Cohesion in English to ASL simultaneous interpreting

Abstract

A study was done with 12 American Sign Language (ASL)-English interpreters to examine their use of cohesive devices while working simultaneously from English into ASL. Concern has been raised in the literature on spoken and sign language interpreters that practitioners create target texts that lack cohesion (La Bue, 1998; Langer, 2007; Sunnari, 1995). Halliday and Hasan's (1976) theoretical model of cohesion was used as a framework for this study. One aspect of cohesion was addressed, conjunctive devices. The participants included seven novice interpreters, who had seven or fewer years of practice with ASL and who were recent graduates of an interpretation program. In addition, five experts took part who had more than two decades of experience as interpreters and who were all nationally certified. Three Deaf interpreter educators rated each interpreter's fluency in ASL, and found the experts created more fluent texts than the novices (**p = 0.006). To understand why the Deaf raters found the experts more fluent, a number of basic language features in the interpreters' ASL target texts were compared but no significant difference was found in the number of signs created (p = 0.57), the number of unique signs (p= .074), signs per minute (p = 0.57), the use of third person reference produced manually (p = 0.46) or in the amount of information the interpreters omitted while interpreting (p = 0.361). There was a significant difference in the interpreters' use of conjunctive devices (**p = 0.007), where the experts produced more of them.

Using analytic rating scales to assess English/Chinese bi-directional interpretation: A longitudinal Rasch analysis of scale utility and rater behavior

“…Studies of this kind have produced some indirect evidence regarding scale utility. Lin et al (2013) and McDermid (2014) reported very high inter-rater reliability estimates (e.g., Pearson's r > 0.90), suggesting that raters were consistent in using rating scales to award scores. Such evidence, however, is of limited value, given that it does not directly focus on whether the scales have functioned appropriately.…”

“…Using descriptor-based analytic rating scales to assess interpreting quality is gaining currency in interpreter certification testing (Angelelli, 2009; Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI), 2011; Han, 2015aHan, , 2016aIoL Educational Trust, 2010;Jacobson, 2009;Liu, 2013;Turner et al, 2010;Wu, Liu, & Liao, 2013), in interpreter educational assessment (Bontempo & Hutchinson, 2011;Lee, 2008;Tiselius, 2009;Wang, 2011;Wang, Napier, Goswell, & Carmichael, 2015;Zhao & Dong, 2013) and in interpreting research (Cheung, 2014;Lin, Chang, & Kuo, 2013;McDermid, 2014). This popular trend, however, does not necessarily confirm the utility and functionality of descriptor-based rating scales.…”

“…Another body of interpreting literature provides some useful, though indirect, evidence on the utility of descriptor-based rating scales (Cheung, 2014;Lin et al, 2013;McDermid, 2014). These empirical studies represent substantive enquiries into interpreting/translational phenomena, in which interpreting quality is a key variable that is measured by raters using descriptor-based scales.…”