The Impact Of Slow Speech On Interpreter’s Fluency In Chinese-English Simultaneous Interpreting

Fluency is an important criterion for a simultaneous interpreter’s performance. The current paper tries to study the impact of low speech rate of source language (ST) on the interpreter’s fluency. Based on experiment, the current study adopts Benedetta Tissi’s framework for disfluencies of simultaneous interpreting to approach the issue in a quantitative manner. And based on Daniel Gile’s Efforts Model, the present paper attempts to explain the disfluencies from a qualitative perspective. Moreover, the study tries to offer coping strategies to help interpreters enhance their performance in low-ST-speech-rate context. The current study proposes three hypotheses-Hypothesis1:In a low-ST-speech-rate context, interpreters tend to have more grammatical pauses and non-grammatical pauses.Hypothesis2:In a low-ST-speech-rate, interpreters tend to have longer grammatical pauses and non-grammatical pauses.Hypothesis3:In a low-ST-speech-rate, interpreters tend to have more disfluencies.Hypothesis1is partially supported by the experiment results, and Hypothesis2and3are fully supported by the results. From a quantitative perspective, the current study finds that low ST speech rate has negative impact on interpreter’s fluency. Interpreters tend to have more and longer grammatical pauses, but the absolute number at each time interval may or may not increase. In terms of non-grammatical pauses, the number increases both in an aggregate sense and at each time interval, and the average duration also rises significantly. Interpreters are also likely to have more vocalized hesitations, vowel/consonant lengthening, repetitions, restructuring and false starts.From a qualitative perspective, the forgoing results can be explained by Gile’s Efforts Model. In a low ST speech rate context, interpreters have to wait much longer for the next complete information unit after finishing the previous one, thus leading to the interruptions of production. Moreover, low ST speech rate means longer time assigned to listening and memorizing, meaning delayed production and increased burden of the interpreter. Therefore, interpreters tend to have more frequent and longer filled pauses and interruptions. It is suggested that interpreters avoid waiting and follow the principle of syntactic linearity and prediction. In addition, interpreters should consciously control their production so as to turn non-grammatical pauses into grammatical ones.