequate evidenceî (Grice, 1975)
Lets try another scenario to test Griceís hypothesis. Imagine a doctors surgery. A young Deaf woman approached her family doctor on the issue of contraception. She brings an interpreter along to ensure mutual understanding .....
Somewhere in the midst of conversation, the doctor asks the Deaf lady about her medical / sexual history. He asks if she has ever been pregnant before. The Deaf lady signs that yes and adds that when she was seventeen she had an abortion. The interpreter misconstructs the signed message and interprets it as ìYes, Iíve had seventeen abortionsî. The interpreter was not deliberately saying what he believed to be false as he believed he had understood the Deaf clients signed utterance.
Before you break down completely at the misfortune of the maligned lady in question, please note that this scenario was a role play situation which occurred during an interpreter training program. Other student interpreters played the roles of doctor and deaf client - but such qualitative (and in this case, quantitative) errors can and do occur.
Often it is the case that the interpreter is tired. Interpreting is an intensive task where normally after 15 - 20 minutes of simultaneous interpreting, a break is required. This is why interpreters often work in pairs. If you consider sign language interpreting, it has been estimated that in one hour of simultaneous voice to sign interpreting that an interpreter makes 10,000 repetitive motions - enough to tire anyone out! (EFSLI Conference 1994)
Finally, we arrive at the Maxim of Manner . This states that one should strive to ìbe perspicuous, and specifically (1) avoid ambiguity; (2)avoid obscurity; (3) be brief and (4) be orderly.
This maxim is one which the majority of clients, regardless of language group tend to violate on a regular basis. (Blame for the potentially dangerous levels of socializing which interpreters are renowned for which they claim occurs for medicinal, stress reducing purposes can possibly also be attributed to this maxim!)
Another industrious Irish Sign Language interpreter reported on her sojourn into the world of electronics and the accompanying jargon which presented many problems for her, being as she was an innocent in such a ìbrave new worldî! When the digital electronics lecturer began to talk about the ìbusî she had a sinking feeling that he wasnít talking about a "noun; large public passenger carrying vehicle usually plying on a fixed route" (Little Oxford Dictionary, 1988) but a "noun; electrical route along which data flows between two or more dences in an electrical system." (Longman MicroElectronics Dictionary, 1985). Again this displays the diversity of environments and the variety of discourse types that an interpreter has to cope with - and worse still, understand! While these terms may be common place to the people involved, the interpreter is being afflicted by the opaqueness of jargon - influenced by the maxim of manner as used by participants who no longer view such terminology as obscure.
Sperber and Wilson (1986, p.34) interpret the Maxim of Manner as illuminating the fact that regardless of how ambiguous and incomplete some utterances may seem, sometimes they can express a clear lucid thought. We could say that this is possible - but between "insiders" who share the same set of referents in a given conversation. But interpreters more often than not do not and cannot access this "insider" knowledge - and this is where communication sometimes breaks down.
No one is overtly flouting the Maxim of manner. After all, the interpreter is "outside" the interpreting situation in many ways and the other participants know who and what each other are referring to - if only the interpreter could decode enough to enable her to transfer it into L1!
Definitely an uphill ride!
We all know that in a perfect world, an interpreterís presence should not influence the transfer of meaning between two languages. But this is an imperfect world where interpreters cannot fully understand every utterance uttered; where speakers are not always maximally relevant, clear, informative or truthful and where cultural differences highlight the mismatches between languages.
It has been said that linguists learn most about communication from situations where the maxims are flouted. Interpretation often allows us to glimpse another dimension of communicative disparity which doesn't seem to have been examined in great detail within a Relevance Theory Framework. As such, the area of interpreting has much to offer the field of pragmatics as far as deepening our knowledge about interaction and heightening our awareness of the principles governing successful communication.
Interpreters do their best in some very difficult situations -
and sometimes we get to laugh at their funnier experiences and learn to
avoid the same pitfalls in our professional lives. Sperber and Wilson (1986,
p.38) asks what role the search for relevance plays in communication.
I feel that an interpreter should have been asked - they do it all the
time!
Brien, David (Ed.) (1992) Dictionary of British Sign Language/ English London: Faber and Faber.
Berk- Selingson, S (1990) The Bilingual Courtroom - Court Interpreters in the Judicial Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Grice, H.P. (1978) Logic and Conversation in Cole, Peter and Morgan, Peter (Eds) Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press (pp 41 - 58)
Kyle, J.G. & Woll, B (1987) Sign Language - The Study of Deaf People and their Language. Cambridge: C.U.P.
Longman (1985) Longman Dictionary of Micro-Electronics London: Longman.
Sperber, & Wilson (1986) Relevance, Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.
Saeed, John (1995) Introduction to Semantics. Dublin: C.L.C.S. Trinity College.
Oxford (1988) The Little Oxford Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University
Press 1988
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