The Influence Of Directionality On The Information Processing Mode

This study takes the serial processing concept and the parallel processing concept in interpreting as the background.It combines consecutive interpreting experiments and recognition memory test in psycholinguistics to explore the influence of directionality in English to Chinese and Chinese to English interpreting on information processing through empirical researchIn order to achieve the above research purposes,this study proposes the following three questions:1.Do student interpreters adopt the same information processing method in Chinese-English and English-Chinese consecutive interpreting?If not,what kind of information processing method do they adopt respectively?2.Is there correlation between information processing method and the quality of the consecutive interpreting output?3.What is the influence of information processing method on the quality of consecutive interpreting output?In order to answer the above questions,this study mainly uses questionnaires and experimental methods.The experimental subjects of this study are 50 English and Chinese unbalanced bilingual interpreters who are students in a foreign language university.In this research,the research method of recognizing memory in psycholinguistics is used to investigate the interpreter’s memory after interpreting---form-based or meaning-based.According to parallel and serial processing,parallel processing can be seen as a kind of form-based information processing,while serial processing can be seen as a kind of meaning-based.By comparing the recognition memory score of the paraphrased sentences,the information processing method in two directions can be distinguished.The paraphrased sentences are sentences changed in meaning and sentences changed in form but with the same meaning as the original sentences.If the recognition memory score of paraphrased sentences changed in form is higher,then the information processing is biased towards parallel processing;if the recognition memory score of paraphrased sentences changed in meaning is higher,then the information processing is biased towards serial processing.The author quantitatively analyzed the results of the questionnaires and the subjects’ audio recordings,and conducted a qualitative analysis of the notes.The data are analyzed by using SPSSThis paper draws the following conclusions:From the perspective of interpreting directions,the information processing of English-Chinese direction is biased towards parallel processing,and the information processing of Chinese-English direction is biased towards serial processing.From the perspective of interpreting quality,the information processing method of parallel processing has a correlation with the interpreting quality.The information processing method of serial processing doesn’t have a correlation with the interpreting quality.In addition,the quality of interpreting in parallel processing is higher than that of serial processing.