An Empirical Study On How Working Memory Affects The Performance Of Consecutive Interpreting

The modern study on interpretation began since the mid1950s and the study onconsecutive interpretation is just one branch in it. In this paper, we will mainly discussthe effects working memory span has on consecutive interpretation performance.This study involves two tests in the experiment. The first test is about the workingmemory span. In this test, the subjects,30English majors from SISU are asked tolisten to70sentences with about10to20words in each sentence. And after listeningto each set of sentences, the subjects are then required to note down the last word ofeach sentence and meanwhile judge the meaningfulness of each sentence. After thetest, the subjects will be marked according to their working memory span andprocessing rate of the sentences. Their scores are labeled as high, medium and low forfurther analysis.The second test is the consecutive interpretation test. In this test, the subjects arerequired to interpret two paragraphs, one in English and the other in Chinese. Thetesting material is selected from the relevant material for Advanced Interpreters Examination in Shanghai. Their interpretation work is recorded and stored in thecomputer. After that, their performances are scored according to the scoring standardfor this examination. Likewise, the subjects scores are also labeled as high, mediumand low based on their consecutive interpretation performance. The softwareSPSS19.0is applied to analyze the data collected.The results show that working memory span has a positive effect onChinese-English consecutive interpretation, while it has no positive effect withEnglish-Chinese consecutive interpretation.