Strategic Dimensions of Simultaneous Interpreting: A Discourse Analysis Approach

從話語分析出發探討同步口譯之策略思維

張梵(Albert L. Chang)

《譒》 3期 (2021/10) Pp. 57-102

摘要

Strategies are considered essential for successful simultaneous interpretation (SI) performance. The need for strategies during SI can be explained by the fact that the SI process involves considerable cognitive load and is performed under time pressure. As such, flexible and efficient allocation of attentional resources is required to control and coordinate the mutually overlapping activities of listening to the source language (SL) discourse and producing the target language (TL) discourse. While there are many papers on SI focusing on strategy use and language pairs, studies on segmentation strategies of the Chinese SL during SI remain limited. In addition, most papers focus on strategies at the sentence level, and few have looked at SI input and output at the discourse level. Against this background, this study aims to explore information structure at the sentence level and beyond to examine how such an understanding can facilitate SL comprehension and TL production. At the sentence level, this study revisits the findings of Goldman-Eisler (1972) by examining how syntactic linearity between the SL and TL allows for a ＂first-in-first-out＂ approach to TL production. At beyond the sentence level, the study borrows from Halliday and Matthiessen's notion of given-new information to explore how SL messages may contain given and new information, and how a complex SL structure may be segmented into two or more TL outputs, one containing the given information, and the other the new. A corpus of SI speeches and student interpretations from Chinese into English was used as empirical data for analysis. The results show that at the sentence level, SL discourse analysis allows the interpreter to identify similarities between the SL and TL structures and to take advantage of this syntactic linearity during TL production. In such instances, cognitive load will be lower because the interpreter does not have to re-structure his TL output. At beyond the sentence level, being able to keep in mind the relationships between successive messages allows the interpreter to maintain cohesion and be less redundant throughout TL production.

關鍵字

simultaneous interpretation ； comprehension strategies ； given-new information ； interpreter training

並列摘要

策略為同步口譯（SI）成功表現的關鍵。由於同步口譯涉及龐大的認知負荷與時間壓力，其過程必須靈活運用策略，有效分配注意力資源，以控制和協調傾聽原文與產出譯文之相互重疊活動。雖然文獻有多篇論文探討同步口譯策略運用與語言組合，針對中英同步口譯斷句策略之探討，仍屬有限。多數論文偏重於句子層面的處理策略，鮮少研究同步口譯於話語層面之輸入與輸出。有鑑於此，本研究旨在檢視單句以及單句以外的資訊結構，探討對於資訊結構之瞭解，如何促進原文理解與譯文生產。在句子層面，本研究重新審視Goldman-Eisler（1972）的研究結果，探討如何使用「順譯」處理原文和譯文間之類似句型。在文本和概念層面，本研究引用Halliday與Matthiessen的「新舊訊息」概念，檢視原文訊息如何包含新舊訊息，以及如何從複雜的原文結構，抽取舊訊息與新訊息，並將原文訊息分割成兩個或多個譯文輸出，一個包含舊訊息、其他則包含新訊息。本研究使用同步口譯中進英語料庫，作為實證資料進行分析。研究結果顯示，在句子層面，口譯員可藉由原文語篇分析，判斷原文與譯文間的相似性，並在譯文生產過程中，利用順譯以減輕認知負荷，譯文不需重組結構輸出。在話語層面，口譯員若能夠記住原文訊息間之關聯，可以讓譯文產出更加連貫，減少冗餘。

並列關鍵字

同步口譯 ； 理解策略 ； 舊信息 ； 新信息 ； 口譯訓練