10.2 Expansion1 in simultaneous interpretation

Expansion (розширення, розгортання змісту повідомлення) is a technique of simultaneous interpreting opposite to compression [Чернов 1987: 156] and leads to increasing redundancy of the message which is sometimes necessary to provide clarification or explanation, e.g. ... це відбулося у Донбасі... – ... this happened in Donbas – a coal mining industrial region in the East of Ukraine; Тараса Шевченка було поховано у Каневі – Taras Shevchenko, a great Ukrainian poet, was buried in Kaniv, a town to the South of Kyiv down the Dnipro river; this was the Resolution of the Council of Europe, which is a consultative body, promoting democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights and, of course, it should not be mixed up with the European Union or European Parliament (the underlined words may be added by the interpreter if he/she knows that there may be people in the target audience, who do not know the difference between these institutions).

In most cases expansion is technically possible when the speed of the speech is low and the interpreter can make use of the pauses between the SL messages. Expansion is unlikely to be applied if the speaker reads out the text of the speech because written texts are less redundant than spontaneous speech and the speed of reading out printed texts is usually high.

The general approach to expansion in interpreting (as stipulated by AIIC standards) is that interpreters may use expansion only in cases where it is necessary to clarify certain specific matters for the target audience (for instance, to distinguish between Шевченко as a famous Ukrainian poet and Шевченко as a famous Ukrainian football forward or to explain what Донбас is, etc).

Interpreting practice shows that it is highly advisable to use expansion only in the “extreme” cases, where the interpreter really knows that without certain expansion the source message will not be brought to the target audience and, if translated “as it is”, would not be properly understood by it. However, most people, who listen to interpreting, are unlikely to admit that they might not know certain things and usually hate to be “taught” of “instructed” by the interpreter. This may result in accusations of interpreters, whom the highly respected audience might perceive to be “more clever” or “better informed” than the target listeners are. Thus, expansion is a sort of the ultimate remedy of interpreting and interpreters should be well aware of the moods, psychological atmosphere of the audience for themselves to be on the safe side. However, whatever circumstances may be – the main purpose of interpreting is to bring the message to the source listener so that it is correctly understood. Thus, perhaps, the key to the “diplomacy” of interpreting lies in finding a balance between correctness and completeness of interpreted messages and the “art” of doing this in such a way that nobody gets offended or insulted. Such art of interpreter’s diplomacy is acquired with years of practical work and it is a life-long process.

In principle interpreters have no right to add anything “extra” to what was said by the source speaker because legislation provides that, as interpreters, they bear responsibility for the equivalence of translation and not for the contents of messages. Thus, interpreters have to comply with the code of interpreters’ ethics, which requires that they must be impartial and unbiased in terms of political, religious, ethnic, gender and other sensitive issues.