Student interpreters’ Narrative Performance

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Student interpreters’ Narrative Performance 1

Student interpreters’ Narrative Performance

Susi Septaviana R.

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia

The paper discusses interpreting performance of students when rendering personal narratives during role-play practices in liaison interpreting class in an Indonesian university. It concentrates on two issues which highlight the part of the study elaborating textual analysis results. The first is how narrative features work in the student-role play dialogues. The second is how the student interpreter renders the narrative features. Textual analysis as one of three main methods used in this study is elaborated when used as the tool to identify the narrative features existed in the dialogues, thus student interpreters’ rendering accuracy (Tateyama, 2008) was also identified. Temporality, relationality, causal emplotment and selective appropriation (Baker, 2006) were found as the narrative features in the dialogues. However, the most frequent feature used is selective appropriation. This indicates that the student interpreters may deliberately (but also unintentionally) selected information that needed to be rendered to fit in to what was expected by the speakers – to be on track (plot). This had impact on the accuracy of the message since some words were not being interpreted because a good interpreting must be complete and accurate meaning that there must be no over or under translation.

Keywords: interpreting, narrative, narrative features, student interpreter

Narrative has become one of the main focuses of research in translation and interpreting

studies. There have been new emergences of finding out how stories told and written are

presented through a translator and an interpreter. They were recently used in translation

and interpreting research as analytical tool (Reissman, 2003; Baker, 2008) and as a subject

and/or phenomenon to be investigated (Baker, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010a, 2010b).

Interestingly, narrative as the phenomenon in translation/interpreting studies was carried

out in its natural setting involving major issues of the world such as ideology, conflict, and

power in international organization as well as media (Baker 2006; Zimanyi 2009; Inghilleri,

Jacquemet, & Davidson in Baker, 2010). In reference to this, looking at the roles of

translators and interpreters nowadays can never be the same. It is important to underpin

the notion that translators and interpreters play pivotal role in the world scheme.

Understanding its importance, the paper suggests that it’s even better to scrutinize the

narrative, role of translators and interpreters, and its translation accuracy among students

learning interpreting skills. Given the larger picture, these students would become

professional interpreters who may have assignments in this context of world major issues.

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In addition, little number of studies on narrative involves interpreting students if it

existed at all. The previous studies on narrative and translation in the following were on its

professional or practicing interpreter in their working environment – the so-called natural

setting. They looked into how narratives are interconnected in the network of events

involving translators and interpreters. Narrative and interpreters’ role have been under

close scrutiny for instance in medical settings. Davidson (as cited in Baker, 2010) suggests

the interpreters must keep up the institution agenda, sometimes by arranging meeting time

between patients and doctors. To meet this multitasking demand, the interpreter has to

keep the consultation time short so that s/he regulated the conversation and dismissed the

narrative performance of the patients. Moreover, Zimanyi (2009) analyzed in narratives in

the setting of mental health care by interviewing mental health practitioners who have

worked with interpreters and interpreters who have interpreted during mental health

consultation. By focusing six areas to be investigated - Perception of Mental Health,

Significance of Narratives, Familiarity, Modes of Interpreting, Interpreting Narratives, and

Mental Health Interpreting – Familiarity has its dominant occurrence suggesting that the

interpreters prefer to have familiar clients and/or familiar stories. It is stated that the

mental health practitioners also prefer to use the same interpreter.

Furthermore, a growing number of interpreting research has been aggravated by the

notion of social injustice in which narrative is part of the analysis within the interaction. For

instance, Jacquemet (as cited in Baker, 2010) studied interview in the context of selecting,

identifying and admitting refugees through UNHCR office with screening procedures from

Albanians claiming to be Kosovars. Case workers and interpreters developed routine

interview checklist based on the institutional frame/guideline so that the claimants’

narrative was suppressed by focusing on their accents, clothes, and their knowledge of

Kosovo regions and custom. This has caused dissatisfaction among the asylum seekers

because they simply could not explain the real situation. Therefore, rejection rate of asylum

seeker is an issue discussed in relation to their personal narrative performance.

The relation between the product of narrative performance and broader political discourses

was well documented in Inghilleri (as cited in Baker, 2010). She investigated

interpreters/translators’ roles in the setting of political justice and asylum system. The

interpreters act as cultural and linguistic mediators to clarify the national agenda operating

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within the immigration systems of receiving countries. The narrative performance of the

asylum seeker was restricted so that the interpreters/translators could put their place in

one side upholding broader political structure that informs immigration policies and

practice.

Another research analyzing the narrative performance in asylum-seeker encounter is

Tipton’s (2008) which examines reflexivity and the social construction of identity in the

context of asylum interview which was mediated by interpreters. It investigates the problem

of reflexive agent and focuses on reflexive practice of the parties involved in the interview

which can have impact on the outcome of the telling process.

Narratives have its different place in typological frame. Stories that are told in

written and verbally can significantly be grouped based on its scope and setting. For the

purpose of drawing the defining border, the type of narratives identified in this study is

ontological narrative or personal narrative. They are personal stories that we tell ourselves

about our place in the world and our own personal history (Baker, 2006). It was further

specified by Somers’ (1992, 1997) and Somers and Gibson’s (1994) (as cited in Baker, 2006),

who explained the different types of narratives based on its form, nature and setting. It will

be discussed briefly because it will not cover the data in this study. It is deemed important

to highlight the contrastive elements between each type of the narrative. These are public,

conceptual and meta-narratives. The first is defined as stories elaborated by and circulating

among social and institutional formations larger than the individual, such as a family,

religious or educational institution, the media and the nation. The second acts as ‘concepts

and explanations that we construct as social researchers (Somers and Gibson 1994:62 as

cited in Baker 2006) and the last works as narratives ‘in which we are embedded as

contemporary actors in history...Progress, Decadence, Industrialization, Enlightenment. Etc’

(Somers and Gibson 1994:61 as cited in Baker 2006).

As mentioned earlier the narrative studied in this article is ontological or personal

narratives which were used by student interpreters when playing roles as a school

counselor, parent, solicitor and etc. Mishler (as cited in Riessman, 2001) stated that the

study of personal narrative is a form of case-centered research. The “personal troubles” that

participants represent in their narratives of divorce, for example, tell us a great deal about

social and historical processes—contemporary beliefs about gender relations and pressures

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on marriage at a juncture in American history (Riessman, 2001). Personal narratives

analyzed in the interpreted role-play are in forms of transcribed dialogues in which not all

parts of the texts of the dialogues containing narrative (Abbott, 2008). Therefore, when it

was analyzed challenging decision has to be made regarding the beginnings and endings of

narrative. It is more than often an intricate interpretive task because stories in research

interview are rarely so clearly bounded, and often there is negotiation between teller and

listener about placement and relevance (Reissman, 2001). It involves analyzing

transcriptions to explore a process that contain paralinguistic features of utterances, false

starts, interruptions, and other subtle features of interaction. Determining which part to

analyze and setting borders around them is an interpretive decision, formed mainly by

theoretical foundation (Reissman, 2001).

Features of narrative

Somers & Gibson (1994) and Somers (1997) (as cited in Baker, 2006) concentrate on four

crucial interdependent features of narrative: temporality, relationality, causal emplotment,

and selective appropriation. These features were created to understand how narratives

work and function in regards to how they construct the world for us.

Temporality means that narratives can be meaningfully derived if they are placed in

the temporal moment and physical site of the narration or embedded in time and space.

Relationality means every element of a narrative depends on a larger narrative that makes

up the narrative; it cannot be interpreted in isolation because human mind cannot

comprehend a collage of events that are not represented as narrative. For instance, the

term of martyrdom employs an extremely contrast meaning and value depending on

whether it forms part of a contemporary narrative of Islamic “Jihad” or a narrative of the

persecution of Christians in the first century (Baker, 2010b). The third focal feature of

narrativity is selective appropriation. Giving every detail of experience when composing an

articulate, a consistent story is not viable. Therefore, narratives are necessarily constructed

according to evaluative criteria that enable and guide selective appropriation of a set of

events or elements from the vast array of open-ended and overlapping events that

constitute experience (Baker, 2007). The final and most crucial focal of narrativity is causal

emplotment. Causal emplotment ‘‘gives significance to independent instances, and

overrides their chronological or categorical order’’ (Somers 1997, p.82 as cited in Baker,

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2007). It allows us to turn a set of propositions into an intelligible sequence about which we

can form an opinion, and thus charges the events depicted with moral and ethical

significance (Baker 2006a, p.65). Moreover, moral sense of events can be drawn into our

interpretation since it guides us to explain why things happened the way a given narrative

suggests they happened. Consequently, two people can have conflicting interpretation

about a set of ‘facts’ or independent events even though they may have the same

experience and agree on them.

When dealing with narrative analysis in interpreting studies, issues related to the

quality of interpreting performance need to be highlighted. In addition to finding out how

narrative works through its features, analysis of its rendition based on criteria of good

interpreting (Tateyama, 2008) were carried out. Even though many scholars offers different

ways of evaluating interpreting performance and/or products (Wadensjo 1998; Ericsson,

2000; Hale, 2007; Rudvin & Tomassini, 2011; Munday 2012), the following criteria of

Tateyama’s are used in the discussion of the findings below to analyze the student

interpreters’ performance. Four defining factors are crucial when an interpreter wants to

produce good interpreting products. Fidelity deals with completeness and accuracy. It

means that the message must be interpreted completely, accurately, no over or under

translation and no distortion of meaning. Vocabulary used must be effective and interpreter

must be consistent in making word choices and in using terms. Structure and naturalness

involves interpreters’ ability in producing good grammatical sentence using appropriate

style and register. By knowing when to use appropriate style naturalness can be gained. In

addition, clarity of voice, self control and smooth flow also determine its naturalness of

interpretation. Lastly, background knowledge is required so that it can support interpreter’s

comprehension and selection of target language words/terms especially when s/he has

excellent understanding of subject matter or topic of the interpreted event.

Methodology

The study is multiple case study research which deals with exploring features of narratives

and scrutinizes student interpreters’ performance when rendering the narratives. It is

considered appropriate since case study works on cases as this study analyses four random

role plays as cases including four student interpreters. This increases the sense of

representativeness of, or variation among, cases (Chalhoub-Deville, & Duff, 2006; Duff, 2006

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as cited in Duff 2008). It also allows for in-depth analysis of the phenomena (Yin, 2003) in

which narrative features and interpreting the narrative features as the phenomena were

investigated. The study used observation, textual analysis of transcription and

questionnaires as well as follow-up interview. However, this article discusses only part of

the whole study in which it elaborates only the result of textual analysis of the students’

transcription in finding out the phenomena under investigation.

Excerpts from four different role plays were selected to represent the data which

contains narrative and/or stories. The student interpreters represented in the role play were

high achievers, mid-achievers and low achiever students in the classroom. The

transcriptions were rendered from English to Indonesian and Indonesian to English. First

role play is about a parent who met a school counselor to discuss an incident where his son

was being bullied by his school friends and the second role play is about an employee’s

complaint against her supervisor on verbal abuse. Third role play is a meeting between a

solicitor and a client who wanted to process a divorce, and fourth role play is a conversation

between a solicitor and a parent who asked about residence permit and wanted to buy a

real estate house.

Role play is as one of the learning activities conducted in the classroom during

Liaison Interpreting subject, one of the compulsory subjects in English Department of a

university in Indonesia. The students were in their fourth semester learning English as a

foreign language. Four students acted out an adapted dialogue in which one plays as the

source language speaker, the other one is as the target language speaker and the last one as

the interpreter. The role plays were audio/video recorded. The performing dialogues were

then transcribed. Analysis was done on the transcription using Baker’s Narrative theory

(2006) and Tateyama’s criteria of good interpretation (2008).

Narrative features found

The term ‘narrative’ here as mentioned earlier is used interchangeably with stories (Baker,

2006). It is an account of sequence of events which is told orally and/or in written. Narrative

must have some actions in the sentence. Findings shows that in the transcription analyzed

using Baker’s features of narrativity, four features were found – temporality (f=10),

relationality (f=7), causal emplotment (f=2) and selective appropriation (f=23).

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It is shown from the findings that temporality was found as one of the features used

in the dialogues. It is the link between the order of events as they are related and the

overall theme of the narrative (Baker, 2006). The following excerpt is from the role play

dialogue on pursuing divorce proceeding.

Roleplay #3

Client : Baiklah, kayaknya ini semua berawal ketika kami menikah dulu kami tidak cukup mengenal satu sama lain dengan baik. Sudah tiga tahun saya tinggal di Australia dan sudah memiliki kewarganegaraan. Tapi kami belum pernah bertemu selama 18 bulan.

[Ok. It seems that it was all started when we were getting married in the past we didn’t quite know each other well. It has been three years that I live in Australia and have had citizenship.]

Std Int : Well, it was started because of, because of the fact that when we were getting married, we didn’t know well each other. I have been living in Australia for three years and I have had PR. But we haven’t met each other for 18 months.

In the dialogue above, the feature of temporality is particularly found when reference was

made to the length of time – 18 months. It shows that the student interpreter understood

the message spoken by the client and rendered them completely and accurately. However,

in the same dialogue relationality was also found when the client says that she has

citizenship, the student interpreter rendered it into PR or Permanent Residence status. This

clearly shows the relational context understood by the student interpreter in which

Indonesian people could gain PR status and not citizenship if the person has just stayed for

three years in Australia. Given the circumstances, the student interpreter relates the

utterance with her understanding of Australian system. Further example below is provided

from the dialogue between a father who wanted to buy a house for his son and a solicitor.

Roleplay #4

Father : Anak saya sudah belajar kursus selama tiga tahun

[My child has studied in this course for three years.]

Int : My children have already studied in this course for three years.

This simply tells that temporality operates clearly and that the student interpreter has

rendered it accurately. There is no clear reference above whether the student interpreter

should render anak into child or children because in spoken Indonesian discourse, anak may

mean singular or plural – child or children.

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Relationality or hermeneutic composability is the next feature investigated. It deals

with the use of element of cultures in the narrative where a narrative taken from a different

culture generates relevant images, nuances and implication in the receiving culture. The

following dialogue is about bullying. The use of element of culture here means the use of

the term “bullying”. This term has just recently been popular among Indonesian societies as

this concept has not existed before. Any acts related to bullying or acts which can be

considered bullying nowadays were probably part of common, acceptable practice long time

ago.

Roleplay #1

F : Ok. I see euu I can appreciate what you really feel ee..but it is important to analyze them. I promise that...ee i promise I can solve the problem. It is has to stop now because my school has special policy on bullying.

Int : baik semoga ini membenahnya. Karena sekolah kami memberikan toleransi kepada orang yang membully

[OK. Hopefully this will fix. Because our school gives tolerance to the people who bullied]

M : huh?

Int : tidak memberikan toleransi kepada bullying.

[not giving any tolerance to bullying]

M : oh ya oh ok kalau seperti itu. Saya harap anak saya dapat bertemu dengan anda secepatnya

[Oh yes, OK if it is like that. I hope my son could meet you as soon as possible.]

I : ok thank you I hope my son will meet you.

F : Ok thank you

In the above, the student interpreter did not render the term “bullying” to Indonesian

language. There may be no exact term considered sufficiently represents the concept since

this concept is ‘new’ in Indonesian context. It could also mean that the student interpreter

did not know the equivalent so that he used its English term instead. On the contrary, the

two dialogues below demonstrate that relationality characteristic was rendered

appropriately. ‘To exit from this marriage’ clearly indicates cultural element in which in

Indonesian context someone cannot exit a marriage but can break (putus) the marriage. It is

important to argue here that the student interpreter really has good understanding of

culture and context.

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Roleplay #3

Solicitor : if you want to exit from this marriage

Int : jika anda ingin memutuskan tali pernikahan ini

[If you want to break this marriage ties]

……

Solicitor : it doesn’t sound as though he will challenge it

Int : ehm…sepertinya suami Anda juga tidak akan melakukan gugatan balik.

[uhm it seems that your husband will not make a counter claim]

In the subsequent excerpt above, the student interpreter also rendered the relational

feature based on what she probably thought the usual occurrence within divorce

proceeding. It is that when ‘it doesn’t sound as though he will challenge it’ instead of

interpreted it into ‘he will be disagree with the suit’, the student interpreter rendered it into

‘your husband will not make a counter claim’. It can be emphasized that this illustrates the

student interpreters’ knowledge of divorce system. She seems to understand the context

and the terms of counter claim which is not expressed by the solicitor.

The next aspect discussed is that of causal emplotment. At this point, we can see

how the framing of a narrative can imply causal relations which may be disputed by

conflicting narratives. Translators may have an effect on this causal emplotment through

their decisions taken on ambiguities in translation. The sample of excerpt below is a

conversation and meeting between a parent and a school counselor. Background

information was provided when a student announced the topic of this role play. It was

evident that parent made complaint about how his son was being treated by his friends in

the school environment. However, the student interpreter was failed to comprehend this

‘fact’ and made conflicting or contradictory rendition.

Roleplay #1

F : Thank you for coming to see me I’m so sorry about what had happened. When my secretary told me about your son I was shocked. Uhm I want you to know that my school has strict rules, a policy about bullying. Can you tell me more about the specific incident that takes place on this?

Int : ya terima kasih telah datang ke kantorku untuk ... saya ingin komplain tentang peraturan di sekolah ini yang mengatakan tidak ada peraturan yang mengatur tentang bullying....Dan saya telah mendengar itu, anak saya, saya sangat shock.

[Yes, thank you for coming to my office to.... I want to complain about the rules of this school which says that there was no rule governing on bullying....and I have heard about it.....my son....I was shocked.]

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The excerpt above describes clearly that fidelity which involves completeness and accuracy

is an issue. The student interpreter rendered the utterance as if he were to interpret the

parent who made the complaint. This obviously violates the faithfulness of the meaning in

which it was distorted and put into contradictory perspective. It is necessary to look at the

factors which can cause this to happen. The student might made connection to previous

statement in which he explained the topic before the role play began. He probably thought

that the hearer would just understand where the question goes as to asking about the

incident of bullying. Other factor is simply related to interpreting ability where the student

has memory lapse on what needs to be interpreted.

Subsequently, selective appropriation is also analyzed; this is where the elements

selected to shape a narrative component are only those which sustain the ‘plot’.

Consequently, arrangement can be made to decide which texts are selected for translation.

Furthermore, selective appropriation of textual material is realized in patterns of omission

and addition designed to suppress, accentuate or elaborate particular aspects of a narrative

encoded in the source text or utterance, or aspects of the larger narrative(s) in which it is

embedded (Baker, 2006). Omission and addition occurred in the following text may

illustrate the feature of selective appropriation. However, its renditions to some extent are

still ‘on track’ meaning that they covered the messages that should be conveyed.

Roleplay #1

M : Jadi gini yah..dalam hari ini anak saya teh jadi aneh gitu euh jadi aneh euh jadi aneh..kemarin malem dia cerita kalau sepulang sekolauh tuh dia dikepung dibully oleh beberapa anak dari sekolah temennya juga. Itu…dibully racist dihardik racist seperti itu.

[So here how it is, today my son became (acting) weird, being weird uh.. being weird. Yesterday night he told me when he went home from school he was surrounded…bullied by some children from his friend’s school as well. That… being racist bullied, racist calling..and such]

Int : my son getting moody and yesterday he told me that he get arrested from his groups/from another groups.

The excerpt above presented a very short rendition given by the student interpreter. This

omission illustrates a number of factors which can cause the student interpreter to do what

he did. One of the possible reasons is that he has difficulty in retaining all information in his

memory. However, it can also be that he did it on purpose particularly because he wants to

explain the concept of bullying. Thus, it is relevant with the selective appropriation feature

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where the student interpreter selected some information which he probably thought would

be sufficient to cover the message from the parent. This has serious implication on the

quality of the interpretation in which accuracy criteria was not met.

The excerpt below put selective appropriation in different angle in which it is used

based on its original definition of selecting particular information to be translated or

interpreted. Here the student interpreter made addition to the terms that were probably

considered need extra information and/or explanation.

Roleplay #4

Counselor : why don’t you start with the basic fact of the situation

Int : mengapa anda tidak memulai dengan hal yang paling mendasar?

*why don’t you start with the most basic things?+

Couns : you don’t have to tell me everything right away especially if you find it upsetting or embarrassing.

Int : anda bisa saja tidak memberitahu saya hal itu secara langsung terutama jika anda hal itu membuat anda malu dan merasa direndahkan.

[you can just not telling me that directly especially if you it makes you embarrass and feel being undermined]

Employee : hmm sebenarnya saya berpikir bahwa supervisor saya berusaha mempermalukan saya di depan para pekerja lain. Euu dia membuat lelucon. Dan para pekerja pria tertawa mendergar lelucon itu.dia dapat mengatakan hal-hal yang cabul atau hal-hal yang racist tapi hanya saya yang tidak tahu.

[hmm actually I was thinking that my supervisor tries to humiliate me in front of other workers. He made a joke. And the men workers laughed at the joke. He can say things, obscene or racist things but I’m the only one who does not know.+

Int : actually I feel my supervisor try to embarrass me in front of them...man...men workers. He made a joke and the men workers laugh at the joke. He can tell the obscene things or the racist things. But I’m the only one who don’t know who don’t understand what does it mean.

In the third line of the above excerpt the student interpreter added ‘being undermined’ to

suggest that extra information was considered necessary. This acts as an additional

explanation to illustrate that incident of verbal abuse has the effect of undermining,

demoralizing. It clearly shows that the student interpreter selected certain text to be given

in the rendition to meet with the expected, appropriate value. Moreover, in the last

sentence of the excerpt above her addition to the text – “who don’t understand what does

it mean” clearly emphasizes on the student interpreters’ assumption that the reader may

not understand if she was just stopping at the words “I’m the only one who doesn’t know”.

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This suggests that the student interpreter carefully selected ‘appropriate information and

decided how the text should be presented.

Student interpreter’s performance when interpreting narratives

The features of narrativity revealed in this study could illustrate not only how narrative

works, but also how the narrative texts were rendered into the target language by

Indonesian student interpreters. This section discusses in specific the student interpreters’

performance when interpreting the narratives related to accuracy and other criteria of good

interpretation (Tateyama, 2008). These can be caused by different factors in which one of

them is the student interpreter’s acquisition of English language. It is necessary to

understand that the students are at their second year of learning English as a foreign

language in an English Department. Arguably, the student interpreters in this study are not

those who generally sit in an interpreting school. Their interpretation errors were mostly

caused by three interconnected factors which are related to the criteria mentioned above.

Although generally most dialogues were completely rendered there are few

instances where incomplete and inaccurate rendition occurred. They are mostly under

translation but not over translation and no distortion of meaning. The student interpreter in

role play #1 in which selective appropriation features were mostly discovered, seems to

have lenience in omitting the sentences. This has serious effect on accuracy and

completeness of the message. Under translated message will cause misunderstanding

between parties involved in the conversation. Moreover, there were consistent errors

particularly related to the concept of bullying. It evidently indicates that the concept is alien

to him or that he probably did not understand the act of bullying and its consequences. This

shows that the student interpreter did not have sufficient background knowledge

(Tateyama, 2008). In addition to the accuracy which was compromised, vocabulary and

structure are also a bit of a challenge. The word “membenahnya” in Indonesian for instance

is not a common word with correct prefix and suffix. Overall, to the extent of the analysis of

the transcription the student interpreter may have his reason in omitting some of the

sentences. One possible reason is that he intentionally selected the information to fit in the

time frame in the classroom context. The other reason is he simply could not remember all

the information uttered but he was too reluctant to ask the speaker to repeat. This indicates

that there is a connection between being low achiever and his interpreting performance as

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in the case of role play #1. Moreover, the student interpreters in role play #2, #3 and #4

have rendered the narrative provided by the speakers accurately and completely. Unlike the

first role play, the rest of the role plays demonstrate that the student interpreters could

retain the messages sufficiently in their memory and thus conveyed them correctly. Even

though selective appropriation is also the most frequent narrative feature found in these

three role plays, they did not involve major omission or addition to the messages which can

distort their intended meaning. This particularly relevant to the case of role play #4 where

the student interpreter is the most culturally sensible and considerate and has adhered to

the fidelity norm compared to others. It is necessary to highlight that this student

interpreter is the high achiever student in the interpreting class.

In reference to the analysis above, conclusion can be drawn that the student

interpreters have their understanding to the act of interpreting. The result evidently shows

that they made their best effort to successfully convey the message of the speakers’

narrative performance. To some extent, they were mostly following the fidelity criteria,

using appropriate vocabulary, employing effective and consistent word choice, and having

sufficient understanding of the topic. However, it is necessary to emphasize that the student

interpreters need to pay particular attention to structure and naturalness which involves

smooth flow of the utterances, appropriate style & register, clarity of voice, and self-control.

Conclusion

Narrative works at any sphere of life. In the interpreted interaction and/or event, narrative

is put in the critical position when an interpreter plays a role in constructing the stories. As

this study has explored, the student interpreters used the narrative features in which

selective appropriation was found to be mostly used in the role play dialogue. However,

there are two possible reasons why the student interpreters mostly used selective

appropriation feature. The first one is that they selected information for the purpose of

fitting the sequence to the larger frame of the narrative. In other words, they might try to

maintain the ‘plot’ (Baker, 2007). The second one is that they simply were struggling with

their interpreting skills in terms of fidelity, vocabulary, structure and naturalness produced

since they are only at their second year of studying English as a foreign language. It is

believed that these are also related to their memory retention.

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Furthermore, this indicates that the student interpreters may deliberately (but also

unintentionally) selected information that needed to be rendered to fit in to what was

expected by the speakers – to be on track (plot). This had impact on the accuracy of the

message since some words were not being interpreted because a good interpreting must be

complete and accurate, meaning that there must be no over or under translation.

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Student interpreters’ Narrative Performance

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