Anticipation in simultaneous interpreting (original) (raw)

Where have the connectors gone? : the case of Polish-English simultaneous interpreting

2017

In the stage of the Source Language (SL) text comprehension interpreters are particularly vulnerable to conditions in which they are working. As is often the case, such factors as a dense speech, fast delivery and background noise can weaken the monitoring capacity and result in the interpreter's failure to hear and/or comprehend some elements of the original speech including connectives used to strengthen the coherence of the text. The problem of "missing" connectives in the SL was addressed in Łyda (2006, 2008). This article revisits the question of interpreters' strategies used for recognizing and reconstructing such missing elements and extends the study to Polish-English simultaneous interpreting.

The role of advance preparation in simultaneous interpreting

Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting, 2015

Current comprehension models recognize the role of prior topic-specific knowledge in the processing of general and specialized discourse (e.g. Gernsbacher 1990; Johnson-Laird 1983; Kintsch 1988). In interpreting, there is widespread consensus that interpreters work better when they prepare in advance. However, research on how preparation affects interpreting has encountered such methodological challenges as high variability and the need for appropriately sensitive measures and tasks (Gile 2005). This article reports an experimental study to assess the effect of advance preparation on simultaneous interpreting of specialized speeches, comparing seven professional interpreters and sixteen interpreting students. All participants did two simultaneous interpretations, into Spanish (their ‘A’ language) from English, of presentations from scientific congresses: one with preparation materials provided half an hour beforehand, the other without preparation. Each source text contained both ‘n...

On the Evolution of Interpreting Strategies in Simultaneous Interpreting

Meta: Journal des traducteurs, 2000

This paper examines simultaneous interpreting (SI) from the viewpoint of procedural competence, whose evolution may be followed and monitored through the changes intervening within implicit and explicit tasks performed. As a goal-oriented communicative activity, SI may be analysed through the strategies applied to achieve the communicative goal. The interpreter, first during his studies and then throughout his career, develops and constantly refines a strategic behaviour integrating conscious and unconscious strategies. Strategies are a dynamic concept, useful not only for the description of process-oriented aspects of SI, but also as a teaching tool orienting the study and for devising exercises that help automatize specific interpreting solutions.

EXPLICITATION IN SIMULTANEOUS INTERPRETING. A STUDY INTO EXPLICITATING BEHAVIOUR OF TRAINEE INTERPRETERS (2017)

Full-text version is available at: https://rebus.us.edu.pl/bitstream/20.500.12128/12520/1/Gumul\_Explicitation\_in\_simultaneous\_interpreting\_a\_study\_into\_explicitating.pdf The present study aims at analysing various aspects of explicitation in simultaneous interpreting of trainee interpreters. The main aims of this study are the following: to analyse the strategic dimension of explicitation in simultaneous interpreting, to investigate the influence of the direction of interpreting on the tendency to explicitate among interpreting trainees, and to discover to what extent explicitation patterns are interpreter-specific and whether it is possible to identify any consistent explicitating styles. http://wydawnictwo.us.edu.pl/node/16863?language=en

Towards to the Anticipation in Simultaneous Interpreting

2019

This paper describes a very fine, suprasegmental linguistic feature – anticipation. An ’anticipation nucleus’ is a speech signal that refers to the uniquely modulated part of an utterance that indicates continuation, it also allows for reduced semantic content in the utterance. The extent that anticipation can be expressed relies on the phonetic, syntactic, and semantic capacity of a language. In this work the special attention to the prosodic structure of speech signal was paid regarding to this issue. The work provides information about performed perceptual detection of anticipation nuclei, describes the measurement of key prosodic parameters and presents obtained results of statistical analysis.

Planning ahead: Interpreters predict source language in consecutive interpreting

Bilingualism: Language and Cognition

Interpreters are hypothesized to anticipate the source language (SL) in comprehension and the target language (TL) in production to facilitate timely delivery. In two experiments, we examined whether interpreters make more predictions in SL comprehension in consecutive interpreting than in regular language comprehension and whether such enhanced prediction (if any) is constrained by cognitive resources. Participants were quicker at reading a predictable versus unpredictable critical word and/or following words (e.g., Without the sunglasses/hat, the sun will hurt your eyes on the beach, where eyes is the critical word), and the prediction effect was larger when they read to later interpret (into Chinese) than to later recall. The enhanced prediction in reading to interpret disappeared when the cognitive load was high, suggesting that SL prediction in interpreting requires cognitive resources. Our findings suggest that, when cognitive resources allow, interpreters engage in enhanced l...

The role of advance preparation in simultaneous interpreting A comparison of professional interpreters and interpreting students

Current comprehension models recognize the role of prior topic-specific knowledge in the processing of general and specialized discourse (e.g. Gernsbacher 1990; Johnson-Laird 1983; Kintsch 1988). In interpreting, there is widespread consensus that interpreters work better when they prepare in advance. However, research on how preparation affects interpreting has encountered such method-ological challenges as high variability and the need for appropriately sensitive measures and tasks (Gile 2005). This article reports an experimental study to assess the effect of advance preparation on simultaneous interpreting of specialized speeches, comparing seven professional interpreters and sixteen interpreting students. All participants did two simultaneous interpretations, into Spanish (their ' A' language) from English, of presentations from scientific congresses: one with preparation materials provided half an hour beforehand, the other without preparation. Each source text contained both 'neutral' and 'difficult' speech segments (the three types of difficulty being terminology, syntactic complexity and lack of redundancy). Dependent variables were accuracy of interpretation and length of ear-voice span (EVS), the rationale being that longer EVS probably reflects processing difficulties. The results show that both groups worked significantly better after advance preparation, this being reflected both in accuracy and in ability to maintain a shorter EVS. Interaction between preparation and type of difficulty was also examined.

Process and Product in Simultaneous Interpreting: what they tell us about experience and expertise

2011

The expertise approach (Ericsson 2008) has been used to explore the competence of translators and interpreters since the mid-1990s, and is now a well established sub-field in translation and interpreting process research (Jääskeläinen 2010). In the area of interpreting, Ivanova (1999), Liu (2001) and others have explored the expertise approach. The studies reported in this article follow up on this work, but go one step further and investigate both process and product. The aim of the two studies was to explore the differences in performance between interpreters with shorter and longer experience (possible experts). Participants (n = 9) with no, short or long experience interpreted the same speech and performed retrospection immediately after. The first study, dedicated to process, used Ivanova’s (1999) method for investigating the process. The second study, on product, let two groups, non-interpreters (n = 6) and interpreters (n = 6), rate the interpreting performances using Carroll’s (1966) scales for intelligibility and informativeness. It was found that the degree of experience influences the processing strategies used by interpreters and the types of problems they report. Experience also has an impact on how the product of experienced interpreters and that of less experienced interpreters is rated, both when rated by interpreters and by non-interpreters.

Cross-Linguistic Strategies Used By Interpreters

The field of signed language interpreting is an excellent arena for studying linguistic strategies interpreters use at the convergence of two structurally different languages, such as ASL and English. To date, however, there have been few data-driven linguistic studies of interpreting in such language contact settings. The complexities of interpreting in situations where there has been prolonged and intensive contact between languages have important implications for interpreters and can inform our understanding of language contact phenomena. The study of bilingual communities, for example, supports the notion that cross lingusitic transference—for example, code-switching, code-mixing, and lexical borrowing is an active part of the bilingual's repertoire. Thus, depending on the topic, setting, and the educational, and sociolinguistic backgrounds of the participants, it is hypothesized that these salient features of bilingual discourse will also be evident in the target language output of interpreters. The present study is an analysis of videotaped data from four certified interpreters (two native and two non-native) simultaneously interpreting a spoken English lecture into ASL for a predominately Deaf audience. The ASL interpreted output was transcribed and analyzed and the following questions addressed: How do interpreters visually or manually represent source language forms (English) in the target language output (ASL)? What are the nature and the structure of the interpreters’ representations of English forms in the visual-manual modality of ASL? When can cross-linguistic transfer be considered code-switching, code-mixing, or lexical borrowing? How do these forms of cross-linguistic transfer compare with those used by Deaf members of the community and with other bilingual or multilingual communities?