The effects of mode on interpreting performance in a simulated police interview
This study tested the effects of the consecutive and simultaneous interpreting modes in a simulated police interview, addressing four research questions: (1) Does the consecutive interpreting mode lead to more accurate interpreting than the simultaneous interpreting mode? (2) Do language combinations moderate the performance of similarly qualified interpreters? (3) Does experience in simultaneous interpreting in legal settings increase interpreting accuracy in SI? and (4) Which mode of interpreting do interpreters perceive to require more mental effort? A total of 70 interpreters interpreted a live simulated interview between an English-speaking interviewer and an Arabic-, Mandarin- or Spanish-speaking suspect. Mode was varied within participants, and the order of the mode was counter-balanced across participants. Interpreters rated their perceived mental effort after the task. Independent assessments of performance showed better results for the simultaneous interpreting mode, regardless of language. This effect held for accuracy of style, verbal rapport markers, and interpreting protocol.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Cognitive differences between consecutive and simultaneous interpreting
- Differences in accuracy between consecutive and simultaneous interpreting
- The present study
- Method
- Research design
- Participants
- Interview simulation materials
- Interview script
- Post-interview questionnaire
- Procedures
- Data analysis
- Assessment of interpreting performance
- Results
- Performance by interpreting mode using the seven assessment criteria
- The impact of experience in legal simultaneous interpreting on performance
- Post-experiment interpreter survey
- Discussion
- Strengths and limitations
- Conclusions and recommendations
- Acknowledgements
- Note
-
References
References
Barik, Henri C.
1973 “
Simultaneous interpretation: Temporal and quantitative data.”
Language and Speech 16(3): 237–270.


Berk-Seligson, Susan
1999 “
The impact of court interpreting on the coerciveness of leading questions.”
Forensic Linguistics 6(1): 30–56.


Doherty, Stephen M., Natalie Martschuk, Jane Goodman-Delahunty, and Sandra Hale
forthcoming-a.
An eye-movement analysis of visual attention and interpreting performance during consecutive and simultaneous interpreting modes in a remotely interpreted investigative interview.
Doherty, Stephen M., Natalie Martschuk, Jane Goodman-Delahunty, and Sandra Hale
forthcoming-b.
A pupillometric and blink rate analysis of cognitive load and interpreting performance during consecutive and simultaneous interpreting modes in a remote-interpreted investigative interview.
Ewens, Sarah, et al
2014 “
The effect of interpreters on eliciting information, cues to deceit and rapport.”
Legal and Criminological Psychology 21(2): 286–304.


Gany, Francesca, et al
2007 “
The impact of medical interpretation method on time and errors.”
Journal of General Internal Medicine 22(2): 319–323.


Gerver, David
1969 “
The effects of source language presentation rate on the performance of simultaneous conference interpreters.”
Proceedings of the 2nd Louisville Conference on rate and/or frequency controlled speech.

Gile, Daniel
2001 “
Consecutive vs. simultaneous: which is more accurate?”
The Journal of the Japan Association for Interpretation Studies (1): 8–20.

Gile, Daniel
2018 “
The effort models and gravitational model: Clarifications and update [PowerPoint].”
[URL]
Goodman-Delahunty, Jane, Natalie Martschuk, Sandra Hale, and Susan E. Brandon
2020 “
Interpreted police interviews: A review of contemporary research”. In
Advances in psychology and law (Vol. 5), ed. by
Monica Miller and
Brian H. Bornstein. Springer.


Goodman-Delahunty, Jane, Natalie Martschuk, Sandra Hale, Stephen M. Doherty, and Mustapha Taibi
2018 “
Interpreter presence, mode and language in investigative interviews.” Research report submitted to the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), USA. Charles Sturt University, Manly.

Hale, Sandra
2007 “
The challenges of court interpreting: Intricacies, responsibilities and ramifications.”
Alternative Law Journal 32(4): 198–202.


Hale, Sandra, Jane Goodman-Delahunty, and Natalie Martschuk
2020 “
Interactional management in a simulated police interview: Interpreters’ strategies.” In
The Discourse of Police Interviews, ed. by
Marianne Mason and
Frances Rock, 200–226. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.


Hale, Sandra, Natalie Martschuk, Jane Goodman-Delahunty, Mustapha Taibi, and Han Xu
2020 “
Interpreting profanity in police interviews.”
Multilingua 39(4): 369–393.


Hale, Sandra, Natalie Martschuk, Uldis Ozolins, and Ludmila Stern
Hale, Sandra and Ludmila Stern
2011 “
Interpreter quality and working conditions: Comparing Australian and international courts of justice.”
Judicial Officers Bulletin 23(9): 75–81.

Henderson, John M.
2011 “
Eye movements and scene perception.” In
Oxford Handbook of Eye Movements, ed. by
Simon P. Liversedge,
Iain Gilchrist, and
Stefan Everling, 593–606. Oxford: Oxford University Press.


Hornberger, John C., et al.
1996 “
Eliminating language barriers for non-English-speaking patients.”
Medical Care 34(8): 845–856.


Judicial Council on Cultural Diversity
2017
Recommended National Standards for Working with Interpreters in Courts and Tribunals Judicial Council on Cultural Diversity (Canberra).
[URL]
Köpke, Barbara and Jean-Luc Nespoulous
Köpke, Barbara and Teresa M. Signorelli
2012 “
Methodological aspects of working memory assessment in simultaneous interpreters.”
International Journal of Bilingualism 16(2): 183–197.


Korpal, Paweł
2016 “
Interpreting as a stressful activity: Physiological measures of stress in simultaneous interpreting.”
Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 52(2): 297–316.


Kruger, Jan-Louis and Stephen Doherty
2016 “
Measuring cognitive load in the presence of educational video: Towards a multimodal methodology.”
Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 32(6): 19–31.


Licoppe, Christian, Maud Verdier, and Clair-Antoine Veyrier
2018 “
Voice, power and turn-taking in multi-lingual, consecutively interpreted courtroom proceedings with video links.” In
Here or There: Research on Interpreting via Video Link, ed. by
R. Skinner,
J. Napier and
S. Braun, 299–322. Washington: Gallaudet University Press.


Martin, Anne and Mustapha Taibi
Meuleman, Chris and Fred Van Besien
Moser-Mercer, Barbara
1997 “
Process models in simultaneous interpretation.”
Machine Translation and Translation Theory 1(3): 3–18.


Murphy, Kevin R. and Brett Myors
1999 “
Testing the hypothesis that treatments have negligible effects: Minimum-effect tests in the general linear model.”
Journal of Applied Psychology 84(2): 234–248.


Pöchhacker, Franz
2004 Introducing Interpreting Studies. London: Routledge.


Pöchhacker, Franz
2011a “
Consecutive Interpreting.” In
The Oxford Handbook of Translation Studies, ed. by
Kirsten Malmkjær and
Kevin Windle, 325–342. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pöchhacker, Franz
2011b “
Simultaneous Interpreting.” In
The Oxford Handbook of Translation Studies, ed. by
Kirsten Malmkjær and
Kevin Windle, 275–293. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Powell, Martine B., et al.
2017 “
Professionals’ perspectives about the challenges of using interpreters in child sexual abuse interviews.”
Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 24(1): 90–101.


Razon, Selen, Jasmin Hutchinson, and Gershon Tenenbaum
2012 “
Effort perception.” In
Measurement in Sport and Exercise Psychology, ed. by
Gershon Tenenbaum,
Robert Eklund and
Akihito Kamata, 265–275. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.


Rinne, Juha O., et al.
2000 “
The translating brain: Cerebral activation patterns during simultaneous interpreting.”
Neuroscience Letters 294(2): 85–88.


Russell, Debra
2002 Interpreting in Legal Contexts: Consecutive and Simultaneous Interpretation. Burtonsville, MD: Sign Media.

Russell, Debra
2003 “
A comparison of simultaneous and consecutive interpretation in the courtroom.”
International Journal of Disability, Community & Rehabilitation 2(1).
[URL]
Russell, Debra, and Kayoko Takeda
2015 “
Consecutive interpreting.” In
The Routledge Handbook of Interpreting, ed. by
Holly Mikkelson and
Renee Jourdenais, 96–111. New York: Routledge.

Shaffer, Sarah A. and Jacqueline R. Evans
2018 “
Interpreters in law enforcement contexts: Practices and experiences according to investigators.”
Applied Cognitive Psychology 32(2): 150–162.


Stern, Ludmila
2012 “
What can domestic courts learn from international courts and tribunals about good practice in interpreting?: From the Australian war crimes prosecutions to the International Criminal Court.”
T & I Review 2(7–30).

Stern, Ludmila, Uldis Ozolins, and Sandra Hale
2015 “
Inefficiencies of court administration despite participants’ goodwill.”
Journal of Judicial Administration 25(2): 76–95.

Wong, Wan Kei
2020 “
The role of preparation using case-related materials in court interpreting.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of New South Wales.

Yamada, Hiroko
2019 “
A direct application of simultaneous interpreting training without prior consecutive interpreting work in a university course.”
Theory and Practice in Language Studies 9(4): 353–363.


Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Goodman-Delahunty, Jane, Natalie Martschuk, Sandra B. Hale & Susan E. Brandon
2020.
Advances in Psychology and Law [
Advances in Psychology and Law, 5],
► pp. 83 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 april 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.