An evidence-based exploration into the effect of language-pair specificity in English-Chinese simultaneous interpreting

Abstract

Whether and how language-pair specificity affects the process and product of interpreting is a recurring implicit topic of debate in interpreting studies. Previous discussions have touched upon this issue in Japanese/English and German/English interpreting, with little attention to its role in Chinese/English interpreting. This study focuses on the effect of structural asymmetry between English and Chinese on English–Chinese simultaneous interpreting performance, which is exemplified by right-branching structures in English and left-branching structures in Chinese. Based on a naturalistic observation of three professional interpreters’ on-site simultaneous interpretations of the same speech, it investigates two major questions: (a) Does structural asymmetry between English and Chinese constitute particular difficulties in the interpreters’ interpreting performance? (b) If yes, how does such language-pair specificity affect their interpreting product? While previous interpreting studies generally consider that the interpreting product is shaped by three major variables including the interpreter’s interpreting competence, cognitive conditions on the site, and norms of interpreting, findings of the present study suggest that language-pair specificity functions as another variable in English–Chinese interpreting. It implies the necessity of considering it in the theoretical account of interpreting between languages such as English and Chinese that involve significant contrasts in linguistic structure and cultural conceptualization.

Keywords:

• Language-pair specificity
• structural asymmetry
• English–Chinese simultaneous interpreting
• observational study

Acknowledgment

Special thanks go to Prof. Daniel Gile, Prof. Jeremy Munday, and other colleagues in the Centre for Translation Studies at University of Leeds for their insightful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of the paper.

Notes

1. Although such categorization is mainly of observational and descriptive nature, the categories have been codified by two experienced conference interpreters and verified through cross-examination.