An Empirical Study On The Impact Of CAI Assistance On Simultaneous Interpreting Quality In Different Speech Types

Computer technology has advanced rapidly in recent years and has become increasingly prevalent across all industries.In the translation and interpreting(T&I)field,computerassisted translation(CAT)and interpretation(CAI)also see important progresses.This study aims to investigate the effect of MI assistance on the performance of student interpreters in different types of speeches,look into the willingness and preferences of student interpreters in computer-assisted SI,and their expectations for future developments of tools of the like.The CAI tool adopted in this study is machine interpretation(MI)tool,and the four types of speeches selected by this study are:terminology-dense speech,highspeed speech,heavy-accented speech and number-dense speech.The research questions for the study are:(1)How does the use of MI assistance affect the performance of interpreters in the four kinds of speeches?(2)How does the effect of MI assistance differ in these different types of speeches?(3)What are participant’ attitude,acceptance and expectation of future development towards CAI tools of the like?For this end,the study designed an experiment and questionnaire surveys,and invited student interpreters from a graduate school of translation and interpretation to participate in the experiment and fill in the pre-and post-experiment questionnaires.This study finds out that overall,MI assistance exerted positive influence on the interpreting performance of the participants.Aside from high-speed speech,the experiment group(group 1)performed better than the control group(group 2).For more specific differences,MI provided substantial support to the interpreting performance of the experiment group in terminology-dense speech,especially for terminologies coming in clusters;whereas in high-speed speech and heavy-accented speech,MI only offered limited help due to longer latency and constantly changing output.For number-dense speech,MI was significantly beneficial to the interpreters,especially for the interpreting performance of multi-digit numbers.Overall,participants showed a high level of interest and willingness to utilize MI and demonstrated relatively high acceptance towards this technology.Participating student interpreters also indicated a need for interpreterfriendly improvements in MI tools to reduce cognitive load during interpreting.They were also interested in attending training courses to improve their interpreting performance with MI assistance.In summary,for theoretical significance,this study adopts a combination of experimental and questionnaire methods to investigate the effectiveness of MI assistance for different types of speeches,which enriches the empirical studies related to CAI and provides data and case analysis for research on the effects of practical application of such CAI tools in SI practice as well as interpreters’ attitudes toward such tools.This study also can provide references for interpreters as they choose whether to use these CAI tools or not in different speech types,as well as directions for researchers and developers of CAI tools to improve these tools in the future.In terms of pedagogical significance,relevant references are also provided for teachers or student interpreters in SI teaching and learning,including whether to consider incorporating CAI tools into the teaching process as an aid for SI teaching,or whether to use similar CAI tools as assistance for certain types of SI practice.