Talks and Conversations 4

Welcome to my lecture on interpreting. Interpreting is a relatively new area of research. It is all too often subsumed under the heading of translation. For example, many translators associations include interpreters. Many books on translation include a section on interpreting. Many translators do some interpreting work and vice versa. Of course, there is an overlap between the two areas that are so alike and yet so different. All of this means that interpreting is still in the process of establishing itself as a discipline in its own right.

My aim in this lecture is to provide an overview of interpreting to anyone interested in interpreting in general, or indeed in becoming an interpreter. For years, I have been collecting information about international and regional organizations in this field. I was quite surprised about some of the results of the questionnaire.

Firstly, with the exceptions of the European Union and the United nations, the actual number of interpreters employed by many organizations is quite small.

Secondly, I have not found any support for the common notion that interpreters do not have a lifelong career that they work solidly for five years or so, earning quite a lot of money, and then disappear into the sunset. On the contrary, they continue to work as interpreters until retirement age, and in some cases, beyond it.

Thirdly, English is the international language of business, and it’s used in boardrooms and business meetings throughout the world. English is also the international language of science. In the 1960s and 1970s of the last century when foreign languages were not like widely taught, many international conferences needed interpreters. Nowadays, most educated people learn foreign languages. And as a result, the need for interpreters at this type of meeting has diminished.

Questions:

23. Who are most likely to be interested in the lecture?

24. Which of the following is not true about interpreting?

25. What is the common notion about interpreters?

26. What accounts for the smaller number of conference interpreters today?

【評析】

本文節(jié)選自美國作家費倫的The Interpreter's Resource（口譯員的資源），屬于“外教社翻譯碩士專業(yè)系列教材”口譯實踐指南叢書。內(nèi)容上，先是講口譯與翻譯的一些區(qū)別，然后說明是要對口譯做概述，最后提出在調(diào)查研究中發(fā)現(xiàn)的一些比較奇怪的現(xiàn)象，包括：①公司錄用口譯者很少；②并沒有任何證據(jù)表明口譯者 的工作是吃青春飯的；③現(xiàn)在社會對商務(wù)和科學(xué)方面的口譯者的需求正在減少。文章介紹的都是口譯翻譯相關(guān)的詞匯，這些詞本身并沒有太大的難度，屬于考生比較熟悉的詞匯范圍之內(nèi)。