A Study On Lexical Processing Efficiency In Simultaneous Interpreting

The study is based on expertise theory of cognitive psychology,lexical retrieval,and bilingual mental lexicons theories of psycholinguistics.It aims at exploring whether expert interpreters have an advantage in lexical processing efficiency,the differences in lexical processing in simultaneous interpreting(SI)between expert interpreters and student interpreters and the major causes for such differences.The study answers 3 research questions,first,are expert interpreters more efficient in the three sub-processes of lexical comprehension,conceptualization,and production,and in the whole process of lexical processing with language transfer with audio input and spoken output?Second,in the interpreters' opinions,what are the major influencing factors of lexical processing in SI?Third,can passive vocabulary size,the coordination ability in working memory and domain specific knowledge predict lexical processing efficiency in SI?To answer the three questions,the study adopted mixed methods,including experiments,interview,survey,and observation.Experiments and interview were used to answer research questions 1 and 3.Observation and survey were used to answer research question 2.The first batch of experiment tested the three sub-processes of lexical processing,including comprehension,conceptualization,and production in both A language(Chinese)and B language(English),and the whole process of word interpreting in two directions.The second batch of experiment tested vocabulary size,the coordination ability of working memory,domain specific knowledge and passage SI.The 87 participants were comprised of expert interpreters,student interpreters,English as a Foreign Language(EFL)teachers,and EFL learners.All experiments were done online with Gorilla as the platform.Statistics were analysed through R.4.1.0.To answer questions 2,the researcher observed two year one Chinese to English SI classes,taught by two different teachers,and conducted questionnaires with 132 valid returns.The study has 3 major conclusions.(1)Interpreters are more efficient in lexical processing compared to EFL teachers and EFL learners.Expert interpreters are more efficient in the lexical processing of English to Chinese(E-C)SI.(2)Interpreters believed that the major factors for the lexical processing efficiency of SI were preparation,background knowledge of the domain,and the vocabulary sizes of English and Chinese.(3)Chinese production and Chinese vocabulary size were two major factors for expert interpreters'E-C lexical processing in SI.Such importance has been overlooked by interpreter trainers.English vocabulary size was the major factor for student interpreters'EC lexical processing in SI.The study is potentially innovative in three aspects.First,a relatively new topic.The research explored whole processes of lexical processing in SI,while previous studies normally examined sub-processes.Second,a relatively new method.This study attempted to create a new method of testing word interpreting,which provided contexts and audio sentence inputs to increase ecological validity in laboratory.Third,potentially new conclusions.The results showed that Chinese production and Chinese vocabulary size had major influence on expert interpreters' lexical processing efficiency in SI.