This seminar paper aims to study the use of metacognition in interpreting training and introduce ... more This seminar paper aims to study the use of metacognition in interpreting training and introduce some metacognitive tools that may facilitate interpreting teaching and learning, promote learner autonomy and enhance the quality of education. The first part introduces the concept and gives an overview of previous studies on metacognition. Some examples of metacognitive tools that can be used in interpreting training are provided: teacher feedback, tutorials, self-assessment sheets, peer feedback, journals and portfolios. The second part of the paper presents concrete examples of how three of these tools (namely self-assessment sheets, portfolios and journals) have been developed and applied by three teachers in three different universities and draws conclusions in the light of the contribution these tools made to interpreting learning. Finally the paper briefly discusses the potential benefits of these tools in a virtual learning environment.
Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi, 2017
In this study,Anokhin's Theory of Functional System and Chernov's Activity Theory, derive... more In this study,Anokhin's Theory of Functional System and Chernov's Activity Theory, derived from the same will be elucidated in line with the experiential and scientific studies coupled with the literature of interpreting studies of the author of this article. Anokhin's functional system is developed as a system with non-linear elements functioning simultaneously and having self-monitoring characteristic as opposed to the linear system of conditioned reflexes of Pavlov. In the system the afferent signals from the previous action result are synthesized to establish a neural network template, which refers to the anticipated result of the processing. The fact that the system is a non-linear one with afferentation and anticipation functions, the central part of which is always in interaction with the peripheral systems makes it an inventory one. Chernov, on the other hand, adapted the phases of simultaneous interpretation, which he professionally knows very well to the Functional System and developed Anokhin's concepts by elaborating on probability anticipation, self-monitoring and self-correction in simultaneous interpretation.
Turkey is a country especially prone to earthquakes due to its geophysical position. After the st... more Turkey is a country especially prone to earthquakes due to its geophysical position. After the strikes of the 1999 earthquakes, department of translation and interpretation in Turkey launched training courses for the interpreters who would volunteer to provide services to foreign search and rescue teams. A form of emergency interpreting that aims to provide help with communication during search and rescue operations, this practice so far remained unique to Turkey. This chapter offers a report on the historical context, the organization, and the training offered within this practice. While reassessing its operations in ten years of activity, this chapter focuses on both its accomplishments and weaknesses that this training and support project is considered in this chapter with an eye to its current and future challenges. This article suggests that the Turkish model (ARC) may represent an example or even a model to consider for including linguistic mediation in the disaster for multilingual countries vulnerable to disasters.
This paper, emphasizing the importance of native language awareness in translation and drawing on... more This paper, emphasizing the importance of native language awareness in translation and drawing on problems observed in university students, sets out with an assumption that native language awareness, which is supposed to have satisfactorily developed either naturally or through previous stages of education, may undergo a serious process of interruption or blockage, as we call it, during written translations made particularly from the source language (English) to the mother tongue (Turkish). The fact that students can recognize their mother tongue mistakes either after self-monitoring or after the instructor's remarks may indicate that translated texts, which are seemingly Turkish, yet lacking many of the naturally well-formed features of the mother tongue discourse, suffer from such problems either due to the heavy concentration of mind on the source language structures or due to the problems originating from the gaps in the translation training. Performance of a total of 60 sub...
Turkey is a country especially prone to earthquakes due to its geophysical position. After the st... more Turkey is a country especially prone to earthquakes due to its geophysical position. After the strikes of the 1999 earthquakes, Turkish translation and interpretation departments launched training courses for the interpreters volunteering to provide services to the foreign search and rescue teams. To realize these courses, a non-governmental organization was founded in Turkey, bringing together the academia, government and a non-governmental association as signatories to a protocol among them. Civil Defence Directorate under Interior Ministry constituted the governmental foot of the tripod, the translation and interpretation departments of the universities the academia and Translation Association in Turkey the non-governmental organization. The basic training courses of the programme serving as a background encompass a large range of topics such as geophysical, geochemical, architectural, environmental, managerial, organizational, psychological, sociological aspects of a disaster ca...
This seminar paper aims to study the use of metacognition in interpreting training and introduce ... more This seminar paper aims to study the use of metacognition in interpreting training and introduce some metacognitive tools that may facilitate interpreting teaching and learning, promote learner autonomy and enhance the quality of education. The first part introduces the concept and gives an overview of previous studies on metacognition. Some examples of metacognitive tools that can be used in interpreting training are provided: teacher feedback, tutorials, self-assessment sheets, peer feedback, journals and portfolios. The second part of the paper presents concrete examples of how three of these tools (namely self-assessment sheets, portfolios and journals) have been developed and applied by three teachers in three different universities and draws conclusions in the light of the contribution these tools made to interpreting learning. Finally the paper briefly discusses the potential benefits of these tools in a virtual learning environment.
Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series – Themes in Translation Studies
This paper, emphasizing the importance of native language awareness in translation and drawing on... more This paper, emphasizing the importance of native language awareness in translation and drawing on problems observed in university students, sets out with an assumption that native language awareness, which is supposed to have satisfactorily developed either naturally or through previous stages of education, may undergo a serious process of “interruption” or “blockage ”, as we call it, during written translations made particularly from the source language (English) to the mother tongue (Turkish). The fact that stu¬dents can recognize their mother tongue mistakes either after self-monitoring or after the instructor’s remarks may indicate that translated texts, which are seemingly Turkish, yet lacking many of the naturally well-formed fea¬tures of the mother tongue discourse, suffer from such problems either due to the heavy concentration of mind on the source language structures or due to the problems originating from the gaps in the translation training. Performances of a total of 60...
The earthquakes of 1999 in Marmara region in Turkey led the academicians of translation and inter... more The earthquakes of 1999 in Marmara region in Turkey led the academicians of translation and interpretation to launch interpreter training programmes in collaboration with Turkish Civil Defence and Turkish Translation Association within the frame of a protocol, which enabled around 300 people to receive the basic training of 100 hours and a hundred more to be merely enrolled due to the time constraint for training. The aim of this study was to present the results of the survey conducted on these ARC members and to evaluate the outcomes of Emergency and Disaster Interpreting Initiative (ARC) after a ten-year endeavour. The method used was a descriptive one and the results were given in frequencies and percentages. Out of the 400 registered members the number of the respondents who were found to be accessible were only 62 in total. The findings demonstrated the following results: 1. The respondents were mostly from Istanbul; Ankara ranked the second and Izmir the third. 2.The number of the respondents to the survey were mostly among the ones who were enrolled to the Initiative between 2000- 2007. 3. The respondents of the survey were mostly between the 26-30 age interval and unmarried. 4. Most of the respondents were either employed or both student and employed 5. University graduates ranked the first in educational status. 6. Most respondents learnt about ARC through their teachers. 7. The respondents were mostly from the group who received a-hundred-hour basic training. 8. The total number of the members who joined the drills was less than the ones who never joined any of the activities. 9. Turkish, English, Russian, Spanish, German, Italian, French were the languages, the members could provide interpreting service in total. 10. The respondents tried to improve their knowledge and skills by joining some other activities after the trainings. 11. The Initiative act as a driving force for the respondents to assume the responsibility to inform their environments about the measures to be taken against disasters and about the activities of ARC. 12. The respondents also made efforts to increase the membership number of ARC. 13. The respondents were not so good at checking the e-mails sent by the tasking unit but they were better at getting into contact through sms or telephonecall chains. At the end of the study the suggestions of both the researcher and the respondents were listed.
Interpreting is a complex process which challenges the brain by memory-intense processes, necessi... more Interpreting is a complex process which challenges the brain by memory-intense processes, necessitating immediate proper response to unexpected situations, in which a vast number of cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills function almost simultaneously; thus, its training requires peculiar practices. The success of the interpreting performance depends upon the realization of higher level immediate mental processes in the best way; and an individual can accomplish this by learning to carry out self-monitoring, self-regulation operations in the brain at the immediate time. Therefore, it is considered that awareness-raising about the metacognitive tools and facilitating what is learnt about these tools during the interpreting performance will help the students in their performance both during the training process and at a later stage during the professional interpreting process. The purpose of this pilot study is to investigate the function, necessity and use of metacognitive tools...
Paper presented at Translating and the Computer Conference, 2022
Automatic speech recognition (ASR) technologies have improved considerably with new computational... more Automatic speech recognition (ASR) technologies have improved considerably with new computational developments and have been garnering greater attention in technology-mediated interpreting research. Several computer-aided interpreting tools (CAI) have been developed, using enhanced ASR in automatic entity highlighting, automated query systems (live support as an artificial boothmate), and information retrieval which are generally aimed at improving rendition quality and lesser cognitive load. The empirical data drawn from recent CAI research conducted for simultaneous interpreting show a measurable precision in rendering quality. Given the necessity to enrich empirical research on CAI tools, unlike the previous studies mostly investigating the use of ASR in simultaneous interpreting, this study scrutinizes the use of ASR in the consecutive mode by proposing a prototype CAI tool. By this means, we introduce Sight-Terp, a CAI tool using enhanced ASR, Machine Translation (MT) and Named Entity Recognition (NER), and digital notepad functions together. As a part of an ongoing thesis, this study also aims to find if there is a significant difference between consecutive interpreting performances of a group of participants in a repeated measures design.
This seminar paper aims to study the use of metacognition in interpreting training and introduce ... more This seminar paper aims to study the use of metacognition in interpreting training and introduce some metacognitive tools that may facilitate interpreting teaching and learning, promote learner autonomy and enhance the quality of education. The first part introduces the concept and gives an overview of previous studies on metacognition. Some examples of metacognitive tools that can be used in interpreting training are provided: teacher feedback, tutorials, self-assessment sheets, peer feedback, journals and portfolios. The second part of the paper presents concrete examples of how three of these tools (namely self-assessment sheets, portfolios and journals) have been developed and applied by three teachers in three different universities and draws conclusions in the light of the contribution these tools made to interpreting learning. Finally the paper briefly discusses the potential benefits of these tools in a virtual learning environment.
Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi, 2017
In this study,Anokhin's Theory of Functional System and Chernov's Activity Theory, derive... more In this study,Anokhin's Theory of Functional System and Chernov's Activity Theory, derived from the same will be elucidated in line with the experiential and scientific studies coupled with the literature of interpreting studies of the author of this article. Anokhin's functional system is developed as a system with non-linear elements functioning simultaneously and having self-monitoring characteristic as opposed to the linear system of conditioned reflexes of Pavlov. In the system the afferent signals from the previous action result are synthesized to establish a neural network template, which refers to the anticipated result of the processing. The fact that the system is a non-linear one with afferentation and anticipation functions, the central part of which is always in interaction with the peripheral systems makes it an inventory one. Chernov, on the other hand, adapted the phases of simultaneous interpretation, which he professionally knows very well to the Functional System and developed Anokhin's concepts by elaborating on probability anticipation, self-monitoring and self-correction in simultaneous interpretation.
Turkey is a country especially prone to earthquakes due to its geophysical position. After the st... more Turkey is a country especially prone to earthquakes due to its geophysical position. After the strikes of the 1999 earthquakes, department of translation and interpretation in Turkey launched training courses for the interpreters who would volunteer to provide services to foreign search and rescue teams. A form of emergency interpreting that aims to provide help with communication during search and rescue operations, this practice so far remained unique to Turkey. This chapter offers a report on the historical context, the organization, and the training offered within this practice. While reassessing its operations in ten years of activity, this chapter focuses on both its accomplishments and weaknesses that this training and support project is considered in this chapter with an eye to its current and future challenges. This article suggests that the Turkish model (ARC) may represent an example or even a model to consider for including linguistic mediation in the disaster for multilingual countries vulnerable to disasters.
This paper, emphasizing the importance of native language awareness in translation and drawing on... more This paper, emphasizing the importance of native language awareness in translation and drawing on problems observed in university students, sets out with an assumption that native language awareness, which is supposed to have satisfactorily developed either naturally or through previous stages of education, may undergo a serious process of interruption or blockage, as we call it, during written translations made particularly from the source language (English) to the mother tongue (Turkish). The fact that students can recognize their mother tongue mistakes either after self-monitoring or after the instructor's remarks may indicate that translated texts, which are seemingly Turkish, yet lacking many of the naturally well-formed features of the mother tongue discourse, suffer from such problems either due to the heavy concentration of mind on the source language structures or due to the problems originating from the gaps in the translation training. Performance of a total of 60 sub...
Turkey is a country especially prone to earthquakes due to its geophysical position. After the st... more Turkey is a country especially prone to earthquakes due to its geophysical position. After the strikes of the 1999 earthquakes, Turkish translation and interpretation departments launched training courses for the interpreters volunteering to provide services to the foreign search and rescue teams. To realize these courses, a non-governmental organization was founded in Turkey, bringing together the academia, government and a non-governmental association as signatories to a protocol among them. Civil Defence Directorate under Interior Ministry constituted the governmental foot of the tripod, the translation and interpretation departments of the universities the academia and Translation Association in Turkey the non-governmental organization. The basic training courses of the programme serving as a background encompass a large range of topics such as geophysical, geochemical, architectural, environmental, managerial, organizational, psychological, sociological aspects of a disaster ca...
This seminar paper aims to study the use of metacognition in interpreting training and introduce ... more This seminar paper aims to study the use of metacognition in interpreting training and introduce some metacognitive tools that may facilitate interpreting teaching and learning, promote learner autonomy and enhance the quality of education. The first part introduces the concept and gives an overview of previous studies on metacognition. Some examples of metacognitive tools that can be used in interpreting training are provided: teacher feedback, tutorials, self-assessment sheets, peer feedback, journals and portfolios. The second part of the paper presents concrete examples of how three of these tools (namely self-assessment sheets, portfolios and journals) have been developed and applied by three teachers in three different universities and draws conclusions in the light of the contribution these tools made to interpreting learning. Finally the paper briefly discusses the potential benefits of these tools in a virtual learning environment.
Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series – Themes in Translation Studies
This paper, emphasizing the importance of native language awareness in translation and drawing on... more This paper, emphasizing the importance of native language awareness in translation and drawing on problems observed in university students, sets out with an assumption that native language awareness, which is supposed to have satisfactorily developed either naturally or through previous stages of education, may undergo a serious process of “interruption” or “blockage ”, as we call it, during written translations made particularly from the source language (English) to the mother tongue (Turkish). The fact that stu¬dents can recognize their mother tongue mistakes either after self-monitoring or after the instructor’s remarks may indicate that translated texts, which are seemingly Turkish, yet lacking many of the naturally well-formed fea¬tures of the mother tongue discourse, suffer from such problems either due to the heavy concentration of mind on the source language structures or due to the problems originating from the gaps in the translation training. Performances of a total of 60...
The earthquakes of 1999 in Marmara region in Turkey led the academicians of translation and inter... more The earthquakes of 1999 in Marmara region in Turkey led the academicians of translation and interpretation to launch interpreter training programmes in collaboration with Turkish Civil Defence and Turkish Translation Association within the frame of a protocol, which enabled around 300 people to receive the basic training of 100 hours and a hundred more to be merely enrolled due to the time constraint for training. The aim of this study was to present the results of the survey conducted on these ARC members and to evaluate the outcomes of Emergency and Disaster Interpreting Initiative (ARC) after a ten-year endeavour. The method used was a descriptive one and the results were given in frequencies and percentages. Out of the 400 registered members the number of the respondents who were found to be accessible were only 62 in total. The findings demonstrated the following results: 1. The respondents were mostly from Istanbul; Ankara ranked the second and Izmir the third. 2.The number of the respondents to the survey were mostly among the ones who were enrolled to the Initiative between 2000- 2007. 3. The respondents of the survey were mostly between the 26-30 age interval and unmarried. 4. Most of the respondents were either employed or both student and employed 5. University graduates ranked the first in educational status. 6. Most respondents learnt about ARC through their teachers. 7. The respondents were mostly from the group who received a-hundred-hour basic training. 8. The total number of the members who joined the drills was less than the ones who never joined any of the activities. 9. Turkish, English, Russian, Spanish, German, Italian, French were the languages, the members could provide interpreting service in total. 10. The respondents tried to improve their knowledge and skills by joining some other activities after the trainings. 11. The Initiative act as a driving force for the respondents to assume the responsibility to inform their environments about the measures to be taken against disasters and about the activities of ARC. 12. The respondents also made efforts to increase the membership number of ARC. 13. The respondents were not so good at checking the e-mails sent by the tasking unit but they were better at getting into contact through sms or telephonecall chains. At the end of the study the suggestions of both the researcher and the respondents were listed.
Interpreting is a complex process which challenges the brain by memory-intense processes, necessi... more Interpreting is a complex process which challenges the brain by memory-intense processes, necessitating immediate proper response to unexpected situations, in which a vast number of cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills function almost simultaneously; thus, its training requires peculiar practices. The success of the interpreting performance depends upon the realization of higher level immediate mental processes in the best way; and an individual can accomplish this by learning to carry out self-monitoring, self-regulation operations in the brain at the immediate time. Therefore, it is considered that awareness-raising about the metacognitive tools and facilitating what is learnt about these tools during the interpreting performance will help the students in their performance both during the training process and at a later stage during the professional interpreting process. The purpose of this pilot study is to investigate the function, necessity and use of metacognitive tools...
Paper presented at Translating and the Computer Conference, 2022
Automatic speech recognition (ASR) technologies have improved considerably with new computational... more Automatic speech recognition (ASR) technologies have improved considerably with new computational developments and have been garnering greater attention in technology-mediated interpreting research. Several computer-aided interpreting tools (CAI) have been developed, using enhanced ASR in automatic entity highlighting, automated query systems (live support as an artificial boothmate), and information retrieval which are generally aimed at improving rendition quality and lesser cognitive load. The empirical data drawn from recent CAI research conducted for simultaneous interpreting show a measurable precision in rendering quality. Given the necessity to enrich empirical research on CAI tools, unlike the previous studies mostly investigating the use of ASR in simultaneous interpreting, this study scrutinizes the use of ASR in the consecutive mode by proposing a prototype CAI tool. By this means, we introduce Sight-Terp, a CAI tool using enhanced ASR, Machine Translation (MT) and Named Entity Recognition (NER), and digital notepad functions together. As a part of an ongoing thesis, this study also aims to find if there is a significant difference between consecutive interpreting performances of a group of participants in a repeated measures design.
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