From The Perspective Of Simultaneous Interpreters Of Recognition Memory And Insight On The Source Surface Treatment

Deverbalization is a key concept in the Theorie du Sens, an influential theory of interpreting developed by the Paris School (Seleskovitch 1976). The theory posits that interpreting involves two processes, namely'transcoding'(代码转换), which refers to the replacement of SL4 lexical items with their TL 5 equivalents by means of look-up in the bilingual lexicon, and'Deverbalization'(得意忘形), which refers to the autonomous reformulation of the meaning expressed in the SL discourse, on the basis of grasping its'sense'and discarding, or forgetting, its linguistic package. Deverbalization is held to be the main process in interpretation, supplemented by transcoding.While this theory enjoys great currency in pedagogical and professional circles, and is regarded as having positive normative value in terms of encouraging students to produce clear, idiomatic TL renditions free from SL interference, researchers have yet to define the two dimensions around which prior discussions have taken place: Deverbalization Dimension 1 means TL renditions that accurately reflect the meaning of SL and are free of constraints of forms of SL(Deverbalization as a final product); and Deverbalization Dimension 2 means perception of ideas without any memory trace of forms of SL(Deverbalization as a cognitive process). The second dimension is a hypothesis yet to be tested experimentally, with the exception of only some small-scale and inconclusive preliminary studies (Isham 1994).This thesis therefore attempts to test empirically the aforementioned hypothesis. The methodology used is that employed in a classic study on recognition memory for sentences, Kintsch (1977). 11 professional conference interpreters and 30 regular listeners are tested for recognition memory of (55) original sentences vs. paraphrases after respectively interpreting and listening to a speech in Chinese. Statistical analysis of the results using SPSS indicates that there is no significant difference in the recognition memory of the interpreters vs. the regular listeners (interpreters'mean: 4.47, regular listeners'mean: 4.14; Mann-Whitney Test: U=57.00 and p=0.185). Analysis also shows interpreters have significant recognition memory of sentence forms of original sentences (original sentences'mean: 4.47, paraphrases'mean: 3.05; Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test: Z =2.93 and p=0.003). This thesis makes preliminary attempts to define two dimensions of Deverbalization and, through creative use of a well-developed psychology experimental model, disproves the aforementioned hypothesis– Deverbalization as a cognitive process. This thesis shows that interpreters have significant recognition memory of surface forms of source language while extracting meaning of it, and that there is a potential positive correlation between the degree of accuracy of interpretation and the level of recognition memory of forms. This thesis ventures to propose such correlation as a new hypothesis to be tested. On this basis, this thesis suggests that future research may investigate the relationship between interpretation quality and interpreters'memory of forms and the relationship between lexical similarity and interpreters'memory of form.