英中同步口譯之句末時間差與譯文精確性之關聯

A Research on the Relationship between Tail-to-tail span and Quality in English to Chinese Simultaneous Interpreting

陳品秀(Ping-hsiu Chen)

指導教授 ： 范家銘

國立臺灣大學/文學院/翻譯碩士學位學程/碩士(2020年)

https://doi.org/10.6342/NTU202000181

摘要

同步口譯中之「同步性」(synchronicity) 係指原文與譯文發生之時間十分接近，近乎完全同步。但同步性可能因口譯員或情境而異，口譯員可能習慣於緊跟講者或刻意拉長距離，但也可能於特定情境下另做選擇。此一差異長久以來為口譯研究中的熱門主題，談討同步性或其與品質、語言方向、口譯員資歷等面向之關聯。同步性的具體探討乃透過原文與譯文間的「時間差」(time lag) 切入。過往研究多採取聽譯時間差 (ear-voice span) 為衡量時間差的方式，即量測原文開端與譯文開端間的時間差。2003年時，韓國學者Tae-hyung Lee提出另一種衡量時間差的方式：句末時間差 (tail-to-tail span) 。句末時間差以原文結尾與譯文結尾為時間差的量測點，乍看與聽譯時間差似乎十分雷同，然而兩者間卻有儘管細微但仍值得細究之差異， Lee認為應在研究上予以區別和重視。兩種時間差最關鍵之區別為，口譯員對於聽譯時間差較有自行掌控之可能，而句末時間差則相對受限。其次，譯者對於聽譯時間差長短可能各有偏好，或偏好較短的時間差以求降低記憶負擔，或選擇較長時間差以求理解更完整；相較之下，少有口譯員會選擇拉長句末時間差，因為句末時間差過長可能會犧牲原可用於理解和處理下一句原文的心力，在無法預知下一句原文難易輕重時，維持較短的句末時間差是較佳之策。本研究承襲Lee對句末時間差的研究，探討句末時間差與口譯品質間的關係，分析兩百餘組句子中句末時間差與下一句之口譯品質間的關係。本研究的核心假設為：某句句末時間差長短與下一句之口譯品質呈現反向關係，即某句譯文之句末時間差愈長，下一句之品質愈差；句末時間差愈短，下一句之品質則愈好。研究結果發現，整體而言，句末時間差短的譯文平均獲得較高分的口譯品質分數，且平均句末時間差較短的受試者獲得之平均口譯分數也較高。在部分受試者身上也發現同一位受試者不同句的口譯品質也會受到句末時間差長短的影響。

關鍵字

同步口譯 ； 句末時間差 ； 聽譯時間差 ； 口譯品質

並列摘要

Synchronicity is a key factor in simultaneous interpreting (SI). While it is a basic element in SI, the level of synchronicity still varies by interpreting practitioner and by context sometimes. Synchronicity has long been the topic of much interest in the field of interpreting research. Past studies have looked at synchronicity itself and its relationship with such aspects as quality, directionality and experience. Most studies measure synchronicity through “ear-voice span”, the time that elapses between the onset of the source speech and the onset of the corresponding target speech. In 2003, researcher Tae-hyung Lee proposed a new parameter for measuring synchronicity – tail-to-tail span, the time that elapses between the end of a source speech sentence and the end of the corresponding target speech sentence. Though tail-to-tail span appears to be highly similar with ear-voice span, crucial differences exist. The main difference involves the manipulation of span length. While ear-voice span can be extended or shortened through adjusting the length of interpreter’s pause between sentences and for such purposes as better comprehension or lighter memory load, shortening tail-to-tail span requires more effort, and there is little rationale for extending one’s tail-to-tail span, as processing of the upcoming sentence could be at stake. This research follows Lee’s footstep in exploring the relationship between tail-to-tail span and interpreting quality, and conducts an experiment to examine the relationship between a sentence’s tail-to-tail span and the next sentence’s interpreting quality. The research hypothesizes that tail-to-tail span length and interpreting quality are negatively correlated. Results based on over 200 sentences show that the hypothesis holds true not just for the experiment data as a whole, but also for inter-participant comparison (i.e. participants with shorter TTS tend to have better quality), and in certain cases, for intra-participant comparison (i.e. the same participant produces renditions of better quality when TTS is shorter).

並列關鍵字

Simultaneous interpreting ； tail-to-tail span ； ear-voice span ； quality

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