International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 4 No. 5; March 2014 196 Problems of Interpreting as a Means of Communication: A Study on Interpretation of Kamba to English Pentecostal Church Sermon in Machakos Town, Kenya Eunice Nthenya Musyoka Kigari Ttc Private Bag, Embu Kenya Dr Peter N. Karanja Kenyatta University Kitui Campus Kenya Abstract The paper concerns itself with the problems facing interpreters in the Pentecostal church sermons. The sermons are preached in English and consecutively interpreted into Kamba. Interpreting is viewed as a communicative event which occurs during cross-cultural communication when two interlocutors do not share a language. The major goal of interpreting is that a message makes the same impact on the target audience as was intended by the speaker in the source language (Angelelli, 2000). Given that interpreting is a major communication skill, the paper examines the problems that the interpreters face in the process of achieving this goal. The problems were analysed using Krashen’s (1985) Input Hypothesis and Monitor Model Hypothesis. A descriptive research design was used to obtain information from a sample population. Purposive sampling was used to select five churches that used consecutive interpreting, in which the sermons were preached in English and interpreted to Kamba. The five interpreters from the sampled churches formed the key informats for the interviews. Data was collected through non-participant observation and interviews. Ten sermons were audio-taped from the sampled Pentecostal churches. Data from the audio tapes was transcribed word for word to create texts for analysis. The findings reveal that there are a number of problems facing the interpreters. The problems range from external factors that are beyond the interpreters, which included time constraints, the nature of the input, the audience, and factors originating from the interpreters’ personalities and the preachers. Key Words: interpreting, Pentecostal churches, sermon, communication strategies, Kamba language, interpreting challenges, comprehension input, response elicitation 1.0 Introduction The goal of interpretation is that a message makes the same impact on the target audience that a speaker intends for an audience of the same language. Interpretation like all other forms of communication is a mult-faceted activity; it involves a sender, a channel and a recipient. It is a form of communication between people with different linguistic and cultural background (Qian, 1994). More often than not, the task of the interpreter is portrayed as one of “transcoding” - a simple changing of one code to another (Angelelli, 2000). This is not enough to meet the goal of interpretation since there is much more to communication than words or signs. According to Angelelli (2000) communication involves interaction, context, form, gist, gesture, tone and relations of power. The basic principle outlined in interpreting is the importance of language proficiency because interpreting is more than simply transferring words from one language to another. It involves understanding the meaning, the sense of what is being said before redelivering it into the targeted language. This means that to concentrate on the message, the interpreter has to be well acquainted with the topic at hand and integrate it in the communicative setting, to exploit not only the verbal information but also all other information implicit in the event. Hymes (1964) highlights that, most interpreters lack the necessary background with respect to language proficiency and world knowledge.