Predictive Validity Of Retelling Across Languages In Aptitude Testing For Interpreting

With the professionalization of interpreting and the society's growing demand for professional conference interpreters,the role of interpreter training is gaining increasing momentum.As the gatekeeper for screening qualified interpreter trainees,aptitude testing for interpreting has therefore increasingly garnered the attention of the scholars as well as practitioners in the field of interpreting.Aptitude for interpreting refers to the abilities,skills and personality traits of the candidates' deemed necessary for and reliable predicators of successful interpreter training.However,interpreting scholars still hold divergent views of what constitutes the most desirable aptitude test with a high level of validity and reliability.Some scholars argue that aptitude testing for interpreting should test the candidates on their"interpreter-related skills"(Tryuk,2002),"interpreter readiness"(Angelleli,2007)and"teachability"(Keiser,1965a,1965b)rather than their "technical skills"(Setton&Dawrant,2016)whereas others believe that testing on the candidates' "acquired skills"(Sunnari,2002)should be its primary focus.According to Setton and Dawrant(2016),retelling across languages is the aptitude test most widely adopted at the major interpreter training schools and institutions across the world,capable of testing the candidates on their linguistic proficiency,memory,cognitive and communicative abilities.In contrast,a survey by Xing(2015)on the aptitude tests in the 20 major Chinese interpreter training institutions reveals that testing the candidates on their actual consecutive interpreting skills remains at the core of the aptitude testing for interpreting.And retelling across languages just accounts for no more than 15 percent of all the types of aptitude testing for interpreting.In light of this,efforts to design an efficient aptitude test for interpreting so as to select qualified interpreter trainees have become not only "a practical necessity" but also "an ethical requirement"(Pochhacker,2014).Considering the theoretical and practical discrepancies over aptitude testing for interpreting,this dissertation investigates the predictive validity of retelling across languages through a longitudinal study of 52 interpreter trainees at four major interpreting training schools in China.The research aims to answer the following questions:1)What abilities does retelling across languages test the candidates on?2)Are the candidates' performances on retelling correlated with their performances on the subsequent consecutive test?3)To what extent does each of the four assessment parameters for retelling predict the candidates' subsequent performances on consecutive interpreting test?.In order to answer the above-mentioned research questions,this study first explores the constructs of retelling across languages by building itself on the literature in interpreting studies,language testing and cognitive psychology as well as utilizing an expert interview.The findings indicate that retelling could test the candidates on a variety of abilities including linguistic proficiency,schema,cognitive,meta-cognitive as well as affective abilities.A tentative scoring rubric for assessing retelling was also laid out.The research then tests a total of 52 interpreter trainees from four major interpreter training institutions in China on retelling and consecutive interpreting at the outset and at the end of one academic year respectively.Results from correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis show that the participants'performances on retelling are significantly correlated with those on consecutive interpreting in both directionality and retelling as a whole is a strong predictor of the interpreter trainees' subsequent performance on consecutive interpreting.More specifically,in the Chinese-English direction,retelling as a whole could explain 44.5 percent of the variations in consecutive interpreting and the regression coefficients for the two parameters of fidelity and language are.30 and.45 respectively.In the English to Chinese direction,retelling as a whole could explain 33.6 percent of the variations in consecutive interpreting and the regression coefficients for the two parameters of fidelity and language are.44 and.30 respectively.Given the differences in the predictive power of retelling in different directionality and respective assessment parameters,the research finally amended the previous self-designed tentative scoring rubric for retelling through assigning different weighting to each parameter.It is hoped that the findings of this research will be able to shed light on the design,administration and evaluation of aptitude testing for interpreting and also provide empirical evidence and food for thought for curriculum design and quality assessment for interpreter training.