A Study On Factors Affecting Quality Evaluation In Consecutive Interpreting:A Case Of Chinese Interpreting Contests

Interpreting is one of the most challenging skills in language use,and interpreting contest puts even higher demands on contestants because it is not only a performance of bilingual capability for those contestants,but also a comprehensive display of their interpreting skills and coping tactics.Therefore,interpreting contest can be mentally and intellectually challenging for contestants on the one hand,while it provides us with a valuable source for research on the other.Unfortunately,due to the fact that a large amount of transcription,data processing,linguistic and paralinguistic phenomenon labeling,and data analysis are involved in the research on interpreting contest,there were few studies focusing on this subject matter previously.The present research aims to conduct a comprehensive study on the quality assessment of consecutive interpreting by using the on-site interpreting performance of the contestants in the third and fourth All China Interpreting Contests and the fourth All China Interpreting Contest Hubei Provincial Contest.And for this aim,the author has transcribed and labeled the linguistic and paralinguistic information of the interpreting products,and all together more than 70,000 words of 124 consecutive interpreting passages have been transcribed.The methods of description and statistical analysis are used to examine the content,form and delivery of the interpreting.Within these three parameters,the author focuses on 11 specific factors,namely percentage of correctly interpreted information units,percentage of misinterpreted information units,and percentage of lost information units,coherence,language usage,speech rate,filler,silent pause,repetition,self-correction,and eye contact.Meanwhile,by using interpreting proficiency level(high level national contestants vs.average level provincial contestants),interpreting directionality(English-Chinese vs.Chinese-English),and different assessment agents(expert judges vs.non-expert judges)as three dimensions,the author endeavors to compare the group differences across those dimensions in the above-mentioned 11 factors in an effort to analyze the correlation between interpreting quality and 11 specific factors,and explore the cognitive reasons behind the correlation and its implications for the consecutive interpreting quality assessment and interpreting teaching.The study finds that:1)Out of the 11 factors,there are 8 factors with significant differences between the high-level and average-level contestant groups.They are ordered as:percentage of correctly interpreted information units>eye contact>repetition>percentage of lost information units>cohesion>silent pause>filler>percentage of misinterpreted information units.2)There are 5 factors with significant differences between English-Chinese and Chinese-English interpreting ordered as:language usage problem>percentage of correctly interpreted information units>percentage of lost information units>percentage of misinterpreted information units>repetition.3)The factors that affect the scoring of expert judges are ordered as:percentage of correctly interpreted information units>percentage of misinterpreted information units>percentage of lost information units>language usage problem.And the factors affecting non-expert judges are ordered as:percentage of correctly interpreted information units>silent pause>percentage of misinterpreted information units>cohesion>language usage problem>percentage of lost information units>eye contact.4)9 factors have significant correlations with the interpreting quality:percentage of correctly interpreted information units>percentage of lost information units>rate of speech>percentage of misinterpreted information units>cohesion>silent pause>eye contact>repetition>filler.In terms of content,the author examines three factors,namely,percentage of correctly interpreted information units,misinterpreted information units and lost information units.This study comes to the conclusion that correctly interpreted information rate of the high-level contestants is significantly higher than that of the average-level,while the former’s percentage of misinterpreted information units and lost information units are significantly lower than the latter,and for all the contestants,their correctly interpreted information rate of Chinese-English interpreting is generally much higher than the English-Chinese interpreting,and the percentage of misinterpreted information units and lost information units for Chinese-English interpreting are significantly lower than that of English-Chinese.Problem triggers for misinterpretation or information loss include but are not limited to:numbers,proper nouns,intensive source language information,passive vocabulary,complex sentence structure,speaker’s speed,pronunciation or accent,low availability of mental effort,etc.In terms of linguistic forms,the author examines two factors:cohesion and language use.This study finds that contestants have more problems with Chinese-English interpreting in linguistic forms.The types of language use errors include but are not limited to:inappropriate word choice,tense/modal error,sentence structure problem,improper preposition,inconsistent singular and plural form,misuse of part of speech,inconsistent subject and verb form,inappropriate collocation,inappropriate use of personal indicator,semantic repetition,slip of tongue,etc.The language use problems in English-Chinese interpreting include,but are not limited to,inappropriate collocation,semantic repetition,inappropriate sentence structure,improper word choice,inappropriate register,improper personal indicator,etc.In addition,there are significant differences between the high-level contestants and the average-level contestants when it comes to interpretation of proper nouns,interpretation of culture-loaded word,word selection and collocation,expression diversity,flexible use of conjunctions,language conciseness,proper use of the register,encyclopedic knowledge etc.In terms of the delivery of the target language,the author examines six factors,namely speech rate,filler,silent pause,repetition,self-correction and eye contact.The study finds that there are statistically significant differences in speech rate,filler,silent pause for more than 0.6 seconds,repetition,and eye contact between the high level contestants and the average level contestants,and for English to Chinese and Chinese to English interpreting,the contestants had significant differences in repetition and silent pause between 0.4 and 0.6 second.Based on description of linguistic and non-linguistic factors in interpretation contest corpus,study of the correlation between specific factors and the quality of interpretation,discussion of the statistical results,and analysis of the underlying reasons behind those statistical differences,this study aims to improve the reliability and effectiveness of the existing interpretation quality assessment,and endeavor to present relevant factors that should be emphasized in the process of interpretation teaching,compilation of interpretation textbooks and interpretation testing.