ABSTRACT
Franz Pochhacker's approach, which is based on a large corpus of authentic conference material, gives ample evidence that the functional approach can be applied to simultaneous interpreting. The main difference between translating and interpreting is seen in the fact that a translation is potentially correctable after it is written down, whereas the result of interpreting an orally presented source text must be regarded as complete at the moment of text production. The coherence rule states that the translation should be coherent with or acceptable in the receiver's situation, that is, it should conform to the conventions established in the target culture for the text type in question. From a functionalist point of view, the target text in simultaneous interpreting is thus generally expected to be functionally similar to the original speech, mostly of the instrumental translation type. Technical conditions such as the interpreter's time lag may confront the target-text receiver with an asynchronous combination of auditory and visual signals.
