In this chapter, we will provide updated knowledge in the discussion of how to define sight translation. Furthermore, we will present a discussion of best practices in sight translation in a health care context, not only related to the process of sight translating, but also to challenges regarding the listener's accessibility to sight translated texts. Furthermore, we will present our curriculum for sight translation at Oslo Metropolitan University and explain the rationale behind it based on theoretical knowledge from extant translation studies and the theories of semiotics and multimodality. We will argue that sight translation needs to be treated as a unique interpreting method that requires special training, and we will conclude with suggestions for further research.
TopIntroduction
Sight translation, also known as prima vista, refers to the process of interpreting a document from writing into speech. Together with consecutive and simultaneous interpreting, sight translation is one of the basic interpreting methods—in which the interpreter is provided with a written text and is expected to instantly and smoothly deliver the translation of its contents at a speed appropriate for natural oral production (Čeňková, 2010, p. 320). Sight translation occurs in both oral and signed interpreting. In this chapter, the focus is on oral interpreting.
During sight translation, the interpreter reads a written document silently in the source language and renders its contents orally in the target language. Thus, the process involves a transformation from the written to the spoken mode. Relying on both written and spoken discourse, sight translation is a complex task that involves many competences—e.g., reading, text-analytic, communicative, public speaking, coordination of speech and translation—in addition to the written and oral competences in the two languages used. According to Stansfield (2008), the involvement of both written and oral language makes sight translation the most challenging interpreting method, especially because written language usually involves the use of more complex sentences than spoken language.
Gonzalez, Vasquez, and Mikkelson (1991) describe sight translation as an art:
Like accomplished musicians who play an apparently effortless version of a piece they have never laid eyes on, interpreters are actually drawing upon years of training and experience to perform this feat. The end product should be both faithful to the original text and pleasing to the ear (that is, in free-flowing, natural sounding language) (p. 401).
Interpreters in the health services often come across documents that they are expected to sight translate, mostly for the patients but also for health care personnel. The types of these documents can be very diverse. There are journal entries, resolutions, medical histories, forms the patient must fill out, notice letters, or information leaflets that the interpreter has to interpret for the patients or for health care personnel. In other words, a substantial amount of interpreting occurs from the written to the spoken mode in the field of health care. Typically, the interpreter interprets an information leaflet for a patient into the patient’s language. The leaflet may, for example, contain information about an operation that the patient is going to have or information about a diagnosis that the patient has received. In other cases, the interpreter has to interpret the languages the other way around. For example, the interpreter may be expected to interpret a foreign medical journal from the patient’s language to the language of health care personnel.
In extant literature, as well as in practice, interpreting is widely construed as the action of overcoming barriers between two languages in spoken discourse. However, sight translation is a form of interpreting that relies on both written and spoken discourse and does not fit into this classification. Nevertheless, sight translation is commonly used in interpreter-mediated communication in public services, including health care, as demonstrated by the examples above. The interpreters in public services in Norway report that they sight translate on an almost daily basis (Felberg, 2015; Nilsen & Monsrud, 2015) in various locations and contexts, such as hospitals, doctor consultations, courts, asylum interviews, schools, child welfare situations, and other social service contexts.
In the literature, there is no agreement about the definition of sight translation, and, thus, it still remains a debatable issue. Nevertheless, the most challenging and distinct feature of sight translation is the shift from the written to the spoken mode, which in addition to linguistic challenges in the written—spoken language continuum, includes mediation of mode-specific resources into another mode. This chapter presents the argument for the following definition: Sight translation is an interpreting method that involves a shift from the written to the spoken mode. This is called interpreting because the target text is mostly presented orally and because sight translation in the public sector is discussed as part of an interpreting assignment. In the public sector, sight translation occurs within the field of interpreting and not within translation, and the task is performed by interpreters.