Complementarity Between Linguistic And Extralinguistic Knowlwdge In Simultaneous Interpreting

Abstract

Quality in simultaneous interpreting depends on a variety of factors that can be related to the interpreter, speaker, audience, interpreting environment and so on. Awareness of cognitive processes of simultaneous interpreting, training on certain strategies to be applied, practice and experience on simultaneous interpreting can help overcome adverse effects of interpreter-related factors on the interpreting quality. One of the interpreter-related factors is the lack of knowledge, which can be categorized as linguistic and extralinguistic knowledge in the broadest sense, required to comprehend and render the message. Verbal discourse is based on these two main types of knowledge that are the prerequisites of simultaneous interpreting. Although there is a categorization of two different knowledge types, linguistic and extralinguistic knowledge are inter-dependable factors and the lack of one type can be compensated by the other. This natural complementarity can help interpreters overcome their lack of word knowledge and/or subject knowledge during simultaneous interpreting. This study aims to investigate the complementarity between linguistic and extralinguistic knowledge in simultaneous interpreting. To this end, a single group pretest/posttest research design was employed with a sample of conference interpreting students at Hacettepe University in order to investigate to what extent the complementarity can be achieved in political, technical and medical text samples. The obtained data were scored considering the quality assessment criteria set to evaluate interpreting performance. In addition, comments of the participants were also taken into consideration during the evaluation of their self-consciousness and attitudes towards their own performances during simultaneous interpreting. In addition, a post-test was administered to investigate the effect of the training offered to the participants regarding the complementarity. The results of the study indicate that the participants successfully complemented their lack of linguistic knowledge through their extralinguistic knowledge, yet not vice versa. At the end of the training, the performances of the participants showed that they could equally complement their lack of knowledge. In addition, the difference between pre-test and post-test performances of the participants was found statistically significant in all text groups and subject areas.