Practical challenges, needs and perspectives for Rwanda's novice simultaneous interpreters: A case study of scientific conferences.

Abstract

This study aims at investigating into the practical challenges faced by novice interpreters in Rwanda while interpreting scientific discourses from English into French and other way around. It also intends to explore the causes of these challenges and tout for solutions to improve novice interpreters‘ performance. In order to achieve the purpose of this study, the researcher used a combination of three instruments for data collection. The first was informal questionnaires with targeted questions; the second was interviews using ―open-ended‖ questions, while the third was recordings out of the scientific discourses interpreted by novice interpreters. In order to achieve the research objectives, each interview was geared towards probing into various practical difficulties through questionnaires administered to people currently practicing the interpreting profession to express their views, opinions, insights, observation and suggestions that could ease such difficulties. The researcher selected a sample of thirty-five (35) simultaneous conference interpreters, among who twenty (20) were experienced interpreters who had been then practicing the interpreting profession for more than ten (10) years, and fifteen (15) novices who were new practitioners with less than six (6) years of experience in the field. Others were students enrolled in the MATI program in the College of Arts and Social Studies for the academic year 2018 to 2020. The outcome of the study revealed that interpreting performance of novice conference interpreters is seriously affected by different types of challenges when interpreting in scientific discourses. These difficulties are mostly attributed to lack of knowledge and specialized skills in interpreting scientific matters, lack of linguistic and extra-linguistic skills, lack of specialized terminologies and scientific vocabularies, lack of regular interpreting practice leading novice interpreters‘ failure to professionally perform, lack of equivalence for specific terms, lack of listening capacity, lack of working memory efforts, lack prior knowledge of the subject matter and above all, lack of production efforts. The study appealed for the need to having professional and experienced interpreters who are specialized in various scientific disciplines to handle interpreting of scientific discourses.