Abstract:
This study claims that interpreting taboo from English and French to Kinyarwanda and vice versa
can affect negatively the quality of interpreting due to cultural factors. Therefore, it explores the
negative consequences of interpreting taboo and investigates relevant strategies to cope with them.
The methods adopted for conducting the research were the following: questionnaires to and semistructured interviews with interpreters, as well as a comparison of interpreting performances. All
these methods helped to identify the difficulties the interpreters face when dealing with taboo and
the frequency of strategies they use in the case of such difficulties.
In order to assess the quality of the interpreting rendition, the study mainly adopted the list of
quality assessment criteria by Schjöldager (1996). Her list is comprised of comprehensibility and
delivery, language, coherence and plausibility, and loyalty.
Findings obtained at the end of the analysis first show that linguistic taboos in Kinyarwanda,
English and French cultures include but are not limited to words related to sex, race, ethnic group,
blasphemy, bad language (swearing, cursing, insults), sexual taboo (sexual organs, bodily
functions) and scatological taboo (excrements). Secondly, they indicate that ignoring or using
taboo while interpreting from English and French to Kinyarwanda and vice versa may have severe
consequences on the message, the listener and the interpreter. The message may be unfaithful,
implausible, misleading, distorted, diluted or lost. The listener may be shocked, embarrassed or
offended. The interpreter may be marginalized as someone who talks “dirty”. Finally, the findings
show that interpreters resort to various strategies to cope with challenges posed by taboo language.
On the one hand, the strategies include, for euphemistic purposes, equivalence, paraphrasing,
omission, addition and substitution. On the other hand, they are comprised of literal interpretation
and equivalence techniques for faithfulness and linguistic accuracy purposes.
In view of the above, this study recommends schools of interpreting and/or interpreting
associations to organize specialized training on interpreting taboo, to monitor the practice of
interpreting taboo and to draft guidelines on interpreting taboo. It also recommends research on
interpreting taboo from the psycholinguistic, ethical and listener’s perspectives.
