Transfer of cultural references in consecutive interpreting

This study aims at analysing interpreters' transfer of cultural references in consecutive interpreting in English – Turkish language pair. This transfer is discussed in a twofold manner: that of culture and of meaning. Cultural transfer refers to observing the strategies applied by the interpreters in their interpreting performances into the target language and classifying these strategies – according to their interpreting decisions – as either source or target culture oriented. Transfer of meaning refers to interpreters' understanding and transferring cultural references into the target language. In the study, interpreters' tendencies regarding the strategies adopted in transferring cultural references are determined; thus, the relation between those tendencies and meaning transfer is described. The corpus of this study consists of consecutive interpreting performances of 20 experimental group students as well as 20 control group students at Marmara University Division of English Translation and Interpreting, who completed interpreting courses offered in their undergraduate education and who have just started taking those courses respectively. Audio-visual recordings of the interpreting performances by the participants have been made and transcribed according to the predetermined transcription conventions. Research data have been reviewed under three cultural categories. Interpreting strategies of both participant groups have been determined; then, interpreted in terms of culture and transfer of meaning. This study sets forth the hypothesis that experimental group participants are more inclined to transferring the meaning into the target language when compared to the control group, considering the duration of their training as well as the number of the practices they have made. As a result of data interpretation, this hypothesis has been falsified although there are no significant differences between the groups, and it has been concluded that the interpreting tendencies of both groups are target culture oriented. Key words: Translation Studies, consecutive interpreting, cultural reference, transfer of meaning, cultural transfer, interpreting