TRANSLATIONAL SELF-REPAIRS IN TRAINEE CONFERENCE INTERPRETERS: PRELIMINARY FINDINGS FROM A PILOT STUDY

Abstract

This article investigates the phenomenon of self-repairs in simultaneous interpreting trainees, which has so far received only limited attention in interpreting research. Conference interpreters were long denied the ability to correct their performance (cf. Kade, 1968; Seleskovitch, 1968; Reiß & Vermeer, 1984). However, it was not until 1975 that Gerver described the importance of self-repairs as sufficient evidence of interpreters’ monitoring for both the source text perception and target text production. In this study, a qualitative method is used in the analysis of a corpus that comprises the interpreting performance of second-year MA students of English Studies at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. The pilot study entailed recording the students’ output of two distinct speeches (interpreted from English into Polish) and analysing the transcript thereof. The results prove that trainee interpreters repair not only defects sensu stricto, but also attend to their outputs for a number of reasons (cf. Petite, 2005). The article will demonstrate both a preliminary taxonomy of translational self-repairs identified in novice interpreters and put forward significant didactic implications for interpreter training. Keywords: simultaneous interpreting, monitoring, self-correction, self-repairs, interpreter training