Negative Capability - Essential Skill for Japanese Simultaneous Interpreting ウィスパリング通訳 トンネルを抜けると予期せぬ結論があった？

Japanese follows English.　英語の後に日本語が続きます。

What do you think are essential skills and capabilities for simultaneous interpreting from Japanese to English? English speaking skills? Yes, of course, but there is another key capability. That is "negative capability." And this does not apply to other language interpreters. Before jumping into details, let's check out what "negative capability" means.

"Negative capability," according to Britannica, "(is) a writer’s ability, 'which Shakespeare possessed so enormously,' to accept 'uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."......

So, let's get back to the original question - why does only Japanese-to-English simultaneous interpreting need such ability? The answer is because of the difference in the order of words between Japanese and English.

The word order in English and other European languages is generally like, i.e., Subject + Verb + Object, etc. (except in some languages, the order is different like Subject + Object + Verb). The order of Japanese, however, is quite different from these western languages. Japanese says conclusions in the end of a sentence, paragraph or text. Let me explain this more specifically using the following English and Japanese sentences meaning the same:

English:
This apple is not red.

Japanese:
この   リンゴは   赤く   ない。
 ↓　　   ↓　  　 ↓　   ↓
This     apple        red     is not.

So now, you can see what I want to say, can't you? The thing is that this happens at not only sentence but also text levels, which places significant burden on simultaneous interpreters to translate without knowing the direction in which the speech goes, making educated guesses. (For the burden of interpreters, click here.)

Japanese like negative capability because they like surprises. A Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata started one of his famous novels "Snow Country" as follows: "Emerging from the long border tunnel, they entered snow country."

J-to-E simultaneous interpreters however hate surprises like; "Emerging from the long speech, they heard an unexpected conclusion."....

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先日テレビの芸術番組で知ったのが「ネガティブ・ケイパビリティ（Negative capability）」 と言う言葉。これです！ 日本語から英語のウィスパリング（同時）通訳に必要なのは！

ネガティブ・ケイパビリティとは「答えの出ない事態に耐える力」とのこと。これがないと通訳が止まってしまうんですね。同時通訳に英語スピーキング能力が必要なのは周知のことですが、実はこの「先の見えない話（日本人に多い｡｡｡）でも、常に結論を推理しながら訳す能力」も必須だということはあまり知られていません。実際、私の知り合いで英語ペラペラなのに通訳できない人が結構います。

ネガティブ・ケイパビリティ｡｡｡ いい言葉ですね。変化が多い時代、「答えが出なくてもそれに耐えて自分の信じる方向に向かう力」を磨いていきたいと思います｡｡｡

追記：
なぜか「雪国」の冒頭を思い出しました。「国境の長いトンネルを抜けるとそこは雪国であった」ならぬ「長い話を抜けるとそこに思いがけない結論があった」｡｡｡ 同通の悪夢です。

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