An Empirical Study Of Priming Gap Between The Speaker And The Interpreter In English-Chinese Simultaneous Interpreting

Priming refers to the behavioral difference of a subject towards a stimulus upon a prior exposure. In simultaneous interpreting, an interpreter experiences priming through the process of source language (SL) listening-and-comprehending to target language (TL) producing. Due to the fact that chunks of TL speech lag behind the corresponding segments of SL speech, SI is only relatively simultaneous and a priming gap (a period of reaction time) is inevitably generated between or/and among the very activities of SL listening-and-comprehending and TL producing. Professional interpreters often seem to preserve more balanced and stable priming gaps and present more fluent and natural interpreting performances than student interpreters. Their capability in maintaining the simultaneity of SI plus their superior SI performances seem to indicate that a priming mechanism might exist in simultaneous interpreting, and that specific priming gap values might be closely related to SI performances. But there is no datum to support this hypothesis, and relations between PG values and SI performances are barely touched either. The aim of this study is to find out how specific priming gap (PG) value is associated with SI performance and the possible factors that influence the changes of PG values through an empirical research.On the basis of relevant studies, this paper has brought up Parallel Process Hypothesis and found that there are mainly two types of PGs:serial PGs and parallel PGs. Serial PGs consist of Serial-lc-PGs and Serial-p-PGs whilst parallel PGs only have one major type, Parallel-lcp-PGs. Considering the feasibility of the experiment, this paper focuses on the two specific types of PGs, Parallel-lcp-PGs and Serial-p-PGs. After repeated listening and marking, calculating and comparing, and analyzing and discussions, the paper presents four conclusions:(1) PG values are related to SI performances on a relative level; specifically speaking, a more satisfactory SI performance generally comes along with high percentage of small PG values (V(?) 3") and low percentage of big PG values (V(?)5") and almost zero percentage of blank PG value; (2) small PG values do not equal to better translation, nor do big PG values definitely mean more interpreting miscues. However, on the whole, small PG values, in particular small Parallel-lcp-PG values, are more likely to be sided with fewer mis-translations, less information loss and better fluency; (3) Parallel-lcp-PG values are more directly connected to SI performances than Serial-p-PG values; (4) PG values could be influenced by many causes; the study found that long task duration (the longest task in this paper is about 16 minutes) leads to major increase in blank values, mild decrease in big values, and that a comprehensive negative impact on PG values could be exerted by unclear articulation, fast speed, complex long sentence structures and insufficient background knowledge. They could cause sharp decline in small values, big jump in blank values and great increase in big values.The content of this paper is divided into six parts. Chapter 1 is the introduction section, which mainly presents research background, theoretical basis and research questions. Chapter 2 is a review of relevant studies. Chapter 3 is the methodology of this article, followed by Chapter 4, the experiment results and findings of the study and Chapter 5, the discussion section. And finally is the conclusion of this research.