The Role of Lag Time in Simultaneous Interpreting Quality

Mehdi Eftekhari

Abstract


Interpreting either simultaneous or consecutive, as a translational activity, has the feature of immediacy which distincts simultaneous, consecutive and sight translation modes from the other common translation crafts. Immediacy as an important element in interpreting task of simultaneous mode, implicitly promotes verbal involvement and demands interpreter’s active role playing to prevent the flow of communication from being disrupted. Immediateness, as an integral part of simultaneous interpreting, consecutive and sight modes, itself is an element which keeps interpreting activity dynamic, while in the absence of synchrony and shared knowledge it can be a cause of cognitive limitation and mental load on the mind of interpreter. Perfect verbal involvement and a quality interpreting output, therefore, reveal the presence of a perfect synchrony, standard lag time, appropriate shared knowledge and moderate cognitive load. The aim of this study is to illustrate how the lack of such parameters as shared and encyclopaedic knowledge, liguistic and cultural affinities between Source Language (SL) and Target Language (TL) could entail increased amount of mental load and waiting time, and interpreter’s errors and miscues and accordingly low quality interpreting product with semantic inaccuracy.

Keywords


Cognitive Load, Input, Immediacy, Lag Time, Simultaneous Interpreting, Synchrony, Output, working Memory

Full Text:

PDF

References


Ad, P. (1998). Effects of Waiting on the Satisfaction with the service: Beyond objective time measures. Article in International Journal of Research in Marketing.

Andrew, B. & Pete, M. (2007). The Philosophy and Neuroscience Movement (paper). Cambridge University Press.

Daniel, G. (1995). Basic Concepts and Models for Interpreter and Translator Training. John Benjamins Publishing Company.

David, M. (2012). The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing. Cambridge University Press.

Dennis, C. (2014). The Effect of Lag Time on Interpreter Errors. National Consortium of Interpreter Education Centers, Gallaudet University Press.

Franz, P. (2003). Introducing Interpreting Studies.Routledge Publication.

Gary, B. (2004). The Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes Creates the Complexities of Human Thought. Publisher: Basic Books.

John, B. (2013). Describing Cognitive Process in Translation:Acts and Events. John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Minhua, L., Diane, L. Schallert and Patrick J. C. (2004), Working Memory and Expertise in Simultaneous Interpreting, The University of Texas at Austin, John Benjamin’s Publishing Co.

Sylvie, L., & Barbara, M. (1994). Bridging the Gap: Empirical research on simultaneous interpreting published by John Benjamins Publishing Co.

Warren, B. (2016). Epigenetic Inheritance and Its Role in Evolutionary Biology: Re-Evaluation and New Perspectives. Department of Biological Sciences, University of North Texas.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.




Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

2012-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD

International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature

To make sure that you can receive messages from us, please add the journal emails into your e-mail 'safe list'. If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox', check your 'bulk mail' or 'junk mail' folders.