And interpreting oral messages

Semantics of oral discourse has also to do with the notions of the theme and the rheme. The theme is treated as the “subject” (the “known” part) ofthe message while the rheme describes “what happens to the theme” and thus ensures that “new information” is constantly being “fed” into the discourse. Any word (phrase) in the utterance may make up either the theme or the rheme. Usually the thematic or rhematic nature of words (phrases) is deter- mined by the word order, definite or indefinite articles, adjectives or intona­tion, e.g. A girl (the rheme) waved at us (the theme) asking for a lift. The girl (the theme) was rather pretty (the rheme), so our driver agreed. Normally rhematic elements are placed at the end of utterances, however if they occupy unusual front position as a result of the speaker’s desire to make greater em­phasis upon them, they may become a serious problem for simultaneous in­terpreters who will have to wait untill the utterance is completed before they may start interpreting it. This often happens in the consecutive and simulta­neous interpreting from Ukrainian and Russian into English, e.g. Другим після цього закону у нас був прийнятий Трудовий кодекс; Автобазу має він свою, проте не дають йому роботи.

Practice shows that having understood the theme of the message, the inter­preter starts to look for the new, rheniatic information in the message, which has to do with processes, actions and theirevaluation as well as forthe informa­tion about intents of the speaker. It being so, the rhcmatic part of the utterance, which is also called the “informational focus” [Чернов 1987 166 178], be­comes essential for interpreting.

Deictic elements (markers of person, space and time), as shown on the scheme, are pans ofboth pragmatic component and components of the proposition, while elements of modal and evaluative components may be only parts of the proposition. In other words, pragmalinguistics assumes that modality and evaluation cannot be parts of the pragmatic component and that words must, strongly or настійно in phrases like I must warn you that...: We stronvlv recommend you that...; Ми настійно вам рекомендуємо, щоб ви... are emo­tional intensifiers but not markers of modality or evaluation.

Perception ofthe rhematic components of messages allows the interpreter to understand the meaning ofthe messages as well as their modality and evalu­ation of facts and events by the speaker. Failure to do this leads to serious mistakes and distortions in interpreting.

Consider Text 4.1 (please, listen to the phonogram) in which the speaker indistinctly pronounces the rhematic element parity (рівніправа, паритет), although it is repeated further on in the speech, and the surrounding words. Failure to “hear” and to interpret this element may lead to considerable dis­tortions and even failure to interpret the ongoing utterances where the speaker talks about the struggle of women for their rights. Another important rhematic element, though also not very clearly pronounced, is down and out of the wav (усунений, знятий). It presupposes further argumentation ofthe speaker and it is essential that it should be properly rendered.