Approaching SI From The Perspective Of Spontaneous Speech Production

Simultaneous interpreting (SI), an essentially complex multi-tasking activity, is beyond any simple explanation. Its research can no longer be confined to itself in the wake of a fervent pursuit of interdisciplinary research approaches in the sixties and seventies of the 20th century. Spontaneous speech production (SSP), the psycholinguistic part dealing with normal adults'speech production, is believed by many theorists to shed light on SI provided with their many shared characteristics. This paper attempts to probe further into implications SSP may have on SI based on both their shared and different characteristics.The thesis is divided into four chapters, introduction and conclusion excluded.Chapter One builds a framework of definition, illustrating such basic ideas as SI, the production stage of SI (SIP) and SSP.Chapter Two examines the feasibility of adopting SSP research to SI based on psycholinguistic and cognitive analyses, and offers a review of relevant literature. It is noticed in the review that previous authors have concentrated on implications of similarities between SSP and SI, but without much concern for their differences. Therefore this paper establishes its goal as seeking common ground while preserving differences to explore further light shed on SI.Chapter Three compares SSP and SIP in great detail based on Levelt's account and Moser's model, which are typical and authoritative representations of SSP and SIP respectively.Chapter Four concludes five major problems specific to SI related to those comparison results and argues that what makes the need of major SI principles, strategies and training methods so urgent is the fact that so many problems exist for SI, thus explaining the effectiveness of Principle of Economy, Principle of Synchronic Linearity, cultural awareness, anticipation, shadowing exercise, paraphrasing and knowledge expansion.In conclusion, the above mentioned SI principles, strategies and training methods are well justified and should therefore be followed closely.