Английский язык в сфере потребления (аспекты перевода)

Учебно-методическое пособие

АНГЛИЙСКИЙ ЯЗЫК  
В СФЕРЕ ПОТРЕБЛЕНИЯ 

АСПЕКТЫ ПЕРЕВОДА

ИЗДАТЕЛЬСТВО САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА

САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ

УДК 811.111-26
ББК 81.2-293
 
А64

Реценз ен ты:  д-р ист. наук, проф. С. А. Козлов  
 
(С.-Петерб. гос. ун-т пром. технологий и дизайна);  
 
канд. филол. наук, доц. Н. А. Шадрина (С.-Петерб. гос. ун-т)

С о с т а в и тел и:  Л. А. Чернобровкина, О. В. Каменева,  Л. А. Авдеева,  
 
  Н. О. Магнес

Рекомендовано к публикации учебно-методической комиссией
филологического факультета 
Санкт-Петербургского государственного университета

А64
Английский язык в сфере потребления (аспекты перевода): учеб.-метод. пособие / сост. Л. А. Чернобровкина, 
О. В. Каменева, Л. А. Авдеева, Н. О. Магнес. — СПб.: Изд-во 
С.-Петерб. ун-та, 2019. — 70 с. 
ISBN 978-5-288-05893-6

Цель данного учебно-методического пособия — развить и усовершенствовать навыки устного и письменного перевода с английского и на английский язык, а также расширить словарный запас учащихся в профессиональных областях, связанных с организацией и функционированием 
сферы потребления.
Пособие предназначено для студентов магистратуры, обучающихся 
по направлению «Лингвистика», но может быть полезно практикующим 
переводчикам, преподавателям английского языка.

УДК 811.111-26
ББК 81.2-293

  
© Санкт-Петербургский 
 
 
государственный университет, 2019
 
© Л. А. Чернобровкина, О. В. Каменева,  
ISBN 978-5-288-05893-6 
 
Л. А. Авдеева, Н. О. Магнес, сост. 2019

CONTENTS

LEAD-IN  ..........................................................................................  
4

UNIT 1. TRANSLATION SERVICES ................................................  
5

UNIT 2.  INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS...............................  
11

UNIT 3.  URBAN PLANNING AND  
BUILDING CONSTRUCTION ...........................................  
22

UNIT 4.  PUBLIC UTILITIES ............................................................  
32

UNIT 5.  PUBLIC TRANSIT .............................................................  
46

UNIT 6.  HEALTHCARE AND EMERGENCY MEDICINE ................  
56

APPENDIX. INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS ...........................  
67

LEAD-IN

This publication opens a series of coursebooks aimed at improving 
students’ reading, speaking and translation/interpreting skills in servicerelated areas. More specifically, the series will focus on a variety of services 
provided globally or locally by intergovernmental and governmental 
agencies (political or non-political) as well as by private businesses.
In this book, we will be exploring the following broad subject areas:

1) Interpreting and translation services;
2) International organizations. The European Union and the UN; 
their policies, structure and regulations;
3) Urban planning, building and development;
4) Public utilities and city functions;
5) Public transit;
6) Healthcare services and insurance.

The book was written with two goals in mind. First, we wanted to help 
students broaden their horizons and raise their awareness of some key 
services crucial to individual and public well-being. Many of the issues 
discussed in this book are at the top of the agenda of high-rank international meetings and conventions. Second, we intended to provide our 
students with a range of reading, oral communication, interpreting and 
translation assignments, as well as supply them with essential vocabulary 
as part of high-standard professional training.
Each of the five units of the book contains reading tasks, discussion 
activities, topics for independent study, vocabulary building and translation exercises, as well as numerous questions for small-group and class 
discussion. The reading material is based on an extensive selection of original texts published in the 2010s and containing high-frequency specialist 
vocabulary.
The coursebook is primarily intended for MA-level students with advanced knowledge of English. However, we do hope that it will also become a helpful learning aid for budding practicing interpreters/translators 
working with English and Russian as well as for educators who teach interpreting and translation.

UNIT 1

TRANSLATION SERVICES

Pre-reading discussion

What is the difference between translation and interpretation? What types 
of translation and interpretation are familiar to you?
Explain the difference between staff and freelance interpreter/translator (e. g. work hours, pay and job security).

Text 1

Read the text and give Russian equivalents to the words and expressions in 
bold.

Conference Interpreting as Profession

Conference interpreting deals exclusively with oral communication: 
rendering a message from one language into another, naturally and fluently, adopting the delivery, tone and convictions of the speaker and speaking in the first person. It should not be confused with translation which 
deals only with written texts. Although translation and interpreting have 
a lot in common, they are separate professions requiring different skills 
and different types of training. Translators work with the written word, 
interpreters with the spoken word. It is for this reason that in major international and regional organizations, such as the United Nations (UN) and 
its agencies or the European Commission, translation of documents is the 
responsibility of a different department, the so-called translation service 
(for the UN) or the Directorate-General for Translation of the European 
Commission.
Language mode and active and passive languages are terms used by 
interpreters to describe the languages you may speak or listen to in a multilingual meeting. An active language is the interpreter’s mother tongue. 
A passive language is a language the interpreter fully understands and 
would most often speak to some extent, only not enough to work into that 
language. In most cases, conference interpreters work from their passive 

languages into their mother tongue, or their active language, also sometimes known as the A-language. Some interpreters have an excellent command of a language other than the native language and are able to work 
into that language from one or more of their other languages. They have 
a second active language (the B-language). An interpreter who is able to 
work from his or her mother tongue into a second active language is said 
to do a retour. A small number of interpreters have more than two active 
languages.
A conference interpreter’s language combination describes the number of languages the interpreter works from or into in simultaneous or 
consecutive mode. Simultaneous interpreters work in a soundproofed 
booth.

Post-reading

The International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) classifies 
the interpreter’s languages as follows:

Active languages:

A-language: The interpreter’s native language (or another language strictly 
equivalent to a native language), into which the interpreter works from all 
her or his other languages in both modes of interpretation, simultaneous and 
consecutive. All members must have at least one ‘A’ language but may have more 
than one.

B-language: A language other than the interpreter’s native language, of which 
she or he has a perfect command and into which she or he works from one or 
more of her or his other languages. Some interpreters work into a ‘B’ language in 
only one of the two modes of interpretation.

Passive languages:

C-language: Languages, of which the interpreter has a complete understanding 
and from which she or he works.

Talk about your language combination using the above classification 
and vocabulary from Text 1.

Text 2

Read the text, explain the meanings of and give Russian equivalents to the 
expressions in bold.

Types of Conference Interpreting

International conferences are attended by people from different backgrounds and cultures, and speaking different languages. It is the job of 
an interpreter to enable them to communicate with each other, not by 
translating every word they utter, but by conveying the ideas which they 
express. There are different kinds of interpreting:
• Consecutive: interpreting after the speaker has finished a statement (part of a statement). The interpreter, who is either in the audience or on the floor with the speaker, listens to the speaker’s presentation and renders it in a target language, normally using own 
notes. Thus the audience hears both the speaker and the interpreter. 
In the modern world consecutive interpreting has been largely replaced by simultaneous, but it remains relevant for certain kinds of 
meetings (e. g. highly technical meetings, working lunches, small 
groups, field trips). Well-trained interpreters can render speeches 
of 10 minutes or more with great accuracy.
• Simultaneous: interpreting while the speaker is talking. The interpreter works in a soundproofed booth with at least one colleague. 
The speaker in the meeting room uses a microphone, the interpreter receives the sound through a headset and renders the message 
into a microphone almost simultaneously. The delegate in the meeting room selects the relevant channel to hear the interpretation in 
the language of his/her choice. There are many different possible 
configurations of languages or language modes. AIIC placed simultaneous interpreting in the category of high-stress professions 
with high burnout levels. According to them common stress factors 
are fast speakers, speakers reading from a text, frequent change of 
subject matter, lack of background material and difficult accents. 
30 % of respondents consider the stress harmful, while, on the other hand, 50 % perceive their work-related stress as useful and positive. At the same time 84 % of participants cited “challenging” as 
one of their main job satisfaction factors.
• Relay: interpreting between two languages via a third. When the 
speaker’s language is not covered by an interpreter in an active 
language booth, this booth can “connect” (audio link) to another 

booth that does cover this language and “take the relay” of that. The 
interpreter works via another language without a perceptible loss 
of quality.
• Retour: working from your mother tongue into a foreign language. 
Normally, interpreters work into their mother tongue. Some interpreters know a second language well enough to be able to work into 
that language (second active or “B-language”) from their mother 
tongue. This is called “retour” interpreting. The French word for 
return is universally employed. Few interpreters know their second 
active language so well that they are able to interpret into that language from all the languages in their language combination.
• Pivot: using a single language as a relay. If only one or two interpreters have a less widespread language as a passive language they 
are said to be the “pivots” for the other booths which will take relay 
from them. The French term is universally employed.
• Symmetric/Asymmetric: A meeting with a 24–24 language mode 
has 24 passive and 24 active languages. Such a mode is called 
complete and symmetric. It also means that delegates can speak 
and listen to interpretation from the same languages. Reduced or 
asymmetric mode means that interpretation is provided from less 
than the full number of official languages. In fact, this means that 
delegates can speak more languages than they can listen to. To put 
it differently, all delegates speak in their mother tongue, but listen 
to interpretation into only several languages. When we say a meeting has a 15–3 mode, it means that delegates may speak 15 official 
languages but that interpretation is only provided into three, for 
example English, French and German.
• Whispering: whispered simultaneous interpreting. The interpreter 
is sitting or standing next to those delegates in the audience who 
need interpretation and interprets simultaneously directly into the 
ear. Whispered interpretation can be used only for very few delegates sitting or standing close together. It is used mainly in bilateral 
meetings or in groups where only few delegates do not share a common language. Whispering is often used instead of consecutive in 
order to save time.

Post-reading

Task 1. Explain the difference between:

1) consecutive — simultaneous; 2) retour — translation; 3) A-language — pivot language; 4) whispering — consecutive; 5) retour — relay — pivot; 6) symmetric — asymmetric modes.

Task 2. Discussion. What kind of interpreting is the most challenging 
for the interpreter? Which is more cost-effective for the event organizer? 
Explain your reasoning.

Task 3. Apart from conference interpretation, there are other types, 
such as community interpreting, court interpreting or business interpreting. Find more information about these forms of interpreting. In what 
situations are these interpretation services used? Who are the potential 
clients?

Text 3

Pre-reading 

1. In your view, what came first in the history of civilization: translation 
or interpretation? Why do you think so?
2. What technical facilities do interpreters use at their workplace?

Read the text to find out the answers to the questions above.

Early History of Simultaneous Interpretation

There are many references to simultaneous interpretation being used 
well before its “official” birthday — the Nuremberg Trial. The information 
available, however, is incomplete, inconsistent and often contradictory. Simultaneous interpretation was only sporadically used before WWII, and 
was then employed en masse only at the Nuremburg Trial, when Colonel 
Léon Dostert, General Eisenhower’s personal interpreter, was called upon 
to find a practical solution to the language barrier.
As early as April 2, 1925 the American businessman and philanthropist Edward Filene came up with the idea to use simultaneous interpretation in the League of Nations. Because Filene was not an engineer himself, he involved the British engineer A. Gordon-Finlay (often incorrectly 
called Gordon Finlay, Finley or Findlay), who was working in Geneva at 

that time. They used existing telephone equipment to set up the system, 
thus giving the name “telephonic interpretation” to this mode of interpreting. The system was originally called “the Filene-Finlay simultaneous 
translator”. Later IBM participated and further developed the system. The 
original 1926 patent was issued to the “IBM Hushaphone Filene-Findlay 
system”. Thomas Watson put the system into production — even though 
his marketing people did not see much potential in it — and paid the inventors a small royalty.
At least one more simultaneous interpretation system existed in 1930s, 
designed by Siemens & Halske.
Another important component of the system is a booth.
There are photos of early booths at Geneva for the IBM system, but 
later at Nuremberg there were only glass side partitions between the interpreters’ desks; the latter were open at the front and therefore far from 
soundproof. They can be seen in the photos of the Nuremberg courtroom.
Not until fully soundproof booths were installed for the United Nations 
in New York did they become universal and the interpreters could speak 
at normal volume without fear of disturbing the people around them.
Today Edward Filene’s creation, albeit in a more perfected form, has 
virtually become a fixed feature at international gatherings everywhere. 
In fact, simultaneous interpretation has always been there since time immemorial as chuchotage. One of first European visitors to the Dalai Lama 
several centuries ago mentions in his memoir that the interpreter was so 
good that he was whispering into Dalai Lama’s ear without stopping. In 
terms of the mechanism of simultaneous interpretation and related neurolinguistic processes, there is no substantial difference, if any, between 
simultaneous interpreting in the booth and chuchotage, except, maybe, 
voice volume control and a greater level of fatigue if you do not have a 
booth. Therefore, we can only speak about simultaneous interpretation 
with equipment as a 20th century invention.

Discussion in class

1. Do you think it is easier to work as a simultaneous or consecutive interpreter? 
Why?
2. How do interpreters prepare for work?
3. What are some of the difficulties associated with the work of a simultaneous 
interpreter?
4. What do you know about the Nuremberg Trial as a historic event?

UNIT 2

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Text 1

Pre-reading

What do you know about the European Union? In what way do you 
think it is different from other ‘unions’, e. g. the US, the USSR, the UN?

Read the text. Give Russian equivalents to the words and expressions in 
bold.

Introducing the European Union

The EU is a unique economic and political partnership between 28 European countries. The unique feature of the EU is that, although the Member States and their citizens are all sovereign, independent states, they 
have pooled some of their ‘sovereignty’ in order to gain strength and the 
benefits of size. Pooling sovereignty means, in practice, that the Member 
States delegate some of their decision-making powers to the shared institutions they have created, so that decisions on specific matters of joint 
interest can be made democratically at European level. The EU thus sits 
between the fully federal system found in the United States and the loose, 
intergovernmental cooperation system seen in the United Nations.
The EU was created in 1950 in the aftermath of the Second World 
War when French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed integrating Western Europe’s coal and steel industries. His ideas were set out in 
the Treaty of Paris the following year, and the precursor to the EU — the 
European Coal and Steel Community — was born. Since then, the EU 
has regularly updated and added to the treaties to ensure effective policy 
and decision-making. The Treaty of Paris was signed in Paris on 18 April 
1951 and entered into force in 1952. The first steps were to foster economic cooperation: the idea being that countries that trade with one another become economically interdependent and so more likely to avoid 
conflict. The result was the European Economic Community (EEC), created in 1958, initially increasing economic cooperation between six countries: Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.