A Feasibility Research On Ear-voice Span As A Criterion To Evaluate E-C Simultaneous Interpretation

As China sets up extensive ties with international community, simultaneous interpretation is used in a wider area. The interpreting circle calls for a pragmatic and applicable set of quality assessment criteria, which has been highlighted in interpreting researches in recent years.The quality evaluation of simultaneous interpretation is concerned with various subjects ranging from the speaker, audience, the employer to the interpreter himself or herself. As a result,studies on quality evaluation in simultaneous interpretation remains theoretical while related empirical researches are rare for a long time. Fortunately, interpretation community in China starts to focus on quality assessment, and even researches in this regard.The present paper aims to examine the feasibility of Ear-Voice Span(EVS) as a quality criterion in simultaneous interpretation from English to Chinese. In the literature review part,researches on quality evaluation are gone through by contrast and comparison. Quality standards in interpretation do have something in common. On one hand, taking the linguistic differences between English and Chinese into consideration, the author refers to three general standards(timeliness, fluency, and fidelity) proposed by Zhong W.H.(2000). On the other hand, Ear-Voice Span is selected here as a measurable parameter.Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis, the author finds the average EVS among student interpreters from English to Chinese is 4 seconds. Distinct features are also observed. There is a great disparity in the maximum EVS, but a small one in the minimum. More importantly, awareness of EVS is shared in interpreters' sub-conscious minds. When they find EVS is extended, they would conduct self-repair, approaches of which include speeding up,generalization, omission and the like. Qualified interpreters are capable of keeping the EVS range within 2 seconds. All these facts support the correlation between EVS and quality evaluation in simultaneous interpretation.