Two levels of information packaging and cognitive operations during simultaneous interpreting: An analysis via additional demonstratives

Abstract

This study aims to describe cognitive processes during simultaneous interpreting from English to Japanese. Simultaneous interpreting is unique because of its online discourse processing: the interpreter starts producing target language expressions progressively before s/he hears the end of a sentence in the source language. This study analyses the authentic interpreting performance from the Interpreting Database, which comprises recorded simultaneous interpreting performed for a press conference. Particular attention is paid to additional demonstratives that do not have corresponding expressions in the source text as clues to focus on the interpreter's information packaging at two levels: the construction of a conceptual unit (CU) and a translation unit (TU). The two processes are inseparable and progress in parallel. This study analyses cognitive operations beyond transcoding from four perspectives: incorporation of a CU into a TU, construal of relations between TUs, reformulation in the TU, and the construction of an empty CU.

Keywords

• Simultaneous interpreting
• Discourse processing
• Cognitive process
• Demonstrative
• Conceptual operation