I'm writing a thesis on interpretation and looking for interpreters of all backgrounds for survey
Thread poster: harusaur
harusaur
harusaur
Japan
Jan 10, 2020

I really hope I'm posting in the right place! I’m looking for interpreters (basically people who do live interpretation or spoken translation) of all backgrounds and levels of experience to answers some questions I have for a thesis. I would greatly appreciate if you could assist me in this. I have some data but it’s very limited to interpreters from my own country and I am looking for more diverse points of view. I hope you guys can help me! I tried to make my questionnaire into an online s... See more
I really hope I'm posting in the right place! I’m looking for interpreters (basically people who do live interpretation or spoken translation) of all backgrounds and levels of experience to answers some questions I have for a thesis. I would greatly appreciate if you could assist me in this. I have some data but it’s very limited to interpreters from my own country and I am looking for more diverse points of view. I hope you guys can help me! I tried to make my questionnaire into an online survey so it would be easier to answer to it but it would either not let me have over 10 questions without paying the website or it wouldn't let me have more than two open field questions. This leaves me really no choice but to paste my questionnaire just the way it is here. I would greatly appreciate if anyone had time to answer it. Thank you very much.

QUESTIONNAIRE

I’m currently a 4th year student of the Department of International Exchange Studies, Faculty of International Humanities at Josai International University in Chiba, Japan. I am conducting a research on Pedagogy and training in “Pedagogy and training in Interpreting languages”. The purpose of my research is to find the gaps in the lack of information provided for people interested pursuing live interpretation as a profession. Live interpretation, unlike translation, deals strictly with spoken interpretation done in a live location. At times live interpretation is lumped in with the prior and classified as a sub-topic of translation. Therefore, I would like to conduct a survey within the live interpretation community to better comprehend the diversification of the field. This survey’s contents will only be available for my thesis and will not be used for any other purpose. Thank you in advance for your cooperation and time.

1.Age:
a. 18 – 24
b. 25 – 30

c. 31 – 40

d. 41 – 50
e. 50+

2.Gender:
a. Male
b. Female
c. Do not wish to answer

3.Country of Origin (Country you identify most strongly with):

4.Mother Tongue:

5.Please specify the language(s) you interpret in:

6.Do you hold any type of certification for live interpretation?
a. Yes
b. No

7.If you replied yes to Question 6., please specify which type of certification:

8.Have you been active in both live interpretation and translation?
a. Yes
b. No

9.Could you specify if you have participated in consecutive or simultaneous interpretation, or both?
a. Consecutive
b. Simultaneous
c. Both

10.If you have participated in both, please explain what major difference(s) you have noticed between the two?

11.How do you gather information about your client and field of work before a job? Please explain.

12.If you do note taking, do you use words, symbols, ideas or other means of note taking? Please explain.

13.What is one trick you learned from your training that you use all the time while interpreting? Please explain.

14.How would you grade your memory skills since you started working as an interpreter?
a. Improved greatly
b. Improved significantly
c. Improved slightly
d. No change
e. Deteriorated

15.How did you acquire your professional skill? (Through college education, institute education, self-taught, transition from written translation)
a. College Education
b. Institute Education
c. Self-taught
d. Transition from written translation
e. Other:

16.Would you say the information available about live interpretation is enough for an aspiring interpreter to reach a high level of competence in live interpretation as easily as with written translation?
a. Yes
b. No

17.Do you believe live interpretation is a small part of translation or that it can stand by itself?
a. Can stand by itself.
b. Should be classified as an activity within the boundaries of translation.
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Yan-Christoph Pelz
Yan-Christoph Pelz
Germany
Local time: 17:58
French to English
+ ...
Re: Topic: I'm writing a thesis on interpretation and looking for interpreters of all backgrounds fo Jan 11, 2020

1.Age:
a. 18 – 24
b. 25 – 30

c. 31 – 40

d. 41 – 50 x
e. 50+

2.Gender:
a. Male x
b. Female
c. Do not wish to answer

3.Country of Origin (Country you identify most strongly with): Germany

4.Mother Tongue: German and French

5.Please specify the language(s) you interpret in: German, English, French (all combinations)

6.Do you hold any type of certification for live interpret
... See more
1.Age:
a. 18 – 24
b. 25 – 30

c. 31 – 40

d. 41 – 50 x
e. 50+

2.Gender:
a. Male x
b. Female
c. Do not wish to answer

3.Country of Origin (Country you identify most strongly with): Germany

4.Mother Tongue: German and French

5.Please specify the language(s) you interpret in: German, English, French (all combinations)

6.Do you hold any type of certification for live interpretation?
a. Yes x
b. No

7.If you replied yes to Question 6., please specify which type of certification:
Diploma in Interpreting, University of Heidelberg, May 1995

8.Have you been active in both live interpretation and translation?
a. Yes x
b. No

9.Could you specify if you have participated in consecutive or simultaneous interpretation, or both?
a. Consecutive
b. Simultaneous
c. Both x

10.If you have participated in both, please explain what major difference(s) you have noticed between the two?
Far more visibility in consecutive, leading to me being more nervous beforehand.
More creativity in structuring the contents in consecutive, so that the message can realy be passed on into the other cultural context.
Better (eye) contact with audience in coinsecutive - you see immediately if the message comes across or not.
Still: I prefer simultaneous - working as a team, better support via computer and colleague

11.How do you gather information about your client and field of work before a job? Please explain.
- from the client him/herself
- detailed Internet research: about company, about speakers (some ar on YouTube so that I can get familiar with their way of speaking and presenting)
about topic in both languages

12.If you do note taking, do you use words, symbols, ideas or other means of note taking? Please explain.
I use symbols and abbreviations, mostly derived from the Matyssek note taking system

13.What is one trick you learned from your training that you use all the time while interpreting? Please explain.
- from English into German: store the verb
- from german into English: anticipate the verb

14.How would you grade your memory skills since you started working as an interpreter?
a. Improved greatly
b. Improved significantly
c. Improved slightly x
d. No change
e. Deteriorated

15.How did you acquire your professional skill? (Through college education, institute education, self-taught, transition from written translation)
a. College Education x
b. Institute Education
c. Self-taught
d. Transition from written translation
e. Other: a lot of experience over the years

16.Would you say the information available about live interpretation is enough for an aspiring interpreter to reach a high level of competence in live interpretation as easily as with written translation?
a. Yes
b. No x

17.Do you believe live interpretation is a small part of translation or that it can stand by itself?
a. Can stand by itself x
b. Should be classified as an activity within the boundaries of translation
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DZiW (X)
DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
+ ...
Google: create online survey / questionnaire Jan 11, 2020

Harusaur, why don't you create an online survey, leaving the link here?
It takes a little time, yet such a modern approach would enable you to have all the statistics/groups ready for processing automatically.

I mean some people may be just too lazy to copy-paste questions adding answers whereas other may be too shy to share it at a large public, and others...


Gabriele Metzler
harusaur
 
harusaur
harusaur
Japan
TOPIC STARTER
Interpretation questionnaire Jan 13, 2020

DZiW wrote:

Harusaur, why don't you create an online survey, leaving the link here?
It takes a little time, yet such a modern approach would enable you to have all the statistics/groups ready for processing automatically.

I mean some people may be just too lazy to copy-paste questions adding answers whereas other may be too shy to share it at a large public, and others...


You're so right! Thank you so much for your advice. I just made one now and will link it to this forum.


 
harusaur
harusaur
Japan
TOPIC STARTER
Interpretation questionnaire, in survey form Jan 13, 2020

Here is a survey version that is easy to use. I'd really appreciate if as many interpreters as possible could contribute.

https://forms.gle/hiVELbaJTLC8XZS89


 


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I'm writing a thesis on interpretation and looking for interpreters of all backgrounds for survey







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