A Case Study of the Use of Storytelling as a Pedagogical Tool for Teaching Interpreting Students
Pages: 1-32

Author: Jemina Napier

This article details the findings of a systemic functional linguistic case study of university classroom talk, and in particular an evaluation of the storytelling that occurs in classroom talk and its functioning as a pedagogical tool with interpreting students. The data consists of two hours of naturalistic classroom talk that occurred with sign language interpreting students discussing the topic of interpreting ethics. The 'chunks' of the text comprised of storytelling were identified, and the stories were classified into genres. The study revealed exemplum stories to be the most common story genre, and that story genres were used by both the teacher and students to make meaning within the learning process. The findings of this study are innovative in that they demonstrate that storytelling is a feature of pragmatic teacher-student interaction, and is a pedagogical tool used to engage with sign language interpreting students in order to relate practical experience to theoretical constructs, which could be considered by spoken language interpreter educators if culturally appropriate.

Keywords
Storytelling, Classroom talk, Systemic functional linguistics, Problem-based learning, Interpreter education

Promotional and advertising texts come in different forms and account for a considerable share of the translation market. Advertisements, company brochures, websites, tourist guides, institutional information campaigns, and even personal CVs all share a common primary purpose: that of persuading the reader to buy something, be it a product or a lifestyle, or to act in a particular way, from taking preventive measures against health risks to employing one candidate in preference to another. Consequently, their translation requires the application of techniques which, although they vary depending on the specific text type, are all aimed at preserving that persuasive purpose. This often requires in-depth cultural adaptation and, on occasion, thorough rewriting.

Translating Promotional and Advertising Texts covers different areas of personal promotion, business to business promotion, institutional and business to consumer promotion, including advertising. Numerous examples from a wide variety of languages and media, taken from the author's own professional experience and from real-life observation, are provided throughout. The volume is designed for use as a coursebook for classroom practice or as a handbook for self-learning. It will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students, but also freelance and in-house translators, as well as other professionals working in sales, public relations or similar departments whose responsibilities include involvement in the management of multilingual advertising and promotion activities.

Thinking through Translation with Metaphors explores a wide range of metaphorical figures used to describe the translation process, from Aristotle to the present.

Most practitioners and theorists of translation are familiar with a number of metaphors for translation, such as the metaphor of the bridge, following in another's footsteps, performing a musical score, changing clothes, or painting a portrait; yet relatively little attention has been paid to what these metaphorical models reveal about how we conceptualize translation. Drawing on insights from recent developments in metaphor theory, contributors to this volume reveal how central metaphorical language has been to translation studies at all periods of time and in various cultures. Metaphors have played a key role in shaping the way in which we understand translation, determining what facets of the translation process are deemed to be important and therefore merit study, and aiding in the training of successive generations of translators and theorists. While some of the papers focus mainly on past metaphorical representations, others discuss recent shifts in both metaphor and translation theory, while others still propose innovative metaphors in a bid to transform translation studies.

The volume also includes an annotated bibliography of works centrally concerned with metaphors of translation.

Der Band geht auf eine Vortragsreihe am Institut für Translation und Mehrsprachige Kommunikation der Fachhochschule Köln und am Fachbereich Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft der Universität Mainz in Germersheim zurück. Ziel des Translationswissenschaftlichen Kolloquiums ist es, Einblicke in die Diskussion übersetzungs- und dolmetschwissenschaftlicher Fragestellungen zu vermitteln. Je drei bis vier Beiträge befassen sich mit einem Rahmenthema: Geschichte der Übersetzung (J. Albrecht, L. Cerný, M. Salama-Carr), Textlinguistik und Übersetzen (I. Mason, W. Pöckl, M. Schreiber), Dolmetschwissenschaft (B. Ahrens, D. Andres, N. Grbic, S. Kalina), Fachübersetzung (C. Feyrer, M. Krein-Kühle, S. Reinart, E. Wiesmann), Translation und Kognition (S. Berti, P. Kußmaul, H. Risku).

Improving Interpreting Performance through Theatrical Training
Pages: 151-171
Authors: Jinhyun Cho and Peter Roger
Aspiring interpreting professionals need to possess skills which allow them to think quickly in order to deal with unexpected situations that will inevitably arise in the course of interpreting assignments. The complex and inherently unpredictable nature of interpreting can be a major source of anxiety for student interpreters, particularly when they are called upon to perform in a language in which their proficiency and confidence levels are limited. Specific techniques for managing this anxiety, however, are often lacking in interpreter training programmes. This study examines the effects of a programme based on theatrical techniques commonly used in the training of professional actors but tailored specifically for novice interpreters. Two groups of interpreting students each received seven weeks of training in a sequential manner, allowing an external rating of the participants' performance to be carried out before and after the training took place. Results of the external ratings and the participants' own evaluation of their learning revealed significant benefits, with gains particularly evident in the areas of confidence, delivery and rapid problem solving abilities.
Keywords: Interpreting, Theatrical training, Improvisation, Anxiety, Self-confidence

Learner Factors, Self-perceived Language Ability and Interpreter Learning
An Investigation of Hong Kong Tertiary Interpreting Classes
Pages: 173-196
Authors: Jackie Xiu Yan, Jun Pan and Honghua Wang
Numerous interpreter training programmes have been developed to meet the demands for high quality interpreting. Most, if not all, universities of Hong Kong offer interpreting courses. However, empirical studies on interpreting pedagogy are extremely limited. This paper explores the interplay between learner factors, language ability (self-perceived) and interpreting learning in Hong Kong tertiary classrooms. A learner information cluster was developed by the authors to collect information on individual learner factors. It was found that learner factors such as gender, motivation and personal habits, are closely related to students? language learning and interpreting learning. Female students tend to perform better than male students in interpreting classrooms. Personal habits, for example, the habit of reading English- and Chinese-language newspapers, have an impact on students? self-perceived language abilities (in English and Chinese) and their learning of interpreting. The results also indicate that language abilities and interpreting ability are closely connected. Furthermore, in interpreting between English and Chinese, learners? self-perceived overall competence in the English language is the most important predictor of their success in interpreting learning, while their self-perceived English writing ability is the second-most important predictor.
Keywords: Individual differences, Learner factor, Language learning, Interpreter training, Interpreting achievement

In the 1930s translation became a key issue in the cultural politics of the Fascist regime due to the fact that Italy was publishing more translations than any other country in the world. Making use of extensive archival research, the author of this new study examines this 'invasion of translations' through a detailed statistical analysis of the translation market. The book shows how translations appeared to challenge official claims about the birth of a Fascist culture and cast Italy in a receptive role that did not tally with Fascist notions of a dominant culture extending its influence abroad. The author shows further that the commercial impact of this invasion provoked a sustained reaction against translated popular literature on the part of those writers and intellectuals who felt threatened by its success. He examines the aggressive campaign that was conducted against the Italian Publishers Federation by the Authors and Writers Union (led by the Futurist poet F. T. Marinetti), accusing them of favouring their private profit over the national interest. Finally, the author traces the evolution of Fascist censorship, showing how the regime developed a gradually more repressive policy towards translations as notions of cultural purity began to influence the perception of imported literature.

In the fascist regimes of the mid twentieth century – this volume the focuses on Italy, Germany, Spain and Portugal – translation was a carefully, though not always successfully, managed cultural practice. Translation policies attempted to steer public perceptions and promote or brake ideological change.

Translation Under Fascism examines translation practices under fascism within their historical context – from publishers' biographies, institutional constraints and long-term literary trends right down to the textual choices made by translators and editors in individual translations. All these aspects of a translation analysis allow insight into the workings of international cultural exchange in times of dictatorship, and are of interest equally to translation scholars and historians of culture in the periods concerned.

The spectrum of translation policies and practices presented here indicates different paradigms, different obsessions and different institutional frameworks, but also shared rhetorical motifs such as the ideas of translation as a cultural weapon and translation as a form of cultural contamination.