Comprehension of the "Inner Syntactic Structure" of the Source Language Messages by Simultaneous Interpreters

Scholars in the field of the general theory of translation have described syntactic transformations in the process of translation in detail [see, e.g. Бархударов 1975]. Below we will focus only on those syntactic problems, which are relevant for oral simultaneous interpreting. The main specificity here is that messages in simultaneous interpreting have to be often perceived before the source language speaker structurally completes them. Most authors argue that simultaneous interpreters use the so-called "split programme" of perceiving and interpreting syntactical structure of the SL messages. In other words, simultaneous interpreters construct "the inner syntactic structure" of messages long before (in terms of seconds) they are completed by the SL speaker using the mechanism of anticipation [see Чернов 1987: 185-193]. Interpreters seem "to look into the inner syntactic depth" of utterances and plan their possible structure. However, successful anticipation of syntax without considerable delays and pauses is possible if interpreting is performed between languages with a similar syntactic structure (like English and Dutch). Syntactic structure of utterances reflects the way in which the speakers of different languages present the theme and the rheme, i.e. "informational peaks", or, in other words, it reflects the functional sentence perspective of utterances.