FUNCTIONS OF SIMULTANEOUS INTERPRETING ATSUKO TANAKA

The art of simultaneous translation is useful in international meetings and conferences, but in languages as different in structure as English and Japanese, such translation calls for highly sophisticated technique and, obviously, a very alert translator. This article discusses some interesting aspects of the rather new art of English-Japanese simultaneous translation. TWENTY YEARS AGO, it was thought impossible to put Japan-ese into English or vice versa simultaneously, the languages having entirely different sentence structures. To mention a few, the main characteristics of Japanese are: the verb comes at the end of a sentence; the subject of a sentence is often omitted; conjunctions are in many cases buried in the conjugations of verbs. Nevertheless, because of the need to provide Japan with a modern means of communication, the technique of simultaneous interpreting had to be devised. ’ 1 It is, however a work of making what seems to be an impos-sibility a possibility, thereby necessitating sophisticated tech-niques and adjustments. I would like to show in this paper why it seemed impossible before, how it has been made possible since, and discuss the credibility of simultaneous interpreting. Whether in writing or in speaking, the translators can put the message into another language after thoroughly grasping the concept as seen in the following diagram. This paper was read at the 35th Convention of the Japan Busines