Inference and Anticipation in Simultaneous Interpreting

Abstract

Until now, Ghelly Chernov’s work on the theory of simultaneous interpretation (SI) was mostly accessible only to a Russian-speaking readership. Finally, Chernov’s major work, originally published in Russia in 1987 under the title Основы Синхронного Перевода (Introduction to Simultaneous Interpretation) and widely considered a classic in interpretation theory, is now available in English as well. Adopting a psycholinguistic approach to professional SI, Chernov defines it as a task performed in a single pass concurrently with the source language speech, under extreme perception and production conditions in which only a limited amount of information can be processed at any given time. Being both a researcher and a practitioner, Chernov drew from a rich interpreting corpus to create the first comprehensive model of simultaneous interpretation. His model draws on semantics, pragmatics, Russian Activity Theory and the SI communicative situation to formulate the principles of objective and subjective redundancy and identify probability prediction as the enabling mechanism of SI. Edited with notes and a critical foreword by two active SI researchers, Robin Setton and Adelina Hild, this book will be useful to practicing interpreters in providing a theoretical basis for appreciating the syntactic and other devices that can be used by both students and experienced interpreters in fine-tuning their performance in the booth.

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