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Predicting Fluency With Language Proficiency, Working Memory, and Directionality in Simultaneous Interpreting

Simultaneous interpreting (SI) is a complex bilingual verbal activity that poses great challenges for working memory (WM) and language proficiency. Fluency is one of the crucial indicators in evaluating SI quality, the violation of which is characterized by disfluency indicators such as interruption...

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Autores principales: Lin, Yumeng, Lv, Qianxi, Liang, Junying
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6110880/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30186213
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01543
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author Lin, Yumeng
Lv, Qianxi
Liang, Junying
author_facet Lin, Yumeng
Lv, Qianxi
Liang, Junying
author_sort Lin, Yumeng
collection PubMed
description Simultaneous interpreting (SI) is a complex bilingual verbal activity that poses great challenges for working memory (WM) and language proficiency. Fluency is one of the crucial indicators in evaluating SI quality, the violation of which is characterized by disfluency indicators such as interruptions, hesitations, repetitions, corrections, and blanks. To uncover factors underlying fluency in SI, 22 interpreting students performed a battery of tasks to test their language proficiency and WM. Two SI tasks, both from Chinese to English and from English to Chinese, were also conducted, and fluency was evaluated according to the five indicators. Two factors (language proficiency and WM) and the five objectively measured disfluency indicators were then used as input for a regression analysis in both directions to model factors underlying fluency in SI performance. The results reveal that, with fluency measured as a whole, WM and directionality yield a significant effect on fluency, and that WM is the only variable that predicts fluency in both directions, accounting for 50 and 51% of the variation in the occurrence of disfluencies in Chinese–English and English–Chinese interpreting, respectively. The findings clarify for the first time the role of language proficiency, WM, and directionality upon fluency in SI, indicating the critical role of WM capability as compared with language skills in fluent production. The research also supports the position that, for interpreting students, interpreting performance tends to be more fluent in the non-native to native language direction.
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spelling pubmed-61108802018-09-05 Predicting Fluency With Language Proficiency, Working Memory, and Directionality in Simultaneous Interpreting Lin, Yumeng Lv, Qianxi Liang, Junying Front Psychol Psychology Simultaneous interpreting (SI) is a complex bilingual verbal activity that poses great challenges for working memory (WM) and language proficiency. Fluency is one of the crucial indicators in evaluating SI quality, the violation of which is characterized by disfluency indicators such as interruptions, hesitations, repetitions, corrections, and blanks. To uncover factors underlying fluency in SI, 22 interpreting students performed a battery of tasks to test their language proficiency and WM. Two SI tasks, both from Chinese to English and from English to Chinese, were also conducted, and fluency was evaluated according to the five indicators. Two factors (language proficiency and WM) and the five objectively measured disfluency indicators were then used as input for a regression analysis in both directions to model factors underlying fluency in SI performance. The results reveal that, with fluency measured as a whole, WM and directionality yield a significant effect on fluency, and that WM is the only variable that predicts fluency in both directions, accounting for 50 and 51% of the variation in the occurrence of disfluencies in Chinese–English and English–Chinese interpreting, respectively. The findings clarify for the first time the role of language proficiency, WM, and directionality upon fluency in SI, indicating the critical role of WM capability as compared with language skills in fluent production. The research also supports the position that, for interpreting students, interpreting performance tends to be more fluent in the non-native to native language direction. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-08-21 /pmc/articles/PMC6110880/ /pubmed/30186213 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01543 Text en Copyright © 2018 Lin, Lv and Liang. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Lin, Yumeng
Lv, Qianxi
Liang, Junying
Predicting Fluency With Language Proficiency, Working Memory, and Directionality in Simultaneous Interpreting
title Predicting Fluency With Language Proficiency, Working Memory, and Directionality in Simultaneous Interpreting
title_full Predicting Fluency With Language Proficiency, Working Memory, and Directionality in Simultaneous Interpreting
title_fullStr Predicting Fluency With Language Proficiency, Working Memory, and Directionality in Simultaneous Interpreting
title_full_unstemmed Predicting Fluency With Language Proficiency, Working Memory, and Directionality in Simultaneous Interpreting
title_short Predicting Fluency With Language Proficiency, Working Memory, and Directionality in Simultaneous Interpreting
title_sort predicting fluency with language proficiency, working memory, and directionality in simultaneous interpreting
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6110880/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30186213
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01543
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