Simultaneous Interpretation: A cognitive-pragmatic analysis

417 Pages·1999·21.345 MB·English

by  Robin Setton

SIMULTANEOUS INTERPRETATION
A COGNITIVE-PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS
BENJAMINS TRANSLATION LIBRARY
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ADVISORY BOARD
Jens Allwood (Linguistics, University of Gothenburg)
Morton Benson (Department of Slavic, University of Pennsylvania)
Marilyn Gaddis Rose (CRIT, Binghamton University)
Yves Gambier (Centre for Translation and Interpreting, Turku University)
Daniel Gile (Université Lumière Lyon 2 and ISIT, Paris)
Ulrich Heid (Computational Linguistics, University of Stuttgart)
Eva Hung (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
W. John Hutchins (Library, University of East Anglia)
Werner Koller (Department of Germanic, Bergen University)
José Lambert (Catholic University of Louvain)
Willy Martin (Lexicography, Free University of Amsterdam)
Alan Melby (Linguistics, Brigham Young University)
Makoto Nagao (Electrical Engineering, Kyoto University)
Roda Roberts (School of Translation and Interpreting, University of Ottawa)
Juan C. Sager (Linguistics, Terminology, UMIST, Manchester)
Maria Julia Sainz (Law School, Universidad de la República, Montevideo)
Klaus Schubert (Technical Translation, Fachhochschule Flensburg)
Mary Snell-Hornby (School of Translation & Interpreting, University of Vienna)
Sonja Tirkkonen-Condit (Savonlinna School of Translation Studies, Univ. of Joensuu)
Gideon Toury (M. Bernstein Chair of Translation Theory, Tel Aviv University)
Wolfram Wilss (University of Saarbrücken)
Judith Woodsworth (Mt. Saint Vincent University, Halifax)
Sue Ellen Wright (Applied Linguistics, Kent State University)
Volume 28
Robin Setton
Simultaneous Interpretation
A cognitive-pragmatic analysis
SIMULTANEOUS
INTERPRETATION
A COGNITIVE-PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS
ROBIN SETTON
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of Ameri­
can National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Setton, Robin.
Simultaneous Interpreting : A cognitive-pragmatic analysis /Robin Setton.
p. cm. - (Benjamins translation library, ISSN 0929-7316 ; v. 28)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Translating and interpreting--Psychological aspects. 2. Pragmatics. I. Title. II. Series.
P306.2.S48 1999
418'.02'019--dc21 99-21419
ISBN 90 272 1631 2 (Eur.) / 1 55619 712 8 (US) (alk. paper) CIP
© 1999 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA
Contents
Abbreviations and symbols ix
Preface and acknowledgments xi
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1 Simultaneous conference interpretation 1
2 The cognitive-pragmatic approach 4
3 The theoretical framework 6
3.1 Relevance theory 7
3.2 Cognitive semantics 12
3.3 Mental models 15
3.4 Speech-act theory 17
4 The phenomenology of discourse 20
5 Outline and scope of the study 21
Chapter 2 SI Research 25
1 Historical background 25
2 Temporal and surface variables 26
2.1 Measuring synchronicity 27
2.2 Ear-voice span (EVS) or 'lag' 28
2.3 Segmentation and processing units 28
2.4 Speech rates 30
2.5 Error analysis 31
3 A computational linguistics approach 31
4 Information-processing models of SI 34
5 The Effort Model: a processing capacity account 35
6 The Interpretive Theory of translation (IT) (théorie du sens) 38
7 SI in Allgemeine Translationstheorie (ATT) 43
8 SI research: evaluation and prospects 45
8.1 Methodology in SI research 45
8.2 Outstanding issues and controversies 48
8.2.1 Intermediate representation 48
vi SI: A COGNITIVE-PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS
8.2.2 SI skills and strategies 49
8.2.3 Language-specific factors 53
9 Old and new concepts in T & I research 57
Chapter 3 An Outline Model for SI 63
1 Introduction 63
2 Sources for the model 64
3 Basic assumptions about cognitive function 68
3.1 The representational hypothesis 68
3.2 The Modularity Hypothesis (MH) 69
4 Inputs to discourse comprehension 71
4.1 Audiovisual input 71
4.2 Speech processing in psycholinguistics 74
4.3 Word recognition 75
4.4 The (multilingual) lexicon 76
5 Assembly: syntax, lexicon and context 77
6 The mental model 85
7 Contextualisation for SI 87
8 The language of representation 89
9 The Executive 90
10 Speech production in SI 92
11 Processing capacity and coordination 97
Chapter 4 Research Issues, Corpus, and Methodology 99
1 Research issues 101
2 The Corpus 103
2.1 German-English: 'Würzburg' 105
2.2 Chinese-English: 'Taipei' 107
2.3 Supplementary Chinese-English corpus 109
2.4 Comparison of SI corpora 110
2.5 Equipment, recording, timing and transcription 111
2.6 Segmentation of the transcripts for analysis 112
2.7 Linguistic descriptions 113
2.8 English gloss 119
3 Methodology 119
Chapter 5 Structures and Strategies 123
1 Introduction to the corpus analysis 126
2 SL-TL asymmetry in SI: obstacle or epiphenomenon? 128
CONTENTS vii
3 Word order 129
4 Word-order asymmetry and indeterminacy 131
4.1 German-English 133
4.1.1 Autonomous syntax 134
4.1.2 German-English SI structural patterns: summary 142
4.2 Chinese-English 142
4.2.1 Parsing Chinese 145
4.2.2 Left-branching structures in Chinese-English SI 145
4.2.3 Subjects 155
4.2.4 Asymmetries and moot constituency in Chinese-English SI 158
4.3 Left-branching noun phrases 158
5 SL-TL compatible structures: paraphrase and re-ordering 160
6 Simplification of semantic structure 164
7 Marked subordinate and non-declarative structures 165
8 Discussion 167
Chapter 6 The Pragmatics of Interpretation 173
1 Contexts 174
2 'Frame' effects 174
3 Situation and scripts 175
4 Inference 179
5 Inferred referential features 180
5.1 Boundedness and set-membership 180
5.2 Anaphora and deixis 181
5.3 Tense, aspect and realis/irrealis 182
6 SI strategies or natural inference products? 186
6.1 Anticipation 187
6.1.1 Anticipation from a propositional attitude 188
6.1.2 Anticipation from pragmatic principles 188
6.1.3 Long-range deductive anticipation 189
7 Contextual sources: summary 191
8 The discourse model: entities, properties and relations (epr) 192
9 Secondary pragmatic processing and communicative intent 197
10 Processing instructions and procedural encoding 201
10.1 Modals and connectives: contrastive differences 204
10.2 German-English 208
10.3 Chinese-English 211
11 A vocabulary of representation (and presentation) 212
12 Microanalysis 217
viii SI: A COGNITIVE-PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS
Chapter 7 Judgment, Compensation and Coordination 225
1 Introduction 225
2 Judgment 226
3 Late elements and afterthoughts 231
4 Compensation 235
5 Pragmatic fidelity 241
6 Coordination and attention in SI 244
6.1 Hesitancy and delivery patterns 245
7 Executive and secondary pragmatic processing 248
7.1 Cognitive management and difficulty in SI 249
8 Failure in SI 252
8.1 Problems in primary assembly 253
9 Processing breakdown and compound errors 255
9.1 Failure in SI from recited written text 256
9.2 Pragmatic failure 259
9.3 Causes of failure in SI 263
10 Summary 264
Chapter 8 Summary and Conclusions 267
Appendices 285
Appendix A: Parsing theory 287
Appendix B: Sample of conference discourse unsuited to analysis 290
German-English corpus: Würzburg'
Appendix Wl: SI in live conference, interpreter WL (analytic) 292
Appendix W2: SI in live conference, interpreter WL (interlinear) 300
Appendix W3: SI in mock session, interpreters WA, WB (analytic) 305
Appendix W4: Interpreters' versions (WL, WA, WB) as fluent text 315
Chinese-English corpus: 'Taipei'
Appendix Tl: Chinese source discourse (Hanzi transcript) 318
Appendix T2-A: Sl-10, interpreters TA, TB (romanised, gloss; analytic) 322
Appendix T2-B: SI 1-28, interpreters TA, TB (romanised, gloss; synchronised) 329
Appendix T3: S29-39 (recited input), interpreters TA, TB (interlinear) 335
Notes to chapters 343
Glossary 355
References 373
Name index 385
Subject index 388
Abbreviations and Symbols
CP Complementiser Phrase (GB theory)
DRT Discourse Representation Theory
EVS ear-voice span
GB Government and Binding (Theory)
IF illocutionary force
IP information processing (theory)
IP Inflection Phrase (GB theory)
IT interpretive theory (théorie du sens)
LF logical form
LTM long-term memory
MH Modularity Hypothesis
MM mental model
MMT mental models theory
PA propositional attitude
PF propositional form
PR propositional representation
RT Relevance theory
SI simultaneous (conference) interpretation
SL source language1
SR semantic representation
spm syllables per minute
STM short-term memory
T&I translation and interpretation
TL target language
wpm words per minute
1 Many writers in translation studies now distinguish text features from language features by the
use of the terms 'source-language text' (SLT) and 'target-language text' (TLT). We use the
abbreviations SL and TL for convenience, and trust that it will be clear when what is referred to is
a feature of the source or output discourse (an extended utterance by a given Speaker in a given
situation) rather than the language.