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Article published In:
FORUM
Vol. 14:2 (2016) ► pp.173–193

Strategy use in English-to-Chinese simultaneous interpreting

A descriptive-exploratory study

| Southwest University
| Macquarie University

The study reported here attempts to describe and explore possible patterns of strategy use in English-to-Chinese simultaneous interpreting (SI) of fast-delivery and accented speeches, drawing upon a subset of empirical data generated from a larger experimental study (see Han & Riazi 2016). A paralleled text analysis of source speeches and transcripts of interpretations indicates that the interpreters developed a deep repertoire of interpreting strategies, but utilized strategies of syntactic transformation and of substitution most frequently across different speeches. They also employed strategy clusters, a sequential combination of strategies, to cope with complex source-text segments. In addition, the speech rate affected the use of the two prominent strategies (i.e., syntactic transformation and substitution) considerably, whereas the accent did not. These results are explained and their implications for interpreter training are also discussed.

Keywords: accent, fast speech rate, interpreting strategy, simultaneous interpreting, strategy use
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Defining, identifying and categorizing interpreting strategies
    • 2.2The effect of source-text characteristics on strategy use
  • 3.Research questions
  • 4.Method
    • 4.1Data source
    • 4.2Strategy coding
    • 4.3English glosses for the target language interpretations
    • 4.4Samples selected for the analysis
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Strategy use: illustrated examples
    • 5.2Patterns of strategy use
    • 5.3Strategy clusters
    • 5.4Effect of speech rate and accent on strategy use
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 March 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/forum.14.2.01han
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