Prospects for the interpreters cognitive functions study

Әл-Фараби атындағы ҚазҰУ профессоры, доцент Жанатаев Д.Ж.  

Әл-Фараби атындағы ҚазҰУ магистранты Кудайбергенова З.М.

In the history of human civilization, interpretation has played and continues to play the role of the most important tool of communication and interaction between representatives of different peoples and cultures. The process of interpretation cannot be reduced only to the mechanical transfer of information from one sign system to another – its essence and phenomenological nature is not limited to purely intra-linguistic problems and is an area of multidisciplinary interest. A natural consequence of the historical development of translation studies, especially in the field of consecutive and simultaneous interpretation, was the refinement of the descriptive approach aimed at analyzing the translation products, a procedural approach aimed at studying the psychology of the translator's personality and the psychological content of his activities. It is the terminological apparatus and empirical methods of psychological disciplines that most allow us to follow the course of the translator's mental operations along the entire path of the translation act: from the perception of the original text to the vocalization of the text in the target language. Such a paradigm shift, made both by translation practitioners themselves and by theorists of related disciplines, is not only fundamental, but also of great practical importance for the development of methods for training, selecting and evaluating translation specialists, who often face information overload, time limits and other stressful conditions. Numerous models of training translators and analysis of observations of the activities of specialists have always emphasized the special role of cognitive properties, such as speed of thinking, concentration of attention, the volume and distribution of working memory resources. These cognitive processes are the basis of the professional competence of the translator and allow him to apply the acquired linguistic and cultural knowledge, communication skills and transformational techniques in real time. The statement about the cognitive conditioning of the interpretation process is also supported by complex laboratory studies in the field of neurophysiology and psychophysiology of the brain, which have demonstrated the involvement of both hemispheres in simultaneous translation-not only the areas of symbolic systems, but also the areas responsible for mental planning and control [4]. The activity of an interpreter from a cognitive point of view can not be limited to subject-specific problems, since translation itself is essentially a cognitive process [1] associated with general cognitive functions, which include memory, thinking, attention and a system for controlling the allocation of resources for their functioning [6]. It is appropriate to assume that if the understanding, reformulation, and speech generation that make up the structure of the interpretation process depend on the general cognitive functions, then the qualities of the latter may in some way affect the quality of the results of the translation itself. Then, on the one hand, we can say that the level of development of certain cognitive abilities is a prerequisite for the successful implementation of interpretation [3], and therefore, the diagnosis of cognitive functions can have predictive capabilities. In addition, cognitive characteristics can in one way or another affect the dynamics of professional training of a translator – the effectiveness of information assimilation and the speed of skill formation. On the other hand, according to some scientists, effective interpretation training and many years of experience in the field of translation contributes to the development of general cognitive functions of the individual. The qualities acquired later can be manifested and realized in other areas of activity that are not related to interpretation [2]. In connection with a certain discrepancy in the relationship between translation and cognitive processes, the Spanish psychologist F. Padilla identifies two main areas of interpretation research. One of them, the method of cognitive components, is to compare the results of various completed tasks related to a particular cognitive component with the results of the translation itself. The second direction, the method of cognitive correlations, is based on the comparison of cognitive indicators of translators of different levels of training and work experience [5]. It should be noted that both methods are connected by one common task – the consideration of translation at the level of cognitive mechanisms in order to find new solutions to increase its effectiveness. To date, there is no consensus on the question of which method is most valid and whether it can exist in general. As many experts note, the problem of psychological analysis of the translation process lies precisely in the low validity of studies, which are characterized by an insufficiently developed analysis of cognitive factors from the point of view of the real conditions of the translation process. It seems that the way to resolve the contradiction of "cognitive translation studies" lies in the maximum approximation of experimental tasks to the real professional activity of the translator.

Cognitive-oriented interpretation studies based on the proposed methodological model, in our opinion, are not limited to purely diagnostic purposes for different-level groups of translators or students of translation. If the validity of the experimental concept is confirmed over time, then future verbal-cognitive techniques can serve as a basis for creating training exercises that are interesting not only for translators and translation teachers themselves, but also for all specialists in communication activities in foreign languages.