Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting: A Corpus-assisted Approach (New Frontiers in Translation Studies) 9811635471, 9789811635472

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Contents
Abbreviations
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Introduction
1.1 Research Purpose and Motivation
1.2 Research Background
1.2.1 General Background
1.2.2 Specific Background
1.3 Research Questions
1.4 Methodological Issues
1.5 Structure of the Book
1.6 Significance of the Research
References
2 Cognitive Processing Routes: An Interdisciplinary Perspective
2.1 The Psycholinguistic Perspective
2.1.1 Theoretical Discussions
2.1.2 Empirical Studies
2.2 The Neurophysiological Perspective
2.3 The Interpreting Studies’ Perspective
2.4 Summary
References
3 Translating and Interpreting: An Integrated Cognitive Perspective
3.1 An Integrated Perspective of Language Processing
3.1.1 Subsystems of Language Processing
3.1.2 Memory and Computation
3.1.3 Cognitive Bilingual Processing and Control
3.1.4 Translating and Interpreting as Bilingual Processing
3.2 Cognitive Processing Routes for Translation and Interpreting
3.2.1 Meaning-Based Processing Routes
3.2.2 Form-Based Processing Routes
3.2.3 Memory Pairing
3.3 Summary
References
4 The Corpus-Assisted Approach to TPR
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Behavioral and Neurophysiological Measures in TPR
4.2.1 Behavioral Measures
4.2.2 Neurophysiological Measures
4.2.3 Questions Pertaining to Behavioral and Neurophysiological Measures
4.3 The Corpus-Assisted Approach to Process Research
4.3.1 The Feasibility of the Corpus-Assisted Approach to Process Research
4.3.2 Corpus-Assisted Research on Translation Processes
4.3.3 Challenges in the Corpus-Assisted Approach
4.3.4 Key Concepts in the Corpus-Assisted Approach
4.4 The Corpus-Assisted Approach Employed in the Current Study
4.5 Summary
References
5 Parallel Bilingual CI Corpus Construction
5.1 Source and Target Material
5.1.1 Source Speeches and Target Deliveries
5.1.2 Source Profiling
5.1.3 Target Profiling
5.2 Transcription of Video Recordings
5.2.1 Transcription
5.2.2 Removing Noise from the Corpus
5.3 Corpus Design
5.3.1 Time Span
5.3.2 Corpus Size
5.4 Processing Tools
5.4.1 EditPlus
5.4.2 CorpusWordParser
5.4.3 ABBYY Aligner
5.4.4 Microsoft Excel
5.4.5 ParaConc
5.5 Segmentation and Alignment
5.5.1 Principles of Segmentation and Alignment
5.5.2 Segmentation and Alignment Processes
5.6 Annotation
5.6.1 Annotation Scheme for the STs and TTs
5.6.2 Using Word Macros for Tagging
5.7 Concordance Search and Query
5.7.1 Concordance Search Steps
5.7.2 ParaConc Search Example
5.7.3 A Roadmap of the CSIs Interpreting Patterns
5.8 Summary
References
6 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Source Categories and Grammatical Units
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Source Categories
6.2.1 Analysis of the Data in the Various Source Categories
6.2.2 Patterns of Cognitive Processing Routes in the Various Source Categories
6.3 Grammatical Units
6.3.1 Analysis of the Data in the Various Grammatical Units
6.3.2 Patterns of Cognitive Processing Routes in Various Grammatical Units
6.4 Summary
References
7 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Settings and Language Directions
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Bilateral and Multilateral Settings
7.2.1 Analysis of the Data in a Bilateral Setting Versus a Multilateral Setting
7.2.2 Patterns of Cognitive Processing Routes in Bilateral Versus Multilateral Settings
7.3 Language Direction and Translation Direction
7.3.1 Analysis of the Data in C-E Versus E-C Language Directions
7.3.2 Patterns of Cognitive Processing Routes in C-E and E-C Language Directions
7.4 Summary
References
8 Conclusions and Future Perspectives
8.1 Summary of the Research and the Findings
8.1.1 Cognitive Processing Routes in English Versus Chinese CI
8.1.2 The Dominant Cognitive Processing Route in English Versus Chinese CI
8.1.3 Factors Affecting the Dominant Route in English Versus Chinese CI
8.2 Theoretical and Practical Implications
8.2.1 Theoretical Implications
8.2.2 Empirical Implications
8.2.3 Methodological Implications
8.2.4 Pedagogical Implications
8.3 Limitations of This Study and Suggestions for Future Research
References
Appendix A Information of the Source Materials and Target Deliveries
Appendix B Examples for Tagging
Appendix C Individual Interpreting Patterns

Citation preview

New Frontiers in Translation Studies

Xiaodong Liu

Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting A Corpus-assisted Approach

New Frontiers in Translation Studies Series Editor Defeng Li, Center for Studies of Translation, Interpreting and Cognition, University of Macau, Macao SAR, China

Translation Studies as a discipline has witnessed the fastest growth in the last 40 years. With translation becoming increasingly more important in today’s glocalized world, some have even observed a general translational turn in humanities in recent years. The New Frontiers in Translation Studies aims to capture the newest developments in translation studies, with a focus on: • Translation Studies research methodology, an area of growing interest amongst translation students and teachers; • Data-based empirical translation studies, a strong point of growth for the discipline because of the scientific nature of the quantitative and/or qualitative methods adopted in the investigations; and • Asian translation thoughts and theories, to complement the current Eurocentric translation studies. Submission and Peer Review: The editor welcomes book proposals from experienced scholars as well as young aspiring researchers. Please send a short description of 500 words to the editor Prof. Defeng Li at [email protected] and Springer Senior Publishing Editor Rebecca Zhu: [email protected]. All proposals will undergo peer review to permit an initial evaluation. If accepted, the final manuscript will be peer reviewed internally by the series editor as well as externally (single blind) by Springer ahead of acceptance and publication.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11894

Xiaodong Liu

Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting A Corpus-assisted Approach

Xiaodong Liu School of Foreign Studies Hunan University of Humanities Science and Technology Loudi, China

I would like to acknowledge the support for this book from the research project funded by Hunan Provincial Social Science Foundation (Reference No: 19WLH18). ISSN 2197-8689 ISSN 2197-8697 (electronic) New Frontiers in Translation Studies ISBN 978-981-16-3547-2 ISBN 978-981-16-4335-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4335-4 © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

To my parents (刘松耕, 吴海连)

Acknowledgements

This book aims to investigate the cognitive processing routes in consecutive interpreting by employing a corpus-assisted approach, which largely develops from my doctoral thesis completed at Centre for Studies of Translation, Interpreting and Cognition (CSTIC), University of Macau. Many people offered me their generous help and guidance in the writing of that thesis and now this book. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincerest and deepest gratitude to Prof. Li Defeng, my academic supervisor, when I pursued my Ph.D. study at the University of Macau. I want to thank him in particular for his careful reading of the final drafts of the book and raising incisive but essential questions in regard to the overall structure and the focal argument of the book, the use of the theoretical framework and the conclusions to be drawn. I would also like to offer my sincerest gratitude to Prof. He Yuanjian, who’s functioned like my other academic supervisor, and offered his constant and enlightening supervision through many formal and informal meetings during my Ph.D. study in terms of research methodology and theoretical construct. They introduced me to the fascinating field of translation process research and the application of the corpus-assisted approach to cognitive studies of translation and interpreting. This book would not have been possible without their generous help and guidance. My heartiest thanks go to Prof. Arnt Lykke Jakobsen and Prof. Vincent Wang Xian for their careful reading of my Ph.D. thesis and thoughtful suggestions on my research. Special thanks also go to Prof. Li Liqing for her academic guidance and help. I am also indebted to Dr. He Wenzhao for teaching me how to construct a corpus specifically for my research, and to Dr. Huang Qiuhong, Dr. Min Chao, Dr. Hou Linping, Dr. Lang Yue, Dr. Zhu Hongqiang, Dr. Zhou Sijing, and those friends I don’t mention for their help one way or another during my Ph.D. study. I am also grateful to the Springer team for their kindness. They are Ms. Rebecca Zhu, Associate Editor, Ms. Carolyn Zhang, Editorial Assistant, and Ms. Vidyaa Shri K., Project Coordinator. I am very grateful to my parents, Songgeng and Hailian, for their everlasting love, my sister Shuiping for her support, my wife for her understanding me and taking care of the whole family when I was doing my Ph.D. at UM, and finally my son, vii

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Acknowledgements

such naughty but cute little boy, for giving me courage to pursue the unknown but quite amazing process of translation and interpreting.

Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Research Purpose and Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Research Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.1 General Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.2 Specific Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Methodological Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 Structure of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6 Significance of the Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 2 3 3 6 9 10 12 13 13

2 Cognitive Processing Routes: An Interdisciplinary Perspective . . . . . 2.1 The Psycholinguistic Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Theoretical Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2 Empirical Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 The Neurophysiological Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 The Interpreting Studies’ Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17 18 18 19 23 25 26 26

3 Translating and Interpreting: An Integrated Cognitive Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 An Integrated Perspective of Language Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1 Subsystems of Language Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2 Memory and Computation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.3 Cognitive Bilingual Processing and Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.4 Translating and Interpreting as Bilingual Processing . . . . . . 3.2 Cognitive Processing Routes for Translation and Interpreting . . . . . 3.2.1 Meaning-Based Processing Routes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 Form-Based Processing Routes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.3 Memory Pairing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

29 29 30 30 31 32 32 33 34 36 36 36 ix

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4 The Corpus-Assisted Approach to TPR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Behavioral and Neurophysiological Measures in TPR . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 Behavioral Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.2 Neurophysiological Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.3 Questions Pertaining to Behavioral and Neurophysiological Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 The Corpus-Assisted Approach to Process Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 The Feasibility of the Corpus-Assisted Approach to Process Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.2 Corpus-Assisted Research on Translation Processes . . . . . . . 4.3.3 Challenges in the Corpus-Assisted Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.4 Key Concepts in the Corpus-Assisted Approach . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 The Corpus-Assisted Approach Employed in the Current Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Parallel Bilingual CI Corpus Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Source and Target Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.1 Source Speeches and Target Deliveries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.2 Source Profiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.3 Target Profiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Transcription of Video Recordings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 Transcription . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 Removing Noise from the Corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Corpus Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.1 Time Span . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2 Corpus Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Processing Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.1 EditPlus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.2 CorpusWordParser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.3 ABBYY Aligner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.4 Microsoft Excel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.5 ParaConc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Segmentation and Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.1 Principles of Segmentation and Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.2 Segmentation and Alignment Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 Annotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6.1 Annotation Scheme for the STs and TTs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6.2 Using Word Macros for Tagging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7 Concordance Search and Query . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7.1 Concordance Search Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7.2 ParaConc Search Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7.3 A Roadmap of the CSIs Interpreting Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39 40 40 42 43 44 46 47 49 51 52 53 54 55 59 59 60 62 64 66 66 70 70 70 71 72 72 73 74 77 78 79 79 80 84 84 85 88 88 89 92

Contents

5.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Source Categories and Grammatical Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Source Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 Analysis of the Data in the Various Source Categories . . . . . 6.2.2 Patterns of Cognitive Processing Routes in the Various Source Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Grammatical Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 Analysis of the Data in the Various Grammatical Units . . . . 6.3.2 Patterns of Cognitive Processing Routes in Various Grammatical Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Settings and Language Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Bilateral and Multilateral Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.1 Analysis of the Data in a Bilateral Setting Versus a Multilateral Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.2 Patterns of Cognitive Processing Routes in Bilateral Versus Multilateral Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Language Direction and Translation Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.1 Analysis of the Data in C-E Versus E-C Language Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.2 Patterns of Cognitive Processing Routes in C-E and E-C Language Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Conclusions and Future Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Summary of the Research and the Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.1 Cognitive Processing Routes in English Versus Chinese CI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.2 The Dominant Cognitive Processing Route in English Versus Chinese CI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.3 Factors Affecting the Dominant Route in English Versus Chinese CI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 Theoretical and Practical Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.1 Theoretical Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.2 Empirical Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.3 Methodological Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.4 Pedagogical Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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94 94 97 97 98 98 104 107 108 113 115 116 117 117 118 118 125 126 128 134 135 136 137 137 138 139 140 140 140 142 142 143

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8.3 Limitations of This Study and Suggestions for Future Research . . . 143 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Appendix A: Information of the Source Materials and Target Deliveries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Appendix B: Examples for Tagging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Appendix C: Individual Interpreting Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Abbreviations

BCEPCCI CE CI CPR CSIs EC EEG fMRI fNIRCWS IPR Omi Para PET PNs SL ST Sub TL TPR Trans TS TT

A bilingual Chinese-English parallel corpus of consecutive interpreting From Chinese to English Consecutive interpreting Cognitive processing routes Culture-specific items From English to Chinese Electroencephalograms Functional magnetic resonance imaging Functional infrared continuous wave spectroscopy Interpreting process research Omission Paraphrasing Positron emission tomography Proper names Source language Source text Substitution Target language Translation process research Transcoding Translation Studies Target text

xiii

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4 Fig. 5.5 Fig. 5.6 Fig. 5.7 Fig. 5.8 Fig. 5.9 Fig. 5.10 Fig. 5.11 Fig. 5.12 Fig. 5.13 Fig. 5.14 Fig. 5.15 Fig. 5.16 Fig. 5.17 Fig. 5.18 Fig. 5.19 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3 Fig. 6.4 Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2

Research flowchart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Experimental methods used in TPR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Professional CI corpus-building procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Composition of CSIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bidirectional Chinese-English parallel corpus of consecutive interpreting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Screenshot of EditPlus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Screenshot of CorpusWordParser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Screenshot of POS tagged and segmented text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Screenshot of POS segmented text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Screenshot of the ABBYY Aligner 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Screenshot of ST-TT alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Screenshot of aligned ST-TT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Screenshot of Excel after inserting the first number . . . . . . . . . . . Screenshot of Excel’s “dragging” function for serial numbering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Screenshot of ParaConc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Screenshot of the ParaConc parallel search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Automatic alignment by the ABBYY aligner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alignment after manual intervention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . POS segmentation without tagging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Demonstration of macro tagging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A roadmap of CSI and PN interpreting patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cognitive routes—different source categories in CI: C-E . . . . . . Cognitive routes—different source categories in CI: English–Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cognitive processing routes—PNs in CI: C-E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cognitive processing routes—PNs in CI: E-C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cognitive processing routes—PNs and other CSIs in CI: C-E multilateral and C-E bilateral settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cognitive processing routes—PNs and other CSIs in CI: C-E versus E-C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11 41 60 64 72 73 74 74 75 75 76 76 77 77 78 79 81 81 82 88 93 105 105 114 114 125 134 xv

List of Tables

Table 4.1 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4 Table 5.5 Table 5.6 Table 5.7 Table 5.8 Table 5.9 Table 5.10 Table 5.11 Table 5.12 Table 5.13 Table 5.14 Table 6.1 Table 6.2 Table 6.3 Table 6.4 Table 7.1 Table 7.2

Critical questions/problems pertaining to TPR experimental methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CSI classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CSI translating strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Examples of Translation Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cognitive processing routes and their corresponding manifestations as rendering strategies (He, 2017) . . . . . . . . . . . Transcription conventions for the BCEPCCI (also see Hu, 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BCEPCCI header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Composition of Wen Jiabao’s press conferences in the CEPCCI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Composition of the bilateral meetings between Sino-US leaders in the CEPCCI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Composition of the bilateral meetings between Sino-US leaders in the ECPCCI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Final composition of the BCEPCCI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction to selected interpreting corpora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BCEPCCI size and composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CSIs tag sets for the STs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tag set for the TTs: interpreting strategies in the subcorpora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interpreting patterns—CSIs in CI: C-E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interpreting patterns—CSIs in CI: E-C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pattern comparison of PNs across various grammatical units C-E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pattern comparison of PNs in various grammatical units: E-C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interpreting patterns—PNs in CI: C-E multilateral and C-E bilateral settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interpreting patterns—Metaphors in CI: C-E multilateral and C-E bilateral settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

45 63 65 65 65 67 68 68 69 69 70 71 72 85 86 99 102 108 111 119 121 xvii

xviii

Table 7.3 Table 7.4 Table 7.5 Table 7.6 Table 7.7 Table 7.8

List of Tables

Interpreting patterns—idiomatic expressions in CI: C-E multilateral and C-E bilateral settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interpreting patterns—classic quotations in CI: C-E multilateral and C-E bilateral settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interpreting patterns—PNs in CI: E-C and C-E . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interpreting patterns—metaphors in CI: E-C and C-E . . . . . . . . Interpreting patterns—idiomatic expressions in CI: E-C and C-E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interpreting patterns—classic quotations in CI: E-C and C-E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

123 124 129 131 132 133

Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract This opening chapter begins with the purpose of and motivations for this study, followed by the research background, which includes the general background to interpreting process research (IPR), and the specific background to cognitive processing routes in translating and interpreting as bilingual processing. The specific research questions related to the stated purpose are then presented, prior to a brief description of the methodological issues that are key to the research process. The structure of the book and the significance of the research are presented, respectively, in the last two sections. Keywords Research background · Research questions · Methodological issues · Research significance In the past two decades, translation process research (TPR), as “an interdisciplinary subdiscipline of translation studies” (Gambier & van Doorslaer, 2015: 9), has experienced tremendous developments as a result of interest on the part of researchers in various disciplines, such as cognitive psychology, neurolinguistics, bilingualism and, of course, translation studies (TS). These disciplines have made huge contributions to our understanding of how translation processes take place in translators’ brains in terms of theoretical constructs and methodological innovations. As Jakobsen (2014: 67) stated: Psychology has perhaps always been strongly oriented towards exploring (mental) processes involving one mental state leading to another through distinguishable, predictable phases. Inspired by psychological inquiry, a concern with psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics developed in linguistics, adapting research methodologies from psychology and neuroscience to the study of language, and focusing as much (or more) on processes and process patterns as (than) on language structure.

Interdisciplinary awareness is important for TPR scholars. This book, which is a cross-disciplinary example of research on translation processes employing both TS and corpus linguistics, aims at providing a new possibility for scholars specializing in both TPR and in corpus translation studies. Specific details about this project will be introduced in detail in the subsequent sections.

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 X. Liu, Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4335-4_1

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1.1 Research Purpose and Motivation The purpose of the current book is to investigate one of the most controversial issues in the existing literature, namely determining whether the dominant route in English–Chinese (E–C) and Chinese–English (C–E) professional consecutive interpretations is the form-based processing route or the meaning-based processing route, and to examine the reasons for the adoption of the dominant route in the brains of the consecutive interpreters. The motivations for this study can be summarized as follows: First, over approximately the past three decades, there has been significant interest in the translation processes that take place in a translator’s or an interpreter’s brain when transferring the source text (ST) in the source language (SL) to the target text (TT) in the target language (TL). Efforts have been made to investigate the dominant tendency of two routes (see more in Sect. 1.2.2), namely the form-based and the meaning-based processing routes, using either naturalistic or experimental data within and outside of the field of translation/interpreting studies. The language pairs involved such European languages as Spanish, Danish, Italian, and English. Some scholars have found that the form-based route was dominant in interpreting and translation (e.g., Chou et al., 2016; Dam, 1998, 2001), while others have found exactly the opposite; that is, the meaning-based route is dominant (e.g., Fabbro et al., 1990; Ge, 2011; Gran, 1989; Gran & Bellini, 1996). These conflicting findings triggered my initial interest in the further investigation of the issue by expanding the research into the area of consecutive interpreting (CI), and exploring the tendencies in interpreting involving Chinese and English. Second, previous studies of the SL-TL transfer have focused mainly on experimental data in TS instead of on naturalistic data (e.g., de Groot, 1992, 1993; de Groot et al., 1994; Kroll & Curley, 1988; Sáchez-Casas et al., 1992). In addition, most of these studies have focused on single-word translation tasks that were performed by average bilinguals. Thus, the current book attempts to provide more evidence by examining naturalistic and contextualized data involving professional interpreting. Third, evidence pertaining to this controversial issue has been collected specifically for the Chinese/English language pair, but mainly with regard to written translation over the past 15 years (Chou et al., 2016; Ge, 2011; He, 2004, 2010; Zhou & He, 2012). However, few of these studies have investigated the dominant processing route by analyzing the distributional tendency of form-based and meaning-based processing in interpreting; the exception is Lang et al. (2018, 2019), who focused on the mode of simultaneous interpreting (SI). To the best of my knowledge, few systematic analyses of the predominant interpreting route in professional CI from English into Chinese (E–C) and Chinese into English (C–E) exist at present. This book fills the gap by focusing on professional CI in different language directions (C– E and E–C) to provide an investigation into form-based and meaning-based bilingual processing.

1.2 Research Background

3

1.2 Research Background In order to situate the present study in the context of previous works, I will first introduce the general background to IPR. I will then focus on the specific groundwork undertaken for the book by introducing prior research on form-based and meaningbased interpreting. These interpreting processes and the cognitive processing routes activated during these processes have been discussed extensively within and outside of the field of translation studies.

1.2.1 General Background In 1972, James Holmes presented a paper entitled The Name and Nature of Translation Studies at the Third International Congress of Applied Linguistics in Copenhagen; this work is “generally accepted as the founding statement for the field” of TS (Gentzler, 1993: 92). In this seminal paper, a crucial framework to define TS as a distinct discipline was presented; Gideon Toury (2012: 4) later divided this framework into two parts. The first part is pure TS and has two branches, which are theoretical and descriptive. The second part is applied translation studies and includes such branches as translator training, translation aides, and translation criticism. What needs to be stressed here is the branch of descriptive TS because it has developed rapidly in recent years. Descriptive TS can be product-oriented, process-oriented, or function-oriented, and all three subbranches have been major driving forces in translation studies. It has been more than four decades since process-oriented translation research was first proposed as a field of study. Various labels in the past three decades were used in this field, namely “process-oriented translation studies,” “process research,” “translation process research,” and “cognitive translatology” (Jääskeläinen & Lacruz 2018: 1). Researchers in this field are mainly concerned with what happens in the mind/brain of a translator when he or she is translating, particularly in a laboratory setting (Holmes, 1988). However, due to the challenges of exploring the human brain, little progress has been made in this area of research for the past two decades. Over the past 20 years, new research methods for examining the physical realities of the human brain have increased with the help of such neighboring disciplines as cognitive science and psychology. According to these methods, contemporary TPR may be divided into the following three categories (He, 2017): (1)

(2)

Neurological studies that use highly sophisticated techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), electroencephalograms (EEG), functional infrared continuous wave spectroscopy (fNIRCWS), and so forth; behavioral studies that utilize verbal reports such as think-aloud protocols and retrospection, as well as tools such as eye-tracking, key-logging, or a combination of the two; and

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1 Introduction

translating/interpreting-pattern studies, which are based on bilingual parallel corpora consisting of translated texts from the same source or parallel interpreting corpora.

Given that laboratory equipment (for example, EEG/MEG/fMRI/eye-trackers) is expensive and additional training is required to utilize such equipment, the first two areas of research in translation and interpreting may be severely constrained worldwide in the coming years. By contrast, researchers in the arts, humanities, and other fields are free to construct their own corpora and complete corpus-assisted studies with far fewer resources being required. In fact, the oldest methods used to study translation/interpreting processes are all based on analyses of the translation/interpreting products (Malmkjær & Windle, 2011: 98). The present book combines the continuing merits of the product-oriented approach while taking advantage of more recent computing developments that now allow us to aggregate and analyze large bodies of data quickly. Nonetheless, this research takes the assumption that the end products of the interpreting process contain observable traces of bilingual processing at the cognitive level as fact. Furthermore, Chesterman (2003: 223) provided the following call to action: “[T]he immediate causes of whatever universals there may be must be sought in human cognition – to be precise, in the kind of cognitive processing that produces translations.” This statement contains at least two nested assertions. First, productoriented TS (such as corpus-assisted studies) can be used to reveal the general language-use patterns that emerge across translated texts or interpreted speeches, which we may call “universality” at the linguistic level. Second, these universal linguistic patterns may be understood to result from shared cognitive features in the translators ‘/interpreters’ brains. In these two senses, the current book responds to Chesterman’s call: I analyze the features of professional CI transcriptions as a special case of bilingual processing taking place in the brain (e.g., He, 2010; He & Li, 2015) and compare my results to those of prior studies on translation and SI. Here, “translation” is used in its narrow sense; that is, to refer specifically to text-to-text translation (written translation). This may be contrasted with interpreting, which involves reproducing verbal input in the SL as verbal output in the TL. It is important to distinguish between these two terms because I believe they entail different cognitive processes to produce their outputs, as I will discuss in Chap. 3 of this book. The present study on interpreting processing routes from the perspective of bilingual processing is therefore expected to make numerous contributions to interpreting studies. As mentioned previously, it contributes to a better understanding of the inherent properties of interpreting itself, thereby elaborating on language-focused theories of interpreting (e.g., Seleskovitch’s 1975a interpretative theory). However, in order to make these contributions, I must first clarify what I mean when I discuss the underlying cognitive processes that mediate interpreting; scholars from various backgrounds have different perspectives concerning how these processes work, what they comprise, what claims may be made about them, and what predictions may arise from them. The following paragraphs are devoted to defining the scope of the interpreting process in the current book in the context of prior research on the subject.

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For the purposes of this book, the interpreting process refers to the mental operations used to navigate between the SL and the TL during the act of interpreting. Such a working definition will appear obvious to neurolinguistic and psycholinguistic scholars of bilingualism (e.g., de Groot, 2011; Paradis, 2004). However, there are actually two core issues with which one must contend when considering bilingual language processing: The first is how languages are processed in the brain (that is, the theory of bilingual language processing), and the second is how the physical cognitive control mechanism for language processing works; in other words, the neural activation that occurs during bilingual language processing, which somehow causes bilingual language processing to occur. Understanding the former, namely how language processing works from a descriptive standpoint, is central not only to psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics but also to translation studies, language processing, language acquisition, and so on (de Groot, 2011; Ehrensberger-Dow et al., 2015; Ferreira & Schwieter, 2015; García, 2015; Kroll & De Groot, 2005; Morgan-Short & Ullman, 2011; O’Brien, 2011; Paradis, 2004; Shreve & Angelone, 2010). If we can understand the cognitive processes underlying translating and interpreting in more depth, we will be able to make generalizations and predictions about language use, as well as about our language faculties, that cut across academic disciplines. However, the challenge posed by completing research that has broad and varied implications is that one’s research topic has often been considered from many contradictory angles using diverse research methods (see Chesterman, 2013). TPR has been addressed using linguistic approaches, psycholinguistic approaches, semiotic approaches, communicative and functional approaches, sociological approaches, and so on. As a result, I must attempt to reconcile this large body of research in order to refine my own research ideas and situate the contributions of the present book within the existing literature. Accordingly, I will briefly introduce some models of interpreting and will elaborate on them in subsequent sections. Many differently scoped models have attempted to illustrate the interpreting or translating processes; for example, Seleskovitch’s (1975b, 1977) model (see also Seleskovitch & Lederer, 1995), Gile’s (1997, 2009) effort model, Mackintosh’s (1985) model, Padilla et al.’s (1999) model, Shreve and Diamond’s (1997) model, Paradis’s (1994) theoretical framework, and Pöchhacker’s (2016) model. Two examples are presented. The first is Seleskovitch’s model (1977), which was one of the earliest models of interpreting processes. Seleskovitch believed that interpreting was a process of “deverbalization” and “reverbalization”: …the translation process appears to be not a direct conversion of the linguistic meaning of the source language to the target language but a conversion from source language to sense, the intermediate link being nonverbal thought which, once consciously grasped, can then be expressed in any language regardless of the words used in the original language. (Seleskovitch, 1977: 22)

According to this view, interpreting requires mediation by some conceptual level of thought; the brain must subconsciously convert language into concept, and concept back into language, in order for translation to be achieved. Furthermore, the scope

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1 Introduction

of this perspective is limited to what is theorized to be happening in the brain during an act of translation or interpreting; it does not, for example, consider the cognitive representations or cultural variables that may affect interpreting processes. Pöchhacker (2016) argued that there were not two, but seven levels of variables that must be modeled to account fully for the interpreting process, namely the anthropological, socio-professional, institutional, interactional, textual, cognitive, and neural levels. Pöchhacker’s model attempted to differentiate among various studies of interpreting processes by enumerating how these works were scoped. For example, if one’s research object is the cognitive processes underlying professional translating or interpreting, one is understood to be studying the “interpreting act,” which must be caused by the interpreter’s cognitive/neural activity in some way (adapted from Toury, 2012: 67–68); such studies do not consider the products of the interpreting act, for example. Similarly, if one studies the interpreting process via the sociological processes in which the act of interpreting is situated, one’s focus is on the “interpreting event” (adapted from Toury, 2012: 67–68). In summary, such micro and macro-models of interpreting processes vary according to the researchers’ different understandings of what the interpreting process can or should comprise (see Pöchhacker, 2004: 95, for further details). In the previous two decades, the development of advanced laboratory equipment, including fMRI, EEG, MEG, PET, and eye-trackers, has contributed significantly to studies of cerebral organization and brain activity during interpreting (e.g., SI) at the neural level. However, such equipment is expensive, and these studies do not, in and of themselves, explain how language processing operates. Therefore, in this book, I endeavor to investigate the textual level, and to thus infer the cognitive levels of interpreting as bilingual processing, which cannot be accessed directly. More specifically, I examine these interpreting processes via an analysis of the interpreting products by following the methods of prior corpus-assisted works. Most importantly, I provide empirical evidence that speaks to the models of interpreting processes on which I will touch in the next section.

1.2.2 Specific Background As mentioned in the previous section (Sect. 1.2.1), I use the phrase interpreting process to refer to the operations that take place inside an interpreter’s brain during the act of interpreting. Thus, what exactly have researchers learned about the interpreting process that transfers the ST written in the SL to the TT written in the TL, and what are the questions that remain unanswered? Notably, prior research has identified at least two kinds of mental procedures that may take place in interpreters’ brains during interpretation tasks, which are referred to as transcoding and interpreting proper (e.g., Christoffels & de Groot, 2005; Darò, 1990; de Groot, 1997, 2000; Fabbro et al., 1990; Gran, 1989; Isham, 1994; Isham & Lane, 1994; Massaro & Shlesinger, 1997; Paradis, 1984, 1994). This thinking may have originated in Herbert’s (1952) and Rozan’s (1956) works, but it was formalized in Danica Seleskovitch’s doctoral

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dissertation (1975a). In her work, transcoding refers specifically to word-for-word, verbal, direct, or literal transposition from an SL to a TL, while interpreting proper refers to interpretative transposition. Analyses of the translation products showed that the former procedure resulted in the straightforward replacement of ST items with TT items, and the latter to the transfer of the ideas contained in the ST. Although her opinion is based on the speculation, her views assist us to understand these two concepts more clearly. Seleskovitch further claimed that interpreting proper was applied more frequently in real-life interpreting situations,1 although she had no empirical evidence to support this claim. However, the idea has been reframed and advanced by Seleskovitch herself, along with other scholars, who have been labeled the Paris School (e.g., Déjean Le Féal, 1989; Seleskovitch, 1976, 1977). In the midto late-1990s, a new generation of interpreting researchers, including Isham (1994), Gran and Bellini (1996), and Fabbro et al. (1990), began to re-examine this old issue. Fabbro et al., (1990:75) stated that there were two paradigmatic modes of interpreting: the word-for-word2 technique, which is usually used to translate nouns, figures, and technical subjects, and the meaning-based strategy, which is used to translate other kinds of phrases. In fact, the latter mode does appear to be used more frequently in real-life interpreting situations, as the former distorts the source message. Fabbro and Gran (1994:297) further clarified the workings of these two modes. In the meaning-based translation strategy, the interpreter discards the form and retains the meaning of the ST, then recodes that meaning in the TT. It is not necessary for the interpreter to retain the surface structure of the SL in his or her short-term memory. In word-for-word translation, the translator tends to render the SL items as their TL counterparts at various linguistic levels. The equivalents at each linguistic level may be accessed via “short circuits” (Fabbro & Gran, 1994: 297), which may be developed through practice as professional interpreters gain experience in conference settings. Isham and Lane (1994) argued that these two strategies were actually two hypotheses concerning how information is stored and accessed in the brain, namely the lexical hypothesis and the conceptual mediation hypothesis. The lexical hypothesis proposes that the ST is linked directly to the TT via lexical equivalents in the two lexicons of the bilingual interpreter, whereas the conceptual mediation hypothesis involves the existence of shared structures in the brain at the conceptual level. Similarly, Massaro and Shlesinger (1997) conducted a detailed analysis of two types of cognitive processes, top-down (sense-oriented) and bottom-up (sign-oriented); the former relies largely on the standard assumptions concerning mental computation and the lexicon, while the latter suggests that the information contained in the ST is stored in the short-term memory until more information is accessed. The minimax principle was then adopted from Gaming Theory and states that translators tend to

1

It is worth noting that Seleskovitch is an experienced interpreter. For some Western languages in the same family, word-for-word translation often makes sense for the target audience, but this is not necessarily true for the C–E language pair.

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keep the cognitive load generated by the task as light as possible. As a result, translators will not employ a top-down process unless the bottom-up process produces unsuccessful translations. More recently, three other researchers have also made significant contributions to the study of interpreting processes following the dichotomous view mentioned above. De Groot (1997, 2000, 2011), a psychologist, framed these two strategies as horizontal and vertical translations. Paradis (1994, 2004), a neuroscientist, referred to them as the conceptually mediated route and the structural route, which were called transphrasing and transcoding, respectively, by Lin et al. (2018). He and Li (2015) and He (2019) argued that there were actually three cognitive processing routes, namely conceptually mediated transfer, interlingual routes, and memory pairing (also see Lang et al., 2018, 2019; more details about the models developed by these three scholars are presented in Chap. 3). The previous research discussed above claimed that there were, in theory, two or three processing routes (or strategies, approaches, or modes; for consistency, “route” is used in this book) that underpin acts of interpreting. In the present book, they are specifically termed the form-based processing route (or horizontal, sign-oriented, and interlingual routes, transcoding, and so on) and the meaning-based processing route (or vertical, sense-oriented, conceptual mediated transfer, transphrasing, and the like): “[F]or experienced interpreters, both strategies are hypothesized to be readily available” (Christoffels & de Groot, 2005: 459; as cited in He & Li, 2015), as they are adopted alternately in SI (Fabbro et al., 1990) depending on other contextual variables. Four questions pertaining to these routes are of interest. The first two are whether different routes have different cognitive implications, and whether they have different implications for a translator/interpreter’s behaviors, as well as for the final translated products or interpreted speeches. According to the research discussed above, the answer to these questions is yes. In the meaning-based route, the meaning of the ST is recoded in the TT, resulting in a fluent-sounding translation (Fabbro & Gran, 1994; Isham, 1994). Furthermore, if this route is adopted, the implication is that the translator or interpreter has fully comprehended the ST in some way and at some point during the act of interpreting. The form-based route, transcoding, simply involves “the literal transpositions of words or multiword units” (Christoffels & de Groot, 2005: 459) at various linguistic levels, including phonological, phonetic, morphological, and syntactic levels. When using this route, the translator or interpreter does not need to understand the meaning of the SL consciously or subconsciously, and the product of this route may be less than ideal. Thus, these two cognitive processing routes, and their implications for the translation products of various STs, differ from each other quite substantially. Given that both routes are available to professional interpreters at all times, another question that may be raised is which route is more economical. The form-based routes take place at various linguistic levels, and the links among the linguistic elements in this case are understood as “short circuits” (Fabbro & Gran, 1994: 297). They are “based on (near-) automatic lexical pairings” (Massaro & Shlesinger, 1997: 37), or involve the “automatic applications of rules” (Paradis, 1994: 329) to naturalize a

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9

common phrase from the ST into the TT’s grammar. It is understood to be a quick way to find equivalences for the ST in the TT at different levels of language. Consequently, form-based routes seem to require fewer cognitive resources than do meaning-based routes. In fact, transphrasing is argued to be more costly than pairing, as evidenced by the strongest activation in the brain areas of the left prefrontal cortex (Lin et al., 2018). However, once we understand which route is more economical, we must still ask how an interpreter’s brain chooses one route instead of the other at any given time. Apart from cognitive economy, what other constraints determine the cognitive processing route that will be adopted in any given instance? The hypothesis developed by Seleskovitch regarding the prevalence of the meaning-based processing route in the work of professional translators/interpreters to produce natural-sounding products has been supported by some scholars (e.g., Fabbro et al., 1990: 75; Gran, 1989: 98; Gran & Bellini, 1996: 105), but rejected by others (e.g., Dam, 1998, 2001; He, 2009). Addressing this controversial issue is the major concern of the current book. Some experimental studies that were conducted in a laboratory (see Chap. 2) and some corpus-assisted studies (see Chap. 4) may provide clues to this aspect of translation, but few have considered CI. In light of this, this book attempts to provide further empirical evidence of the dominant tendency of the two routes mentioned above in professional CI (C–E and E–C), and offers further insights into what may govern the interaction of these routes in real-life interpreting scenarios. The specific research questions this book attempts to address are presented in the following section.

1.3 Research Questions Based on the discussions above, we can see that research on cognitive processing routes remains unclear and has even sparked controversy among different scholars in different disciplines. According to Holmes (1972)’s framework, TS have been product-oriented, function-oriented, or process-oriented. It is probably not surprising that TS have focused more on the translated products and their functions (Li, 2017). Little research has considered translation processes, not to mention the analysis of the translated products. In this regard, two questions are central for researchers in this area: The first is why translation processes can be revealed by the translated product, and the second is how this can be done descriptively. These two questions are worth clarifying before we embark on this line of research. To begin, as widely understood, translated products are the end products of translation processes; that is, translation processes precede the products that are produced. In other words, some of the features in the product are remnants of the translation processes taken as bilingual processing, which are seen as evidence of bilingual processing. As these features are ultimately manifested via specific linguistic expressions, it is highly likely that the processes can be described by examining these linguistic expressions (see Chap. 4). Furthermore, this project needed to be theory driven. In the current book, translation/interpreting processes are seen from

10

1 Introduction

the perspective of bilingual processing. During bilingual processing, the SL received by the translator as the input must be transferred into the TL produced for the readers or audience as the output (for more about the theory, see Chap. 3). However, the author would like to stress that the second question needs to be answered in light of the theory used; for example, what are the specific linguistic expressions? What should be targeted in the ST and TT? These questions will be addressed in more detail in Chaps. 3 and 4. This study seeks to determine how the cognitive processing routes mentioned in the previous section are reflected in English/ Chinese CI, and which route predominates. That is, I will first attempt to determine whether English/Chinese CI employs the same processing routes as do other modes of translation/interpreting and in the translation of other language pairs (e.g., Spanish–Danish, Italian–English, and English–Spanish). More specifically, I attempt to explain how the processing routes mentioned in the literature operate in English/Chinese CI; I will also explore which of the routes predominates in English/Chinese CI, and will examine the reasons for the predominance of one route instead of another. Therefore, this book seeks to answer the following three questions: Q1: How are the cognitive processing routes reflected in English/Chinese CI? Q2: Which route predominates in English/Chinese CI: the form-based processing route or the meaning-based processing route? Q3: What affects the adoption of the predominant route? I will answer these questions using a self-constructed bilingual parallel corpus of professional consecutive interpreting (BPCPCI), which includes data from different sources; specifically, C–E interpreting at conferences and C–E interpreting of dyadic talks. Detailed information about the corpus material and the construction of the corpus is presented in Chap. 5.

1.4 Methodological Issues A few methodological issues needed to be addressed in order to achieve the goals of the present investigation. As stated earlier, I adopt a corpus-assisted approach to IPR. The corpus-assisted approach is used to analyze large quantities of language data, often by using a combination of computer software and human labor (Li, 2017). It would not have been possible to complete the analyses in the current book without human effort. Furthermore, there is a type/token ratio shift in the current research that departs from other corpus-assisted TS (see Chap. 4). As a result, my approach is termed a corpus-assisted method rather than a corpus-based one. Based on this approach, I used a bilingual parallel corpus containing transcribed source speeches in English or Chinese and their consecutively interpreted deliveries. I then extracted the interpreting data patterns from the corpus and analyzed them both descriptively and theoretically. I describe the source speeches and their interpreted deliveries and present the corpus construction procedures in Chap. 5.

1.4 Methodological Issues

11

Crucially, I also needed to establish how to identify the observable research targets in the interpreting recordings, including the source speeches and the interpreted deliveries. In other words, I needed to determine which parts of the speeches and their interpreted deliveries should be the targets of investigation. Thus, I targeted sourcebound items in the STs, specifically the culture-specific items (CSIs), which include proper names (PNs), metaphors, idiomatic expressions, and classic quotations (quotations that are extracted from the classic texts). These items are conceptually unique to the source system (that is, language and culture), and are consequently “cognitively opaque” in the target system. Therefore, they pose “cognitive barriers” for the interpreters in the interpreting process, which is why they were chosen for the analysis. Further elaboration on the cognitive nature of CSIs is presented in Chap. 5. Similarly, I also targeted the ways in which the CSIs were interpreted in the TT. The interpreting patterns of the entire target output were also collected via the corpus technology. I will return to this methodological issue in more detail in Chap. 5, in which I explain the methods used for input source profiling and output target profiling. After presenting the interpreting patterns found in the corpus, I provide a theoretical account of these patterns based on the assumption that translating and interpreting correspond with acts of bilingual processing in the brain. A corpus-assisted translation project involves the presentation of statistical results and a grounded explanation of the statistics. Numbers cannot generate meaning by themselves; one must invoke a theoretical analysis to render a corpus-assisted translation research project truly useful and sensible (Li, 2017: 110). In essence, I attempt to answer the following question: What do these statistical analyses reveal about interpreting processes? To answer this question, the relevant cognitive theories that have been developed over the past two decades are presented in Chap. 3, while my own theoretical analysis of the interpreting patterns derived from the corpus is presented in Chaps. 6 and 7. The flowchart below illustrates the process I followed to complete this research (Fig. 1.1).

Corpora (corpora collecting: size/features, etc.) (corpus-building: transcription/alignment/annotation, etc.)

Theoretical accounts and discussions; Conclusions

Fig. 1.1 Research flowchart

the dominant tendency of form-based routes and meaning-based route in CI (Research Topic)

Corpora Search (AntConc, ParaConc, etc.)

Interpreting patterns/examples analysis

12

1 Introduction

1.5 Structure of the Book This book consists of eight chapters. This chapter introduces the research background to the current study, which motivated the current research questions and methods. It also contains the research questions addressed in this book. Some methodological issues concerning the corpus-assisted approach to IPR are discussed. Chapter 2 details the previous theoretical and empirical research on formbased and meaning-based translation/interpreting from different perspectives. In this chapter, an interdisciplinary model of the two interpreting processes is introduced, followed by a selective review of this issue. Chapter 3 delves into the integrated cognitive theory of translating and interpreting that informs this study; specifically, translating, and interpreting are introduced as modes of bilingual processing. Most importantly, the cognitive processing routes and their workings are detailed. Chapter 4 describes the corpus-assisted approach, particularly as it has been used in TPR, in addition to the methodologies applied thus far in empirical translation process studies. This approach is explained in terms of its challenges and key concepts, and the reasons for its use in the present study are also explained. Chapter 5 first discusses the source and target material in the current corpus. It thoroughly describes the source speeches and target deliveries in their entirety, as well as the source and target profiling used to hone in on the descriptive research subject (that is, CSIs). It then introduces the construction and application of the corpus I created, namely the BCEPCCII. In this chapter, I discuss the transcription of the video recordings I collected, and the processes used to prepare these transcriptions for analysis. Some of the processing tools employed in building and refining the current corpus are also described in this chapter. In addition, the processes for segmenting and aligning the transcripts are specified. Similarly, the tagging schema and concordance search are discussed. Chapter 6 contains a description of the data patterns of the CSIs extracted from the self-built corpus. It focuses mainly on presenting the CI patterns of cognitive processing routes involving different source categories and various grammatical units. This chapter also provides an example analysis to illustrate how the self-built corpus was analyzed as a whole, and focuses mainly on the presentation of examples of CSIs; for example, in the form of PNs translated from Chinese into English and from English into Chinese in CI. A demonstrative qualitative analysis of these examples is presented, and the quantitative patterns regarding different source categories and various grammatical units are also analyzed. Chapter 7 presents the CI patterns of cognitive processing routes in various settings and two language directions (C–E and E–C). Some examples are also provided. Furthermore, intergroup and intragroup interpreting patterns are compared. Chapter 8 revisits the research questions I raised in this chapter. More specifically, the answers for each question are reported in turn. In addition, I return to the controversial issue raised previously. This chapter also presents the conclusions of

1.5 Structure of the Book

13

the research and the theoretical and practical implications thereof. In the final section, the limitations of the current study are discussed and suggestions for future work are provided. The appendices provide information about the source materials and the target deliveries, examples showing how this type of corpus is constructed, and the individual interpreting patterns. This will assist readers understand this book in more depth by providing a visual presentation of the data.

1.6 Significance of the Research This book attempts to explore the cognitive processing routes in CI involving the directions of C–E and E–C. It adopts a corpus-assisted approach focusing on the use of parallel corpora, which is conducted according to the theoretical guidance of translation and interpreting as bilingual processing to a large extent. It will deepen our understanding of translation processes in general. Research on cognitive processing routes is currently a hot topic in translation studies. How do interpreters process the SL in the TL? Is it based on the form or on the meaning? This research will shed light on the workings of the cognitive processing routes in Chinese/English CI, which involves two distinct languages in terms of phonetics and syntax. The current project concerning cognitive processing routes can specifically inform TPR and identify the factors that influence translation processes. This theory-driven study will reveal importance of a good theory in solving practical research problems. In addition, the benefits of a corpus-assisted approach are not only advantageous in research on such commonly seen topics as translation universals, but also in cognitive studies of translation and interpreting. The findings of this research can also provide translation process researchers with more information about their research methodologies, and can serve as a reference for TS scholars who specialize in cognitive studies of translation and interpreting, corpus translation studies, and translation teaching research.

References Chesterman, A. (2003). Contrastive textlinguistics and translation universals. In D. Willems, B. Defrancq, T. Colleman, & D. Noël (Eds.), Contrastive analysis in language (pp. 213–229). Palgrave Macmillan. Chesterman, A. (2013). Models of what processes? Translation and Interpreting Studies, 8(2), 155–168. Chou, I. C., Lei, V. L. C., Li, D., & He, Y. (2016). Translational ethics from a cognitive perspective: A corpus-assisted study on multiple English-Chinese translations. In T. Seruya & J. M. Justo (Eds.), Rereading Schleiermacher: Translation, cognition and culture (pp. 159–173). Springer.

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Christoffels, I. K., & de Groot, A. M. B. (2005). Simultaneous interpreting: A cognitive perspective. In J. F. Kroll & A. M. B. De Groot (Eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches (pp. 454–479). Oxford University Press. Dam, H. V. (1998). Lexical similarity vs lexical dissimilarity in consecutive interpreting: A productoriented study of form-based vs meaning-based interpreting. The Translator, 4(1), 49–68. Dam, H. V. (2001). On the option between form-based and meaning-based interpreting: The effect of source text difficulty on lexical target text form in simultaneous interpreting. The Interpreters’ Newsletter, 11, 27–55. Darò, V. (1990). Speaking speed during simultaneous interpretation. A discussion on its neuropsychological aspects and possible contributions to teaching. In Aspects of applied and experimental research on conference interpretation (pp. 83–92). Campanotto. De Groot, A. M. (1992). Determinants of word translation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18(5), 1001. De Groot, A. M. B. (1993). Word-type effects in bilingual processing tasks: Support for a mixed representational system. In R. Schreuder & B. Weltens (Eds.), The bilingual lexicon (pp. 27–51). John Benjamins. De Groot, A. M. B. (1997). The cognitive study of translation and interpretation: Three approaches. In J. H. Danks, G. M. Shreve, S. B. Fountain, & M. K. McBeath (Eds.), Cognitive processes in translation and interpreting (pp. 25–56). Sage. De Groot, A. M. (2000). A complex-skill approach to translation. In S. Tirkkonen-Condit & R. Jääskeläinen (Eds.), Tapping and mapping the processes of translation and interpreting: Outlooks on empirical research (pp. 37–53). John Benjamins. De Groot, A. M. B. (2011). Language and cognition in bilinguals and multilinguals: An introduction. Psychology Press. De Groot, A. M. B., Dannenburg, L., & Vanhell, J. G. (1994). Forward and backward word translation by bilinguals. Journal of Memory and Language, 33(5), 600–629. Déjean, K. (1989). Interpretation’s contribution to machine translation. The Interpreters’ Newsletter, 2, 17–26. Ehrensberger, M., Göpferich, S., & O’Brien, S. (2015). Interdisciplinarity in translation and interpreting process research. John Benjamins. Fabbro, F., & Gran, L. (1994). Neurological and neuropsychological aspects of polyglossia and simultaneous interpretation. In S. Lambert & B. Moser-Mercer (Eds.), Bridging the gap: Empirical research in simultaneous interpretation (pp. 273–317). Benjamins. Fabbro, F., Gran, L., Basso, G., & Bava, A. (1990). Cerebral lateralization in simultaneous interpretation. Brain and Language, 39, 69–89. Ferreira, A., & Schwieter, J. W. (2015). Psycholinguistic and cognitive inquiries into translation and interpreting. John Benjamins. García, A. M. (2015). Psycholinguistic explorations of lexical translation equivalents. Translation Spaces, 4(1), 9–28. Gambier, Y., & van Doorslaer, L. (2015). Disciplinary dialogues with translation studies: The background chapter. In Y. Gambier & L. van Doorslaer (Eds.), Border crossings. Translation studies and other disciplines (pp. 1–21). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Ge, L. (2011). A corpus-based study on translating humorous texts: A case study on the English translation of the Chinese novel “Fortress Besieged” by Ch’ien Chung-shu (Ph.D. Thesis). The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Gentzler, E. (1993). Contemporary translation theories. Routledge. Gile, D. (1997). Conference interpreting as a cognitive management problem. In J. E. Danks, G. M. Shreve, S. B. Fountain, & M. K. McBeath (Eds.), Cognitive processes in translation and interpreting (pp. 196–214). Sage. Gile, D. (2009). Basic concepts and models for interpreter and translator training. John Benjamins. Gran, L. (1989). Interdisciplinary research on cerebral asymmetries: Significance and prospects for the teaching of interpretation. In The Theoretical and practical aspects of teaching conference interpretation (pp. 93–100). Campanotto editore.

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Gran, L., & Bellini, B. (1996). Short-term memory and simultaneous interpretation: An experimental study on verbatim recall. The Interpreters’ Newsletter, 7, 103–112. He, Y. (2004). Mapping culturally indigenous concepts in the translation process: A cognitive perspective. Journal of Translation Studies, 9, 33–50. He, Y. (2009). Translating alien sources from and into Chinese: What does the translator do, and why? In X. Luo & Y. He (Eds.), Translating China (pp. 207–232). Multilingual Matters. He, Y. (2010). On patterns of translating alien sources. Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 3, 204–213. He, Y., & Li, D. (2015). Translating/Interpreting as bilingual processing: The theoretical framework. Presented at a paper at the CSTIC 2nd International Conference on Cognitive Research on Translation and Interpreting, University of Macau, Macao, PRC. He, Y. (2017). Corpus-assisted approach to cognitive process research on translating and interpreting: Theory, methodology, and practice. In Symposium on corpus-assisted research on cognitive processes of translation, 10–11 June, University of South China, Hengyang, China. He, Y. (2019). Translating and interpreting as bilingual processing: The theoretical framework. In Li. Defeng, V. L. L. Cheng, & He. Yuanjian (Eds.), Researching cognitive processes of translation (pp. 15–48). Springer. Herbert, J. (1952). Manuel de l’interprète: Comment on devient interprète de conférences. Librairie de l’Université Georg. Holmes, J. S. (1972/1988). The name and nature of translation studies. In L. Venuti (Ed.), The translation studies reader (pp. 172–185). Routledge. Isham, W. P. (1994). Memory for sentence form after simultaneous interpretation: Evidence both for and against deverbalization. In S. Lambert & B. Moser-Mercer (Eds.), Bridging the gap: Empirical research in simultaneous interpretation (pp. 191–211). Benjamins. Isham, W. P., & Lane, H. (1994). A common conceptual code in bilinguals: Evidence from simultaneous interpretation. Sign Language Studies, 85(1), 291–317. Jakobsen, A. L. (2014). The development and current state of translation process research [A]. In E. Meylaerts & L. Doorslaer (Eds.), The known unknowns of translation studies [C]. John Benjamins. Kroll, J. F., & Curley, J. (1988). Lexical memory in novice bilinguals: The role of concepts in retrieving second language words. Practical Aspects of Memory, 2(8), 389–395. Kroll, J. F., & de Groot, A. M. (2005). Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches. Oxford University Press. Lacruz, I., & Jääskeläinen, R. (Eds.). (2018) Innovation and expansion in translation process research. John Benjamins. Lang, Y., Hou, L., & He, Y. (2018). A cognitive study on memory-pairing in simultaneous interpreting. Modern Foreign Languages, 41(6), 840–851. Lang, Y., Hou, L., & He, Y. (2019). The effect of multimodal input on the interplay of cognitive processing routes in simultaneous interpreting. Journal of Foreign Languages, (2), 75–86. Li, D. (2017). Translator style: A corpus-assisted approach. In J. Meng, O. Michael, D. Li, & Lidun (Eds.), Corpus methodologies explained: An empirical approach to translation studies (pp. 103–136). Routledge. Lin, X., Lei, V., Li, D., & Yuan, Z. (2018). Which is more costly in Chinese to English simultaneous interpreting, “pairing” or “transphrasing”? Evidence from an fNIRS neuroimaging study. Neurophotonics, 2018(2), 025–110. Mackintosh, J. (1985). The Kintsch and van Dijk model of discourse comprehension and production applied to the interpretation process. Meta: Journal Des traducteurs/Meta: Translators’ Journal, 30(1), 37–43. Malmkjær, K., & Windle, K. (2011). The Oxford handbook of translation studies. Oxford University Press. Massaro, D. W., & Shlesinger, M. (1997). Information processing and a computational approach to the study of simultaneous interpretation. Interpreting, 2(1), 13–53.

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Morgan-Short, K., & Ullman, M. T. (2011). The neurocognition of second language. In S. M. Gass & A. Mackey (Eds.), The handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 282–299). Routledge. O’Brien, S. (2011). Cognitive explorations of translation. Continuum International Publishing Group. Padilla, P., Bajo, M. T., & Padila, F. (1999). Proposal for a cognitive theory of translation and interpreting: A methodology for future empirical research. The Interpreters’ Newsletter, 9, 61–78. Paradis, M. (1984). Aphasie et traduction. Meta: Journal des Traducteurs/Meta: Translators’ Journal, 29, 57–67. Paradis, M. (1994). Toward a neurolinguistic theory of simultaneous translation: The framework. International Journal of Psycholinguistics, 10(3), 319–335. Paradis, M. (2004). A neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism. John Benjamins. Pöchhacker, F. (2016). Introducing interpreting studies. Routledge. Rozan, J. (1956). La prise de notes en interprétation consécutive. George. Sáchez-Casas, R. M., García-Albea, J. E., & Davis, C. W. (1992). Bilingual lexical processing: Exploring the cognate/non-cognate distinction. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 4(4), 293–310. Seleskovitch, D. (1975a). Langage, langues et mémoire: étude de la prise de notes en interprétation consecutive. Minard. Seleskovitch, D. (1975b). Language and memory: A study of note-taking in consecutive interpreting. In F. Pöchhacker & M. Shlesinger (Eds.), The interpreting studies reader (pp. 121–129). Routledge. Seleskovitch, D. (1976). Interpretation: A psychological approach to translating. In R. W. Brislin (Ed.), Translation: Applications and research (pp. 92–116). Gardner Press. Seleskovitch, D. (1977). Why interpreting is not tantamount to translating languages. The Incorporated Linguist, 16(2), 22–23. Seleskovitch, D., & Lederer, M. (1995). A Systematic approach to teaching interpretation (J. Harmer, Trans.). Shreve, G. M., & Diamond, B. J. (1997). Cognitive processes in translation and interpreting: Critical issues. In J. H. Danks (Ed.), Cognitive processes in translation and interpreting (pp. 233–265). SAGE Publications. Shreve, G. M., & Angelone, E. (2010). Translation and cognition. John Benjamins. Toury, G. (2012). Descriptive translation studies and beyond (Revised). John Benjamins. Zhou, J., & He, Y. (2012). Naturalization as a translating strategy: On target cultural items in the source text. Translation Quarterly, 63, 50–67.

Chapter 2

Cognitive Processing Routes: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

Abstract Interlinguistic translation, in both its spoken and written forms, must involve SL-TL transfer. Seleskovitch (Langage, langues et mémoire: étude de la prise de notes en interprétation consecutive, Minard, 1975) proposed two interpreting procedures, namely transcoding and interpreting proper (see Chap. 1); her hypothesis was that interpreting proper was adopted more frequently by professional interpreters. Researchers including translation scholars, cognitive psychologists, and neurophysiologists within and outside of TS have attempted to test this hypothesis. Correspondingly, the issue of which route dominates in translation, form-based (transcoding) or meaning-based processing (interpreting proper) has been hotly debated for many years. In this chapter, I cover previous theoretical and empirical studies of formbased and meaning-based processing from various points of view. Questions about cognitive processing routes in interpreting are also summarized. Keywords Cognitive processing routes · Psycholinguistic perspective · Neurophysiological perspective · Interpreting studies As Alves and Jakobsen (2021: 10) stated, “Translation and cognition penetrate every human activity, every knowledge field and every institutionalized discipline and are therefore eminently interdisciplinary.” Translation and IPR have always been influenced by and interacted vigorously with many disciplines and subdisciplines such as psychology, bilingualism, cognitive science, cognitive linguistics, and neurophysiology; thus, process research is theoretically and methodologically informed by developments in these disciplines and subdisciplines. Research on cognitive processing routes in TPR is one of the best examples that can be used to reveal the interdisciplinary nature of TS in general and of TPR specifically. These are the psycholinguistics, neurophysiology, and interpreting/TS that are presented in the next sections (Sects. 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3). First, I explain the most influential theoretical model, and present some empirical studies that support this psycholinguistic perspective. Second, I review the major process-oriented studies in neurophysiology. Third, I discuss interpreting studies of the form-based versus the meaning-based route. The purpose here is not to present an exhaustive review of the literature but to provide a good foundation for the design and claims of the present investigation. Therefore, the current chapter is focused on L1-L2 © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 X. Liu, Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4335-4_2

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(forward translation) and does not review studies on L2-L1 (backward translation). Here, L1 refers to the mother tongue of an interpreter while L2 is his/her foreign language.

2.1 The Psycholinguistic Perspective Psycholinguistics refers to as “the study of the mental representations and processes involved in language use, including the production, comprehension, and storage of spoken and written language” (Warren, 2013: 4). To be obvious, translation involves both language comprehension and production, and there are two different languages processed in translation, namely the source language (L1/L2) and the target language (L2/L1). For decades, psycholinguists have been a major driving force in the modeling of form-based and meaning-based connections between the L1 and L2. More specifically, they have concentrated on bilingual memory representation and the empirical testing of relevant hypotheses. While this chapter focuses on interpreting processes research, as I analyze professional CI data, some theoretical and empirical studies on translation processes are also highly relevant. Thus, some TPR is also discussed here. Below, I present some of these theoretical models and empirical studies from the psycholinguistic view.

2.1.1 Theoretical Discussions Research on interlinguistic translation and interpreting often centers on the critical issues of how connections between the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) (or the third language, L3) are made, maintained, and activated in situ. To date, most of these studies have focused on word translation. As a result, psycholinguistics has made great progress in investigating lexical memory organization in a bilingual’s brain. Although studies of single-word processing have failed to reveal all of the complexities involved in translation and interpreting, they do provide useful evidence concerning the connections between words in the L1 and in the L2. As García (2015a: 10) argued, “lexical retrieval is a necessary step in processing all types of translation units, ranging from phrases to sentences and any fragment between them.” In real-life interpreting practices, it is not uncommon to find some units in the L1 that coincide with single words in the L2, such as parts of PNs. Experimental research on lexical connections between two or more languages in the brain began as early as the 1980s. Potter et al. (1984) proposed two hypothetical models concerning the relationship between words in the L1 lexicon and in the L2 lexicon, namely the word association hypothesis and the concept mediation hypothesis. The word association hypothesis, as the name suggests, means that the L1 lexicon is linked directly to the L2 lexicon by words alone, while the concept

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mediation hypothesis posits that the L1 lexicon and the L2 lexicon are connected via concept memory. These two hypotheses were developed to form a mixed model that combines the word association and conceptual mediation models (de Groot, 1992, 1993) and was then expanded to produce the revised hierarchical model (RHM; Kroll & Stewart, 1994). The mixed model simply shows that L1 lexicon can be linked to the L2 lexicon in two ways: L1 word to L2 word, and L1 word to concept to L2 word. For example, 苹 果 is linked to apple by in first way, or 苹果 in the L1 lexicon is linked to the concept (苹果/apple) and then to apple in the L2 lexicon in the second way. At least, four propositions are possible in the RHM.1 The first is that the L1 and the L2 share one conceptual storage unit. The second is that the connections between the L1 lexicon and the conceptual store are stronger than are those between the L2 lexicon and the conceptual store. However, as one’s L2 proficiency increases, this weak link becomes stronger. The third is that the L1 lexicon is larger than is the L2 lexicon and, lastly, that the L1-L2 lexical link (used in forward translation) is weaker than is the L2-L1 lexical link (used in backward translation). The hypotheses mentioned above have been tested by examining: (1) (2) (3) (4)

the directionality effect (e.g., Christoffels et al., 2006; de Groot, 1992; Kroll & Stewart, 1994; McElree et al., 2000); the impact of L2 proficiency (Talamas et al., 1999; Ferré et al., 2006; Menenti, 2006); the role of the interpreter’s translation expertise (e.g., Hvelplund, 2011; Christoffels et al., 2006; García et al., 2014); and the neural basis of translation routes (Chee et al., 2003; French & Jacquet, 2004; García, 2014; Lucas et al, 2004; Paradis, 2004, 2009). Some of these empirical studies are reviewed in detail in the next section.

2.1.2 Empirical Studies Empirical studies in psychology have tested the predictions of the theoretical models presented above, thereby contributing to our understanding of form- and meaningbased interpreting. Among all the variables examined, three predominant variables have been shown to affect cognitive processes during single-word translation. These are one’s L2 competence, the experimental stimuli, and the presence or absence of translation expertise. García (2015a) presented an overview of the translation equivalents at the lexical level in this regard. This section follows his steps to give a more detailed and selective analysis of the relevant psycholinguistic studies at the lexical level and beyond.

1

This model is introduced here because it is the most influential model capturing word translation production (Garcia, 2015a). There are alternative models (e.g., Dong et al., 2005; Pavlenko, 2009).

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2 Cognitive Processing Routes: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

L2 Competence

L2 competence seems to play a significant role in word translation. The empirical evidence shows that there is a critical threshold for L2 proficiency (see García, 2015a). If that threshold is not exceeded, the lexical route will predominate during interpreting; otherwise, the conceptual route will prevail. I review some of this evidence in this section by discussing de Groot (1992), Ferré et al. (2006), Guasch et al. (2008), Kroll and Curley (1988), Potter et al. (1984), and Talamas et al. (1999). Potter et al. (1984) developed a hypothesis stating that unbalanced bilinguals were expected to build formal lexical links first via the lexical route before conceptual mediation can be employed. In order to test this hypothesis, the authors conducted experiments with two kinds of bilinguals: proficient C-E bilinguals and non-fluent English–French bilinguals. The subjects were asked to read words, name pictures, and translate words. However, the results seemed to indicate that bilinguals with either proficiency level employed the conceptual mediation route during the tasks. No evidence of direct word associations between the two language pairs was found. Kroll and Curley (1988) drew a different conclusion regarding the developmental of bilingual proficiency. They used a larger sample in their experiments, and identified a proficiency threshold of two years. Bilinguals with less than two years of experience in the L2 adopted the word association route for translation, while the others used conceptual mediation (also see Chen & Leung, 1989). The studies above appear to suggest that word association and conceptual mediation are both at work in interlingual processing, and that it is the proficiency threshold that seems to separate the functions of these two models in bilinguals’ lexicons. This notion was also corroborated by de Groot’s (1992) study based on a different research paradigm: Using a translation recognition task, de Groot found that formbased manipulations exerted more influence on low-proficiency bilinguals than did semantic manipulations, while the latter affected high-proficiency bilinguals to a greater extent. In this case, it is safe to say that L2 proficiency determines which route is employed during interlingual word translation in some way. Talamas et al. (1999) used a similar translation recognition paradigm to examine the impact of L2 proficiency on these two processing routes. The subjects in this study were English–Spanish bilinguals with low or intermediate proficiency. According to the results, the low-proficiency bilinguals were more affected by lexical manipulations, while intermediate/high-proficiency bilinguals were more affected by conceptual manipulations. Similarly, Ferré et al. (2006) asked 105 Spanish–Catalan bilinguals of differing L2 proficiency (specifically, 49 early proficient bilinguals, 28 late proficient bilinguals, and 28 late non-proficient bilinguals) to complete a translation recognition task. The authors reported that early and late proficient bilinguals were more sensitive to semantic manipulation, while the opposite was true for the non-proficient bilinguals. These findings were echoed in another study, that by Guasch et al. (2008), who investigated how lexical and semantic representations were connected in the minds of bilinguals with varying degrees of language proficiency (beginning and intermediate Spanish–Catalan learners and highly proficient bilinguals). Their results revealed that the three groups of participants were all affected

2.1 The Psycholinguistic Perspective

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by form-related factors, but that semantic manipulations only influenced bilinguals who had achieved a certain level of proficiency (that is, those who had exceeded a proficiency threshold). Isham (1994) tested this L2 proficiency hypothesis in a study in which twelve French–English bilinguals and nine professional interpreters were asked to complete a recall task. This task tests how well the participants remember the forms of various ST sentences. The subjects were all French (L1) native speakers with a high level of fluency in English (L2). Ii is interesting to note that the results divided the professional interpreters into two different groups. Four of the professional interpreters seemed to retain memory traces of the sentence forms, while five of them did not. Isham theorized that professional interpreters may have different interpreting styles; some may adopt the form-based approach more often, while others may opt the meaningbased approach more frequently. Recall that these two procedures are available at all times when interpreting. Isham and Lane (1994) also found that it was possible to employ elements of both strategies while interpreting. Taken together, these studies demonstrate that L2 proficiency does have an impact on the interpreting/translating performance of bilinguals. In particular, there is a proficiency threshold that indicates that only bilinguals who exceed the threshold predominately employ the conceptual route, and that low-proficiency bilinguals rely more on the lexical route. It is important to note that there are two limitations to these studies. First, they group average bilinguals for translation tasks instead of translators or bilinguals with translation experience; thus, there may be differences in the translation processes of translators and average bilinguals. In other words, the behaviors of average bilinguals may not be best to reveal the properties of translation tasks performed by translators or bilinguals with translation training. Second, they are focused only on single-word translation tasks devoid of context. Specifically, the studies mentioned above used the single-word translation task paradigm without considering the contexts to investigate the conceptual route that involves contextual factors. In addition, context is likely to play a role in genuine translation scenarios.

2.1.2.2

Varied Experimental Stimuli

L2 proficiency is not the only variable that affects bilinguals’ translating/interpreting behaviors, as the types of stimuli used in experiments have also been shown to have an effect on performance (e.g., Kroll & Curley, 1988, de Groot, 1992, 1993, de Groot et al., 1994, and Sáchez-Casas et al., 1992). Kroll and Curley (1988) manipulated the stimuli designed for an experimental task in addition to testing the effects of L2 proficiency. The subjects were asked to name words, translate words, and name pictures in two conditions: One list only contained items in the same semantic category, while the other contained stimuli from numerous semantic categories. Their results showed that the conceptual mediation route was accessed by high-proficiency bilinguals, but not by low-proficiency ones. Two other studies by de Groot (1992, 1993) tested the effects of such lexical variables as word frequency, cognate status, and semantic concreteness on an interpreter’s performance

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in a word translation task. The subjects were observed to translate high-frequency words, cognates, and concrete words faster than they did low-frequency words, noncognates, and abstract words. These disparities may be attributed to the formal and conceptual attributes of these words, as cognates share formal links across the ST and the TT. The semantic content of concrete words may be easier and faster to access, while the same is true of high-frequency words. The defining attribute of these word categories may help to determine which route is used to translate them. Although the effects of translation directionality (that is, translating from the L1 to the L2 or vice versa) is not the concern of the current book, it is important to note that this variable does affect the performance of bilinguals (see de Groot et al., 1994; Sáchez-Casas et al., 1992).

2.1.2.3

Translation Expertise

Thus far, most of the studies discussed in this chapter examined the behavior of bilinguals with no translation-specific training. These studies seem to eschew any differences between language proficiency and translation competence. As we have seen, professional translators may behave differently (in terms of their translation productions as well as their mental processes) from bilinguals who lack any professional experience. PACTE Group (2008: 108) also hypothesized that translation expertise could have an impact on both the process and the product of translation. Student and professional translators may be considered to be a particular group of highproficiency bilinguals, although few studies have explored the impact of translation expertise on word translation (e.g., Christoffels et al., 2006; García, 2014). Christoffels et al. (2006) conducted two experiments. Experiment 1 compared trained interpreters and bilingual university students, while Experiment 2 compared trained interpreters and English teachers with high proficiency. Both experiments included two tasks for word retrieval, which were: picture naming and word translation. The results showed that the interpreters were faster than the students in completing both tasks, but that the teachers performed in a similar way to the interpreters. These findings only partly confirmed that translation expertise plays a role in word translation. García (2014) used three groups of subjects: beginning translation students, advanced translation students, and professional translators. The translation expertise among these three groups differed significantly. Thus, it was not surprising that the experimental results suggested that translation expertise played an important role in the translation behavior of each group. In brief, bilinguals with translation expertise may display different patterns of interpreting/translation processing in the experimental setting, at least for isolated word translation. However, translation expertise is a subjective concept that is not defined in or across these studies. It may therefore be unwise to make too many generalizations regarding processing routes based on the results of these studies.

2.1 The Psycholinguistic Perspective

2.1.2.4

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Summary

Many studies in psycholinguistics have examined the lexical connections between bilinguals’ L1s and L2s. Scholars in this area have modeled this relationship in two ways; words are either linked via form (linguistic expression) or via meaning (concept). García (2015a) provided a comprehensive review of the work on this topic, with the contributions of de Groot (1992, 1997) possibly being the most influential. When considering the body of research as a whole, the conceptual route seems to predominate among high-L2 proficiency bilinguals, translation students, and professional translators, while lower-L2 proficiency bilinguals rely on the lexical route. Although this section reviews the literature that is focused on translation, the topics discussed here relate closely to interpreting tasks and performance. The reviewed studies also indicate that the characteristics of the experimental stimuli, such as semantic concreteness, cognate status, and word frequency, can affect the performances of the subjects. Finally, translation expertise plays an important role in determining which route is chosen for processing. High-proficiency bilinguals, translation students, and professional translators seem to use the conceptual route more frequently than the lexical route; this finding is particularly important for the current research. Of course, these studies have their own limitations. The findings are based only on word translation tasks, and the data are experimental rather than naturalistic. The following sections discuss form- versus meaning-based processing in the field of neurophysiology. This discussion covers studies that utilize not only word translation tasks, but also other tasks and types of stimuli (Sect. 2.2), including interpreting (Sect. 2.3).

2.2 The Neurophysiological Perspective In the neurophysiological literature, researchers have observed that patients are able to translate utterances accurately without comprehending the message; that is, they are not necessarily aware of the meaning of the SL utterances (García, 2015a). This finding seems to suggest that conceptual representations do not need to be involved in the translation act (see García, 2015a for further details). I will now review the following studies on interpreting, as they relate to the organization and operation of the form- and meaning-based processing routes in the bilingual’s brain: Fabbro et al. (1990), Fabbro et al. (1991), Gran and Fabbro (1988), and Lin et al. (2018). Fabbro et al. (1990) investigated whether the two processing routes involved different functions in the cerebral hemispheres by using the verbal-manual interference paradigm. They found that motor structures in the nervous system were associated more with meaning-based interpreting than with word-for-word interpretation. Following this work, Paradis (1994) proposed a theoretical neurolinguistic framework for SI, which specifically introduced how conceptual-mediated transfer and direct transcoding take place in the brain.

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Gran and Fabbro (1988) asked students to perform tapping trials with their right and left hands while simultaneously interpreting stimuli such as words, phrases, and proverbs. These tasks were performed in both translation directions: English–Italian and Italian–English (English = L2; Italian = L1). It was found that the difference in tapping hesitations observed during the word-for-word (6.67%) and the meaningbased (10.67%) tasks was significant. In this study, the students often used a meaningbased approach to interpreting, in contrast to Fabbro et al.’s (1991) findings. Fabbro et al. (1991) analyzed the results of a dichotic listening task performed by two groups of subjects: one group consisted of 12 right-handed professional female interpreters, and the other of 24 right-handed student female interpreters. The L1 in this study was Italian and the L2 was English. The listening task presented the subjects with three types of translations, and the interpreters were asked to identify which type was presented in each case: correct translations, translations with semantic errors, and translations with syntactic errors. This task was completed in both translation directions; that is, L1-L2 and L2-L1. The professional interpreters were found to identify more semantic errors than the student interpreters (professional interpreters = 71.5%; student interpreters = 57.6%), while the student interpreters identified more syntactic errors than did the professional interpreters (professional interpreters = 30.5%; student interpreters = 45.6%). These results further suggest that professional interpreters tend to adopt meaning-based interpreting strategies, whereas students and others of lower proficiency and/or expertise may prefer form-based interpreting. In a more recent work by Lin et al. (2018), the neural mechanism underlying three strategies, namely pairing, transphrasing and non-translation, has been examined in Chinese to English simultaneous interpreting (SI) through the use of functional nearinfrared spectroscopy. During the experiment, ten postgraduate students in translation studies at the University of Macao were asked to perform three tasks, including a pairing task, a non-translation task, and a transphrasing task. The peak value of the HbO concentration change from each channel was calculated; the pattern of that peak value was transphrasing > pairing > non-translation (> means significantly higher than). It was revealed that transphrasing is the most costly strategy in SI since it induced the strongest activation in the left prefrontal cortex, non-translation takes little cognitive effort while pairing sits between the two. This is probably the first study of its kind using neuroimaging techniques to investigate the C-E SI. In summary, the behavioral and experimental results suggest that: (1)

(2)

(3)

Student and professional interpreters may follow the meaning-based approach more often than the form-based approach. However, the findings to this effect were mixed, probably due to differences across the studies in terms of the subjects’ years of language learning and professional expertise. The motor structures of the brain seem to be more concerned with meaningbased rather than form-based interpreting. However, the neurological evidence for form-based versus meaning-based interpreting is limited. The meaning-based route is more costly than the form-based one. However, it is subject to in-depth research involving more language pairs.

2.3 The Interpreting Studies’ Perspective

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2.3 The Interpreting Studies’ Perspective Form-based and meaning-based interpreting have not only been investigated in psychological and neurophysiological research, but also within the field of interpreting studies (e.g., Barik, 1975; Dam, 1998, 2001; Tirkkonen-Condit, 2005). However, it should be noted here that the corpus-assisted processing studies are included in Chap. 4 and thus not reviewed in this section. Barik’s (1975) work was one of the earliest studies to compare professional conference translators, student interpreters, and “amateur” translators by analyzing their interpreting performances.2 In particular, the author examined such independent variables as omissions, additions, and errors. The results suggested that the less proficient translators performed the task better from L1 to L2 than from L2 to L1, and their translations were both less literal and more conceptually accurate. This finding suggests that meaning-based interpreting plays a more important role than does form-based interpreting for professional interpreters, and that professional interpreters produce more semantically fluent results. Other studies have directly contradicted this generalization, and have found that professional interpreters tend to rely more on form-based interpreting than meaningbased interpreting. For example, Dam (1998) examined the lexical similarity or dissimilarity between an ST and its corresponding TTs in a professional CI corpus (Dam, 1998). The data used in the study consisted of one Spanish text (the ST) and five CIs (the TTs). These transcriptions were divided into small segments, usually clauses. The results showed that the interpreters paid considerable attention to formbased interpreting in professional CIs. To test the hypothesis that meaning-based interpreting was preferred by professional interpreters further, Dam (2001) examined the same variables in an SI corpus that included two Spanish STs and five simultaneous interpretations of each in Danish. Form-based interpreting seemed to be the most dominant strategy in all the target texts for both STs (ST1: similar lexical segments = 47% versus dissimilar lexical segments = 6%; ST2: similar segments = 24% versus dissimilar segments = 10%). By comparing the ST1 to the ST2, Dam found that the meaning-based route was employed more often for interpreting difficult texts, while the form-based route was associated with less difficult texts. These results corroborated the findings in Dam (1998). Tirkkonen-Condit (2005) further substantiated the notion that literal translation3 was the default rendering procedure, whereas literal rendering was adopted for more difficult texts and by less proficient interpreters. This study found that both novices and experts tended to opt for word-for-word translation. The finding is aligned with Paradis’s (1994, 2004) hypothesis that transcoding is the default, automatic route. In summary, inferences may be made about form-based and meaning-based interpreting by examining the products of the interpretations; that is, corpora that consist of 2

In the experiments by Barik (1975), the subjects, translators or interpreters, were not clearly distinguished. 3 The concept of literal translation has developed to become more operationalized, and has also triggered more empirical findings. See the review by Halverson (2015) for details.

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their transcriptions. Studies using these methods have often found that the form-based approach may predominate over the meaning-based one among both professional and “amateur” interpreters.

2.4 Summary In this chapter, I focused on research that examined form-based and meaning-based interpreting. The first section presented the findings from psycholinguistics. These findings show that L2 competence, the experimental stimuli, and the interpreter’s translation expertise may all affect translation processes. The second section reviewed neurophysiological studies, which suggest that translation without comprehension is possible. Third, interpreting studies that compared texts in the SL and in the TL were discussed. Most of these studies of form-based and meaning-based interpreting used tasks and analyses targeting the lexical level of language. More studies of supra-lexical translation are needed in order to understand bilingual processing more accurately. An integrated cognitive theory of translating and interpreting is presented in the following section.

References Alves, F., & Jakobsen, A. L. (2021). The Routledge handbook of translation and cognition. Routledge. Barik, H. C. (1975). Simultaneous interpretation: Qualitative and linguistic data. Language and Speech, 18(3), 272–297. Chee, M. W., Soon, C. S., & Lee, H. L. (2003). Common and segregated neuronal networks for different languages revealed using functional magnetic resonance adaptation. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15(1), 85–97. Chen, H.-C., & Leung, Y.-S. (1989). Patterns of lexical processing in a nonnative language. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15(2), 316. Christoffels, I., de Groot, A., & Kroll, J. (2006). Memory and language skills in simultaneous interpreters: The role of expertise and language proficiency. Journal of Memory and Language, 54(3), 324–345. Dam, H. V. (1998). Lexical similarity versus lexical dissimilarity in consecutive interpreting: A product-oriented study of form-based versus meaning-based interpreting. The Translator, 4(1), 49–68. Dam, H. V. (2001). On the option between form-based and meaning-based interpreting: The effect of source text difficulty on lexical target text form in simultaneous interpreting. The Interpreters’ Newsletter, 11, 27–55. De Groot, A. M. (1992). Determinants of word translation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18(5), 1001. De Groot, A. M. B. (1993). Word-type effects in bilingual processing tasks: Support for a mixed representational system. In R. Schreuder & B. Weltens (Eds.), The bilingual lexicon (pp. 27–51). John Benjamins. De Groot, A. M. B., Dannenburg, L., & Vanhell, J. G. (1994). Forward and backward word translation by bilinguals. Journal of Memory and Language, 33(5), 600–629.

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De Groot, A. M. B. (1997). The cognitive study of translation and interpretation: Three approaches. In J. H. Danks, G. M. Shreve, S. B. Fountain, & M. K. McBeath (Eds.), Cognitive processes in translation and interpreting (pp. 25–56). Sage. Dong, Y., Gui, S., & MacWhinney, B. (2005). Shared and separate meanings in the bilingual mental lexicon. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 8(03), 221–238. Fabbro, F., Gran, B., & Gran, L. (1991). Hemispheric specialization for semantic and syntactic components of language in simultaneous interpreters. Brain and Language, 41(1), 1–42. Fabbro, F., Gran, L., Basso, G., & Bava, A. (1990). Cerebral lateralization in simultaneous interpretation. Brain and Language, 39, 69–89. Ferré, P., Sánchez-Casas, R., & Guasch, M. (2006). Can a horse be a donkey? Semantic and form interference effects in translation recognition in early and late proficient and nonproficient Spanish-Catalan Bilinguals. Language Learning, 56(4), 571–608. French, R. M., & Jacquet, M. (2004). Understanding bilingual memory: Models and data. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(2), 87–93. García, A. M. (2014). The interpreter advantage hypothesis: Preliminary data patterns and empirically motivated questions. Translation and Interpreting Studies, 9(2), 219–238. García, A. M. (2015). Psycholinguistic explorations of lexical translation equivalents. Translation Spaces, 4(1), 9–28. Gran, L., & Fabbro, F. (1988). The role of neuroscience in the teaching of interpretation (pp. 23–41). Guasch, M., Sánchez-Casas, R., Ferré, P., & García-Albea, J. E. (2008). Translation performance of beginning, intermediate and proficient Spanish-Catalan bilinguals: Effects of form and semantic relations. The Mental Lexicon, 3(3), 289–308. Halverson, S. L. (2015). Cognitive translation studies and the merging of empirical paradigms: The case of “literal translation.” Translation Spaces, 4(2), 310–340. Hvelplund, K. T. (2011). Allocation of cognitive resources in translation: An eye-tracking and key-logging study (Ph.D. thesis), Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Isham, W. P. (1994). Memory for sentence form after simultaneous interpretation: Evidence both for and against deverbalization. In S. Lambert & B. Moser-Mercer (Eds.), Bridging the gap: Empirical research in simultaneous interpretation (pp. 191–211). Benjamins. Isham, W. P., & Lane, H. (1994). A common conceptual code in bilinguals: Evidence from simultaneous interpretation. Sign Language Studies, 85(1), 291–317. Kroll, J. F., & Stewart, E. (1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory and Language, 33(2), 149. Kroll, J. F., & Curley, J. (1988). Lexical memory in novice bilinguals: The role of concepts in retrieving second language words. Practical Aspects of Memory, 2(8), 389–395. Lin, X., Lei, V., Li, D. & Z. Yuan. (2018). Which is more costly in Chinese to English simultaneous interpreting, “pairing” or “transphrasing”? Evidence from an fNIRS neuroimaging study. Neurophotonics, 5(2): 025010. Lucas, T. H., McKhann, G. M., & Ojemann, G. A. (2004). Functional separation of languages in the bilingual brain: A comparison of electrical stimulation language mapping in 25 bilingual patients and 117 monolingual control patients. Journal of Neurosurgery, 101(3), 449–457. McElree, B., Jia, G., & Litvak, A. (2000). The time course of conceptual processing in three bilingual populations. Journal of Memory and Language, 42(2), 229–254. Menenti, L., & Indefrey, P. (2006). L2–L1 word association in bilinguals: Direct evidence. Nijmegen CNS, 1(1), 17–24. PACTE Group. (2008). First results of a translation competence experiment: ‘knowledge of translation’ and ‘efficacy of the translation process. In J. Kearns (Ed.), Translator and interpreter training: issues, methods and debates (pp. 104–126). Continuum). Paradis, M. (1994). Toward a neurolinguistic theory of simultaneous translation: The framework. International Journal of Psycholinguistics, 10(3), 319–335. Paradis, M. (2004). A neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism. John Benjamins. Paradis, M. (2009). Declarative and procedural determinants of second languages. John Benjamins.

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Pavlenko, A. (2009). Conceptual representation in the bilingual lexicon and second language vocabulary learning. In A. Pavlenko (ed.), The bilingual mental lexicon: Interdisciplinary approaches (pp. 125–160). Multilingual Matters. Potter, M. C., So, K.-F., von Eckardt, B., & Feldman, L. B. (1984). Lexical and conceptual representation in beginning and proficient bilinguals. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 23(1), 23–38. Sáchez-Casas, R. M., García-Albea, J. E., & Davis, C. W. (1992). Bilingual lexical processing: Exploring the cognate/non-cognate distinction. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 4(4), 293–310. Seleskovitch, D. (1975). Langage, langues et mémoire: étude de la prise de notes en interprétation consecutive. Minard. Talamas, A., Kroll, J. F., & Dufour, R. (1999). From form to meaning: Stages in the acquisition of second-language vocabulary. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2(01), 45–58. Tirkkonen-Condit, S. (2005). The monitor model revisited: Evidence from process research. Meta: Journal Des traducteurs/Meta: Translators’ Journal, 50(2), 405–414. Warren, P. (2013). Introducing psycholinguistics. Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 3

Translating and Interpreting: An Integrated Cognitive Perspective

Abstract An SL-TL transfer process must occur in the translators’ or interpreters’ brains when they are performing such bilingual tasks as translation and interpreting. Thus, one might ask what, exactly, happens during this process. Two routes for bilingual processing are debated heatedly in the literature, namely form-based routes and meaning-based routes (e.g., Christoffels and de Groot in Handbook of bilingualism: psycholinguistic approaches. Oxford University Press, 2005; de Groot in Cognitive processes in translation and interpreting. Sage, 1997; de Groot in Tapping and mapping the processes of translation and interpreting: Outlooks on empirical research. John Benjamins, 2000; De Groot in Language and cognition in bilinguals and multilinguals: an introduction. Psychology Press, New York; Hove, 2011; He in Symposium on corpus-assisted research on cognitive processes of translation, 2017; He and Li in Translating/Interpreting as bilingual processing: the theoretical framework, 2015; Isham in Bridging the gap: empirical research in simultaneous interpretation. Benjamins, 1994; Isham and Lane in Sign Lang Studs 85:291–317, 1994; Massaro and Shlesinger in Interpreting 2:13–53, 1997; Paradis in Int J Psycholinguist 10:319–335, 1994; Paradis in A neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 2004). In the following section, I specifically present what is known about language recoding from the perspective of bilingual processing. First, I present an integrated perspective on language processing. Second, I further clarify three cognitive processing routes for translation and interpreting, including meaning-based routes, form-based routes, and memory pairing. In the final section, I provide a short summary of this chapter. Keywords Language processing · Memory and computation · Form-based processing route · Memory pairing

3.1 An Integrated Perspective of Language Processing Unlike other species, humans are able to speak languages, and thus achieve communication. In brief, humans can use words and expressions to share opinions and express feelings; this is called language processing. Paradis defined language processing in a more specific way, as follows: © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 X. Liu, Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4335-4_3

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3 Translating and Interpreting: An Integrated Cognitive Perspective Language processing refers to the generation of an utterance from the intention to communicate a message to its acoustic realization, or from the perception of the acoustic signal to the extract of a message (comprehension). The message is itself in the conceptual domain, hence not linguistic; it is alternately the output and input of the linguistic system. (Paradis, 2004: 240)

In this section, language processing is viewed from an integrated perspective. More details are provided in the following sections.

3.1.1 Subsystems of Language Processing In language processing, it is assumed that there need to be three subsystems: (1) Language faculty (LF); (2) the conceptual-intentional-contextual system (CICS; or thought systems); and (3) the articulatory-perceptual system (APS) or sensor motors (He, 2017). As Chomsky (2002) argued, a child is born with the initial stage of language faculty; however, when the child lives in a particular language environment, her/his brain will receive the settings specific to that language; the relevant settings are then proceduralized in the memory system. At the same time, her/his lexicon becomes larger as more lexical items are acquired and provide the essential ingredients for language processing, namely words and rules. However, language faculty alone is far from sufficient for producing speech, as it has to be combined with another two subsystems, which are the thought system and the APS. The thought system is considered to contain the following elements (He, 2017, 2019). First, it includes concepts such as entity, type, time, space, place, means, events, and so forth. Second, it includes intentions; that is, the desire to perform actions. Third, it consists of interpretive rules and norms in order for these concepts and intentions to be applied. Fourth, it consists of metalinguistic knowledge of a language(s). Finally, it contains processes of metaphorical abstraction from linguistic expressions. All these elements are stored in the memory system. When they are encoded into languages, the language faculty will compute them into the structured expressions with lexical items kept in the corresponding lexicon based on specific contexts. The APS then comes into operation to verbalize these expressions. In brief, speech can be produced on condition that these three subsystems work together and work well.

3.1.2 Memory and Computation From the neurofunctional perspective, language processing is an interplay of memory and computation. As He (2017) stated, words are memorized items, while operations based on grammatical rules require computation. Language processing operates in such way that computation takes over whenever memory fails (Pinker, 1994).

3.1 An Integrated Perspective of Language Processing

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In conjunction with Sect. 3.1.1, speech processing (perception and production) can be understood as follows: The APS first receives the language input in word sequences, which are registered with what has been stored in the memory system. The input is then parsed in the grammar parser, which is responsible for decoding the received input and generating structured constructs. In addition, the thought systems can interpret the decoded message conveyed in the input and then redeliver it to the grammar parser for construct building, from which speech production results.

3.1.3 Cognitive Bilingual Processing and Control In addition to three subsystems required for language processing, and the interplay of memory and computation, some issues regarding cognitive bilingualism and control may need to be clarified further in this section. It is generally understood that bilingual processing involves two languages, namely the L1 and the L2. However, bilinguals (that is, those who perform bilingual processing), are assumed not to have radical differences from monolinguals (those who speak only one language) in terms of the organization of the subsystems. In other words, the subsystems for language processing would not change simply because two languages are being processed instead of only one (Paradis, 2004). This means that the thought system, the language faculty, and the APS are also valid for bilingual processing by bilinguals. However, differences do exist between unilinguals and bilinguals: The subsystems are represented monolingually in unilinguals while they are represented bilingually in bilingual speakers (Paradis, 2004). To state the obvious, professional translators and interpreters are bilingual speakers. There are several core assumptions concerning the context of bilingual processing with regard to professional translator and interpreters (He, 2017): First, they belong to a group of balanced and proficient bilinguals. This means that they are equally proficient in the L1 and in the L2. Second, their bilingually represented lexicon consists of the core words both in the L1 and in the L2. It has to be admitted that differences among translators and interpreters can be seen in this regard because each has her/his own domain-specific vocabulary. In other words, the size of each lexicon can be different. In this sense, the “cognitive signature” (Paradis, 1994: 332; He, 2017) of a translator or interpreter may exist due to the fact that the longer s/he is exposed to a certain subject area, the larger the subject-related subset of lexical L1-L2 pairings s/he has. However, “pairing” does not necessarily mean that a pair of L1-L2 lexical items is stored together as a single entity; it only indicates that there is a low threshold of the activation of L1/L2 items as the output when the L2/L1 is activated as the input. The question that then arises is how one language is activated for processing while the other is suppressed or inhibited. In this regard, Paradis (1984, 1993, 1994, 2004) proposed the activation threshold hypothesis, which states the following:

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3 Translating and Interpreting: An Integrated Cognitive Perspective [A]n item is activated when a sufficient amount of positive neural impulses has reached its neural substrate. The amount of impulses necessary to activate the item constitutes its activation threshold. Every time an item is activated, its threshold is lowered and fewer impulses are required to reactivate it. Thus, after each activation, the threshold is lowered but it gradually rises again. If the item is not stimulated, it becomes more and more difficult to activate over time. (Paradis, 2004: 28)

Taking a bilingual processing setting as an example, when a bilingual attempts to use one of his/her two languages, it is presumed that the activation threshold of the other language is automatically raised to avoid interference. More specifically, for a C–E bilingual, the activation threshold of English is raised (that is, English is inhibited) while s/he is speaking Chinese. The threshold is likely to be affected by the frequency and recency of a particular item. In other words, the more frequently and recently a word or a grammatical rule has been activated, the more automatically it is activated when needed. There is no doubt that Paradis’s (1994) neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism has contributed greatly to our understanding of how two languages are represented and processed at the same time in a single brain during bilingual processing. It is also true that translating/interpreting is a special case of bilingual processing.

3.1.4 Translating and Interpreting as Bilingual Processing In line with the integrated perspective of language processing presented above for both monolingual and bilingual processing, He (2017,2019) and He and Li (2015) suggested further theoretical foundations for the following proposals that consider translating and interpreting to be special cases of bilingual processing. He (2019: 31) stated that “translating and interpreting…requires two languages to be alternately processed as the input (i.e., the source language, SL) and the output (i.e., the target language, TL).” More details concerning how the SL can be transferred to the TL are discussed in the next sections in this chapter.

3.2 Cognitive Processing Routes for Translation and Interpreting According to the relevant theoretical proposals (He, 2019; He & Li, 2015), it appears that there are two cognitive processing routes for translation and interpreting. Various names have been assigned to these two routes, namely vertical translation and horizontal translation (de Groot, 1997), direct transcoding and conceptually mediated transfer (Paradis, 1994), and transcoding and transphrasing (Lin et al., 2018). Other researchers have simply called them the meaning-based processing route and the

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form-based processing route, respectively (Dam, 1998, 2001). The terms meaningbased processing route and form-based processing route have been selected for the current book as they are easy to understand.

3.2.1 Meaning-Based Processing Routes Meaning-based processing, or “conceptual mediation,” is one of the recoding strategies available to translators or interpreters at all times. It has generated much interest among scholars in various fields, as I discussed in previous sections, including Paradis (1994, 2004), Christoffels and de Groot (2005), de Groot (1997, 2011), He and Li (2015), and He (2017). In 1994, the neurolinguist Michel Paradis published a journal paper entitled Toward a Neurolinguistic theory of Simultaneous Translation: The Framework, which was quite possibly the first time that a neurolinguistic understanding of the translation process as bilingual processing was presented. According to Paradis’s theory, conceptual mediation is referred to as the “conceptually mediated route,” which can be summarized as the “linguistic decoding of SL until comprehension of the message (i.e., awareness of the meaning), followed by the linguistic encoding of the message” (Paradis, 1994: 329). De Groot (1997: 30, 2011: 319) referred to the conceptually mediated route as “vertical translation,” in which translation is understood to occur as follows: First, the input is received and is then passed upward to a non-verbal conceptual representation via linguistic analysis. A downward process then begins, as this conceptualized representation is recoded into the target language until, finally, the output is produced either via verbalization (in interpreting) or writing (in written translation) (2011: 319). However, de Groot and Paradis did not specify precisely how and when conceptual mediation took place in bilingual language processing. Accordingly, He and Li (2015) and He (2017) proposed a theoretical framework that considered translating and interpreting to be special cases of bilingual processing. The framework is based on the complementarity and implementation of two mechanisms in language processing, namely memory and computation. The framework, which was inspired by the work of de Groot (1997, 2011) and Paradis (1994, 2004), also integrates another two theories of language processing: Universal Grammar (Chomsky, 1995, 2002) and the computational theory of the mind (Pinker, 1994, 1999), which were introduced in Sect. 3.1. According to He’s (2017, 2019) view of the role that conceptual mediation plays in bilingual language processing, the workings of the meaning-based processing route are as follows: First, the source input is received, chunk by chunk, by the APS. These chunks are processed and stored in the short-term memory (STM) with a limit of six to seven linguistic units at a time. They are then channeled to the longterm memory (LTM) and the grammar parser at the same time. After being parsed in the grammar parser and interpreted by the thought systems, the source message

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is then mediated into the target message; that is, it is made compatible with the target system’s conceptualization and contextualization of the world. The mediated message is then recoded into the TL via the language faculty and is verbalized using the sensor motors. As can be seen, the conceptual mediation route first processes language from the bottom up and then from the top down, hence, the route’s other monikers, vertical translation (Christoffels & de Groot, 2005; de Groot, 1997, 2011), and the conceptually mediated route (Paradis, 1994, 2004). In this meaning-based strategy, the translator or interpreter privileges the meanings conveyed in the SL utterances and constructs the TL utterance based on these abstractions. As a result, if conceptual mediation is employed as the processing route for a given text, the translator or interpreter must fully comprehend the message in the SL (Christoffels & de Groot, 2005; Fabbro & Gran, 1994). According to He (2017), conceptual mediation is “the cognitively most natural strategy for translating or interpreting” for the following three reasons: (1) (2)

(3)

It involves the perception-production mechanisms in the same way in which they are used in monolingual processing (de Groot, 2011); it is, subconsciously, “a general strategy that is already used by young children” and “by bilinguals in everyday circumstances without any special training in translating” (de Groot, 2011: 320); and it is “the strategy adopted by beginning simultaneous interpreters and by occasional translators” (Paradis, 1994: 328).

He (2007) made a strong case for meaning-based processing as the default bilingual processing strategy. However, other scholars have opposed this view, including Tirkkonen-Condit (2005: 408), who wrote: “It looks as if literal translation is a default rendering procedure, which goes on until it is interrupted by a monitor that alerts about a problem in the outcome.” However, the issue of which strategy is considered to be the “default” is not the focus of the current study; my methods and results do not address this issue. What we can gain from this discussion is that meaningbased processing may be employed by beginning interpreters and average bilinguals, as well as by more skilled professional interpreters. When we claim that all bilinguals, even children, employ a meaning-based route, we mean that bilinguals tend to paraphrase what they see or hear when the input is alien to them.

3.2.2 Form-Based Processing Routes In addition to meaning-based processing, professional translators or interpreters will also engage in form-based processing, also known as “interlingual routes” (He, 2017), “horizontal translation” (de Groot, 1997: 29–32; 2011: 319–321), and “the structural route” (Paradis, 1994: 328–329). According to Paradis’s (1994) theory, a trained professional is assumed to possess four neurofunctionally independent

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systems, namely one underlying the L1, a second underlying the L2, a third underlying the connections between the L1 and L2, and a fourth underlying the connections between the L2 and the L1. Specifically, the latter two are “the translation-specific underlying system” (Paradis, 1994: 328), which are conceptualized as “the shortcuts” that link translation equivalents directly without passing through a conceptual layer in the brain. These two systems are present in the brains of professional translators and interpreters due to their years of experience; they have performed similar tasks repeatedly. When the meaning-based processing route is engaged, information is processed from the L1 into concepts and then into the L2, or vice versa. When the form-based route is engaged, the L1-L2 or L2-L1 system completes the translating/interpreting task more automatically. As Paradis (1994: 329) stated, these two systems operate “by automatic application of rules, from one linguistic element in SL to its structural equivalent in TL,” and may occur at various levels of linguistic representation. When the form-based route is utilized, linguistic elements in the SL are transcoded directly as their structural equivalents in the TL (at the morphological, syntactic, or lexical level). That is, the structural route assumes that “SL input structures, be they words, common phrases, or idiomatic expressions, are directly replaced by the corresponding target language structure” (de Groot, 2011: 320). He and Li (2015) and He (2017) provided a more detailed depiction of the structural route, including its language processing foundations. He and Li (2015) stated: There are translation-specific routes at each linguistic level: L1-L2 and L2-L1 lexical pairs in the Lexicon, and L1-L2 and L2-L1 routes respectively in the Grammar-Parser and the Phonetic- and the Logical-Form interfaces. When those routes are deployed at a specific level (lexical, phonological, or syntactic), translation does not go through the so-called vertical route of translating, i.e., going all the way up to the thought systems for conceptual mediation and then back down for recoding. Instead, it goes from the L1 system to that of L2 directly or vice versa, at a certain level.

In other words, there are L1-L2 and L2-L1 links: lexical links in the lexicon, phonological links in the phonetic interface, and syntactic links in the grammar parser (He, 2017). The latter two require computation, while the former is accessed directly from the interpreter’s mental dictionary. In terms of the effects of structural versus meaning-based routes on the translation product, conceptual mediation results in the loss of the source form in the target output, while syntactic transfer leads to the reproduction of the source form in the target output. According to an integrated cognitive theory of translating and interpreting, there are three theoretical predictions (He, 2017). The first is that syntactic transfer appears to be used more often in written translations than in interpreting because the translator is able to revisit the source as often as s/he wishes (de Groot, 1997). The second is that more phonological links are possible among languages in the same family, such as Indo-European languages, than are possible between languages from different families, such as English and Chinese (Isham, 1994). The third is that lexical pairing may occur while interpreting, particularly in domain-specific interpreting, thus increasing the speed and reducing the cognitive load during SI and CI (He, 2017; He & Li, 2015).

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3.2.3 Memory Pairing As we can see in the previous Sect. 3.2.2, there are special types of direct links between the L1 and the L2 lexicons. When presented with a word in either the L1 or the L2 that activates these direct lexical links, the linked word in the other language is also activated. As He and Li (2015) explained, “as a rule, once the incoming SL item activates a matching SL-TL pair stored in LTM, the TL bit can be verbalized via sensor motors.” Those words that are retrieved directly from the mental lexicon are called memory-paired items (He, 2017). Unlike the previous two routes, memory pairs never activate the language faculty, nor do they activate the CICS. Accordingly, memory pairing is expected to take less time than syntactic transfers or meaning-based processing. It is important to note that L1-L2 paired items are not conceptualized as pairs that are stored together in the same part of the memory; instead, each member of the pair is stored individually in the L1 or L2 lexicon, and there is a direct link between them. Nevertheless, as He and Li (2015) contended, “while they are stored as individual units, there is such a low threshold of activation when one of them presents itself as the source word that it will simultaneously activate the other as the target word.”

3.3 Summary An integrated bilingual processing theory of translation and interpreting was presented in this chapter. This theory combines neurolinguistic models of translating and interpreting (Paradis, 1994, 2004) with a cognitive theory of translating and interpreting (de Groot, 1997, 2011). We assume there are three possibilities for language recoding, namely meaning-based processing, the form-based routes, and memory pairing (Sect. 3.2). In the next chapter, I focus on the corpus-assisted approach to TPR.

References Chomsky, N. (1995). The minimalist program. MIT Press. Chomsky, N. (2002). On nature and language. Cambridge University Press. Christoffels, I. K., & de Groot, A. M. B. (2005). Simultaneous interpreting: A cognitive perspective. In J. F. Kroll & A. M. B. De Groot (Eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches (pp. 454–479). Oxford University Press. Dam, H. (1998). Lexical similarity vs lexical dissimilarity in consecutive interpreting: A productoriented study of form-based vs meaning-based interpreting. The Translator, 1998(1), 49–68. Dam, H. (2001). On the option between form-based and meaning-based interpreting: The effect of source text difficulty on lexical target text form in simultaneous interpreting. The Interpreters’ Newsletter, 2001(11), 27–55.

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De Groot, A. M. B. (1997). The cognitive study of translation and interpretation: Three approaches. In J. H. Danks, G. M. Shreve, S. B. Fountain, & M. K. McBeath (Eds.), Cognitive processes in translation and interpreting (pp. 25–56). Sage. De Groot, A. M. (2000). A complex-skill approach to translation. In S. Tirkkonen-Condit & R. Jääskeläinen (Eds.), Tapping and mapping the processes of translation and interpreting: Outlooks on empirical research (pp. 37–53). John Benjamins. De Groot, A. M. B. (2011). Language and cognition in bilinguals and multilinguals: An introduction. Psychology Press. Fabbro, F., & Gran, L. (1994). Neurological and neuropsychological aspects of polyglossia and simultaneous interpretation. In S. Lambert & B. Moser-Mercer (Eds.), Bridging the gap: Empirical research in simultaneous interpretation (pp. 273–317). Benjamins. He, Y. (2007). A fresh cognitive perspective to horizontal translation. Journal of Translation Studies, 10(1), 77–90. He, Y. (2017). Corpus-assisted approach to cognitive process research on translating and interpreting: Theory, methodology, and practice. In Symposium on corpus-assisted research on cognitive processes of translation, 10–11 June, University of South China, Hengyang, China. He, Y. (2019). Translating and Interpreting as Bilingual Processing: The Theoretical Framework. In Li. Defeng, V. L. L. Cheng, & He. Yuanjian (Eds.), Researching Cognitive Processes of Translation (pp. 15–48). Springer. He, Y., & Li, D. (2015). Translating/Interpreting as bilingual processing: The theoretical framework. Paper presented at the CSTIC 2nd International Conference on Cognitive Research on Translation and Interpreting, University of Macau, Macao, PRC. Isham, W. P. (1994). Memory for sentence form after simultaneous interpretation: Evidence both for and against deverbalization. In S. Lambert & B. Moser-Mercer (Eds.), Bridging the gap: Empirical research in simultaneous interpretation (pp. 191–211). Benjamins. Isham, W. P., & Lane, H. (1994). A common conceptual code in bilinguals: Evidence from simultaneous interpretation. Sign Language Studies, 85(1), 291–317. Lin, X., Lei, V., Li, D., & Yuan, Z. (2018). Which is more costly in Chinese to English simultaneous interpreting, “pairing” or “transphrasing”? Evidence from an fNIRS neuroimaging study. Neurophotonics, 2018(2), 1–12. Massaro, D. W., & Shlesinger, M. (1997). Information processing and a computational approach to the study of simultaneous interpretation. Interpreting, 2(1), 13–53. Paradis, M. (1984). Aphasie et traduction. Meta: Journal des Traducteurs/Meta: Translators’ Journal, 29, 57–67. Paradis, M. (1993). Linguistic, psycholinguistic, and neurolinguistic aspects of “Interference” in bilingual speakers: The activation threshold hypothesis. International Journal of Psycholinguistics, 9(2), 133–145. Paradis, M. (1994). Toward a neurolinguistic theory of simultaneous translation: The framework. International Journal of Psycholinguistics, 10(3), 319–335. Paradis, M. (2004). A neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism. John Benjamins. Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct. William Morrow & Company. Pinker, S. (1999). Words and rules: The ingredients of language. Phoenix. Tirkkonen-Condit, S. (2005). The monitor model revisited: Evidence from process research. Meta: Journal Des traducteurs/Meta: Translators’ Journal, 50(2), 405–414.

Chapter 4

The Corpus-Assisted Approach to TPR

Abstract This chapter first discusses the research methodologies employed in TPR, which can be classified roughly into such behavioral measurements as key-logging, eye-tracking, and physiological measures such as EEG, fMRI, and so forth. It then systematically introduces the corpus-assisted approach to TPR, which includes the feasibilities and the previous process studies in this regard. The author believes that the corpus-assisted approach has experienced a few challenges that could possibly be avoided, and that some new concepts should be defined clearly. Finally, the corpusassisted research method employed in the current study is discussed in detail. Keywords TPR methods · Corpus-assisted process studies · Corpus-assisted approach to TPR Many scientific research methods can assist in addressing the research questions raised by TPR researchers. In recent decades, the exploration of research methods has been a long-standing topic in TPR specifically and in TS in general. The scientific method of research “refers to the ways in which scientists ask questions and the logic and methods used to gain answers” (Shaughnessy, Zechmeister, & Zechmeister, 2012). It does not necessarily “require a particular type of equipment, nor is it associated with a particular procedure or technique” (ibid). In TPR, many research methods have been borrowed from other neighboring disciplines (see more in Sect. 4.2). However, different methods may have been used in different conditions and may thus have been adopted to address different research questions. When researchers select a specific research methodology to answer a specific research question, two things must be clear. The first is that the research method must be valid and reliable. The second is that the answers we seek can be obtained in a scientific, unbiased, and objective way via the chosen method. The details related to the research methodology in this book are presented in the following sections. This chapter first presented the TPR methodologies that have been used frequently in this field. The advantages and disadvantages have been summarized. Most importantly, the chapter introduced the corpus-assisted research on translation processes and the corpus-assisted approach to TPR in detail, including its feasibility, the descriptive issues, and some key concepts. In the following sections, © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 X. Liu, Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4335-4_4

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the corpus-assisted approach to IPR that has been adopted in the current book is described.

4.1 Introduction Many aspects of the translation and interpreting processes are complex and complicated in terms of language processing. No approach can inform us more about these unknown processes than a scientific approach. At the beginning of the initial research, few methods explored this complex cognitive activity because translation processes take place in the translators’ or interpreters’ brains. No researchers could observe what takes place in a brain in a direct way. However, the situation in the field has improved due to the following factors. The first is of course the rapid developments in science and technology. The scientific and technological developments in recent decades have helped to produce extremely advanced equipment, such as fMRI, EEG, MEG, PET, and eye-trackers. It is widely recognized that such equipment can provide a significant amount of observational, behavioral, and even neuropsychological data for research on translation processes. Although these methods are still indirect, they provide more opportunities for us to observe the brain and thus make reasonable assumptions, and more research projects in this regard could be conducted than were previously possible. The second factor is probably related to the interdisciplinary nature of translation studies, which “not only borrow[s] from a wide range of disciplines but also cover[s] a wide range of practices” (Saldanha & O’Brien, 2014: 3). More specifically, scholars in other fields, such as psychology and neurolinguistics, have expressed their interest in TPR. They will see translation processes from the perspectives of their disciplines, and thus bring their theories and methodologies to TPR. There is no doubt that the choices of research methodologies are highly dependent on the research questions that researchers are attempting to answer. However, it must be admitted that the methods we choose should be within our reach; that is, they have to be available, appropriate, and affordable. Before I introduce the corpus-assisted approach adopted for this book, the TPR methodologies employed thus far are briefly introduced.

4.2 Behavioral and Neurophysiological Measures in TPR Since James Holmes published the article The Name and Nature of Translation Studies (1972), TS has become a distinct discipline and has experienced tremendous developments. However, such developments have mainly occurred in the productoriented and function-oriented branches. Process-oriented TS has received far less research attention than have the former two branches. It was not until the 1980s that TS began to pay attention to translation processes due to a previous lack of

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research methodologies. In 1986, Hans Krings’s book Was in den Köpfen von Übersetzern vorgeht (What happened in the translator’s mind) was published. This work is regarded as being fundamental in the field of TPR, and its title embodies the most important question that should be answered in the study of translation processes. In other words, when translators are translating or interpreting, what cognitive processes occur in their brains in order to produce translations or interpretations? In the past four decades, TPR has attracted the substantial interest of translation researchers (e.g., Carl, 2009; He, 2019; Jakobsen, 2011; Li, 2004; Lin et al., 2018; Su & Li, 2020), cognitive scientists, and psychologists (e.g., Christoffels, Ganushchak, & Koester, 2013; de Groot, 1997; Paradis, 1994, 2004). Their tireless exploration has led to TPR becoming a relatively mature research field in TS (Alves, 2015). TPR draws mainly on the theories and methods of such disciplines as psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience (Muñoz-Martín, 2012); experimental methods are used frequently in these disciplines (Gile, 2015). In the translational context, experimental methods entail recruiting subjects to complete specific translation tasks under strictly controlled experimental conditions, and obtaining relevant experimental data enables researchers to speculate on or simulate the subject’s cognitive process of translation indirectly. The experimental methods applied in previous research on the translation process can be divided roughly into behavioral methods and physiological methods. The general description of the experimental methods in TPR is shown in Fig. 4.1. TPR methods, as Fig. 4.1 shows, include behavioral measures and physiological measures. The former consists of think-aloud protocols (TAPs), eye-tracking, and key-logging, while the latter consists of EEG, fMRI, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and PET. However, these methods may be of combined use. For example, although keyboard recording is classified as a behavioral measurement method, the translations produced in the process can also be used for corpus-assisted TPR (Alves & Magalhães, 2004). Physiological methods can also be applied to obtain behavioral data. The intertwined nature of research methods is a good indicator of the complexity of TPR, and the cross-combination of multiple research methods may become increasingly important in the field. Fig. 4.1 Experimental methods used in TPR

TAPs Behavioral Measures

Eye-tracking Key-logging

TPR Methods EEG/MEG Physiological Measures

fMRI fNIRS PET

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This section will not provide an exhaustive review of all the TPR methodologies and their methodological aspects because numerous existing publications have explained how to conduct TPR; for example, Williams and Chesterman’s (2002) The Map: A Beginner’s Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies, and Saldanha and O’ Brien’s (2014) Research Methodologies in Translation Studies. The sections below provide a short description of the most recent and most frequently behavioral and physiological measures applied by TPR researchers to suggest possible implications for the current study and the field in general.

4.2.1 Behavioral Measures As mentioned above, the behavioral measures specifically include three categories, namely TAPs, eye-tracking, and key-logging. TAPs is derived from cognitive psychology. In 1984, Ericsson and Simon’s book Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data was published, and systematically introduced the feasibility of TAPs for detecting cognitive processes in the human brain. In its initial stages in the 1980s, TAPs made it possible for researchers to explore the inner workings of a translator’s brain, referred to metaphorically as the black box. The procedures for applying TAPs are generally as follows: The researcher asks the subjects (usually translators or translation students) to complete one or several translation tasks within a specified time; they are asked to verbalize their thoughts during the translation process at the same time. The researcher records their oral reports and transcribes them as text (protocols), which serves as the data source for TPR. Many scholars have already engaged in extensive discussions regarding the application of TAPs in TPR (Bernardini, 2001; Li, 2004), and many TAPs projects have been conducted (e.g., Fraser, 1993; Jääskeläinen, 1989; Krings, 1986; Kussmaul & Tirkkonen-Condit, 1995). However, Toury (1991) questioned whether TAPs truly reflected the cognitive processes of translators. In fact, several points are worthy of TAPs researchers’ attention: (1) (2) (3)

(4)

The data source depends on the oral report of the subjects, which may not be sufficiently objective. The subjects can only verbalize their conscious processes, while the subconscious processes cannot be verbalized. The subject must perform two tasks, giving an oral report and translating, simultaneously. The researcher does not know whether his or her own cognitive processes will affect the translation process. If this is the case, how can this effect be identified? Is the content of the oral report the subject’s objective description of the translation process, or his/her own subjective explanation? This is difficult for researchers to determine.

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In view of the problems with the theoretical framework and the methodology of the TAPs method (O’Brien, 2005), TPR researchers need to find new ways to obtain translation process data. Accordingly, another instrument for TPR, the Translog program, was invented by two of the leading scholars in this field, Jakobsen and Schou (1999), and has become the most widely used recording software (Saldanha & O’Brien, 2013). During the typing process, all the translational behaviors such as writing, pausing, and revising are recorded individually. Key-logging technology has led to new breakthroughs in TPR but is mainly used for research in the translation production stage of the translation process (Jakobsen, 1999; O’Brien, 2005). In fact, House (2019) clearly pointed out that a problem with using Translog to study the translation process; that is, to study the translator’s external behavior, as that this may not reflect the cognitive process of translation within the brain objectively. To compensate for this shortcoming, researchers have borrowed eye-tracking techniques that are employed widely in the field of psychology for studies in TPR. Eye-tracking technology was originally applied in reading research, and began to emerge in TPR in 2006 (O’Brien, 2006). This technology can be combined with the early TPR methods such as TAPs and key-logging to conduct multivariate data analyses. Eye-tracking technology can help researchers to obtain the eye-movement data of a subject while she/he is processing the original text; the eye-movement indicators used in the translation process include fixation time, fixation time duration, total fixation time, number of fixations, saccades, and so on. Relevant eye-movement data can be extracted to suit the research purpose. At present, the TPR based on eye-tracking mainly involves topics and activities such as reading, translation directionality, machine translation, and sight translation (Jakobsen, 2014). Eye-tracking technology can assist in the effective exploration of the reading and comprehension of the ST in the translation process, which compensates for the shortcomings of key-logging in this regard. Accordingly, eye-tracking technology and key-logging are often combined to investigate the entire process of translation.

4.2.2 Neurophysiological Measures Physiological measures differ from behavioral measures. As mentioned above, behavioral methods are used to record a translator’s behaviors when the subject is completing one or several translation tasks. The physiological measures are focused on how the subject’s brain responds to the translating tasks; that is, the physiological data. They mainly include EEGs, fMRI, fNIRS, and PET, two of which are described briefly below. EEGs are used extensively in the medical field. As cognitive neuroscientists became interested in the neurocognitive processes that occur in a translator’s brain, these complex medical techniques also began to be applied in the study of translation processes. When a person completes a certain cognitive task, millions of nerve cells in the brain move in roughly the same direction at the same time, resulting in weak

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bioelectrical signals. EEG can detect this electrical signal on a person’s scalp, and can amplify and record it. This specific electrical signal is also called event-related potential (ERP). The cognitive activities in the translator’s brain can be inferred based on the recorded ERP data (e.g., Christoffels et al., 2013; Kurz, 1994). When the human brain is working, in addition to generating electromagnetic signals, it also experiences hemodynamic changes. Neural cell activation requires oxygen, and oxygen/deoxygenated hemoglobin changes in the activated and inactivated regions will occur; thus, so the process is called blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD). If the concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin in the blood increases, the BOLD signal will be strengthened accordingly, which allows for the degree of activation in the brain area to be measured. fMRI can measure the relative changes in oxygenated hemoglobin in the brain (Barbara et al., 2015). Thus far, few scholars have attempted to apply fMRI to TPR (Barbara et al., 2015; Lehtonen et al., 2005). However, Barbara et al.’s (2015) experimental design only involved reading bilingual texts, while no verbalization was produced during SI in Lehtonen et al.’s (2005) work; in other words, neither included a real translation task. fMRI-based TPR examines translation activities under experimental conditions rather than in natural situations. Despite its many problems, fMRI remains useful for the further exploration of the cognitive processes involved in translation.

4.2.3 Questions Pertaining to Behavioral and Neurophysiological Measures After nearly 40 years of development, TPR has produced remarkable achievements. One of the important reasons is that TS borrows experimental methods from neighboring disciplines; thus, TPR researchers can use advanced technical equipment or software to obtain more objective and comprehensive experimental data. In the initial stages, TPR scholars relied on TAPs to obtain process data. Thus, key-logging and eye-tracking technologies played an important role in giving TPR scholars the opportunity to obtain behavioral data outside the brain to speculate on its internal cognitive processes. Considering that there are still many shortcomings in the TPR experimental method, as mentioned previously, the research methods for investigating the translation process require further innovations. Although researchers have attempted to apply neurophysiological methods in TPR, these experimental methods have been criticized by some TS scholars, such as House (2019), who critically examined the validity and reliability of these methods. She raised five unresolved questions regarding the introspective and retrospective research methodology, two critical questions related to the behavioral measures, and several problems pertaining to neuroimaging measures. These are listed in Table 4.1. Due to the questions that needed to be addressed, House (2019) suggested that researchers could begin with neurolinguistic theories related to bilingual processing in order to find an effective and reliable research method for TPR. This section does

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Table 4.1 Critical questions/problems pertaining to TPR experimental methods Research methodologies

Critical questions

The introspective and retrospective methods

• Is what is ultimately expressed House (2019) verbally in thinking-aloud sessions truly identical to the underlying cognitive processes? • Precisely which cognitive processes are accessible for verbalization and which are not? • Does the fact that translators are asked to verbalize their thoughts while they are engaged in translating change the cognitive processes that are (normally) involved in translation? • What happens to those parts of (often expert) translators’ brain activities are highly, if not entirely, routinized, and automatized and are thus by definition not open to reflection? • With regard to retrospective translation-related research, how can data from ex-post facto interviews or questionnaires access translation processes given the working memory constraints and the pressure felt by subjects to provide data that will satisfy the researcher?

Reference

Behavioral masures

• Can measurements of observable behavior (as provided in keyboard logging, eye-tracking, etc.) provide information about the cognitive processes that occur in a translator’s mind? • Can measurements of observable behavior explain the nature of cognitive representations of the two languages, shed light on a translator’s metalinguistic and linguistic-contrastive knowledge, and illuminate the comprehension, transfer, and reconstitution processes that emerge during translation procedures?

Neuroimaging measures

• Mixing use single words as stimuli • Blood flow and other hemodynamic responses routinely provided in such data cannot be taken to be direct measures of neuronal activity • Most neuroimaging studies have not been replicated

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not argue for or against such applications, but simply describes TPR scholars’ current thoughts regarding TPR research methodologies. In recent years, the academic community has advocated the “triangulated model” for TPR in response to the existing problems (Alves, 2003: VIII). While the use of so-called triangulated data model can indeed avoid the drawbacks of certain research methods, this model mainly uses the same types of research methods; for example, experimental methods such as TAPs, eye-tracking technology and keystroke-recording technology. These methods may have some problems in common, as discussed previously. In addition, most of these experimental tools (except for TAPs and key-loggers) pose three major challenges for humanities translators. First, the equipment is expensive and beyond the reach of most researchers in the humanities. Second, the requirements for experimental designs are very high, and variables need to be controlled extremely strictly. Translators who have not received training in scientific experimentation cannot master it in a short time. Third, it is difficult to recruit qualified subjects, particularly as the number of professional translators is extremely limited. Because of these challenges, the author believes that the corpus-assisted approach may resolve the issues related to the reliability and validity of research methods to some extent. Of course, it is not argued that the corpus-assisted methodology is the best one or that it does not contain any challenges, but it is one that offers more possibilities for TS researchers in the humanities to research translation processes. In the following sections, special emphasis is placed on the corpus-assisted approach to TPR.

4.3 The Corpus-Assisted Approach to Process Research The current study utilizes the corpus-assisted method to make full use of the naturalistic data mentioned in the previous section. Thus, in the section that follows, the feasibility of the corpus-assisted approach to process research,1 corpus-assisted research on translation processes, the challenges in corpus-assisted methodology, and some key concepts in this approach are discussed.

1

This approach has been used to study the English–Chinese translation and interpretating process at the Department of Translation of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Center for Studies of Translation, Interpretating and Cognition of the University of Macau since 2005. The rationale was scatteredly described in the previous publications, such as He (2010), Lang, Hou, and He (2018, 2019).

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4.3.1 The Feasibility of the Corpus-Assisted Approach to Process Research In the past decade, TS has experienced great developments in two fields, namely cognitive translation studies (also called TPR) and corpus translation studies, which have attracted most of the research attention and have become the most frequently published subjects in all the translation fields (Li, Lei, & He, 2019). However, these two fields are developing separately: Are they really so different from each other? Before this question is addressed, the scope of studies in the two fields must be clarified. Hu and Li (2016) discussed the relationship between the two abovementioned fields, and noted their similarities in terms of the scope of investigation. They pointed out that corpus TS and TPR both take translation processes as the object of inquiry. TPR aims to investigate “translator or interpreter behavior, competence, expertise, the cognitive processes that orient these and the relations between cognition and the translated or interpreted product” (Saldanha & O’Brien, 2014: 109). This statement calls for research on how cognition is related to the translated product, which is the research object that corpus translation studies explore. It explores the universal and specific features of the translated product through the use of descriptive approaches based on quantitative and qualitative analyses of bilingual or translational corpora (Baker, 1993; Kruger, 2002). One of the most important topics in corpus TS and TPR is the bilingual transfer that occurs during translation processes (Hu & Li, 2016). Therefore, TPR and corpus TS can contribute to each other. It is also worth mentioning that corpora can be fully utilized in TPR as a research methodology; as Divjak and Arppe stated: Although corpus data do not reflect the characteristics of mental grammars directly, we do consider corpus data a legitimate source of data about mental grammars. Since the results of linguistic cognitive processes, e.g. corpus data, are not independent of, or unrelated to, the linguistic knowledge that is represented in the brain, we may assume with justification that characteristics observable in language usage reflect characteristics of the mental processes and structures yielding usage, even though we do not know the exact form of these mental representations. (2013: 229–230)

Thus, evidence has proved that corpus-assisted approach and TPR can be combined. Based on the unresolved questions and challenges presented in the previous section (Sect. 4.2.3), the corpus-assisted approach to research on translation and interpretation processes seems to be more practical and feasible. First, we fully learn from the experiences of constructing other types of corpora, such as corpora for pedagogical purposes. After more than 20 years of development, the corpus technology used in translation research has become more mature, particularly in terms of design, construction, and concordance searches. Second, the rapidly development of modern technology can be used in the field of language processing. As far as written translation is concerned, scanning and recognition software can be of tremendous assistance in helping researchers to save time and to collect high-quality

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corpora. Today’s digital equipment can also ensure quality and authenticity when interpreting corpora. Finally, bilingual processing theories from other disciplines such as psychology and bilingualism can inform TPR in terms of research design. In fact, as early as the 1990s, some scholars proposed using corpora in the study of cognition in translation; that is, the corpus-assisted research model of natural corpus plus cognitive interpretation as discussed in the article by Schmied (1994) (also see Hou, Lang, & He, 2019). However, few scholars have paid attention to this aspect or have conducted further in-depth research. Moreover, the combination of process-oriented research and product-based translation research has been proposed. Alves et al., (2010: 110) stated that “both research foci are interrelated in that what we observe as the specific characteristics of translated texts may, at least to some degree, be correlated with behavior directly or indirectly observable during the translation process.” These researchers agreed that the corpus-assisted approach was conducive to process research, as stated below: Corpus exploration can potentially offer a large amount of authentic product data with high ecological validity. The disadvantage of this kind of data is that it only constitutes post-hoc data, as the product is only the end point of the process(es) that created it. Experimental data from psycholinguistic tests, on the other hand, allows better and more direct access to cognitive processing, yielding copious process data, but the product data obtained in such artificial settings is on a much smaller scale than that available in corpora (Alves et al., 2010: 111). Thus, how can a corpus benefit cognitive research on translation and interpreting? As is known, a corpus refers to a collection of authentic texts stored in electronic form on a computer on a large scale (usually hundreds of millions of words) according to certain linguistic principles and specific language research purposes (Kenny, 2009). Here, an authentic corpus refers to one that has not been produced in an experimental environment but which has been produced in natural circumstances, including translated literary works and other translations. All a translator’s translated products stem from the translation process that takes place in the translator’s brain; that is, the translation process precedes the translated product. In other words, in the translated product, there must be certain characteristics of the translation process that produced the product, as well as characteristics of the bilingual processing in the brain itself. These characteristics are also expressed in the final translation via specific linguistic expressions. Therefore, to a certain extent, it is possible to describe the translation process by describing a specific linguistic expression accurately. Moreover, using a corpus to study the translation process, combined with a statistical analysis, can help one to draw more objective conclusions since corpora are large in size. Therefore, combined with related theoretical frameworks, translation scholars can create a corpus to assist cognitive research on translation processes; that is, a process-oriented corpus. Corpus-based TS generally examine bilingual corpora, including comparable corpora, parallel corpora, and translational corpora (Zanettin, 2012). A processoriented corpus is a parallel corpus; the method of construction is the same as for other parallel corpora used for translation research; and mainly consists of corpus collection and construction. The process involves the following four steps:

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(1) (2) (3) (4)

49

corpus collection; text alignment; corpus tagging; and corpus retrieval and data pattern extraction (further details are provided in Chap. 5).

The construction of a corpus is aimed at certain research goals, which determine the nature, composition, and scale of the corpus. The purpose of the process-oriented corpus is to conduct cognitive research on translation and interpretation. The cognitive processing routes in the translator’s brain are inferred based on the analysis of the translation strategies adopted by the translator; reasonable assumptions about the translation processes that occur in a translator’s brain are then made, instead of focusing on common corpus indicators such as vocabulary density, word frequency, and sentence length. This differs fundamentally from other types of parallel corpora. Therefore, the corpus sampling of the process-oriented translation corpus must follow specific standards, and the corpus alignment and tagging also have specific guidelines. These issues are discussed individually in Chap. 5. Corpus-assisted research on translation processes and the corpus-assisted approach are presented in the following sections.

4.3.2 Corpus-Assisted Research on Translation Processes As discussed in previous chapters, interpretations are the end products of interpreting processes that occur in the little black box of the brain. Within that mysterious box lie the mechanisms that underpin acts of interpreting. How can we understand these mechanisms? As Bell (1991: 29) pointed out, “the solution is to work back from the output of the mechanism (the product) and make a set of statements about the necessary characteristics of the system itself (the process), i.e., to make use of the logical process of induction.” However, TPR and cognitive studies on translating or interpreting are still relatively limited. Thus far, three sources of data have been used in a corpus-assisted approach: (1) (2) (3)

purely naturalistic data; experimental data; and a combination of naturalistic and experimental data.

However, the corpus-assisted approach to TPR has, to date, relied overwhelmingly on purely naturalistic data. Therefore, this section focuses on those studies that are most relevant to the present book, all of which analyze naturalistic data.2 The corpus-assisted approach using naturalistic data has specifically involved the C-E language pair (e.g., Chou et al., 2016; Ge & He, 2010; He, 2004, 2007, 2009; Lang et al. 2018, 2019; Zhou & He, 2010). The studies have all focused on written 2

This section was published in the article Revisiting a Controversial Issue on Cognitive Processing Routes in Translation Studies: Implications for Future Research (Liu & Zhou, 2020).

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translations, with the exception of Lang et al. (2018,2019), who analyzed SI. These studies have sought universal cognitive features by analyzing the linguistic features of the translated and interpreted products. They have honed in on CSIs, which are those items that are unique to the source system (i.e., they are not shared by the target system’s language or culture), to probe the processes that mediate translation and interpreting in the brain. In particular, a bilingual parallel corpus containing transcriptions of interpreting recordings or multiple translations of the same ST is used to infer translators or interpreters’ underlying cognitions via the extraction of the rendering patterns of the CSIs. He (2004) investigated the dominant translating strategies for culturally indigenous concepts, including political and ideological concepts extracted from the Chinese government’s white papers (1991–2003), as well as historic idioms and conventional metaphors. The author found that the patterns depended on the features of the ST; for example, political and ideological concepts were often transferred via concept-transplanted translation (transcoding), while historic idioms and conventional metaphors were conceptually mediated. He (2007) further investigated the translation of some grammatical constructions in a situation in which conceptual mediation between the source and the target representations was blocked by those so-called alien source concepts and argued that such transcoding was still memory based. He (2009) attempted to link the use of translation strategies in the TT and further proposed that processing economy operated as a cognitive mechanism underlying the translation strategies; in other words, source deletion is the most economical and substitution is the least economical, while transcoding and paraphrasing fall in between the two. Statistics have confirmed the processing economy hypothesis. However, few studies have touched on translation directionality, particularly with regard to the C-E language pair. Zhao (2009) investigated common and diverse features in two Chinese translations of Dan Brown’s 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code from five different levels, namely phonological, lexical, syntactic, semantic, and conceptual levels. The translating patterns for 349 alien source concepts in these two translations are quite similar. In the same translation direction from Chinese to English, Ge (2011) investigated the translation of alien source concepts in the Chinese humorous literary work Fortress Besieged by Qian Zhongshu and observed the following translating patterns for alien source concepts: paraphrasing > transcoding > substitution > deletion. Another study on translating indigenous concepts (that is, language, and culture) unique to the source system is more complex than the previous two. Chou et al., (2016: 165) explored the translation patterns for CSIs extracted from a self-built bilingual parallel corpus totaling about one million words, including an English novel, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, and four Chinese translations of it. The authors found that transcoding was the dominant translation strategy for CSI-related units in the four individual translations. For the comparison to CSI-related units, non-CS-related textual units based on three literary themes (the mother–daughter relationship, ethnical identity, and cultural conflicts) were also chosen from the ST. Chou et al (2016) observed that, in general, transcoding was adopted more frequently

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when dealing with CSI-related units than when approaching non-CS-related units. This finding confirms the formal postulation of the processing economy hypothesis. Four points worth noticing with regard to the above studies. First, these studies focused only on written translations, and few studies have considered interpreting, particularly CI. Moreover, as the final translated product may have been edited many times, the time it takes to produce is unknown. Second, the issue of directionality should be addressed. The translation direction is either from Chinese to English (Ge, 2011) or from English to Chinese (Zhao, 2009). Opposing patterns were found in these authors’ studies; that is, more transcoding was observed in the Chinese to English direction, although the STs were different. Such a difference in directionality may be the result of the different processes involved in bilingual processing, but the finding requires more research. Third, the issue of representativeness should be taken into account. Zhao (2009) addressed this issue by examining multiple translations, but Ge (2011) did not. Fourth, it is necessary to specify the units in culture-specific concepts because they could be at lexical, phrasal, or clausal levels; thus, the translating patterns may differ. In addition, due to the nature and properties of PNs, they may need to be excluded from CSIs and analyzed separately. However, the aforementioned studies did not consider these issues. Furthermore, it should be noted that the studies mentioned above adopted a corpusassisted approach to TPR. More specifically, they investigated the translation process by examining how the selected unit (e.g., CSIs and humorous texts) in the ST were translated into their counterparts in the TT. A parallel corpus consisting of the same ST and multiple translations thereof was constructed to achieve this. In the next section, I present some key concepts underlying this corpus-assisted approach, and review some of the associated challenges.

4.3.3 Challenges in the Corpus-Assisted Approach He (2017) conducted a systematic analysis of the theoretical and methodological issues to determine how the corpus-assisted approach could be applied to TPR; thus, this section does not discuss the overall scope, but simply presents several key questions related to this approach. Descriptively speaking, there are two related challenges faced by researchers who wish to adopt a corpus-assisted method for TPR. The first is how to determine which units contained in the ST should be identified as “hot spots” for cognitive processing action. The second is which units should be tagged and categorized in the corresponding TTs. The term “unit” is used to refer an entity that can be understood; for example, a personal name, a metaphor, or a translation strategy. With regard to the first issue, CSIs were selected as our window into the translation and interpreting processes in this book. I believe that, during the translating process, if an incoming source concept, intention, or context is not shared by the receptive systems of the target reader/hearer as a member of the target speech community, it becomes a conceptual barrier. When encountering a conceptual barrier, translators or

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interpreters will inevitably leave some processing traces in the translated/interpreted products. Furthermore, bilingual processing can be understood as making predictions regarding how CSIs will be rendered in the TTs. When confronted with a conceptual barrier, the meaning-based processing route is the least economical approach to translating or interpreting it; by contrast, the form-based processing route is the most economical method. Given the unique time constraints of real-world interpreting, the products of interpreting tasks are expected to handle conceptual barriers as economically as possible whenever possible, which will leave traces of the cognitive approach in the TTs. The dominant feature may be attributed to economic processing, but this requires further research. Recall that conceptual barriers or CSIs in the STs or speeches are unique to the SL and culture; they may be lexical, phrasal, or clausal in nature. Some examples of CSIs include idioms, metaphors, and PNs. Due to the specific linguistic and cultural nature of PNs, these items were tagged separately from other CSIs in the current research. The precise categories and subcategories of CSIs tagged in this study are explained in Chap. 5. The strategies used to render these CSIs (the second challenge of using a corpus-assisted method) are restricted to those available to the interpreters: transcoding, paraphrasing, substitution, and omission. The TT profiling used in this book is also discussed in Chap. 5.

4.3.4 Key Concepts in the Corpus-Assisted Approach In this section, I describe two concepts in corpus-assisted studies of TPR, namely frequency and type/token ratio,3 as it appears to be widely known that frequency and the type/token ratio are two key concepts in traditional corpus-assisted TS (productoriented studies). In corpus-assisted TS, frequency originally referred to the number of times a certain categorical item4 occurred in the SL, and its corresponding structure in the TL (usually words, fixed phrases, or structures), across the entire corpus. It is very clear that these items are purely linguistic. By contrast, frequency as used in the corpusassisted studies described in the previous section applied not only to linguistic items, but also to the processes that produced these items. More specifically, frequency in corpus-assisted TPR refers not only to the number of times that CSIs or subcategories of these occur in the corpus but also to the number of instances of the translation strategies used to render them in the TT (He, 2017). This logical extension leads us to borrow the concept of type/token ratio from traditional corpus-assisted research on translation and interpreting. The idea of applying 3

Since the current research is focused on the SL-TL transfer, these two concepts will be discussed as they relate to parallel corpora. 4 The item searched is dependent on the researcher’s purpose. For example, one could search for so…that structures (Qin & Wang, 2004) or nouns/verbs/adjectives… (Wang, 2012a; 2012b).

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TTR to the corpus-assisted approach in TPR originated in He’s (2017) work. If it is assumed that X equals the TTR, we have the following formula: X = Ntypes /Ntokens

(4.1)

N types refers to the number of word types, while N tokens refers to the total number of words in the corpus. For example, in the word set, I will refer to as Set A, we have the following words: {I, have, a, cup, and, a, pen}. There are six types of words (because “a” occurs twice) and seven tokens (seven items in total). Therefore, X equals 6/7. This number indicates the richness of the vocabulary in the set. The TTR is applied slightly differently in the corpus-assisted approach to TPR (see He, 2017). The formula is changed to: Y = Ntype /Ntokens

(4.2)

N type now equals the number of one particular type of item in the corpus, and N tokens is the total number of all the items in the corpus. Taking Set A as an example, for type “a,” Y is 2/7. This number suggests the proportion of type “a” in the entire set, thus making it more similar to a measure of frequency. In the present corpusassisted approach to TPR, N type is defined as the number of occurrences of a certain interpreting strategy in the corpus, while N tokens refers to the number of all possible instances of interpreting strategies in the corpus, or all the targeted items in the source category. For example, eight PNs are rendered via the following strategies in the set I will call Set B, namely {transcoding, transcoding, omission, paraphrasing, omission, transcoding, transliteration, transliteration}. We now have. For “transcoding,” Y=3/8. For “omission,” Y=2/8. For “transliteration,” Y=2/8. For “paraphrasing,” Y=1/8.

In this way, we can describe the patterns found in the translational routes across the corpus, which will help us to make generalizations about bilingual cognitive processing. In the following sections, I explain the application of this approach to IPR in the present study.

4.4 The Corpus-Assisted Approach Employed in the Current Study To date, IPR and cognitive studies of interpreting have still failed to take full advantage of large-scale corpus analysis (Schwieter & Ferreira, 2017). Researchers have ignored one of the most well-known advantages of corpora, namely the ability to provide a large quantity of naturalistic (non-laboratory) translation-product data.

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The rich data obtained via corpora allow us to extract the linguistic patterns of the interpreting products. These patterns are likely to reflect the internal psycholinguistic or cognitive features of the interpreting processes that produced them. As Fabio et al. (2010: 137) stated, this entails “using the detailed process findings to help explain patterns in the product data contained in the corpus.” The corpus-assisted approach has only previously been applied to studies of written translation and SI (e.g., Lang et al. 2018, 2019). As far as I am aware, no previous research has been conducted on the interpreting patterns in professional CI involving the E-C and C-E pairs. Thus, I relied on previous research (e.g., He, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2017) to construct my own bilingual parallel corpus containing transcriptions of CI involving E-C and C-E pairs to investigate the controversial issue of the dominant tendency of processing routes being form based or meaning based, as evidenced in the interpreting patterns of CSIs, and the in-depth reasons underlying the dominant route in both C-E and E-C direction to fill this gap in the existing literature. To begin, I address a few methodological issues because I have adopted a corpusassisted approach to IPR. More specifically, I constructed a bilingual parallel professional consecutive interpreting corpus involving Chinese and English. I then extracted the patterns of interpreting strategies from the self-built corpus and conducted a systematic analysis of the dominant route, both descriptively and theoretically. As in any other study, I needed to target certain linguistic phenomena in the source speeches and in the target deliveries as a starting point for process research. In brief, I selected CSIs in the STs, including PNs, metaphors, idiomatic expressions, and classic quotations. Conceptually speaking, CSIs are specific to the source system (language and culture) and are thus cognitively opaque in the target system. In other words, they constitute obstacles, also called cognitive barriers, for interpreters when they are performing tasks. This is why they are the targets of the current analysis. I attempt to establish how the CSIs are rendered in the TT via interpreting strategies. I then interpret the patterns in all the interpreting patterns in the TT that were extracted from the corpus. I explain these in more detail in Chap. 5. Based on the interpreting patterns obtained in the corpus, I provide an account of these patterns using a theoretical framework that addresses translating and interpreting as bilingual processing based on the processing economy hypothesis. Theoretical approaches to the interpreting patterns are presented in Chaps. 6 and 7.

4.5 Summary In this chapter, both TPR methodologies were analyzed briefly, including behavioral and neurophysiological measures (see Sect. 4.2). Special emphasis was placed on the corpus-assisted approach to TPR (see Sect. 4.3). Some challenges created by this approach were presented, and the key concepts were discussed in detail. In the following, the corpus-assisted approach to TPR is applied to IPR, and is discussed comprehensively in terms of its most critical aspects. In the chapters that follow, I

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present the procedures for creating a corpus. A corpus is a collection of electronic texts, which may be monolingual or bilingual. As this book attempts to provide a bilingual parallel corpus consisting of Chinese to English consecutive interpretations, two types of texts are included; namely STs and TTs. Therefore, I will first introduce the source and target materials in the following chapter.

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Ge, L., & Y. J., He. (2010). A preliminary study on humor translation based on a Chinese-English bilingual parallel corpus. International Journal of Translation, 22, 77–92. Gile, D. (2015). The contributions of cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics to conference interpreting. In: A. Ferreira & J. W. Schwieter (Eds.), Psycholinguistic and cognitive inquiries into translation and interpreting (pp. 41–64). John Benjamins. He, Y. (2004). Mapping culturally indigenous concepts in the translation process: A cognitive perspective. Journal of Translation Studies, 9, 33–50. He, Y. (2007). A fresh cognitive perspective to horizontal translation. Journal of Translation Studies, 10(1), 77–90. He, Y. (2009). Translating alien sources from and into Chinese: What does the translator do, and why? In X. Luo & Y. He (Eds.), Translating China (pp. 207–232). Multilingual Matters. He, Y. (2010). On patterns of translating alien sources. Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 3, 204–213. He, Y. (2017). Corpus-assisted approach to cognitive process research on translating and interpreting: Theory, methodology, and practice. In Symposium on corpus-assisted research on cognitive processes of translation, 10–11 June, University of South China, Hengyang, China. He, Y. (2019). Translating and Interpreting as Bilingual Processing: The Theoretical Framework. In: Li, D., Lei, V. L., & Y. He, (Eds.) Researching Cognitive Processes of Translation (pp. 15–48). Singapore: Springer. Holmes, J. S. (1988). The name and nature of translation studies. In L. Venuti (Ed.), The translation studies reader (pp. 172–185). Routledge. Hou, L., Lang, Y., & He, Y. (2019). Models of corpus-assisted cognitive process of translation: Traits and trends. Foreign Languages Research, 178(6), 69–75. House, J. (2019): Suggestions for a new interdisciplinary linguo-cognitive theory in translation studies. In: Li, D., Lei, V. L., & Y. He. (Eds.), Researching cognitive processes of translation (pp. 3–14). Springer. Hu, K. & Li, X. (2016). Corpus translation studies and cognitive translation studies: similarities and integration. Shandong Social Sciences, 254(10), 39–44. Jääskeläinen, R. (1989). The role of reference material in professional vs. non-professional translation: A think-aloud Protocol Study. Empirical Studies in Translation and Linguistics, 175–200. Jakobsen, A. L. (2011). Tracking translators’ keystrokes and eye movements with translog. In: A. H. & E. T. Cecilia Alvstad (Eds.), Methods and strategies of process research: Integrative approaches in translation studies. John Benjamins. Jakobsen, A. L. (1999). Logging target text production with translog. In: Probing the process in translation: Methods and results (pp. 9–20). Samfundslitteratur Press. Jakobsen, A. L. & Schou, L. (1999). Translog documentation. In Probing the process in translation. Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur. Jakobsen, A. L. (2014). The development and current state of translation process research. In: E. Meylaerts & L. Doorslaer (Eds.), The known unknowns of translation studies. John Benjamins. Kenny, D. (2009). Corpora. In M. Baker & G. Saldanha (Eds.), Routledge encyclopedia of translation studies (2nd ed., pp. 59–62). Routledge. Kruger, A. (2002). Corpus-based translation research: Its development and implications for general, literary and bible translation. Acta Theologica Supplementum, 2, 70–106. Krings, H. P. (1986). Was in den Köpfen von Übersetzern vorgeht. Eine Empirische. Kussmaul, P., & Tirkkonen-Condit, S. (1995). Think-aloud protocol analysis in translation studies. TTR: Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction, 1995(8), 177–199. Kurz, I. (1994). A look into The “Black Box”–Eeg Probability mapping during mental simultaneous interpreting. Translation Studies: An Interdiscipline, 1994(2), 199. Lang, Y., Hou, L., & He, Y. (2018). A cognitive study on memory-pairing in simultaneous interpreting. Modern Foreign Languages, 41(6), 840–851.

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Lang, Y., Hou, L., & He, Y. (2019). The effect of multimodal input on the interplay of cognitive processing routes in simultaneous interpreting: A corpus-assisted cognitive study. Journal of Foreign Languages, (2), 75–86. Lehtonen, M. H., Laine, M., Niemi, J., Thomsen, T., Vorobyev, V. A., & Hugdahl, K. (2005). Brain correlates of sentence translation in Finnish-Norwegian Bilinguals. NeuroReport, 16, 607–610. Li, D., Lei, V. L. C., & He, Y. (2019). Researching cognitive processes of translation. Springer. Li, D. (2004). Trustworthiness of think aloud protocols in the study of translation processes. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2004(14), 301–313. Lin, X., Lei, V. L. C., Li, D., & Yuan, Z. (2018). Which is more costly in Chinese to English simultaneous interpreting, “pairing” or “transphrasing”? Evidence from an fNIRS neuroimaging study. Neurophotonics, 5(2), 025010. Liu, X., & Zhou, X. (2020). Revisiting a controversial issue on cognitive processing routes in translation studies: Implications for future research. T & I Review, 10(2), 7–22. Muñoz-Martín, R. (2012). Cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches. In C. Millán & F. Bartrina (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of translation studies (pp. 241–256). Routledge. O’Brien, S. (2005). Methodologies for measuring the correlations between post-editing effort and machine translatability. Machine Translation, 2005(19), 37–58. O’Brien, S. (2006). Eye-tracking and translation memory matches. Perspectives-Studies in Translatology, 2006(14), 185–205. Paradis, M. (1994). Toward a neurolinguistic theory of simultaneous translation: The framework. International Journal of Psycholinguistics, 1994(10), 319–335. Paradis, M. A. (2004). Neurolinguistic theory of Bilingualism. John Benjamins. Qin, H. & Wang, K. (2004). Jiyu yuliaoku de fanyiyuyan fenxi—yi “so… that”de hanyu duiyingjiegou weili. Modern Foreign Languages, (01), 40-48+105–106. Saldanha, G. & O’Brien, S. (2013). Research Methodologies in Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledge. Saldanha, G., & Obrien, S. (2014). Researching methodologies in translation studies. Routledge. Schmied, J. (1994). Translation and cognitive structures. Hermes, 13, 169–182. Schwieter, J. W., & Ferreira, A. (2017). The handbook of translation and cognition. Wiley. Shaughnessy, J. J., Zechmeister, E. B., & Zechmeister, J. S. (2012). Research methods in psychology. McGraw-Hill. Su, W., & Li, D. (2020). Exploring processing patterns of Chinese-English sight translation: An eye-tracking study. Babel, 66(6), 999–1024. Toury, G. (1991). Experimentation in translation studies: achievements, prospects and some pitfalls. Empirical Research in Translation and Intercultural Studies, 1991, 45–66. Wang, B. (2012a). A descriptive study of norms in interpreting: Based on the Chinese-English consecutive interpreting corpus of Chinese Premier Press Conferences. Meta: Journal Des Traducteurs= Translators’ Journal, 57(1), 198–212. Wang, K. (2012b). Yuliaoku Fanyixue Tansuo (Exploring corpus-based translation studies). Shanghai: Shanghai Jiaotong Daxue Chubanshe. Williams, J & Chesterman, A. (2002). The map: A beginner’s guide to doing research in translation studies. St. Jerome. Zanettin, F. (2012). Translation-driven corpora. St. Jerome Publications. Zhao, X. (2009). Universality vs. diversity in multiple translations: A case study of two Chinese versions of “The Da Vinci Code” [M.Phil. Thesis, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong]. Zhou, J. & He, Y. (2010). Naturalization as a translation strategy and its cognitive basis. Chinese Translators Journal, (6), 58–63.

Chapter 5

Parallel Bilingual CI Corpus Construction

Abstract In this chapter, I first introduce the source and the target material, as well as the process used in transcribing the video recordings of the professional consecutive interpreters and the procedure used to clean the raw transcribed material and produce usable texts. I then specify the corpus design for this study, for example, the corpus size. In the following sections, I describe the processing tools used to tailor these transcripts to a bilingual parallel professional CI corpus, for example, the software program EditPlus. I then elaborate on how the texts were segmented, aligned, and tagged. I explain how concordance searches were used to find patterns in the interpretation of PNs vis-à-vis other CSIs. Keywords Corpus design · Corpus construction · Corpus annotation · Concordance search This book focuses on investigations of the CI mode and adopts a corpus-assisted approach. Like any other process-oriented corpus-assisted/based study, this project required the construction of a parallel corpus specifically involving consecutive interpretations. Since the rationale for the corpus-assisted approach used in the current research has been introduced in the previous chapter, this chapter will not provide the details again, but will concentrate on how the parallel bilingual CI corpus was constructed. Specifically, the procedure included the selection of the materials, transcription, noise cleaning, segmentation and alignment, annotation and, finally, a concordance search. The corpus-building flowchart below illustrates the process.

5.1 Source and Target Material As mentioned in the previous chapter, the current study employed a corpus-assisted approach to the empirical investigations of cognitive processing routes in CI. Corpus TS generally examine bilingual corpora, including comparable corpora, parallel corpora, and translational corpora (Wang, 2012; Zanettin, 2012). The processoriented corpus in this book is a parallel corpus involving the SL and the TL, and © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 X. Liu, Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4335-4_5

59

60

5 Parallel Bilingual CI Corpus Construction

Fig. 5.1 Professional CI corpus-building procedure

Selection/Transcription Noise Cleaning

EditPlus ABBYY Aligner

CI Corpus Building

Segmentation and Alignment

CorpusWordPa rser Excel EditPlus

Annotation

Macros

Concordance Search

ParaConc

the construction thereof was the same as that of other parallel corpora used for translation research, mainly including corpora collection and corpus construction (more details are provided in the following sections of this chapter). This section attempts to introduce which language materials were chosen to construct the corpora and which were researched. In this section, I first present the source and the target material that I used for my research. In the following sections, I specify which features of the STs were pinpointed as the objects of study in order to meet the current research goals. The corresponding features of the TTs I identified are also explained (See Fig. 5.1).

5.1.1 Source Speeches and Target Deliveries All the source speeches and the target deliveries used in this research were obtained by downloading videos from the Internet. More specifically, these video recordings include (a) ten press conferences given by Premier Wen Jiabao of the State Council of China, and (b) sixteen China-US bilateral speeches. In terms of language pair, the conferences speeches were interpreted from Chinese into English, and the talks contain a mixture of C–E and E–C. As the videos of the bilateral meetings revealed, there were two source speakers, one from China and the other from the USA, and each speaker had brought his/her own interpreter. Since this book investigates how state-level professional interpreters perform bilingual tasks on such significant occasions as press conferences and bilateral talks between state leaders, it is necessary to introduce the specific working conditions of

5.1 Source and Target Material

61

these interpreters. To the best of my knowledge,1 the interpreters in the Department of Translation under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs all live a “crazy” life. Their daily work involves practicing translation and interpreting, or they are well on their way to achieving this daily lifestyle. They have all received extensive training in interpreting or written translation related to topics such as the daily news, political commentaries, and hot issues. They have also been trained extensively in note-taking techniques. The leaders whose speeches must be interpreted sometimes talk for as long as ten minutes before they pause, at which time the interpreter must verbalize the TT for that entire speech. These interpreters, particularly those responsible for press conferences, also complete extensive preparation before they enter the room to begin an interpreting session. This preparation consists of two important parts: The first is conducting research on popular news issues, and the second is collecting and reviewing the speeches that Wen Jiabao had delivered in the previous year. In fact, this task is not solely conducted by the selected working interpreter, but also by others in the department. The cycle of CI functions in such a way that a section of the source speech is delivered, followed by the production of the target delivery by the interpreter, in a continuous cycle until the source speaker finishes his/her speech. Interpreters can and do take notes when the speaker is talking. The alternating and consecutive nature of the source-target flow makes it difficult to separate the source from the target delivery completely in real time. Thus, the researcher transcribed the source speeches in their entirety from the videos, as well as their target deliveries, and aligned them as parallel texts. The texts were then reviewed while re-watching the videos. Below are details regarding the transcriptions of the ten C–E sessions that were included in my corpus (see Appendix A for metadata about the individual components of the corpus). With regard to the sixteen sessions of mixed C–E and E–C speech, I separated the C–E segments from the E–C segments. Descriptions of what these videos comprise are included in Appendix A. Based on the principles and reasons stated above, specific information about the source speeches and their target deliveries is shown in Appendix A, in which such details as ID, date, occasions, the source speakers, the interpreters and durations are presented. IDs have been used to identify the corpus files, and the interpreters’ names have been rendered anonymous for ethical reasons. Thus, the Chinese interpreters are coded as “Interpreter 1” to “Interpreter 6.” Similarly, the English interpreters are coded as “Interpreter 7,” “Interpreter 8,” and so forth. The use of the specific audio/video recordings was motivated by the research questions posed in Chap. 1. Wen Jiabao’s conferences held by the State Council and bilateral meetings between Chinese and American leaders were selected as the data sources for the current research. My motivations for these choices were as follows: 1

All the information related to interpreters’ working conditions was obtained from a talk given by one of the interpreters in the Department of Translation under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which can be accessed online: https://www.douban.com/note/161362475/ (available 15 April 2018).

62

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

5 Parallel Bilingual CI Corpus Construction

These conferences were concerned with issues related to politics, the economy, social security, environmental protections, and the like. As these topics are discussed widely in many contexts, they are representative of speech acts and of interpreting objects in general. The interpreters were highly trained, highly competent bilingual speakers who often had particular experience of or expertise in the topics being interpreted. These data are therefore a good fit for the research question: Which route predominates in professional CI? The video recordings of the conferences are available and accessible to the public online, making the initial stages of data collection quick and easy. They can be found on the Chinese government websites (e.g., http://www.xinhuanet. com/; http://www.youku.com/), and the White House website (https://www. whitehouse.gov/), respectively. The data are naturalistic, following the precedent established by prior corpusassisted research. As a general rule, all the recordings downloaded from the Internet for use here were recordings of the original interpreting acts; they were not edited or manipulated in any way.

Due to the abovementioned reasons, the transcriptions of these videos were selected as the corpora and were used to construct the corpus. The data are authentic, and their ecological validity is very high. To a certain degree, this selection can respond to some of the methodological issues related to other TPR approaches. In the following sections, source profiling and target profiling, respectively, are described in detail.

5.1.2 Source Profiling The purpose of source profiling is to establish which parts of the source speeches are to be selected for investigation. In the current study, I focused on CSIs. In other words, I tagged these items in the STs and then investigated how they were interpreted in the target output by each individual interpreter and by the interpreters on average in E–C or C–E professional CI. The first issue to be addressed when considering how to identify the relevant items in the ST is what may and may not be considered a CSI. In some sense, almost all aspects of life are culture-specific, language-specific, or both, as Aixelá (1996) argued. Few scholars in TS have provided a more precise definition of CSIs. Thus, in order avoid confusion, I provide an overview of prior thinking on CSIs, and precisely how they were defined for the purposes of the current research. Aixelá (1996: 53) first introduced CSIs by defining cultural specificity in this way: “Each linguistic or national-linguistic community has at its disposal a series of habits, value judgments, classification system, etc. which sometimes are clearly different and sometimes overlap”. In Aixelá’s (1996) article, Culture-Specific Items in Translation, CSIs are defined as follows:

5.1 Source and Target Material

63

Table 5.1 CSI classification Alien sources

CSIs in the ST that are unique to the source system, i.e., language and culture, e.g. , “wearing tricks on one’s sleeve” is an alien source in E–C translation

Alien loans

CSIs in the ST that have been borrowed from a third system, e.g., “a hunchback from Notre Dame” with French origins is an alien loan in E–C translation

Target loans

CSIs in the ST that have been borrowed from the target system, e.g., “a Kungfu master” originated in Chinese and is a target loan in E–C translation

Those textually actualized items whose functions and connotations in a source text involve a translation problem in their transference to a target text, whenever this problem is a product of the nonexistence of the referred item or of its different intertextual status in the cultural system of the readers of the target text. (Aixelá, 1996: 58)

In this book, I define a CSI following Aixelá and Chou et al. (2016). Chou et al., (2016: 163) stated that a CSI was an item that “carries source-oriented content of a cultural and/or linguistic nature,” the core characteristic of which is that it is “unique to the source system (i.e., the source language, community and culture), and therefore not shared by the target system.” Similarly, they formalized the classification of CSIs in the following way (Chou et al., 2016: 162) (Table 5.1). Alien sources, alien loans, and target loans are three types of CSIs that are commonly seen in translations. However, the proportions of these loans are quite different; in most cases, alien sources account for the majority. As this was also the case in the current research, this book focuses on alien sources. Having established what CSIs are, we can now focus on the four categories that were tagged in the present research, namely PNs, metaphors, idiomatic expressions, and classic quotations, most of which are categorized as “alien sources” according to Table 5.1. Their definitions are presented individually in the next paragraph. PNs are those nouns that have one unique referent. Common examples include the names of places, people, and institutions (Heikki, 2007); for example, the Chinese PN, “臺灣 (Taiwan).” In the present corpus, classic quotations were usually quotes selected from historical texts, such as “路漫漫其修遠兮 (lu manman qi xiu yuan xi: the road ahead is long.).” Metaphors refer to one thing by mentioning another as a rhetorical device that adds flavor and style to the text (Schäffner, 2004); “打打氣 (dada qi: to encourage someone)” is a metaphor. Idiomatic expressions are multiword expressions, the meaning of which cannot be deduced from the cumulative meaning of their components (Moirón & Tiedemann, 2006; Sag et al., 2002); for example “ 舉世矚目 (jushizhumu: attract world attention)” is an idiomatic expression. The specific categories and subcategories of CSIs found in the present corpus included, but were not limited to: • • • • •

PNs: personal names, names of places, names of organizations, and so forth Official titles Names of projects/programs Acronyms (such as UM) Idiomatic expressions (idioms, proverbs, slang, swear words, and the like)

64

5 Parallel Bilingual CI Corpus Construction

Fig. 5.2 Composition of CSIs

CSIs

Proper Names

Metaphors

Quotes

Idiomatic Expressions

personal names

historica text quotations

names of places

newly created

names of organizations

official titles

names of projects/programs

• Slogans and mottos • Quotes from classic or newly created texts • Metaphors. These categories and subcategories are presented in Fig. 5.2. Since PNs are semantically and pragmatically specific; that is, they have one and only one referent, they were excluded from the umbrella category of CSIs and tagged separately. From the perspective of language processing, PNs may theoretically appear in any of the following forms: (1) (2) (3) (4)

The root-word form; a compound form; a phrasal form; and a clausal form.

For example, “中央电视台” (back translation: China Central Television) is a compound word that contains two words in root-word form, “中央” (central) and “ 电视台” (Television). More examples and analyses are presented in Chap. 6.

5.1.3 Target Profiling The purpose of target profiling was to establish how the CSIs were rendered in the target speeches. In other words, I sought to identify the “translating or interpreting strategies” used to render the CSIs in my corpus. I relied on He’s (2009) definitions of interpreting strategies in this book: Wong (1997) observes all four strategies in the English translation of Chinese martial art fictions. The strategies are respectively deletion, paraphrasing, substitution and transcoding which are defined below: By deletion, the idiom is not translated at all, and we may assume

5.1 Source and Target Material

65

that the context in which the idiom appears will make up for it. By paraphrasing, the underlying meaning of the idiom is rendered, but not the carrier—sheep escaped and the pen was mended. By substitution, the source idiom is replaced by an English counterpart. By trans-coding, the SL form is trans-coded into its TL (target language) counterpart, leaving the target reader to figure out what it might mean. (from He, 2009)

These CSI translating strategies are summarized in Table 5.2 (also see He 2017). These definitions were used for classifying the TTs in the present corpus. For example, the English word “apple,” when nested in the phrase, “You are the apple of my eye,” may be rendered in the TT in the following four ways (Table 5.3): In order to investigate the interpreting processing patterns of CSIs, the relationships among interpreting strategies and processing routes are presented in Table 5.4. Table 5.2 CSI translating strategies Paraphrasing

To translate a CSI according to its meaning

Omission

No translation

Substitution

To replace a CSI with a home-grown target counterpart

Transcoding

To translate a CSI according to its structure (phonological, morphological, or syntactic)

Transliteration

To translate a CSI according to its phonological structure

Table 5.3 Examples of Translation Strategies ST

Translation strategy

TT

Back translation

You are the apple of my eye

Omission

Ø

Ø

Paraphrasing

很重要

Very important

Substitution

掌上明珠

A pearl in the palm

Transcoding

蘋果

Apple: a kind of fruit

Transliteration

艾珀

Aibo

Table 5.4 Cognitive processing routes and their corresponding manifestations as rendering strategies (He, 2017)

Cognitive Verbalized

Meaning-based processing Paraphrasing route Substitution Form-based processing routes

Non-verbalization

Descriptive

Transcoding Transliteration Omissiona

a To date, little has been discovered about omission in interpreting.

However, according to the current bilingual processing framework, it is highly likely to take place when the meaning-based route is employed

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5 Parallel Bilingual CI Corpus Construction

If verbalization occurs, the form-based routes result in a reproduction of the SL items in the corresponding TL (transcoding), while the meaning-based route manifests as a rendering of the meaning of the SL items in the TT (paraphrasing). However, if the source item is not matched to a TT item, non-verbalization occurs (see Table 5.4). In this section, I described the research objects that I analyzed in the source speeches and their corresponding target deliveries in detail. I then clearly defined CSIs and their translation strategies as they relate to the corpus used in the present research. The technical procedures used to build and analyze the corpus are described in subsequent sections. In the next section, the role of transcription in the process of building a corpus of specific interpreting acts will be presented.

5.2 Transcription of Video Recordings In this section, I specify the transcription principles and describe the transcription process in general. I then explain how to clean texts after the raw material has been obtained from the transcriptions.

5.2.1 Transcription One of the most important steps in the creation of a corpus derived from spoken data is transcription (Thompson, 2005). The method of transcription itself is a selective process (Shlesinger, 1998), as there are several levels of data (including linguistic, paralinguistic, and extralinguistic) that constitute spoken communication. Therefore, one must determine what is relevant for inclusion in the transcripts based on the specific research questions. Furthermore, one must decide how to transcribe various features of the data. In fact, these may be linked closely to the central aims of the research (Armstrong, 1997; Zhang, 2013; Zou & Wang, 2014). Given that the aims of the current research were to analyze CSIs as a window into the form-based and meaning-based processing utilized in interpreting, I only targeted the linguistic and extralinguistic information. The Chinese-English parallel corpus of consecutive interpreting (CEPCCI) that I constructed was therefore composed of transcribed STs and TTs that do not include paralinguistic information, such as pauses and body language. In other words, the bilingual Chinese-English parallel corpus of consecutive interpreting (BCEPCCI) aimed to include spoken corpora, such as collections of transcripts, rather than speech corpora, such as collections of audio or video recordings. There is no doubt that transcribing spoken material is a time–consuming and arduous task (Cencini, 2002; Hu, 2016; Meyer, 1998). I took advantage of two forms of assistance when transcribing the audio/video files in order to accelerate the transcription process. First, some of the conference videos (such as the premier’s press

5.2 Transcription of Video Recordings

67

Table 5.5 Transcription conventions for the BCEPCCI (also see Hu, 2016) Information

Examples

Symbols

Transcription conventions

Punctuation

Complete

Period

.

Continuous

Comma

,

Query

Question mark

?

Cut

Ellipsis

…

Explanation

Dash

_

Repeated words

My, my

My, my

My, my

Quotes

不破樓蘭終不還

不破樓蘭終不還

“不破樓蘭終不還”

Long pauses

Longer than 4–6 s

Six dots

……

Unclear sound

Peoples’ names

Chinese pinyin or English spellings

conferences) were transcribed by an anonymous official user who produced edited reports that can be accessed online. However, these are not verbatim transcripts of the speeches employed in this corpus since these documents have been revised by the relevant parties. Second, some of the transcripts (such as those of the bilateral meetings) were accessible to the public.2 Although these transcripts are not complete, I still used them as first drafts, and then edited them to include every word delivered by the speaker and the interpreter. Transcribing the audio/video files requires two major steps, as Hu (2016) described: (1) the recordings first need to be converted into digital audio and video files and stored in “.mp3” or “.mp4” format to enable researchers to do computerassisted transcriptions; and (2) the transcribed information needs to be orthographical and saved in TXT format. The transcription conventions are summarized in Table 5.5. The transcription standards followed here were adapted from Hu (2016). The punctuation is mainly determined by the following factors: the pause, intonation, and syntactic function of a word and the relationship between the units. For example, if someone utters a quote, double quotation marks will be used. A full stop and comma are used based on the length of the pauses. That is, if a pause is long, a full stop is used to signal the end of the utterance. By contrast, a comma is used if the pause is short. These transcription rules allow for the production of a faithful transcript for the BCEPCCI that agrees with the original recordings at the linguistic level as closely as possible. The extralinguistic level of interactions provides important contextual information about the speaker, the interpreter, and the speech itself. The extralinguistic information deemed relevant by the researcher was presented as a header at the beginning of each transcript. Table 5.6 shows an example of a header used in the corpus: 2

Part of the transcriptions can be downloaded from the following website (https://www.dropbox. com/s/rb5qeh9qhgaazc6/Transcription.docx?dl=0), which is open to the public. I would like to express my thanks to the transcriber, Wang Qiyue, for her generosity in making these freely available.

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Table 5.6 BCEPCCI header

(date: 18-03-2003 Speech name: PCW_2003/BM1 Language: Chinese Duration: long Timing: 1 hour 49 minutes 51 seconds Venue: People’s Great Hall, Beijing Text length: long Number of words/characters: 8468 characters Speaker: Wen Jiabao Gender: M Country: China Mother tongue: Chinese Political function: press conferences Topic: Formalities Specific topic: answers and questions about matters of political importance

As described, the BCEPCCI consists of two subcorpora: the Chinese–English parallel corpus of consecutive interpreting (CEPCCI) and the English–Chinese parallel corpus of consecutive interpreting (ECPCCI). Tables 5.7 and 5.8 show the numbers of characters and words in the consecutive interpretations with Chinese as the SL and English as the TL, respectively. Similarly, Table 5.9 shows the consecutive interpretations with English as the SL and Chinese as the TL. Twenty-six recordings were collected in total, of which 26 had Chinese as the SL and 16 had English as the SL. Note that the CEBM and the ECBM shared the same videos (see this chapter). Table 5.10 demonstrates the final composition of the BCEPCCI. Table 5.7 Composition of Wen Jiabao’s press conferences in the CEPCCI Subcorpora

Name

Characters in Chinese STs

Words in English TTs

Premier Wen’s press conferences

PCW 2003

8468

6362

PCW 2004

8587

6371

PCW 2005

8251

5501

PCW 2006

8792

7514

PCW 2007

7577

6745

PCW 2008

10,122

8234

PCW 2009

9453

7524

PCW 2010

9289

7135

PCW 2011

9909

7359

PCW 2012

10,315

7814

5.2 Transcription of Video Recordings

69

Table 5.8 Composition of the bilateral meetings between Sino-US leaders in the CEPCCI Subcorpora

Name

Year

Characters in Chinese STs

Words in English TTS

Bilateral meetings between Sino-US leaders

BM1

2010.09.23

368

270

BM2

2011.01.19

851

590

BM3

2011.01.19

1821

1489

BM4

2011.01.19

1077

732

BM5

2011.01.19

1022

641

BM6

2011.11.12

393

299

BM7

2012.02.14

451

314

BM8

2012.02.14

1523

1092

BM9

2012.03.26

91

64

BM10

2012.06.19

276

216

BM11

2012.11.20

407

325

BM12

2013.06.07

745

479

BM13

2013.06.07

1972

1254

BM14

2013.09.06

56

187

BM15

2014.03.24

742

436

BM16

2015.09.25

656

455

Table 5.9 Composition of the bilateral meetings between Sino-US leaders in the ECPCCI Subcorpora

Name

Year

Words in English STs

Characters in Chinese TTs

Bilateral meetings between Sino-US leaders

BM1

2010.09.23

433

959

BM2

2011.01.19

396

743

BM3

2011.01.19

2054

3372

BM4

2011.01.19

667

1110

BM5

2011.01.19

402

679

BM6

2011.11.12

351

604

BM7

2012.02.14

689

1135

BM8

2012.02.14

1012

2148

BM9

2012.03.26

395

439

BM10

2012.06.19

299

481

BM11

2012.11.20

238

376

BM12

2013.06.07

620

1088

BM13

2013.06.07

1266

2332

BM14

2013.09.06

230

419

BM15

2014.03.24

458

682

BM16

2015.09.25

381

753

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Table 5.10 Final composition of the BCEPCCI Subcorpus

Name

No. of speeches

Words in the STs

Words in the TTs

Subtotal

CEPCCI

PCW

10

90,763 (characters)

70,559 (words)

161,322

CEBM

16

12,451 (characters)

8,843 (words)

21,294

ECPCCI

ECBM

16

9,891 (words)

17,320 (characters)

27,211

Total

/

26

113,105

96,722

209,827

5.2.2 Removing Noise from the Corpus Cleaning the STs and TTs is an important procedure in corpus building and involves two main tasks: removing empty lines and deleting blank spaces. EditPlus (see more in Sect. 5.4.1) was used for these tasks. The specific steps taken to accomplish the work were as follows: • Store each proofread, verbatim transcript in txt form. • Copy to the EditPlus platform. • Choose the function “Find & Replace,” and input the relevant operations in the correct fields to remove the blank spaces; for example, “ˆp” in the “find” row and nothing in the “replace” row. After the texts were cleaned, they were stored in both .txt and Word formats. The STs were then segmented into smaller units, and the STs and TTs were aligned, as explained in Sect. 5.5 below.

5.3 Corpus Design In this section, I introduce the specific design of the BCEPCCI, which consists of two subcorpora: the CEPCCI and the ECPCCI. The following variables are enumerated: source, genre, corpus size, and time span.

5.3.1 Time Span The analyses completed here were intended to be synchronic; that is, changes over time were not an object of study. Thus, the selected recordings were all recorded within the past 20 years. Specifically, the BCEPCCI includes the transcripts of press conferences and bilateral meetings between China and US leaders from 2003 to 2014. When I began the data collection, the most recent speech available online dated from 2014.

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5.3.2 Corpus Size Corpus size is closely related to the notion of representativeness. If the corpus is too small, it cannot be considered to be representative of the language under investigation, and the research findings extracted from it may be questioned (Pearson, 1998). However, the question that arises is how one defines “small.” Interpreting corpora are largely constrained by the relatively limited availability of interpreting data. Compared to corpora composed of written translations, authentic interpreting data corpora are necessarily of a smaller scale. Table 5.11 provides an overview of popular interpreting corpora and what they comprise in order to situate my own decisions when constructing the BCEPCCI. The above table illustrates that the size of interpreting corpora usually takes both time and the number of words into account. The durations of these corpora range from four hours to 25 h of real data. Thus, it is safe to say that interpreting corpora may still be sufficiently (or cautiously) representative, even if they include only a few hours of data. Give this context, the BCEPCCI can be referred to as a medium-sized corpus. The overall structure of the corpus is illustrated in Fig. 5.3, and the details about its size are presented in Table 5.12. Due to the limited availability of the material, the two subcorpora (CEPCCI and ECPCCI) differ in size. More specifically, the CEPCCI is much larger than Table 5.11 Introduction to selected interpreting corpora Name

Language and source of data

Corpus size

References

EPIC

Italian, Spanish, English; from the European parliament

177,295 words, about 21 h Russo et al. (2012)

CIAIR

English, Japanese; not authentic

About one million words, 182 h

CECIC

Chinese, English; press 540,000 words conferences held by the State Council in China, etc.

Hu and Tao (2010); Hu and Zhou (2009)

DIRSI-C

Italian, English; SI for three 136,000 words, 9 h and international medical 25 min conferences in Italy

Bendazzoli (2012)

CoSi /K6

Brazilian Portuguese, 35,000, almost 6 h German; interpretations for lectures (two CIs、one SI)

House et al. (2012)

DiK /K2

German、Portuguese 、Spanish、Turkish; interpreting recordings for doctor–patient dialogue in Germany

170,000 words, 23 h

Bührig et al. (2012)

TIC

Languages unknown; television program

Around 40,000 words, 4 h

Cencini and Aston (2002)

Tohyama et al. (2004); Yang (2014)

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Fig. 5.3 Bidirectional Chinese-English parallel corpus of consecutive interpreting

BCEPCCI

CEPCCI

ORGChinese

ECPCCI

INTEnglish

ORGEnglish

INTChinese

Table 5.12 BCEPCCI size and composition Subcorpus

Source

No. of speeches

Duration

Total word count

ORG-Chinese

Wen’s press conferences

10

22:45:38

90,763 (characters)

Bilateral meetings between Sino-US leaders

16

2:15:58

12,451 (characters)

Wen’s press conferences

10

N/A

70,559 (words)

Bilateral meetings between Sino-US leaders

16

N/A

8,843 (words)

ORG-English

Bilateral meetings between Sino-US leaders

16

2:28:33

9,891 (words)

INT-Chinese

Bilateral meetings between Sino-US leaders

16

INT-English

17,320 (characters)

is the ECPCCI because Chinese is used as the official language in press conferences in China, and these recordings were made on the Chinese mainland. Table 5.12 summarizes the composition details of the current corpus.

5.4 Processing Tools In this section, the processing tools used to build the corpus are introduced, including EditPlus for transcript editing, CorpusWordParser for word segmentation with or without part-of-speech (POS) tags, ABBYY Aligner for ST-TT alignment, and ParaConc for data searching.

5.4.1 EditPlus EditPlus is a text editor for Windows that can function as a replacement for Notepad, but which also provides many useful features for users, as shown in Fig. 5.4. However, only the features used for constructing the present corpus are relevant here. These features are the spell-check function and the regex-based find-and-replace

5.4 Processing Tools

73

Fig. 5.4 Screenshot of EditPlus

function. In Sect. 5.5, I discuss the details of how these functions were used to clean the corpus after the segmentation and alignment processes were complete.

5.4.2 CorpusWordParser CorpusWordParser is a Chinese POS tagging software program. The user interface for this program is shown in Fig. 5.5. This program only processes Chinese documents in txt format. It has two main functions: The first is to tag the text according to POS, and this function actually segments the text word by word in order to complete the tagging of the segments. Figure 5.6 illustrates this function. The second function segments the texts into words based on POS, but the final product excludes the tagging. This function is shown in Fig. 5.7. The latter function played a significant role in the present project because the ParaConc software program does not recognize Chinese documents if they are not segmented by word. However, it is worth noting that some PNs or fixed expressions may be recognized separately; for example, “奥 巴 马”. When such items are tagged, they would be considered to be a whole unit. I discuss how I used ParaConc in more detail in Sect. 5.4.5.

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Fig. 5.5 Screenshot of CorpusWordParser

Fig. 5.6 Screenshot of POS tagged and segmented text

5.4.3 ABBYY Aligner As the name indicates, the ABBYY Aligner is an aligning software program that assists in ST-TT alignment. Figure 5.8 provides a screenshot of this program. When txt files are uploaded to this program, they may be automatically segmented and aligned at the sentence level. However, due to the limitations of the transcripts in

5.4 Processing Tools

75

Fig. 5.7 Screenshot of POS segmented text

Fig. 5.8 Screenshot of the ABBYY Aligner 2.0

terms of how sentences may be split or blended in real speech, this initial sentenceto-sentence alignment is not particularly accurate. Figure 5.9 illustrates one of these initial alignments. Manual interventions are required to fix the initial alignments. After this manual work for the current study was completed, the resulting transcripts were stored in parallel sentence format as docs. Figure 5.10 shows one example of such a parallel text document.

76

Fig. 5.9 Screenshot of ST-TT alignment

Fig. 5.10 Screenshot of aligned ST-TT

5 Parallel Bilingual CI Corpus Construction

5.4 Processing Tools

77

5.4.4 Microsoft Excel The segments in the current corpus needed to be numbered from one to “n” (i.e., the number of segments in the corpus) for the purpose of identification in the subsequent analysis. Excel was employed for the creation of this numbering system. Excel can add a serial number to all segments in the form of ; for example, segment number 1 is . This is accomplished via the “click-and-drag” function, as shown in the two screenshots (Figs. 5.11 and 5.12).

Fig. 5.11 Screenshot of Excel after inserting the first number

Fig. 5.12 Screenshot of Excel’s “dragging” function for serial numbering

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Figure 5.11 illustrates the first segment number () as it was inserted in the first cell of Column A. The segments were subsequently placed in Columns B or C. The serial number was then matched to its corresponding segment. The drag function was then used to add the serial number to all the segments automatically, as Fig. 5.12 shows (see Sect. 5.5 for further details).

5.4.5 ParaConc ParaConc is a frequently used search tool in corpus-assisted studies. The interface for this software program is shown in Fig. 5.13. ParaConc serves as a search tool for tagged items in a particular corpus. The program is renowned for its parallel search function, which returns both the tagged items in the ST and their equivalent translations in the TTs simultaneously and in the same window. The user is able to conduct both quantitative and qualitative analyses using this parallel search function. A screenshot of this function appears in Fig. 5.14. Three crucial features appear in the interface from top to bottom. The first shows the ST strings returned from the search. The second shows the corresponding translation strategies in the TT. At the bottom of the screen, the number of strings matched to the search appears in the left corner, while the names of the searched items appear in the middle, and the searched-for string appears toward the right corner.

Fig. 5.13 Screenshot of ParaConc

5.5 Segmentation and Alignment

79

Fig. 5.14 Screenshot of the ParaConc parallel search

5.5 Segmentation and Alignment Constructing an interpreting corpus is a complicated and complex process that consist of the following five steps: transcribing audio/video files, cleaning the transcriptions, segmenting and aligning the texts, annotating/tagging the texts and, finally, searching the corpus/extracting the data from the corpus. I turn now to the segmenting and aligning process.

5.5.1 Principles of Segmentation and Alignment The construction of interpreting corpora in the local context and internationally generally follows five steps, which are determining the type of interpreting corpus according to the research purpose, audio/video recording, audio/video data digitization, text transcription of audio and video data, and text annotation and alignment (Li & Li, 2010). It is well known that, in the construction of bilingual corpora, particularly interpreting corpora, the segmentation and alignment (including transcribing text to the source file and the original text to translation) is one of the most important procedures. A systematic discussion of the principles of segmentation and alignment (including alignment levels, methods, tools, and so on) has already been presented by Liu et al. (2019), who selected 13 existing interpreting corpora at home and abroad as the object of investigation with the aim of clarifying the existing situation and problems with alignment in the construction process. Based on the previous studies, Liu et al. (2019) stated that alignment of interpretation corpora could be divided roughly into three categories, namely the alignment of the transcription corpus with the video source file, the alignment of the

80

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transcription corpus with the audio source file, and the alignment of the SL and the TL. Of course, the transcribed SL corpus, video/audio source files, and transcribed TL corpus can be aligned at the same time. The investigation of the segmentation and alignment unit varies among the selected corpora, as the following table shows. No

The corpus’ name

The transcription with the audio/video source file

Alignment unit for the transcription

1

EPIC

SL: The transcription with the video source file. TL: The transcription with the audio source file

Semantic chunk

2

CIAIR

The transcription with the audio source file

Clause

3

CECIC

Unknown

Sentence

4

PACCEL

Unknown

Sentence

5

DIRSI-C

The transcription with the audio source file

Content based

6

FOOTIE

Unknown

Answers and questions

7

CoSi/K6

The transcription with the audio source file

Utterance based

8

ComInDat

The transcription with the audio/video source file

Utterance based

From the above steps, it can be seen that text alignment is a key part of the construction of an interpreting corpus, but that alignment is not limited to text files.

5.5.2 Segmentation and Alignment Processes In the current research, segmenting the Chinese STs consisted of two steps: segmenting the STs into clauses, then using the POS segmentation-without-tagging function of the CorpusWordParser to segment the STs at the word level. As mentioned above, this step is necessary for Chinese texts because the ParaConc program will not accept them for searching otherwise. I used the clause as the segmentation unit here because the interpreting unit, according to Christoffels and de Groot (2005), tends to be bound to the clause. Due to the language processing and turn-taking involved in professional CI, more interpreting information is expected to occur after clause boundaries. Thus, to allow for the eventual parallel analysis of the STs and TTs, the ABBYY Aligner was used to align the texts. This process is illustrated in Fig. 5.15. As can be seen in the figure above, the ST-TT alignment output from this program was not completely accurate. The highlighted segments represent misalignments. Manual intervention was therefore necessary to fix the output. Figure 5.16 shows the appearance of parallel texts after I corrected the alignments.

5.5 Segmentation and Alignment

81

Fig. 5.15 Automatic alignment by the ABBYY aligner

Fig. 5.16 Alignment after manual intervention

Once the alignments were complete, the texts were stored in .rtf format, which can be opened using Microsoft Word. The CorpusWordParser was then employed for the POS/word-level segmentation in order to prepare the Chinese texts for inputting into the ParaConc program. Figure 5.17 shows the segmented text in the CorpusWordParser interface. After completing the entire segmentation and alignment process for each file, I saved the resulting parallel texts as Word documents. As discussed above, the segments were then assigned ID numbers using Microsoft Excel. The details of this process are as follows:

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Fig. 5.17 POS segmentation without tagging

• Copy the segments in the ST in the column in Excel; that is, Column B. No empty line is allowed at the end of an individual segment; otherwise, the serial number will not be accurate. • Insert the first and second serial numbers into Column A; that is, and , for the first and second segments, respectively, in Column B as is the case for the following figure: “s” is short for segment, while “n” stands for number. This means that the segment number is equal to “2”.

5.5 Segmentation and Alignment

83

• Select the two cells that have already been allocated serial numbers, and drag them to the last segment. All the segments will then be automatically given a serial number, as follows:

• Copy all the segments in Column B and the corresponding segment number in Excel and paste them into the EditPlus interface.

• Replace the “Tabs” between the segment numbers and the segments with “Space bar” using Regular Expressions. Thus, the space is removed, as shown below.

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5 Parallel Bilingual CI Corpus Construction

• Copy these and paste them into Excel or into a Word document. Repeat these steps to add serial numbers to the segments in the TT. Finally, the so-called unripe corpus has been built. Section 5.6 describes the annotation process for transforming the “unripe corpus” into a “ripe one”; that is, tagging the CSIs in the STs and the corresponding interpreting strategies in the TTs for analysis.

5.6 Annotation In the corpus annotation process, I added information to the head of each text, including identifying information that was important for the entire text, and I also marked up the text itself to tag the variables under investigation in this study, which were the CSIs and their corresponding interpreting strategies. As I discussed the extralinguistic information included in the document heads previously, this information is not repeated here. Instead, this section focuses on the tagging process for the transcripts. In the first subsection, I discuss the annotation scheme for the STs and TTs. In the second section, I provide a precise description of how the corpus was annotated.

5.6.1 Annotation Scheme for the STs and TTs As discussed in Sect. 5.1 of this chapter, I devised a specific annotation scheme for the STs and TTs for this study. This scheme is presented in Table 5.13. In the TTs, the rendering strategies adopted for interpreting CSIs were tagged as paraphrasing, omission, substitution, transcoding, and transliteration (see Sect. 5.1.3 for details). Table 5.14 depicts the particular tags used for the TTs. The above 65 markers in square brackets are only the start tags that appeared in the XML. They appeared in pairs; for example, … in the ST and … in the TT.

5.6 Annotation

85

Table 5.13 CSIs tag sets for the STs

Culture-specific or language-specific metaphors, or both at the lexical level

Culture-specific or language-specific metaphors, or both at the phrasal level

Culture-specific or language-specific metaphors, or both at the clausal level

Classic or newly created quotes at the lexical level

Classic or newly created quotes at the phrasal level

Classic or newly created quotes at the clausal level

Single-word PNs

Compound-word PNs

PNs at the phrasal level

PNs at the clausal level

Fixed or idiomatic expressions at the lexical level

Fixed or idiomatic expressions at the phrasal level

Fixed or idiomatic expressions at the clausal level

5.6.2 Using Word Macros for Tagging Tagging the STs and TTs requires two steps. First, I used the macro function to allow for the automatic insertion of complete tags into the documents based on the annotation scheme described in the previous section. I manually tagged the texts manually to suit the current research purpose. The procedure for using Word macros is presented below. • Find the Macro function.

• Click “Macro”, and the user interface for Macros is shown.

86 Table 5.14 Tag set for the TTs: interpreting strategies in the subcorpora

5 Parallel Bilingual CI Corpus Construction



































































































5.6 Annotation

87

• Click “Edit,” and you see the window below.

• Input the tag set as required; for example, Sub PNSWTag() Selection.InsertBefore ““ Selection.InsertAfter ““ End Sub. After all tag sets have been imported, the Macro Tagging function appears in the Word interface, as Fig. 5.18 shows. The text can then be tagged manually using these tag sets.

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Fig. 5.18 Demonstration of macro tagging

5.7 Concordance Search and Query In this section, I explain how to search the corpus for CSIs and their corresponding interpreting strategies using the ParaConc software. I provide a specific example of how these patterns were extracted from the corpus.

5.7.1 Concordance Search Steps I completed the following steps to utilize ParaConc for data extraction in the current study: • I stored the tagged STs and TTs in .txt format using UTF-8 code. • I loaded the STs and TTs into ParaConc, as can be seen below.

• I used the function “Parallel Search” to search for a particular tag, such as “PNSW.” See the example below:

5.7 Concordance Search and Query

89

As can be seen in the figure above, three parts are present. Part 1 at the top presents the strings that were being searched for in the ST; for example, all the PNs in the root form are coded as . Part 2 in the middle shows the corresponding interpreting strategies in the TT; for example, . Part 3 is concerned with the number of strings matched (e.g., 21 matches) at the left corner, and the subcategory of the searched items are presented at the end (e.g., ) of the loaded file.

5.7.2 ParaConc Search Example This section presents a specific example of how the ParaConc software was used to search the corpus in this study. More specifically, I show how I searched for Interpreter 1’s interpreting pattern for PNs in the root form. According to the information provided in Sect. 5.1, Interpreter 1 completed one interpreting session from Chinese into English, namely PCW2003. In the corpus files, I first located the ST named “CI_PCW2003_ST_CN” and the TT named “CI_PCW2003_TT_EN.” CN stands for Chinese and EN stands for English in these IDs. As I explained in the previous section, I then performed a concordance search as follows: • I loaded the ST document “CI_PCW2003_ST_CN” and the TT “CI_PCW2003_TT_EN” document by clicking the “Add” button in ParaConc (“UTF-8” and “Languages used in the texts” were checked).

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• I then chose the function “Parallel Search.” There are three fields from top to bottom in this window. For the first field, I chose two parallel languages. In the second field, I chose English as the TL and, in the third field, I chose Chinese as the SL.

• I inserted the specific search item “” by clicking on the button “Pattern” in Part 2, and “” in Part 2, as follows (“Regular Expressions” was checked).

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91

• The quantitative results were then returned for the search () in the left corner of the interface. Here, we can see that, of all the PNs in the root form in the entire file, 44 were transliterated by Interpreter 1.

• The same procedure was used to search for , , and. The results returned for these searchers were 86, 44, and 36, respectively.

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Combined with the statistical results obtained, an interpreting pattern of PNs in root form was possible. Following these procedures, patterns for PNs in both compound and phrasal forms could be identified with the assistance of ParaConc (see Chap. 6).

5.7.3 A Roadmap of the CSIs Interpreting Patterns In this section, I present the method of obtaining the interpreting data patterns for the PNs and other CSIs (i.e., metaphors, idiomatic expressions, and classic quotations) extracted from the BCEPCCI in both the C–E and E–C interpreting directions (7,832 segments in total). First, I provide a roadmap of these patterns, which illustrates the data patterns for each individual interpreter’s handling of the PNs, metaphors, idiomatic expressions, and classic quotations. I then compare these patterns according to different variables in Chaps. 6 and 7, as follows: (1) (2) (3)

The grammatical unit, including the lexical, phrasal, and clausal levels; the interpreting setting, that is, bilateral versus multilateral; and interpreting directions, that is, from Chinese to English and vice versa.

In the roadmap presented in Fig. 5.19, four abbreviations are key in the current study, namely the P, PG, CE-PG, and EC-PG. P = patterns, the PG = group patterns, CE-PG = group patterns in the C–E interpreting direction, and EC-PG = group patterns in the E–C direction. Note that there are three sections in the roadmap, namely C–E conference, C–E talks, and E–C talks. These sections represent the three interpreting settings and directions contained in the corpus. Detailed information about the roadmap is explained as follows: (1)

Layer 1 represents different interpreters designated by numbers due to ethical reasons, such as “Interpreter 1”;

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93

Fig. 5.19 A roadmap of CSI and PN interpreting patterns

(2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Layer 2 includes the ID of each session interpreted by the corresponding interpreter; for example, “PCW 2003” by Interpreter 1; Layer 3 includes the patterns in each session interpreted by the corresponding interpreter; for example, “P1” of “PCW 2003” by “Interpreter 1”; Layer 4 consists of a group of patterns for a particular interpreter; for example, “PG4” of “Interpreter 4”; Layer 5 consists of a group of patterns in various settings involving C–E and E–C directions; for example, “CE-PG1” in conference settings; and Layer 6 represents a group of patterns involving either C–E or E–C directions, such as “CE-PG3” in the C–E direction. Four points are worth noting here:

(1)

(2) (3)

(4)

Each interpreter had four patterns in Layer 3; that is, four P1s, …four P42s. One was for PNs, one was for metaphors, one was for idiomatic expressions, and the other was for classic quotations. For those interpreters who interpreted more than one session, their patterns in Layer 4 are the sum of each session; for example, PG4 = P4 + P5 + P6 + P7. With regard to Layer 5, the pattern is the mean of that of the individual interpreters for each setting; for example, CE-PG1 = (P1 + P2 + P3 + PG4 + PG5)/5. Layer 6 has nothing to do with Layer 5, but concerns Layer 4 instead; that is, CE-PG3 = (P1 + P2 + P3 + PG4 + PG5 + PG6 + PG7 + PG8)/8.

In the next two chapters, I draw comparisons among patterns in the subsequent categories based on the interpreting patterns of PNs and CSIs by each individual interpreter (see the appendixes) as follows: (1)

Among the lexical, phrasal, and clausal levels (if applicable);

94

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between the C–E conference and C–E bilateral talks; and between the C–E and E–C directions (from L1 to L2 versus from L2 to L1).

As the roadmap suggests, 636 patterns for the four source subcategories were classified at three levels, including 504 individual patterns in all the sessions (see Layer 3), 84 group patterns across the interpreters (see Layer 4), and 48 group patterns in different settings and language directions (see Layer 5 and Layer 6). However, the subsequent chapters are mainly concerned with pattern comparisons; some Layer 3 and Layer 4 comparisons are combined and presented in the appendixes.

5.8 Summary In this chapter, I specified the transcription process for building an interpreting corpus. The corpus design, particularly with regard to the corpus size and time span, was described. In addition, the processing tools used to organize, clean, and analyze the current corpus were specified. I also enumerated the segmentation, alignment, and annotation processes used to finalize my bilingual parallel CI corpus. Finally, the procedures used to collect the data for the present book were discussed. In the next chapter, I provide a descriptive and qualitative analysis of interpreting processing patterns from the corpus.

References Aixelá, J. F. (1996). Culture-specific items in translation. In R. Alvarez & M. Vidal (Eds.), Translation, power, subversion (pp. 52–78). Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Armstrong, S. (1997). Corpus-based methods for NLP and translation studies. Interpreting, 2(1), 141–162. Bendazzoli, C. (2012). From international conferences to machine-readable corpora and back: An ethno-graphic approach to simultaneous interpreter-mediated communicative event. In F. Straniero Sergio & C. Falbo (Eds.). Breaking ground in corpus-based interpreting studies (pp. 91– 118). Peter Lang. Bührig, K., et al. (2012). The corpus “Interpreting in hospitals”—Possible applications for research and communication trainings. In T. Schmidt & K. Werner (Eds.), Multilingual corpora and multilingual corpus analysis (pp. 305–318). John Benjamins. Cencini, M. (2002). On the importance of an encoding standard for corpus-based interpreting studies. inTRAlinea Special Issue: CULT2K. Chou, I. C., Lei, V. L. C., Li, D., & He, Y. (2016). Translational ethics from a cognitive perspective: A corpus-assisted study on multiple English-Chinese translations. In T. Seruya & J. M. Justo (Eds.), Rereading Schleiermacher: Translation, cognition and culture (pp. 159–173). Springer. Christoffels, I. K., & de Groot, A. M. B. (2005). Simultaneous interpreting: A cognitive perspective. In J. F. Kroll & A. M. B. de Groot (Eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches (pp. 454–479). Oxford University Press. He, Y. (2009). Translating alien sources from and into Chinese: What does the translator do, and why? In X. Luo & Y. He (Eds.), Translating China (pp. 207–232). Multilingual Matters.

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He, Y. (2017). Corpus-assisted approach to cognitive process research on translating and interpreting: Theory, methodology, and practice. In Symposium on corpus-assisted research on cognitive processes of translation, 10–11 June, University of South China, Hengyang, China. Heikki, S. (2007). Translation of proper names in non-fiction texts. Translation Journal, 11(1), 2–11. House, J., Meyer, B. & Schmidt, T. (2012). A corpus of consecutive and simultaneous interpreting. In T. Schmidt & K. Werner (Eds.). Multilingual Corpora and Multilingual Corpus Analysis (pp. 295–304). John Benjamins. Hu, K. (2016). Introducing corpus-based translation studies. Springer. Hu, K. & Tao, Q. (2010). The compilation and application of Chinese-English conference interpreting corpus. Chinese Translators Journal, (5), 49–56. Hu, K. & Zou, S. (2009). The compilation and application of the English-Chinese parallel corpus of Shakespeare’s plays. Foreign Languages Research, (5), 64–71. Li, J. & Li, D. (2010). Corpus-based Interpreting Studies: The state of the art. Foreign Languages of China, 7(5), 100–105. Liu, X., Chang, A. & Li, D. (2019). Alignment in interpreting corpus building: Problems and prospects. Translation Research and Teaching, 2(1), 111–116. Meyer, B. (1998). What transcriptions of authentic discourse can reveal about interpreting. Interpreting, 3(1), 65–83. Moirón, B. V., & Tiedemann, J. (2006). Identifying idiomatic expressions using automatic word-alignment. In Proceedings of the EACL 2006 Workshop on Multi-word expressions in a multilingual context (pp. 33–40). Pearson, J. (1998). Terms in context. John Benjamins. Russo, M. et al. (2012). The European Parliament Interpreting Corpus (EPIC): Implementation and developments. In F. Straniero Sergio & C. Falbo (Eds.). Breaking ground in corpus-based interpreting studies (pp. 53–90). Peter Lang. Sag, I., Baldwin, T., Bond, F., Copestake, A., & Flickinger, D. (2002). Multiword expressions: A pain in the neck for NLP. Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing, 189–206. Schäffner, C. (2004). Metaphor and translation: Some implications of a cognitive approach. Metaphor, 36(7), 1253–1269. Shlesinger, M. (1998). Corpus-based interpreting studies as an offshoot of corpus-based translation studies. Meta: Journal Des traducteurs/Meta: Translators’ Journal, 43(4), 486–493. Thompson, P. (2005). Spoken language corpora. In M. Wynne (Ed.), Developing linguistic corpora: A guide to good practice (pp. 59–70). Oxbow Books. Tohyama, H. et al. CIAIR simultaneous interpretation corpus. In Proceedings of the O-COCOSDA 2004. 2013, 08–15. http://ir.nul.nagoya-u.ac.jp/jspui/handle/2237/15081 Wang, K. (2012). Exploration of corpus translation studies. Shanghai Jiaotong University Press. Yang, C. (2014). Encoding and tagging of interpreting corpus: Taking SIDB as an example. Foreign Studies, 2(4), 76–84. Zanettin, F. (2012). Translation-driven corpora. St. Jerome Pub. Zhang, W. (2013). Linear temporal synchronized transcription: Its application in interpreting corpus construction and researches. Journal of Foreign Languages, (02), 76–84. Zou, B. & Wang, B. (2014). Transcription and annotation of paralinguistic information in interpreting corpora: The status quo, problems and solutions. Shandong Foreign Language Teaching Journal, (04), 17–23.

Chapter 6

Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Source Categories and Grammatical Units

Abstract This chapter investigates the patterns in cognitive processing routes that are related to such internal factors as various source categories and grammatical units in the ST in professional CI. It first presents various categories of CSIs and their definitions, followed by the qualitative and quantitative analyses of the source categories and their corresponding interpreting strategies, as well as the cognitive processing patterns for different CSIs in both C-E and E-C directions. In addition, it specifies the grammatical units from the perspective of language processing and presents specific processing patterns for the PNs in various grammatical units; some examples are also extracted from the bilingual parallel professional CI corpus, such as lexical versus phrasal versus clausal. A summary is provided in the final section. Keywords Patterns of cognitive processing routes · Source categories · Grammatical units

6.1 Introduction In recent years, research on cognitive processing routes has been a hot topic, as mentioned earlier. Its workings seem to be affected by many variables. Previous research has shown that the linguistic features of the stimuli used in the experiments influence the role of cognitive processing routes in translators’ brains (e.g., de Groot, 1993; Lang, Hou, & He, 2018). In the current study, CSIs were selected as an indicator. Therefore, one of the research questions raised is how various categories of CSIs are bilingually processed. More specifically, this chapter explores the processing patterns of various source categories, namely PNs, idiomatic expressions, metaphors, and classic quotations. The focus is also on the investigation of the effect of various grammatical units on the patterns of cognitive processing routes in professional CI. From the perspective of language processing, language expressions can be lexical, or phrasal, or clausal in all languages, including Chinese and English. As can be seen in the previous studies, there are two obvious underexplored aspects. First, most of the experimental research has selected lexical words as the stimuli (e.g., de Groot, 1992; Ferré, Sánchez-Casas, & Guasch, 2006; García, 2014; Guasch et al., 2008) in their experiments, and few have emphasized other grammatical © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 X. Liu, Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4335-4_6

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units, such as phrases and clauses. Second, even though units larger than lexical ones have been investigated in the naturalistic studies (e.g., Chou et al., 2016; Ge & He, 2010), comparisons were not made. Due to these limitations, the current chapter aims to clarify the differences in patterns in the cognitive processing routes among various source categories and in different grammatical units; that is, the lexical, phrasal, and clausal ones. This chapter first specifies various categories of CSIs and the interpreting strategies patterns for different CSIs. Several examples are provided to demonstrate how interpreters address CSIs in various source categories. It then discusses the grammatical units from the perspective of language processing involved in this book using examples of the PNs in various grammatical units. Moreover, CSIs from various source categories and PNs in various grammatical units are presented in terms of the cognitive processing routes based on the self-built corpus data. This will enable us to determine whether the patterns of the various CSIs differ, as well as whether PNs in various grammatical units differ. The chapter concludes with a summary.

6.2 Source Categories According to previous studies, many variables influence the interplay of the cognitive processing routes, such as translation expertise, language proficiency, modes of translation, stimuli in the experiments, and text types (see Chaps. 2 and 4). Therefore, this section aims to investigate the patterns in the various source categories, which refer to various types of CSIs, including PNs, idiomatic expressions, metaphors, and classic quotations. Since the definitions of source categories were discussed in detail in Sect. 5.1.2, the current section will not repeat this information. The following two sections present the qualitative and quantitative analyses of the source categories and their corresponding interpreting strategies, as well as the cognitive processing patterns for different CSIs in both the C-E and in the E-C direction.

6.2.1 Analysis of the Data in the Various Source Categories As mentioned in the previous section, CSIs include four categories in the present study, which are PNs, idiomatic expressions, metaphors, and classic quotations. I will now investigate whether or not there are differences in interpreting patterns among the various source categories in the C-E and in the E-C direction, respectively, in the following two sections.

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Table 6.1 Interpreting patterns—CSIs in CI: C-E Strategies

Interpreters PNs (%)

Metaphors (%)

Idiomatic expressions (%)

Classic quotations (%)

47.38/12.59

3.63/10.52

1.25/7.52

0.51/2.53

Transliteration

53.00/14.09

/

/

/

Transcoding

212.88/56.58

13.88/40.21

0.38/2.29

5/24.83

Paraphrasing

63/16.74%

17.01/49.28

15/90.20

14.63/72.64

376.25/100

34.52/100

16.63/100

20.14/100

Non-verbalization Verbalized

Total

6.2.1.1

C-E Direction

As can be seen in Sect. 5.7.3, CE-PG3 is equal to the mean of all the patterns of individual interpreters in the C-E direction; that is, CE-PG3 = (P1 + P2 + P3 + PG4 + PG5 + PG6 + PG7 + PG8)/8. Table 6.1 displays the breakdown of how various CSIs were interpreted, in aggregate, in the C-E subcorpora. Table 6.1 reveals three different patterns for the various source categories in the C-E direction. More specifically, we can see that (1) (2)

(3)

the first pattern for PNs is transcoding1 (70.67%) > paraphrasing (16.74%) > non-verbalization (12.59%); the second pattern for metaphors is paraphrasing (49.28%) > transcoding (40.21%) > non-verbalization (10.52%) and is the same for classic quotations; that is, paraphrasing (72.64%) > transcoding (24.83%) > non-verbalization (2.53%); and the third pattern, which relates to idiomatic expressions, is paraphrasing (90.20%) > non-verbalization (7.52%) > transcoding (2.29%).

The patterns further indicate that transcoding is the most frequently used interpreting strategy for rendering PNs, while paraphrasing prevails over other interpreting strategies when interpreting metaphors, idiomatic expressions, and classic quotations. In addition, there are slight differences in the use of transcoding and omission in the latter three categories. It can be seen that the source categories do influence how interpreters select interpreting strategies in the interpreting process to some degree. Several examples of each category are analyzed in the following. The first two examples relate to PNs. It must be admitted that transcoding is not the only interpreting strategy for rendering PNs in CI, as omission and paraphrasing are also used, albeit less frequently. As many examples of transcoded PNs will be presented in Sect. 6.3, only two less common examples are analyzed here, namely Example 1 and Example 2. In Example 1, the single word “香港” in Chinese (back translation: Hong Kong) is omitted, while “奥巴马” in Chinese (back translation: 1

As stated earlier, transliteration is transcoding via phonological forms.

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Obama) is paraphrased as “the President” without interpreting his English name in Example 2. Example 1 Omission ST: 香港回归5年多来, < /s> TT: Over the past five years more, < /s> Example 2 Paraphrasing ST: 我一定同奥巴马谈得很好。< /s> TT: that is, I’m sure I’m going to have a wonderful discussion with the President. < /s> The next three examples are metaphors. Interpreting metaphors is quite different from interpreting PNs. No instances of the transliteration strategy were found in the corpus, but omission, paraphrasing, and transcoding were found, as shown in Example 3, Example 4, and Example 5, respectively. As can be seen in Example 3, “攀登” in the Chinese ST has been omitted by the interpreter in the TT. These two Chinese characters put together originally meant climbing by holding a tool. Metaphorically, the word refers to not fearing hardship or danger, or continuing to forge ahead. In Example 4, the Chinese metaphor “担子非常重” (back translation: the load is heavy) is paraphrased as its English counterpart “heavy responsibilities”. “担子” is often closely connected to responsibilities in Chinese. The last example of a metaphor is related to the transcoding strategy, as shown in Example 5. The Chinese sentence “香港是中国的一颗璀璨的明珠” is interpreted almost word by word as “Hong Kong is a bright pearl of China”. Example 3 Omission ST: 勇于攀登, < /s> TT: @ < /s> Example 4 Paraphrasing ST: 应该说担子非常重。< /s> TT: […] [shoulder its heavy responsibilities] < /s> Example 5 Transcoding ST: 香港是中国的一颗璀璨的明珠, < /s> TT: Hong Kong is a bright pearl of China. < /s> Only the following two examples of idiomatic expressions are presented, since the transcoding of idiomatic expressions was rarely seen in the corpus. In Example 6, the fixed expression “坚定不移” in Chinese (back translation: stand firm about something) is rendered using the strategy of omission. Four-character expressions are indicative of highly idiomatic language use in Chinese. However, other expressions like this are approached in different ways; an example is “毋庸讳言” in Example 7, which has been paraphrased as the English sentence “There is no doubt at the moment”.

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Example 6 Omission ST: 保持香港的稳定和繁荣是我们坚定不移 的目 标, < /s> TT: to maintain Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity is our objective < /s> Example 7 Paraphrasing ST: 毋庸讳言, < /s> TT: There is no doubt at the moment < /s> The last two examples presented below indicate how classic quotations were rendered by interpreters in CI involving the C-E direction. In Example 8, we can see that the classic Chinese quotation “动静不失其时” (back translation: don’t lose the chance whether someone takes action or not) has been deleted, probably subconsciously by the interpreter. It may also have been the case that the interpreter did not write it down since it is transient. In Example 9, the interpreter rendered the classic quotation “鞠躬尽瘁” in Chinese as “exert all his efforts and contribute all his best to the country” simply by delivering its meaning. In fact, such Chinese expressions with fixed and unique forms (usually four characters) cannot be interpreted via their forms since no similar forms exist in English. Example 8 Omission ST: “动静不失其时”。< /s> TT: @ < /s> Example 9 Paraphrasing ST: 我都将 “鞠躬尽瘁, < /s> TT: he would exert all his efforts and contribute all his best to the country < /s> An analysis of interpreting strategies in the E-C direction is presented, and some examples are discussed in the next section.

6.2.1.2

The E-C Direction

EC-PG1 is equal to the mean of all patterns of the individual interpreters in the E-C direction; that is, EC-PG1 = (PG9 + PG10)/2. Table 6.2 presents the breakdown of how various CSIs were interpreted, in aggregate, in the E-C subcorpora. Table 6.2 also reveals three patterns for the various source categories in the E-C direction, specifically: (1)

(2)

transcoding (81.32%) > non-verbalization (11.38%) > paraphrasing (7.30%) for PNs and transcoding (41.79%) > non-verbalization (37.31%) > paraphrasing (20.90%) for idiomatic expressions; transcoding (44.26%) > paraphrasing (34.43%) > non-verbalization (21.31%) for metaphors; and

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Table 6.2 Interpreting patterns—CSIs in CI: E-C Strategies

Interpreters

Non-verbalization Verbalized

Total

(3)

PNs (%)

Metaphors (%)

Idiomatic expressions (%)

Classic quotations (%)

33.5/11.38

6.5/21.31

12.5/37.31

0/0.00

Transliteration

61/20.71

Transcoding

178.5/60.61

13.5/44.26

14/41.79

1.5/27.27

Paraphrasing

21.5/7.30

10.5/34.43

7/20.90

4/72.73

294.5/100

30.5/100

33.5/100

5.5/100

paraphrasing (72.73%) > transcoding (27.27%) > non-verbalization (0.00%) for classic quotations.

These three patterns demonstrate that, in the E-C direction, PNs, metaphors, and idiomatic expressions were mainly transcoded, while paraphrasing was the most frequently used strategy when interpreting classic quotations. The patterns for metaphors and idiomatic expressions in the E-C direction differed from those in the C-E direction presented in the previous section. Moreover, it can be seen that the source categories did have an effect on the interpreting strategies employed in the interpreting process, as also evidenced by the previous section. Several examples of each category are analyzed in the subsequent paragraphs. Three examples are presented to show how English PNs were interpreted in Chinese by the interpreter. In Example 10, the American institution “the State Department” was omitted. In Example 11, the PN “Ming Cai” was transliterated back to its original Chinese “蔡明” (Chinese Pinyin: Cai Ming). It is worth noting that this name was borrowed from Chinese Pinyin, but its origin is not the concern of the current research. The concern here is how it was rendered in Chinese in CI. As touched upon previously, paraphrasing was used less commonly, which was also the case for the E-C direction, as evidenced by Example 12. Two PNs, namely “the United States” and “China”, have been paraphrased as one Chinese lexical expression, “两国” (back translation: two countries). Example 10 Omission ST: : it’s an honor to welcome all of you to the State Department. < /s> TT: 诸位好, [ … ] < /s> Example 11 Transliteration ST: And also I’d like to recognize Ming Cai, the talented chief who’s prepared for this delicious lunch for us, using the flavors of Chinese and American cuisine. < /s> TT:

我还要借此表彰厨艺高超的蔡 明厨师, 是他为我们烹制了这餐融中美风味于一体的佳肴。< /s>

6.2 Source Categories

103

Example 12 Paraphrasing ST: Today cooperation between the United States and China is imperative to address the many vaxile challenges we face from countering proliferation to addressing the climate change, to promoting global economic security. < /s> TT: 如今, 我们两国 的合作是解决我们面临的挑战所不可或缺的, 从防扩散到应对气候变化, 到促 进全球经济安全, 都是如此。< /s> The next three examples pertain to metaphors, which are addressed in a similar manner to that of the C-E direction. Transliteration was not found in the corpus, but omission, paraphrasing, and transcoding were found, as shown in Example 13, Example 14, and Example 15, respectively. As can be seen in Example 13, “the path” in the English ST has been omitted by the interpreter in the Chinese TT. The path simply means a road on which road people walk. However, it does not refer to a real road in this case. In Example 14, the English metaphor “powers” has been paraphrased as its Chinese counterpart “大国” (back translation: great countries). The last example indicates that transcoding was also adopted, as shown in Example 15. The English phrase “a critical ingredient” has been interpreted as “一个非常关 键的要素” (back translation: a key element). Example 13 Omission ST: I have great confidence in the interest of both President Hu and Premier Wen to continue on the path of cooperation and mutually beneficial policies. < /s> TT: 我呢, 对胡主席以及温总理感到非常有信心, 我觉得他们肯 定会继续的, 呃, 以符合我们两国共同利益的这种方式, 实施这样的政策, 来继 续我们的合作, < /s> Example 14 Paraphrasing ST: we’re both Pacific powers. < /s> TT: 都是太, 同属太平洋大国 , < /s> Example 15. Transcoding ST: because the world looks to the relationship between China and the United States as a critical ingredient on a whole range of security issues around the world. < /s> TT: 因为全世界呢都拿眼睛放在中国和美国这两个国家之间, 呃, 希望我们两个国家进行的合作是一个非常关键的要素, 有了这个合作才能够实现地区的稳定。< /s> The next three examples pertain to English idiomatic expressions. In Example 16, the English fixed expression “set up” has been omitted. However, other expressions have been addressed using different strategies; for example, “in accordance with” in Example 17 has been paraphrased as “在…的基础上” in Chinese, and “on behalf of” in Example 18 has been transcoded.

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Example 16 Omission ST: Fortunately, the Strategic and Economic Dialogue that we’ve set up provides an excellent forum for us to work through a range of bilateral as well as multilateral issues. < /s> TT: 呃, 那么, 有幸的是呢, 我们通过 战略 与经济对话这样的一个平台, 是非常好的一个平台, 让我们能够就很多的议题 进行双边的、及多边的对话交流和合作。< /s> Example 17 Paraphrasing ST: how we can continue to expand trade and make sure that there is strong mutual understanding about the potential benefits of commerce between our two nations, in accordance with the international rules and norms. < /s> TT: 包括怎么样进一步扩大我们两国之间的贸易, 就是 要确保在国际规格或者的基础上, 我们能继续促进互利的关系 , 从 而进一步发挥我们两国之间商务方面的潜力。< /s> Example 18 Transcoding ST: And let me once again express on behalf of the American people our desire to continue to build a growing friendship and strong relationship between the peoples of China and the United States. < /s> TT: 那我代表美国的人民表, 呃, 来向您表示, 我们非常有意愿希望跟中国来进行, 加强我们的友谊, 并且进一步巩固我们两 国之间的关系。< /s>

6.2.2 Patterns of Cognitive Processing Routes in the Various Source Categories In this section, the cognitive processing patterns for PNs and other CSIs in both the C-E and in the E-C interpreting directions are presented based on the rationale discussed in Chap. 4. Six interpreters performed the tasks in the C-E direction, while there were only two interpreters in the E-C direction. The aim here is to determine which interpreting route predominated for the PNs and other CSIs across the language directions. The patterns are shown in Figs. 6.1 and 6.2. As the two figures above show, two processing patterns were used in both source categories: (1)

(2)

The form-based routes were employed more frequently than were meaningbased routes in some circumstances; for example, C-E PNs: 70.67% versus 16.74%, E-C PNs: 81.32% versus 7.30%, and E-C metaphors: 44.26% versus 34.43%; Meaning-based routes were used more frequently in other circumstances; for example, C-E metaphors: 49.28% versus 40.21%, idiomatic expressions

6.2 Source Categories

105

100.00% 90.00% 80.00% 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Non-verblization PNs Metaphors Idiomatic Expressions Classic Quotations PNs

12.59% 10.52% 7.52% 2.53%

Metaphors

Form-based Routes 70.67% 40.21% 2.29% 24.83%

Idiomatic Expressions

Meaning-based Route 16.74% 49.28% 90.20% 72.64%

Classic Quotations

Fig. 6.1 Cognitive routes—different source categories in CI: C-E

90.00% 80.00% 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Non-verbalization PNs Metaphors Idiomatic Expressions Classic Quotations PNs

Metaphors

11.38% 21.31% 37.31% 0.00%

Form-based Routes 81.32% 44.26% 41.79% 27.27%

Idiomatic Expressions

Meaning-based Route 7.30% 34.43% 20.90% 72.73%

Classic Quotations

Fig. 6.2 Cognitive routes—different source categories in CI: English–Chinese

90.20% versus 2.29%, classic quotations 72.64% versus 24.83%, and E-C classic quotations: 72.73% versus 27.27%. This indicates that the predominant processing route can be either form based or meaning based depending on the various source categories in the professional CI session. As is well known, CSIs are laden with rich source-loaded information, which is foreign or alien to the target readers. Before we attain a better understanding

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6 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Source Categories …

of CSIs, we may first need to understand a translator’s thought system. Chapter 3 provided a detailed discussion of the thought system that stores concepts and norms. More specifically, the concepts in a translator’s brain can be classified according to three types: The first includes those concepts that are universally represented in all languages. For example, the concept of mouth/嘴 can be represented in both English (mouth) and in Chinese (嘴: zui). This poses no difficulties for translators since these universal concepts are represented equivalently in the SL and in the TL. The second type is source-language-specific; in the current context, it is Chinese-specific in CE translations or English-specific in E-C translations. The third type is composed of the concepts that are target-language-specific; thus, they are English-specific in C-E translations and Chinese-specific in E-C translations. The latter two types are called culture-specific concepts; they are not bilingually represented in a translator’s thought system and may thus pose conceptual barriers to the target readers. Extensive conceptual mediation is required when CSIs are interpreted as their TT counterparts. More specifically, the meaning-based route in conceptual mediation would be able to complete the interpreting task, as can be seen in some cases in which the meaning-based route predominated; for example, C-E metaphors: 49.28% versus 40.21%, idiomatic expressions: 90.20% versus 2.29%, classic quotations: 72.64% versus 24.83%, and E-C classic quotations: 72.73% versus 27.27%. Metaphors, idiomatic expressions, and classic quotations were rendered via the meaning-based route. The reasons are twofold. First, these concepts are not bilingually represented and have to be conceptually mediated. Second, the selection of the meaning-based route may have been driven by the interpreters’ conscientious interventions, as were extremely familiar with such important occasions as premiers’ press conferences and bilateral talks between state leaders for communication purpose. Given these circumstances, the interpreters might have opted for the most appropriate choice based on the context (e.g., metaphors and idiomatic expressions). However, this does not mean that form-based routes were not employed, as the two routes are available at the same time (also see Chap. 3). In cognitive terms, due to the system design and automatic operation of the human brain, interpreters subconsciously employ form-based routes when interpreting. That is, if a perfect match is activated in the LTM (e.g., similar forms in the SL and in the TL), there is no need for interpreters to engage in conceptual mediation. Form-based processing routes will take over; more specifically lexical transcoding and structure-routed transfer. Thus, the form-based routes would be used more frequently in bilingual processes such as CI; for example, C-E PNs: 70.67% versus 16.74%, and E-C PNs: 81.32% versus 7.30%. However, form-based processing routes could also be employed when an interpreter does not know how to produce the TT due to a low level of L2 proficiency and thus follows the form of the original text, particularly when the Chinese and English sentence orders are the same (i.e., they are both in the subject–verb– object form), as shown by E-C metaphors: 44.26% versus 34.43%, and idiomatic expressions: 41.79% versus 20.90%. In summary, which route predominates in interpreting depends heavily on the specific cases. Various source categories may be interpreted via different routes. Another factor that this research aims to investigate is grammatical units. To achieve

6.2 Source Categories

107

this, PNs were selected as a window in the current research because PNs are a typical type of language use, and account for the majority of CSIs. PNs and grammatical units are systematically analyzed in detail in the following section.

6.3 Grammatical Units In purely theoretical terms, all expressions can be defined as being lexical, or phrasal, or clausal, be they idiomatic expressions or metaphors. However, this section only discusses PNs because they are most commonly used. PNs mainly refer to personal names, place names, institutional names, titles, and so forth. It is generally agreed that “different categories as well as various contextualizations of proper nouns usually call for different translation strategies” (Al-Hamly & Farghal, 2015: 512); this is supported by the numerous examples in the current CI corpus. The term “categories” here does not simply refer to different types of PNs, such as people’s names. Instead, it refers specifically to grammatical units from the point of language processing. Therefore, the concern here is how the PNs in various grammatical units are rendered during the interpreting process. Based on previous studies (Lang et al., 2018), it is also proposed that the grammatical units of PNs can be classified according to three categories: lexical, phrasal, and clausal. The first category is the lexical one. The lexical category is not difficult to understand. It is argued to be the smallest meaningful unit in a language and is of two types, namely root words and compound words. Taking English as an example, all English words are lexical. However, this is quite different from Chinese, as the smallest unit that is tended to be used in Chinese is characters (Chinese translation: 字, not words as in English). However, we cannot say that all characters are lexical; accordingly, it is more difficult to identify a lexical unit than it is in English. For example, the Chinese character “我” (back translation: I) often functions as the subject of the sentence and it is lexical. Another example is “我们” (back translation: we/us), the plural form of “我” (back translation: I). It has two characters and is also lexical because these two characters cannot be separated from each other. These words, “ 我” and “我们”, are treated as root words. Of course, there are compound words that fall between the lexical and phrasal categories, including such expressions as “国务 院总理 (the Premier of the State Council)”, which are also lexical. In Chinese, there are more compound words than there are phrases, while the opposite is the case in English. The second category is phrasal. A phrasal unit is larger than is a lexical unit and includes both root words and compounds; in other words, we can say that the former consists of the latter. It is easy to identify phrases in English; for example, the expression “the phrases”. Essentially, if an expression consists of two lexical or more words in English, it can be considered to be a phrase, but this is not the case in Chinese in which the symbolic character for a phrase is “的”; for example, “我的 书” (wo de shu: my book).

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The final category is clausal. Although few PNs are clausal, they still require a theoretical discussion. The following sections concern the analysis of the data in various grammatical units.

6.3.1 Analysis of the Data in the Various Grammatical Units All CSIs are classified according to grammatical units: lexical, phrasal, or clausal. They are either interpreted from or into Chinese. Due to the lack of statistical significance of some of the grammatical categories, such as idiomatic expressions and quotations, only the patterns of PNs in both the C-E and in the E-C directions are presented below.

6.3.1.1

Interpreting PNs: C-E Direction

The interpreting patterns for PNs in the C-E direction are presented in this section. All the PNs have been subdivided into three types of grammatical units: lexical, phrasal, and clausal. Combined with the principle that I outlined in the road map in Sect. 5.7.3, Interpreter 1’s pattern was equal to P1, Interpreter 2’s to P2, Interpreter 3’s to P3, Interpreter 4’s to PG4 (=P4 + P5 + P6 + P7), and Interpreter 5’s to PG5 (=P8 + P9 + P10), and so forth. Therefore, CE-PG3 is equal to the mean of all the patterns of the individual interpreters in the C-E direction; that is, CE-PG3 = (P1 + P2 + P3 + PG4 + PG5 + PG6 + PG7 + PG8)/8. As stated previously, there was only one “CE-PG3” for PNs. The PNs are presented below. In the C-E subcorpus, 3010 proper names were tagged, including 2429 root words, 569 compounds, and 13 phrases. These numbers indicate that root words accounted for the majority of PNs. We may observe a difference between the total number of PNs and that in the Table 6.3 because the value I have used here is the mean for all the interpreters in a certain direction or circumstance, as mentioned above. The distribution of the interpreting strategies used to interpret these CSIs is presented in Table 6.3. Table 6.3 Pattern comparison of PNs across various grammatical units C-E Target interpreting strategies

Grammatical units Root words (%)

Non-verbalization Verbalized

Total

Compounds (%)

Phrases (%)

Subtotal (%)

38.75/12.77

8.63/12.13

0/0.00

47.38/12.59

Transliteration

49.38/16.27

3.63/5.10

0/0.00

53.01/14.09

Transcoding

163/53.70

48.50/68.19

1.38/84.66

212.88/56.58

Paraphrasing

52.38/17.26

10.38/14.59

0.25/15.34

63.01/16.74

303.51/100

71.14/100

1.63/100

376.28/100

6.3 Grammatical Units

109

In this table, we can observe the same pattern for PNs across the different grammatical units: (1) (2) (3)

Root words: transcoding2 (69.97%) > paraphrasing (17.26%) > nonverbalization (12.77%); compounds: transcoding (73.29%) > paraphrasing (14.59%) > nonverbalization (12.13%); and phrases: transcoding (84.66%) > paraphrasing (15.34%) > non-verbalization (0.00%).

The overall strategy tendency for PNs in the C-E direction was transcoding (70.67%) > paraphrasing (16.74%) > non-verbalization (12.59%). Clearly, transcoding was the predominant translation strategy for addressing PNs in the various grammatical units. Furthermore, the average percentages of paraphrasing and omission did not differ significantly. The percentage of items interpreted via transcoding varied widely depending on the grammatical unit: root words (69.97%) < compounds (73.29%) < phrases (84.66%). Ii is interesting to note that the more complex the grammatical unit, the more likely it is to be transcoded. Based on the corpus data, it can be said that there are four interpreting strategies for rendering PNs, namely omission,3 transliteration, transcoding, and paraphrasing. Examples of each category of PNs extracted from the corpus in the C-E direction are analyzed in detail in the following paragraphs. The first four examples are all lexical. In Example 19, the Chinese compound word “中央电视台” (back translation: Central Television) has been transcoded as its English counterpart “CCTV”, while the PN “黄红” (Chinese Pinyin: Huang Hong) has been omitted. The reason that the interpreter adopted a transcoding strategy here was simply that the audience was extremely familiar with China Central Television, since most of them were journalists. In fact, “中央电视台” (back translation: Central Television) is short for “中国中央电视台” (back translation: China Central Television). The short form is understandable because there is only one central television network in China. With regard to the omission strategy, the interpreter considered that it was not necessary for audience and the premier of the state council to know the exact name of the journalist, as knowing which media outlet employed the journalist was sufficient. Accordingly, the Chinese name of the journalist was omitted, but his/her affiliation was introduced. In addition, transliteration was probably the most frequently used translation strategy in the interpreting process. In Example 20, the Chinese PN “朱镕基” was interpreted using the Chinese alphabetic system as “Zhu Rongji”. However, there were differences in some cases; for example, the name of place “香港” (back translation: Hong Kong), which was paraphrased as “there”, 2

Transliteration is defined as “transcoding by sound.” Therefore, it is understood as an instance of transcoding. 3 As defined, omission means no translation at all. Specifically, in interpreting, it means the interpreters do not produce verbalizations. In order to differentiate written translation from interpreting, non-verbalizations stand for omission.

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6 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Source Categories …

as illustrated in Example 21. This indicates that Hong Kong had been mentioned previously, and that the audience had the information in mind. Example 19 Omission/Transcoding ST: 我是中央电视台记者黄 红。< /s> TT: I am fromCCTV. < /s> Example 20 Transliteration. ST: 您对上届政府的工作, 以及对朱镕基 总理本人的工作有何评价?< /s> TT: over the past five years, China has accomplished a lot. So I would like to have your comments on the work of the previous government and Premier Zhu Rongji himself. < /s> Example 21 Paraphrasing ST: 我想香港市民一定会很欢迎的。< /s> TT: I think you are most welcome there. < /s> All the PNs abovementioned were expressions of a lexical nature, which means that these expressions cannot be segmented further, and can only be understood and processed as an entity in the interpreters’ brains. In the following examples, the PNs are classified as belonging to the phrasal category: Example 22 Paraphrasing/Omission ST: 我是台湾中天电视台记者许志 平。< /s> TT: I am fromTaiwan. < /s> Example 23 Transcoding ST: 今年是 《 日中和平友好条约》 25周年, < /s> TT: this year marks 25 anniversary of the treaty of peace and friendship between China and Japan. < /s> In Example 22, the Chinese phrase “台湾中天电视台” actually consists of three parts, which are “台湾” (back translation: Taiwan), “中天” (back translation: Zhongtian), and “电视台” (back translation: Television). The interpreter paraphrased it as Taiwan. The reason may have been the same as in the previous example, Example 19, that the precise name of the press outlet is not really important. What is important is where the journalists are from, which is also evidenced by the omission strategy used for rendering “许志平” (Chinese Pinyin: Xu Zhiping). However, for other informative PNs, such as “日中和平友好条约” in Example 23, each part is informative and needs to be interpreted. In this case, it is transcoded as “the treaty of peace

6.3 Grammatical Units

111

and friendship between China and Japan”. Thus, the source information has been delivered accurately to the audience. The abovementioned examples suggest at least two things: First, most of the PNs were verbalized and transcoded, which indicates that the interpreters retained the original flavor of the ST. Second, certain PNs were approached using different strategies. For example, informative names need to be delivered to the audience as fully as possible, while PNs such as people’s names can be omitted to a greater degree. The interpreting patterns for PNs in the E-C direction are introduced in the next section.

6.3.1.2

Interpreting PNs: E-C Direction

I now turn to the patterns observed for PNs in the opposite language direction; that is, E-C. Once again, each PN has been classified according to the type of grammatical unit: lexical, or phrasal, or clausal. The road map revealed that the patterns on interpreting were as follows: Interpreter 7 is equal to PG9 (=P27 + P28 + P29), and Interpreter 8 to PG10 (=P30 + P31 + … + P42). Therefore, EC-PG1 is equal to the mean of all the interpreters in the E-C direction; that is, EC-PG1 = (PG9 + PG10)/2. Only 554 PNs were identified in the E-C direction, which is far fewer than were found in the C-E direction. The interpreting patterns for these PNs are presented in Table 6.4. Two different patterns emerged for interpreting PNs in different grammatical units in professional E-C CI: (1) PNs in root and compound forms: transcoding > non-verbalization > paraphrasing; and. (2) PNs in phrasal forms: transcoding > paraphrasing > non-verbalization. Irrespective of the grammatical unit, Table 6.1 clearly demonstrates that transcoding was the predominant strategy adopted when rendering PNs from English into Chinese; more specifically, root words (85.42%), compounds (71.42%), and phrases (73.62%). Taken together, the interpreting pattern for all the PNs was as follows: transcoding (81.32%) > non-verbalization (11.38%) > paraphrasing Table 6.4 Pattern comparison of PNs in various grammatical units: E-C Target interpreting strategies

Root words (%)

Compounds (%)

Phrases (%)

Subtotal (%)

20/10.23

3/17.14

10.5/12.88

33.5/11.38

Transliteration

60/30.69

0.5/2.86

0.5/0.61

61/20.71

Transcoding

107/54.73

12/68.57

59.5/73.01

178.5/60.61

Paraphrasing

8.5/4.35

2/11.43

11/13.50

21.5/7.30

195.5/100

17.5/100

81.5/100

294.5/100

Non-verbalization Verbalized

Total

Grammatical units

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6 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Source Categories …

(7.30%). In this case, it is safe to say that transcoding also predominated when rendering PNs in the E-C direction. Non-verbalization and paraphrasing were disfavored by interpreters. If we take a closer look at the percentage of transcoded English PNs, it also differed widely according to the grammatical unit, as seen in the previous section: root words (85.42%) > phrases (73.62%) > compounds (71.42%). These numbers reveal that root words in English tend to be transcoded more often than are phrases and compounds, and the latter two are quite similar in terms of the transcoding strategy employed. In the following sections, I present examples of PNs in the E-C direction as follows. Three lexical examples are analyzed first. In Example 24, the English word “American” is transcoded directly as “美国的” in Chinese, while two PNs “China” and “the United States” (the United States is a phrase) are interpreted via the paraphrasing strategy as “两国” (back translation: two countries). In this example, the transcoded interpretation is understandable. In addition, the paraphrased interpretation of the two PNs takes less time which is important because CI is characterized by time constraints. The same is true in Example 25, in which the surname of President Hu Jintao has simply been transliterated into “Hu”, which of course saves much time. In the E-C direction, omission has also been used to render the PNs, as can be seen in Example 26. “China” in the ST has been omitted in the TT during the interpreting process. There are many reasons for such an omission, as discussed in the following sections. Example 24 Paraphrasing/Transcoding ST: And let me once again express on behalf of the American people our desire to continue to build a growing friendship and strong relationship between the peoples of China and the United States. < /s> TT: 那我代表美国的人民表, 呃, 来 向您 表示, 我们非常有意愿希望跟中国来进行, 加强我们的友谊, 并且进一步巩固我 们两国之间的关系。< /s> Example 25 Transliteration ST : just that president Hu’s resolve will lead to a fully market-based currency program < /s> TT: 胡主 席会有决心最终实现全面以市场为基础的一个汇率的机制。< /s> Example 26 Omission ST: how do you justify China’s record < /s> TT: @ < /s> An analysis of examples of rendering the lexical PNs was provided previously. In the following paragraphs, another three examples of rendering the phrasal PNs are presented, namely Example 27, Example 28, and Example 29.

6.3 Grammatical Units

113

Example 27 Omission ST:

that ambassador Huntsman has done an outstanding job as an ambassador for the United States to China. < /s> TT: @ < /s> Example 28 Paraphrasing ST: that there has been an evolution in China, over the last 30 years since the first normalization of relations between the United States and China. < /s> TT: 中国这30年以来, 是不断的 演变的, 自从两国 关系正常化 以来, 也 是不断的演变下去, < /s> Example 29 Transcoding ST: Fortunately, the Strategic and Economic Dialogue that we’ve set up provides an excellent forum for us to work through a range of bilateral as well as multilateral issues. < /s> TT: 呃, 那么, 有幸的是呢, 我们通过战略与经济对 话这样的一个平台, 是非常好的一个平台, 让我们能够就很多的议 题进行双边的、及多边的对话交流和合作。< /s> In Example 27, the phrase “the United States” has been omitted, which is quite different from Examples 24 and 28. In the latter two examples, this expression is combined with “China” and has been paraphrased as its Chinese counterpart “两国” (back translation: two countries). Various interpreting strategies have been employed for the same phrase; thus, different interpretations have been employed. Although this translational phenomenon is worth further discussion, further details will not be provided here as these do not fall within the scope of the current research. In the last example, the interpreter adopted the transcoding strategy to render the English phrase “the Strategic and Economic Dialogue” as “战略与经济对话” in Chinese. Each word in this PN is informative, and thus needed to be interpreted.

6.3.2 Patterns of Cognitive Processing Routes in Various Grammatical Units There are three grammatical subcategories of PNs, namely root words, compounds, and phrasal forms. The tables in Sects. 3.1.1 and 3.1.2 concerning the effects of these grammatical types are presented visually as Figs. 6.3 and 6.4. The statistics in the above figures reveal that the interpreting processing patterns for the various grammatical units were:

114

6 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Source Categories … 90.00% 80.00% 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Non-verbalization Root-words Compounds Phrasal Form

12.77% 12.13% 0.00% Root-words

Form-based Routes 69.97% 73.29% 84.66%

Compounds

Meaning-based Route 17.26% 14.59% 15.34%

Phrasal Form

Fig. 6.3 Cognitive processing routes—PNs in CI: C-E

90.00% 80.00% 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Non-verbalization Root-words Compounds Phrases

10.23% 17.14% 12.88% Root-words

Form-based Routes 85.42% 71.43% 73.62% Compounds

Meaning-based Route 4.35% 11.43% 13.50%

Phrases

Fig. 6.4 Cognitive processing routes—PNs in CI: E-C

(1)

(2)

C-E: root-word form: form-based routes (69.97%) > meaning-based route (17.26%) > non-verbalization (12.77%); compound form: form-based routes (73.29%) > meaning-based route (14.59%) > non-verbalization (12.13%); phrasal forms: form-based routes (84.66%) > meaning-based route (15.34%); and E-C: root-word form: form-based routes (85.42%) > non-verbalization (10.23%) > meaning-based route 4.35%); compound form: form-based routes

6.3 Grammatical Units

115

(71.43%) > non-verbalization (17.14%) > meaning-based route (11.43%); phrasal forms: form-based routes (73.62%) > meaning-based route (13.50%) > non-verbalization (12.88%). When the form-based processing route was analyzed, it was found that the percentage differed significantly among the various grammatical units in C-E interpreting, while the lexical PNs were transcoded more often than were the other two types in E-C interpreting. These patterns have two implications. On one hand, the form-based routes predominate in professional CI in terms of rendering PNs in various grammatical units. On the other hand, these patterns generally suggest that the more complex the grammatical structure, the more likely it is that form-based routes will be employed; thus, the more complex the grammatical structure, the less likely it will be that interpreters will use form-based routes. However, exactly the opposite grammatical effect was found in this study. The reasons may be as follows. First, PNs in both root-word and compound forms can be identified and stored in the memory as lexical items; furthermore, lexical transcoding is the most direct processing route. The target counterpart can be retrieved directly from the mental dictionary in the interpreter’s brain. Moreover, interpreters working on these occasions are trained extensively and are thus at the expert level. That is, professional interpreters have an extensive stock of memorized items in their brains, such as root and compound words. As a result, these items can be activated automatically and retrieved directly from the memory system. Another reason can be attributed to the similar phonological forms in Chinese and English in the current research. The phonological forms can be activated easily with the help of the notes. In this case, it is difficult to determine the influences of the grammatical factors on the interpreting products.

6.4 Summary There are two cognitive processing routes for bilingual transfer in the interpreting process, namely the form-based processing route and the meaning-based processing route, as mentioned in Chaps. 2 and 3. The controversial issue of dominance regarding the workings of these routes has not been addressed in detail in the field of translation studies, although empirical evidence has been found for written translations. In previous studies, the dominant pattern of cognitive processing routes was shown to be related to many variables, such as the text type, translation mode, and the nature of the translated target. However, whether the source categories and the grammatical units have an effect on the interplay of the cognitive processing routes remains unanswered in professional C-E CI. This controversial issue was addressed in this chapter by examining consecutive interpretations in both the C-E and the E-C directions. Specifically, it investigated how various source categories of CSIs were rendered, and how the PNs in lexical

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6 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Source Categories …

compound, or phrasal grammatical units were transferred into their counterparts in English/Chinese. The dominant processing patterns were identified in Sects. 2.2 and 3.2, respectively. Based on the empirical evidence, it is generally agreed that different source categories are interpreted via different cognitive processing routes and, for professional interpreters, grammatical difficulties seem to have little influence on the cognitive processing routes. The form-based route predominated the renderings of PNs in the various grammatical units. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the effects of the source categories and the grammatical units on the processing patterns in CI. However, it must be admitted that the study has some limitations. First, the corpus size needs to be expanded, since few clausal examples were found. Second, only PNs were investigated in the research on the grammatical units. Other indicators, such as metaphors and idiomatic expressions, should be included. Nonetheless, the issue of grammatical units influencing the workings of the cognitive processing routes that may take place in an interpreter’s brain is of significance for TPR specifically and for TS in general.

References Al-Hamly, M., & Farghal, M. (2015). The translation of proper nouns into Arabic English fiction as an example. Babel, 61(4), 511–526. Chou, I. C., Lei, V. L. C., Li, D., & He, Y. (2016). Translational ethics from a cognitive perspective: A corpus-assisted study on multiple English-Chinese translations. In T. Seruya & J. M. Justo (Eds.), Rereading Schleiermacher: Translation, cognition and culture (pp. 159–173). Springer. De Groot, A. M. (1992). Determinants of word translation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18(5), 1001. De Groot, A. M. B. (1993). Word-type effects in bilingual processing tasks: Support for a mixed representational system. In R. Schreuder & B. Weltens (Eds.), The bilingual lexicon (pp. 27–51). John Benjamins. Ferré, P., Sánchez-Casas, R., & Guasch, M. (2006). Can a horse be a donkey? Semantic and form interference effects in translation recognition in early and late proficient and nonproficient Spanish-Catalan bilinguals. Language Learning, 56(4), 571–608. García, A. M. (2014). The interpreter advantage hypothesis: Preliminary data patterns and empirically motivated questions. Translation and Interpreting Studies, 9(2), 219–238. Ge, L., & He, Y. J. (2010). A preliminary study on humor translation based on a Chinese-English bilingual parallel corpus. International Journal of Translation, 22, 77–92. Guasch, M., Sánchez-Casas, R., Ferré, P., & García-Albea, J. E. (2008). Translation performance of beginning, intermediate and proficient Spanish-Catalan bilinguals: Effects of form and semantic relations. The Mental Lexicon, 3(3), 289–308. Lang, Y., Hou, L., & He, Y. (2018). A cognitive study on memory-pairing in simultaneous interpreting. Modern Foreign Languages, 41(6): 840–851.

Chapter 7

Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Settings and Language Directions

Abstract This chapter focuses on the impact of external factors on the interplay of cognitive processing routes in professional CI, such as settings with a focus on multilateral and bilateral settings, and language directions with a specific focus on the C-E and the E-C directions. It first introduces the categories and features of the settings researched in the current book, followed by a close look at the differences in the patterns of cognitive processing routes in terms of rendering CSIs, specifically PNs, metaphors, idiomatic expressions, and classic quotations. The quantitative results from the E-C parallel corpora of CI revealed that there were few differences between the two settings discussed in this chapter. In addition, the C-E and E-C language directions are discussed. In the following sections, renderings of CSIs were selected as the starting point for research into the cognitive processing routes in both the C-E and in the E-C directions, respectively. The statistical results suggested that there were no significant differences in the interpreting patterns regarding the predominant route in these two directions in terms of PNs and classic quotations, while the opposite was found when rendering metaphors and idiomatic expressions. Overall, it was concluded that the questions related to the impact of settings and language directions on cognitive processing routes are complex and complicated in nature, and require further research. Keywords Patterns of cognitive processing routes · Multilateral settings · Bilateral settings · Language directions

7.1 Introduction In the previous chapter, the internal and linguistic factors of interpreting texts, such as the source categories and grammatical units, were explored in terms of their impact on the patterns of cognitive processing routes in professional CI. As mentioned in Chap. 1, interpreting or translation can be viewed as either an event or as an act. If it were an event, it could be situated in the greater sociocultural context, and there would be many factors that could possibly have an effect on interpreters’ cognitive processes. However, these factors have been underexplored thus far. Therefore, such external and non-linguistic factors as settings and language directions have been © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 X. Liu, Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4335-4_7

117

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7 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Settings …

selected to identify whether they influence the interplay of cognitive processing routes. This chapter first specifies the categories and features of the settings researched in the current book, followed by a close examination of the differences in the patterns of cognitive processing routes in two different settings in terms of rendering CSIs, specifically PNs, metaphors, idiomatic expressions, and classic quotations. The quantitative results from the E-C parallel corpora of CI revealed that there were few differences between the two settings discussed in this chapter. In addition, the C-E and E-C language directions are discussed. In the following sections, the renderings of CSIs were selected as the starting point for researching cognitive processing routes in both the C-E and the E-C directions, respectively.

7.2 Bilateral and Multilateral Settings Interpreting is a communicative event that takes place in particular contexts. Without a proper understanding of the context, interpreters are unable to perform the interpreting tasks appropriately. One of the contexts is associated closely with the various settings discussed in this section. Interpreting can take place in difference settings; for example, multilateral and bilateral settings. Thus, the aim is to investigate the effect of multilateral and bilateral settings on the cognitive processing routes in CI. The multilateral setting involves multilateral parties in the interpreting tasks, as can be seen in the press conferences included in the current project. There were at least four parties in these press conferences, including the host speaker, the premier, the interpreter, and more than 100 local and international journalists. A bilateral setting refers to settings in which there are only two parties; for example, the bilateral meetings of leaders from China and the United States, which included the two leaders and an interpreter for each. This topic has been underexplored in the previous literature, particularly with regard to C-E language pair. The question that I pose is whether there are there any differences in the cognitive processing routes in these two different settings. An analysis of the data selected for the current book, supported by several specific examples, is presented in the following sections. The patterns of cognitive processing routes in these two settings are presented and compared in Sect. 2.1.

7.2.1 Analysis of the Data in a Bilateral Setting Versus a Multilateral Setting I will now compare the patterns for CSIs in each interpreting condition. Specifically, two conditions, the C-E bilateral setting and the C-E multilateral conference setting, are compared.

7.2 Bilateral and Multilateral Settings

119

The patterns for each condition are presented in the appendixes; there were five interpreters in the C-E multilateral conference setting and three interpreters in the C-E bilateral setting. The mean of each setting was calculated in order to draw a comparison between the two settings. In other words, from the road map, we can see that the comparison was of CE-PG1 and CE-PG2. CE-PG1 is equal to (P1 + P2 + P3 + PG4 + PG5)/5, while CE-PG2 is equal to (PG6 + PG7 + PG8)/3. Furthermore, four CE-PG1 will be allocated to PNs, idiomatic expressions, classic quotations, and metaphors, respectively.

7.2.1.1

Interpreting PNs

There were approximately 2,413 PNs in the C-E conference setting and 597 in the bilateral talks at various levels, including root words, compounds, and phrases. However, I will include the specific distribution of interpreting strategies at various levels in the appendices due to space limitations, as mentioned in the previous section. In this section, the PNs are combined in each setting. The data in Table 7.1 illustrate that these two settings show the same interpreting pattern; that is, transcoding > paraphrasing > non-verbalization. More specifically, the pattern for the C-E multilateral setting was transcoding (71.40%) > paraphrasing (15.38%) > non-verbalization (13.22), while it was transcoding (67.68%) > paraphrasing (22.28%) > non-verbalization (10.05%) for the C-E bilateral setting. The differences in the percentages for each strategy across the settings do not seem to be significant; for example, non-verbalization (3.17%) and transcoding (3.72%). Again, transcoding was preferred for most of the PNs. Most importantly, the C-E multilateral conference and C-E bilateral settings appear to be functionally the same for interpreters. This finding provides foundational evidence for the directional analysis that is conducted in the next section. A few examples will be presented, as follows: Three examples were extracted from the multilateral settings: see Examples 1, 2, and 3. Example 1 Omission ST: 我是新加坡联合早报驻 北 京的记者 。< /s> Table 7.1 Interpreting patterns—PNs in CI: C-E multilateral and C-E bilateral settings Strategies

Settings CE-PG1 (%)

Non-verbalization Verbalized

Total

CE-PG2 (%)

63.8/13.22

20/10.05

Transliteration

68.6/14.21

27/13.57

Transcoding

276/57.19

107.67/54.11

Paraphrasing

74.2/15.38

44.33/22.28

482.6/100

199/100

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7 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Settings …

TT: I am with the Lianhezaobao of Singapore. < /s> Example 2 Transliteration ST: 一位是屈原的,< /s> TT: And the other is from the ancient poet Qu Yuan: < /s> Example 3 Paraphrasing ST: 中国 必须 坚持 开放 的 政策, < /s> TT: We must always maintain our open policy < /s> In Example 1, the entire Chinese expression “新加坡联合早报驻北京” the proper name “北京” (back translation: Beijing) has been omitted. It can be understood that where the journalist is from or lives is not important. What is important is which newspaper he or she represents when asking the premier questions. The interpreter realized this and probably also omitted the proper name “Beijing” in the TL to save time. However, the case in Example 2 is different. The PN “Quyuan”, which is the name of an extremely famous traditional poet, has not been omitted, but has been transliterated instead; thus, the original information has been preserved and delivered. In most cases, as many scholars have argued interpreters do not have many choices when translating PNs apart from transcoding (transliteration included). In fact, PNs can be paraphrased based on the context. For example, “中国” in Chinese is paraphrased as “we” from the first personal perspective. “We” here refers specifically to the Chinese side in contrast to the foreign countries in the multilateral settings. There were also three examples from the bilateral setting, as shown in Examples 4, 5, and 6. Example 4 Omission ST: 对您在我此次访美中给予的关心和周到的 安排表示衷心的感谢。< /s> TT: thank you for your personal attention and what you did to help prepare and ensure a successful visit for myself. < /s> Example 5 Transliteration ST: 刚才和拜登副总统进 行了大小范围的会谈,< /s> TT: Just now I’ve had a set of large and small talks with Vice PresidentBiden. < /s> Example 6 Paraphrasing ST: 受到了美方的热情的、高规格的接待, < /s> TT: And we have received the warm and extraordinary hospitality from our hosts. < /s>

7.2 Bilateral and Multilateral Settings

121

In Example 4, the Chinese proper name “美” (back translation: America) was omitted. The complete interpretation should have been “ensure a successful visit to America”. In the bilateral setting, the audience is American and the interpretation is understandable without translating the country’s name. In Example 5, the name “拜 登” (back translation: Biden) has been transliterated back to its original English form. When referring to the USA in Example 6, “美方” (back translation: the American side) has been paraphrased as “our host”. As the “host” in this bilateral context refers to the United States, this poses no difficulties to communication between the two parties.

7.2.1.2

Interpreting Metaphors

In total, I found 216 metaphors in the C-E multilateral conference setting and 60 in the C-E bilateral setting. Table 7.2 shows the strategy distribution for metaphors in both settings. Here we can see different patterns for metaphors. On one hand, in the C-E multilateral setting, more than half of the metaphors were paraphrased (52.78%), slightly over one third transcoded (37.50%), and few cases were omitted (9.72%). On the other hand, in the case of the C-E bilateral setting, 50% of the metaphorical items were transcoded, 36.65% paraphrased, and 13.35% non-verbalized. The differences across the interpreting settings are statistically significant for transcoding (12.50%) and paraphrasing (16.13%). Let us first consider the following examples. I extracted six examples (three in each setting) from the corpus. Examples 7–9 were extracted from the multilateral setting. Example 7 shows the omission of a metaphor in Chinese, “低谷” (back translation: the trough). The original text was “recovering from the trough of the international financial crisis”, but “recovering from the international financial crisis” has already delivered the message to the audience even if “the trough” were to be omitted. Another interpreting strategy used to render metaphors is paraphrasing, as shown in Example 8. The Chinese word “出路” (back translation: way out) does not refer to a real road but refers metaphorically to the solution to the problem. However, the Chinese “道路” (back translation: the road) has been transcoded as its English counterpart “the road” in Example 9 which, in fact, does not refer to a real road in the original ST either. Example 7 Omission Table 7.2 Interpreting patterns—Metaphors in CI: C-E multilateral and C-E bilateral settings

Strategies

Settings CE-PG1 (%) CE-PG2 (%)

Non-verbalization Verbalized

Transcoding

4.20/9.72

2.67/13.35

16.20/37.5

10.00/ 50.00

Paraphrasing 22.80/52.78 Total

43.20/100

7.33/36.65 20.00/100

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7 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Settings …

ST: 香港经济现在正在从国际金融危机的低 谷中走出来。< /s> TT: The economy in Hong Kong is gradually recovering from the international financial crisis. < /s> Example 8 Paraphrasing ST: 解决困难唯一的办法、出路和希望在 于我们自己的努力。< /s> TT: In the face of the various difficulties, our only answer, only solution and only hope lie in the efforts of ourselves. < /s> Example 9 Transcoding ST: 今后几年,道路依然不平坦,< /s> TT: The road ahead is not a smooth one. < /s> Another two examples of metaphors in the bilateral setting were selected for analysis. The Chinese lexical expression “复苏” (back translation: revive) was omitted by the interpreter in Example 10, while “登高望远” (back translation: someone can have a wider horizon when he/she climbs higher) in Example 11 was paraphrased as “adopt a long-term perspective”. See the following examples taken from the bilateral settings. Example 10 Omission ST: 无论从呢,我们两国经济的,各自经济的发展,到呢,我们共同 解决这个世界经济的稳步复苏,< /s> TT: our two countries have vast convergence of shared interests from promoting our respective economic growth at home to ensuring the stability of the global economy, < /s> Example 11 Paraphrasing ST: 我们应该登高望远、< /s> TT: We should adopt a long-term perspective, < /s>

7.2.1.3

Interpreting Idiomatic Expressions

Idiomatic expressions also fall under the umbrella of CSIs. Many were observed in the C-E direction (120), but few were observed in the E-C direction (13). Table 7.3 shows that paraphrasing was used more frequently than were any of the other strategies in the C-E multilateral conferences (90.00%) and in the C-E bilateral talks (92.38%). Of note, almost all of the idiomatic expressions were conceptually mediated. This seems reasonable because these expressions cannot be understood by

7.2 Bilateral and Multilateral Settings Table 7.3 Interpreting patterns—idiomatic expressions in CI: C-E multilateral and C-E bilateral settings

123

Strategies

Settings

Non-verbalization

2.00/8.33

0.00/0.00

0.40/1.67

0.33/7.62

CE-PG1 (%) CE-PG2 (%) Verbalized

Transcoding

Paraphrasing 21.60/90.00 Total

24.00/100

4.00/92.38 4.33/100

separating them into their components; their idiomatic meanings arise from the use of the unique combination of their elements. I will now provide several examples from each setting. Two examples from the multilateral setting are analyzed. In Example 12, the Chinese idiomatic expression “一心一意” (back translation: one heart) was omitted by the interpreter in the TT. However, in Example 13, “不骄不躁” (back translation: without being complacent) was transcoded as “guard against rashness and arrogance” in English. Example 12 Omission ST: 一心一意谋发展,< /s> TT: on the development of our country. < /s> Example 13 Transcoding ST: 务必保持谦虚谨慎,不骄不 躁的作风,< /s> TT: to be sure to remain modest and prudent and guard against rashness and arrogance to be sure to live, < /s> There are two examples from the bilateral setting as follows. In Example 14, the idiomatic expression “一元复始” (back translation: starts with one) in Chinese is paraphrased into “at the beginning of the new year”. In example 15, the expression “求同存异” was transcoded. The first two Chinese characters means seeking the common ground while the latter two accepting the differences. Example 14 Paraphrasing ST: 在一元复始的时期来到华盛顿,< /s> TT: to come to Washington […] [at the beginning of the new year]< /s> Example 15 Transcoding ST: 求同存异 , < /s> TT: seek common ground while reserving differences < /s>

124

7.2.1.4

7 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Settings …

Interpreting Classic Quotations

Finally, I will review the data for classic quotations. These are usually culture-specific and require numerous computations when they are rendered in the ST under time pressure. There were 151 quotations in the subcorpus of the C-E multilateral conference setting, and quite few were also found in the C-E bilateral talks. Table 7.4 reveals the same patterns in interpreting strategies for translating Chinese classic quotations into English, namely paraphrasing (72.85%) > transcoding (25.17%) > non-verbalization (1.99%) in multilateral settings and for Chinese translating classic quotations in bilateral settings; that is, paraphrasing (69.97%) > transcoding (20.12%) > non-verbalization (9.91%). The difference between the percentages for transcoding was 5.05%, which is not significant. Two examples of classic quotations in multilateral setting are presented below. In Example 16, the Chinese quotation “山之伤”, which is by a poet who lived in Taiwan, was omitted by the interpreter. In Example 17, the sentence in ancient Chinese “路 漫漫其修远兮” (back translation: the road ahead is long) was paraphrased. The interpreter only delivered its meaning without considering its classic form. Example 16 Omission ST: 山之伤, < /s> TT: You can hear me < /s> Example 17 Paraphrasing ST: “ 路漫漫其修远兮, < /s> TT: “My journey is long and winding, < /s> Three examples of classic quotations in bilateral setting are presented below. In Example 18, the classical quotation “前无古人” has been omitted. This phrase means that there was no person who was as great in ancient times. In Example 19, an old Chinese saying “国之交在于民相亲” (back translation: the relationship between two countries is decided by the amity between people of these two countries) was interpreted via the paraphrasing strategy. However, Example 20 indicates that transcoding is also an interpreting strategy that can be used to render quotations. Example 18 Omission ST: 树立 “前无古人,但后起来者”的典范。< /s> TT: @ < /s> Table 7.4 Interpreting patterns—classic quotations in CI: C-E multilateral and C-E bilateral settings

Strategies

Settings CE-PG1 (%) CE-PG2 (%)

Non-verbalization Verbalized

Transcoding

0.60/1.99

0.33/9.91

7.60/25.17

0.67/20.12

Paraphrasing 22.00/72.85 Total

30.20/100

2.33/69.97 3.33/100

7.2 Bilateral and Multilateral Settings

125

Example 19 Paraphrasing ST: “国之交在于民相亲。” < /s> TT: that there is an old saying in China that a good relationship between the two peoples holds a key to the sound relationship between states. < /s> Example 20 Transcoding ST: “预测未来最好的办法就是去创造未来。” < /s> TT: the best way to predict the future is to create it. < /s>

7.2.2 Patterns of Cognitive Processing Routes in Bilateral Versus Multilateral Settings The patterns of cognitive processing routes for PNs and other CSIs are compared across the C-E multilateral conference and the C-E bilateral talks in the following sections. As I am unaware of any previous that have compared professional consecutive interpretation data across such settings, I was unable to make any specific predictions about the effects the setting may have on the interpreting results. The patterns observed in my corpus are illustrated in the following figure. Figure 7.1 shows that the dominant route was similar across the multilateral and bilateral interpreting settings regardless of the object of study: PNs (71.40% vs. 67.68%), idiomatic expressions (90.00% vs. 92.38%), and classic quotations 92.38% 90.00% 100.00% 90.00% 72.85% 69.97% 80.00% 71.40% 67.68% 70.00% 52.78% 50.00% 60.00% 50.00% 37.50% 36.65% 40.00% 25.17% 15.38% 22.28% 20.12% 30.00% 13.35% 10.05% 9.91% 9.72% 20.00% 8.33% 7.62% 13.22% 1.99% 1.67% 0.00% 10.00% 0.00%

Form-based Routes

Meaning-based Route

Non-verbalization

Fig. 7.1 Cognitive processing routes—PNs and other CSIs in CI: C-E multilateral and C-E bilateral settings

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7 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Settings …

(72.85% vs. 69.97%). However, the meaning-based route (52.78%) predominated for metaphors in multilateral settings, while form-based routes (50.00%) predominated in bilateral settings. It would appear that there is a similar tendency in the data patterns in those two settings, which indicates that the external factors may have little influence on the interplay of cognitive processing routes. This raises the following question: Why do the two settings have almost the same processing patterns? An interpreter’s performance is likely to be influenced by internal and external factors. Settings are external factors. Professional interpreters who have worked at numerous conferences are extremely familiar with both multilateral and bilateral settings. Thus, they concentrate on the interpreting task itself and are not likely to be influenced by the working environment and how many people they have to face. To be obvious, our data patterns have basically corroborated that theoretical prediction, e.g., PNs, idiomatic expressions, and classic quotations. In other words, the processing route of professional interpreters is simply a system design that automatically operates in human’s brain and would not change because of the transfer of the place where the interpreter works or how many people they are going to face. However, it has to be admitted that in rendering metaphors the dominant pattern differs between the two settings. This may be because of the small size of the corpora in bilateral setting. Future research is needed. Still, it is safe to say that these two sets of data are of similar nature, which is foundational for the subsequent analysis of language directions, suggesting that the data patterns in C-E and E-C are comparable. The factor of language direction is explored in the following section.

7.3 Language Direction and Translation Direction This section addresses the impact of language directions on the selection of cognitive processing routes by professional interpreters in Chinese versus English CI. In the literature, many previous empirical and experimental studies have investigated translation directionality in the translation process (e.g., Basnight-Brown & Altarriba, 2007; Ferreira, 2014; Ferreira et al., 2016; Fonseca, 2015; Wang, 2011). There are two translation directions, namely forward translation and back translation. The former refers to translation from the translator’s L1 into his/her L2 while the latter is in the opposite direction from the translator’s L2 to his/her L1 (de Groot, 1992, 1993). The advantages and disadvantages of translation directionality has become a subject of research for translation scholars (see Ferreira, 2013; Pokorn, 2005), as has the cognitive effort involved (Ferreira, 2012; Pavlovi´c & Jensen, 2009). These authors have made significant contributions to understanding how translation processes take place. However, few studies have researched language directions (see the next section for further details), particularly with regard to Chinese and English. Therefore, this section attempts to fill this gap in the research. In this investigation, I aim to answer the following questions related to language directions in Chinese versus English CI:

7.3 Language Direction and Translation Direction

(1) (2)

127

What are the patterns of cognitive processing routes in the C-E and in the E-C directions? Are there any differences in the processing patterns in these two language directions?

In order to answer the abovementioned questions, a corpus-assisted approach was employed, as explained in detail in Chap. 4. The analysis of renderings of CSIs enables us to identify the predominant route in both language directions, as well as to identify their similarities and differences in this regard. This attempt is expected to contribute to not only a large number of corpus-based TS, but also the less researched area in TPR. Interpreters and translators are a special group of competent bilinguals/multilinguals, as they can speak at least two languages competently. Their languages specifically include their mother tongue and a first (or second) foreign language, which are called the L1 and the L2, respectively. Of course, some translators or interpreters may speak a third language (L3), particularly in European countries. However, an L3 is not of concern in this section, as the emphasis is only on translations between the L1 and the L2. Whether translators should translate into their L1 from their L2, or into the L2 from the L1, has attracted tremendous interest among interpreting practitioners and scholars in TS in the past few decades. In other words, which translation direction is appropriate for translators: forward or backward translation? Thus far, the answers have been extremely controversial. In a broader sense, the question posed here is associated with the bilingual memory representation; that is, whether each language is represented separately, or whether both languages share the same representation. Later research has revealed at least two points (de Groot, 1997; Kroll & Stewart, 1994; Potter et al., 1984): (1)

(2)

Representation is of two types, namely conceptual representation and lexical representation. Both languages (or more) share a conceptual representation store with different lexical representations; and the links between two lexical stores or between the lexicon and the conceptual store may possibly be of different strengths.

These ideas later evolved into such bilingual memory representation models as the RHM of bilingual memory representation. Kroll and Stewart (1990) believed that the abovementioned links may cause different difficulties in translating the L1 into the L2 and the L2 into the L1. Campbell (1998, p. 57) also considered that the translation directions would pose different difficulties for translators, as follows: The two activities are in a way mirror images. In translating from a second language, the main difficulty is in comprehending the source text; it is presumably much easier to marshal one’s first language resources to come up with a natural looking target text. In translating into a second language, comprehension of the source text is the easier aspect; the real difficulty is in producing a target text in a language in which composition does not come naturally.

Translation directionality is worth researching because both directions have been noted to create difficulties for translators and interpreters. Thus far, translation directionality has been investigated using such tools as key-logging, eye-tracking, TAPs,

128

7 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Settings …

and corpora by scholars from various backgrounds (e.g., Alves, 2003; García, 2015; Jakobsen, 2003; Pavlovi´c, 2007). There is no doubt that it is currently a hot topic in cognitive studies of translation and interpreting. However, the translation directions seem to differ from the language directions in real interpreting contexts, and language directionality has been underexplored in the previous studies. Furthermore, the translation direction and the language direction have not been differentiated clearly in the literature. The language direction is decided by the translator’s mother tongue. In theory, the directions in translation can be classified according to four categories. The English/Chinese language pair is provided as an example. From the perspective of language direction, there are two directions, Chinese to English and English to Chinese, respectively. When it comes to translation direction, there are also two directions, L1 to L2 and L2 to L1. The four categories are thus L1-L2 and C-E, L1-L2 and E-C, L2-L1 and C-E, and L2-L1 and E-C. As can be seen, the language direction is not always the translation direction. If a translator’s mother tongue is Chinese, the language direction of Chinese to English equals the translation direction of L1 to L2 (Direction 1), while the direction of English to Chinese equals the translation direction of L2 to L1 (Direction 2). If the translator’s mother tongue is English, the case is completely different. The language direction of Chinese to English equals the translation direction of L2 to L1 (Direction 3), while the direction of English to Chinese equals the translation direction of L1 to L2 (Direction 4). Previous studies have investigated more comparisons of Direction 1 and Direction 2, or Direction 3 and Direction 4. In other words, they have focused on translation directionality; that is L1 to L2 and L2 to L1. However, little has been done in terms of researching the same translation direction but different language directions; that is, the comparison between Direction 1 and Direction 4, or Direction 2 and Direction 3. More specifically, the same L1 to L2 direction involves both C-E and E-C language directions, as the current study aimed to study CI. Therefore, there is no so-called translational directionality, but there is language directionality. Due to the specific research conditions, I call the current condition the language direction because it involves C-E and E-C directions, both from the L1 to the L2. In this case, language directionality does exist. The patterns of cognitive processing routes in both C-E and E-C language directions are introduced in the following sections.

7.3.1 Analysis of the Data in C-E Versus E-C Language Directions Few differences were found between the C-E conference data and the C-E speech data in the previous section. These settings seem to be very similar for interpreters; it is the nature of the items in the STs that seem to determine the interpreters’ processing route. I will now investigate whether there are differences between the C-E and

7.3 Language Direction and Translation Direction

129

E-C language directions, when the C-E talks and the C-E conference patterns are combined.

7.3.1.1

Interpreting PNs

The first indicator that I will use in this exploration is PNs. As the whole of Sect. 6.3 was devoted to this category in the corpus, no further details will be given here. Nonetheless, it should be stressed that this section presents the patterns of PNs without further grammatical unit analysis. Table 7.5 displays the breakdown of how PNs were interpreted, in aggregate, in the E-C versus the C-E sub-corpora. Table 7.5 reveals two different patterns for PNs. In the C-E direction (CEPG3), we see transcoding (70.67%) > paraphrasing (16.74%) > non-verbalization (12.59%), whereas in the E-C direction (EC-PG1), we see transcoding (81.32%) > non-verbalization (11.38%) > paraphrasing (7.30%). The patterns reveal that transcoding was the most frequently used interpreting strategy in both directions. However, a 10.65% difference can be found across the language directions. This difference may be attributed to some greater inherent difficulty in rendering CSIs from English into Chinese than from Chinese into English, or it may be attributed to the relative dearth of data in the E-C direction. A 9.44% difference was observed for paraphrasing. Six examples are presented, three from each language direction in the following sections. The following three examples, Examples 21–23, are in the C-E direction. Example 21 Omission ST: 如果我举一个德国的例子,< /s> TT: @ < /s> Example 22 Paraphrasing ST: 而且使外国的企业能够享受同中国企业 一样的公民待遇。< /s> TT: And we will also ensure that foreign businesses operating in China will enjoy national treatment as the local businesses. < /s> Table 7.5 Interpreting patterns—PNs in CI: E-C and C-E Strategies

Interpreters CE-PG3 (%)

EC-PG1 (%)

Non-verbalization

47.38/12.59

33.5/11.38

Transliteration

53.00/14.09

61/20.71

Transcoding

212.88/56.58

178.5/60.61

Paraphrasing

63/16.74

21.5/7.30

376.25/100

294.5/100

Verbalized

Total

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Example 23 Transcoding ST: 香港的这些优势和作用会得到进一步的 发挥。< /s> TT: more role will be given to Hong Kong to elaborate its strength and its role in this process. < /s> As can be seen in Example 21, the Chinese PN “德国” (back translation: Germany) has been omitted. In general, the name of this country should be known to interpreters since they were professionals with considerable experience in this regard; thus, the omission may have been due to the rapid speech rate of the source speaker, meaning that the interpreter was unable to write it down. It could also be the case that the interpreter believed it was not necessary to interpret this name when the journalist was introduced. In Example 22, the paraphrasing strategy was adopted to interpret “中国” (back translation: China) as “the local” in English. In the sentential context, China’s corporations refer specifically to local businesses, in contrast to foreign business corporations. In the last example, Example 23, “香港” (back translation: Hong Kong), a special administrative region of China, is transcoded as its commonly used English counterpart “Hong Kong”. Although it has been transcoded, it does not pose any barriers for the audiences since Hong Kong is well known as a cosmopolitan, international city. The following three examples, Examples 24, 25, and 26, are from the E-C language direction. Example 24 Omission ST:

On visits to China, Michelle and I have experienced the traditions and culture, the cuisine, civilizations of spans of thousands of years. < /s> TT: 在我对贵 国的数次访问中,我体验到了一个有数千年历史的文明古国的 传统,文化以及佳肴。< /s> Example 25 Transliteration/Transcoding ST: Today, in addition to the important work that we’re going to be doing at the Nuclear Security Summit, we’ll have the opportunity to discuss a wide range of issues that are of mutual interest, including the denuclearization of North Korea, situations surrounding climate change, as well as world issues like the situation in Ukraine. < /s> TT: 那么今天除了核安会议之外呢,我们还有机会就范围广 泛的、共同关心的问题进行讨论,包括北朝鲜的 无核 化,还有围绕着气候变化的一些问题,还有包括像乌克 兰局势这种世界性的问题。< /s> Example 26 Paraphrasing ST: that both China and the United States have to do to sustain global economic growth and < /s> TT: 使得我们,确 保我们能够保持经济的增长,< /s>

7.3 Language Direction and Translation Direction

131

Four interpreting strategies were used when translating English PNs in the abovementioned examples. Example 24 shows that the PN Michelle, the name of the speaker’s wife, was omitted during the interpreting process; this may have been because the interpreter did not catch the name due to the rapid delivery of the source information. Other names, such as North Korea and Ukraine in Example 25, were transcoded. These two countries are not usually referenced. It seems to be safer to simply transcode them directly. In some cases, the countries’ names can also be paraphrased, as in Example 26. Both “China” and “the United States” are rendered as a whole as “我们” (back translation: we). The pronoun here refers to both sides in the context. The translation is simple and understandable.

7.3.1.2

Interpreting Metaphors

The second indicator I chose was metaphors. The following figures compare each strategy used for metaphors across the E-C and C-E subcorpora. Based on the statistics presented in Table 7.6, one can see that the pattern for metaphors varied according to the language direction; that is, paraphrasing (49.28%) > transcoding (40.21%) > non-verbalization (10.52%) in the C-E direction, and transcoding (44.26%) > paraphrasing (34.43%) > non-verbalization (21.31%) in the E-C direction. The difference between the directions for transcoding was 4.05% and was even greater for paraphrasing (15.85%). Since many examples have been provided in the previous sections, I will only provide one example of transcoding in the C-E language direction a3nd one example of omission in the E-C language direction, respectively, in Examples 27 and 28. Example 27 Transcoding ST: 但更关注股市市场的健康。< /s> TT: but more importantly I paid more attention to the health of the market. < /s> Example 28 Omission ST: those meetings are bearing fruit. < /s> TT: @ < /s> In Example 27 showing the C-E direction, the Chinese expression “健康” (back translation: health) has been metaphorized. In its original sense, it is often used Table 7.6 Interpreting patterns—metaphors in CI: E-C and C-E Strategies

Language direction CE-PG3 (%)

Non-verbalization Verbalized Total

EC-PG1 (%)

3.63/10.52

6.5/21.31

Transcoding

13.88/40.21

13.5/44.26

Paraphrasing

17.01/49.28

10.5 /34.43

34.52/100

30.5/100

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7 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Settings …

to describe people’s physical bodies. However, in this case, it modifies the stock market. The interpreter transcoded it simply as “the health” in English without further explanation. For the opposite E-C direction, in Example 28 the English metaphor “bear fruit” means someone who produces results in some fields. Of course, this does not really refer to the fruit we eat in our daily lives, but to the result of the meetings between the leaders of two countries. However, it was translated via the omission strategy. What is worth noting here is that English was the interpreter’s mother tongue and Chinese was his foreign language. He may have understood what the expression meant but had no idea about its Chinese counterpart, which probably led to the omission. In the following section, the idiomatic expressions are statistically described and exemplified.

7.3.1.3

Interpreting Idiomatic Expressions

Table 7.7 shows the interpreting strategy for idiomatic expressions as the third indicator in the Chinese to English and in English to Chinese language directions. It is interesting that the table illustrates two completely different patterns for idiomatic expressions. For C-E, we see paraphrasing (90.20%) > non-verbalization (7.52%) > transcoding (2.29%), while for E-C, we see transcoding (41.79%) > nonverbalization (37.31%) > paraphrasing (20.90%). The most important observation is the difference in transcoding in the two directions, which was 39.50%. Two examples of each direction are introduced in the following sections. Example 29 Paraphrasing ST: is to celebrate the incredible accomplishments of the Chinese people, their extraordinary civilization, the multiple areas in which we have to cooperate not only for the sakes of our country, but also for the sakes of the world. < /s> TT: 庆祝中国人民所获得的伟大的成果,它的文秀的文明,在很多 领域,我们还是要必须进行合作,不仅仅是为两 个国 家,也是为了全世界。当然,我认识到,还是有的时候 会存在一些分歧,不过呢,我们应该很诚实的讨论很多一些我们不同关心的问 题。< /s> Example 30 Paraphrasing Table 7.7 Interpreting patterns—idiomatic expressions in CI: E-C and C-E Strategies

Language direction CE-PG3 (%)

Non-verbalization Verbalized Total

EC-PG1 (%)

1.25/7.52

12.5/37.31

Transcoding

0.38/2.29

14/41.79

Paraphrasing

15/90.20

7/20.90

16.63/100

33.5/100

7.3 Language Direction and Translation Direction

133

ST: 许多国家领导人准备打道回府的 时 候,< /s> TT: and leaders of some delegations were even being getting prepared to leave Copenhagen. < /s> As can be seen, idiomatic expressions exist in all language across the world, in addition to Chinese and English, and make languages more culturally specific and native-like. Example 29 presents the English idiomatic expression “for the sake of”; this was paraphrased as “为了”in Chinese, which is not an idiomatic expression. The same translation strategy was also adopted to translate the Chinese idiomatic expression “打道回府” in Example 30, which is usually categorized according to the four-character expressions in Chinese; it means to “direct one’s step toward home” (taking the same route home). In this context, it was paraphrased as “leave Copenhagen”. In fact, it should have been “leave Copenhagen for the home countries” but, due to the time pressure, the interpreter used utterances that were as short as possible, and the translation is understandable.

7.3.1.4

Interpreting Classic Quotations

Classic quotations are analyzed in this final section. This group of items accounted for many of the CSIs in the C-E subcorpus, as shown in Table 7.8. Table 7.8 shows the same interpreting patterns for classic quotations as we have seen previously, namely paraphrasing > transcoding > non-verbalization. Specifically, for C-E, 72.64% of these items were paraphrased, 24.83% were transcoded, and 2.53% were non-verbalized. Similarly, 72.73% of the quotations in English were interpreted by paraphrasing, 27.27% by transcoding, and none were omitted. The difference observed between the language directions was not significant; that is, paraphrasing (0.09%), transcoding (2.44%), and non-verbalization (2.53%). One example is presented below: Example 31 Paraphrasing ST: “ 路漫漫其修远兮, < /s> TT: “My journey is long and winding, < /s> Table 7.8 Interpreting patterns—classic quotations in CI: E-C and C-E Strategies

Language direction CE-PG3 (%)

EC-PG1 (%)

Non-verbalization

0.51/2.53

0/0.00

Transcoding

5/24.83

1.5/27.27

Paraphrasing

14.63/72.64

4/72.73

20.14/100

5.5/100

Verbalized Total

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7 Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Settings …

In Example 31, the classic quotation “路漫漫其修远兮” comes from the poem Lisao written by the famous poet Qu Yuan and means “the road ahead will be long”. In this quotation, the speaker is expressing his determination to accomplish a task despite some difficulties, and this classic quotation has been rendered using the paraphrasing strategy without retaining its original flavor.

7.3.2 Patterns of Cognitive Processing Routes in C-E and E-C Language Directions In this section, I compare the interpreting patterns of PNs and other CSIs in the C-E and E-C directions based on the rationale discussed in the methodology chapter. These patterns are demonstrated in Fig. 7.2. Figure 7.2 provides quantitative evidence of the similarities and differences between the C-E and E-C directions in terms of the dominant route adopted for rendering PNs and other CSIs, as follows: PNs (70.67% versus 81.32%) and classic quotations (72.64% vs. 72.73%) shared a similar tendency across the two language directions, while this differed for metaphors (meaning-based: 49.28% versus form-based: 44.26%), and idiomatic expressions (meaning-based: 90.20% versus form-based: 41.79%). While it is true that, in forward translation, the issue of form-based or meaningbased interpreting has been debated heatedly (see Chap. 2), most of the experimental studies have focused on single words or linguistic units that are slightly larger than words. In addition, the language or translation directionality was not identified clearly. Accordingly, I refer to this effect in this specific case as the language directions. 100.00% 90.20% 81.32% 90.00% 72.73% 72.64% 80.00% 70.67% 70.00% 60.00% 49.28% 44.26% 41.79% 50.00% 40.21% 37.31% 34.43% 40.00% 27.27% 24.83% 21.31% 30.00% 20.90% 16.74% 12.59% 11.38% 20.00% 10.52% 7.52% 7.30% 2.53% 2.29% 10.00% 0.00% 0.00%

Form-based Routes

Meaning-based Route

Non-verbalization

Fig. 7.2 Cognitive processing routes—PNs and other CSIs in CI: C-E versus E-C

7.3 Language Direction and Translation Direction

135

To situate this in the current theoretical context of bilingual processing, the mechanism would still operate to the same extent when interpreters perform the same translation direction in different language directions. For example, the C-E and EC combinations are both in the L1-L2 direction, although the language direction is different. Theoretically, there do not appear to be significant differences in the interpreting patterns in the dominant route in these two directions. Moreover, the general patterns listed above for PNs and classic quotations have provided partial confirmation of this. However, a significant difference in the dominant route was still observed in these two language directions when rendering metaphors and idiomatic expressions, and cannot be ignored in this context. In my opinion, this may be due to the strength of the translation-specific routes. It is assumed that the more frequently and more recently form-based routes are used by a particular interpreter, the more easily they are activated in that interpreter’s brain. In other words, the form-based routes in that interpreter’s brain are stronger than they are in the brains of other interpreters who do not use these routes as often. As has been explained, the interpreters in the C-E direction were Chinese bilinguals with English as their first foreign language, while the interpreters were English bilinguals with Chinese as their first foreign language in the E-C direction. Therefore, in this study, the differences observed may be attributed to the form-based processing route being stronger in English interpreters than in Chinese interpreters. In brief, the C-E lexical structural route (Chinese interpreters) was weaker than the E-C structural route (English interpreters).

7.4 Summary Settings and language directions are two important factors in interpreting processes. In addition, language directionality is different from translation directionality. However, it has previously been underexplored. The present study suggests that there are few differences between the two settings; although language directionality can be observed in the renderings of metaphors and idiomatic expressions in the two language directions, the patterns for rendering PNs and classic quotations are different. It would appear that no conclusion can be reached at this point. More research, particularly experimental and empirical research, needs to be conducted. In this chapter, I focused on the quantitative presentation and a descriptive analysis of the data patterns pertaining to the cognitive processing routes involving bilateral and multilateral settings (Sect. 7.2) and both C-E and E-C language directions (Sect. 7.3). I first introduced the background to this investigation of such external factors as settings and language directionality, followed by an intensive investigation of the differing translation and language directions. Most importantly, I presented the quantitative patterns for the CSIs in both settings and language directions discussed in this chapter.

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References Alves, F. (2003). Triangulating translation: Perspectives in process oriented research. John Benjamins Publishing. Basnight-Brown, D. M. & Altarriba, J. (2007). Differences in semantic and translation priming across languages: The role of language direction and language dominance. Memory and Cognition, 35(5), 953–965. Campbell, S. (1998). Translation into the second language. Longman. De Groot, A. M. (1992). Determinants of word translation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18(5), 1001. De Groot, A. M. B. (1993). Word-type effects in bilingual processing tasks: Support for a mixed representational system. In R. Schreuder & B. Weltens (Eds.), The bilingual lexicon (pp. 27–51). John Benjamins. De Groot, A. M. B. (1997). The cognitive study of translation and interpretation: Three approaches. In J. H. Danks, G. M. Shreve, S. B. Fountain, & M. K. McBeath (Eds.), Cognitive processes in translation and interpreting (pp. 25–56). Sage. Ferreira, A. (2012). Tempo e segmentação no processamento cognitive de tradutores experientes em instâncias de tradução direta e inversa. Revista Lel em (Dis-) curso, 5(2), 57–69. Ferreira, A. (2013). Direcionalidade em tradução: O papel da subcompetência bilíngue em tarefas de tradução L1 e L2 [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Ferreira, A. (2014). Analyzing recursiveness patterns and retrospective protocols of professional translators in L1 and L2 translation tasks. Translation and Interpreting Studies, 9(1), 109–127. Ferreira, A., Schwieter, J. W., Gottardo, A., & Jones, J. (2016). Cognitive effort in direct and inverse translation performance: Insight from eye-tracking technology. Cadernos De Tradução, 36(3), 60–81. Fonseca, N. B. (2015). Directionality in translation: Investigating prototypical patterns in editing procedures. Translation & Interpreting, 7(1), 111–125. García, A. M. (2015). The translating brain: Neuropsychological, behavioral, and electrophysiological explorations. University of Macau. Kroll, J. F., & Stewart, E. (1990, November). Concept mediation in bilingual translation. Paper presented at the 31st Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, New Orleans. Kroll, J. F., & Stewart, E. (1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory & Language, 33, 149–174. Pavlovi´c, N., & Jensen, K. (2009). Eye tracking translation directionality. In A. Pym & A. Perekrestenko (Eds.), Translation research projects 2 (pp. 93–109). Intercultural Studies Group. Pokorn, N. (2005). Challenging the traditional axioms: Translation into a non-mother tongue. Amsterdam, The Netherlands/Philadelphia, PA: Benjamins. Potter, M. C., So, K. F., von Eckardt, B., & Feldman, L. B. (1984). Lexical and conceptual representation in beginning and proficient bilinguals. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior, 23, 23–38. Wang, B. (2011). Translation practices and the issue of directionality in China. Meta, 564, 896–914.

Chapter 8

Conclusions and Future Perspectives

Abstract The present book attempted to investigate the distributional tendency of form-based and meaning-based routes in professional CI involving the C–E and E–C language directions. It specifically investigated the dominant tendency in cognitive processing routes, form-based routes and meaning-based routes in professional CI involving Chinese and English. To achieve this, CSIs, including PNs, metaphors, idiomatic expressions, and classic quotations, were selected as the investigative targets, and the corpus-assisted approach was employed. The analysis revealed numerous patterns in the interpreting data, which were presented in detail in Chaps. 6 and 7. I raised three specific research questions in Chap. 1 to focus the investigation. Therefore, in this chapter, the answers will be provided question by question. After I revisit the research questions, I will return to the theoretical and practical implications derived from the research, followed by limitations of the study and suggestions for future research. Keywords Research conclusions · Research implications · Research limitations

8.1 Summary of the Research and the Findings In the literature search, we may have identified one of the most fundamental controversies regarding interpreting in general, namely whether the end products of interpreting processes, interpreted deliveries, are based mainly on the conceptual representation of the meaning of the ST in the thought system (the meaning-based routes) or rely more on the direct form-based routes between the L1 and the L2 (see Chaps. 1 and 2). In the context of C–E professional CI, the answer to the abovementioned issue is complicated. First, the results for the dominant route for PNs indicated that formbased routes dominated all types of PNs in both the C–E and in the E–C direction. Second, the dominant tendency was mixed for the rendering of other CSIs (such as metaphors, idiomatic expressions, and classic quotations). In the C–E language direction, the meaning-based route predominated for other CSIs, while a tendency toward form-based routes was found in the E–C direction for all the CSIs except for classic quotations. Third, similar interpreting patterns regarding the dominant © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 X. Liu, Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4335-4_8

137

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8 Conclusions and Future Perspectives

route were found across the CE multilateral and CE bilateral settings. However, the meaning-based processing route was mainly used for metaphors in the CE multilateral settings, while the form-based processing route predominated in CE bilateral settings. At this point, it is necessary to return to the controversial issue mentioned previously. Three conclusions have been made based on the findings presented in the previous sections. First, a predominant route pattern does exist. Second, the dominant route differs depending on the circumstances and can be either the formbased processing route or the meaning-based processing route. Third, the dominant tendency may be influenced by such linguistic variables as grammatical complexity and the nature of the source item, the language direction, and such extralinguistic variables as multilateral or bilateral settings. In other words, this corpus-assisted study of translation products to determine the cognitive processing routes cannot offer a decisive and final answer to the central question regarding which processing route predominates in the bilingual brain of a professional CI interpreter. Thus, we may need to consider this issue from a different perspective. In other words, the correct question we should probably ask is how the influence of different variables affects these two processing routes interact with each other, and not which route predominates. However, it needs to be stressed that the conclusions can be considered only valid for the current specific case and context, which obviously has its own limitations (see Sect. 8.3 this chapter). The research findings are presented individually in the following sections.

8.1.1 Cognitive Processing Routes in English Versus Chinese CI The current research project demonstrated that there were two cognitive processing routes that occurred simultaneously in empirical terms, namely form-based routes and meaning-based routes, which are available to professional interpreters at any time at which they are needed when an interpreting task is being performed. In the patterns I identified, the meaning-based routes appeared to also play a role when interpreting PNs and other CSIs, and not the form-based routes alone. However, the role that meaning-based routes played in rendering other CSIs was more obvious than was the role such routes played when rendering PNs. More specifically, the proportion of meaning-based routes is greater when rendering other CSIs than when rendering PNs.

8.1 Summary of the Research and the Findings

139

8.1.2 The Dominant Cognitive Processing Route in English Versus Chinese CI As the data in my study revealed, form-based routes predominated when interpreting PNs in both language directions and when interpreting metaphors and idiomatic expressions from English to Chinese. This conclusion is based on the fact that form-based processing was more common than was the meaning-based route. The rendering of PNs is independent of the C–E and E–C language directions. However, the meaning-based route predominated when Chinese metaphors, idiomatic expressions, and classic quotations were interpreted into English. This appears to indicate that the dominant tendency relies heavily on the different types of CSIs. In the following sections, the dominant tendency is presented in terms of settings and language directions. As discussed in Chap. 7, a similar tendency was observed in Chinese conference settings and in Chinese bilateral talks. A highly tentative conclusion that can be reached is that the interpreting patterns in CI may have little to do with multilateral or bilateral settings since they involve the internal working mechanisms in the interpreters’ brains. In my corpus, the patterns of interpreting in the C–E conference settings were similar to those in the C–E talks. However, I admit that it would be difficult to generalize this conclusion to other settings with different themes, such as medical and court interpreting. The two settings in the current book involved similar topics, and the only difference was in the specific venue in which the interpreting event took place. Therefore, it would have been more convincing if the conclusions above had been drawn by examining two or more different sets of data in terms of settings. With regard to the question of language directions, of interest here is that both directions, C–E and E–C, employed the same translation direction from the L1 to the L2 based on the definition of translational directionality. In line with the current investigation of this special case, one conclusion that may be drawn is that the effect of the language direction seems to rely heavily on the different categories of CSIs in CI if two directions are in the same translation direction, at least if both are L1 to L2. This conclusion was derived from the observation of the interpreting patterns in this study, namely that the C–E and E–C directions have similar patterns concerning the predominant route when rendering PNs and classic quotations. Of course, this means that no significant differences in the general tendencies in these two were found. However, the patterns identified for idiomatic expressions and metaphors differed significantly in each direction. Again, this is far from being conclusive and specific to my case. In addition, the findings cannot be generalized as they relate to only one language pair. In other words, more studies are needed to confirm this conclusion, as I suggest in the following sections. In general, the interpreting patterns for PNs and other CSIs in both language directions and both settings were rendered consistently in their target counterparts: Form-based routes predominated in the interpreting process from English to Chinese, while meaning-based routes predominated in the opposite direction. However, the

140

8 Conclusions and Future Perspectives

proportion in each direction and setting differed. Chapter 7 provided a highly detailed account of these patterns extracted from the corpus, and conclusions were reported.

8.1.3 Factors Affecting the Dominant Route in English Versus Chinese CI From the perspective of bilingual processing, it is argued that form-based routes are the translation-specific route in preference to the underlying meaning-based route, as manifested in linguistic paraphrasing. The interpreting patterns showed that formbased routes predominated when rendering PNs and other CSIs in various circumstances. Processing PNs and other CSIs via form-based routes requires less cognitive effort than does rendering them via meaning-based routes. However, meaning-based routes can be consciously replaced by translators or interpreters, this is less likely to be common practice in interpreting due to the limited time available for accomplishing an interpreting task, unlike translation that allows translators more time. Another point is equally important. Although two cognitive processing routes underpin the interpreting act, a route may vary in terms of its strength in the brains of different interpreters. For example, the form-based route labeled the “cognitive signature” of professional consecutive interpreters may be stronger in some interpreters’ brains. This is understandable because different interpreters are exposed to different domain-specific occasions. In summary, the operations of these routes may also be affected by other linguistic factors, such as different categories of CSIs in the SL, the language direction, translation expertise, and so on.

8.2 Theoretical and Practical Implications The theoretical, empirical, methodological, and pedagogical implications of this study will now be discussed.

8.2.1 Theoretical Implications As mentioned previously, it is difficult to observe the interpreting process directly, particularly the cognitive process, regardless of which advanced technique is employed.1 Thus, scholars in various fields have attempted to model this particular process on either the micro or macro-level from a theoretical perspective. Some of the existing models are Seleskovitch’s (1977) model, Gile’s (2009) effort model, Mackintosh’s (1985) model, Padilla et al.’s (1999) model, Shreve and Diamond’s (1997) 1

For example: EEG/MEG/EYE-TRACKER.

8.2 Theoretical and Practical Implications

141

model, Paradis’s (1994) theoretical framework, and Pöchhacker’s (2016) model. However, two points about these models are worth noting: (1) (2)

Some were built to address specific problems and did not consider the translation process as a whole, for example, Gile’s effort model. Some are simply too abstract. In other words, they pose difficulties in terms of understanding translating or interpreting phenomenon, for example, Seleskovitch’s model.

The current book employed an integrated framework of translating and interpreting as bilingual processing. It is assumed that there are two cognitive processing routes in bilinguals’ brains, namely the form-based processing routes and the meaning-based processing route. Four systems involve the cognitive processes in these routes, which are the thought system, the language faculty, the memory system, and the APS. This has addressed the issue that some of the aforementioned theoretical models have encountered: They are too abstract. Simply speaking, this theory has laid a solid foundation for language processing. Based on the processes consisting of these cognitive routes, the processing economy hypothesis was formulated to regulate them in a more economical way (He, 2019); in other words, the meaning-based processing route requires the most cognitive effort, followed by the form-based processing route. This is in line with the argument posed by Gile (2009), who stated that the cognitive resources (processing capacity) in the brain are limited. In this case, the brain would naturally operate in an economical way. If the resources required for completing a task exceed those that are available in the brain, it is likely that the brain would simply reach cognitive saturation, as a result of which the task would remain unfinished. As was explained, CSIs2 were selected as a window into the interpreting processes in this book. It can be assumed that these items pose conceptual barriers for interpreters because they do not have equivalents in the target system. Thus, all an interpreter can do is to transfer the meaning of the ST into that of the TT via conceptual mediation. In this context, the meaning-based route would prevail. In addition, the empirical evidence provided in this study has partially confirmed this hypothesis; that is, conceptually mediated transfer dominates in the use of the interpreting strategies for rendering metaphors, idiomatic expressions, and classic quotations in the C–E direction. However, when rendering certain types of items such as PNs, transcoding predominates. This tendency corroborates the processing economy hypothesis empirically and has provided theoretical information about the translation-specific routes in professional interpreters’ brains.

2

The reasons for selecting CSIs as the target were presented in Chap. 1.

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8 Conclusions and Future Perspectives

8.2.2 Empirical Implications This study was empirical in nature, and concerned the distributional issue of form-based processing route and meaning-based processing route in CI processes. Although interpreting processes cannot be measured directly, they can be inferred from the interpreting patterns that were extracted from the corpus. That is, it appears that there are possibilities for investigating the distributions demonstrated when rendering a certain category of items in the STs (CSIs in the present work) based on the cognitive processing route that produces the interpretations.

8.2.3 Methodological Implications The current research employed a corpus-assisted approach to TPR, specifically by building a bilingual parallel corpus involving E–C and C–E professional CI. The use of a corpus is, in fact, is not new in general translation studies but is extremely new and innovative in TPR. This approach has implications for the methodologies used in TPR, as follows: The first implication is the availability of TPR methodologies. As has been acknowledged, interpreting processes cannot be observed directly because they take place in the interpreter’s brains. In general, more advanced techniques, such as EEG/MEG/eye-tracker, are beyond the reach of humanities scholars due to cost. However, the corpus-assisted approach offers possibilities in this regard compared to indirect psychophysiological methods. It is even predicted that, in the coming years, the corpus-assisted approach will play an even stronger role. Second, since interpreting processes take place in the human brain, studies should focus on professional interpreters. The current project investigated the performances of highly skilled and experienced professional interpreters, who are often employed by state leaders in the Chinese or US governmental offices and ministries. While some scholars may rightly argue that novice interpreters can also provide insights into interpreting processes and cognition, the question that remains is the quality of the interpreting output. Although it is not the main issue in process research, it is of significance if we infer the process from the product, as in this study, because incorrect interpretations, or zero interpretations,3 may involve different cognitive processes in interpreting. Third, the corpus-assisted approach is always concerned with the issue of representativeness. Two aspects are particularly important, namely the topics and the corpus size. The recordings used to construct the corpus in the present study totaled 28 h. Thus, the corpus was a medium-sized one, and the topics ranged widely, including economics, social issues, political affairs, and the like; thus, it can safely be said that the current corpus was relatively representative. 3

Zero interpretations: Repeat the source item without any processing.

8.2 Theoretical and Practical Implications

143

The final point I would like to make is associated with the specific tagging of a certain feature in the SL. As discussed in Chap. 5, the CSIs in the literature were simply treated as an ordinary linguistic phenomenon. The question was restricted to how they were interpreted descriptively. However, the current project not only considers CSIs to be linguistic problems but also “conceptual barriers” in the cognitive systems of the interpreters. This empirical study revealed that CSIs can be used as a window to find evidence for the interpreting process.

8.2.4 Pedagogical Implications One of the ultimate aims of research is the pedagogical applications. As de Groot (2000) pointed out, translating and interpreting are complex activities “comprising many subskills: perception, listening, and speaking, reading and writing, reasoning and decision making, problem solving, memory, and attention, every single one of these central topics of study in cognitive psychology plays a prominent role in translation and interpreting.” However, the question posed here is how interpreting skills can be acquired. Combined with the current study, CSI teaching method is introduced. That is, in interpreting classes, material containing CSIs could be used as a source in interpreting training through deliberate practice. This would enable a ST-TT paired item to be stored in the long-term memory and activated automatically when the interpreter encounters CSIs or other expressions. Student interpreters lack professional experience, and all their experience is derived from their classes before they encounter real-world scenarios. In other words, their translation-specific routes are too weak to function automatically; as a result, numerous mental resources are required. If the resources needed exceed those available in the brain, interpreting breaks down. In this regard, deliberate practice in interpreting CSIs interpreting would be conducive to making the task automatic.

8.3 Limitations of This Study and Suggestions for Future Research Given the research design of the current study, there were some limitations, as summarized below. Suggestions for future research are also provided. First, this study examines two sources of CI data in conference settings, namely premiers of the State Council of the PRC’s press conferences, and bilateral talks between Sino-US state leaders. These were selected because the interpreters working at these events were professionals, and the recordings were available online. However, other settings may also provide good data for IPR. For example, future research could

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investigate medical and court settings, as these settings may provide more evidence for the issues addressed in this book and may be beneficial for IPR in this regard. Second, although this study aimed to explore the behavior of professional interpreters, student interpreters may also help us understand the investigated issue of form-based and meaning-based routes. As has been explained, the latter (the student interpreters) is much more frequent than is the former (professional interpreters). In future research, a comparison of the interpreting patterns of professional interpreters and student interpreters may also shed some light on the interaction of the cognitive processing routes in interpreters with different levels of expertise. Third, this study focused on the analysis of the linguistic information. However, as I did not analyze the paralinguistic information in the interpreting recordings, it is suggested that future research should include the paralinguistic information, as it is expected to provide a better, more comprehensive, and deeper understanding of how interpreting processes take place. This study’s investigation of the dominant option in terms of form-based processing and meaning-based processing was linked to various lines of research, such as psycholinguistics, neurophysiology, bilingualism, and TS itself. In this case, the perspectives for future studies are threefold: (1)

(2)

(3)

From the theoretical perspective, theories and findings from other research areas could be combined with those from TS to explain the interpreting phenomenon more accurately. From the research perspective, interdisciplinary collaboration will create a more comprehensive and systematic picture of the interaction between the form-based route and the meaning-based route. Many factors need to be taken into account in future research designs, such as the source unit, the topical settings, the translation directions, and the language pairs.

As this book appears to have raised more questions than it answered, the topic is subject to more research. In summary, interpreting processes research, and TPR in general, has received much attention from scholars in various disciplines; for example, cognitive psychology and translation studies. An international conference on translation, interpreting, and cognition has been held at the University of Macau (2014, 2015, 2016), Beijing Foreign Studies University (2017), Renmin University of China (2018), and Southwest University (2019) for the past six consecutive years at the time of writing this book. This annual conference is likely to continue and be attended by other researchers. Cognitive studies of translation and interpreting in general have been investigated for quite a long period, yet we still know little about our black box. The reasons for this may be complicated. Cognitive studies of translating and interpreting are without doubt complex in nature, but also provide many avenues for researchers to explore as a vital and fast-growing field in translation studies. Despite the concerted effort I have invested in this project, there is a great deal that remains unknown. Each individual project has a specific context and emphasis. However, it is critical that each one should advance our knowledge of cognitive

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studies of interpreting and, ultimately, of TS in general. Although some findings have been suggested in this book, they are far from being conclusive. This book, like many others, has not achieved as much as originally intended, or as was hoped at the beginning. In this case, I consider this study to be a branch of a much larger tree. Understanding the entire tree may require the cooperation and collaboration of different researchers from different backgrounds and with diverse areas of expertise in particular. Thus, I hope that this study will serve as a source of research ideas for researchers with similar interests.

References De Groot, A. M. (2000). A complex-skill approach to translation. In S. Tirkkonen-Condit & R. Jääskeläinen (Eds.), Tapping and mapping the processes of translation and interpreting: Outlooks on empirical research (pp. 37–53). John Benjamins. Gile, D. (2009). Basic concepts and models for interpreter and translator training. John Benjamins. He, Y. (2019). Translating and interpreting as bilingual processing: The theoretical framework. In Li. Defeng, V. L. L. Cheng, & He. Yuanjian (Eds.), Researching cognitive processes of translation (pp. 15–48). Springer. Mackintosh, J. (1985). The Kintsch and van Dijk model of discourse comprehension and production applied to the interpretation process. Meta: Journal Des traducteurs/Meta: Translators’ Journal, 30(1), 37–43. Padilla, P., Bajo, M. T., & Padila, F. (1999). Proposal for a cognitive theory of translation and interpreting: A methodology for future empirical research. The Interpreters’ Newsletter, 9, 61–78. Paradis, M. (1994). Toward a neurolinguistic theory of simultaneous translation: The framework. International Journal of Psycholinguistics, 10(3), 319–335. Pöchhacker, F. (2016). Introducing interpreting studies. Routledge. Seleskovitch, D. (1977). Why interpreting is not tantamount to translating languages. The Incorporated Linguist, 16(2), 22–23. Shreve, G. M., & Diamond, B. J. (1997). Cognitive processes in translation and interpreting: Critical issues. In J. H. Danks (Ed.), Cognitive processes in translation and interpreting (pp. 233–265). SAGE.

Appendix A

Information of the Source Materials and Target Deliveries

1.

Chinese Source Speeches of Wen Jiabao’s Press Conferences

ID

Date

Occasion

Source speaker

Interpreters

Duration

PCW 2003

2003.3.18

Wen Jiabao

Interpreter 1

1 h 49 min 51 s

PCW 2004

2004.3.14

Interpreter 2

1 h 47 min 53 s

PCW 2005

2005.3.14

Premier’s press conference, People’s Great Hall, Beijing

Interpreter 3

1 h 56 min 18 s

PCW 2006

2006.3.14

Interpreter 4

2 h 8 min 48 s

PCW 2007

2007.3.16

Interpreter 4

1 h 56 min 22 s

PCW 2008

2008.3.18

Interpreter 4

2 h 39 min 28 s

PCW 2009

2009.3.13

Interpreter 4

2 h 24 min 39 s

PCW 2010

2010.3.14

Interpreter 5

2 h 18 min 39 s

PCW 2011

2011.3.14

Interpreter 5

2 h 41 min 10 s

PCW 2012

2012.3.14

Interpreter 5

3 h 2 min 49 s

Total

2.

22 h 45 min 38 s

Chinese Source Speeches of Bilateral Meetings

ID

Date

BM1

2010.09.23 Bilateral meeting in New York City

Occasion

Speakers

Interpreters

Duration

BM2

2011.01.19 State Arrival in USA

Hu Jintao

Interpreter 4 10 min 17 s

BM3

2011.01.19 Press Conference in USA

Hu Jintao

Interpreter 4 21 min 2 s

BM4

2011.01.19 State luncheon in USA

Hu Jintao

Interpreter 4 11 min 43 s

BM5

2011.01.19 State Dinner in USA

Hu Jintao

Interpreter 4 9 min 42 s

Wen Jiabao Interpreter 5 3 min 50 s

(continued)

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 X. Liu, Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4335-4

147

148

Appendix A: Information of the Source Materials and Target Deliveries

(continued) ID

Date

Speakers

Interpreters

BM6

2011.11.12 Bilateral meeting in Hawaii

Occasion

Hu Jintao

Interpreter 4 4 min 44 s

Duration

BM7

2012.02.14 Bilateral meeting in Washington

Xi Jinping

Interpreter 6 4 min

BM8

2012.02.14 State Department Lunch in USA

Xi Jinping

Interpreter 6 16 min 47 s

BM9

2012.03.26 Bilateral meeting in Seoul

Hu Jintao

Interpreter 6 51 s

BM10 2012.06.19 Bilateral meeting in Mexico

Hu Jintao

Interpreter 4 3 min 31 s

BM11 2012.11.20 Bilateral meeting in Cambodia

Wen Jiabao Interpreter 5 5 min 19 s

BM12 2013.06.07 Deliver of statement in California Xi Jinping

Interpreter 6 6 min 58 s

BM13 2013.06.07 Meeting with the press in California

Xi Jinping

Interpreter 6 19 min 54 s

BM14 2013.09.06 Bilateral meeting at the G20 Summit in Russia

Xi Jinping

Interpreter 6 1 min 1 s

BM15 2014.03.24 Meeting with the Press in Hague

Xi Jinping

Interpreter 6 7 min 30 s

BM16 2015.09.25 The President and the President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China at the State Dinner

Interpreter 6 7 min 59 s

Total

3.

2 h 15 min 58 s

English Source Speeches of Bilateral Meetings

ID

Date

Occasion

Interpreters

Duration

BM1

2010.09.23

Bilateral meeting in New Barack Obama York City

Speakers

Interpreter A

6 min 14 s

BM2

2011.01.19

State Arrival in USA

Barack Obama

Interpreter B

7 min 5 s

BM3

2011.01.19

Press Conference in USA Barack Obama

Interpreter B

30 min 2 s

BM4

2011.01.19

State luncheon in USA

Joe Biden

Interpreter B

10 min 10 s

BM5

2011.01.19

State Dinner in USA

Barack Obama

Interpreter B

7 min 13 s

BM6

2011.11.12

Bilateral meeting in Hawaii

Barack Obama

Interpreter B

4 min 48 s

BM7

2012.02.14

Bilateral meeting in Washington

Barack Obama

Interpreter B

8 min 47 s

BM8

2012.02.14

State Department Lunch in USA

Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden

Interpreter A

20 min 36 s

BM9

2012.03.26

Bilateral meeting in Seoul

Barack Obama

Interpreter B

4 min

BM10

2012.06.19

Bilateral meeting in Mexico

Barack Obama

Interpreter A

3 min 50 s

BM11

2012.11.20

Bilateral meeting in Cambodia

Barack Obama

Interpreter B

2 min 49 s (continued)

Appendix A: Information of the Source Materials and Target Deliveries

149

(continued) ID

Date

Occasion

Speakers

Interpreters

Duration

BM12

2013.06.07

Deliver of statement in California

Barack Obama

Interpreter B

8 min 8 s

BM13

2013.06.07

Meeting with the press in Barack Obama California

Interpreter B

18 min 11 s

BM14

2013.09.06

Bilateral meeting at the G20 Summit in Russia

Barack Obama

Interpreter B

3 min 43 s

BM15

2014.03.24

Meeting with the Press in Barack Obama Hague

Interpreter B

5 min 28 s

BM16

2015.09.25

The President and the President of the People’s Republic of China at the State Dinner

Interpreter A

6 min 54 s

Barack Obama

Total

4.

Example for Transcription: ST in Chinese

2 h 28 min 33 s

150

5.

Appendix A: Information of the Source Materials and Target Deliveries

Example for Transcription: TT in English

Appendix B

Examples for Tagging

1.

Example for Tagging: CSIs in C-E

< speaker Li Zhaoxing speaker > : 女士 们 , 先生 们 , 上午 好 。< /s>

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. < /s>

我们 高兴 的 邀请 到 温家宝 总理 与 中外 记者 见面 , < /s>

Today we are delighted to invite Premier Wen Jiabao to meet Chinese and foreign press, < /s>

并 回答 大家 提问 。< /s>

and take your questions. < /s>

现在 先 请 温 总理 讲话 。< /s>

First, some opening remarks from Premier Wen. < /s>

< speaker Wen Jiabao speaker > : 记 者 朋友们 , 这是 我 在 两 会 之后 最后 一 次 同 大家 见面 了 。< /s>

Friends of the press, this is the last time for me to meet the friends of the press after the NPC and CPPCC sessions. < /s>

我 要 感谢 多年来 记者 朋友们 对 于 中国 改革 和 建设 事业 的 关注 。< /s>

I want to first take this opportunity to express my appreciation for your long standing interest in China’s reform and development. < /s>

今年 可能 是 最 困难 的 一 年 , < /s>

This year may be the most difficult one < /s>

但 也 可能 是 最 有希望 的 一 年 。 but it may also be the most < /s> promising year. < /s> 人民 需要 政府 的 冷静 、 果敢 和 The People need their government 诚信 ; < /s> to be calm, resolute and trustworthy < /s> 政府 需要 人民 的 信任 、 支持 和 帮助 。< /s>

and government needs the people’s trust, support and help. < /s>

面对 国际 金融 危机 和 欧 债 危 机 的 蔓延 、 发展 , < /s>

In the face of deepening international financial crisis and the European debt crisis, < /s>

关键 是 把 我们 自己 的 事情 办 好 。< /s>

what is most important is that we run our own affairs well. < /s>

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 X. Liu, Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4335-4

(continued) 151

152

Appendix B: Examples for Tagging

(continued) < speaker Li Zhaoxing speaker > : 女士 们 , 先生 们 , 上午 好 。< /s>

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. < /s>

我 将 在 最后 一 年 “守 职 而 不 废 , < /s>

In my last year in office, I will not waiver in carrying out my duties < /s>

处 义 而 不 回” , < /s>

and will remain true to my conviction. < /s>

2.

Example for Tagging: CSIs in E-C

: I want to welcome Premier Wen to 国 访问 , < /s> the United States, < /s> and once again say what an outstanding partner he has been over the last 21months < /s>

温 总理 在 过去 呢 , 在 我 [ 做 总统 的 ] 这 21 个 月 里面 一直 是 成为 我们 非常 好 的 一个 合作 伙伴 , < /s>

since I’ve been in office. < /s>

[ … ] < /s>

Along with President Hu, Premier 这个 是 和 胡 主席 共同 的 和 我们 Wen I think has exhibited extraordinary 进行 的 合作 。那 温 总理 呢 , 他 的 工作 当 openness and cooperation with us < /s> 中 是 一直 表现 出 非常 的 坦率 , 而且 是 有 很 强 合作 精神 , < /s> as we try to strengthen the relationship between our two countries, a relationship that is based on cooperation, on mutual interest, on mutual respect. < /s>

这个 有助于 加强 我们 两国 之间 的 合作 , 我们 之间 的 , 经过 共同 的 合作 , 有 共同 的 利益 , 而且 呢 能够 有 相互 的 尊 重 , < /s>

We have worked together on a whole range of issues. < /s>

我们 本着 这样 的 精神 , 在 很多 议 题 上 进行 了 合作 , < /s>

Obviously one of the most important issues has been to deal with financial crisis and the recession < /s>

当然 , 其中 最 重要 的 就是 应对 全球 的 金融 危机 , < /s>

that traveled around the world over the last several years. < /s>

那么 这是 在 过去 的 几 年 里面 存 在 的 问题 , < /s>

In the G20 our cooperation I think 那 这 一个 很 重要 的 议题 , 我们 has been absolutely critical. < /s> 在 20 国 集团 当 中 也 进行 了 合作 。< /s> I should probably actually let somebody translate now. < /s>

@ < /s>

Appendix C

Individual Interpreting Patterns

1.

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Root-word Forms of All Sessions by Interpreter 4 in CI: Chinese–English Conference

Target translating strategies

Patterns P4 (%)

P5 (%)

P6 (%)

P7 (%)

Non-verbalization

12/5.85

21/13.04

31/18.02

16/8.47

Verbalized

Transliteration

30/14.63

23/14.29

47/27.33

21/11.11

Transcoding

134/65.37

90/55.90

73/42.44

124/65.61

Paraphrasing

29/14.15

27/16.77

21/12.21

28/14.81

205/100

161/100

172/100

189/100

Total

2.

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Compound Form of All Sessions by Interpreter 4 in CI: Chinese–English Conference

Target translating strategies

Patterns P4 (%)

P5 (%)

P6 (%)

P7 (%)

Non-verbalization

4/12.12

2/6.67

8/14.04

6/8.11

Verbalized

Transliteration

1/3.03

4/13.33

1/1.75

11/14.86

Transcoding

22/66.67

21/70.00

42/73.68

47/63.51

Paraphrasing

6/18.18

3/10.00

6/10.53

10/13.51

33/100

30/100

57/100

74/100

Total

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 X. Liu, Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4335-4

153

154

3.

Appendix C: Individual Interpreting Patterns

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Phrasal Form of All Sessions by Interpreter 4 in CI: Chinese–English Conference

Target translating strategies

Patterns P6 (%)

Verbalized

Transcoding

1/100

Total

4.

1/100

An Interpreting Pattern for Metaphors of All Sessions by Interpreter 4 in CI: Chinese–English Conference

Target translating strategies

Patterns P4 (%)

P5 (%)

P6 (%)

P7 (%)

Non-verbalization

4/14.81

2/9.52

0/0.00

0/0.00

Verbalized

Transcoding

10/37.04

12/57.14

3/23.08

4/44.44

Paraphrasing

13/48.15

7/33.33

10/76.92

5/55.56

27/100

21/100

13/100

9/100

Total

5.

An Interpreting Pattern for Historical-Text Quotations of All Sessions by Interpreter 4 in CI: Chinese–English Conference

Target translating strategies

Patterns P4 (%)

P5 (%)

P6 (%)

P7 (%)

Verbalized

Transcoding

4/40.00

5/38.46

7/38.89

1/12.50

Paraphrasing

6/60.00

8/61.54

11/61.11

7/87.50

10/100

13/100

18/100

8/100

Total

6.

An Interpreting Pattern for Idiomatic Expressions of All Sessions by Interpreter 4 in CI: Chinese–English Conference

Target translating strategies Verbalized Total

Patterns P4 (%)

P5 (%)

P6 (%)

P7 (%)

Transcoding

0/0.00

1/9.09

0/0.00

1/14.29

Paraphrasing

9/100.00

10/90.91

8/100.00

6/85.71

9/100

11/100

8/100.00

7/100

Appendix C: Individual Interpreting Patterns

7.

155

An Interpreting Pattern for Chinese Ideological and Economical Expressions of All Sessions by Interpreter 4 in CI: Chinese–English Conference (2009)

Target translating strategies

Patterns P4 (%)

P5 (%)

P6 (%)

P7 (%)

Non-verbalization

0/0.00

9/12.86

8/11.43

2/5.13

Verbalized

Transcoding

53/69.74

38/54.29

45/64.29

31/79.49

Paraphrasing

23/30.26

23/32.86

17/24.29

6/15.38

76/100

70/100

70/100

39/100

Total

8.

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Root-word Form of All Sessions by Interpreter 5 in CI: Chinese–English Conference

Target translating strategies

Patterns P8 (%)

Non-verbalization Verbalized

P10 (%)

23/10.41

24/16.33

27/14.44

Transliteration

36/16.29

17/11.56

36/19.25

Transcoding

135/61.09

83/56.46

98/52.41

Paraphrasing

27/12.22

23/15.65

26/13.90

221/100

147/100

187/100

Total

9.

P9 (%)

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Compound Form of All Sessions by Interpreter 5 in CI: Chinese–English Conference

Target translating strategies

Patterns P8 (%)

P9 (%)

P10 (%)

Non-verbalization

4/13.33

7/15.22

4/7.27

Transliteration

5/16.67

1/2.17

3/5.45

Transcoding

17/56.67

27/58.70

37/67.27

Paraphrasing

4/13.33

11/23.91

11/20.00

30/100

46/100

55/100

Verbalized

Total

156

Appendix C: Individual Interpreting Patterns

10.

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Phrasal Form by Interpreter 5 in CI: Chinese–English Conference

Target translating strategies

Patterns P8 (%)

Verbalized

Transcoding

5/100

Total

11.

5/100

An Interpreting Pattern for Metaphors of All Sessions by Interpreter 5 in CI: Chinese–English Conference

Target translating strategies

Patterns P8 (%)

P9 (%)

P10 (%)

Non-verbalization

3/15.00

2/8.33

3/15.79

Transcoding

5/25.00

15/62.50

7/36.84

Paraphrasing

12/60.00

7/29.17

9/47.37

20/100

24/100

19/100

Verbalized Total

12.

An Interpreting Pattern for Historical-text Quotations of All Sessions by Interpreter 5 in CI: Chinese–English Conference

Target translating strategies

Patterns P8 (%)

P9 (%

P10 (%

Non-verbalization

1/7.14

0/0.00

0/0.00

Transcoding

2/14.29

0/0.00

0/0.00

Paraphrasing

11/78.57

10/100

14/100

14/100

10/100

14/100

Verbalized Total

13.

An Interpreting Pattern for Idiomatic Expressions of All Sessions by Interpreter 5 in CI: Chinese–English Conference

Target translating strategies

Patterns P8 (%)

P9 (%)

P10 (%)

Non-verbalization

0/0.00

2/13.33

2/11.76

11/100

13/86.67

15/88.24

11/100

15/100

17/100

Verbalized Total

Paraphrasing

Appendix C: Individual Interpreting Patterns

14.

157

An Interpreting Pattern for Chinese Ideological and Economical Expressions of All Sessions by Interpreter 5 in CI: Chinese–English Conference

Target translating strategies

Patterns P8 (%)

Non-verbalization Verbalized

P10 (%)

3/8.33

5/5.43

3/4.35

Transcoding

18/50.00

49/53.26

46/66.67

Paraphrasing

15/41.67

38/41.30

20/28.99

36/100

92/100

69/100

Total

15.

P9 (%)

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Root-word Forms of All Sessions by Interpreter 4 in CI: Chinese–English Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P19 (%)

P20 (%)

P21 (%)

P22 (%)

P23 (%)

P24 (%)

Non-verbalization

5/11.63

8/14.04

4/7.27

5/10

1/5.56

1/6.25

Verbalized

Transliteration

3/6.98

6/10.53

10/18.18

5/10

1/5.56

2/12.50

Transcoding

15/34.88

20/35.09

26/47.27

31/62

14/77.78

8/50.00

Paraphrasing

20/46.51

23/40.35

15/27.27

9/18

2/11.11

5/31.25

43/100

57/100

55/100

50/100

18/100

16/100

Total

16.

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Compound Form of All Sessions by Interpreter 4 in CI: Chinese–English Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P19 (%)

P20 (%)

P21 (%)

P22 (%)

P23 (%)

Verbalized

2/100

5/100

8/100

4/100

2/100

2/100

5/100

8/100

4/100

2/100

Transcoding

Total

17.

An Interpreting Pattern for Metaphors of All Sessions by Interpreter 4 in CI: Chinese–English Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P19 (%)

P20 (%)

P21 (%)

P22 (%)

P23 (%)

Non-verbalization

0/0.00

0/0.00

1/20

0/0.00

0/0.00

Verbalized

Transcoding

2/40

1/33.33

4/80

2/66.67

0/0.00

Paraphrasing

3/60

2/66.67

0/0.00

1/33.33

2/100

5/100

3/100

5/100

3/100

2/100

Total

158

Appendix C: Individual Interpreting Patterns

18.

An Interpreting Pattern for Historical-text Quotations by Interpreter 4 in CI: Chinese–English Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P20 (%)

Verbalized

Paraphrasing

1/100

Total

19.

1/100

An Interpreting Pattern for Idiomatic Expressions of All Sessions by Interpreter 4 in CI: Chinese–English Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P19 (%)

P21 (%)

P22 (%)

Verbalized

Transcoding

1/50

0/0.00

0/0.00

Paraphrasing

1/50

3/100

1/100

2/100

3/100

1/100

Total

20.

An Interpreting Pattern for Chinese Ideological and Economical Expressions of All Sessions by Interpreter 4 in CI: Chinese–English Talks

Target translating strategies Verbalized

P19 (%)

P20 (%)

P21 (%)

P22 (%)

Transcoding

7/87.5

1/100

2/100

3/100

Paraphrasing

1/12.5

0/0.00

0/0.00

0/0.00

8/100

1/100

2/100

3/100

Total

21.

Patterns

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Root-word Forms of All Sessions by Interpreter 5 in CI: Chinese–English Talks

Target translating strategies Verbalized

Total

Patterns P25 (%)

P26 (%)

Transliteration

7/33.33

2/20

Transcoding

7/33.33

8/80

Paraphrasing

7/33.33

0/0.00

21/100

10/100

Appendix C: Individual Interpreting Patterns

22.

159

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Compound Forms by Interpreter 5 in CI: Chinese–English Talks (BMCE11)

Target translating strategies

Patterns P26 (%)

Verbalized

Transcoding

3/100

Total

23.

3/100

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Root-word Form of All Sessions by Interpreter 6 in CI: Chinese–English Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P11 (%)

P12 (%)

P13 (%)

P14 (%)

P15 (%)

P16 (%)

P17 (%)

P18 (%)

1/4.55

6/8.70

1/20

4/15.38

8/11.76

0/0.00 7/17.95

6/15

Verbalized Transliteration 7/31.82 14/20.29 1/20

3/11.54

9/13.24

0/0.00 8/20.51

3/7.5

Non-verbalization Transcoding Paraphrasing Total

24.

6/27.27 41/59.42 2/40

18/69.23 36/52.94 2/100

8/36.36 8/11.59

1/20

1/3.85

22/100

5/100 26/100

69/100

15/38.46 24/60

15/22.06 0/0.00 9/23.08

7/17.5

68/100

40/100

2/100

39/100

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Compound Form of All Sessions by Interpreter 6 in CI: Chinese–English Talks

Target translating strategies Patterns P11 (%)

P12 (%)

P13 (%)

P15 (%)

P17 (%)

P18 (%)

Non-verbalization

0/0.00

2/14.29

1/50

0/0.00

0/0.00

0/0.00

Verbalized

Transcoding

2/66.67

11/78.57

1/50

7/87.5

1/100

4/100

Paraphrasing

1/33.33

1/7.14

0/0.00

1/12.5

0/0.00

0/0.00

3/100

14/100

2/100

8/100

1/100

4/100

Total

25.

An Interpreting Pattern for Metaphors of All Sessions by Interpreter 6 in CI: Chinese–English Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P12

P14

P15

P17

P18 (%)

Non-verbalization

1/7.69

1/14.29

5/31.25

0/0.00

0/0.00

Verbalized

Transcoding

5/38.46

3/42.86

9/56.25

1/50

3/75

Paraphrasing

7/53.85

3/42.86

2/12.50

1/50

1/25

13/100

7/100

16/100

2/100

4/100

Total

160

Appendix C: Individual Interpreting Patterns

26.

An Interpreting Pattern for Historical-text Quotations of All Sessions by Interpreter 6 in CI: Chinese–English Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P12 (%)

P18 (%)

Non-verbalization

1/16.67

0/0.00

Transcoding

1/16.67

1/33.33

Paraphrasing

4/66.67

2/66.67

6/100

3/100

Verbalized Total

27.

An Interpreting Pattern for Idiomatic Expressions of All Sessions by Interpreter 6 in CI: Chinese–English Talks

Target translating strategies Verbalized

Patterns

Paraphrasing

Total

28.

P12 (%)

P15 (%)

3/100

4/100

3/100

4/100

An Interpreting Pattern for Chinese Ideological and Economical Expressions of All Sessions by Interpreter 6 in CI: Chinese–English Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P11 (%)

P12 (%)

P14 (%)

P15 (%)

P17 (%)

Non-verbalization

0/0.00

1/8.33

0/0.00

2/15.38

0/0.00

Verbalized

4/100

11/91.67

1/100

11/84.62

6/100

4/100

12/100

1/100

13/100

6/100

Transcoding

Total

29.

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Root-word Form of All Sessions by Interpreter 7 in CI: English–Chinese Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P27 (%)

P28 (%)

P29 (%)

Non-verbalization

0/0.00

5/9.62

0/0.00

Transliteration

6/35.29

14/26.92

3/50.00

Transcoding

10/58.82

29/55.77

2/33.33

Paraphrasing

1/5.88

4/7.69

1/16.67

17/100

52/100

6/100

Verbalized

Total

Appendix C: Individual Interpreting Patterns

30.

161

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Compound Forms of All Sessions by Interpreter 7 in CI: English–Chinese Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P27 (%)

P28 (%)

Non-verbalization

1/25

2/28.57

Transcoding

3/75

3/42.86

Paraphrasing

0/0.00

2/28.57

4/100

7/100

Verbalized Total

31.

An Interpreting Pattern for Metaphors of All Sessions by Interpreter 7 in CI: English–Chinese Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P27 (%)

Non-verbalization Verbalized

P29 (%)

1/50

1/12.5

0/0.00

Transcoding

1/50

2/25

1/50

Paraphrasing

0/0.00

5/62.5

1/50

2/100

8/100

2/100

Total

32.

P28 (%)

An Interpreting Pattern for Historical-text Expressions by Interpreter 7 in CI: English–Chinese Talks (BMEC8)

Target translating strategies

Patterns P28 (%)

Verbalized

Paraphrasing

1/100

Total

33.

1/100

An Interpreting Pattern for Idiomatic Expressions of All Sessions by Interpreter 7 in CI: English–Chinese Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P27 (%)

Non-verbalization Verbalized Total

P28 (%)

P29 (%)

4/50

0/0.00

2/66.67

Transcoding

2/25

1/50

1/33.33

Paraphrasing

2/25

1/50

0/0.00

8/100

2/100

3/100

162

Appendix C: Individual Interpreting Patterns

34.

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Root-word Form of All Sessions by Interpreter 8 in CI: English–Chinese Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P30 P31 P32 P33 P34 P35 P36 P37 P38 P39 P40 P41 P42

Non-verbalization

0

17

1

1

0

1

5

0

2

2

1

3

Verbalized Transliteration 8

16

13

8

8

8

2

4

8

12

2

4

4

43

21

9

9

13

1

7

13

23

3

13

9

Transcoding Paraphrasing Total

35.

9 1

3

2

1

1

1

0

0

1

0

0

1

0

18

79

37

19

18

23

8

11

24

37

6

16

20

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Root-word Forms of All Sessions by Interpreter 8 in CI: English–Chinese Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P31

P34

P35

P36

P38

P39

Non-verbalization

1

1

1

0

0

0

Verbalized

Transliteration

0

0

0

0

1

0

Transcoding

5

4

1

2

0

6

Paraphrasing

1

0

1

0

0

0

7

5

3

2

1

6

Total

36.

2

An Interpreting Pattern for Metaphors of All Sessions by Interpreter 8 in CI: English–Chinese Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns P30 P31 P32 P33 P35 P36 P37 P38 P39 P40 P41 P42

Non-verbalization

0

0

2

1

2

1

1

1

3

0

0

0

Verbalized Transcoding

1

7

0

0

2

0

0

1

4

1

0

7

Paraphrasing 0

3

2

0

0

0

0

2

4

1

3

0

10

4

1

4

1

1

4

11

2

3

7

Total

1

Appendix C: Individual Interpreting Patterns

37.

163

An Interpreting Pattern for Idiomatic Expressions of All Sessions by Interpreter 8 in CI: English–Chinese Talks

Target translating strategies

Patterns

Non-verbalization

0

14

0

1

0

1

1

0

1

0

1

0

Verbalized Transcoding

4

7

1

1

2

1

1

1

2

0

3

1

Paraphrasing 1

5

0

0

0

0

2

0

2

1

0

0

26

1

2

2

2

4

1

5

1

4

1

Total

38.

P30 P31 P32 P33 P34 P35 P36 P38 P39 P40 P41 P42

5

An Interpreting Pattern for Proper Names in Various Form in CI: Chinese–English Conferences Versus Chinese–English Talks

Strategies

Patterns interpreters Root words (A)

Compounds (B)

Phrases (C)

CE-PG1 (%)

CE-PG2 (%)

CE-PG1 (%)

CE-PG2 (%)

CE-PG1 (%)

CE-PG2 (%)

Non-verbalization

50.6/13.41

19/10.54

13.2/12.87

1/5.36

0/0.00

0/0.00

Verbalized

Transliteration

62.8/16.64

27/14.97

5.8/5.65

0/0.00

0/0.00

0/0.00

Transcoding

206.2/54.64

91/50.46

67.6/65.89

16.67/89.29

2.2/84.62

0/0.00

Paraphrasing

57.8/15.32

43.33/24.03

16/15.59

1/5.36

0.4/15.38

0/0.00

377.4/100

180.33/100

102.6/100

18.67/100

2.6/100

0/0.00

Total