| Professional simultaneous conference interpretation (SI) provides a rich source of data on a complex speech-related task. Existing accounts are broadly divided between information-processing approaches, which view SI as a composite of sub-tasks in which coordination and attention are vulnerable to input structures such as verb-last SL word-order; and the more holistic interpretive theory (IT) which has been influential in training. Neither paradigm adequately addresses intermediate representation.; SI involves concentrated and often unfamiliar material, situations and Speaker styles and intentions, requiring fast, efficient mental modelling. A psycholinguistic model is constructed on the basis of findings in speech comprehension and production and adapted to SI with elements from three theories: Relevance theory (ostensive-inferential communication: Sperber and Wilson 1986); mental models theory (intermediate representation: Johnson-Laird 1983); and frame semantics (role of evoked background knowledge: Fillmore 1982, 1985).; The model is applied to German-English and Chinese (Putonghua)-English SI samples. Propositional content is not easily matched clause by clause: as complex SL clauses unfold, interpreters produce their own structure, and paraphrase and reorder even when whole clauses are available. Interpreters negotiate word-order-and other SL/TL contrasts (e.g., case or referentiality marking) by drawing on conceptual knowledge for beyond input lexical meanings, clues to Speaker intentions and attitudes, and previous discourse, to stall, hedge pending pragmatic clarification, or make temporary approximations and gambits. A mental model explains how the necessary values are inferred, kept accessible and applied. SI 'strategies' described in the literature are re-interpreted as natural inferences from frame knowledge, simple presupposition, Gricean principles and/or a logical discourse model.; Meaning assembly and reexpression is reconstructed and described in four principles: Efficiency (mental model); Incrementality (fine-grained opportunistic use of clues); Placeholding (provisional approximation using pro-forms, superordinates, existentials); Pragmatic Compensation (and addressee orientation, using primarily local devices and prosody). Attention focuses by default on coordination and pragmatic judgment in an Executive located between representation and production. SI is less vulnerable to complex linguistic structure than to sparse illocutionary clues or concentrated new referents, which are two features of recited written text. |
