Asymmetrical language proficiency in dialogue
                    interpreters

Tiselius, Elisabet; Dimitrova, Birgitta Englund

doi:10.1075/tcb.00031.tis

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The Dialang test is a test developed to diagnose a candidate's language level following the Council of Europe's framework for language proficiency, CEFER (Huhta, Luoma, Oscarson, Sajavaara, Takala & Teasdale, 2002), and is also available online 3 . The Dialang test was chosen for easy access and distribution, and as a complement to self-reports, which some researchers have found not to be entirely accurate (e.g., Onna & Jansen, 2006; for detailed information about the process of establishing participants’ language proficiency, see Tiselius & Englund Dimitrova, 2019). The Dialang test is not available in Polish, so the Polish participants took Dialang for Swedish only.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gaze and eye movement in dialogue interpreting: An eye-tracking study

Tiselius

Sneed

2020

Bilingualism

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Previous studies have investigated the cognitive processes of simultaneous interpreting and translation using eye-tracking. No study has yet utilized eye-tracking to investigate cognitive load and cognitive effort in dialogue interpreting. An eye-tracking study was conducted on two groups of interpreters (experienced and inexperienced) with varying language backgrounds during a staged dialogue interpreting session. The aim of the study was to explore gaze patterns in dialogue interpreting in relation to the interpreters’ action and translation direction. The results indicated there were differences in gaze patterns depending on the action and the language used. Participants averted gaze more when interpreting into the allophone language (the L2 for a majority of the participants in this study). This may indicate that interpreting into L2 in a dialogue may involve more cognitive effort than interpreting into L1. Finally, gaze patterns did not differ significantly between inexperienced and experienced dialogue interpreters.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As discussed above, bidirectional interpreting is a fundamental characteristic of the dialogue interpreter's task. Also, many (although far from all) dialogue interpreters are late learners of their L2 and may have asymmetrical language proficiency in their two languages (Tiselius & Englund Dimitrova, 2019).…”

Section: Directionality In Dialogue Interpretingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gaze and eye movement in dialogue interpreting: An eye-tracking study

Tiselius

Sneed

2020

Bilingualism

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“…Thus, we suggest that one reason may be found in how the role-player enacted the role-play, with the exception of specific terminology that might have caused similar difficulties for both groups. Another possibility, as we have discussed in an earlier paper (Tiselius & Englund Dimitrova 2019), may be that the participants' language proficiency is asymmetrical and thereby causes different results depending on direction.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…The cognitive processes of dialogue interpreting have recently come into focus in a number of research studies, which have looked at the gaze of the interpreter (Tiselius & Sneed 2020), the interpreter's language proficiency (Tiselius & Englund Dimitrova 2019), online self-regulation (Herring 2018), and strategies in dialogue interpreting (Arumí Ribas & Vargas-Urpi 2017). However, as far as we have been able to ascertain, the cognitive aspects of turn-taking in dialogue interpreting have not yet been investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Turn-taking in dialogue interpreting

Tiselius

Dimitrova

2021

CogLS

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This study addresses cognitive aspects of turn-taking and the role of experience in dialogue interpreting, by investigating the temporal and textual properties of the coupled turn (i.e. the original utterance and its interpretation). A comparison was made using a video-recorded scripted role-play between eight interpreters, with Swedish-French or Swedish-Spanish as working languages and with different levels of experience. Cognitively challenging long stretches of talk were introduced in both directions of the working languages and analyzed with a multi-modal approach. We identified a number of quantitative measures, such as the number of coupled turns and the time used. Furthermore, we qualitatively analyzed the types of renditions. The findings suggest that the mean length of time of the coupled turn, which we label processing span, is a measure that is not primarily related to interpreting experience but rather reflects the constraints of the interpreter’s working memory. A further finding is that the inexperienced interpreters have a higher percentage of reduced renditions than the experienced interpreters, and this difference is statistically significant.

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“…Thirdly, no additional language competence or foreign language anxiety tests were used to corroborate the impact of students' L2 competence and attitudes. Recent evidence points to the importance of defining the role of asymmetrical language proficiency in dialogue interpreting (Tiselius & Englund Dimitrova, 2019). Finally, we should also acknowledge the difficulty to find consistent and reliable rating scales to assess dialogue interpreting performance.…”

Section: Conclusion Limitations and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Analysis of speech rhythm and heart rate as indicators of stress on student interpreters

et al. 2021

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Stress is assumed to be intrinsic to interpreting and the ability to manage it a presumed predictor of performance. And yet, empirical research on the role of stress in interpreting has remained scarce. This study explores the impact of stress and anxiety on the academic scores, heart rate (HR) and speech rhythm of 23 student interpreters in a liaison interpreting task. Participants' stress and anxiety are measured using HR measures and the STAI test. Their speech rhythm is automatically analyzed through different indexes deriving from the variability of syllabic intervals. Results show that students' grades negatively correlate with their levels of state anxiety, which are, in turn, significantly related to their rhythmic parameters in L1-L2 interpreting. Greater rhythmic variability correlates with students' lower examination scores when speech is delivered into their L2. A significant increase in mean HR is reported during the interpreting task phase as compared with baseline and recovery phase, suggesting that HR was a sensitive marker to detect the students' stress response, but not to the level of influencing performance. Results point to the need to triangulate different measures to obtain a complete picture of how stress and anxiety may impact interpreting performance.

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Asymmetrical language proficiency in dialogue interpreters

Cited by 8 publications

References 20 publications

Gaze and eye movement in dialogue interpreting: An eye-tracking study

Gaze and eye movement in dialogue interpreting: An eye-tracking study

Turn-taking in dialogue interpreting

Analysis of speech rhythm and heart rate as indicators of stress on student interpreters

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