The impact of fluency on the subjective assessment of interpreting quality

Prosodic features such as fluency are key components of natural speech and, thus, also of simultaneous interpreting. Disfluencies, such as hesitations, vowel lengthening and repairs, are particularly significant in the output of simultaneous interpreters, which presents a pattern of pausing and disfluencies that differs from other forms of spontaneous speech. This paper provides an overview of aspects of fluency and a brief introduction to previous research in the area of fluency and user perceptions, and describes a study conducted by the author at the University of Vienna. The results of this experiment indicate that there may be a link between perceived fluency of an interpretation and users’ assessment of the interpreter’s accuracy. There also appears to be a link between self-assessed comprehension and assessment of the interpreter’s performance

Visual Input in Simultaneous Interpreting

This article looks at the interaction of the visual and the verbal in simultaneous interpreting, describing the significance of different elements of visual nonverbal communication with focus on those that facilitate understanding or need to be rendered in some way in the interpretation. While studies show that this visual information is often redundant, it can nevertheless aid the processing of verbal information. Visual contact can certainly be of importance when the verbal message refers to something visible to the audience or when the nonverbal adds information not present in the verbal message. A small experiment was conducted at the University of Vienna in order to determine whether there were any appreciable differences in interpreting with and without visual contact. The descriptive analysis sought to identify types of visual nonverbal communication that were particularly important for understanding the message.Le présent article traite de l’interaction entre le visuel et le verbal lors de l’interprétation simultanée. La signification des différentes composantes de la communication non verbale visuelle est étudiée, avec un accent particulier sur les éléments qui facilitent la bonne compréhension ou qui doivent être pris en compte dans l’interprétation. Ces informations d’ordre visuel, dont certaines études semblent prouver le caractère redondant, peuvent pourtant aider à bien assimiler l’information verbalisée. Le contact visuel est sans doute important lorsque le message verbal porte sur quelque chose qui est visible pour l’audience ou lorsque la composante non verbale apporte une information supplémentaire non explicitée dans l’énoncé. Une expérience à petite échelle a été conduite à l’Université de Vienne pour faire apparaître les éventuelles différences entre l’interprétation effectuée avec ou sans contact visuel. L’analyse descriptive qui en est donnée se propose d’identifier les modes de communication non verbale visuelle qui importent tout particulièrement pour la bonne compréhension du message