TrIn 3101: Introduction to Interpreting

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TrIn 3101 Introduction to Interpreting

• Unit 3 continued
• A. Linguistic, Cultural, Situational and
  Professional Tasks of Interpreting
• B. Memory Topics

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Modified homework due 9/29/04

• Read the following articles
• Vásquez pp. 155-57
• The Interpreting Process pp. 173-186
• General Issues pp. 187-198
• Write one thought question for each article.
• Read again the article The Problem with
  Interpreters Communicating with Spanish-Speaking
  Patients by Vásquez and Javier (text pp.
  155-157).
• Write the answers to the questions on handout 3-6
  from Unit 3 (9/22/04).

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Unit 3 continued Goals

• 1) Review Definition of culture
• 2) Identify culture issues that impact
  communication (video)
• 3) Identify possible cultural conflicts in an
  interpreted encounter in a community setting

• 4) Identify some of the linguistic issues in
  finding appropriate equivalents in a
  cross-cultural medical encounter
• 5) Memory topics, memory enhancement techniques
  and exercises

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The Bilingual Medical Interview II The
Geriatric Interview

• The scenes depict medical interviews by
  physicians with non-English speaking geriatric
  patients. Each of the segments is an edited
  version of a complete visit, including a history,
  physical exam and review of medicines.These
  vignettes are designed to highlight points of
  interest regarding geriatric clinical issues,
  cross-cultural concerns and techniques for the
  bilingual interview.

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Cultural issues a review

• As each scene is shown on the video dealing
  with geriatric medical interviews
• a) circle the cultural areas of conflict
  observed
• b) briefly identify the specific conflict(s)
  demonstrated in each vignette
• c) How might/should the interpreter deal with
  each conflict?

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Video the geriatric interview

• Scene 1
• House call
• Mature daughter
• interprets for
• elderly Spanish-
• speaking mother
• who is a bilateral
• amputee with an
• unstable heart
• condition

• Age/status
• Gender
• Beliefs and values
• Verbal and
• non-verbal communication

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Video the geriatric interview

• Scene 2
• hospital room
• young nephew
• interprets for
• elderly Chinese
• uncle

• Age/status
• Gender
• Beliefs and values
• Verbal and
• non-verbal communication

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Video the geriatric interview

• Scene 3
• house call
• Hindi-speaking
• female nurse
• interprets for
• elderly female
• patient

• Age/status
• Gender
• Beliefs and values
• Verbal and
• non-verbal communication

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Video the geriatric interview

• Scene 4
• Male physician
• male interpreter
• pre-interview
• consultation
• interview with elderly Spanish-speaking male

• Age/status
• Gender
• Beliefs and values
• Verbal and
• non-verbal communication

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Discussion of cultural issues areas of
potential conflict

• Handout 3-3 (group of 3-4) From his/her native
  culture perspective, each student will first
  identify at least one category in each of the
  four listed areas that may cause a conflict in a
  medical interview.
• Individually, please share with the group what
  those conflicts entail.
• Discuss how an interpreter might resolve each
  conflict.

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Linguistic issues

• Group application activity 3-5 (from week 9/22)
• 1. Divide into groups of 3-4, preferably with
  individuals from at least two different cultures.
  
• 2. Answer the following questions on your handout
  based on the norms of your native language
  culture. Assuming a medical encounter in a
  doctors office, give one answer for each
  question.
• 3. How might any of these factors influence an
  interpreted encounter?

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Linguistic Issues discussion

• 1. Introductions (verbal and non-verbal)
• 2. Concept of time
• 3. Seating arrangements- spatial intimacy?
• 4. Appropriate vs. inappropriate questions and
  topics

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Linguistic issues discussion

• 5. What is said at the beginning of an
  interaction?
• 6. Addressing each other first, last names,
  titles?
• 7. Who makes the decisions?
• 8. How to signal an encounter is over?

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Linguistic issues discussion

• 9. How formal or informal are people?
• 10. What is the polite way to interrupt?
• 11. How can age, status or gender affect an
  interaction?
• 12. How important is saving face?

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Cognate comedy

• A TA was trying out her English, and said to a
  professor, "Excuse me, may I molest you for a
  moment?"
• We have 2 adopted children who were 11 and 13
  when we adopted them in Costa Rica.  One had a
  detention at school after he had been in the US
  for about 6 months - he kept telling other
  children that they shouldn't "piss" on the grass.
  (pisar to step on)

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How many of these items do you recall after 10
seconds?
In English?
In Spanish?
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Memory Topicsfor Interpreters

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Objectives

• The student should be able to
• Review/identify the three stages involved in
  memory
• Describe the four phases of memory tasks
• Discuss general properties of memory
• Explain the Stroop Effect
• Apply techniques and mnemonic devices for memory
  enhancement in interpreting
• Association
• Visualization
• Acronyms

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Power of the human mind

• The paomnnehil pweor of the hmuan mnid.
  Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
  Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the
  ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng
  is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit
  pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can
  sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae
  the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by
  istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig eh?

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Memory Flow Chart

• The flowchart for the theory of memory indicates
  that all incoming information first passes
  through Sensory Memory (SM) before it enters
  ShortTerm Memory (STM). There it can be
  maintained by rehearsal and either successfully
  encoded for storage in LongTerm Memory (LTM) or
  forgotten. In retrieval, the information passes
  from LTM back to STM, where it enters our
  consciousness.

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• Three Stages of Memory

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Types of Memory

• Short Term Memory- Where sensory data is first
  transmitted to for processing and evaluation-
  Aging impacts the depth of processing that occurs
  in STM, sending less to LTM

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Types of Memory

• Long Term Memory- Where STM is encoded for
  long-term storage and future retrieval
• How quickly and reliably we recall it depends on
  
• Activation How long since we last used the
  information.
• Strength How well we have practiced it.
• Archival Memory (a type of LTM)- Used in the
  ultra-long term storage of memories

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Long Term Memory
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Working Memory

• Why can we rehearse only limited information at a
  time?
• Rehearsal limitations are due to limits in how
  long it takes verbal material to decay, not how
  many items we can store. Hence, the faster we can
  rehearse, the more we can store (Baddeley, 1986).

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Memory terms

• Memory is a complex mental function having four
  distinct phases
• (1) encoding or learning
• (2) retention
• (3) recall/retrieval
• (4) recognition
• Clinically, it is usually subdivided into
  immediate, recent, and remote memory.

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Retention

• The persistence to perform a learned behavior
  (facts or experiences) after an interval has
  elapsed in which there has been no performance or
  practice of the behavior.

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Memory Theory

• Recognition vs. Recall Issues- Recognition -
  seeing something and knowing what it is- Recall
  - very construction oriented requires making
  connections
• The process whereby a representation of past
  experience is elicited. - As we age, our
  recognition abilities get stronger while recall
  weakens- Recognition scenarios (like multiple
  choice exams) are better for older learners

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Mnemonic

• 'Mnemonic' is another word for memory tool.
  Mnemonics are methods for remembering information
  that is otherwise quite difficult to recall. The
  basic principle of mnemonics is to use as many of
  the best functions of your brain as possible to
  store information.

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Use Your Whole Mind To Remember

• By coding language and numbers in striking
  images, you can reliably code both information
  and the structure of information. You can then
  easily recall these later.

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You can do the following things to make your
mnemonics more memorable

• Use positive, pleasant images. The brain often
  blocks out unpleasant ones.
• Use vivid, colorful, sense-laden images - these
  are easier to remember than drab ones.
• Use all your senses to code information or dress
  up an image. Remember that your mnemonic can
  contain sounds, smells, tastes, touch, movements
  and feelings as well as pictures.

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Mnemonics continued . . .

• Give your image three dimensions, movement and
  space to make it more vivid. You can use movement
  either to maintain the flow of association, or to
  help you to remember actions.
• Exaggerate the size of important parts of the
  image
• Use humor! Funny or peculiar things are easier to
  remember than normal ones.
• Similarly rude rhymes are very difficult to
  forget!
• Symbols (red traffic lights, pointing fingers,
  road signs, etc.) can code quite complex messages
  quickly and effectively.

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How does our memory work?

• We remember things by association. Every piece of
  information in our memory is connected to other
  pieces in some way or another. For example, if
  you are given the word "apple", what do you think
  of? Perhaps something like this
• APPLE red, round, sweet, teacher, tree, fruit
• But it's unlikely that we might see "apple" and
  think of "dog". And what if you were asked what
  the 7th letter of the alphabet was? Chances are,
  you wouldn't know that "G 7," but you could
  easily think to yourself, "A B C D E F G," and
  then say "G". You used association to get to the
  letter G, because you knew A was the first
  letter, then you kept choosing the next letter in
  the sequence until you got to the right one.

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Association

• If memory works by association, we actively work
  to create an association between two bits of
  information. For example, for the plane that we
  need to catch at 2 P.M., we can imagine the plane
  in our mind, and notice that it has 2 wings. Two
  wings, 2 P.M. There's an association by means of
  a visualization. We are now ten times more likely
  to remember the take-off time long after it has
  faded from our short-term memory.

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Association

• When pieces of information are not obviously
  related in any way, however, we have to be a bit
  more creative in linking things together. But it
  isn't as hard as it seems. Most of us learned
  rhymes and acronyms in school that helped us
  remember things. Do any of the following look
  familiar to you?
• i before e except after c, or when sounded like a
  as in neighbor and weigh (rule for remembering ei
  or ie)
• ROY G. BIV (colors of the rainbow)
• All Cows Eat Grass Every Good Boy Does Fine
  (notes of musical scale)
• Never Eat Sour Watermelons (directions on a
  compass)

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Association exercise

• To demonstrate how effectively this works, look
  at the following list of words, and try to come
  up with an association between the left word and
  the right word of each row. Some will be easy
  others may be harder. As an example, for the
  first pair, you might want to imagine a mouse
  that has a long, wavy tail that is in the shape
  of the letter S.

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Association exercise

• mouse S
• fur R
• train bridge
• moat boat
• popcorn chair
• elephant pancake
• toothbrush canal
• umbrella triangle

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Association exercise

• After you have formed the associations, cover up
  the right side of the list and then try to name
  the word associated with each word on the left.
  If you formed vivid, clear associations, you may
  be surprised at how quickly and easily you were
  able to remember everything!

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Association exercise

• mouse
• fur
• train
• moat
• popcorn
• elephant
• toothbrush
• umbrella

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Other properties of memory

• Law of Recency
• We are more likely to remember things that
  happened recently than those that happened a long
  time ago. You can probably remember what you had
  for dinner yesterday, but not what you ate for
  dinner two weeks ago today.

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Law of Recency

• A list of 20 words will be read. Try to remember
  as many of the words as possible. Write down the
  words that you can remember immediately after
  reading the list.

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List of words

• cat apple ball tree square head
  house door
• box car king hammer milk fish
  book tape arrow flower key shoe

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Law of Recency . . . and Primacy

• This type of experiment provides evidence that
  there are 2 types of memory processes. It is
  thought that memory is good for the words read
  last because they are still in short term memory
  - this is the recency effect. Memory is good for
  the words read first because they made it into
  long term memory - this is the primacy effect.

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Memory properties

• Law of Vividness
• We tend to remember the most spectacular or
  striking impressions rather than those that are
  more ordinary. You can probably remember what you
  did on your last birthday, or perhaps the events
  of 9/11, but not what happened on the previous
  day of those occasions (unless, that too, was a
  "special" occasion).

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Law of Vividness

• We are much better at remembering pictures than
  we are at remembering words and names. There are
  probably biological and evolutionary reasons for
  that. When subjects are asked to recognize a
  small set of photos that they saw the previous
  day from a larger set, they typically recognize
  around 97.

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Concrete Words, Abstract Words and Nonsense

• The ability to recall a word depends on how
  meaningful the word is to a person. Along with
  the meaningfulness of a word, the "concreteness"
  of a word is important for memory. Concreteness
  refers to the ability of a word to form a mental
  image. A word with high concreteness is easy to
  "see" a word with low concreteness (an
  "abstract" word) is difficult to visualize.

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Concrete words

• Here are three lists of words concrete words,
  abstract words and nonsense words. See which list
  is easier to memorize. You could also read these
  lists to other people to see how many words from
  each list they remember.

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Concrete words

• alligatorapplearrowbabybirdbookbutterflyc
  arcornflower

• hammerhouselemonmicroscopeoceanpencilrock
  shoestablewindow

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Abstract words

• angerbeliefboredomchanceconcepteffortfatef
  reedomgloryhappiness

• honorhopeideainterestknowledgemercymoodmor
  altheorytruth

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Nonsense words

• atorbotamcrovdifimfirapglimocgriculhilni
  mjolibkepwin

• lumalmibnatpempeyrimrispawstiwintubivvope
  cyapib

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Memory properties

• Law of Frequency
• We tend to remember things we experience the most
  often, rather than those we experience only once
  in a while. You are much more likely to remember
  your name or your phone number than the square
  root of 3 (unless you are a mathematician).

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Short Term Memory Test

• Directions
• You are about do a small short term memory test.
  A few letters will flash on your computer monitor
  for 3 seconds. Your job is to write down as many
  letters as you can remember after they disappear.
  
• 1.
• 2.
• 3.
• 4.
• 5.
• 6.

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U M
55
T Z L D
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K X C E J O
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A V C Y I S E H
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L B F Q R P M A U X
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Z Q ETC BUM ON RV
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STM exercise

• How did you do? Compare your results with the
  table on your page. How many letters from each
  trial did you remember? Is there a "pattern" to
  the letters that you remembered? For example, did
  you remember the first few letters better than
  the middle letters? Did you remember the last
  letters?

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STM exercise
Trial letters Total letters Your
1 2 UM
2 4 TZLD
3 6 KXCEJO
4 8 AVCYISEH
5 10 LBFQRPMAUX
6 12 ZQETCBUMONRV
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Short Term Memory Test - Pictures

• Draw a 4x4 grid of boxes.
• Look at the objects that you should remember. The
  objects will stay on your screen for 30 seconds.
  Then write down the names of all the items you
  remember inside the appropriate boxes.

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Here are the pictures . . .




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Picture test

• How many objects did you remember?
• Were the objects that you remembered also placed
  correctly on the grid?
• What categories of objects did you remember
  animals, food, building, animated objects, piano

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Interference The Stroop Effect

• Don't read the words on the right--justsay the
  colors they're printed in, and do this aloud as
  fast as you can.You're in for a surprise!

• redyellowgreenblueredblueyellowgreen blue
  red

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The famous "Stroop Effect" is named after J.
Ridley Stroop who discovered this strange
phenomenon in the 1930s.

• If you're like most people, your first
  inclination was to read the words, 'red, yellow,
  green...,' rather than the colors they're printed
  in, 'blue, green, red...'
• You've just experienced interference.
• When you look at one of the words, you see both
  its color and its meaning. If those two pieces of
  evidence are in conflict, you have to make a
  choice. Because experience has taught you that
  word meaning is more important than ink color,
  interference occurs when you try to pay attention
  only to the ink color.

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Forgetting Gone, or Inaccessible?

• Do we forget because the information is gone, or
  do we forget because we can't access information
  that is still there?
• It is difficult to distinguish the two. However,
  there is evidence that we retain more than we can
  retrieve.

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How to Improve Your Memory

• There are many things you can do to improve your
  memory, among them the use of certain mental
  techniques, as well as special care with
  nutrition and medicines.

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To stimulate memory

• Use your memory to the utmost. Challenge a
  novelty. Learn new skills. If you work in an
  office, learn to dance. If you are a dancer,
  learn to deal with a computer if you work with
  sales, learn to play chess if you are a
  programmer, learn to paint. This could stimulate
  your brain's neural circuits to grow.

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Pay attention

• Don't try to memorize all the facts that happen,
  but focus your attention and concentrate in what
  you consider more important, avoiding all other
  thoughts. Exercise take any object, such as a
  pen, and concentrate on it. Think on its various
  characteristics its material, its function, its
  color, its anatomy, etc. Don't allow any other
  thought to occupy your mind while you are
  concentrating on that pen.

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Relax

• It is impossible to pay attention if you are
  tense or nervous. Exercise hold your breath for
  ten seconds, then release it slowly.

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Associate facts to images

• Learn mnemonic techniques. They are a very
  efficient way to memorize large quantities of
  information.
• Visualize images See figures with the "eyes of
  your mind".

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Foods

• Some vitamins are essential for the proper
  working of memory thiamin, folic acid, and B12
  vitamin found in bread and cereal, vegetables and
  fruits.

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Water

• Water helps maintain the memory systems working,
  specially in older persons. According to Doctor
  Turkington, lack of water in the body has an
  immediate and deep effect on memory dehydration
  can generate confusion and other thought
  difficulties.

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Sleep

• To be able to have a good memory, it is essential
  that we allow the brain to have enough sleep and
  rest. While sleeping, the brain disconnects from
  the senses, and proceeds to revising and storing
  memory. Insomnia would produce a chronic fatigue
  and would impair the ability of concentration and
  the storing of information.

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Medication

• Some medicines can cause loss of memory
  tranquilizers, muscular relaxants, sleeping
  pills, and anti-anxiety drugs, such as valium.
  Some medicine for the control of high blood
  pressure (hypertension) may cause memory problems
  and depression.

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Alcohol

• Alcohol interferes specially with short-term
  memory, which impairs the ability of retaining
  new information. Studies have shown that even the
  ingestion of low quantities of alcoholic beverage
  during one whole week will interfere with the
  ability of remembering.

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Smoking

• Studies have shown that, when compared with
  non-smokers, individual smokers of one or more
  packs of cigarettes a day had difficulties
  remembering people's faces and names in a test of
  visual and verbal memory (Turkington, 1996).

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Caffeine

• Coffee and tea have a very positive effect to
  maintain attention and to end sleepiness, but the
  excitation promoted by these drinks may interfere
  with the memory function.

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Practice

• Practice improves memory, but how you practice
  also affects it. The same amounts of practice,
  but distributed in the one case and massed in the
  other, lead to different outcomes.
• Distributed practice is when practice is spread
  out over time. For example, you may study a total
  of 12 hours for a test but you did so over 6
  days.
• Massed practice is when practice is done all at
  once. For example, you study 12 hours the night
  before the test.
• Many studies have confirmed that the first
  strategy is the better one. Subjects remember
  more and for longer periods of time when they
  distribute their practice.

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Over-learning

• Over-learning is when practice is continued
  beyond the criterion of one error-free trial.
  Actors over-learn their lines. They will rehearse
  far beyond the time necessary for the criterion
  above. In the military, drills constitute
  over-learning. In all of the cases above,
  over-learning helps to negate the negative
  effects of stress on memory. Over-learned items
  can be recalled under higher levels of stress
  than can items that were not over-learned.

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How many of these associations do you recall now?

• mouse
• fur
• train
• moat
• popcorn
• elephant
• toothbrush
• umbrella

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In conclusion . . .

• For the most part, memory does a magnificent job
  for us. Every time you spell a word, drive a car
  or pick up a telephone and recognize your
  mother's voice, it's a wonder.

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Quiz preparation

• Date October 6
• Length 40-60 min.
• Points 50 total
• Content
• definition of terms (2 pts. each)
• short essay answers (3-10 pts. each)

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Expectations for the quiz

• Definition of terms plus the following essay
  topics
• Why is literal translation or interpreting
  usually meaningless?
• Why should the interpreter speak in the first
  person (I) while interpreting?
• What are the roles of the interpreter?
• Define culture and explain why the interpreter
  should be knowledgeable of both cultures.
• Contrast and/or compare translating and
  interpreting in 4 ways.
• What knowledge, skills and qualities does a
  competent interpreter need to have?
• Explain the phenomenon of transference in the
  interview.

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Assignments due on 10/6/04

• Quiz (50 pts)
• Write one thought question for each article from
  the text
• Codes pp. 1-4, 5-13
• Rules pp. 257-263
• NAJIT pp. 264-266

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Until next Wednesday . . .