benajmin foo on sermon interpreting.doc

8/12/2019 Benajmin Foo on Sermon Interpreting.doc

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Tasks, Constraints and Priorities inCharismatic Sermon Interpreting

Benjamin Z. Foo

BA (Hons)

Submitted in partial fulfilment of therequirements for the degree of

MA in Conference Interpreting Techniques

Supervisor: Juliet Vine

Submitted in August 2011

Word Count: 14,880


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my supervisor, Juliet Vine, for her unfailing enthusiasm andconstant encouragement. This thesis would not have been complete without hervaluable input. Other than supervising my thesis, she also gave feedback at myinterpreting classes from which I have benefited greatly. I am also grateful to AlexaAlfer for her guidance as the MA Thesis Module Leader and her efforts at facilitatingthe dissertation writing process.

My MA CIT course leaders, Christine Adams and Zo Hewetson, who are rolemodels I will always look up to in my professional career as an interpreter, gave methe vocational knowledge I needed to undertake this study. My Chinese teachers, FuBing and Rosabel Chung, have similarly played a vital role in my training. I willalways be indebted to them.

I would also like to pay tribute to all church interpreters who no doubt have been amajor force in the development of the sermon interpreting culture. Their impressiveand deeply moving interpretation, which I have been fortunate enough to be exposedto over the years, has been a major source of inspiration for me.

Finally, I would like to thank my MA CIT colleagues for their support and for neverfailing to infect me with their enthusiasm for interpreting - even during the mostgruelling parts of the course.


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ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate sermon interpreting in the Charismatic tradition, an

area of interpreting which has hitherto not been studied extensively. To that end, the

researcher proposes identifying the tasks, constraints and priorities in charismatic

sermon interpreting (CSI) as a first step towards understanding it. This approach taps

into existing frameworks provided by Gile, Halliday and Yan Fu and combines them

to offer insights into the fundamentals of CSI. It is hoped that this approach could

also serve the purpose of future projects researching other interpreting genres,

especially those which have not been fully discussed in academic discourse.

While the analysis of tasks and constraints is primarily based on theoretical

frameworks and the researchers personal experience, the priorities are the result of

empirical evidence gleaned from the data. Therefore, the priorities in this study are

of a descriptive nature, not a prescriptive one, as the objective is to pin down what

really happens in the field by studying an authentic work of an experienced CSI

interpreter.

Owing to the limited availability of authentic data as well as the scope of this

study, it is not possible to draw definitive conclusions about the priorities. However,

the quality of the data used should yield meaningful insights which would benefit

follow-up studies, and this study should serve its purpose as an important first step

towards achieving a comprehensive understanding of CSI operations.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 2Abstract 3Table of Contents 4Table of Figures 6

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study 71.2 Aims of the Study 8

1.2.1 Tasks in CSI 91.2.2 Constraints in CSI 91.2.3 Priorities in CSI 9

1.3 Significance of the Study 10

1.4 Overview of the Study 11

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction 122.2 Types and Modes of Interpreting 12

2.2.1 Consecutive Interpreting (CI) 142.2.2 Simultaneous Interpreting (SI) 152.2.3 Liaison Interpreting 162.2.4 Conference Interpreting 17

2.3 Giles Effort Models 192.3.1 Effort Model for SI 19

2.3.2 Effort Model for CI 212.4 Field, Tenor and Mode 222.5 Xin Da Ya 242.6 Performance of Charismatic Christianity 272.7 Charismatic Sermon Interpreting (CSI) 282.8 Chapter Summary 29

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY3.1 Introduction 303.2 Choice of Data 303.3 Transcription and Processing of Data 31

3.4 Identification of Tasks 323.5 Identification of Constraints 323.6 Identification of Priorities 33

3.6.1 Fidelity, Comprehensibility and Elegance 333.6.2 Analysis of Fidelity 343.6.3 Analysis of Comprehensibility 37


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3.6.4 Analysis of Elegance 403.7 Assumptions 423.8 Chapter Summary 44

CHAPTER FOUR: CSI TASKS 4.1 Introduction 454.2 CSI Tasks 45

4.2.1 CSI Phase One 454.2.2 CSI Phase Two 47

4.3 Fewer Tasks = Easier Job? 484.4 Chapter Summary 48

CHAPTER FIVE: CSI CONSTRAINTS 5.1 Introduction 495.2 Field of CSI 495.3 Tenor of CSI 515.4 Mode of CSI 535.5 Constraints in CSI 54

5.5.1 Subordination 545.5.2 Time Constraint and Obligatory Emotional Charge 555.5.3 Processing Requirements 56

5.6 Chapter Summary 56

CHAPTER SIX: CSI PRIORITIES 6.1 Introduction 576.2 Hierarchy of Priorities 576.3 First Priority: Elegance in Delivery 596.4 Second Priority: Comprehensibility 596.5 Third Priority: Fidelity 606.6 Fourth Priority: Textual Elegance 636.7 Chapter Summary 65

CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION 7.1 Introduction 667.2 Tasks, Constraints and Priorities 66

7.2.1 Tasks 677.2.2 Constraints 677.2.3 Priorities 67

7.2.3.1 Interplay of the Priorities 707.3 Concluding Remarks 71

Bibliography 72Appendix 75


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TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 5.1 Key Points of The Journey of a Dream 50

Figure 6.1 Summary of Findings in Transcript 57

Figure 7.1 Summary of Tasks, Constraints and Priorities 66


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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

By all accounts, Pentecostalism and related Charismatic movementsrepresent one of the fastest-growing segments of global Christianity.According to the World Christian Database, at least a quarter of the worldstwo billion Christians are thought to be members of these lively, highly personal faiths . Despite the rapid growth of the renewalist movement in thelast few decades, there are few quantitative studies on the religious, political

and civic views of individuals involved in these groups. (The Pew Research Center, 2006)

The above excerpt describes the recent growth of Pentecostalism and

Charismatic movements which are collectively termed renewalist in the report

published by the Pew Research Center. The rapid emergence of Charismatic

Christianity has also been similarly noted by Coleman who observes that it is

flourishing in the contemporary world. (2000, p. 49) As a church-going Christian

who was brought up as a Presbyterian but has been attending renewalist churches for

the past six years in Asia, I have seen first-hand how the Charismatic movement has

taken root in the modern Christian community, especially among younger believers.

However, despite its enormous appeal and influence, studies done on Charismatic

Christianity continue to be limited, not just in terms of religious, political and civic

views as mentioned in the Pew Research Center report but also in the field of

interpreting.


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The general processes of conference interpreting have been discussed

extensively. For instance, scholars such as Jones (1998) have written entire books on

the subject and Gile is noted for his Effort Models (1995) which explain the processes

of simultaneous interpreting (SI) and consecutive interpreting (CI). However, in the

course of my research, I found that sermon interpreting is seldom discussed in

scholastic discourse. I find this a pity. Having watched sermon interpreters working

in Charismatic settings countless times, it is clear to me that such interpreting is an

established form of interpretation with a unique context.In Charismatic sermon interpreting (CSI), the interpreter interprets

immediately after every short utterance (usually not more than one or two short

sentences) from the preacher, and the preacher speaks immediately after the

interpreters utterance is completed. This results in a ceaseless flow of turn-taking

between the speaker and interpreter in quick succession which is often punctuated

with emotive delivery. Such an interpreting situation clearly differs from SI and CI as

described by Gile.

Therefore, this study is an attempt at filling a gap in interpreting research and

it stems from the researchers belief that CSI, by virtue of its unique context, would

offer new insights into the art of interpreting.

1.2 Aims of the Study

My aim is to learn more about CSI and I propose to do this by identifying the tasks,

constraints and priorities of CSI interpreters . I hope to achieve this by studying an


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audio recording of a sermon delivered in front of a live audience by a Charismatic

pastor (all speakers, including the pastor, are henceforth referred to as he when the

use of a pronoun is required) and interpreted into Mandarin Chinese (henceforth

simply referred to as Chinese) by a sermon interpreter (all interpreters are

henceforth referred to as she when the use of a pronoun is required).

1.2.1 Tasks in CSI

By drawing inspiration from Giles Effort Models, I shall identify the tasks CSIinterpreters perform.

1.2.2 Constraints in CSI

My second objective is to identify the constraints Charismatic sermon interpreters

face by focusing on the context of their work in terms of the field, tenor and mode

(Halliday and Hasan, 1989).

1.2.3 Priorities in CSI

To investigate the CSI interpreters priorities, I shall first identify the core

requirements of interpretation, i.e. the key qualities of a good interpretation, by

adapting Yan Fus xin da ya (Munday, 2008, p. 28) for the purpose of this study . I

will then examine the interpreters textual and extralinguistic output to assess if it

falls short of any of the requirements. My aim is to find out which, among all the core

requirements, the interpreter would choose to prioritise when she has difficulty


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satisfying all of them. Such findings would help to clarify if there is a hierarchy of

requirements at work in which some are more sacrosanct than others in the CSI

context.

1.3 Significance of this Study

I hope this study will contribute to academic discourse by explaining the CSI process

in a structured manner. My approach of identifying what needs to be done (tasks),

why what needs to be done may be difficult to accomplish (constraints) and whathappens when it gets too difficult (priorities) will clarify how CSI is carried out and

in what circumstances.

In addition, I hope that my idea of systematically identifying tasks, constraints

and priorities may also be adopted as a framework to study interpreting in other

contexts which have not been fully studied.

Only one audio recording is used in this study and I am aware of the

limitations this poses. In particular, the hierarchy of priorities would only be

conclusive if a much larger sample size is used. However, given the scope of this MA

dissertation, I can only transcribe a portion of the one recording that is available so

that I can carry out the kind of in-depth, utterance-by-utterance analysis necessary for

the identification of priorities. Moreover, every effort has been made to ensure that

the data used provide good real-life, authentic examples of CSI so that my findings

are meaningful.


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Having said that, it is not the goal of this dissertation to be representative or

make conclusive judgements about CSI. The significance of this study lies in the fact

that it is a bold step to probe into the context of CSI when no such study in this area is

known to exist. This is an important step forward because far from having an

unknown or rarefied existence its notable absence from academic discourse would

have one believe, CSI is an established form of interpreting with its own norms.

1.4 Overview of the Study:

In this introductory chapter, I have explained the rationale of embarking on this study

as well as its objectives and significance.

In the following chapter, I shall explain the concepts central to this study by

referring to existing literature. In Chapter Three, I explain my research design and

discuss my methodology and data in greater detail. Chapters Four, Five and Six

report respectively the analysis and identification of the tasks, constraints and

priorities in CSI. Chapter Seven concludes the study.


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CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

This chapter explains the key concepts central to this study. I will first give a broad

description of the typology of interpreting in section 2.2 before zeroing in on CSI at

the end of the chapter. Section 2.3 is devoted to the discussion of Giles Effort

Models (Gile, 1995), as I will be referring to them when identifying CSI tasks.Hallidays concepts of the field, the tenor and the mode (Halliday and Hasan, 1989),

discussed in section 2.4, are useful for clarifying the context of CSI which in turn

helps to identify interpreting constraints. Yan Fus concepts of xin da ya (Hsu,

1901/2004), which will be used in the identification of priorities, are discussed in

section 2.5. Sections 2.6 and 2.7 discuss Charismatic Christianity and CSI

respectively.

2.2 Types and Modes of Interpreting

During my training as an interpreter, I came across various types of interpreting

such as medical interpreting, community interpreting, court interpreting, liaison

interpreting and conference interpreting. However, it was never clear to me how these

interpreting types could be systematically categorised. For example, I understood

that medical interpreters often worked in hospitals but instinctively, I sensed that the

conditions they worked in mirrored those of liaison interpreters. Why was there an


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overlap between the two? Could the overlap mean that medical interpreting was a

sub- type of liaison interpreting?These questions alerted me to the fact that such

working titles were convenient for practitioners but simply too ambiguous for

academic research. This was a problem for me because before I could situate a genre

as new as CSI in the field of interpreting,I had to figure out what that field looked

like in the first place.

I found clarity in Gentile, Ozolins and Vasilakakos (1996) as regards the

typology of interpreting. According to Gentile et al. (1996, p. 22), liaisoninterpreting and conference interpreting are types or genres of interpreting while CI

and SI are two basicmodes in which interpreting is performed. This means that

there are two types of interpreting, namely liaison interpreting and conference

interpreting, and both make use of CI and SI which are simply different modes or

formats of interpretation.

Going back to the question of medical interpreting, while the layperson may

have come to see medical interpreting as a form of liaison interpreting in hospitals

due to professional norms or stereotypes, in my opinion, Gentile et al.stypology

suggests that medical interpreting can take the forms of both liaison and conference

interpreting. This is because their model does not loosely define every topic

interpreters deal with as a type of interpreting. The term medical in medical

interpreting simply suggests that the interpreter is working on a topic related to

medicine but it need not be seen as a separate type of interpreting. An interpreter

working at a medical conference, for example, would be doing conference


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interpreting. On the other hand, an interpreter facilitating communication between a

doctor and his or her patient would be doing liaison interpreting. Likewise, religious

interpreting could take either the form of liaison interpreting or conference

interpreting, and could be performed via either CI or SI depending on the context.

In the following sub-sections, I discuss the types and modes of interpreting in

detail with the aim of deciding where CSI should be placed in the typology.

2.2.1 Consecutive Interpreting (CI)According to Gentile et al. , CI entails waiting for the speaker to complete a speech

or a segment thereof before the interpreting begins . (1996, p. 22)This means that

any interpreting situation that involves turn-taking between a speaker and an

interpreter can be termed CI, regardless of how short or long the speakers

utterances may be. Going by this definition, CSI would fall under the category of CI.

Like Gentile et al., Jones (2002) calls CI a mode of interpreting (instead of

type) and he notes that CI requires the interpreter to listen to the totality of a

speakers comments, or at least a significant passage and then reconstitute the speech

with the help of notes tak en while listening. (2002, p. 5) Jones, and in fact, Gile

(1995), whose Effort Models are discussed in section 2.3, appear to include note-

taking as an important element in CI.

However, Jones does concede that some speakers prefer to speak only for a

few sentences before they are interpreted, in wh ich case the interpreter can perhaps

work without notes and rely solely on their memory to reproduce the whole speech.


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(2002, p. 5) This confirms that CSI, which neither requires nor allows notes to be

taken, can still be considered as a form of CI. However, in section 2.7, it becomes

clear that for the purpose of this study and because of how Gile (1995) defines CI in

his Effort models, a measure of distinction needs to be drawn between his concept of

CI and CSI.

2.2.2 Simultaneous Interpreting (SI)

According to Gentile et al. , SI entails starting the interpretation soon after thespeaker begins and continuing until just after the speaker has finished. (1996, p. 22)

Jones similarly defines SI as a mode of interpreting which requires the interpreter to

listen to the beginning of the speakers comments then begin interpreting while the

speech continues, carrying on throughout the speech, to finish almost at the same

time as the original and he notes that the interpreter is thus speaking simultaneously

to the original, hence the name. (2002, p. 5) Clearly, the main difference between CI

and SI lies in when the interpreter speaks. In CI, the interpreter does not speak at the

same time as the speaker. The opposite is true for SI.

SI is employed in some churches with large congregations with diverse

language needs. Hillsong Church London, for example, offers SI in Spanish,

Portuguese, Hungarian and Korean. (Hillsong Church London, n.d.) However, use of

SI in churches is very rare and lies beyond the scope of this study which investigates

CSI in the consecutive mode.


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2.2.3 Liaison Interpreting

I refer to Gentile et al. (1996) and Finlay (1973) for definitions of liaison interpreting.

I find that a comparison of the two sets of definitions helps to clarify what the essence

of liaison interpreting is.

According to Gentile et al. (1996), liaison interpreting has the following

characteristics:

(i) the interpreter works into and out of one language (e.g. an English-

Chinese interpreter would work into both English and Chinese andalso out of English and Chinese);

(ii) a relatively more intimate setting as compared to a more formal one in

conference settings; and

(iii) the size of the audience is much smaller than in conference settings.

Finlay notes that there is a clear distinction between ad hoc interpreting and

conference interpreting. (1973, p. 55) According to him, ad hoc interpreters are

people who are fluent in at least two languages and whose task is to ensure that

people who do not understand each others languagescan communicate. In his

definition, ad hoc interpreting is usually used in small groups of not more than five

people.

From Finlays description, it is clear that what he calls ad hoc interpreting is

really liaison interpreting. While Gentile et al. makes the distinction between liaison

interpreting and conference interpreting, Finlay distinguishes between ad hoc and

conference interpreting.


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The difference in terminology aside, both Gentile et al. and Finlay agree that

liaison or ad hoc interpreting is a two-way process (i.e. the interpreter does not only

interpret into one language but also works out of it), and usually happens in smaller

and more intimate settings compared to conference settings. With this understanding

in mind, it can be said that religious interpreting in some contexts are forms of liaison

interpreting. In my experience, interpretation of personal prayer requests could be one

of them.

When I was a member of a church in Fukushima, Japan, I interpreted for avisiting pastor from the US. Prayer requests were made by church members and the

pastor prayed for them on a one-to-one basis. I had to interpret the requests from

Japanese into English and then interpret the pastors prayers from English into

Japanese. In this case, only two interlocutors, i.e. the pastor and one church member,

were involved, the prayer requests were made in a relatively private and informal

setting, and the interpreter interpreted both into and out of each language.

By contrast, CSI interpreters, usually only interpret into one language, i.e. the

language of the congregation in which the pastors do not preach. The size of the

audience is also relatively larger and the setting is more formal. This suggests that

CSI is a form of conference interpreting.

2.2.4 Conference Interpreting

Gentile et al. (1996) acknowledges that the boundaries of conference interpreting and

liaison interpreting are not rigid or finite and the essential element which


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distinguishes these settings is that in one case the interpreter works into one language

only and in the other works both into and out of one language. (1996, p. 22) In other

words, Gentile et al. thinks that liaison interpreters work both into and out of

languages but conference interpreters work only into one language. This is disputable.

In real-life conference interpreting, it is possible for interpreters to work both

into and out of languages. Such languages are known as active languages and are

contrasted with passive languages. Jones explains that a passive language is a

language out of which an interpreter is capable of interpreting while an activelanguage is one into which they are capable of interpreting. (2002, p. 8) Jones goes

on to explain that ones mother tongue is usually onesbest active language. This

means that an interpreter can have more than one active language and this is a

practice that is endorsed by the International Association of Conference Interpreters

(AIIC, n.d.).

However, two points that Gentile et al. make about CI in conference

interpreting contexts are still relevant. Firstly, they say that in general, there is a

pronounced element of performance ; the interpreter is performing as a speaker in

public and is the focus of the audiences attention. (1996, p.22) Secondly, they note

that consecutive interpreters in conference settings usually have a large audience.

In this regard, CSI is a form of conference interpreting. This is because a CSI

interpreter usually has to interpret in front of a fairly large audience that is the entire

congregation as well as be in the limelight by standing next to the pastor on the

podium.


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In short, in the typology of interpreting, CSI is a form of conference

interpreting in consecutive mode.

2.3 Giles Effort Models

Gile (1995) has a fairly elaborate discussion of SI and CI processes which he

describes in terms of Efforts.His Effort Models provide a relevant framework for

this study because one of my aims is to identify the interpreting tasks , i.e. Efforts,

which CSI interpreters have to manage in their work.

2.3.1 Effort Model for SI

According to Gile (1995), SI can be modelled as a process consisting of three Efforts,

namely Listening and Analysis (L), Speech Production (P), Short Term Memory (M),

and Coordination (C). The Effort Model for SI can hence be described as: SI = L + P

+ M + C .

L refers to the effort to listen to the speaker and analyse his speech. In other

words, L is about comprehension. P refers to the verbal output of the interpreter.

M refers to the interpreters effort to retain information in the short term. This is

necessary because there would inevitably be a lag between the time the interpreter

hears the speakers utterance and the moment it is interpreted, so the interpreter

would have to retain the information she hears while she is still interpreting

information she heard seconds ago. Lastly, C refers to the effort required to

coordinate the aforementioned efforts.


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In Giles words, in the case of SI, at any point in time, each Effort deals with

a different speech segment: in the simplest case, Production acts on speech segment

A, while Memory acts on segment B which came after A, and Listening and Analysis

acts on segment C which came after B.(1995, p. 170)

Gile believes that each Effort has specific processing capacity requirements

(1995, p. 171) and notes that for interpretation to be done successfully, the

interpreters total available processing capacity must be equal to or less than the total

processing capacity requirements of all the Efforts put together. Circumstances thatcould cause the capacity required to exceed the processing capacity of the interpreter,

i.e. saturation point, include fast and dense speeches which could be beyond the

interpreters ability to process.

However, not every instance of interpreting gone wrong is a case of saturation.

Gile believes that sometimes, interpretation may not proceed smoothly not because

the interpreter does not have sufficient capacity but because she is mismanaging her

processing capacity. For example, she could be devoting too much capacity to P

because she wants to use the most elegant reformulation of a speech segment instead

of settling for a simpler rendition which would have left her with sufficient capacity

to deal with L. By not having sufficient capacity for L, she risks omitting a part of the

speakers intended message which she might not have heard.

Giles observations on capacity requirements also apply to the case of CI. In

short, the processing capacity requirements cannot exceed the in terpreters available

processing capacity. In addition, the interpreter must allocate her capacity in an


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optimal manner so that she can perform all the tasks the various Efforts require of her

at all times.

2.3.2 Effort Model for CI

Gile also developed the Effort Model for CI which consists of two phases termed the

listening and note-taking phase and the speech production phase.

Phase One, or the listening and note-taking phase, consists of Listening and

Analysis (L), Note-Taking (N), Short-Term Memory Operations (M) andCoordination (C). The Effort Model for Phase One of CI is hence described as:

Interpretation = L + N + M + C .

Phase Two, or the speech production phase, consists of Long-Term Memory

Operations (Rem), Note-Reading (Read) and Production (P). The Effort Model for

Phase Two of CI is hence described as: Interpretation = Rem + Read + P .

Efforts L, M, C and P in the CI model are the same as those in the SI model

explained in sub-section 2.3.1 but the Memory Effort (M) in CI is about the task of

remembering information between the point of hearing and writing down rather than

between the point of hearing and interpreting. Another slight difference is that the

Coordination Effort in CI coordinates Efforts L, N and M instead of Efforts L, P and

M. In addition, Effort P only appears in Phase Two, which is after the speaker has

ended a particular segment and the interpreter has finished taking the necessary notes.

Efforts N, Rem and Read are unique to the Effort Model for CI. Effort N

refers to note-taking which is necessary to help the interpreter recall content later on


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the social context of a text, the environment in which meanings are being exchanged

(Halliday and Hasan, 1989, p. 12).

Among the various data Halliday uses in his analysis is an excerpt from a

religious talk delivered by the Bishop of Woolwich on radio. I choose to quote this

example to introduce Hallidays concepts because its religious nature makes it an apt

illustration of how the concepts can be applied to the study of the CSI context later on.

According to Halliday , the field of discourse refers to what is happening,

to the nature of the social action that is taking place: what is it that the participants areenga ged in, in which the language figures as some essential component. (Halliday

and Hasan, 1989, p. 12) In other words, the field of discourse is also about the topic

being discussed. Halliday describes the field of the religious talk as the maintenance

of an institutionalised system of beliefs: the nature of the Christian religion, and of

peoples attitudes towards it, at a semi-technical level. (Halliday and Hasan, 1989,

p.14)

The tenor of discourse refers to the identities, statuses and roles of the

participants as well as the nature of their participation. This includes the permanent

and temporary relationships of one kind or another (Halliday and Hasan, 1989, p. 12)

among the participants. In other words, the relationship between the participants in

terms of power and formality is also included in the discussion of the tenor. In the

case of the religious talk, Halliday describes the tenor as being authority to

audience (Halliday and Hasan, 1989, p. 14). Halliday points out that the bishop in

this case has authority in two senses. He is firstly a person with authority in the


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Church and this is bestowed on him by virtue of his position as a bishop. On the other

hand, he is also an authority on religion, a theologian. (Halliday and Hasan, 1989, p.

14)

The mode of discourse , in short, refers to what part the language is

playing, what it is that the participants are expecting the language to do for them in

that situation. (Halliday and Hasan, 1989, p. 12) This includes the texts organisation,

status and function in the context as well as the channel, i.e. be it spoken, written or a

mixture of both. Halliday describes the mode of the bishops talk as that of a textthat was written in order to be read aloud, as a public act on the mass media

(Halliday and Hasan, 1989, p. 14) and he notes that it is a monologue and also a

persuasive text.

2.5 Xin Da Ya

The third objective of my study is to identify the CSI interpreters priorities. In other

words, I want to find out which among the core requirements of good interpreting

would the interpreter sacrifice or not sacrifice when she has difficulty satisfying all

the requirements. Before I can do this, however, I need to stipulate what the core

requirements of good interpreting are. To that end, I refer to Yan Fus concept of xin

da ya .

Although xin da ya and the other concepts I will be discussing in this section

usually appear in the context of translation (written), rather than interpreting (spoken),

I believe that they are relevant to my study because the focus on the act of converting


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messages from one language into another applies to both translation and interpreting.

Besides, translation theories appear to offer more well-established frameworks and

ideas for me to work with while interpreting-specific research as regards the criteria

of good language conversion appear to be scant in comparison.

There are various English translations of xin da ya . For example, Munday

translates it as fidelity, fluency and elegance (2008, p. 28) whileHsu (1901/2004)

translates it as faithfulness, comprehensibility and elegance. To me, fidelity and

faithfulness are one and the same but I personally prefer fidelity as a translationof xin. For this study, I will use the translation of fidelity, comprehensibility and

elegance due to reasons explained insection 3.6.1 in the research methodology

section.

Xin da ya was a concept which originated in the writings of Yan Fu, a

renowned Chinese translator in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries (Schwartz, 1964).

Yan wrote in the preface to his translation of Evolution and Ethics that there were

three requirements that were difficult to fulfil in translation: xin da ya (Hsu,

1901/2004), i.e. fidelity, comprehensibility and elegance. Yan did not mean to set the

three qualities as the definitive standards of translation but nevertheless, xin da ya

gradually became commonly accepted as the hallmarks of good translation, especially

in Chinese academic circles.

Munday (2008) notes that some scholars have claimed th at Yans work was

influenced by Alexander Fraser Tytler. There are in fact some similarities between


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Yans xin da ya and Tytlers three general laws of translation. Tytlers laws are as

follows:

(i) the translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the

original work;

(ii) the style and manner of writing should be of the same character with

that of the original; and

(iii) the translation should have all the ease of the original composition.

(Munday, 2008, p. 27)Apart from Yan and Tytler, others such as Katharina Reiss and Hans J.

Vermeer have also put forward their own rules of translation. Reiss and Vermeer's

skopos theory is one oft-quoted example of translation theory. According to Munday,

skopos theory focuses above all on the purpose of the translation, which determines

the translation methods and strategies that are to be employed in order to produce a

functionally adequate result. (2008, p. 79) Therefore, even though skopos theory

emphasises that, among other things, the translated product must be internally

coherent and also coherent with the source text, the purpose of translation is placed at

the apex of its hierarchy of rules.

Among the various translation theories available, I have decided to use Yans

xin da ya for two reasons. Firstly, the three qualities fidelity, comprehensibility and

elegance sum up the basic requirements of good interpreting quite comprehensively.

An interpreters job is to convey a speakers message in another language, so to do

that, she would have to say what the speaker said (fidelity), ensure that the message is


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conveyed (comprehensibility) and speak the target language well (elegance).

Secondly, xin da ya is a flexible concept which allows me to look at each of the three

requirements in turn without pre-assigning scales of importance to them. By contrast,

both Tytler and Reiss have laid out their rules in a clear hierarchical order, so to adopt

their hierarchies would be to run contrary to my objective of discovering the CSI

interpreters prior ities based on her output.

2.6 Performance of Charismatic ChristianityThe following excerpt taken from the writings of a scholar who undertook an in-

depth study into Charismatic Christianity gives a good idea of how services are set up

in the Charismatic tradition.

I found myself sitting not in the Victorian Gothic pile that I hadenvisioned but in a school hall on the edge of the city . The sermon was preached by a visiting Welshman although I admired the force andeloquence of his oration (and was surprised by its humour), I recall being evenmore struck by his keen control of the choreography and tone of theservice . Halfway through the hymn, the visiting preacher pushed the

pianist aside from his stool, took over the playing and transformed the hymninto a boogie- woogie version of itself. The hall erupted on cue.

(Coleman, 2000, p. 17)

Colemans observations in this excerpt echo what I experienced in renewalist

churches in the past six years. Among other things, he speak s of the preachers

eloquent and humorous delivery. This coincides with my impression of Charismatic

sermons. Charismatic preachers are usually articulate and they invariably strive to


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ensure that they do not lose the attention of their audience by using humour and

questions that elicit responses such as Amen from the congregation.

Coleman also observes that Charismatic Christianity makes use of

powerfully charged language (2000, p. 117). Coupled with the loud and upbeat

worship music, it is no wonder that some people have said to me that attending a

Charismatic service is akin to attending a rock concert and a motivational talk all at

once. Regardless of how it may be described, the theatrical aspects in terms of the

momentum and the emotional charge of delivery are clearly very recognisablefeatures of Charismatic services, and they create an atmosphere which is distinctly

different from the relatively more subdued styles of most other denominations.

2.7 Charismatic Sermon Interpreting (CSI)

As mentioned in sub-section 2.2.2, churches sometimes use SI for particularly large

congregations with diverse language needs. However, more often than not

Christian interpreters find themselves onstage, next to the speaker. In such cases, the

speaker gives part of their message, ranging from a few words to the equivalent of a

paragraph before pausing to allow the interpreter to speak, and then continuing.

(Downie, 2009). Downie calls this form of CI Short Intervention Consecutive or

short consec.

As expla ined in section 2.6, the theatrics of Charismatic services are a

notable characteristic of such services. According to Downie (2009), interpreters are

often seen as co-preachers and are even expected to relay the same energy and


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enthusiasm as the spea ker. This means that the CSI interpreter has to match the

emotional charge of her preacher.

In a nutshell, as mentioned in sub-section 2.2.4, CSI is usually a form of

conference interpreting performed in, in Downies terms, short consec mode. When

performing CSI, the interpreter has to ensure that she plays her part not just by doing

the interpretation verbally but also by playing her role as the preachers co-actor in

the delivery of a sermon which makes use of a wider range of vocal expression in

comparison to other styles of sermon delivery.

2.8 Chapter Summary

In this chapter, I explored how CSI could be categorised in terms of type and mode. I

also explained key concepts such as Giles Effort Models, Hallidays field, tenor and

mode, and Yan Fu s xin da ya , i.e. fidelity, comprehensibility and elegance. The

performance of Charismatic Christianity and CSI was also discussed.


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CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction

This chapter explains the research methodology of this study. Section 3.2 introduces

the data, while section 3.3 explains how they were transcribed and processed. The

subsequent sections clarify how the tasks, constraints and priorities of CSI are

identified. Finally, section 3.7 lists the assumptions underlying this study.

3.2 Choice of Data

For the purpose of this dissertation, I have chosen to study an audio recording of a

Charismatic pastors sermon which is interpreted into Chinese (Mandarin). In the

recording, the preacher, Pastor Kong Hee, is heard preaching to a congregation of a

church in Malaysia which he was visiting. A disc containing this recording is

enclosed together with this thesis. The choice of data is appropriate for three reasons.

Firstly, Pastor Kong Hee is a Christian leader rooted in the Charismatic

Movement in Singapore (Kong, n.d.). This means that his sermons, including the one

in the recording, are delivered in a style that is representative of Charismatic

preachers.

Secondly, I have watched the interpreter interpret Pastor Kong live on

numerous occasions and it is clear to me that she has had much experience in

Charismatic sermon interpreting. Therefore, the interpreter is one who should be


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reasonably au fait with sermon interpreting in the Charismatic tradition and this

makes the data meaningful for this research.

The third reason is a practical one. Authentic recordings of interpreters are

difficult to obtain, so the authenticity and availability of this audio recording made it

a natural choice for my study.

3.3 Transcription and Processing of Data

The recording is almost 50 minutes long but I have decided to transcribe and analysesix minutes in total: two minutes each from the beginning (00:00 02:00), middle

(24:00 26:00) and final (47:45 49:45) sections. There are two reasons for this.

Firstly, the data from the three sections have yielded clear and consistent

patterns. Hence, I think the six-minute long data are rich enough to represent the

recording overall. Secondly, my data analysis is essentially qualitative in nature, and

for the kind of in-depth, utterance-by-utterance analysis necessary for the

identification of CSI priorities, six minutes of the recording is an appropriate and

manageable length in view of the scope of this MA dissertation.

Nevertheless, it is true that the hierarchy of CSI priorities would only be

conclusive if there was a much larger sample size. However, as explained in section

1.3, this study is meant to be exploratory. Moreover, every effort has been made to

ensure that the data used provide good real-life, authentic examples of CSI so that my

findings are meaningful.


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3.4 Identification of Tasks

My first objective is to identify the CSI interpreters tasks. To that end, I will

examine the processes involved in the CSI interpret ers work and articulate them

through formulae inspired by GilesEffort Models as explained in section 2.3.

3.5 Identification of Constraints

I believe that interpreters will always strive to perform as well as they possibly can. It

is unlikely that any interpreter would wilfully deliver an interpretation that is lessthan desirable. However, there are times when certain constraints could prevent them

from delivering their best performance. To identify those constraints, I would need to

understand the context that the CSI interpreter operates in.

I aim to gain an understanding of the CSI context by using the concepts of

field, tenor and mode (Halliday and Hasan, 1989) as explained in section 2.4. I will

then proceed to investigate how such a context may pose challenges for the

interpreter. It will become clear that some of these challenges may in fact have a

positive impact on the CSI interpreters performance. However,this study is more

interested in the ones which constrain her performance. This is because such

constraints, which make it difficult for the interpreter to meet all processing capacity

requirements (Gile, 1995), would compel the interpreter to decide what she should

focus on with her limited processing capacity, i.e. what her priorities are.


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3.6 Identification of Priorities

My third objective is to find out which of the core interpreting requirements the

interpreter in my data would prioritise when it is not possible to meet all of them.

Before I can identify the priorities, I need to decide what the core

requirements are. As mentioned in section 2.5, I find Yan Fus xin da ya, i.e. fidelity,

comprehensibility and elegance, useful for this purpose.Sub-section 3.6.1 further

explains how I use the xin da ya concept to define the four core requirements of

interpreting, namely fidelity, comprehensibility, textual elegance and elegance indelivery .

To identify the priorities, I will analyse the transcript of the interpretation (see

appendix), investigate which of the four criteria are satisfied or not satisfied for each

utterance, and tabulate the results accordingly. The more often a requirement is met,

the higher the priority it is deemed to have. An utterance is defined as the words or

sounds uttered before pausing for the pastor or the interpreter to take his or her turn to

speak.

3.6.1 Fidelity, Comprehensibility and Elegance

As explained in section 2.5, I shall translate Yan Fus xin da ya as fidelity,

comprehensibility and elegance for the purpose of this study.

As this is an exploratory study, I shall talk about fidelity, comprehensibility

and elegance in their most basic terms. In this thesis, fidelity refers to the complete

interpretation of the semantic content of the speakers utterance while the


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comprehensibility requirement is concerned with whether the meaning of the

interpreters utterance is clear to the intended audience. Elegance is examined on two

levels: firstly, whether the output of the interpreter is made up of well-formed and

idiomatic expressions in the targ et language; secondly, whether the interpreters

extralinguistic performance makes her a competent co-preache r (Downie, 2009).

I find using fidelity, comprehensibility and elegance to refer to Yan Fus

concept more appropriate for the purpose of this study than other versions such as

fidelity, fluency and elegance (Munday, 2008, p. 28). This is because the mentionof fluency in the context of interpreting brings to mind the flow of speech,

enunciation and other articulatory matters which are not within the scope of this study.

For my purpose, comprehensibility is a clearer indication of what I seek to

investigate, i.e. whether the audience can understand the interpreters utterances.

As for elegance, I am concerned not with the literary sophistication of the

interpreters output but with elegance in its simplest terms: firstly, whether the

interpreters utterances are well-formed, natural expressions in Chinese (textual

elegance) and secondly, whether the interpreter delivers her interpretation in a

manner that is appropriate to the CSI context (elegance in delivery).

3.6.2 Analysis of Fidelity

According to Nida, Since no two languages are identical there can be no absolute

correspondence between languages. Hence there can be no fully exa ct translations.

(2004, p. 153) Therefore, to satisfy the requirement of fidelity, the interpreter need


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not interpret word-for-word but she must interpret the semantic content of the

speakers utterance in its entirety.

I admit this is not always an easy call but I believe that the following

principles which I have set for myself provide clear guidelines as to what is

semantically complete and what is not.

First and foremost, every semantic idea in the pastors original utterance must

be included. The interpreter may choose to use words with different meanings and

sentence structures but she has to convey every idea contained in the originalutterance. Simply put, if the pastor mentions apples and oranges, it would not

suffice for the interpreter to say only apples. Example 3.1 illustrates what I mean

by full reproduction of the semantic content.

EXAMPLE 3.1 (full reproduction of semantic content)

(24:38)

Pastor: All it does is to showcase your talent.

Interpreter:

(Literally: This only demonstrates your talent, thats all.)

In Example 3.1, the semantic ideas are all it does and showcase your

talent. The interpreters utterance includes both of the corresponding ideas, namely for all it does (or this only thats all) and

for showcase your talent (or demonstrates your talent).


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In this study, I include interjections that carry meaning in my definition of

semantic ideas and they must be interpreted just like all other semantic ideas. On

the other hand, I do not consider omissions of interjections or particles that do not

carry any semantic information , such as you know in Example 3.8, a breach of

fidelity.

Example 3.2 is an instance of the interpreter interpreting an interjection which

is semantically significant.

EXAMPLE 3.2 (reprod uction of a meaningful interjection)

(24:42)

Pastor: Oh, you are a good copier.

Interpreter:

(Literally: You are just somebody who is good at copying.)

In Example 3.2, the ohis delivered with a perceptible hint of sarcasm in the

pastors tone which reveals that this is a deprecating statement about you, i.e. You

are nothing more than a good copier. This means that the oh actually has

semantic significance , as it changes you are a good copier, a relatively neutral

utterance, into a clearly negative statement about you.Although the ohis apparently missing from the interpretation, the

interpreter is able to fill the gap by adding the word just () to convey the


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pastors disapproving tone. Therefore, the interpreter is still able to capture the entire

semantic content of the pastors utterance without repeating the oh outright.

Conversely, if there are omissions, additions or distortions of the semantic

content, the interpreter would be deemed to have failed the fidelity requirement.

EXAMPLE 3.3 (breach of fidelity with omission and addition)

(47:58)

Pastor: Cry to God with your heart.

Interpreter:

(Literally: Learn to call out to him loudly.)

In Example 3.3, the interpreter included learn and excluded your heart in

her interpretation. Therefore, she does not satisfy the fidelity requirement here, as the

semantic content of her interpretation does not match that of the pastors utterance.

3.6.3 Analysis of Comprehensibility

To satisfy the requirement of comprehensibility, the members of the congregation

relying on the interpretation must be able to understand the interpreters utterance .

Although it is not possible for me to interview the congregation, I do share the same

Chinese language background as most Christians who are native speakers of


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Mandarin Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia, so I am in a good position to make

sound judgements as regards comprehensibility.

My analysis of comprehensibility is concerned with whether the audience is

able to understand the meaning of the interpreters utterance. Therefore, there is no

relation to the pastors utterances. In the following examples, I reproduce the pastors

utterance only for reference purposes.

EXAMPLE 3.4 (comprehensible)(00:33)

Pastor: To be above and not beneath.

Interpreter:

(Literally: To be above and not beneath.)

In Example 3.4, the interpreters utterance is comprehensible.

EXAMPLE 3.5 (awkward Chinese but still comprehensible)

(24:29)

Pastor: So you say, Oh, this pastor did this, I also want to have his dream.

Interpreter:

(Literally: Wow, you want tomake this dream , I want to have such a dream

too.)


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It is not idiomatic to s ay or literally, make dreams in this context.

However, a Chinese-speaking Christian like me would have no problem in

understanding what the interpreter is trying to convey. Therefore, even though this

utterance sounds slightly awkward, the interpreter still meets the comprehensibility

requirement.

EXAMPLE 3.6 (incomprehensible)

(48:46)

Pastor: God is not calling you to a diminished life.

Interpreter:

(Approximation: God did not call you just so that you will never receive in

this life.)

This is an example which I would deem incomprehensible because it was only

after several attempts at decoding the interpreters utterance that I could arrive at the

above approximation. Incidentally, this utterance also fails the fidelity requirement

because a diminished life is not necessarily a life in which one will never receive

blessings.


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3.6.4 Analysis of Elegance

There are two levels of analysis for elegance; one is textual and the other is based

on performance.

On the textual level, to satisfy the requirement of elegance , the interpreters

utterances must be made up of only idiomatic and natural Chinese expressions .

There should not be any awkward expressions or phrases bearing undesirable

influence from the source language.

On the level of performance, the interpreter must be able to deliver herinterpretation, not just as an interpreter, but also as a co-actor , complete with the

emotional charge required to achieve the pastors intended effect. This is because as

mentioned in se ction 2.7, such interpreters are often seen as co- preachers and are

even expected to relay the same energy and enthusiasm as the speaker.(Downie,

2009) Unfortunately, as I do not have a video recording of the sermon, I am not able

to observe the inter preters body language. However, it is possible for me to focus on

her use of voice with the audio recording.

As my analysis shows that the interpreter made impressive use of her voice in

terms of dynamics, range and colour for every utterance, my following examples will

focus only on the textual level so that the reader will understand how I decide

whether an utterance is elegant or not.


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EXAMPLE 3.7 (idiomatic Chinese)

(24:55)

Pastor: When you are pregnant with a dream.

Interpreter:

(Liter ally: When you bear/carry a dream.)

Example 3.7 is an example which satisfies the elegance requirement. Instead

of giving a literal translation of pregnant which would notmake sense, theinterpreter used the word , which means to bear or to carry.

EXAMPLE 3.8 (awkward Chinese)

(00:23)

Pastor: You know, my good friend, Abraham Khoo in Taiwan, said this.

Interpreter:

(Literally: My good friend, Abraham Khoo in Taiwan, said this.)

The above example illustrates two things. First, interpreters may end up using

awkward Chinese if they are unduly influenced by the structure of English. Instead of

reordering the words to say , the

interpreter simply interpreted word-for-word, resulting in awkward-sounding Chinese.


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Second, although the interpreter does not satisfy the textual elegance

requirement, her audience would still be able to understand her perfectly and her

interpretation has captured the entire semantic content of the pastor s original

utterance. Therefore, it is possible to satisfy the fidelity and comprehensibility

requirements while failing the textual elegance requirement.

Finally, I would like to revisit Example 3.1. Although the interpreter s

utterance in the example is by itself a well-formed Chinese sentence, it sounds

awkward when it follows (Then I tell you,when this dream comes to pass. ). One possible formulation which could satisfy the

elegance requirement would be (Approximation: It

only demonstrates your tal ent, thats all.) It is clear from this example that the co-

text has to be considered when assessing the elegance of utterances because the

audience relying on the interpretation listens not only to individual utterances but to

the entire interpretation, so cohesion is a factor in determining if the Chinese output is

well-formed.

3.7 Assumptions

As I am neither able to conduct interviews with the pastor nor with the interpreter, I

need to make a few assumptions in my analysis. Given that I am a church-going

native speaker of Chinese who grew up in Singapore and have seen the pastor and

interpreter working in a cultural context I am familiar with on numerous occasions, I


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believe that I have the necessary background knowledge to make valid assumptions

for the purpose of this analysis.

The first assumption that I make is that the interpreter in my data is a native

speaker of Chinese. Thus, any marked observation in her interpretation is not due to

her lack of proficiency in the target language.

The second assumption is that the interpreter in my data is an experienced CSI

interpreter. Thus, any marked observation in her interpretation is not due to

inexperience.The third assumption has to do with the identification of CSI priorities, i.e. the

core requirements which the interpreter satisfies more often than others. It would

appear that by attempting to identify the priorities through the interpreters output, I

am assuming that the interpreter makes conscious and deliberate efforts at

channelling her processing capacity towards fulfilling requirements that are of a

higher priority. In reality, there could be other reasons why an interpreter may fulfil

some requirements more often than others. For example, an interpreter may satisfy

the textual elegance requirement more often than she meets the fidelity requirement

because she could have an excellent command of the target language but her listening

skills and memory are poor. This would mean that she is naturally disposed to

making textual elegance her priority due to her own competencies or weaknesses and

not because she personally thinks that elegance should take priority over fidelity.

Again, as I have no access to the CSI interpreter in my data, it would be

impossible to find out why she satisfied or did not satisfy requirements in specific


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instances. On the other hand, I believe that even with an interview, it is not

necessarily true that the interpreter herself would remember the details of her

performance or be aware of why she made certain decisions. In any case, bearing in

mind that this study is strictly an empirical observation of the interpreters output, the

motivations behind the prioritisations is immaterial because what I hope to do is to

describe what is occurring in the data rather than to prove the reasons for their

occurrence.

Furthermore, it is worthwhile pointing out that the data is a recording of awell-known pastor who founded the largest church in Singapore (The Christian Post,

2009) and the interpreter in the recording is one who has interpreted this pastor at

large-scale events countless times. I believe such an experienced interpreter would be

au fait with the objectives of sermon interpreting and she would strive to perform

according to accepted CSI norms.

3.8 Chapter Summary

In this chapter, I have explained the research methodology of this study. I have

justified my choice of data, outlined my research design and explained my

assumptions.


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CHAPTER FOUR

CSI TASKS

4.1 Introduction

This chapter discusses the tasks CSI interpreters undertake in the course of their work.

The objective is to articulate these interpreting tasks through formulae adapted from

Giles Effort Models (1995) discussed in section 2.3.

4.2 CSI Tasks

As explained in sub-section 2.2.1, CSI may be considered as a form of CI because of

its turn-taking feature. Therefore, CSI tasks take place in two phases, as do Giles CI

tasks. I would describe Phase One, which takes place while the preacher speaks, as

Interpretation = L + M and Phase Two, which takes place while the interpreter

speaks, as Interpretation = (Rem) + P .

4.2.1 CSI Phase One

In CSI Phase One, the interpreter has to listen to and analyse the preachers utterance

(L) before she can understand it and commit the message to her short-term memory

(M).

Compared to Giles description of CI in Phase One, i.e.Interpretation = L + N

+ M + C, one clear difference in my description of CSI in Phase One is that N (Note-

Taking) and C (Coordination) do not exist.


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Effort N is not included in my equation because note-taking and note-reading

are neither required nor possible in CSI for practical and stylistic reasons. As I

explained in Chapter One, CSI involves a literally ceaseless flow of turn-taking.

Therefore, an interpreter taking and r eading notes would be liable to miss the beat

and fail to interpret immediately after the preachers brief utterance. Stylistically, the

congregation would find it odd to have a sermon interpreter taking notes when

standing next to her preacher in the pulpit, as notebooks and pens are rarely, if ever,

used in CSI or any form of sermon interpreting I have seen. Some may also argue thatgiven the short utterances the interpreters deal with, their short-term memory should

be sufficient for the purpose of interpreting. Therefore, Effort N does not exist in CSI.

Although Effort C is included in Giles description of CI Phase One and SI, it

is absent from CI Phase Two where the interpreter is free to perform at his or her

own pace. This is because unlike the first phase and simultaneous interpretation, the

interpreter does not have to share processing capacity between tasks while close to

saturation neither does there seem to be a need to introduce the Coordination

Effort. (1995, p. 180) Similarly, I do not think there is a need to introduce Effort C

in CSI Phase One either. Although Effort M (short-term memory) arguably occurs a

little after Effort L (listening and analysis), as the interpreter would have to listen and

understand something before committing it to memory, the amount of effort required

to coordinate the two tasks is minimal compared to the coordination efforts in Giles

CI Phase One and SI models. In fact, the effort required to coordinate L and M in CSI

Phase One is likely to be even smaller than in Giles CI Phase Two because the


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interpreter performing CI with notes does have to make a conscious effort to ensure

that she can concurrently decode her notes (Read) and maintain a smooth flow of

output (P) while drawing on her long-term memory bank (Rem).

4.2.2 CSI Phase Two

While the preacher is the one speaking in CSI Phase One, the interpreter takes her

turn to speak in CSI Phase Two. In the majority of the situations, this production of

output (Effort P) is all that the interpreter needs to do in CSI Phase Two. However, asDownie (2009) notes, the speaker may give part of his message consisting of a few

words or may decide to speak for as long as a paragraph before he stops to let the

interpreter take over. In my experience attending Charismatic services with

interpreting, it is rare that the speaker would speak for an extended period beyond one

or two sentences. However, I do recall that it has happened and in such circumstances,

the interpreter will be expected to draw on her long-term memory resources to

perform her tasks in CSI Phase Two. This is why I have included Effort Rem in the

formula for this phase. Rem is in brackets because it only features in very rare

situations, and hence is not a default task in CSI.

Once again, as is the case with CSI Phase One, there is no need to include

Effort C even if Effort Rem is in the equation because the coordination required

would be minimal by Giles standards.


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4.3 Fewer Tasks = Easier Job?

Although my description of CSI tasks appears t o be simpler than Giles version of CI

and SI tasks, it does not mean that CSI is necessarily easier. For one, CSI interpreters

have absolutely no control over their pace. Even in SI, the speakers delivery will not

be disrupted even if the interpreter pauses for an extra second to think of a suitable

translation but in CSI, the interpreter must start interpreting immediately after the

preacher finishes his utterance and if she fumbles or hesitates, the pastors flow of

delivery will be severely impaired. Therefore, performing the interpreting tasks, nomatter how few, under such relentless time pressure cannot be easy. Chapter Five

explains in greater detail the constraints which CSI interpreters have to face.

4.4 Chapter Summary

This chapter has identified and discussed the interpreting tasks in CSI, and has thus

achieved the first objective of this study.


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CHAPTER FIVE

CSI CONSTRAINTS

5.1 Introduction

The second objective of my study is to identify the constraints the context of CSI

places on interpreters. To this end, I shall use Hallidays framework comprising the

field, the tenor and the mode to frame the CSI context.

5.2 Field of CSI

In the recording I have chosen to study, t he sermon entitled The Journey of a

Dreamis delivered by Pastor Kong Hee who preaches about how Christians should

receive their dreams from God and pursue them with faith based on biblical teachings.

Therefore, the field of the sermon is similar to that of the bishops talk quoted in

section 2.4, i.e. the maintenance of an institutionalised system of beliefs

(Halliday and Hasan, 1989, p.14).

Also similar to what Halliday observed in the bishops talk, Pastor Kongs

message is one that is of a persuasive nature. This is due to the fact that of the seven

key points made in the sermon (see Figure 5.1), the first six are in the imperative.

Thus, it is evident that the pastor is attempting to influence his audiences behaviour .


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Figure 5.1: Key points of The Journey of a Dream

On the other hand, P astor Kongs sermon differs from the bishops radio talk

in that it was delivered in front of a live audience. Therefore, in the recording, one

can hear the pastor eliciting responses such as Amen and Hallelujah from the

congregation to ensure that his live audience was engaged. Such communicative

strategies are characteristic of Charismatic services I have attended.

Apart from the Charismatic preachers message and engagement with the

audience, the contemporary nature of the service also shapes the unique context of

Charismatic Christianity. As mentioned in section 2.6, the mood of Charismatic

services is generally more upbeat and emotive than solemn, and the music used is

more contemporary compared to traditional hymns. In the recording, Pastor Kong, as

do most Charismatic preachers I have seen, maintains a light-hearted and

(i) Point One: Get a dream from God.

(ii) Point Two: Ask God for a strategy to accomplish the dream.

(iii) Point Three: Wait for the Holy Spirit to come.

(iv) Point Four: Receive the Word from God. (The pastor said rhema

instead of word. According to BibleStudyTools.com, rhema

also means word.)

(v) Point Five: Surrender your will to God.

(vi)

Point Six: Do not be discouraged when the dream seems to be lost.(vii) Point Seven: Your dream will keep on growing once you have it.


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conversational style of delivery. Similar to what usually happens at Charismatic

services I attend, the conclusion of the sermon is accompanied by the band playing

light contemporary worship music sotto voce .

For the CSI interpreter in my data, the field would hence be the persuasive

and engaging interpretation of the pastors biblical message into the language of the

congregation in a contemporary church setting .

5.3 Tenor of CSIAs mentioned in section 2.4, Halliday describes the tenor of the bishops radio talk as

being authority to audience . (Halliday and Hasan, 1989, p. 14). This also applies

to Charismatic sermons because the preachers would have authority as theologians.

More often than not, they are also church leaders, so they would have authority in

terms of position as well, as was the case with the bishop. Pastor Kong, for example,

is the senior pastor of City Harvest Church in Singapore (Kong, n.d.).

The CSI interpreter would also be an authority by virtue of her position as the

de facto co-preacher whom the preacher has to rely on to have his message heard and

whom the congregation has to depend on to understand the sermon. This authority is

in part derived from her linguistic ability, which is a prerequisite for her role, and

partly because of the preacher and congregations dependency on her. However, her

authority would not exceed that of the originator of the message, i.e. the pastor.

Furthermore, in my experience, although CSI interpreters would generally need to

have biblical knowledge before they can be entrusted with the task of sermon


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interpreting, they are not expected to have as much theological training as preachers

and are not necessarily church leaders themselves. Therefore, the interpreters

authority is different from and less than the preachers.

Taking the subject of the interpreters authority further, it should be noted that

although the CSI interpreter enjoys a certain amount of authority, as she is the

indispensable medium of communication between the preacher and the congregation,

she is also accountable to both: she needs to convey the preachers message correctly

in her translated version and she also has to ensure that the congregation understandsthe pastors message. Therefore, even though the interpreter may have a share of the

limelight as the co- preacher, her role is ultimately a subordinate one and she is only

given as much authority as is required to serve the preacher and the congregation.

Lastly, the congregation also plays an important part in the tenor of

Charismatic sermons. This is evident from how Pastor Kong continually tries to

engage the audience with animated use of his tone and frequent elicitations of

responses from the congregation. Charismatic preachers also often make liberal use

of big gestures and space on the stage to make their delivery more interesting.

Likewise, the interpreter is expected to perform her part accordingly. All this shows

that the c ongregations attention is not taken for granted but something which the

preacher and interpreter have to constantly woo. This acute awareness of the need to

actively engage the audience and the constant efforts at doing so characterise the

highly communicative style of Charismatic services.


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In view of the above features, the tenor of CSI could be described as the

interpreter serving as a linguistic medium transmitting information dictated by the

preacher to the congregation whose attention the preacher and interpreter constantly

seek .

5.4 Mode of CSI

While seasoned Charismatic preachers often appear to be naturally spontaneous when

speaking to their audience, their impactful and inspiring delivery is more likely to bethe result of careful preparation than a complete improvisation. It would take a

separate study to investigate the delivery of Charismatic sermons thoroughly but as

an observer, I have noticed that Charismatic preachers often have well-timed gestures,

and they rarely show signs of hesitation and disfluency throughout sermons lasting at

least about half an hour. Such a degree of fluency is unlikely to be achieved without

any preparation at all. However, it is not possible for me to judge if all Charismatic

preachers have their speeches written down as the Bishop of Woolwich did.

Therefore, instead of written to be read aloud (Halliday and Hasan, 1989, p.14),

the mode of Charismatic sermons could be more broadly phrased as prepared to be

performed.

A distinguishing feature of renewalist services I have attended, including the

Charismatic ones, is the emotional charge. For example, to maintain the uplifting

spirit of their sermons and capture the attention of their audience, Charismatic

preachers tend to elicit responses from the congregation, project their voice more and


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speak at a more rapid pace which helps to sustain the energetic pulse underpinning

their services. Therefore, CSI interpreters would have to maintain the same

momentum when called on to perform their duties. This could explain why the turn-

taking between the preacher and interpreter has to be done so rapidly so that the

infectious drive to act is not lost as the preacher appeals to his audience to adopt or

maintain lifestyles in accordance with the teachings of the Bible.

To summarise, the mode of the CSI interpreter could be described as

dynamic conference interpretation (in consecutive mode) of a sermon prepared and performed by a preacher and aimed at persuading the audience.

5.5 Constraints in CSI

Having examined the field, tenor and mode, I shall now proceed to discuss how the

context of CSI may pose challenges for the interpreter and how these challenges may

prevent the interpreter from giving her most immaculate performance.

5.5.1 Subordination

Firstly, the subordination of the interpreter to the preacher is a factor that could

constrain the interpreters performance.

For instance, the field and tenor of CSI find the interpreter in a position which

is disadvantageous in terms of speaking rights because she has to be committed to

repeating what the preacher says and has no room to improvise content; this could be

a problem when she does not entirely understand what the preacher is saying. Other


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than the fact that her output is dictated by the preacher, she is also constrained by the

fact that she is, more often than not, less of an authority in theology than the preacher

is. Thus, she may not know the examples or even anecdotes which the preacher may

bring up. In short, there is always a possibility that she may encounter something

unfamiliar. It is therefore of paramount importance that she listens (Effort L) and

remembers (Effort M) what the preacher says.

This constraint could be less of an obstacle if the interpreter is able to prepare

beforehand by obt aining a copy of the preachers speech, although it is unlikely thatthe interpreter would ever be able to eliminate the constraint of subordination by truly

knowing the preachers speech better than the preacher himself.

5.5.2 Time Constraint and Obligatory Emotional Charge

With regard to the mode, the interpreter has to overcome the time constraint of

having to keep up with the pace of the speaker (as explained in section 4.3) while

maintaining the emotional charge. This is because unlike Giles CI with note-taking,

CSI is such that the interpreter has to literally speak immediately after each utterance

made by the preacher who would himself be speaking to an up-tempo beat. On the

other hand, the positive side to this could be that the CSI interpreter may herself be

inspired by the emotional charge in the preachersfast-paced delivery and this could

provide the drive for her to deliver a more spontaneous and impactful interpretation,

thus enhancing her production (Effort P).


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5.5.3 Processing Requirements

The tasks which the interpreter has to deal with in Phase One, i.e. Effort L and Effort

M, have to be performed very quickly because of the rapid pace of delivery.

Furthermore, given the brevity of the utterances, it is possible that the

preacher may sometimes give very little context in individual utterances. The

interpreter may then have to analyse more carefully to anticipate what the preacher

may say next in Effort L so that her reformulation would make sense. If she allocates

too much processing capacity and time to this listening and analysing effort, shemight fumble with her output in Effort P because she would not be able to react in

time to think of a good translation which is comprehensible and idiomatic all at once.

5.6 Chapter Summary

This chapter has examined the field, tenor and mode of CSI and offered insights into

the constraints placed on CSI interpreters.


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CHAPTER SIX

CSI PRIORITIES

6.1 Introduction

The third objective of my study is to identify the priorities in CSI. In this chapter, I

present the results of my analysis and state the hierarchy of priorities.

6.2 Hierarchy of PrioritiesSection Total no. of

utterances(%)

No. ofutterancesthat meetfidelity

requirement(%)

No. ofutterancesthat meet

comprehensi-bility

requirement(%)

No. ofutterancesthat meet

textualelegance

requirement(%)

No. ofutterancesthat meetelegance

requirementin delivery

(%)00:00 02:00

30 (100) 27 (90) 30 (100) 20 (66.7) 30 (100)

24:00 26:00

35 (100) 31 (88.6) 35 (100) 31 (88.6) 35 (100)

47:45 49:45

43 (100) 38 (88.4) 41 (95.3) 36 (83.7) 43 (100)

Averagerate of

meetingrequirement

89% 98.43% 77.67% 100%

Figure 6.1: Summary of findings in transcript

Figure 6.1 presents a summary of my findings from analysing the transcript in

the appendix. In the first two minutes of the recording, out of a total of 30 utterances,

27 satisfied the fidelity requirement, all 30 satisfied the comprehensibility

requirement and 20 satisfied the textual elegance requirement. In the 24th to 26th


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minutes, out of a total of 35 utterances, 31 satisfied the fidelity requirement, all 35

utterances satisfied the comprehensibility requirement and 31 utterances satisfied the

textual elegance requirement. In the last two minutes of the recording, out of a total

of 43 utterances, 38 satisfied the fidelity requirement, 41 satisfied the

comprehensibility requirement and 36 satisfied the textual elegance requirement. In

all three sections, the elegance requirement was satisfied in every instance in terms of

delivery.

Figure 6.1 also shows that on average, the fidelity requirement was satisfiedin 89 per cent of all utterances, the comprehensibility requirement was satisfied in

98.43 per cent of all utterances, the textual elegance requirement was satisfied in

77.67 per cent of all utterances and the requirement of elegance in delivery was

satisfied in 100 per cent of all utterances. Across all three sections, the

comprehensibility requirement was consistently satisfied at a higher rate than the

fidelity and textual elegance requirements. In two of the three sections, the fidelity

requirement was satisfied at a higher rate than the textual elegance requirement.

In this study, the requirement that is satisfied more frequently is deemed to

have higher priority. Therefore, as shown in Figure 6.1, the hierarchy of priorities in

CSI should be, in descending order, elegance in delivery, comprehensibility,

fidelity and textual elegance .


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6.3 First Priority: Elegance in Delivery

The interpreter in the recording satisfied my requirement of elegance in delivery in

every instance. Through the recording, I could hear that she was projecting her voice,

and she constantly made good use of tone and emphasis to convey the pastors

message. Her communicative prowess shone through her confident delivery, as every

utterance was filled with conviction, and she even improvised interjections such as

in the second section of the transcript to convey the slightly mocking tone of

the pastor s utterance.

The interpreter never failed to start her interpretation right after the pastor

finished his utterance, so the seamless flow of turn-taking typical of CSI was

maintained. In short, owing to the competent delivery of the interpreter, the overall

momentum of the Charismatic sermon was preserved throughout and the pastors

enthusiasm was transmitted to the congregation.

Given that the interpreter maintained a 100 per cent achievement rate of

elegance in delivery, it is clear that this should be the top CSI priority in my data.

6.4 Second Priority: Comprehensibility

Coming a close second with an average satisfaction rate of 98.43 per cent is the

requirement of comprehensibility. As a Christian with a Chinese language

background presumably similar to that of most congregation members addressed in

the recording, I found that the interpreter was highly comprehensible in her output


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despite the constraints she had to operate within, as only two out of a total of 108

utterances were deemed incomprehensible.

It should be pointed out that I was able to make sense of those two utterances

eventually but given that this was an interpreting situation with a live audience, as

opposed to a written piece of translation which offers readers time to ponder over the

text, I had to deem them incomprehensible because I could not understand the

interpretation the first time I heard it.

6.5 Third Priority: Fidelity

The fidelity requirement ranks third in priority. I personally found the average

achievement rate of 89 per cent surprisingly low for two reasons. Firstly, the source

utterances were not long and should theoretically be easy to commit to memory.

Secondly, since the interpreter was subordinate to the pastor in terms of tenor

relations, I thought she would have stuck more clos ely to the content of the pastors

utterances, especially since he was preaching the Word of God. While it is not

possible to prove what prevented the interpreter from achieving a higher fidelity rate

in this study, I can suggest some plausible reasons.

Firstly, as explained in sub-section 5.5.2, CSI interpreters are subject to severe

time constraints. As a result, the interpreter in the recording might have found it

difficult to perform Tasks L and M adequately within such a short time frame, and

this could have led to mishearing and memorisation

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