ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the performance of young interpreters, it follows Gentile's advice and focuses the attention on transfer of information, as opposed to language proficiency. It focuses on: the transmission of the original information including tone and stance, the strategies used to keep up with the flow of information, and for monitoring and compensating for general and momentary linguistic limitations. The chapter emphasizes that in transmitting the original information, youngsters were simultaneously engaged in making decisions about the significant elements of the original utterances, the potential impact of conveying the full force of insulting remarks, the challenges posed by the speed and flow of the interaction, and the linguistic difficulties encountered. It offers an interpretation of the young interpreters' performance in the light of a number of conceptions of giftedness and argues that these youngsters display abilities that are in many ways more sophisticated than those measured by verbal analogies, cloze procedures, and items found on standardized tests of intelligence.
