69378 - English Liaison Interpreting I (First Language) (CL2)

Learning outcomes

Liaison/Dialogue Interpreting between Italian and English II will develop the skills and translation strategies studied in Language Mediation in the 1st year.  It will hone skills such as listening, memorization, summarization and oral rephrasing as well as those techniques necessary on an inter linguistic and intercultural level so that the student will be able to act as a dialogue interpreter in various areas: tourism, business interpreting (trade fairs, private companies, etc.) and cultural interviews.

Course contents

The course will be held in the first semester, and lessons will be taught by a native Italian speaker (Prof. Radicioni) and a native English speaker (Prof. Mathias). The course will be divided into two areas. The first, which will make up the material taught in the lessons with each single teacher, will deal with the subject by studying the theoretical and practical problems inherent in dialogue interpreting as well as working on the salient features of specific oral and written language skills. The second area, for the most part taught during the lessons in tandem with both teachers, will allow the student to practice acting as a dialogue interpreter in various fields, such as business negotiations, tourism, trade fairs and cultural interviews, situations that will be recreated by the use of actual material obtained on-the-job.
Language lectures ("lettorato") will be held by Prof. Diana Roberts in the language labs, and will focus on listening comprehension and transcription, as well as note-taking, and reformulating various text types both orally and in writing.  1st semester: General language improvement, with specific focus on oral language and grammar; particular emphasis on semantic areas and topic fields dealt with in the mediation course. 2nd semester: We will be looking at written and radio news reports as a genre, and at the process of transcription, the difficulties and how to overcome them.

Readings/Bibliography

- G. Garzone, M. Rudvin, Domain-specific English and Language Mediation in a Professional and Institutional Setting , Milano, Arcipelago

- Wadensjö, C. (1998), Interpreting as Interaction, London & New York, Longman

A bibliography will be given out at the beginning of the course, and a dossier with a selection of articles dealing with dialogue and community interpreting will be made available for the student, as will specific written and oral materials for the role plays and the subjects discussed in class.

Teaching methods

The student will practice the various skills needed to carry out this type of interpreting: memory exercises (to improve concentration and synthesis by extrapolating key points in both languages), sight translation, the preparation of ad hoc glossaries, cloze exercises, and rephrasing, all of which will be carried out from and into English. There will be discussions on the concepts, theories, and professional ethics involved in the work of a dialogue interpreter. Students will be working both in groups (3-way role plays, lexical “brainstorming” for specific terminology, etc.) and on an individual level when acting as the interpreter in role plays. During the role plays, realistic situations will be simulated, in which the student must act as the interpreter, facilitating the communication between an Italian speaker and an English one by choosing appropriate lexical and language solutions. The student will be expected to improve his/her oral expression in both Italian and English so as to face and resolve potentially difficult situations within an interpretation.

Assessment methods

The professors will constantly assess and evaluate of the ability of the students throughout the course, on the basis of how each student interprets during the class role plays and participates in class exercises, vocabulary building, sight translation, etc. Thus, by the end of the course the students will be expected to:

·      distinguish strategies to enable an interpreted event between an Italian speaker and an English speaker

·      refine the lexical knowledge and specific terminology needed in the interpretation

·      perfect their oral language ability in both Italian and English

·      identify syntactic, lexical and grammatical differences in Italian and English

The final exam will be divided into two parts: a role play (based on one of the subject areas dealt with during the semester) where the student will act as the interpreter, and sight translations from English into Italian and from Italian into English.

Teaching tools

Written and oral texts (e.g. newspaper articles, publicity material, business letters), depending on the subject being dealt with. Class exercise and role plays will improve and reinforce the use of specific vocabulary, skills such as rephrasing and memorization, and the ability to apply specific strategies to a given situation.

Office hours

See the website of Maura Radicioni