The Relationship Between Simultaneous Interpreting And Working Memory In The Case Of Concurrent Litening And Speaking

Simultaneous interpreting is an unique form of language processing which involvesmassive cognitive resources and huge metal effort. This process features not only thetransformation between two languages but a complex of understanding and cognition oftwo cultures. Research on the working memory of simultaneous interpreting can furtherhelp us better understand the cognitive process of interpreting and its psychologicalprocess behind interpreting. Literature shows that simultaneous interpreting demands morecognitive resources than other language processes. On one hand, there is no direct access tothe “black box” of cognitive process. On the other hand, literature on this topic is confinedto personal experiences; little empirical research can be found especially in China. That iswhy this dissertation combines psychology to develop the research.In cognitive psychology, working memory is introduced to explore people’s onlinecognitive capacity. It is a resource-restrained mechanism. In a cognitive task, workingmemory can both store and process information. Learning and language processing alldepend on working memory. Based on that, this dissertation improves the method andfurther investigates the working memory of English to Chinese simultaneous interpreting.Besides, latest research on working memory about attentional control remains anotherinterest of this dissertation.This dissertation consists of five chapters, namely introduction, body part(threechapters) and conclusion.Chapter one starts with the development of simultaneous interpreting, why thisdissertation focuses on the relationship of working memory and simultaneous interpreting.Definitions of simultaneous interpreting and working memory and the research values arealso contained in this chapter.Chapter two reviews the relevant literature which is also the theoretical basis of thisdissertation. It includes Baddeley&Hitch’s model of working memory, Engle’s attentionalcontrol and Gile’s effort model. Apart from that, empirical research on this topic is alsoreviewed. The gap between domestic researchers and overseas researchers can be easily observed. Therefore the author raises the question of how the interpreters’ workingmemory works when doing concurrent listening and speaking. What is on earth therelationship between working memory and simultaneous interpreting? Is the attentionalcontrol one of the factors of the delivery of simultaneous interpreting?Chapter three conducts the whole experiment which includes all the pre-tests of thematerials and pilot test. This experiment strictly follows the requirements of empiricalresearch and unfolds reliability test, readability test, difficulty test and interpretability test.The ultimate subjects include15professional interpreters,5student interpreters and18student translators. Survey and questionnaire are used as well.Chapter four analyses all the data with the help of SPSS statistically. Correlation andlinear regression are the main elements of the whole analysis. And survey andquestionnaire are sorted.Chapter five sums up the analysis and attempts at a conclusion for the dissertation.The performance of interpreters’ working memory of concurrent listening and speaking isone of the factors of the performance of interpreters’ simultaneous interpreting. But theinfluence of the working memory is limited. The present research shows that there is littlerelation between attentional control and the performance of simultaneous interpreting. Atthe end, this chapter also details the limitation of the research and proposes future studies.