Grammatical Differences and Simultaneous Interpreting
An Empirical Approach
Summary
This book also focuses on the implications of this research for interpreting teaching and training by referring to the most suitable interpreting model, the detailed contrastive analysis of Mandarin Chinese and English, and the comprehensive empirical data of both professionals and students. The study significantly enhances the understanding of the impact of linguistic differences between languages on SI between them, and emphasizes that language-related strategies are a necessary part of interpreting teaching and training.
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures and Tables
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Simultaneous Interpreting—Effort Model, Features and Factors
- Effort model of SI
- SI features
- Simultaneity
- Listening and speaking
- Listening, speaking and monitoring
- EVS
- Definition of EVS
- Measurement of EVS
- Factors affecting EVS
- SI and other language tasks
- SI and monolingual activities
- SI and translation
- Simultaneity
- Comprehension
- Output
- SI and CI
- Simultaneity
- Comprehension
- Output
- Factors
- Input factors
- Presentation rate
- Accent
- Noise
- Individual factors
- Conclusion
- Grammatical Differences and SI
- General background
- Arguments against the impact of linguistic structures on SI
- Arguments for the impact of linguistic structures on SI
- Language specificity
- Language pairs in SI research
- Chinese-English SI research
- SI strategies
- Typologies of SI strategies
- Gile’s classification
- Kalina’s classification
- Work on individual SI strategies
- Anticipation
- Synthesis
- Compensatory strategies
- Language-related strategies
- Waiting and stalling
- Segmentation
- Anticipation
- The expert-novice paradigm
- Conclusion
- Chinese-English Grammatical Differences
- Introduction
- English adverbials
- Introduction to English adverbials
- English adverbs
- English prepositional phrases
- English adverbial clauses
- Position of English adverbials
- Introduction to Chinese adverbials
- Movable adverbs
- Nonmovable adverbs
- Postverbal adverbials
- Adverbial clauses
- Forward-linking elements
- Backward-linking elements
- Contrastive analysis and possible challenges to SI
- English noun phrases (NPs)
- Introduction to English NPs
- Head noun
- Premodification
- Determiners
- Predeterminers
- Ordinals
- Quantifiers
- Open-class premodifiers
- Postmodification
- Finite relative clause
- Non-finite clauses
- Prepositional phrases
- Contrastive analysis and possible challenges to SI
- English passives
- Introduction to English passives
- Introduction to Chinese passives
- Contrastive analysis and possible challenges to SI
- Chinese coverb phrases (CPs)
- Introduction to Chinese coverbs and verbs
- Introduction to Chinese coverb Phrases (CPs)
- Contrastive analysis and possible challenges to SI
- Chinese noun phrases (NPs)
- Introduction to Chinese NPs
- Head noun
- Modification
- Contrastive analysis and possible challenges to SI
- Chinese topic-prominent clauses (TCs)
- Introduction
- Topics and subjects in Chinese sentences
- Five types of Chinese sentences
- Contrastive analysis and possible challenges to SI
- Conclusion
- Empirical Study
- Introduction
- Participants
- Experimental materials
- Procedure
- Data manipulation
- Grammatical categories investigated
- English adverbials
- English NPs
- English passives
- Chinese CPs
- Chinese NPs
- Chinese TCs
- Evaluation parameters
- Importance of error analysis (EA) in language acquisition and in SI
- Identification of error in SI
- Sources of error in SI
- Typology of errors in SI
- Subjectivity in evaluation
- A note on statistics
- Introduction
- Intra-group comparison
- Inter-group comparison
- Conclusion
- Data Analysis and Discussions
- Introduction
- Intra-group analysis
- English Y-position vs. N-position adverbials
- Error analysis with field examples
- Parameter A, CG
- Parameter B, CO
- Parameter C, CS
- Parameter E, DGE
- Parameter D, DG
- Parameter F, DC
- Parameter G, DCO
- Results analysis and discussions
- English NP1s vs. NP2s and NP3s
- Error analysis with field examples
- Parameter A, CG
- Parameter B, CO
- Parameter C, CS
- Parameter D, DG
- Parameter E, DGE
- Parameter F, DC
- Parameter G, DCO
- Results analysis and discussions
- English SPs vs. LPs
- Error analysis with field examples
- Parameter A, CG
- Parameter B, CO
- Parameter C, CS
- Parameter D, DG
- Parameter E, DGE
- Parameter F, DC
- Parameter G, DCO
- Results analysis and discussion
- Chinese CP1s vs. CP2s
- Error analysis with field examples
- Parameter A, CG
- Parameter B, CO
- Parameter C, CS
- Parameter D, DG
- Parameter E, DGE
- Parameter F, DC
- Parameter G, DCO
- Results analysis and discussion
- Chinese NP1s vs. NP2s
- Error analysis with field examples
- Parameter A, CG
- Parameter B, CO
- Parameter C, CS
- Parameter D, DG
- Parameter E, DGE
- Parameter F, DC
- Parameter G, DCO
- Results analysis and discussion
- Chinese SCs vs. TCs
- Error analysis with field examples
- Parameter A, CG
- Parameter B, CO
- Parameter C, CS
- Parameter D, DG
- Parameter E, DGE
- Parameter F, DC
- Parameter G, DCO
- Results analysis and discussion
- Summary
- Inter-group analysis
- English adverbials
- English NPs
- English passives
- Chinese CPs
- Chinese NPs
- Chinese TCs
- Conclusion
- Retrospective interview
- Retrospective interview with student subjects
- Retrospective interview with professional subjects
- Conclusion
- Conclusion
- Contribution and Significance
- Contribution
- Significance
Preface
The book aims to investigate the impact of grammatical differences on English-Mandarin Chinese simultaneous interpreting (SI) by drawing upon an empirical study of professional and student interpreters. It focuses on the effects of three English grammatical categories including passives, adverbials and noun phrases and of three Mandarin Chinese grammatical categories including co-verb phrases, noun phrases and topic-prominent clauses on SI between the two languages. For each category, interpretations of instances in which the grammatical structures are the same across the two languages are compared with interpretations of instances in which the grammatical structures differ across the two languages in terms of shortcomings in the accuracy of content such as errors, omissions, substitutions and factors affecting appropriateness of delivery such as grammatical errors, corrections and complete omissions. The results indicate that grammatical differences have a statistically significant impact on the interpreting performance of both professionals and students, although the impact of expertise is also attested through the consistently better performance of professionals than of students.
This book also focuses on the implications of this research for interpreting teaching and training by referring to the most suitable interpreting model, the detailed contrastive analysis of Mandarin Chinese and English, and the comprehensive empirical data of both professionals and students. The study significantly enhances the understanding of the impact of linguistic differences between languages on SI between them, and emphasizes that language-related strategies are a necessary part of interpreting teaching and training. It also stresses that apart from the knowledge of contrastive linguistics, a better understanding of the nature of SI (its processes, its features and its challenges), of interpreters’ capacity (memory and physical limitations) and of outcome expectations (interpreters’ communicative role, speaker’s intention and audience’ s response) should also be taken into account in interpreting training and teaching so that students will be able to build professionalism as early as possible.
In China, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, the UK and the US, increasing number of universities offer interpreting-related programmes. This discipline has become a growth area in both MA taught programmes and in Post Graduate research. Short-term vocational training, BA, MA and PhD programmes in translation and interpreting are being offered more widely and are gaining in popularity. This book is targeted at scholars and students of interpreting, translation, contrastive and comparative linguistics, and Mandarin Chinese. The book could be used for research purposes and could also be used for teaching and training purposes based on primary data collected from an empirical study.
Acknowledgments
The book is based on my PhD thesis entitled The Impact of Grammatical Differences on Mandarin Chinese-English Simultaneous Interpreting and the pursuit of a research like this would never have been possible without the long-term help, support and encouragement from my supervisors, parents, colleagues and friends.
It has been a great privilege to work under the supervision of Professor Kirsten Malmkjær who has provided me with knowledgeable guidance, firm support and unceasing encouragement. I am deeply grateful to Kirsten for all the inspiring tutorials and discussions with her, for her constructive suggestions and comments on all the papers and drafts, and for her breadth and depth of knowledge and expertise of translation and interpreting studies, and linguistics.
I am also thankful to Dr. Claire Yi-Yi Shih for her continuous interest and support in my project and for her invaluable tutorials, suggestions and comments on linguistics, Mandarin Chinese grammar in particular. I would like to thank Dr. Nicole Fayard for providing constructive comments and suggestions in the field of interpreting studies. My great thanks are also due to Dr. Henriette Hendriks and Dr. Changying Shen for reading my drafts and making insightful comments on Mandarin Chinese grammar.
Meanwhile, I am so grateful for the support, commitment and participation of nine professional and twelve student interpreters. The research project could not have been successful and fruitful without their help.
Grateful thanks are due to Dr. Maria Viskaduraki for her expert advice and guidance on statistical matters and for her continuous support for the project.
I am also very grateful to Dr. Ian Rowlands, Dr. Duncan Stanley, Ms Helen Steele, and Ms Tania Rowlett for providing valuable training, advice and guidance on publications, research development, literature searching and referencing, copyright matters and so on.
Finally, I would like to express my great indebtedness to my parents in China. I would never have had the opportunity to brave the pursuit of education, knowledge and dream in the UK without their love, understanding and firm support all the time.
List of Figures and Tables
Figure 2-2: Record of text and simultaneous translation
Table 3-1: SOV and SVO features of Chinese
Table 3-2: The most common pairings
Table 4-1: Information on the research population
Table 4-2: Information on interpretations of English adverbials
Table 4-3: Information on interpretations of English NPs
Table 4-4: Information on interpretations of English passives
Table 4-5: Information on interpretations of Chinese CP phrases
Table 4-6: Information on interpretations of Chinese NPs
Table 4-7: Information on interpretations of Chinese SCs and TCs
Table 4-8: Evaluation parameters
Table 5-1: Professional: Y-N analysis
Table 5-2: Student: Y-N analysis
Table 5-3: Professional: NP1-NP2 analysis
Table 5-4: Professional: NP1-NP3 analysis
Table 5-5: Professional: NP2-NP3 analysis
Table 5-6: Student: NP1-NP2 analysis
Table 5-7: Student: NP1-NP3 analysis
Table 5-8: Student: NP2-NP3 analysis
Table 5-9: Professional: LP-SP analysis
Table 5-10: Student: LP-SP analysis
Table 5-11: Professional: CP1s-CP2s analysis
Table 5-12: Student: CP1s-CP2s analysis
Table 5-13: Professional: NP1-NP2 analysis
Table 5-14: Student: NP1-NP2 analysis
Table 5-15: Professional: SCs-TCs analysis
Table 5-16: Student: SCs-TCs analysis
Table 5-17: Y Position: Stu-Pro analysis
Table 5-18: N Position: Stu-Pro analysis
Table 5-19: NP1: Stu-Pro analysis
Table 5-20: NP2: Stu-Pro analysis
Table 5-21: NP3: Stu-Pro analysis
Table 5-22: SP: Stu-Pro analysis
Table 5-23: LP: Stu-Pro analysis
Table 5-24: CP1: Stu-Pro analysis
Table 5-25: CP2: Stu-Pro analysis
Table 5-26: NP1: Stu-Pro analysis
Table 5-27: NP2: Stu-Pro analysis
Table 5-28: SC: Stu-Ptu analysis
Table 5-29: TC: STU-PRO analysis
Table 5-30: Interview-student subjects
Table 5-31: Categorization of word-level difficulties
Introduction
This book presents an empirical research of the influence of grammatical differences on simultaneous interpreting (hereafter SI) between Mandarin Chinese1 and English.
According to Gillies (2005: 3), SI is the immediate on-site oral translation from one language to another, which requires the interpreter to listen and speak at the same time, and to split attention between listening to and comprehending the input from the speaker, transferring the source language (hereafter SL) input into output in the target language (hereafter TL), and self-monitoring the output. As De Groot (1997: 27) states, due to the simultaneity, interpreters have to start encoding the original speech into the TL after hearing a few words rather than a whole sentence, a segment or a whole speech. For a number of reasons, this may require simultaneous interpreters to anticipate the latter part of a sentence or wait for information required for processing a heard segment, as illustrated in Example (a) on anticipation from Van Besien (1999: 250–251) and Example (b) on waiting from Mei (2009: 144).
Details
- Pages
- XX, 324
- Year
- 2023
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781636674667
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781636674674
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9781636670058
- DOI
- 10.3726/b20918
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2023 (October)
- Keywords
- Grammatical Differences and Simultaneous Interpreting - An Empirical Approach Simultaneous Interpreting Contrastive Linguistics Quality Assessment Expert-Novice Paradigm Content Accuracy Delivery Appropriateness English Noun Phrases English Passives English Adverbials Chinese Noun Phrases Chinese Co-verb phrases and Chinese Topic-prominent structures Sabrina Miao Wang
- Published
- New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Oxford, Wien, 2023. XX, 324 pp., 2 b/w ill., 56 tables.
