Explicitation patterns in English-Chinese consecutive interpreting: Differences between professional and trainee interpreters

Abstract

The present study attempts to explore features of explicitation in interpreting by conducting an experiment in which 12 professional and 12 trainee interpreters were invited to carry out English-Chinese (E-C) consecutive interpreting (CI). All the explicitation shifts have been identified through a comparison between the original speech and the interpretations. The study has found 10 different forms of explicitations in E-C CI and summarized four motivations behind them. Features of explicitation found in the study include: (1) half of the explicitations are related to the experiential information; (2) most explicitations are adopted for clarification; and (3) explicitations to make up for interpreters' insufficient competence are common in E-C CI. In addition, the two groups also differ from each other in their explicitation patterns in the following aspects: (1) professional interpreters make considerably more explicitations than trainee interpreters, especially explicitations for clarification; (2) trainee interpreters make more explicitations as strategies to make up for the loss of information in their interpreting; and (3) professionals tend to emphasize the speaker's attitude through the addition of intensifiers more often than their trainee counterparts.