HOW THE INTERPRETATION TECHNIQUE DEVELOPED
Features - February 21, 2006 (Jakarta Post)
The interpreting profession is still regarded as relatively new, even though it developed centuries ago.
Before the World War I, French was the only official diplomatic language. Francesca Gaiba, a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago writes in her book The Origins of Simultaneous Interpretation, The Nuremberg Trial, that interpreting was born around 1920 after languages other than French were recognized as official diplomatic languages.
Even though the need for interpretation was becoming more essential with the foundation of the League of Nations and the meetings of the International Labor Organization, the Nuremberg Trial, which started Nov. 20, 1945, was regarded as the first event devised using simultaneous interpretation techniques.
Gaiba says that in Geneva and other international conferences before the war, equipment was used with different methods, which she describes as "simultaneous successive interpretation" (meaning the interpretations were simultaneous with each other but not with the original speech).
At the League of Nations and the ILO, various interpreters would take notes on the original speech; after the end of a speech, one of the interpreters, usually the French one, would take the stand and translate into that language.
At the same time, the other interpreters, sitting in the booths and speaking into their microphones, gave versions of the speech in English, Spanish, etc., reading from their notes.
Gaiba calls this method "simultaneous reading of pretranslated texts".
At the Nuremberg Trial, the simultaneous interpretation method was used for the first time. The trial, lasting more than 10 months, used four official languages, French, Russian, German and English.
At the time, the reason for using a new method of interpretation was because consecutive interpretation, as well as the two methods used by the League of Nations and the ILO, would have been too time-consuming.
Even so, the decision to use the new simultaneous method was not easy, as delegations thought it would not work.
However, it did.
In Indonesia, simultaneous interpretation was recognized with the holding of the Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung, in 1955. As recounted by Dr. Benny H. Hoed, professor (Emeritus) of linguistics at the University of Indonesia, it was the first event to require interpretation in Indonesia.
In 1962, Indonesian interpreters started to provide simultaneous interpretation.
At one conference between Asian and African countries at Hotel Indonesia, Benny and his colleagues, Karla Rampen, Sugeng Saleh and Siska Nasution, were forced to interpret simultaneously because individually they did not have a good command of the three working languages of French, Indonesian and English.
"We just did it. We trained ourselves, using primitive equipment. But we did it successfully," explained Benny, who quit his job as a simultaneous interpreter in 1967 and concentrated more on teaching in the University of Indonesia's French department.
Benny went on to say that at that time anti-Western feelings were running high; therefore, the hiring of interpreters from overseas and from the United Nations was strictly limited.
"For us it was a blessing, as we had experience and were often hired for conferences," says Benny. "But I cannot tell whether we were forced to do it or we did it for pleasure as we were really translators."
For him it was indeed a very good experience for the country to start using the simultaneous interpretation technique.
The 1992 Non-Aligned Summit in Jakarta was the first time the simultaneous interpretation technique was officially used. The interpreters were trained by the Center of Translation and Interpretation at the University of Indonesia to become simultaneous interpreters for the summit.
Since then, the profession has become more widely recognized. Today, more clientele -- though not many -- use this type of interpretation service. (Handewi Soegiharto)
The interpreting profession is still regarded as relatively new, even though it developed centuries ago.
Before the World War I, French was the only official diplomatic language. Francesca Gaiba, a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago writes in her book The Origins of Simultaneous Interpretation, The Nuremberg Trial, that interpreting was born around 1920 after languages other than French were recognized as official diplomatic languages.
Even though the need for interpretation was becoming more essential with the foundation of the League of Nations and the meetings of the International Labor Organization, the Nuremberg Trial, which started Nov. 20, 1945, was regarded as the first event devised using simultaneous interpretation techniques.
Gaiba says that in Geneva and other international conferences before the war, equipment was used with different methods, which she describes as "simultaneous successive interpretation" (meaning the interpretations were simultaneous with each other but not with the original speech).
At the League of Nations and the ILO, various interpreters would take notes on the original speech; after the end of a speech, one of the interpreters, usually the French one, would take the stand and translate into that language.
At the same time, the other interpreters, sitting in the booths and speaking into their microphones, gave versions of the speech in English, Spanish, etc., reading from their notes.
Gaiba calls this method "simultaneous reading of pretranslated texts".
At the Nuremberg Trial, the simultaneous interpretation method was used for the first time. The trial, lasting more than 10 months, used four official languages, French, Russian, German and English.
At the time, the reason for using a new method of interpretation was because consecutive interpretation, as well as the two methods used by the League of Nations and the ILO, would have been too time-consuming.
Even so, the decision to use the new simultaneous method was not easy, as delegations thought it would not work.
However, it did.
In Indonesia, simultaneous interpretation was recognized with the holding of the Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung, in 1955. As recounted by Dr. Benny H. Hoed, professor (Emeritus) of linguistics at the University of Indonesia, it was the first event to require interpretation in Indonesia.
"However, no Indonesian interpreters took part in the conference because then, Indonesian leaders, including president Sukarno, had a good command of foreign languages, especially English," explains Benny Hoed. Therefore at the time, foreign interpreters were hired from overseas, mainly from the United Nations.
In 1962, Indonesian interpreters started to provide simultaneous interpretation.
At one conference between Asian and African countries at Hotel Indonesia, Benny and his colleagues, Karla Rampen, Sugeng Saleh and Siska Nasution, were forced to interpret simultaneously because individually they did not have a good command of the three working languages of French, Indonesian and English.
"We just did it. We trained ourselves, using primitive equipment. But we did it successfully," explained Benny, who quit his job as a simultaneous interpreter in 1967 and concentrated more on teaching in the University of Indonesia's French department.
Benny went on to say that at that time anti-Western feelings were running high; therefore, the hiring of interpreters from overseas and from the United Nations was strictly limited.
"For us it was a blessing, as we had experience and were often hired for conferences," says Benny. "But I cannot tell whether we were forced to do it or we did it for pleasure as we were really translators."
For him it was indeed a very good experience for the country to start using the simultaneous interpretation technique.
The 1992 Non-Aligned Summit in Jakarta was the first time the simultaneous interpretation technique was officially used. The interpreters were trained by the Center of Translation and Interpretation at the University of Indonesia to become simultaneous interpreters for the summit.
Since then, the profession has become more widely recognized. Today, more clientele -- though not many -- use this type of interpretation service. (Handewi Soegiharto)
posted by Handewi Soegiharto at 1:04 AM
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