The Impact of Grammatical Differences on Simultaneous Interpreting

Abstract

In the PhD thesis, I investigate the impact of grammatical differences on English-Mandarin Chinese simultaneous interpreting (SI), drawing upon an empirical study of professional and student interpreters. The thesis focuses on the effects of three English grammatical categories including passives, adverbials and noun phrases and of three Mandarin Chinese grammatical categories including co-verb phrases, noun phrases and topic-prominent clauses on SI between the two languages. For each category, I compare interpretations of instances in which the grammatical structures are the same across the two languages with interpretations of instances in which the grammatical structures differ across the two languages, focusing on accuracy of content and appropriateness of delivery. The results indicate that grammatical differences have a statistically significant impact on the interpreting performance of both professionals and students, although the impact of expertise is also attested through the consistently better performance of professionals than of students. The thesis significantly enhances the understanding of the impact of linguistic differences between languages on SI between them, and emphasizes that language-related strategies are a necessary part of interpreting teaching and training. The thesis also stresses that apart from the knowledge of contrastive linguistics, a better understanding of the nature of SI (its processes, its features and its challenges), of interpreters’ capacity (memory and physical limitations) and of outcome expectations (interpreters’ communicative role, speaker’s intention and audience’s response) should also be taken into account in interpreting training and teaching so that students will be able to build professionalism as early as possible.