On Pauses In C-E Consecutive Interpreting From The Perspective Of Working Memory-an Empirical Study

Pauses influence the fluency of interpreting, and consequently the quality ofinterpreting. As a result, pauses in interpreting have attracted widespread attention,coming into the limelight in the research of interpreting theories. Both foreign anddomestic researchers investigate pauses from various perspectives, such as theinterpreting quality and pauses, pauses in simultaneous interpreting, and thecomparison of pauses between interpreting from A language to B language andinterpreting from B language to A language. Studies in second language output showthat the occurrence of pauses is related to cognitive resources, or in other words,pauses are closely connected with the working memory. Yet few studies in consecutiveinterpreting touch upon the role of the working memory in causing pauses. Therefore,this paper focuses its research on this aspect.On the basis of previous relevant research, this paper takes Baddeley’s workingmemory model and Gile’s Effort Models as the theoretical guidance to propose theresearch questions and experiment in the hope of exploring the causes of pauses andthe role of working memory. In the experiment, the subjects perform the interpreting offive Chinese paragraphs, and undertake stimulated recall process. The author elicitsdata about pause causes, transcribes the video, categorizes the causes and calculates theduration, frequency, and proportion of each pause type. An in-depth analysis of datashows that the major causes of pause are language formulation and note-reading, withthe in-depth reason of working memory’s malfunction of coordinating the note-takingand memory. Overemphasis on notes and negligence of the memory lead to delayednote-reading and pauses. According to research findings, the author suggests strategiesto reduce pauses, including note-taking practice, logic training and visualization to enhance the proficiency of each interpreting effort so as to reduce the requiredcognitive resources, with the ultimate purpose of allowing more cognitive resources forthe coordination function of the working memory.