TV simultaneous interpreting of proper nouns from English to Arabic in King Charles III's speeches

The study examines how Arabic-language TV simultaneous interpreters rendered English proper nouns (PNs) in three high-profile speeches by King Charles III delivered immediately after the death of Queen Elizabeth II (September 9–12, 2022). The context involves live televised interpreting on Al Jazeera, Sky News Arabic, and France 24, where interpreters face heavy cognitive load due to fast delivery, density of information, lack of direct view, and limited preparation time. Proper nouns are abundant in such political speeches (names, titles, institutions, locations) and can overburden short-term memory. The paper addresses a gap in English–Arabic interpreting research on TV simultaneous interpreting of PNs. The aims are to: (1) identify and classify PNs in the speeches by internal syntactic structure (CPNs, EPNs, DPNs); (2) identify strategies used to render PNs into Arabic; and (3) examine correlations between PN category and interpreting strategy.

The paper reviews core concepts in interpreting and TV simultaneous interpreting (SI). Interpreting is defined as a one-time, immediate rendition of source language into target language (Pöchhacker, 2004), distinct from translation. Two modes are outlined: consecutive and simultaneous (Jones, 1998). TV interpreting (broadcast/media interpreting) emerged earlier in Europe (1960s) and later in the Arab world (1990s), often performed from separate studios relying on monitors (Darwish, 2006; Lee, 2011). Cognitive complexity in SI is framed using Gile’s Effort Model (1995), comprising Listening/Analysis, Production, and Memory Efforts, and the impact of factors such as speech density, speed, language pairs, and working conditions (Gile, 2001; Li, 2010). Strategy taxonomies are discussed: Kalina (1998) distinguishes comprehension, production (including source-text, target-text, emergency, repair, global), and Kohn & Kalina (1996) emphasize strategic dimensions; Riccardi (2005) differentiates skill- and knowledge-based strategies; Al-Salman & Al-Khanji (2002) list nine coping strategies common among Arabic–English interpreters (e.g., skipping, anticipating, summarizing, approximating, code-switching, literal interpreting, incomplete sentences, addition, message abandoning). Proper nouns are defined (Huddleston, 1988; Särkkä, 2007) and classified by internal structure into central PNs (CPNs), extended PNs (EPNs = CPN + descriptor), and descriptive PNs (DPNs = converted common nouns/adjectives). Names and small linguistic forms can strain SI efforts and require coping tactics (Gile, 1995). This framework underpins the study’s categorization and strategy analysis.

A mixed qualitative–quantitative design was used. Corpus: three English speeches by King Charles III (Sept 9 televised address; Sept 10 Accession Council; Sept 12 address at Westminster Hall) and their Arabic simultaneous interpretations broadcast live by three channels (Al Jazeera, Sky News Arabic, France 24). Data sources: publicly available videos (YouTube) and speech transcripts (from UK television websites). Procedures: (1) Orthographic transcription of English source speeches and Arabic SI outputs after multiple hearings; transcripts cross-checked with audio. (2) Extraction of all English proper nouns (PNs) and their Arabic renditions. (3) Classification of English PNs by internal syntactic structure following Särkkä (2007): CPNs, EPNs, DPNs. (4) Identification and coding of interpreting strategies applied to each PN instance, based primarily on Kalina’s (1998) typology (including emergency strategies like omission and compression) and strategy descriptions relevant to English–Arabic SI (Al-Salman & Al-Khanji, 2002). (5) Quantitative tallying of strategy frequencies within each PN category and qualitative exemplification/analysis to explore correlations between PN category and strategy choice.

• Corpus contained 39 PNs categorized as: CPNs 16 (41%), DPNs 12 (30.8%), EPNs 11 (28.2%).
• Strategies for CPNs (Table 2; totals across instances):
  • Transliteration: 22 (45.8%)
  • Omission: 18 (37.5%)
  • Transliteration + addition: 4 (8.3%)
  • Translation: 3 (6.3%)
  • Translation + addition: 1 (2.1%) Examples: England → إنجلترا; William → وليام; God → الله/الرب; omissions included Britain and Cape Town in dense stretches; addition example: الشاعر وليام شكسبير for Shakespeare.
• Strategies for DPNs (Table 3):
  • Omission: 14 (38.9%)
  • Compression: 6 (16.7%)
  • Translation: 5 (13.9%)
  • Translation + transliteration: 5 (13.9%)
  • Transliteration: 3 (8.2%)
  • Approximation: 2 (5.6%)
  • Generalisation: 1 (2.8%) Examples: Silver/Golden/Diamond/Platinum Jubilee often omitted or compressed to “jubilee”; effective translations included Second World War → الحرب العالمية الثانية, Golden Jubilee → اليوبيل الذهبي; approximations included Queen Consort → مستشارتي الخاصة; generalisation example: New Palace → البنى الجديدة.
• Strategies for EPNs (Table 4):
  • Translation + transliteration: 23 (69.7%)
  • Omission: 4 (12.1%)
  • Transliteration: 3 (9.1%)
  • Compression: 3 (9.1%) Examples: Elizabeth Tower → برج إليزابيث; Church of England → كنيسة إنجلترا; Prince of Wales → أمير ويلز; omissions included Duke of Cornwall and Duchy of Cornwall in dense segments; compression examples: Queen Elizabeth → الملكة (omits CPN, often effective), Church of Scotland → الكنيسة (loss of specificity).

Findings show a clear relationship between PN type and strategy choice under TV SI constraints. CPNs, which carry minimal lexical sense, were most often rendered via transliteration; however, high cognitive load in dense or fast segments led to frequent omissions even for simple CPNs. DPNs, which encode meaningful predicates, elicited more sense-oriented strategies (translation and translation + transliteration), yet also triggered emergency strategies (omission, compression) due to their multi-word length, lower familiarity, and memory demands; such compression sometimes removed informative adjectives (e.g., “Platinum”) and reduced clarity. EPNs typically combined transliteration for the CPN and translation for the predicate (translation + transliteration), aligning with their mixed structure; emergency strategies appeared when density and time pressure spiked, with compression occasionally effective (e.g., Queen Elizabeth → الملكة) but sometimes harmful to specificity (e.g., Church of Scotland → الكنيسة). Overall, results support models of SI cognitive load: speech density, speed, and unfamiliarity with specific PNs increase processing demands, prompting emergency strategies. The strategy patterns observed align with Kalina’s typology and Gile’s Effort Model, illustrating interpreters’ trade-offs between fidelity to form and preservation of sense under time pressure.

The study categorizes PNs in King Charles III’s speeches into CPNs, EPNs, and DPNs, and maps the interpreting strategies used by Arabic-language TV interpreters. CPNs were most frequent; across categories, transliteration predominated when sense was minimal (CPNs), translation and translation + transliteration were favored when predicates conveyed important meaning (DPNs), and translation + transliteration dominated for EPNs (predicate translated, CPN transliterated). Emergency strategies (omission, compression) were widely used in challenging or dense segments, sometimes affecting even straightforward PNs. Practical implications stress thorough pre-event preparation, topic familiarization, and creation of glossaries including PNs and their Arabic equivalents to improve anticipation and reduce reliance on emergency strategies. Future research could expand datasets across events, compare additional language pairs, and examine training interventions that mitigate PN-related cognitive load in TV SI.