The Speech-act Nature of Interpreting and Its Implications for Interpreter Training

Since the 1960s, research on interpreting has received much academic attention and interpreter training has become increasingly professional. Recent developments have focused on typological elaboration, training methodologies, and operational skills, and followed the working hypothesis that interpreting is a sense-for-sense rather than word-for-word type of translation. However, the sense-for-sense hypothesis underlies all human communication. This understanding prompts us to consider how sense or meaning is communicated, interpreted (comprehended), delivered, and eventually received by the listener to complete the interpreting process. In this chapter, we argue that interpreting is inherently a speech act, as much as any mode of communication is, and through extensive examples we illustrate how a textually accountable methodology for interpreter training can help forge stronger connections among knowledge, skill, and professional competence. In our characterisation of the relation between illocutionary and perlocutionary act on the one hand and information structuring and transmission on the other, we also explore the possibilities of transforming passive training into a positive learning experience sustained by a speech act theory-informed discursive awareness. © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Chunshen Zhu and Chengzhi Jiang; individual chapters,
the contributors.