Interpreting - Current Issue

Abstract

The present study proposes the acoustic parameter of fundamental frequency (F0) as an alternative method for gauging interpreters’ cognitive load and fatigue during simultaneous interpreting (SI). The data collected from an English-Chinese SI experiment reported in Shao and Chai (2021) were re-analysed for the purposes of this study. Cognitive load was measured as the number of undelivered information chunks within the ear-voice span (EVS), whereas fatigue was assumed to increase with time. F0 variables were correlated with cognitive load within the EVS of selected sentences and with fatigue in one-minute segments distributed over the entire interpreting performance. The results show that cognitive constructs are associated in various ways with F0-related variables. Higher F0 peaks and a wider F0 range appear to be associated with higher cognitive load in a majority of interpreters. A higher mean F0 and, to a lesser extent, higher F0 peaks are associated with fatigue. The findings suggest that F0 could be used as a promising indicator of cognitive load and fatigue in SI.

Abstract

Ear–voice span (EVS) has been recognised as reflecting the cognitive processes involved in simultaneous interpreting. This article reports on a study examining the influence on fluctuations in EVS of text-specific factors, interpreter-specific factors and individual variation. We used naturalistic data from the Polish Interpreting Corpus (PINC), a 20,000-token bidirectional Polish–English corpus of interpretations from the European Parliament. We fitted two linear mixed-effects models and analysed the models’ random variance structure. Our findings show that EVS is modulated by interpreting direction, speech delivery type, source and target text speech rate, interpreter experience, selected word types, the position of a sentence in a text and the position of a word in a sentence. Contrary to expectations, we found no effect of interpreter working memory on EVS. Likewise, EVS was not found to be shortened for numbers and proper names and was inconsistently modulated by gender. Finally, we also saw that individual variation was a source of EVS modulation.

Abstract

Foreign-accented speech is one of the factors that add to the cognitive load exerted during conference interpreting. In the present study, we investigated the effect of different accents on speech processing during this task in addition to the respective roles played by language proficiency and expertise. We therefore designed a pupillometric study in which we tested both students and professional interpreters. The results show that, throughout the trial, the cognitive effort associated with accented speech processing, as measured by proportional pupil size relative to baseline, was greater in the case of the students. Furthermore, only the students seemed to be sensitive to the type of accented speech applied. At the same time, all the participants demonstrated a similar pupil activation pattern in each trial, which suggests the presence of a generalized ‘cognitive rhythm’ that pertains to the interpreting task. Finally, the results point to expertise rather than language proficiency as a major factor in mitigating cognitive effort in simultaneous conference interpreting.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore whether the co-speech gestures of interpreters align with those of a speaker during simultaneous interpreting. And if they do align, to investigate the functions that the aligned gestures serve and whether they provide information about the conceptual alignment of interpreters to a speaker. To achieve this, the gestures of three professional interpreters during a simulated remote simultaneous interpreting session were compared with those of the speaker using a mixed-methods approach. This consisted of qualitative micro-analyses and descriptive quantitative analyses of co-speech gestures. Gestural alignment with the speaker was found for all participants and across all functional dimensions, with representational gestures eliciting the highest percentage of alignment. The qualitative analysis of examples of aligned gestures with referential and interactive functions and of gestures used to organize the speech content metaphorically suggests that there was conceptual alignment of the interpreters with the speaker.

Abstract

This article highlights some ethical questions in activist interpreting in the context of transnational patient mobility, with a specific focus on abortion travel from Poland to Austria. It presents a case study of Ciocia Wienia, a Vienna-based activist collective which facilitates access to abortion mainly for Poles and provides support and interpreting services in abortion clinics. Drawing primarily on the literature on activist interpreting and feminist interpreting and a corpus of 13 in-depth qualitative interviews with members and associates of the collective, this study explores ethical dilemmas experienced by the activist interpreters. We investigate the ways in which their translation choices are interwoven with the feminist and pro-choice agenda that the collective embraces. Our data show that Ciocia Wienia has developed a feminist approach to interpreting, one strongly informed by its political agenda. The activists adopt interventionist and sometimes highly visible strategies of interpreting, including direct confrontation or negotiation with clinic staff, and have much leeway to use an array of strategies of divergent rendition. While the priority of activist interpreters is to support and protect the women they assist, they also risk impairing patient autonomy and service-providers’ control over interactions.

This article reviews Towards an atlas of the history of interpreting: Voices from around the world978 90 272 1344 0