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Article published In:
Target
Vol. 34:4 (2022) ► pp.627–651

Anticipation and timing of turn-taking in dialogue interpreting

A quantitative study using mobile eye-tracking data

ORCID logo | Ghent University
ORCID logo | KU Leuven

This article presents the results of an exploratory study on the timing of turn-taking in face-to-face dialogue interpreting based on a corpus of interpreted interactions that were recorded with mobile eye-trackers. Our aims were to: (1) investigate the timing of interpreters’ turns in dialogic interaction; and (2) identify features that have an impact on interpreters’ turn-taking speed. These include input processing factors (including turn type and turn duration) and gaze, which have been shown to play an important role in turn-taking. The analysis shows that, although interpreters in our study tend to orient to the maxim ‘one speaker at a time’, turn transitions between the primary speaker and the interpreter contain more gaps and longer overlaps than have been found for same-language interactions. It also shows that the type of turn produced by the primary speaker (question vs. non-question), the primary speaker’s speech rate, and, to a certain extent, turn duration affect the interpreter’s turn-taking speed. Thus, the present study contributes to a better understanding of the processes that impact the timing of turn-taking in face-to-face dialogue interpreting.

Keywords: dialogue interpreting, turn-taking, timing, corpus analysis, eye-tracking
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Timing of turn-taking in interaction
  • 3.Method and data
  • 4.Analyses
    • 4.1Timing of turn-taking in dialogue interpreting
    • 4.2Factors explaining turn-taking speed
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 April 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.20121.vra
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