I %26 T Lecture 2

Part 1: Interpreting in Australia • Post-war immigration in the 1950s created need for interpreting services and marked the beginning of community interpreting in Australia • The first interpreting service was the Chief Government Interpreter in 1954 • The Commonwealth Bank and the Bank of NSW established “Migrant Information Centers in the 1960s. They employed full time in-house interpreters.

• The Emergency Telephone Interpreter Service (ETIS) was established by the Department of Immigration in 1973. The service was available 24 hours, 7 days per week, in Melbourne and Sydney. • The National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) was established in 1977. • The Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators (AUSIT), the national association for the translating and interpreting profession, was founded in 1987, bringing together existing local associations and specialist groups and now has branches in each State and Territory.

• Many interpreting courses in a variety of languages were established in the 1980s • Currently, interpreting courses in Australia are offered at: - TAFE level - University level, both UG and PG • Some of the courses grant NAATI accreditation

Part 2 : Pragmatics • Pragmatics is: - the study of the purposes for which sentences are used - the study of the real world conditions under which a sentence may be appropriately used as an utterance. (Stalnaker 1972) - the discipline that ''studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction and the effects of our choice on others'' (Crystal, 1987:120)

• Semantic vs pragmatic meaning - semantic meaning: fixed context-free meaning - pragmatic meaning: the meaning which the words take on in a particular context, between particular people

• Word level, sentence level and discourse level • Top down approach required in interpreting • 3 different approaches to interpreting: - Literal (word for word) - semantic (sentence by sentence) - pragmatic (discourse)

• The function of an utterance must be established pragmatically, e.g., Today is Monday = Hoy es lunes Today is Sunday • Learners of a foreign language understand the literal meaning, but sometimes miss the point • The point is missed because the pragmatic level of the language is not understood

• The broadest approach sees pragmatics as the study of principles and practices underlying all interactive linguistic performance • Pragmatics includes all aspects of language usage, understanding, and appropriateness. Example: “Ya no doy mas” semantically = ''now I don't give any more” pragmatically = ''I'm dead tired''

Speech Act Theory • Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) • Austin proposed - performatives, e.g.,'‘I apologise'‘, “ I name this ship” - constatives are statements that merely convey information

• The speech act theory analyses the effect of utterances on behaviour

When we utter a speech act we perform 3 simultaneous acts: Locutionary act: the actual communicative act. Example: The utterance “would you like to close the door?”

Illocutionary act: performed when the utterance is being spoken. Example: a polite request to close the door.

Perlocutionary act: the effect the utterance has on the listener. Example:the other person actually closing the door.

Locutionary act = the actual utterance Illocutionary act = act performed during utterance Perlocutionary act = effect of utterance on listener Example: “Would you like to close the door?” Semantically (at sentence level): a question of whether the person would like to do something • If the desired perlocutionary effect is not achieved: – the illocutionary force was unsuccessful, or – the hearer consciously disregarded it

• The illocutionary force is the strength with which the illocutionary point is portrayed, e.g., a polite request • the relationship between the speaker and the hearer can determine appropriateness • Interpreters need to aim at achieving an equivalence of the illocutionary act

Interpreters and the Speech Act Interpreters need to: • Aim at achieving the equivalent illocutionary act • Make sure that the intended meaning is not misrepresented in any way • Be aware that accurate interpretation can only be achieved when we interpret pragmatically correct

Interpreters should analyse the speech act: • What is the illocutionary point of the utterance? • What is the illocutionary force of the utterance? • How/what is the perlocutionary effect on listener? • How severe is the “insult”?

According to Searle (1976), there are 5 types of illocutionary acts: •

Representatives (e.g. reporting, affirming)

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Directives (e.g. commanding, asking)

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Commissives (e.g. promising, swearing)

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Expressives (e.g. apologizing, congratulating)

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Declarations (e.g. wedding, sentencing)

Effects of Searle’s 5 Speech Act types: Representatives) = Speaker believes utterance is true (e.g. affirming, reporting) Directives = Speaker tries listener to do something (e.g. commanding, asking) Commissives = Speaker commits himself/herself to action (e.g. promising, swearing) Expressives = Speaker expresses feelings/attitude (e.g. apologizing, congratulating) Declarations = Performatives (e.g. wedding, sentencing)

• 4 principal (felicity) conditions for speech acts to be successful: - The speech act has to be performed by the person with the correct authority - The act has to be performed in the correct form - The act has to be performed in the correct context - Sincerity condition

Cross cultural speech act • Universal speech act: ( requesting, apologizing, etc) • The way these speech acts are achieved is what is not universal • Literal translations ''often fail to carry identical implied force''. (Schmidt and Richards, 1979) • ''would'' in Hebrew and Japanese does not carry imperative force as in English (Green, 1975) • European languages do not use the word ''please'' as often as English (Crystal, 1987) • The function of ''thank you'' is often different across languages

Group exercise: In groups of 5 students, please provide a few examples of cross-cultural differences between English and your other language. Elect a speaker to report your examples to the whole group.