Relationship Between Cognitive Ability And Consecutive Interpreting Competence

Study on the components of interpreting competence (IC) is rather a late start. Derived from the combination of foreign language aptitude study and study on the components of translation competence, the interpreting competence includes a number of subcompetences.However, no previous study has adequately dealt with the differences of those subcompetences in terms of their importance to IC, the various challenges of improving those subcompetences in interpreting training, and the correlation between cognitive ability (CA) and interpreting performance.Based on the literature review, this paper first proposes a model of IC.Then it explores the cognitive psychological basis of CA followed by four research questions to address areas that have not been discussed in literature:1) What are the differences of those subcompetences in terms of their importance to IC, and is CA itself an important component of IC?2) What are the challenges of improving those subcompetences in interpreting training, and is CA difficult to improve?3) Is the identification of CA variance in candidates helpful in interpreter selection?4) Does CA variance have predictive value to the effect of consecutive interpreting study?The study took a combined use of quantitative methods and qualitative methods.To address the first two research questions, a questionnaire was employed. The research participants mainly included three groups of people who were of different degrees related to interpreting activities, namely professional interpreters, interpreting teachers and students of Master of Interpreting. A5-point Likert scale was applied to the items of the questionnaire in order to quantitatively measure the attitudes of the above-mentioned three groups. To address the third research question, the data of Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) was administered to compare the CA variances of students of Master of Translation (MT) and students of Master of Interpreting (MI) among China’s MTI institutions. To address the fourth research question, a consecutive interpreting (CI) test was designed, in line with the WCST test, to examine the relationship between CI and CA.The study employed both probability sampling and non-probability sampling, and the representativeness of sample size and sample coverage was much higher than that of the previous studies. The respondents of the questionnaire included31professional interpreters from three different agencies,48interpreting teachers from20universities in15provinces, and140MI students from16universities in10provinces. To compare the CA variances of MT and MI students, the WCST data of71MT students and65MI students from six classes of three universities were collected. To explore the correlation between CI and CA,54MI students from three classes of three universities took the CI test.The results of the study were as follows.1) Among the subcompetences of IC listed in the order of decreasing importance, viz., language competence, psychological endurance, cognitive ability, practical ability, encyclopedic knowledge, interpreting skills, physiological endurance, professional ethics, communicative competence, cooperative ability, public speaking skills, and search-tool-use competence, cognitive ability was a fairly important one.2) Among the subcompetences of IC listed in the order of decreasing difficulty in interpreting training, viz., psychological endurance, cognitive ability, practical ability, language competence, interpreting skills, physiological endurance, communicative competence, encyclopedic knowledge, public speaking skills, cooperative ability, search-tool-use ability and professional ethics, cognitive ability was fairely hard to improve.3) CA variance is helpful in interpreter selection. The results showed that the CA levels of MI students in all three participating universities were significantly higher than those of the MT students, which proves that CA variance is helpful in distinguishing MI and MT students.4) CA variance has predictive value in CI study. The results showed that the CA levels of MI students in three universities were positively correlated with their respective CI scores, which illustrates that those students with higher CA levels are more likely to make greater progress in CI training than those with lower CA levels and CA variance has predictive value in CI study.The contributions of the study to interpreting theory and practice are manifested in three aspects.1) The study, for the first time, differentiates the importance and improvement difficulty of twelve IC subcompetences in practice, and it helps improve the IC system, and makes the emphasis of interpreting teaching more clear and scientific, avoiding waste of resources and energy due to lack of understanding of the differences of those subcompetences. As a result, teaching efficacy will be improved.2) The nero-psychological basis of cognitive ability is explored from a cross-disciplinary respective and the underpinnings of cognitive ability to IC are explained as well, which expands interpreting theory.3) Cognitive ability is, for the first time, quantitatively measured by WCST, a psychological measurement tool and it is demonstrated that cognitive ability is positively correlated with interpreting study, thus providing a new perspective in the selection of potential interpreters.