Abstract:
Interpretation is the process of converting an expression delivered in source
language into a comparable meaning in a target language either simultaneously
in real time or consecutively when the speaker pauses after completing one or
two sentences. "Interpretation" is a compulsory subject unit for the third year
undergraduates who are reading translation methods in university of Kelaniya
Sri Lanka. The unit is being taught for two semesters and the skill of
interpretation is tested by a practical session. It covers Sinhalese to English
interpretation and vice versa, and the lecture hours cover the theory components
and conduct practice sessions by interpreting the Hansard reports. By this study,
it was expected to find out the most prominent issues encountered by the
undergraduates practicing interpretation. Therefore, a questionnaire was
provided to the third year undergraduates who are currently studying
interpretation to make a list of issues according to the responses recorded on the
questionnaire. Meanwhile, five undergraduate students studying interpretation
were interviewed to record their individual issues and they were given few
sentences to interpret to identify the issues they face when interpreting these
particular sentences. The results indicated that for many undergraduate students,
it is difficult to interpret a long and complex statement with speed, while, some
have expressed certain difficulties in interpreting technical words, and several
students have mentioned difficulty in memorising complex sentences.
Significantly, the different sentence structure between Sinhalese and English has
created several confusions when interpreting complex sentences. Moreover,
homonyms seem to confuse them when a sentence with the same word with
different contextual meanings is given to interpret. As a consequence, students
tend to have a lesser interest in choosing interpretation as their career path. Thus,
possible suggestions were made for the identified issues to assist the students to
practice interpretation more effectively and increase the number of students who
are interested in becoming interpreters in the futUre.
