A Correlation Study Of L2 Proficiency And Fluency Of Consecutive Interpreting From The Perspective Of Bilingual Mental Lexicon

This paper is a descriptive empirical study of the correlation between L2 (English in this case) proficiency and CI (consecutive interpreting) fluency from the perspective of bilingual mental lexicon. The aim of the study is to reveal how the representation pattern of bilinguals' mental lexicon differs at different L2 proficiency levels, and hereinafter how it influences the fluency of bilingual's interpreting performance.On the basis of the three commonly acknowledged models of bilingual mental lexical representation (independent representation model, word association model and concept mediation model), the author adapted the models by introducing the process of interpreting as another variable at different levels of L2 proficiency. The hypothesis of the study was that CI fluency had a correlation with L2 proficiency in the way that with the increase of L2 proficiency, bilingual mental lexical representation became more mature and developed, and CI performance would be more fluent.The subjects in this study were 15 trainees from the English Immersion Camp, 15 university sophomores, 10 grade one graduate students, and 5 bilinguals who have a bachelor degree or above with overseas educational background. The subjects represented three levels of L2 proficiency—the low, the intermediate and the high level. To avoid the influence of interpreting skills factor, all subjects chosen had not accepted interpreting training before the experiment. The instruments included a bilingual word association test and a consecutive interpreting test from Chinese to English. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of data revealed the following major findings:1. Bilingual mental lexical representation is developing throughout the L2 learning process with the increase of the L2 proficiency. As English learners' L2 proficiency increases, it develops from independent representation to word association representation and up to concept mediation representation.2. L2 proficiency has a significant correlation with the CI fluency. The higher level of L2 proficiency, the more fluent the subjects perform in interpreting.3. With the increase of L2 proficiency, the bilingual mental lexical representation is more and more developed, and the CI fluency is increased at the same time.The above findings were discussed from the perspective of cognitive processes involved in different L2 lexical acquisition phases in the foreign language classroom setting and interpreting training. Finally, implications for teaching and L2 vocabulary acquisition were examined, and recommendations for future research in the related study were also proposed.