Political discourse in simultaneous interpreting from German into Maltese : challenges and strategies

Abstract

This dissertation probes into interpreting skills from the perspective of the interpreting process. This is done by discussing and applying specific categories of interpreting skills and strategies, which are recognised as ensuring the fulfilment of the procedures in the interpreting process. It is hoped that this study sheds light on the challenges encountered by interpreters when interpreting political speeches in simultaneous mode from German into Maltese. Moreover, the study is a contribution to the identification of language- and mode-specific challenges, which could be addressed in interpreter training, for instance. This study shall also discuss the interpreting process and analyse the problems and factors that may affect the rendition of the source speech from German into Maltese by taking two interventions by Angela Merkel (her opening Future of Europe speech as well as her response to the MEPs debate about her speech) and their interpretation into Maltese as its basis for the analysis. It then focuses on the discussion of four categories of interpreting skills, namely, listening comprehension skills, decoding skills, recording skills, and re-expressing skills to overcome those problems and factors. This dissertation paves the way to the initiation of a German into Maltese parallel and comparable corpus, that permits the study of the interpreted texts as distinct pieces of oral discourse. From these, an analysis of the interpreting process and the skills within the language and modality specific features of the interpreted output, can be elicited. Up until now, no studies comparing German speeches to their Maltese interpreted versions have been carried out and it is hoped that this will be the first of many.