Simultaneous Interpretation Research Articles

Prediction in challenging situations: Most bilinguals can predict upcoming semantically-related words in their L1 source language when interpreting

AbstractPrediction is an important part of language processing. An open question is to what extent people predict language in challenging circumstances. Here we tested the limits of prediction by asking bilingual Dutch native speakers to interpret Dutch sentences into their English counterparts. In two visual world experiments, we recorded participants’ eye movements to co-present visual objects while they engaged in interpreting tasks (consecutive and simultaneous interpreting). Most participants showed anticipatory eye movements to semantically-related upcoming target words in their L1 source language during both consecutive and simultaneous interpretation. A quarter of participants during simultaneous interpretation however did not move their eyes, an extremely unusual participant behaviour in visual world studies. Overall, the findings suggest that most people predict in the source language under challenging interpreting situations. Further work is required to understand the causes of the absence of (anticipatory) eye movements during simultaneous interpretation in a substantial subset of individuals.

“None of it was especially easy”: improving COVID-19 vaccine equity for people with disabilities

ObjectivesOur study aimed to (1) identify barriers to equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for Canadians with disabilities and (2) present recommendations made by study participants to improve immunization programs in terms of inclusivity and equitable access.MethodsWe invited Manitobans living with disabilities to participate in online focus groups. Focus groups were conducted across multiple disability experiences, although one focus group was advertised explicitly as offering simultaneous American Sign Language interpretation to encourage people who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing to participate. Participants were asked about their perspectives on the management of COVID-19 public health measures and vaccination program rollout. Participants were also asked about barriers and facilitators of their vaccination experiences and if they had recommendations for improvement.ResultsThe participants identified three areas where they encountered routine barriers in accessing the COVID-19 vaccines: (1) vaccine information and appointment booking, (2) physical access to vaccination clinics, and (3) vaccination experience. While participants identified specific recommendations to improve vaccine accessibility for people with disabilities, the single most crucial advice consistently identified was to involve people with disabilities in developing accessible immunization programs.ConclusionMeaningful engagement with people living with disabilities in immunization program planning would help ensure that people with disabilities, who already face significant challenges due to COVID-19, are offered the same protections as the rest of the population. These recommendations could be easily transferred to the administration of other large-scale immunization campaigns (e.g., influenza vaccines).

스페인어 청취 교육에서의 섀도잉 활용에 관한 연구

This study analyzes the difficulties experienced by undergraduate learners majoring in Spanish in advanced listening and their needs in listening classes, and proposes a teaching method that incorporates shadowing practice for improving listening skills. Shadowing began to be known as a basic practice for simultaneous interpretation, and has been widely introduced as a teaching method for improving listening skills and speaking fluency in foreign language education. Domestic research on shadowing has mostly focused on its use as a teaching method for improving listening skills of learners in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) or KFL (Korean as a Foreign Language) courses, excluding professional interpretation education. This study, however, examines whether the assumption that shadowing practice helps learners improve their ability for bottom-up information processing by developing repeated phonemic awareness of auditory input is also valid for advanced listening practice for undergraduate Spanish learners. For the purpose of the study, shadowing was incorporated in listening classes for Spanish majors who have completed Spanish language courses of intermediate or higher levels, and the learners were surveyed about difficulties experienced in listening and benefits of shadowing in learning achievement. Survey results demonstrated the necessity and validity of shadowing in Spanish learning for improving the ability for bottom-up information processing in areas that learners often find challenging, such as pronunciation, speed and intonation.

Application of Speech Recognition Technology in Chinese English Simultaneous Interpretation of Law

Speech recognition is an important research field in natural language processing. In Chinese and English, which have rich data resources, the performance of end-to-end speech recognition model is close to that of Hidden Markov Model—Deep Neural Network (HMM-DNN) model. However, for the low resource speech recognition task of Chinese English hybrid, the end-to-end speech recognition system does not achieve good performance. In the case of limited mixed data between Chinese and English, the modeling method of end-to-end speech recognition is studied. This paper focuses on two end-to-end speech recognition models: connection timing distribution and attention based codec network. In order to improve the performance of Chinese English hybrid speech recognition, this paper studies how to improve the performance of the coder based on connection timing distribution model and attention mechanism, and tries to combine the two models to improve the performance of Chinese English hybrid speech recognition. In low resource Chinese English mixed data, the advantages of different models are used to improve the performance of end-to-end models, so as to improve the recognition accuracy of speech recognition technology in legal Chinese English simultaneous interpretation.

Simultaneous feature engineering and interpretation: Forecasting harmful algal blooms using a deep learning approach

Routine monitoring for harmful algal blooms (HABs) is generally undertaken at low temporal frequency (e.g., weekly to monthly) that is unsuitable for capturing highly dynamic variations in cyanobacteria abundance. Therefore, we developed a model incorporating reverse time attention with a decay mechanism (RETAIN-D) to forecast HABs with simultaneous improvements in temporal resolution, forecasting performance, and interpretability. The usefulness of RETAIN-D in forecasting HABs was illustrated by its application to two sites located in the lower sections of the Nakdong and Yeongsan rivers, South Korea, where HABs pose a critical water quality issue. Three variations of recurrent neural network models, i.e., long short-term memory (LSTM), gated recurrent unit (GRU), and reverse time attention (RETAIN), were adopted for comparisons of performance with RETAIN-D. Input features encompassing meteorological, hydrological, environmental, and biological factors were used to forecast cyanobacteria abundance (total cyanobacteria cell counts and cell counts of dominant cyanobacteria taxa). Incorporation of a decay mechanism into the deep learning structure in RETAIN-D allowed forecasts of HABs on a high temporal resolution (daily) without manual feature engineering, increasing the usefulness of resulting forecasts for water quality and resources management. RETAIN-D yielded a high degree of accuracy (RMSE = 0.29–1.67, R2 = 0.76–0.98, MAE = 0.18–1.14, SMAPE = 9.77–87.94% for test sets; on natural log scales) across model outputs and sites, successfully capturing high variability and irregularities in the time series. RETAIN-D showed higher accuracy than RETAIN (except for comparable accuracy in forecasting Microcystis abundance at the Nakdong River site) and outperformed LSTM and GRU across all model outputs and sites. Ambient temperature had high importance in forecasting cyanobacteria abundance across all model outputs and sites, whereas the relative importance of other input features varied by the output and site. Increases in contributions with increasing irradiance, decreasing flow rates, and increasing residence time were more pronounced in summer than other seasons. Differences in the contributions of input features among different time steps (1 to 7 days prior to forecasting) were larger in the Yeongsan River site. RETAIN-D is applicable to a wide range of forecasting models that can benefit from improved temporal resolution, performance, and interpretability.

Building schemes to facilitate translation: a study of Spanish-Chinese simultaneous interpretation in diplomatic contexts

With the increase of China’s international status and influence, the subjects in international exchanges no longer remain at macro level, while shifting towards a more professional and concrete dimension. This paper takes the Spanish-Chinese simultaneous interpretation in political/diplomatic activities as an example, departing from the perspective of Schema Theory and incorporated with the author’s own interpreting training, teaching and practical experience. It aims atputting forward certain translating concepts and coping tactics, highlighting the virtue of knowledge orcontent schema in interpreting, especially in the practice and training of simultaneous interpretation,hoping to provide some reference to instructors and practitioners in translation education and forcareer development.

Design of Legal Chinese English Simultaneous Interpretation System based on PSO Algorithm

Aiming at the phenomenon of “wrong words” and “missing words” in the process of Chinese English legal interpretation, a Chinese English legal simultaneous interpretation system based on PSO algorithm is designed. According to the construction requirements of fuzzy neural network, the optimization results of PSO inertia weight are determined, and then the system model optimization based on PSO algorithm is realized with the help of membership function. On this basis, this paper analyzes the key trigger factors of simultaneous interpretation, and distinguishes the specific differences between consecutive interpretation load and simultaneous interpretation by defining the way of legal Chinese English text transmission effect, so as to realize the smooth application of legal Chinese English simultaneous interpretation system based on PSO algorithm. The results shows that, compared with the consecutive interpretation system, the simultaneous interpretation system can effectively solve all the problems of “wrong words” and “missing words” in the process of legal Chinese English document translation, and effectively guarantee the authenticity of document samples.

Technology solutions for interpreters: the VIP system

Interpreting technologies have abruptly entered the profession in recent years. However, technology still remains a relatively marginal topic of academic debate, although interest in developing tailor-made solutions for interpreters has risen sharply. This paper presents the VIP system, one of the research outputs of the homonymous project VIP - Voice-text Integrated system for interPreters, and its continuation (VIP II). More specifically, a technology-based terminology workflow for simultaneous interpretation is presented.

Memory training techniques for simultaneous interpretation

Memory training techniques for simultaneous interpretation

Challenges and Countermeasures of Machine Translation to Translation and Interpretation under the Background of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence, as a great trend, has already entered into many aspects of our life. While we enjoy the convenience it brings us, we also need to bear the impact it gives. Under the impact of artificial intelligence, the number of employees in many industries has decreased sharply, and even many jobs will no longer exist. In this context, machine translation, as an important aspect of artificial intelligence, has a great impact on traditional human translation. Machine translation, can accomplish many written translation tasks in shorter time but with higher quality. Even simultaneous interpretation, the Gold collar in translation industry, has been suffered unprecedented huge impact. In the face of such a situation, what shall translation major in Colleges and Universities do is an urgent problem.

Tropes and Rhetorical Figures in Simultaneous Interpreting of Presidential Speeches

Since one of the distinctive features of presidential speeches is the use of tropes and rhetorical figures, which are employed to achieve a persuasive effect, this study aimed to find out if tropes and rhetorical figures are retained in simultaneous interpretation from English into Lithuanian and whether the omission of them in the interpretation diminishes the rhetorical effect of the speech. The research found that out of 500 tropes and rhetorical figures observed in original speeches more than a half are absent in interpretation. Based on a closer analysis of examples, it was concluded that tropes and rhetorical figures tend to cause problems for interpreters and that the omission of tropes and rhetorical figures results in a diminished rhetorical effect in the target language.

Training Interpreters as Cross-cultural Mediators: New Way of Teaching ESP or of Solving International Problems

In modern globalized society the emphasis of interpreters professional activity is changing. It is of interest to develop the future interpreters ability to establish correspondences and connections between linguistic signs and cross-cultural codes, taking into account the historical and cultural background of interacting countries (in synchrony and diachrony) from the point of view of multiple historical traditions besides the simultaneous interpretation of meaning. This article aims to contribute to the growing field of conflict resolution by exploring issues facing mediators-interpreters in cross-cultural conflicts, by analyzing factors that should be considered by mediators-interpreters and by specifying strategies for conducting successful mediation.

Factors Preventing Technical Colleges and Universities from Cultivating Foreign Language Talents

This article discusses about the cultivation of foreign language talents, through which it can be appreciated that the emphasis is to be laid on improving their comprehensive qualities. Only in this way can foreign language talents adapt to the needs of the market, integrate into the ranks of technical personnel in the field of engineering, and be warmly welcomed by employers or employing units. Nevertheless, in order to achieve this aim, three factors should be overcome to avoid the hindrance faced by technical colleges and universities from cultivating foreign language talents with comprehensive qualities. This article probes into the three negative factors: first, students are not fluent in their mother tongue; second, foreign language majors lack basic knowledge of science and technology so much so that they are not able to do well in such translation; third, they lack the ability to perform simultaneous interpretation Simultaneous interpreting. In regard to those factors, this article then provides several suggestions as countermeasures to those three negative factors, so as to cultivate talents that can satisfy the needs of the market.

Prediction during simultaneous interpreting: Evidence from the visual-world paradigm

We report the results of an eye-tracking study which used the Visual World Paradigm (VWP) to investigate the time-course of prediction during a simultaneous interpreting task. Twenty-four L1 French professional conference interpreters and twenty-four L1 French professional translators untrained in simultaneous interpretation listened to sentences in English and interpreted them simultaneously into French while looking at a visual scene. Sentences contained a highly predictable word (e.g., The dentist asked the man to open his mouth a little wider). The visual scene comprised four objects, one of which depicted either the target object (mouth; bouche), an English phonological competitor (mouse; souris), a French phonological competitor (cork; bouchon), or an unrelated word (bone; os). We considered 1) whether interpreters and translators predict upcoming nouns during a simultaneous interpreting task, 2) whether interpreters and translators predict the form of these nouns in English and in French and 3) whether interpreters and translators manifest different predictive behaviour. Our results suggest that both interpreters and translators predict upcoming nouns, but neither group predicts the word-form of these nouns. In addition, we did not find significant differences between patterns of prediction in interpreters and translators. Thus, evidence from the visual-world paradigm shows that prediction takes place in simultaneous interpreting, regardless of training and experience. However, we were unable to establish whether word-form was predicted.

Simultaneous interpretation of complex structures from English into Arabic

Abstract A complex sentence is described as such by virtue of its multiple constituents which vary from clauses, subclauses to phrases. English and Arabic linguistic literature includes references to the issue of syntactic complexity, yet the approaches are different. The present study seeks to investigate how Arab simultaneous interpreters translating from English into Arabic deal with syntactically complex structures. To achieve this goal, the final debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is selected as the test-ground. The study finds that simultaneous interpreters operating from English into Arabic deal with complex structures in different ways by adopting and adjusting their strategies. The dominant strategy is linearization, which is triggered by the need to translate under time pressure. This strategy also unloads the simultaneous interpreter’s cognitive burden. Yet complete linearization is impossible, since omission and compression may interfere as in the case of embedding and ‘that’ structures. Other strategies, particularly addition and chunking, are also observable, being applied when interpreters find themselves faced with asyndetic structures and multiple embedding.

Features of Russian-Turkish and Turkish-Russian simultaneous interpretation

The relevance of the study lies in the fact that nowadays cooperation between countries is constantly developing at different levels, which necessitates the use of simultaneous interpreting services. In order to meet the demands of today's market and above all to live up to the expectations, it is important to understand the special features of Russian-Turkish and Turkish-Russian simultaneous interpretation, regardless of subject matter and degree of complexity. Such interpretation is quite a complex task, since Turkish is a language belonging to the group of languages that is spoken by 83 million people worldwide, mostly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus, where it has the status of an official language. In the Russian Federation there is little knowledge of Turkish, which seems to be the main reason for the growing demand for simultaneous interpreting. The purpose of the study is to conduct a linguistic analysis of Russian-Turkish and Turkish-Russian simultaneous interpretation, which will reveal the features of language structures that influence the choice of strategies and actions in the simultaneous interpretation process.

Die Bedeutung der Redekorpora in der Erforschung der zielsprachlichen Verdolmetschung

The research on the simultaneous interpreting process and the associated target and source languages requires both the oral source speeches and the simultaneous interpreting of the spoken source speeches into the target language. For a relatively short time now, researchers of translation and interpreting have been able to access digitized linguistic corpora, parallel and speech corpora of different language pairs, from which they can build their own purpose-oriented corpus of original and target-language oral texts. Furthermore, the built-up language corpus can be analysed qualitatively or quantitatively using different software and investigated for specific linguistic phenomena. This present article focuses on the benefits of data retrieval from digitalized language and speech corpora, which can be an important source of assistance for the analysis of the oral simultaneous interpretation target text. At the heart of this question is the European Parliament’s speeches corpus, from which authentic speeches in the source language (German) and simultaneous interpretation in the target language (Latvian) can be obtained to create a sub-corpus for the German-Latvian language pair. Among others, the question of which interpreting strategies can be used for simultaneous interpreting from German into Latvian is explored, and the application of EXMARaLDA Partitur-Editor software is presented, which allows to create a simultaneous transcription of the source language and the simultaneously interpreted target language as well as to develop a speech corpus.

Listeners’ perception of the quality of simultaneous interpreting and perceived dependence on simultaneous interpreting

Abstract With the rise of the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF), the number of conference speakers and attendees who use English is increasing. Simultaneous interpreting (SI) into and from English may be provided at conferences to meet the needs of individuals with differing levels of English ability. This paper reports on the findings obtained from two sets of experiments that explored the link between listeners’ perceived dependence on SI and their perceptions of its quality. The first set of experiments was conducted onsite and the second using a remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI) setting. Native Hong Kong Cantonese-speaking participants were divided into two groups: one with Russian as the source language (SL) (Russian group) and the other with English as the SL (English group). Both groups listened to the same prerecorded simultaneous interpretation into Cantonese performed by a non-native interpreter. In the onsite setting, the Russian group perceived the non-native-accented interpretation more favorably than the English group did. This suggests that in onsite settings, perceived dependence on SI may be associated with perceptions of its quality; the greater the perceived dependence on SI, the higher the perceived SI quality. However, no significant differences were found between the two groups in the RSI setting. Factors such as the inaudible SL in the background, similar levels of perceived dependence, negative feelings about online learning and tensions in the state-society relationship may contribute to the similar quality perception ratings across the two RSI groups.

SysInflam HuDB, a Web Resource for Mining Human Blood Cells Transcriptomic Data Associated with Systemic Inflammatory Responses to Sepsis.

Sepsis develops after a dysregulated host inflammatory response to a systemic infection. Identification of sepsis biomarkers has been challenging because of the multifactorial causes of disease susceptibility and progression. Public transcriptomic data are a valuable resource for mechanistic discoveries and cross-studies concordance of heterogeneous diseases. Nonetheless, the approach requires structured methodologies and effective visualization tools for meaningful data interpretation. Currently, no such database exists for sepsis or systemic inflammatory diseases in human. Hence we curated SysInflam HuDB (http://sepsis.gxbsidra.org/dm3/geneBrowser/list), a unique collection of human blood transcriptomic datasets associated with systemic inflammatory responses to sepsis. The transcriptome collection and the associated clinical metadata are integrated onto a user-friendly and Web-based interface that allows the simultaneous exploration, visualization, and interpretation of multiple datasets stemming from different study designs. To date, the collection encompasses 62 datasets and 5719 individual profiles. Concordance of gene expression changes with the associated literature was assessed, and additional analyses are presented to showcase database utility. Combined with custom data visualization at the group and individual levels, SysInflam HuDB facilitates the identification of specific human blood gene signatures in response to infection (e.g., patients with sepsis versus healthy control subjects) and the delineation of major genetic drivers associated with inflammation onset and progression under various conditions.

Prosody training benefits in perception vs. production skills in simultaneous interpreting: an experimental study

The present study investigates the prosody training benefits for interpreter trainees in perception vs. production skills in simultaneous interpreting. Two groups of student interpreters were formed. Participants were assigned to groups at random. The control group received routine instruction in interpreting skills. The experimental group spent 20 minutes less time per session on the routine curriculum and instead re­ceived awareness training on prosodic features of English. The total instruction time was the same for the students in two groups, i.e., 15 hours. Students then took a posttest in interpretation skills. The results showed that the experimental group performed better than the control group in simultaneous interpretation performance. Moreover, the study revealed that prosody training enhances the students’ perception skills more than that of the production skills. These results have pedagogical implications for curriculum designers, interpreter training programs, and all who are involved in language study and pedagogy.