Interpreting - Volume 13, Issue 1, 2011

In the present paper I review the existing literature on aptitude testing with a view to highlighting the main emerging themes: which qualities indicate an aptitude in a prospective interpreter, how these qualities may be measured and which types of test should be administered, the issue of valid and reliable testing, proposals for test designs, and, finally, description of aptitude tests which have identified statistically significant predictors. The focus is on spoken language, but signed-language aptitude testing is also partially covered. Available results so far appear to show that interpreting-related cognitive skills and verbal fluency may be measured and may be predictive both for spoken-language and for signed-language interpreting candidates. In particular, the production of synonyms appears to be a strong aptitude predictor from several independent research projects.

Admission testing for conference interpreter training programmes traditionally focuses on skills directly related to the interpreting skills, and while soft skills, such as motivation, are recognised as important, they are not systematically tested or researched. The present study attempts to address this gap by exploring three traits and abilities, namely learning styles, motivation and cognitive flexibility, and to relate them to students’ self-selection for interpreting and to their success on final exams. Three tests were used to compare a group of self-selected interpreting students and applicants (n = 32) and a subgroup of conference interpreting students (n = 14) to a control group of undergraduate students (n = 104), from among whom the majority of Lessius University College interpreting students are recruited: the Inventory of Learning Styles (Vermunt & Rijswijk 1987), the Achievement Motivation Test (Hermans 1968/2004) and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Grant & Berg 1948). The results show that self-selected interpreting students are cognitively more flexible and are less negatively affected by anxiety. Compared to the control group, successful conference interpreting students, but not unsuccessful students, are cognitively more flexible and benefit more from some level of anxiety. Moreover, all conference interpreting students are less affected by stress than the control group and seem to have more clearly developed learning preferences.

Unlike in the early days of interpreter training, most student interpreters nowadays are still in the process of acquiring their target language(s), which raises questions as to which skills — linguistic as well as non-linguistic — may be required at the outset of interpreter training. This study focuses on individual difference variables and how these relate to interpreting students’ performance. It aims to investigate the ways in which the profiles of translation and interpreting students differ by obtaining information regarding their self-perceived communication competence, self-perception of language skills, anxiety levels and integrative motivation. These profiles are then related to the students’ sight translation performances, arguably a hybrid activity between translating and interpreting that is as cognitively demanding as simultaneous and consecutive interpreting. The students’ performances were assessed by a ‘blind judge’ along two parameters: (1) overall interpreting performance and (2) fluency. The results suggest that the two groups indeed differ significantly with regard to some of the individual difference variables. However, no significant correlations between these variables and students’ sight translation performance were found.

This article reports the findings of a causal-comparative study with spoken language (primarily conference) and signed language (primarily public service) interpreting students carried out at four institutions in the European Union in 2008. The study was built on two previous investigations of essential characteristics, as reported by interpreting students and their professors, to measure these characteristics with standardized performance and motivation tests. It grouped participants as “entry-level” or “advanced” depending upon their prior experience in simultaneous interpreting coursework. The study documented cognitive and motivational scores of spoken language (SP) and signed language (SL) interpreting students at both levels, using a computerized neuropsychological screening test and an achievement motivation instrument. Significant differences between the SP and SL students were found in the areas of visual memory, concentration, and internality (belief that success is due to internal causes), and between the advanced and entry-level students in the areas of concentration and the eagerness to learn new concepts in the absence of external rewards.

This paper proposes that variance in interpreter performance is dependent on factors of both general cognitive ability and personality. Whilst there is no doubt of the interplay between individual personality traits and job performance across many occupations, the greatest interest lies in determining which traits play the most important role; and to what extent these variables impact on learning and achievement. The paper reports on a study of 110 accredited signed language interpreters in Australia. Psychological constructs of self-efficacy, goal orientation and negative affectivity were measured, as were interpreter ratings of self-perceived competence as practitioners. The most significant finding revealed the dimension of emotional stability (represented on the negative end of the continuum by traits of anxiety and neuroticism, and measured in this study by the negative affectivity scale) as a predictor of interpreter’s self-perceived competence. Based on these findings, recommendations for admission testing and interpreter education curricula are discussed.

Based on a review of some of the most promising approaches to aptitude testing in the literature this paper proposes a novel task piloted at the Center for Translation Studies of the University of Vienna. The SynCloze test combines an auditory cloze exercise with a task requiring high expressional fluency, that is, rapidly finding contextually appropriate synonymic sentence completions. The rationale and design of the SynCloze test as well as the scoring method, which takes into account both the degree of accuracy and the speed of response, are described. The results of four rounds of testing involving some 120 students in the final stage of their undergraduate studies show that the test effectively discriminates between undergraduate novices and a control group of interpreting students, and students for whom the test language (German) is the A vs. the B language. Most significantly, the test scores correlate, albeit moderately, with students’ performance on an intralingual consecutive interpreting exam at the end of the course.

This exploratory study examined domain-general cognitive abilities that may serve as aptitudes for interpreting skill by comparing highly skilled sign language interpreters (those considered competent in most interpreting situations) and less skilled sign language interpreters (those considered less than competent in most interpreting situations) on various measures. Specifically, the current study examined the feasibility of predicting interpreter skill level based only on a variety of cognitive abilities and personality traits. We collected data on several cognitive measures, including processing speed, psychomotor speed, cognitive control and task switching ability, fluid intelligence, working memory capacity, and mental flexibility, as well as several personality measures, including risk-taking orientation and emotion-cognition integration style, and intrinsic motivation to engage in complex cognitive tasks. Significant differences emerged between the two groups on both cognitive and personality measures suggesting that a combination of stable domain-general cognitive abilities and personality traits may be responsible for differentiating highly skilled from less skilled interpreters and may therefore be predictive of individuals’ future interpreting effectiveness and skill level.