Expertise in simultaneous interpreting: A working memory analysis

In this study, the construct of working memory was used as a theoretical framework to investigate the task of simultaneous interpreting, an oral form of translation that involves concurrent listening, speaking, and output monitoring. Addressed was whether interpreters of different levels of expertise performed differently in simultaneous interpreting, a domain task, and in a general non-domain task that also used working memory resources for both the storage and processing of information. Professional and student interpreters' performance in simultaneous interpreting from English into Mandarin was compared and judged by two scoring methods, a holistic rating and the scoring of meaning units correctly interpreted. Participants' performance in a non-domain working memory task was measured by using the listening span test developed by Daneman and Carpenter (1980). Performance in the domain task of simultaneous interpreting was investigated by, first, a comparison of participants' performance in interpreting the more important and less important meaning units in the source speech; and second, by their performance in interpreting sentences that were specifically designed to demand attention to be switched from interpreting a previous sentence.; Results indicated that expertise in simultaneous interpreting was not related to how working memory worked in a general non-domain task but rather to the specific skills interpreters acquire in a domain task. When compared to student interpreters, professional interpreters demonstrated a better ability in selecting the more important information to interpret, in monitoring their interpretation output, and better efficiency in allocating working memory resources among concurrent tasks in simultaneous interpreting. There was evidence to suggest that a possibly greater portion of attention allocated to output monitoring by professional interpreters might have caused their performance to suffer under difficult situations despite a more efficient functioning of their working memory.; This study was a first attempt to examine the involvement of specific domain-specific skills in simultaneous interpreting and to see how these skills were related to expertise development. It differs from previous studies in its intention to distinguish how working memory operations could differ in domain versus non-domain tasks.