Communication in the field of sports

The new feature of group sports items like football and cricket is the formation of premier league teams that do not form teams on the basis of nationality. For instance, take the case of the Indian Premier League (IPL) teams in cricket. We have numerous teams like Kolkata Knight Riders, Rajasthan Royals, Chennai Superkings etc which have players from all around the cricketing world. A single team will consist of Indians, Pakistanis, South Africans, Caribbeans, Australians etc. How do these players communicate with each other? Not all of them would necessarily know English. Chances are that they will have a coach who does not share the language of most of his team members. Or think of a football team like Real Madrid. The coach Jose Mourinho is Portuguese and does not know Spanish while most of his players are from Spain or native speakers of Spanish.

Miscommunication between players of opposing teams or among players of the same team can have disastrous consequences. The infamous red card given to Zinedine Zidane in the world cup final between France and Italy is an example. Zidane reacted violently to an insult from the Italian player Simeone who perhaps did not realize the enormity of what he was saying. The consequence was the ousting of Zidane causing the weakening of the French team and its subsequent defeat in the finals. It is absolutely imperative to have cooperation and total communication between members of a team, for which understanding each other’s language is a must.

It is not possible or practical to have interpreters on the sports field. But teams have tried to come up with a form of signed language that would unify team members and ensure that no miscommunication occurs to hinder the communication between players. Many teams of the IPL have come up with a language like this. It also helps that the language of the referee on the football field or the umpire on the cricket ground is a sort of universal sign language which needs no translation.

All these areas of translation are yet to be studied seriously by translation theorists.


Assignments

1. What are the various forms of interpreting? What are the challenges faced only by the interpreters and not translators in general?
2. Listen to a speech and attempt interpretation, either simultaneous or consecutive. Note down the difficulties you faced and try to think of strategies to overcome them.
   
   

References

Gile, Daniel. “Conference and Simultaneous Interpreting”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies.1998. London: Routledge, 2001: 40 – 45

Gamal, Muhammad. “Court Interpreting”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. 1998. London: Routledge, 2001: 53 – 57.

Isham, William P. “Signed Language Interpreting”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. 1998. London: Routledge, 2001: 231 – 235.