Is consecutive interpreting easier than simultaneous interpreting? – a corpus-based study of lexical simplification in interpretation

ABSTRACT

Lexical simplification parameters, labeled as representative of the cognitive load in various processes, have been applied in corpus-based studies on translation universals and interpreting outputs. We speculate that the output of simultaneous interpreting (SI), the extreme situation of language control, might be more simplified than that of consecutive interpreting (CI) due to the high cognitive load. To test this hypothesis, the present study examines the simplification patterns of rendered texts, based on a corpus composed of SI and CI output texts, read-out translated speeches and non-interpreted, original English speeches in three dimensions: information density, lexical repetitiveness and lexical sophistication. The results demonstrate that all of the parameters apply more to CI than to SI, indicating that the CI output is more simplified than the SI output. This pattern of results implies that the cognitive load of CI, if not higher, may be as high as that of SI. The research reported here is the first to compare quantitatively the lexical features of the output of CI versus SI. The counterintuitive results lend support to the modification of the established Effort Model of CI.

KEYWORDS:

• Consecutive interpreting
• simultaneous interpreting
• cognitive load
• lexical simplification
• corpus-based

Acknowledgement

Special thanks go to Dr. Matthew Reeve for his insightful comments and also his help in polishing the language.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Qianxi Lv is a doctoral candidate at Department of Linguistics, Zhejiang University. Her research interests include interpreting studies, psycholinguistics, and quantitative linguistics.

Junying Liang is a full professor in psycholinguistics and translation studies at Department of Linguistics, Zhejiang University. She holds a doctorate degree in cognitive psychology, and her current research focuses on psychological approaches to translation studies.

Notes

1 VALIBLE corpus: http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571932.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199571932-e-017#oxfordhb-9780199571932-e-017-div1-3

2 In statistics, the Bonferroni correction is one of several methods used to counteract the problem of multiple comparisons and is known as a relatively strict test method.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the [National Social Science Foundation of China #1] under Grant [No.17BYY068], and the [Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities #2] (Program of Big Data PLUS Language Universals and Cognition, Zhejiang University).