Research in Simultaneous Interpretation. An outsider's Overview

Abstract

For some time now I bave been engaged in an animated epistolary polermic with Mariano Garcfa Landa on the need to go beyond the strictly 'translational' aspects of SI and delving, among other things, into its psycho-motor support, i.e. descending from the lofty beights of Translation Theory into tbe pedestrianly natural first object that supports the physical, mental and social sides of our craft. Mariano basically asserts the following: Translation (including SI) pertains to tbe second, social object - as opposed to the strictly natural first, and research into the psycho-motor first-objectual support is but research into the subsidiary trappings, but not the essence, of SI. I agree, except that until such time as the black box is pried open, research and experimentation are plausible only around SI's material support, since only a knowledge of the first object will begin to tell us, if no t wbat the second object is or ought to be, how it is possible, what it requires, bow it works, and what obstacles it has to surmount.