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Components of simultaneous interpreting: Comparing interpreting with shadowing and paraphrasing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2004

INGRID K. CHRISTOFFELS  and
ANNETTE M. B. DE GROOT
INGRID K. CHRISTOFFELS
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam
ANNETTE M. B. DE GROOT
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam
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Abstract

Simultaneous interpreting is a complex task where the interpreter is routinely involved in comprehending, translating and producing language at the same time. This study assessed two components that are likely to be major sources of complexity in SI: The simultaneity of comprehension and production, and transformation of the input. Furthermore, within the transformation component, we tried to separate reformulation from language-switching. We compared repeating sentences (shadowing), reformulating sentences in the same language (paraphrasing), and translating sentences (interpreting) of auditorily presented sentences, in a simultaneous and a delayed condition. Output performance and ear–voice span suggest that both the simultaneity of comprehension and production and the transformation component affect performance but that especially the combination of these components results in a marked drop in performance. General lower recall following a simultaneous condition than after a delayed condition suggests that articulation of speech may interfere with memory in SI.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , December 2004 , pp. 227 - 240
Copyright
Cambridge University Press 2004

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Footnotes

The authors thank Bregje van Oel and Anniek Sturm-Faber for their invaluable research assistance, and Susanne Borgwaldt, Lourens Waldorp, Jos van Berkum and Diane Pecher for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. This research was conducted while I. K. Christoffels was supported by a grant (575-21-011) from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) foundation for Behavioral and Educational Sciences of this organization. Portions of this research were presented at the Twelfth Meeting of the European Society of Cognitive Psychology in Edinburgh, UK, in September 2001.