Part 1: Interpreting in Australia

• Post-war immigration in the 1950s created

need for interpreting services and marked the
beginning of community interpreting in Australia

• The first interpreting service was the Chief

Government Interpreter in 1954

• The Commonwealth Bank and the Bank of

NSW established “Migrant Information Centers
in the 1960s. They employed full time in-house
interpreters.
• The Emergency Telephone Interpreter Service (ETIS)
was established by the Department of Immigration in
1973. The service was available 24 hours, 7 days per
week, in Melbourne and Sydney.

• The National Accreditation Authority for Translators and

Interpreters (NAATI) was established in 1977.

• The Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators

(AUSIT), the national association for the translating and
interpreting profession, was founded in 1987, bringing
together existing local associations and specialist groups
and now has branches in each State and Territory.
• Many interpreting courses in a variety of
languages were established in the 1980s

• Currently, interpreting courses in Australia are

offered at:
- TAFE level
- University level, both UG and PG

• Some of the courses grant NAATI accreditation

Part 2 : Pragmatics
• Pragmatics is:

- the study of the purposes for which sentences are used

- the study of the real world conditions under which a sentence

may be appropriately used as an utterance. (Stalnaker 1972)

- the discipline that ''studies the factors that govern our choice
of language in social interaction and the effects of our choice
on others'' (Crystal, 1987:120)

• Semantic vs pragmatic meaning

- semantic meaning: fixed context-free meaning

- pragmatic meaning: the meaning which the words take on in

a particular context, between particular people
• Word level, sentence level and discourse level

• Top down approach required in interpreting

• 3 different approaches to interpreting:

- Literal (word for word)

- semantic (sentence by sentence)

- pragmatic (discourse)
• The function of an utterance must be
established pragmatically, e.g.,
Today is Monday = Hoy es lunes
Today is Sunday

• Learners of a foreign language understand

the literal meaning, but sometimes miss the
point

• The point is missed because the pragmatic

level of the language is not understood
• The broadest approach sees pragmatics as the
study of principles and practices underlying all
interactive linguistic performance

• Pragmatics includes all aspects of language

usage, understanding, and appropriateness.

Example: “Ya no doy mas”

semantically = ''now I don't give any more”

pragmatically = ''I'm dead tired''

Speech Act Theory

• Austin (1962) and Searle (1969)

• Austin proposed
- performatives, e.g.,'‘I apologise'‘, “ I name
this ship”
- constatives are statements that merely convey
information
• The speech act theory analyses the effect
of utterances on behaviour
When we utter a speech act we perform 3
simultaneous acts:
Locutionary act: the actual communicative act.
Example: The utterance “would you like to close the
door?”

Illocutionary act: performed when the

utterance is being spoken.
Example: a polite request to close the door.

Perlocutionary act: the effect the utterance has

on the listener.

Example:the other person actually closing the door.

Locutionary act = the actual utterance

Illocutionary act = act performed during utterance

Perlocutionary act = effect of utterance on listener

Example: “Would you like to close the door?”

Semantically (at sentence level): a question of

whether the person would like to do something

• If the desired perlocutionary effect is not

achieved:
– the illocutionary force was unsuccessful, or
– the hearer consciously disregarded it
• The illocutionary force is the strength with
which the illocutionary point is portrayed,
e.g., a polite request

• the relationship between the speaker and

the hearer can determine appropriateness

• Interpreters need to aim at achieving an

equivalence of the illocutionary act
 Interpreters and the Speech Act

Interpreters need to:

• Aim at achieving the equivalent illocutionary act

• Make sure that the intended meaning is not

misrepresented in any way

• Be aware that accurate interpretation can only

be achieved when we interpret pragmatically
correct
Interpreters should analyse the speech act:

• What is the illocutionary point of the utterance?

• What is the illocutionary force of the utterance?

• How/what is the perlocutionary effect on

listener?

• How severe is the “insult”?

According to Searle (1976), there are 5 types of
illocutionary acts:

• Representatives (e.g. reporting, affirming)

• Directives (e.g. commanding, asking)

• Commissives (e.g. promising, swearing)

• Expressives (e.g. apologizing, congratulating)

• Declarations (e.g. wedding, sentencing)

 Effects of Searle’s 5 Speech Act types:
Representatives) =
Speaker believes utterance is true
(e.g. affirming, reporting)

Directives = Speaker tries listener to do something

(e.g. commanding, asking)

Commissives = Speaker commits himself/herself to action

(e.g. promising, swearing)

Expressives = Speaker expresses feelings/attitude

(e.g. apologizing, congratulating)

Declarations = Performatives (e.g. wedding, sentencing)

• 4 principal (felicity) conditions for speech acts to
be successful:

- The speech act has to be performed by

the person with the correct authority

- The act has to be performed in the

correct form

- The act has to be performed in the

correct context

- Sincerity condition
Cross cultural speech act
• Universal speech act: ( requesting, apologizing, etc)

• The way these speech acts are achieved is what is not

universal

• Literal translations ''often fail to carry identical implied

force''. (Schmidt and Richards, 1979)

• ''would'' in Hebrew and Japanese does not carry

imperative force as in English (Green, 1975)

• European languages do not use the word ''please'' as

often as English (Crystal, 1987)

• The function of ''thank you'' is often different across

languages
 Group exercise:

In groups of 5 students, please provide a

few examples of cross-cultural differences
between English and your other language.

Elect a speaker to report your examples to

the whole group.