Information Processing by Interpreters: A Multidisciplinary Approach

Abstract

Interpreting studies (IS) have been largely inspired by models from other disciplines like psychology and linguistics. These studies have focused on errors in performance such as omission, substitution, addition and distortion of words, resulting from lagging and delayed ear-voice span (EVS). The theory of interpreting should not be based solely on descriptive or contrastive linguistics but also on the notion of "speech performance." Speech performance views interpreting as a cognitive activity, which goes beyond the mere understanding of the linguistic structure of the message to include the socio-cultural, psycholinguistic, and pragmatic dynamics of the communication. Such performance-based interpretation requires knowledge of the subject matter, the world and the broader context of the message. There is ample evidence that the process of interpreting is governed by an interdependence of variables such as the linguistic divergence between the SL and the TL, the sender’s performance, the technical equipment available and the interpreter’s skill, experience and expertise. It is the interplay of these factors that determines the interpreter’s success or failure in adopting the right strategies of text processing: segmentation, decoding of the SL segment, recoding, production, coping, dividing attention between the two tasks of listening and speaking, anticipation and output monitoring. The findings lend support to the thesis that for interpreters to conceptualize the process of interpreting and achieve optimum communication, they need to embrace an interdisciplinary frame of reference..