| Author: | Jia, Hui |
| Title: | A corpus-based study of lexical and syntactic simplification in relay and non-relay simultaneous interpreting |
| Advisors: | Cheung, Kay-fan Andrew (CBS) |
| Degree: | DALS |
| Year: | 2024 |
| Subject: | Simultaneous interpreting Corpora (Linguistics) Translating and interpreting Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Faculty of Humanities |
| Pages: | xii, 242 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | The current study examines linguistic features of relay and non-relay simultaneous interpreting (SI) as compared to non-interpreted original speeches. Relay SI is a common practice in multilingual international conferences and is generally employed when direct transfer is infeasible. Different from non-relay interpreting during which the source information is directly rendered into the target language, relay interpreting is an indirect, two-stage process where information should be transferred from the source language to the target via a third language (Čeňková, 2015; Shlesinger, 2010). Despite its wide application in real-life practice, relay SI has not been investigated as much as other interpreting modes (Pöchhacker, 2022b). Existing studies are either of a didactic nature, summarizing interpreters’ experience and perceptions towards relay SI, or empirical studies that examine relay SI in terms of (dis)fluency and information loss, yet very few studies approach this interpreting mode from the perspective of its linguistic features. The combination of corpus linguistic with interpreting studies provides a new method and an efficient toolkit for exploring the unique features of interpreted languages. Investigations with large corpora have identified some universal features that can distinguish interpreting outputs from non-mediated speeches (Baker, 1993), including higher degree of explicitness, more simplified language use, etc. However, most studies in this regard are conducted with Indo-European languages while neglecting the features of Chinese as a mediated target language. Therefore, the present study takes advantage of tools that measure lexical and syntactic complexity to explore whether the identified simplification characteristics of mediated language also apply to interpreted Chinese, and whether the simplification tendency varies with different interpreting modes, i.e., relay and non-relay SI. Since this study aims to contribute to our knowledge of interpreted Chinese and relay interpreting, two major issues are explored: 1) Is interpreted Chinese more simplified than non-interpreted original Chinese? If yes, what simplification features are presented at lexical and syntactic levels? 2) Do relay SI renditions exhibit different linguistic features as compared to non-relay SI outputs? If yes, what are the differences? To answer the above questions, a comparable, intermodal corpus has been built up, with naturalistic data from the United Nations. The corpus is composed of three sub-corpora: a non-interpreted corpus with speeches delivered in Chinese at the UN meetings; a non-relay interpreting corpus with English to Chinese SI renditions at the UN General Assembly; and a relay interpreting corpus with Arabic/Spanish/Russian – English – Chinese SI renditions at the UN General Assembly. To explore the simplification tendency, the three sub-corpora are examined with 33 lexical and syntactic complexity indices. At the lexical level, original Chinese speeches are compared with interpreting outputs and relay with non-relay renditions from the perspectives of lexical variety, lexical density, and lexical sophistication. At the syntactic level, the sub-corpora are assessed with mean length indicators, phraseological diversity measures, and phraseological sophistications measures. The comparison between original Chinese speeches and interpreting renditions indicates that: 1) at the lexical level, the simplification tendency of interpreted language is confirmed with all the three dimensions, as SI renditions are found to be more repetitive, less informative, and less sophisticated. 2) At the syntactic level, original Chinese speeches are measured as greater than SI renditions in all length-based indicators, which provides evidence for the syntactic simplification tendency of interpreted Chinese. As to phraseological diversity and sophistication, results are mixed and demonstrate a co-existence of simplification and complication in SI renditions. Whereas non-interpreted Chinese is observed to have more diversified collocations and use more low-frequency collocations, it is not found to have more unique collocations than interpreted Chinese. In addition, the variety and ratio of complement-predicate and preposition-postposition word combinations are lower in original Chinese than in interpreted Chinese. In terms of the features of relay SI as compared to non-relay SI, major results are as follows: 1) Lexically, relay SI renditions are not found significantly more simplified than non-relay SI outputs in terms of lexical variety, lexical density, or lexical sophistication; 2) Syntactically, the doubled interpreting process in the relay mode does not seem to have made the features of interpreted language more obvious in relay SI. Except that non-relay outputs seem to use longer noun phrases, no significant differences in the other length-based measures are identified between the two different interpreting modes. Regarding phraseological complexity, the two interpreting sub-corpora show a high degree of homogeneity as there lacks significant differences in most phraseological diversity and sophistication indices. Moreover, the simplification tendency is even found weakened given that relay outputs are observed to be more diversified in total collocations and have a higher ratio of low-frequency collocations than non-relay SI renditions. The present study aims to apply a more systemic framework to analyze lexical and syntactic properties in SI renditions. Complement to earlier studies on the linguistic features of interpreted Indo-European languages, this study has focused on the less investigated language, Chinese as an interpreted target. In addition, by carrying out an intermodal comparison, it also provides insights into the nature of relay simultaneous interpreting. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8036.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 2.57 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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