Discourse Information Online Processing Mechanism In Interpreting

The essence of interpreting lies in the reconstruction and the transmission of source text information by means of the target language.The processing efficiency of source text information is crucial due to its direct impact on production.In the comprehension stage,interpreters need to quickly extract the main text information and keywords from the auditory or visual input,use logical relations to connect these meaning units and analyze the semantic and syntactic features.The production stage incorporates strategies such as omission,compression,or addition based on the importance of text information,and also strategies like paraphrasing,and morpho-syntactic transformation.Therefore,exploring the processing mechanism of discourse information and the factors that affect its processing efficiency have aroused researchers’ interest.However,there are relatively few empirical studies on how interpreters allocate attention to the main and secondary information in the comprehension stage,and how attention allocation to the main and secondary information affects the overall interpreting performance.Although interpreting experience,cognitive control,and cognitive load could affect information processing patterns,how these factors influence discourse information online processing patterns and how these patterns affect the overall interpreting performance are not systematically investigated.In recent years,researchers have devoted more attention to interpreting process research,to delve into information processing through methods such as eyetracking technology and neuroscience methods.Therefore,this study adopted eyetracking technology to reveal text information online processing mechanisms in interpreting through a series of studies.Specifically,Study 1 investigated information processing features in the comprehension stage,Study 2 investigated the impact of information processing in the comprehension stage on the overall interpreting performance,and Study 3 discussed the impacts of the task’s cognitive load and the interpreters’ cognitive control on information online processing.Based on the previous studies,Study 4 verified the processing mechanism of discourse information in interpreting by strategy training.To reveal the features of information processing,this study adopted two discourse analysis theories,namely,Information Structure theory and Proposition Structure theory.For the Information Structure theory,text information is divided into the Given and the New based on information flow,and Information Focus is the most important text information.For the Proposition Structure theory,text propositions are divided into different levels(such as Level 1,Level 2,and Level 3)through argument overlap.Propositions at higher levels bear more important text information.In addition,the Predicate proposition(that is,the proposition containing the verb as the predicate)also carries more important information.These two theories both categorize text information into different importance levels.Information Structure theory underlies the text information flow,while Proposition Structure theory focuses more on the grammatical relationship between sentence components.Therefore,this study investigated information processing features based on these two theories.Study 1 aimed to explore the characteristics of information processing in the comprehension stage of interpreting by comparison with the general reading comprehension task.Compared with the general reading comprehension task,information discrimination appears more emergent in the interpreting task given the high task pressure.To explore this information processing feature,student interpreters with interpreting experience(N=21)participated in the interpreting and reading comprehension tasks.This paper analyzed the eye movements(i.e.,total fixation duration,first fixation duration,second fixation duration,gaze duration,regression time,and mean fixation duration)based on the theoretical framework of Information Structure and Proposition Structure during the comprehension stage.The results showed that:1)For the Information Structure,both the interpreting and the reading comprehension tasks showed more attention resources to the Information Focus,and there was no difference between the two tasks.2)As for the Proposition Structure,both the interpreting and reading comprehension tasks showed that more attention resources were allocated to the Predicate proposition,and there was no difference between the two tasks.However,as to the proposition level,the interpreting task devoted more attention resources to Level 1,Level 2,and Level 3 propositions,while the reading task allocated more attention to Level 4 propositions.The above results manifested that the interpreting and the reading comprehension tasks showed similarities in the processing of main and secondary information,that is,more attention resources were given to key text information in both tasks.However,from the perspective of the proposition level,the interpreting task cared more about the distribution and balance of attention resources between information at different proposition levels.More attention was devoted to important text information,rather than focusing on certain specific points.Study 2 explored the impact of attention resources of the source text in the comprehension stage on the interpreting output by comparing the group with and without interpreting experience.In this study,the group with(N=21)and without(N=21)interpreting experience were recruited to perform the interpreting task.Through the correlation analysis and regression analysis of attention resources of Information Structure and Proposition Structure in the comprehension stage and the overall interpreting performance,this study discussed the relationship between attention resources allocation and the overall interpreting performance.In addition,the output performances on different types of information and propositions were also scored.The results were as follows:1)Correlation analysis and regression analysis showed that the attention resources of the source text in the comprehension stage predicted the overall interpreting performance in a different way for the two groups.For the group with interpreting experience,subjects’ attention to the main text information(i.e.Information Focus,Level 2 proposition,and Predicate proposition)could significantly predict the overall interpreting performance,that is,the more attention the subjects devoted to the main text information,the better the overall interpreting performance.However,for the group without interpreting experience,there was no significant correlation between the subjects’ attention invested in either the main or secondary text information and the overall interpreting performance.2)The results of variance analysis suggested that there was no significant inter-group difference in information processing in both the comprehension and production analyzed from the perspective of Information Structure and Proposition Structure,except that the group with interpreting experience showed better overall interpreting performance.The results suggested that the attention distribution of main and secondary information in the comprehension stage affected the overall interpreting performance,and thus further validated the importance of the main information processing strategy.Study 3 explored two main factors that may have an effect on information processing:cognitive load(exogenous factor)and cognitive control(endogenous factor).This study designed high and low cognitive load conditions of the interpreting task and adopted the AX-CPT task to explore its impact on information processing(comprehension and production)for the group with(N=21)and without(N=21)interpreting experience.The results of variance analysis and correlation analysis showed that:1)Under the high load condition,the attention resources of main and secondary information in the early stage(namely gaze duration and first fixation duration)were not significantly different.In addition,the cognitive load did not significantly change the information processing patterns,that is,the subjects gave more attention resources to main text information such as Information Focus,Level 1 proposition,and Predicate proposition under both the high and low load conditions.2)High cognitive load lowered the production quality,as shown by lower overall interpreting performances,as well as the lower output scores of Information Structure and Proposition Structure.3)High cognitive load lowered the impact of attention resources of main text information on the overall interpreting performance.4)Although there was no significant inter-group difference in proactive control,proactive control exhibited an influence on information processing,but the patterns were different for the two groups.During the comprehension stage,the stronger the proactive control,the more attention resources were invested in the later comprehension stage(indexed by regression time)for the group with interpreting experience,while the fewer for the group without interpreting experience.In addition,as to the secondary text information,the stronger the proactive control,the group without interpreting experience in turn invested more attention resources in total(indexed by total fixation duration)and in the later stage to Non-Focus information and Non-Predicate information.However,proactive control did not play a role in the overall interpreting performance.Study 4 conducted interpreting strategy training,to verify the processing mechanism of discourse information.In this study,the group with(N=21)and without(N=21)interpreting experience were trained on the information processing strategy and their performances of information processing in comprehension and production were collected after strategy training.The main goal of strategy training was to remind participants to pay attention to key text information and analyze the logic.Both high and low load conditions were set.The research was designed as follows:group(the group with interpreting experience/group without interpreting experience)× strategy training(before/after strategy training)× information category(Information Focus/Non-Focus information;Level 1,Level 2,Level 3,and Level 4 proposition;Predicate proposition/Non-Predicate proposition).The results of variance analysis showed that:1)Strategy training exhibited a significant impact on information processing in the comprehension stage.After the training,the subjects paid more attention to the main text information(i.e.,Information Focus,Level 1 and Level 2 propositions,Predicate proposition).2)Strategy training exerted no significant influence on production.The overall interpreting performance and the output scores of the Information Structure or Proposition Structure did not show improvement.The results not only verified that the discourse information processing mechanism investigated in the previous three studies was suitable for strategy training,but also validated the effectiveness and necessity of strategy training on source text information processing.Based on the above research results,the main conclusions of this paper were as follows:(1)Compared with the general reading comprehension,information processing in the interpreting comprehension stage focused more on the attention allocation between propositions at different levels,which manifested the characteristics of primary and secondary information processing.(2)The attention to main text information in the comprehension stage contributed to the overall interpreting performance,especially under the low load condition.(3)Under the high load condition,the attention resources of main and secondary information in the early stage(indexed by gaze duration and first fixation duration)were not significantly different,and the production score was poorer.Proactive control made different impacts on source text information processing for the group with and without interpreting experience.It indicated that the impact of cognitive control on information processing changed dynamically with interpreting ability.(4)Strategy training could change subjects’ attention allocation to source text information.This study utilized eye-tracking technology to explore the eye movements on different types of source text information in the comprehension stage,to provide scientific evidence on online processing for revealing the "black box" of text information processing in interpreting.This study put forward the theoretical framework of discourse information processing in interpreting by integrating Information Structure theory and Proposition Structure theory.Furthermore,this study combined the above theoretical framework with interpreting strategy training,and the results shed light on information processing strategy training in interpreting teaching.