A Study Of The Output Characteristics Of Successful Interpreters In C-E Consecutive Interpretation

Though interpretation studies are gaining popularity, few of them delved into interpreters' outputs. As a result, the present study probes into the output characteristics of successful interpreters in Chinese-English interpretation in terms of pause, reaction time and chunk. Based on the audio material of five interpreters serving the Two Sessions and those of fifteen interpretation learners as a small comparative study done to further explore the differences between successful interpreters and interpretation learners, the questions of this study are as follows:1. What are the characteristics of successful interpreters' interpretation output in terms of pause in C-E consecutive interpretation? Is there any significant difference between successful interpreters and interpretation learners in terms of pause?2. What are the characteristics of successful interpreters' interpretation output in terms of reaction time in C-E consecutive interpretation? Is there any significant difference between successful interpreters and interpretation learners in terms of reaction time?3. What are the characteristics of successful interpreters' interpretation output in terms of chunk in C-E consecutive interpretation? Is there any significant difference between successful interpreters and interpretation learners in terms of chunk?With the help of software Adobe Audition, pauses are marked in the transcribed texts. The standard number, WP, and duration of pauses are calculated. The reaction time analyzed with references to source language with different speaking rates and speaking time aiming to find out some correlations. As to the chunks, the type, token, CTR, TTR, frequency, standard tokens and chunk structure are calculated and analyzed. Besides, the differences between interpreters and learners are explored and analyzed. At last, the correlations among pause, reaction time and chunk are checked. The findings of the present study can be briefly summarized as follows:1. Successful interpreters averagely produce 10 filled pauses per 1000 words with one filled pause per interpretation segmentation but their productions of silent pause are individually different. Boundary pauses account for more than 60% of the total pause number. Silent boundary pauses is the most frequently appeared pauses. Neither the flow of speech nor the location exerts any influence on pause duration. Interpreters' average duration time is statistically the same, which is about 0.54 second.2. Successful interpreters' reaction time are statistically different but conform to the standard of consecutive interpretation, which is within 2-3 seconds. Source language speaking rate and time do have some slight influence on reaction time. When the source language speaking rate is under 180 w/m with time over 60 seconds, their average reaction time is the longest. When the source language speaking rate is controlled between 180 w/m and 299 w/m with time less than 30 seconds, their average reaction time is the shortest.3. Successful interpreters'productions of chunks are statistically the same in terms of standard tokens (191 chunks per 1000 words), frequency (26 chunks per minute), CTR (65.4%) and TTR (82%), which are all higher than those of interpretation learners. The CTR indicates that successful interpreters have already acquired a native-like production of chunks. Nominal chunks and verbal chunks constitute the main part of the total chunks produced. But their production of prepositional chunks is not as salient as verbal and nominal chunks.4. Spearman test shows a high correlation between success interpreters'production of standard pause and average reaction time (r=-0.95, p=0.01<0.05).The present study has both theoretical and pedagogical implications. Theoretically, the present study offers some further evidence for previous studies and further verifies Daniel Gile's effort model in that successful interpreters are more balanced in dealing with different stages or phases in their interpretation. Pedagogically, when doing interpreting training, it is recommended for trainers to cover materials with different source language speaking rate and speaking time, which could facilitate trainee's adaptability in practical interpretation. For trainees, they are expected to reduce filled pauses and shorten the time consumed in pauses, find ways to control their reaction time, making it neither too short to influence accuracy or too long to hinder fluency, increase their using of chunks in their interpretation and make constant efforts to become a professional interpreter.