Thoughts on the quality of interpretation Is there a consensus on what quality is and how to define and assess it objectively? Available in 2 languages Eduardo KAHANE Published: 19 years ago Last updated: 3 years ago quality-issues , research , standards , user-expectations AIIC is a professional association upholding the quality of services provided by its members. It has mechanisms to ensure quality now and in the future, and committees to monitor the entry of new members, languages added by current members, training and research. Thanks to its representativeness and reputation for quality, AIIC negotiates agreements with large international organisations on working conditions and remuneration. All this would seem to indicate that there is an underlying consensus on what quality is and how to define and assess it objectively. Such a consensus would fully justify (to society, clients and users) the primary aim that sets our association apart - quality - as well as the criteria for interpreter training AIIC offers institutions of learning, AIIC ́s stance on new forms of interpretation, videoconferencing and interpreting for audio-visual media. Moreover, we live in an era obsessed with quality control. With that in mind, in 1995 AIIC launched a study on the quality expectations of interpretation users (1). The amazing thing is that there is no such consensus. Granted, users and interpreters agree on certain quality criteria, but significant differences remain as to nuances, and especially as to the very essence of the elusive concept of quality; quality for whom, assessed in what manner? (2). I doubt I've been successful in rising to the challenge of addressing these issues here in Communicate (a publication by professional interpreters open to the public at large on the Net). My aim is to draw attention to the problem so as to foster debate, be reasonably thorough in reviewing research to date and avoid off-putting scientific jargon. Here are the results. The Interpreter's Task One simplistic definition of the interpreter's task or function is that of mediation to facilitate communication between speaker and listeners. It would be equally simple to add that the simultaneous interpretation (SI) that best achieves that goal would by definition be of the best quality. That may be the ideal model, but in actuality we know things are more complex. The interpreter's mediating function is not clear: is it mediation or interference? We do not even have a clear idea of the speaker-listener relationship. Is it better for the interpreter to integrate into that relationship or to stay outside it? What are speaker-listener relationships like? How do they vary? What is the purpose of the situation wherein communication is taking place? Is it a multitudinous conference or a small meeting of people already well acquainted with each other? What are the mutual intentions and expectations of the participants? Where is or who supposedly is the listener, and what qualities and expectations does he have, etc? The history of Quality Studies, a recent undertaking, bears witness to all these difficulties and may be of use to us to trace the efforts made to overcome them. The Beginnings: Quality Expectations Initially interpreter-teachers based much on intuition and were occasionally self-complacent toward the "miracle" of interpretation, thus largely blurring early theoretical research on interpretation. This went hand-in-hand with a set of practical rules and precepts for the learning process, such as "interpret ideas not words, finish sentences, etc." Later on the first attempts at analytical models were made. In 1986, Bühler carried out what was probably the first field study on "quality." She sought to identify and assess the weight of specific factors affecting the quality of SI. She also applied them to professional interpreters, including members of the AIIC Admissions Committee (CACL). Bühler pinpointed as many as 16 criteria. They have the virtue of being the first and in addition have been used in subsequent studies thus enabling a degree of comparability. Bühler ́s idea was to infer users' assessment from that of interpreters. The inference was put to the test for the first time in 1989 by Kurz who used 8 of Bühler ́s criteria with users (4). Both studies deal with expectations. A priori assessments are given for generic situations and an ideal interpretation. Comparison of results has a merely indicative value, as follows: Out of the total sample it was considered as important by: Bühler 1986 Interpreters % Kurz 1989 Users % Sense consistency with original message 96 81 Logical cohesion of utterance 83 72 Correct grammatical usage 49 45 Completeness of interpretation 47 36 Fluency of delivery 49 28 Correct grammatical usage 48 11 Native accent 23 11 Pleasant voice 28 17 The table shows significant percentage differences, but it is worth noting that both groups rank the criteria alike in terms of order of importance. Sense consistency with original message is the most highly valued criterion, followed by logical cohesion. Native accent and pleasant voice are the least valued. Interpreters attach higher value to all the criteria than users do, possibly because they are very self-demanding where quality is concerned, and users have lower expectations. However, interpreters attach significantly greater value to expressive criteria such as native accent, voice quality or correct grammatical usage. This difference shows up again in later studies. One might ask whether this is an a priori value judgement, owing to "knowledge" agreed on in the profession, handed down from generation to generation, or whether it is actually an intuitive assessment, the value of which has gone undetected due to some inadequacy in the research tools. Studies by Shlesinger (5) on presentation and retentiveness and by the AIIC Research Committee point in this direction, highlighting the importance of prosodic aspects in retentiveness and in user satisfaction. Expectations of Distinct Users In 1993 (6) Kurz examined the question of distinct user groups possibly having different expectations of interpretation. Her 1989 results were confirmed with no noteworthy exceptions. Likewise those results were confirmed, with some qualifications, by Marrone (7) and Kopczynsky (8). In 1995 the AIIC Research Committee commissioned Peter Moser to carry out a study of user expectations based on the same hypothesis (different expectations for different types of users). The study was commendable in that it covered 84 conferences, but the results follow the same tendency of greater importance being given to content-related rather than form-related criteria. Even in open questions, theoretical skills and voice are hardly mentioned spontaneously by the subjects of the study. The attempt to determine ideal quality or a set of basic user expectations, regardless of the kind of conference, is hindered by similarity in circumstances. No matter what the conference topic, new groups of users, with slight methodological variations, are functionally in a similar situation as to practical aspects, group dynamics, and the basic speaker-listener relationship. Perhaps results would have varied more had studies targeted users in completely different environments - small meetings among participants who all know one another, new product presentations (typically "live", with all sorts of paraphernalia, one or several announcers, use of slogans and timed scripts) or interpreting for audio-visual media. At last in 1995 Kurz and Pöchhacker (10) were able to match interpreters ́ intuition that formal issues and expression are important, with results from a study of users. They looked at a group of Austrian and German television representatives and found that while sense consistency with original message and logical cohesion were still the most highly valued parameters, "TV people put less emphasis on completeness but are particularly sensitive to criteria like voice, accent and fluent delivery". Objective assessment of quality The material reviewed up until now assesses solely expectations and seeks to establish criteria assumed to be decisive in the quality of interpretation. However, unless these criteria are compared to the results of a real interpretation, it is not possible to determine the extent to which fulfilling the criteria may serve to predict real quality. Pöchhacker (11) is innovative in proposing that we assess users ́ cognitive grasp of the message conveyed, measuring variables that may have an impact such as speed, pauses, hesitancy, intonation, fluency, mistakes, register, style, etc. Beyond the methodological difficulties of this approach, even if it were possible to objectively determine and achieve consensus on the real quality of a specific interpretation, said quality might not necessarily be the same as the quality perceived by users or even interpreters. There are many methodological problems involved. How can we "objectively" measure quality of interpretation in the various situations interpreters come up against? The use of evaluation surveys affords a general idea of the quality "perceived", but the factors influencing that perception remain obscure. Let us start by acknowledging what scholars agree on: that the criterion on which there is broadest consensus, namely sense consistency with original message, is a hard one for listeners to judge, as they do not know both languages. If the main criterion cannot be assessed by listeners, what is their basis for judging a given interpretation? Sheer intratextual aspects, or in other words logical cohesion of utterance, which does rank high in terms of expectations? Or do expressive elements, seen a priori as less important, such as fluency of delivery, intonation and voice quality, exercise greater influence than previously thought? As long ago as 1983 (12), Gile, who throughout his extensive body of work has been tirele