Olena M. Obraztsova and Anzhelika V. Kuznetsova, South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University and International Humanities University
The paper is dedicated to the phenomenon of syntactic interference revealed in consecutive interpreting for the English and Ukrainian language combination. The objective of this paper is twofold: to determine particular ways of identifying cases of negative vs positive syntactic interference guided by the overall definition of language (linguistic) interference and to establish ways of overcoming negative impact of negative syntactic interference and using positive interference in an attempt to improve overall quality of consecutive interpreting between English and Ukrainian. The examples illustrating both negative and positive syntactic interference instances are taken from a number of press conferences involving consecutive interpreting from/into Ukrainian / English. Violation of the logical sentence structure caused by negative syntactic interference can result in a drastic alteration of the source message, thus failing in message conveyance and communication in general; while positive syntactic interference can appreciably improve the quality of the interpretation product and increase the message delivery efficiency. When the respective visible similarity of syntactic form is characteristic of both source and target languages and message in the target language is perceived as natural the positive syntactic interference instances are revealed. The skill of simultaneously using positive interference and avoiding negative interference may improve the quality of the consecutive conference interpreting considerably, including one in the legal field. A set of drills to overcome the impact of negative syntactic interference and learn to use positive syntactic interference has been developed. The practical probation period is ongoing.
Keywords: Ukrainian; English; consecutive interpreting; language interference, syntactic interference, syntactic structure