Corpus-Assisted Exercises in Conference Interpreter Training

Abstract

The article discusses the role of exercises for beginners in conference interpreting classes, introduces possible ways to create such exercises by means of speech corpora available online, and advocates for a combination of research-informed and technology-assisted approach to interpreter training. First, the state of research in interpreting pedagogy, and in particular the concept of part-task training are briefly described. The goal of decreasing cognitive effort during interpreting, and during the learning process, underlines the usefulness of part-task exercises for automatization of interpreting sub-skills. Based on this theoretic rationale, available handbooks for interpreter trainers are critically assessed. It is argued that interpreting programs could benefit from collections of exercises, or from methods to create them. In interpreter training, especially corpora of political speeches allow the creation of multiple exercises for automatization of certain sub- skills, which is illustrated by several examples.