Among all the difficulties inherent in interpreting, numbers stand out as a common and complex problem trigger. This experimental study contributes to research on the causes of errors in the passive simultaneous interpretation (SI) of numbers. Two groups of Italian Master's degree students (one for English and one for German) were asked to interpret simultaneously a number-dense speech from their respective B language into their mother tongue, Italian. Note-taking was allowed during the test and both the study participants and their lecturers completed a questionnaire afterwards. Data analysis was conducted with statistical and qualitative methods, combining the cognitivist and contextualist approach. The objective was to ascertain whether one main variable may be held responsible for the high error rate related to interpreting numbers and the difficulty perceived by students in the task. The analysis quantifies the relative impact of different causes of difficulties on participants' delivery of numbers. It stresses the crucial role of the subjective variable represented by interpreters' skills. Didactic implications and directions for future research are discussed in the conclusion.

Abstract:The present article explores the profound impact of intercultural contact on identity, a topic that is gaining in relevance as multicultural experiences become increasingly common in globalised societies. The focus of the investigation is on the impact of culture and language upon the process of migrant identity (re) building in interaction with the new environment. Theory is applied to the analysis of Eva Hoffman's memoir Lost in Translation-A Life in a New Language (1998), which offers a profound insight into these complex dynamics. In the first section, intercultural contact is investigated as a bidirectional translation process with both a disruptive and a reinforcing influence on individual identity, as shown through the concepts of hybridity and triangulation. The first section also highlights the points of contact between self-translation and interlingual translation to enhance understanding of their shared challenges. The second section focuses on the interconnection between language and migrant identity and argues that L2 proficiency may be regarded as the fundamental competence to accomplish successful self-translation. The depth of this impact is shown at multiple levels of identity: personal, enacted and social.

Technology has come to play an increasingly important role in conference interpreter training since the turn of the millennium. Computer-assisted interpreter training (CAIT) reflects the aim to provide students of conference interpreting with better instructional support making learning more effective. CAIT has contributed to the development of conference interpreting pedagogy, by innovating teaching methods, providing access to training materials and spurring the development of innovative solutions to tangible learning problems. Hence, CAIT appears to be a productive area for teaching practice and research that could promote the field’s ongoing shift towards a systematic theoretical and methodological framework for teaching practice. However, conceptual and methodological gaps are currently preventing the advancement of CAIT research. In turn, these limitations may be seen as one of the factors constraining the full and pedagogically sound integration of CAIT resources into conference interpreter training. The present paper reviews the evolution and state-of-the-art of CAIT, contextualizing it within the development of conference interpreting pedagogy. It provides a critical review of existing empirical research to single out existing limitations and define trajectories for future research. It also proposes a new functional definition of the term and a classification introducing the concept of CAIT-Affordances.