Introduction

Aptitude for interpreting

The abilities and skills required for interpreting have been a topic of special inter-
est ever since the very first scientific investigation into the professional occupation
of conference interpreting by Jesús Sanz (1930). In the 1960s and 1970s, AIIC,
the International Association of Conference Interpreters, made serious efforts to
tackle this issue and come to a better understanding of the prerequisites for a ca-
reer in professional interpreting (see Keiser 1978). Attempts to put the selection
of candidates for interpreter training on a more scientific footing have been made
since the 1980s, often drawing on insights from cognitive psychology (e.g. Moser-
Mercer 1985). And yet, relatively little empirical research on aptitude for inter-
preting has been carried out to date, despite recurrent doubts over the reliability,
validity and predictive power of tasks designed to test candidates for interpreter
training programs (e.g. Dodds 1990). What is more, those studies that do exist do
not yet provide us with sufficient guidance on the effective screening of applicants.
This dearth of evidence-based methods of admission testing is all the more prob-
lematic when one considers the growing demand for highly qualified interpreters
as training institutions face increasing pressure to make the most efficient and
judicious use of their limited resources.
It was against this backdrop that an initiative to organize an international sym-
posium on aptitude for interpreting took shape. Interpreting scholars in Europe
and the US joined forces to convene a group of leading researchers and educa-
tors specializing in the study of aptitude testing for interpreter education. The in-
ternational symposium, “Aptitude for Interpreting: Towards Reliable Admission
Testing,” was held on May 28–29, 2008, at Lessius University College in Antwerp,
Belgium. Based on a thorough screening process, the organizers — Heidi Salaets
and Šárka Timarová of Lessius University College, and Sherry Shaw of the Uni-
versity of North Florida — put together a program consisting of ten presentations,
all of them centering on the enigmatic connection between means of evaluating
aptitude(s) at the entry phase and students’ prospects of success in ultimately join-
ing the ranks of the interpreting profession. One of the admirable attributes of
the event was its success in bringing together leading scholars from the signed-
language interpreting community as well as their spoken-language counterparts.
By offering seven of the symposium papers in a Special Issue, we hope to en-
hance the body of research available in this vital domain. While those interested

Interpreting 13:1 (2011), 1–4.  doi 10.1075/intp.13.1.01int

issn 1384–6647 / e-issn 1569–982X © John Benjamins Publishing Company
2 Miriam Shlesinger and Franz Pöchhacker

in the state of the art of aptitude testing may come away with the impression that
the paucity of conclusive findings appears to persist, they will also appreciate the
highly productive integration of work done by interpreter educators, on the one
hand, and insights gleaned from other disciplines, chief among them experimen-
tal psychology, on the other. Moreover, as reflected by the papers in this Special
Issue, the role of personality traits in the composite profile of a likely candidate
has gained prominence alongside the traditional focus on cognitive skills. No less
important, the reader will come to see the many similarities (and few differences)
between aptitude testing in the fields of spoken- and signed-language interpreting.
A sweeping chronological overview of the field, including a survey of those
characteristics that a prospective interpreter is expected to possess and the means
of measuring them, is offered in the contribution by Mariachiara Russo, delivered
as the keynote address at the Antwerp Symposium. The paper draws attention to
the rather consistent perception of the ideal interpreter profile over the years and
offers a succinct review of test designs that allow for the identification of statisti-
cally significant predictors of examination results and program completion rates.
One point that emerges from this comprehensive presentation of the state of the
art is the neglect in most entrance examinations of applicants’ “soft skills” such as
motivation and other personality traits. These are effectively explored in the sub-
sequent set of papers.
In a study which grew out of an ambitious project investigating both cogni-
tive abilities and soft skills, Šárka Timarová and Heidi Salaets use a learning style
inventory, a test of motivation and a cognitive flexibility task to explore the charac-
teristics of undergraduate students who decide to enrol in an interpreter training
program. The authors also investigate the relationship between students’ success-
ful completion of training, on the one hand, and their scores on each of these, on
the other. They find that students who self-select for interpreting tend to show
higher cognitive flexibility and achievement motivation and to be less susceptible
to debilitating anxiety.
Anxiety levels and motivation also figure in the study by Alexandra Rosiers,
June Eyckmans and Daniel Bauwens, which centers on the different profiles of
translation and interpreting students. Based on standard tests of self-perceived
linguistic competence, particularly oral skills, as well as psychological instruments
testing anxiety and integrative motivation, the two groups of students are found
to differ with regard to these individual traits. Nevertheless, going on to relate
these differences to the students’ interpreting performance as measured in a sight
translation task, the authors do not find any significant correlations between per-
sonality and performance.
The two empirical papers focusing on spoken-language interpreting students
— each of them coming out of Belgium — are followed by a multi-center study
 Introduction 3

investigating soft skills in both spoken- and signed-language interpreting. Work-

ing with interpreting students at training programs in four countries of the Euro-
pean Union, Sherry Shaw administered a neurocognitive test battery as well as a
psychological instrument measuring personality traits relevant to interpreting skill
acquisition. Differences were found in both cognitive performance parameters and
motivational personality traits of entry-level and advanced students of interpreting
and between participants in the spoken- and signed-language programs.
Yet another aspect of personality, emotional stability, is investigated by Karen
Bontempo and Jemina Napier in a study of accredited sign language interpret-
ers in Australia. The authors used a questionnaire to measure self-efficacy, goal
orientation and negative affectivity, all constructs for which valid and reliable
psychometric tools are available and considered predictive of performance in a
variety of contexts. While goal orientation was not significantly related with self-
rated interpreter competence, and self-efficacy proved to be of only minor interest,
negative affectivity correlated significantly with interpreters’ own perceptions of
their performance.
While the empirical studies described above are primarily concerned with
soft skills and personality traits, the remaining two contributions shift the focus
to the role of cognitive skills, which have traditionally been foregrounded in the
literature on aptitude. One cognitive skill that previous studies (e.g. Gerver et al.
1989) have shown to be related to interpreting is the ability to anticipate meaning
in context. Using an auditory task requiring both sentence completion (cloze) and
expressional fluency (synonyms) under time pressure, Franz Pöchhacker tested
undergraduate students beginning an introductory interpreting course and relat-
ed their scores to performance on a consecutive interpreting exam administered at
the end of the course. His findings show that the so-called SynCloze test discrimi-
nates between novices and advanced students of interpreting and that there is a
correlation, albeit a moderate one, between the scores on the composite task and
on the (intralingual) interpreting exam.
Whereas the latter paper reflects a narrow focus on specific cognitive compo-
nents, the final paper in this Special Issue enlarges the scope to domain-general
skills. In a study conducted among sign language interpreters in the United States,
Brooke Macnamara, Adam Moore, Judy Kegl and Andrew Conway employ in-
struments designed to measure such cognitive abilities as processing speed, task
switching and working memory, as well as certain personality measures. In their
comparison of highly skilled and less-skilled professional interpreters, the authors
find the two groups to differ in both dimensions. Among other things, the highly
skilled interpreters exhibit greater mental flexibility, faster cognitive processing
speed and less anxiety about taking risks, supporting the assumption that both
cognitive and personality factors play a role in determining interpreting skill.
4 Miriam Shlesinger and Franz Pöchhacker

In all, the papers in this Special Issue highlight the complexity of the notion
of aptitude for interpreting and reflect progress towards a better understanding
of the role of cognitive skills and personality traits as well as the diverse ways in
which the two complement each other. And yet, notwithstanding the extensive
efforts reflected in these research endeavors, much of what has been found calls
for further investigation and deeper analysis. The new insights provided in this
set of papers, which has emerged from the concerted efforts of researchers across
the spoken- and signed-language interpreting communities, attest to the potential
for further progress in this important and challenging aspect of the training and
professionalization of interpreters.
Complementing this selection of research papers are two reviews of books
relevant to the theme of this Special Issue. One is a monograph in German, based
on the doctoral research project of Catherine Chabasse at the University of Mainz
at Germersheim. The book, reviewed by Sylvia Kalina, explores fundamental as-
pects of aptitude and describes the development and application of a battery of
aptitude tests for interpreting students. The subject of testing links up with the
broader issue of assessment in translation and interpreting in general. A variety
of approaches to testing and assessment is presented in a comprehensive volume
edited by Claudia Angelelli and Holly Jacobson, which is reviewed by Roda Rob-
erts. The book includes several chapters devoted to themes that are covered in this
Special Issue.
One can safely claim that the contributions brought together here represent
the cutting edge of research into aptitude for interpreting, and the community of
interpreting scholars and educators owes a debt of gratitude to the organizers of
the landmark symposium in Antwerp. The results represent an important mile-
stone but nevertheless suggest the need for much further work before researchers
can hope to supply educators with a full range of reliable and practical methodolo-
gies for testing the aptitude of applicants to interpreter training programs.
 Miriam Shlesinger and Franz Pöchhacker

References

Dodds, J. M. (1990). On the aptitude of aptitude testing, The Interpreters’ Newsletter 3, 17–22.
Gerver, D., Longley, P. E., Long, J. & Lambert, S. (1989). Selection tests for trainee conference
interpreters. Meta 34 (4), 724–735.
Keiser, W. (1978). Selection and training of conference interpreters. In D. Gerver & H. W. Sinai-
ko (Eds.), Language interpretation and communication. New York: Plenum Press, 11–24.
Moser-Mercer, B. (1985). Screening potential interpreters. Meta 30 (1), 97–100.
Sanz, J. (1930). Le travail et les aptitudes des interprètes parlementaires. Anals d’Orientació Pro-
fessional 4, 303–318.