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？

英語の後に日本語が続きます。

What do you think are the essential skills and capabilities for simultaneous interpreting from Japanese to English? English-speaking skills? Yes, of course, but there is another key capability: "negative capability." And this doesn't apply to just any language pair. Before jumping into the details, let's look at what "negative capability" means.

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

So, let's return to the original question: why does Japanese-to-English simultaneous interpreting uniquely require this ability? The answer lies in the fundamental difference in word order between the two languages.

The word order in English and other European languages is generally Subject + Verb + Object (SVO), though some languages use Subject + Object + Verb (SOV). The word order in Japanese, however, is quite different from these Western languages, as it places the main verb at the end of the sentence. Let me explain this with an example.

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 a 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. 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）」 という言葉。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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