D introduction

Introduction
Ebru Diriker, Fotini Apostolou
AnArche1
“our translations even the best start out from a false
principle they want to germanise indic greek english
instead of indicizing, graecizing, anglicizing german
[…] the fundamental error of the translator is that he
holds fast to the state in which his own language hap-
pens to be rather than allowing it to be put powerfully
in movement by the foreign language. […] he must
broaden and deepen his own language through the for-
eign one […]”.
Rudolf Pannwitz qtd. in Benjamin
I
n the above excerpt, Walter Benjamin reaches the closing of his essay “The
Task of the Translator” by quoting Rudolf Pannwitz, a German writer and
philosopher, on translation. On the question why Benjamin quotes Pannwitz to
make his point, rather than Schleirmacher or Wilhelm von Humboldt who had
made the same point earlier, Steven Rendall suggests that “Pannwitz’s German
[…] subverts the linguistic structure of the language, and particularly its syntax –
and might thus be seen as having already achieved the kind of liberation of the
word that translation is supposed to provide” (180).2
It is true that Rudolf Pannwitz is not only promoting the concept of an open-
ing up of the translator’s language to that of the other, thus challenging any artifi-
cially imposed boundaries; he is also visually breaking these boundaries that
1
The anarchic writing of the word “anarchy” as “anarche” has been invented by Fotini
Apostolou to refer to its Greek origin, αναρχία, that better illustrates the reference to an
“arche”, an origin, an authority and its loss. The word in English can also phonetically refer
to the opening of the Bible in Greek (“εν αρχή” – “in the beginning”).
2
It is interesting to note here that, contrary to Pannwitz’s, and consequently Benjamin’s,
suggestions, most translators of the essay refused to follow this openness to difference (his
an-arche), and forced the order of punctuation and capitalization on him. Harry Zohn’s well
known translation of the essay, and the Greek translation by F. Terzakis are two examples
of this.

translation has to dispense with. Sentences flow into one another without punctu-
ation or capitalisation; syntactical order is also lost, thus highlighting the fluidity
of writing and its potential anarchy of disorder.
Like translation, interpreting, by its very nature, challenges borders and
boundaries. Starting from its ambivalent etymology in English, both concerning the
origin of the word (either Latin or Sanskrit) and the fields it covers, it is a practice
suspended between different spaces. In his book Introducing Interpreting Studies,
Franz Pöchhacker underlines the etymological ambivalence: “The English word for
‘interpreter’[…] is derived from Latin interpres (in the sense of ‘expounder’, ‘per-
son explaining what is obscure’), the semantic roots of which are not clear. While
some scholars take the second part of the word to be derived from partes or pretium
(‘price’), thus fitting the meaning of a ‘middleman’, ‘intermediary’ or ‘commer-
cial go-between’ […], others have suggested a Sanskrit root” (9-10). In other
words, the English word hides a double ambivalence: the geographical space of its
etymological origin and its practical reference. It may be either of Sanskrit or Latin
origin; if Sanskrit, the origin is the word prath, which means “to propagate”, “to
disseminate” or “to spread”; if Latin, the origin could be either partes (parties) or
pretium (price), which means that the practice entails either social interaction –
interpartes – or an economic mediation – interpretium. What this ambivalence
makes clear is that the process is suspended not only between the parties involved
in communication but also between different spaces, disciplines and practices.
And since GRAMMA/ΓΡΑΜΜΑ is an inter-lingual journal moving between
English and Greek, as its title testifies, we have to refer to the etymology of the
Greek word for interpreter, διερµηνέας/diermineas, which takes us back to the an-
cient Greek god Hermes; to quote Walter Burkert from his book Greek Religion Ar-
chaic and Classical: “Successful communication with enemies and strangers is
the work of Hermes, and the interpreter, hermeneus, owes his name to the god”
(158). To understand the nature of the mediator god, it would be interesting to refer
to Richard Palmer’s extensive reference to Hermes’ nature:
Hermes is [...] a mediator. He is the messenger between Zeus and
mortals, also between Zeus and the underworld and between the un-
derworld and mortals. Hermes crosses these ontological thresholds
with ease. A notorious thief, according to legend, he crosses the
threshold of legality without a qualm. “Marshal of dreams”, he me-
diates between waking and dreaming, day and night. Wearer of a cap
of invisibility, he can become invisible or visible at will. Master of
night-tricks, he can cover himself with night. Master of sleep, he can
wake the sleeping or put the waking to sleep. Liminality or margin-
ality is his very essence. (1)
The above excerpt gives a wonderful account of the nature of the mediating god,
which shows the importance of his “liminality or marginality”, the perpetual back
and forth movement between realms; for this god, boundaries are there to be chal-
Ebru Diriker, Fotini Apostolou8

lenged, very much like the practice of interpreting which always inhabits the mar-
gins, suspended between spaces.3
If we cross one more border we can deal with a word which means “inter-
preter” mainly in eastern countries but seems to cross all linguistic, cultural, po-
litical, historical boundaries, the word dragoman/δραγουµάνος/tercüman. The
etymology of the word, which leads us deeper into the chaotic maze of exchanges
and boundary crossings, is the following: “In Arabic the word is ‫نامجرت‬ (tar-
jumān), in Turkish tercüman. Deriving from the Semitic quadriliteral root t-r-g-m,
it appears in Akkadian as ‘targumannu’, and in Aramaic as targemana. Hebrew
makes a distinction between ‫םגרתמ‬ (metargem) – referring to a translator of writ-
ten texts – and ‫ןמגרותמ‬ (meturgeman) referring to an interpreter of spoken conver-
sation or speeches” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragoman). In his book In the
Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language, Joel Hoffman goes deeper
into origins in a parenthetical note:
(Though we know better than to use etymology to understand a word,
the etymology of the root t.r.g.m. is interesting: It seems to come
from a very old Semitic root r.g.m., meaning “word”. The t at the be-
ginning came from an old causative construction, so that t.r.g.m. de-
rived from the notion of “causing to be a word” or “turning into a
word”. Surprisingly, the same r.g.m. root in Hebrew means “stone”.
Though it usually appears in verbal form with the meaning “to stone
(to death)”, one wonders if the connection between words and writ-
ing in stone might be preserved in this root). (167)
The origins, then, reveal the richness of the journey of the word, since we are taken
back to the very beginning, to the “word” and its making; at the same time, we
could possibly draw a link between speech and writing, or between speech/writ-
ing and death, as Hoffman concludes in his extensive reference.
Religion, history and politics are intermingled in the development of this
word, since the dragomans were first used in the Ottoman empire because the Ot-
tomans’ religion did not allow them to learn any language of peoples who were
non-Muslim. These dragomans/interpreters, a position dominated by Greeks, soon
surpassed the limits of a simple linguistic mediation and came to manage the for-
eign relations of the Empire, despite the dragoman’s “questionable fidelity to the
in-terests of his employers” (Encyclopedia Britannica 1911: 222).
The European historical journey of the word is described in the 11th
edition
of Encyclopedia Britannica published in 1911:
During the Middle Ages the word entered European languages: in
Middle English as dragman, in Old French as drugeman, in Middle
Latin as dragumannus, and in Middle Greek δραγοµάνος. Later Eu-
Introduction 9
3
For a detailed reference to the etymology of the Greek word, see Apostolou 2009: 1-3.

ropean variants include the German trutzelmann, the French truche-
man or truchement (in modern French it is drogman), the Italian
turcimanno, and the Spannish trujamán, trujimán and truchimán;
these variants point to a Turkish or Arabic word “turjuman”, with
different vocalisation. In Hungarian it becomes tolmács, which is
further loaned into German as Dolmetscher, the standard present day
word for “translator of spoken language”.
Inter-discipline
An age-old practice but a young discipline (or sub-discipline if seen within the
broader context of Translation Studies), interpreting has been pursuing its multi-
faceted identities and manifestations in a number of research fields, as diverse as
translation studies, cultural studies, literary studies or cognitive psychology and
neurophysiology; through its different working modes – simultaneous or confer-
ence interpreting (SI) and consecutive interpreting; the array of inter-social and
intra-social settings – business interpreting, liaison interpreting, diplomatic inter-
preting, military interpreting, court interpreting, educational interpreting, com-
munity interpreting, media interpreting; the different nature of the languages
involved – spoken language interpreting and sign language interpreting; the si-
multaneous co-existence of a number of languages, especially in conference or
meetings with multiple working languages, where relay interpreting gives out the
aura of a babelic interaction;4
the diverse technological means through which in-
terpreting can be provided – remote interpreting, telephone interpreting, video-
phone interpreting.5
We should not forget that interpreters themselves come from a number of fields
and different backgrounds, and are constantly called upon to broaden their language
skills but also their knowledge backgrounds by working in a number of settings for
people of different cultural, social, economic, educational, political backgrounds.
To underline further the interconnection of interpreting as a field of study
with other subject areas, it would be worth mentioning that the landmark for the
introduction of interpreting training in universities was a major political event, the
Nuremberg trials of 1945-46, which marked the end of World War II. Due to the
practical difficulties concerning interpreting into and from four languages (English,
French, Russian and German) during the trial, with a translation team involving a
total of 108 people, International Business Machines was asked to develop and in-
stall a system which allowed the interpreters to work simultaneously.6
4
Relay interpreting is defined by Pöchhacker as “indirect interpreting via a third lan-
guage, which links up the performance of two (or more) interpreters, with one interpreter’s
output serving as the source for another” (21).
5 In the first chapter “Concepts” of his work Introducing Interpreting Studies, Pöch-
hacker refers to types and settings of interpreting (9-26).
6 The article “Translations at the International Military Tribunal” in the online journal
Dimensions: A Journal of Holocaust Studies provides detailed information on the inter-
preting process during the trials.

After the introduction of interpreting studies into university curricula, re-
search attention has also focused on different areas of interpreting, such as con-
ference interpreting, sign-language interpreting, or community interpreting.
Especially the latter field has recently gained more attention due to larger numbers
of people moving around the world for a number of reasons. This has led host
countries to realise the problems arising from these multilingual communities
whose members face problems when contacting public services (health care, po-
lice, justice, etc.).
The present issue
This issue of GRAMMA/ΓΡΑΜΜΑ, entitled “Challenging Boundaries in Inter-
preting Studies:Interdisciplinary Approaches”, aims at foregrounding the diver-
sity of interpreting studies, its constant challenging of boundaries. The papers
included in the issue can be divided into three broad categories: Research in si-
multaneous interpreting, Interpreting and Human Rights, and Interpreting in the
European Union. As the last section of the issue hosts papers from representatives
of different institutions of the European Union, the editors considered that an in-
troduction was necessary in order to situate the papers in a specific context.
The first section entitled “Research in Simultaneous Interpreting” hosts two
papers: Ebru Diriker’s “Agency in Conference Interpreting: Still a Myth?”, and
Konstantina Liontou’s “Strategies in German-to-Greek Simultaneous Interpreting:
A Corpus-Based Approach”.
Ebru Diriker takes a critical approach to the neutral and detached role at-
tributed to interpreters in simultaneous conference interpreting. She focuses espe-
cially on media presentations of the interpreting performance, giving specific
examples from mainstream and social media and the “corrective” role they try to
play in relation to conference interpreting. As she explains, it is loyalty to the orig-
inal meaning that is considered of paramount importance by the media, while they
are highly critical of any deviation from the original. This discourse renders inter-
preters vulnerable to criticism, which does not take into consideration the fact that
“interpreters are active and critical decision-makers who perform under time con-
straints in settings that are characterised by visible and invisible complexities”, as
the author states.
Konstantina Liontou presents a corpus study focusing on the strategies em-
ployed during German-to-Greek simultaneous interpreting. The material she uses
comes from speeches by Members of the European Parliament, randomly chosen
from the official website of the EP. She reaches the conclusion that interpreters re-
sort both to “general” strategies, which are not influenced by the language com-
bination of interpretation, and “specific” strategies, on which the language
combination does have an effect. Liontou’s work reports on a pioneering study,
since no such work has been carried out having the specific language combination
as its main focus; as she states in her paper: “Greek is a language that is charac-
teristically absent from interpreting studies”.
Introduction 11

The second section entitled “Interpreting and Human Rights” hosts two pa-
pers: Eva Norström, Kristina Gustafsson and Ingrid Fioretos’“Interpreters in Swe-
den – A Tool for Equal Rights?”, and Fotini Apostolou’s «Υπηρεσίες διερµηνείας
για τους µετανάστες: Μία νέα πραγµατικότητα στην Ελλάδα» [Interpreting serv-
ices for immigrants: A new reality in Greece].
The paper by Norström et al discusses some of the results of two extensive
and important research projects on community interpreting in Sweden (2008-
2011). The authors present the situation from the perspective of the interpreter
working mainly with children in interpreted meetings. Equal access to legal, social
and medical rights, a prerequisite for a democratic welfare state, depends to a large
extent on verbal communication between an individual and a public servant, such
as a lawyer, a social worker, a teacher or a doctor. Non-Swedish speakers need in-
terpretation in order to be able to contact these services and enjoy their full rights.
The authors focus on the current conditions of these interpreting services: legal
framework, civil servants’attitude, interpreters’qualifications, working conditions,
etc. The paper concludes that there is still a lot to be done in order for the quality
of community interpreting to be improved, so that it proves indeed “a tool for equal
rights” for these children.
Fotini Apostolou’s paper presents an extensive and comprehensive picture
of public service interpreting for immigrants and refugees in Greece. The paper
starts from the legal framework that provides for these services both in the asylum
process and criminal proceedings. This is followed by a discussion of the real con-
ditions of these services, and the problems that arise by deficits in quality, with
reference to specific examples. It also presents specific projects recently imple-
mented in the field of community interpreting in other sectors, such as health care.
The paper closes with a reference to training programmes for community inter-
preters in Greece.
The last section entitled “Interpreting in the EU” includes an introduction
and four papers, three by representatives of EU institutions and one by the presi-
dent of EULITA7
: Olga Cosmidou, Director-General for Interpretation and Con-
ferences in the European Parliament (DG INTE); Marco Benedetti, Director-
General for Interpretation in the European Commission; Liese Katschinka, Presi-
dent of EULITA (European Legal Interpreters and Translators Association); Alison
Graves, Head of Unit for Interpreter Training and Contacts with Universities in
the European Parliament.
Olga Cosmidou, the Director General for interpreting at the European Par-
liament, presents the interpreting services provided by the EP, which is “a pioneer
in interpreting ‘exploits’”, as she very aptly puts it in the title of her paper, since
the EP is the only institution of the European Union (and worldwide) which func-
tions with a regime of 23 official languages in its daily operations. This is because
the EP is the only body with members elected directly by the citizens of 27 mem-
ber states; therefore, it is imperative that no language barriers are imposed to par-
7 EULITA (European Legal Interpreters and Translators Association) is a an interna-
tional not-for-profit association set up by the European Union in 2009.

ticipation. It is interpretation that makes the EP “anti-Babel”, to use her term, and
“the secret is quality”, since only top conference interpreters are selected to work
for the Directorate General for Interpretation and Conferences of the European
Parliament. Olga Cosmidou also discusses organisational problems, the most im-
portant of which is the level of professionals; this has led the interpreting services
of the EU to establish networks with universities around the world, since inter-
preting is a “global” and “mobile” profession.
Marco Benedetti, Director General for Interpreting of the European Com-
mission, discusses the highly important role of interpretation in the European Com-
mission “as one pillar of its multilingualism policy which has not only the aim to
spread language knowledge for a better integration of Europeans, but also to guar-
antee an equal linguistic treatment of all its citizens”. The author presents the work
of the Directorate General for Interpretation (DG SCIC) in the European Union,
and its efforts to promote the interpreter profession through its own initiatives or
through its involvement in international cooperation. Marco Benedetti also dis-
cusses the link between interpreting and human rights, which has led the EU to re-
flect on legal interpreting, such as the right to interpretation and translation of
important documents, the provision of sign language interpretation in court pro-
cedures, the quality of interpretation and translation services, the training of in-
terpreters and translators in legal matters. The paper also highlights the important
role of the interpreter in the preservation of the immigrants’ mother tongue, since
interpreting “guarantees the essential right of each European to speak his own lan-
guage”.
Liese Katschinka, the president of EULITA, highlights the importance of in-
terpreting in criminal proceedings as a human right, which has been established by
the Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, adopted by the
Council of Europe sixty years ago, and is reflected in the EU Directive on the right
to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings. The paper discusses the
variations in legal interpreting standards in the various EU member states, an issue
which calls for action by all involved stakeholders. EULITA was set up in order
to contribute “to activities geared to achieve high-quality standards for interpret-
ing services in judicial settings” by fostering associations of legal interpreters in
EU member states, by establishing close links with universities running courses for
legal interpreters and translators and, by establishing relations with European
and/or national associations of judges, prosecutors, lawyers and judicial staff.
Alison Graves gives an overview of interpreter training provided or sup-
ported by the European Parliament. As the author states “further training for in-
terpreters is the only way to keep pace and ensure that our standard of service is
maintained at the high level our clients have learned to expect and demand”. Ali-
son Graves presents the different types of training provided for conference inter-
preters: language training both for the acquisition of new languages (through
language courses organised by the EP) and the maintenance of existing working
languages (through regular summer universities for staff); thematic training
through appropriate seminars, lectures or workshops; training provided by inter-
Introduction 13

preters aiming to support student assessment and virtual classes (conference and/or
web-streamed classes). Finally, the author presents the efforts of the EP to bridge
the gap between theory and practice through the organisation of two pilot pro-
grammes: Passerelle, which introduces newly accredited interpreters into the EP
working environment, and Seminarium, which provides pre-accreditation coach-
ing to a number of select graduates.
Finally, considering the inter-lingual character of the journal and the current
topic, the editors thought that it would be appropriate to have the general intro-
duction and the introduction to the EU section in both English and Greek, espe-
cially given the deficit in literature on interpreting in Greek.
We hope that this issue will make a significant contribution to interpreting
studies and broaden our knowledge of the field.
Boğaziçi University, Turkey
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Works Cited
Apostolou, Fotini. “Mediation, Manipulation, Empowerment: Celebrating the Complexity
of the Interpreter’s Role”. Interpreting 11.1 (2009): 1-19.
Benjamin, Walter. “The Translator’s Task”. Trans. Steven Rendall. TTR: traduction, ter-
minologie, reduction 10.2 (1997): 151-165.
Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion Archaic and Classical. Trans. John Raffan. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1985.
“Dragoman”. The 1911 Classic Encyclopedia Based on the 11th
Edition of the Encyclope-
dia Britannica (pub. 1911). Vol. 8. <http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Dragoman>
(accessed 4 November 2011).
Hoffman, Joel F. In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language. New York &
London: New York University Press, 2004.
Palmer, Richard. “The Liminality of Hermes and the Meaning of Hermeneutics”. 29 May
2001. <http://www.mac.edu/faculty/richardpalmer/liminality.html> (accessed 16
October 2011).
Pöchhacker, Franz. Introducing Interpreting Studies. London and New York: Routledge,
2004.
Rendall, Steven. “Translation, Quotation, Iterability”. TTR: traduction, terminologie, re-
duction 10.2 (1997): 167-189.
“Translations at the International Military Tribunal”. Dimension: A Journal of Holocaust Stud-
ies. <http://www.adl.org/education/dimensions_19/section1/ translations.asp> (ac-
cessed 16 October 2011).

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