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Article published In:
Babel
Vol. 65:1 (2019) ► pp.1–25

Coping with speed

An experimental study on expert and novice interpreter performance in the simultaneous interpreting of scientific discourse

| University of Geneva
| University of Geneva

This article presents an experimental study that compares six expert and eleven novice interpreters in order to assess the effect of moderate and high delivery rates on the simultaneous interpreting of specialised discourse. The dependent variables were ear voice span (EVS) and target speech accuracy. The participants interpreted one medical speech from English into Spanish divided into three parts: the first and third parts were delivered at a moderate delivery rate and the second at a high delivery rate. Twelve segments were selected from the original speech and evaluated by five independent raters (two interpreters and three medical doctors) in terms of accuracy. The findings indicate that a high delivery rate has no significant impact on EVS, and no statistically significant differences were found between the EVS of the two groups of interpreters. The results also show that a high delivery rate has an impact on target speech accuracy in that both novices and experts perform better at a moderate delivery rate.

Keywords: delivery rate, simultaneous interpreting, scientific discourse, ear voice span (EVS), target speech accuracy
Article outline
  • 1.The challenge of speed
  • 2.Coping with speed in scientific speeches
  • 3.Ear-voice span (EVS)
  • 4.The experiment
    • 4.1Research questions and hypotheses
    • 4.2Methodology
      • 4.2.1Design
      • 4.2.2Participants
      • 4.2.3Materials (speeches/items)
      • 4.2.4Procedure
      • 4.2.5Data analysis
        • 4.2.5.1EVS
        • 4.2.5.2Target speech accuracy
    • 4.3Results
      • 4.3.1EVS
        • 4.3.1.1Effects of the delivery rate and the interpreter’s expertise on EVS
        • 4.3.1.2Effects of the delivery rate and the interpreter’s expertise on the mean number of omissions
      • 4.3.2Target speech accuracy
        • 4.3.2.1Syntactic accuracy
        • 4.3.2.2Semantic accuracy
        • 4.3.2.3Level of accuracy
        • 4.3.2.4Level of comprehension
        • 4.3.2.5Target speech accuracy
  • 5.Discussion of the results
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 29 March 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00081.rui
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