Papers by Przemysław Janikowski
Translation, Cognition & Behavior, 2024
This corpus-based study examines the effect of syntactic complexity in the source language on sim... more This corpus-based study examines the effect of syntactic complexity in the source language on simultaneous interpreters' cognitive load and stress. Previous studies show contrasting results regarding the source text syntax and cognitive load in interpreting, while the link between syntactic complexity and interpreters' stress remains unexplored. Our research aims to fill this gap by measuring cognitive load through filled and silent pauses, and stress through fundamental frequency. We evaluated syntactic complexity by calculating dependency distance, i.e., the number of words between syntactically dependent elements. We used PINC, the Polish Interpreting Corpus (Chmiel et al. 2022), as our dataset. We found that higher syntactic complexity in the source text increases stress and cognitive load among interpreters. Additionally, when interpreters produce complex syntax themselves, their stress Author's accepted manuscript increases. The study provides empirical evidence for simplification in interpreting and shows that syntactic complexity in interpreters' own output does not necessarily lead to increased cognitive load.
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Perspectives. Studies in Translation Theory and Practice, 2023
This study analyses cognitive load in simultaneous interpreting on the basis of naturalistic data... more This study analyses cognitive load in simultaneous interpreting on the basis of naturalistic data from the Polish Interpreting Corpus (PINC). We wanted to find evidence both for the current load (visible immediately after the exposure to the source text word) and the exported load (visible after the production of the translation equivalent in the target text). We operationalised cognitive load as disruptions in fluency, i.e., silent and filled pauses. We assumed that low-frequency words would trigger higher current cognitive load than high-frequency words and cognates. This could lead to exported load and create a spillover effect, i.e., a decreased interpreting performance somewhere downstream. Our results show increased current cognitive load when processing low frequency words as compared to high frequency words and a directionality effect. We found no evidence for the spillover effect. Our findings suggest that the frequency of source text words affects the current cognitive load especially in B-A interpreting, potentially pointing at comprehension problems. Lexical frequency might not be a good predictor of the spillover effect. The study extends research on cognitive load in interpreting on the basis of naturalistic data and shows future research avenues for studies of the spillover effect.
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The Routledge Handbook of Translation, Interpreting and Bilingualism, 2023
This chapter introduces a range of methods that support inquiries into cognition of translators, ... more This chapter introduces a range of methods that support inquiries into cognition of translators, interpreters, and other bilinguals. It deals with neurobiological methods, which give the most direct glimpse into the brain in action. Temporal resolution, or the correspondence of the measured activity to the timing of the actual neuronal activity, is around a couple of seconds. Electroencephalography is an electrophysiological research method that allows for the detection and analysis of electrical signals underlying neuronal communication. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation are a pair of methods also categorized as non-invasive and safe. The possibility of tracking eye movements in real time with fine spatial and near-perfect temporal precision has provided a relatively accessible window on cognition of translators and other bilinguals to many scholars. Tasks involving single words usually measure response times and accuracy of responses.
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Mediated discourse at the European Parliament: Empirical investigations, 2022
The following chapter introduces PINC — the Polish Interpreting Corpus, a PolishEnglish and Engli... more The following chapter introduces PINC — the Polish Interpreting Corpus, a PolishEnglish and English-Polish corpus ofshort European Parliament speeches and their interpretations. The uniqueness ofPINC, apart from its language combination, consists in careful balancing of mode of delivery, in rich metadata, interpreter identification and availability of a strictly controlled subcorpus of retour interpretations. The chapter also briefly presents custom-built tools used in the making of the corpus, especially for transcription, text-audio alignment at word level and interpreter identification. To showcase PINC’s potential for analysing various aspects of simultaneous interpreting, we examined fluency parameters, such as speaking rate and pauses, in the Polish-English subcorpus.We found that interpreting speed was modulated by the source text speaking and articulation rate and the target text compression rate. Target texts had fewer but longer silent pauses and more numerous and longer filled pauses. Together with shorter runs, understood as utterances uninterrupted by pauses, this suggests more fragmented delivery of interpretations. We also found interesting individual differences in compression rate with the majority of interpreters producing interpretations longer than the source texts.
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Target, 2020
The present study focuses on (in)congruence of input between the visual and the auditory modality... more The present study focuses on (in)congruence of input between the visual and the auditory modality in simultaneous interpreting with text. We asked twenty-four professional conference interpreters to simultaneously interpret an aurally and visually presented text with controlled incongruences in three categories (numbers, names and control words), while measuring interpreting accuracy and eye movements. The results provide evidence for the dominance of the visual modality, which goes against the professional standard of following the auditory modality in the case of incongruence. Numbers enjoyed the greatest accuracy across conditions possibly due to simple cross-language semantic mappings. We found no evidence for a facilitation effect for congruent items, and identified an impeding effect of the presence of the visual text for incongruent items. These results might be interpreted either as evidence for the Colavita effect (in which visual stimuli take precedence over auditory ones) or as strategic behaviour applied by professional interpreters to avoid risk.
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Beyond Philology, 2019
According to the thematic progression model of Janikowski (2011) religious texts can be used at t... more According to the thematic progression model of Janikowski (2011) religious texts can be used at the early stages of interpreter training. The reservations against such placement of allegedly stylistically sophisticated texts are scrutinised in the following paper by means of (1) developing a set of features of spoken religious discourse and (2) empirically testing their frequency in a convenience corpus. The results do show an unexpectedly high level of metaphorical saturation of spoken religious texts (1.4 per minute of speech), but they also show that only 8% of these metaphors were unconventional and that speakers sometimes employed special means of facilitating metaphor processing. Additionally, the appearance of other markers traditionally recognised as elements of religious style (intertextual allusions, markers of higher register and other figures of speech) was only marginal. Thus, the results support the use of religious texts as the second stage in thematic development, however, with a set of recommendations.
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Interpreting, 2020
In the current study we set out to investigate source language interference in the visual modalit... more In the current study we set out to investigate source language interference in the visual modality (in sight translation – ST) and in the auditory modality (in simultaneous interpreting – SI). We probed interpretations of cognates, interlingual homographs and passive structures in single sentence contexts as performed from English to Polish by 47 advanced interpreting trainees. We also analysed temporal measures: ear-voice span (in SI) or eye-voice span (in ST) as well as total translation time. The results showed a higher level of interference in ST in the case of homographs and a mixed pattern of results for the remaining measures. We also obtained interesting task-independent results, namely an 80% rate of global passive retention testifying to a high level of syntactic priming in both modes of interpreting. We discuss these results in the context of different types of interference occurring in interpreting and conclude that there might be a similar global level of interference in the two tasks, however with differing underlying patterns. This is the first study to date to directly compare interference levels between ST and SI in such controlled conditions. Our results contribute to the understanding of complex linguistic processes occurring across modalities in interpreting tasks.
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Dydaktyka tłumaczenia ustnego, 2015
The chapter sketches the development of a course in note-taking for consecutive interpreting. Ide... more The chapter sketches the development of a course in note-taking for consecutive interpreting. Ideas from a multitude of sources are collected and evaluated with view to a cognitive model of multimodal processing that CI is believed to be. In this way two new ideas are formed for the teaching of interpreting: the necessitation of a very high level of individualisation and a special (yet balanced) emphasis on the kinetic aspect oft forgotten in other models. The former requires evidence of feasibility in the classroom teaching context and this is given in the form of exemplary exercises to be used at its different stages. Also in all of these exercises the holistic, multimodal emphasis is maintained, resulting in, e.g. ideas for practicing the kinetic side of engram formation for symbolic representation. As an aside the need is stressed to empirically verify many of the claims of translation studies regarding the note-taking process, especially in the light of availability of technical means to do so.
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Dydaktyka tłumaczenia ustnego, 2015
Over the background of current trends in admission testing for interpreter training programmes th... more Over the background of current trends in admission testing for interpreter training programmes the current chapter postulates and outlines an individualised approach to formulation and verification of aptitude tests. It is founded upon the definition of interpreting as a higher cognitive skill that consists in a variety of concurrently managed subskills. Resulting is the now popularly acknowledged need to teach these in succession. As the predictive value of entrance testing is somewhat frowned upon by the author, also the aptitudes to be tested are rather viewed as skills and abilities that make the candidate eligible to start training, not necessarily predicting his or her success. Thus, for any specific course, the instructors are essentially responsible for 1) choosing the adequate set of skills to be tested and their hierarchical ordering, in line with the understanding of the course’s content and prospective career paths of its graduates; 2) selection of corresponding tasks that best test the skills at hand and their formation into a uniform battery; 3) envisaging an adequate marking and feedback system. Examples for all these categories are conveniently mentioned in the chapter.
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Przekład — kolonizacja czy szansa?, 2013
"HOW TO ‘BETTER SPEND’ IN POLISH. THE NOTION OF A ‘TRANSFEREME’ AND ITS APPLI-CATION IN INTERPRET... more "HOW TO ‘BETTER SPEND’ IN POLISH. THE NOTION OF A ‘TRANSFEREME’ AND ITS APPLI-CATION IN INTERPRETER TRAINING
Based on the premise that words paired in the mental lexicon due to their phonetic and/or graphic similarity (herein dubbed ‘transferems’) are strongly stigmatised in translator and interpreter education, the author discusses five factors that should modulate the approach to these units, both in interpreting practice and its teaching. These are: the type of a transfereme and the level of its assimilation in TL, the preferences of clients, the method of interpreting and the specific level of translational education at which the teaching is done. A careful consideration of these is advised, which in most cases, especially at the beginning of the training and in the simultaneous mode, should result in a more positive outlook on transferemes, especially that in the overwhelming majority of cases the transfer thus obtained is positive, rather than negative."
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Philological Inquiries. Festschrift for Professor Julian Maliszewski, 2012
The article presents the results of a study conducted on 178 students of German Philologies and 1... more The article presents the results of a study conducted on 178 students of German Philologies and 168 students of other modern philologies from nine Polish universities. The aim it was undertaken with was to show potential differences in the way these two groups perceive the work of a translator, resulting from the popularity of the German language as the language of our neighbouring country. The analysis of surveys, showed only minor differences in the visions of the translator’s work in the two groups with no important deviations in the perceptions of difficulties and specificity of the work. The most significant differences lie in the views of economic reality of the translator’s profession.
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Teaching Translation and Interpreting: Advances and Perspectives, 2012
It could seem that at the intersection of highly complicated student performance profiles and the... more It could seem that at the intersection of highly complicated student performance profiles and the maze of interrelated features that every text is characterised by, any attempt to ‘foresee’ the general level of difficulty of a text for a group of interpreting trainees is a game of guessing. The article ventures to bring some order into the chaos of sequencing materials for classes (Patrie 2000). The guidelines are based on first selecting the highest possible number of textual features discussed elsewhere in the TI literature such as mode of delivery (Kopczyński), lexical and informational density (Alexieva), novelty (Gile) to mention just a few; then bringing them down to common denominators by showing possible overlaps and finally building them into hierarchical networks of co-related features to be controlled by the teacher for each individual class and assignment.
An introductory experimental procedure is also envisaged to test the ‘real’ difficulty of any given aspect of an interpreting material and a discussion of possible consequences thereof both for the future research and its practical application in the teaching methodology.
In the process several other issues of utmost importance for teaching interpreters are brought up again, such as the old question of manipulating the above mentioned textual features (authenticity of teaching materials); differences between professionals and novices in their perceptions of interpreting difficulties or the increase in autonomy resulting from the ever more popular on-line teaching. As a side note, some basic suggestions are formulated for keeping and running databases of teaching materials both individually and as a common effort (at the institutional or interinstitutional level).
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Rola tłumacza i przekładu w epoce wielokulturowości i globalizacji, 2012
The author presents different facets of influence of the European Union institutions on interpret... more The author presents different facets of influence of the European Union institutions on interpreter training in Poland. The overall extent of these influences is assessed as too great, especially in view of the current level of professionalisation of the occupation. Several EU ‘norms’ or tendencies such as the avoidance of retour interpreting, promotion of multilingualism, marginalisation of consecutive interpreting, but also the introduction of three cycles of studies are examined along with their potential influence on the Polish prospective interpreters. The text closes with an appeal to pursue a higher level of professionalisation that could actually protect against undue influences from all quarters.
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Tłumacz: sługa, pośrednik, twórca? , 2012
The paper is the result of a large (346 subjects) study conducted in 9 higher education units in ... more The paper is the result of a large (346 subjects) study conducted in 9 higher education units in Poland, among students of several modern philologies. The questionnaire-based study was complemented with personal interviews with 29 subjects. Apart from revealing certain characteristics of the group itself the paper primarily sketches the student’s vision of the translator’s job, showing it to be uniform in general, but highly varied and sometimes mistaken in significant particulars. In conclusion, with the misinformation spotted as the main reason of late indeterminacy about subsequent educational choices of subjects a set of practical solutions is proposed to aid the clear and effective recruitment and education of philology students.
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Historyczne oblicza przekładu, 2011
The paper presents a systematised overview of research on cross-language interference, the resear... more The paper presents a systematised overview of research on cross-language interference, the research that reaches as far back as to the beginnings of the 20th century. The presentation is structured along the lines of three most significant research areas in which cognates are an object of study: linguistics, foreign language teaching and translation studies. In each of these, most popular terms, ideas and definitions have been outlined. Yet, it has been the psycholinguistic approaches to teaching translation that have attracted the greatest attention. As a result and in conclusion the most urgent and rewarding research perspectives have been outlined for this particular subdomain of study on cognates and the notion of a TRANSFERENT has been suggested for further use.
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Z zagadnień dydaktyki tłumaczenia ustnego, 2011
THEMATIC PROGRESSION AS AN OVERRULING FACTOR IN ORGANISING CI TEACHING
The article forms a unive... more THEMATIC PROGRESSION AS AN OVERRULING FACTOR IN ORGANISING CI TEACHING
The article forms a universal suggestion to organise the teaching of conference in interpreting and it appeared in response to the claim that (Polish) interpreting curricula should be standardised at least to some extent. Although the presence of main thematic areas (general, religious, business, legal and scientific texts) as well as their sequence has been argued for based on modern interpreting theories, the model is still largely flexible. This flexibility, along with transparency are probably the models’ strongest points. Its universality should allow for an easy implementation and testing in most CI teaching environments.
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Przegląd Rusycystyczny, 2010
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Błąd (i jego konsekwencje) w przekładzie, 2010
BORDERLINES OF INTENSIONALITY. TRANSLATIONAL CONSEQUENCES
The paper was created in response to t... more BORDERLINES OF INTENSIONALITY. TRANSLATIONAL CONSEQUENCES
The paper was created in response to the growing interest of contemporary culture in the use of an error as a linguistic device. It aims to assist the translators with a clear layout of evaluation criteria of the supposed (un)intentionality of errors. Apart from the set of criteria, a discussion of the graded character of the phenomena at hand is presented based among others on the neurophysiological perspective of the creative process.
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Books by Przemysław Janikowski
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Papers by Przemysław Janikowski
Based on the premise that words paired in the mental lexicon due to their phonetic and/or graphic similarity (herein dubbed ‘transferems’) are strongly stigmatised in translator and interpreter education, the author discusses five factors that should modulate the approach to these units, both in interpreting practice and its teaching. These are: the type of a transfereme and the level of its assimilation in TL, the preferences of clients, the method of interpreting and the specific level of translational education at which the teaching is done. A careful consideration of these is advised, which in most cases, especially at the beginning of the training and in the simultaneous mode, should result in a more positive outlook on transferemes, especially that in the overwhelming majority of cases the transfer thus obtained is positive, rather than negative."
An introductory experimental procedure is also envisaged to test the ‘real’ difficulty of any given aspect of an interpreting material and a discussion of possible consequences thereof both for the future research and its practical application in the teaching methodology.
In the process several other issues of utmost importance for teaching interpreters are brought up again, such as the old question of manipulating the above mentioned textual features (authenticity of teaching materials); differences between professionals and novices in their perceptions of interpreting difficulties or the increase in autonomy resulting from the ever more popular on-line teaching. As a side note, some basic suggestions are formulated for keeping and running databases of teaching materials both individually and as a common effort (at the institutional or interinstitutional level).
The article forms a universal suggestion to organise the teaching of conference in interpreting and it appeared in response to the claim that (Polish) interpreting curricula should be standardised at least to some extent. Although the presence of main thematic areas (general, religious, business, legal and scientific texts) as well as their sequence has been argued for based on modern interpreting theories, the model is still largely flexible. This flexibility, along with transparency are probably the models’ strongest points. Its universality should allow for an easy implementation and testing in most CI teaching environments.
The paper was created in response to the growing interest of contemporary culture in the use of an error as a linguistic device. It aims to assist the translators with a clear layout of evaluation criteria of the supposed (un)intentionality of errors. Apart from the set of criteria, a discussion of the graded character of the phenomena at hand is presented based among others on the neurophysiological perspective of the creative process.
Books by Przemysław Janikowski
Based on the premise that words paired in the mental lexicon due to their phonetic and/or graphic similarity (herein dubbed ‘transferems’) are strongly stigmatised in translator and interpreter education, the author discusses five factors that should modulate the approach to these units, both in interpreting practice and its teaching. These are: the type of a transfereme and the level of its assimilation in TL, the preferences of clients, the method of interpreting and the specific level of translational education at which the teaching is done. A careful consideration of these is advised, which in most cases, especially at the beginning of the training and in the simultaneous mode, should result in a more positive outlook on transferemes, especially that in the overwhelming majority of cases the transfer thus obtained is positive, rather than negative."
An introductory experimental procedure is also envisaged to test the ‘real’ difficulty of any given aspect of an interpreting material and a discussion of possible consequences thereof both for the future research and its practical application in the teaching methodology.
In the process several other issues of utmost importance for teaching interpreters are brought up again, such as the old question of manipulating the above mentioned textual features (authenticity of teaching materials); differences between professionals and novices in their perceptions of interpreting difficulties or the increase in autonomy resulting from the ever more popular on-line teaching. As a side note, some basic suggestions are formulated for keeping and running databases of teaching materials both individually and as a common effort (at the institutional or interinstitutional level).
The article forms a universal suggestion to organise the teaching of conference in interpreting and it appeared in response to the claim that (Polish) interpreting curricula should be standardised at least to some extent. Although the presence of main thematic areas (general, religious, business, legal and scientific texts) as well as their sequence has been argued for based on modern interpreting theories, the model is still largely flexible. This flexibility, along with transparency are probably the models’ strongest points. Its universality should allow for an easy implementation and testing in most CI teaching environments.
The paper was created in response to the growing interest of contemporary culture in the use of an error as a linguistic device. It aims to assist the translators with a clear layout of evaluation criteria of the supposed (un)intentionality of errors. Apart from the set of criteria, a discussion of the graded character of the phenomena at hand is presented based among others on the neurophysiological perspective of the creative process.
The dissertation deals with ’the youngest Polish prose’: a collective name for prose writers born in the 1970’s through 1980’s. The boundaries, although approximate serve well to describe the phenomenal and unmatched wave of very young and talented artists who have debuted and successively published in Poland over the last several years. The group is viewed as markedly postmodern but working in a very exceptional environment. The communist past is clearly still alive in the minds of the older members of Polish society. On the other hand, enough time has passed since the transformations of 1989 for the youngest generation to try and describe the surrounding reality. For these people the recollections of the communist era are very dim or none at all. The writers are quite often students of sociology and culture departments of Polish universities, who possess a sharpened sense of observation and a perfect ‘literary ear’. They portray the modern society as lost among the achievements of capitalism and globalisation against the background of communism and their own remarkably mature opinions. Their historical refl ections do not, however, reach deeper than the communist times, and the present is perceived locally with the unique concept of an ‘apartment block’ as central to the development of youth culture. Additionally, as far as the topics of young literature are concerned the religious life of Polish society is also presented in view of the very strong infl uence of the Catholic Church. The clash of the worldwide secularisation with the reality of an almost unidenominational country has produced strong discrepancies between the declared religious preference and the ‘reality of faith’. The literary refl ection on that topic is solely descriptive in its nature, which further supports the thesis of a purely sociological approach to religious matters without real theological interest. The new social situation has created space for a new and exceptional language sought after by the young novelists. The common features of this language were characterised in the fi rst part of the thesis along with potential diffi culties that it may cause to prospective translators. Wherever possible solutions were also provided. Much attention was paid to ‘młodomowa’ (youngspeak) — a sociolect which in the framework of the poetic organisation of a text provides a remarkable position to language errors. In the author’s opinion młodomowa, which developed under strong infl uences of netspeak, is a medium created to heighten the level of emotionality in written utterances. The emotive function was also analysed in case of insults and obscenities, another component of the literary language of the young novelists, although it was suggested that communicating emotions is not their primary role. The last sphere of linguistic interest was the infl uence of psychoactive substances on the language of the youngest writers. As was shown, it has expanded beyond the purely topical references, reorganising the language itself. The term ‘narkonarracja’ (narconarrative) refl ects especially the infl uences of drugs on fragmentation of language and its associative mode which both bring to mind the so-called dream poetics.The various analyses were interwoven with refl ections on corresponding translation problems, the major aim of which was to help translators to recognise them and thus to develop their competence in transmitting young literature texts. The literary approach to translation was most highlighted in the remarks on reception of the translated works with special emphasis on differences in cultural norms.Far from creating a profi le of a model translator for young Polish literature the conclusion was reached however, that the biographical context (especially age, experiences with drugs as well as competence in using the internet) may make the task of the translator much easier and may affect the level of naturalness of the translated text. On the same basis the usefulness of the socio-cultural ‘empathy’ was assessed. Although as a rule useful translation strategies and techniques were suggested, in some cases the conclusion was inevitable that due to heavy use of interrelated linguistic devices in the young prose, a uniform solution for a class of problems could not be supplied. In such situations a level of distrust toward the misleading feeling of professional competence was advised as a necessary precaution. This was especially observed in relation to the assessment of the intentionality of language errors. Apart from serving as a practical help to future translators of young Polish literature the thesis can also be viewed as one of the fi rst voices in the discussion of its uniqueness as a source text. From this perspective the category of intentional language errors as a translation problem particularly deserves further research.