Investigating Disfluencies in E-C Sight Translation

• 作者: Junwen Cao
• 来源期刊: 语言与符号学研究
• 学科: 文学
• 关键词: translation process and product E-C sight translation DISFLUENCY Speech Production Theory lexical density
• 年，卷（期）: 2020,（4）
• 页码范围: 126-143
• 页数: 18页
• 分类号: H31

摘要

Spoken language is marked by para-verbal and non-verbal dimensions,such as silent pause,hesitation,and intonation.Fluency is considered as an essential parameter for evaluating the quality of oral output.Sight translation is a hybrid form of written translation and oral interpreting;however,fluency in sight translation is an underresearched topic.This paper examines the disfluencies in the sight translation of professional and novice translators working from English to Chinese.It adopted a statistical approach to compare the silent pauses and hesitation fillers in the delivery of professional and student participants.According to the independent samples t-test results,the differences were significant in the occurrence and ratio of hesitation between professional and student participants.It can be inferred that professional translators are more apt at coping tactics,such as pausing for several seconds,rather than inserting hesitation fillers unconsciously.Furthermore,the corpus-assisted analysis suggested a higher lexical density among professional participants,followed by the think-aloud approach,which revealed the causes for disfluencies.By drawing upon the Speech Production Theory,the paper found six most influential factors:vocabulary,emotion,syntactic category,speaking habit,lexical ambiguity,and topical difficulty.It is hoped that translation and interpreting studies will not be confined to linguistic dimensions.Paralinguistic signs should have their places in the domain of translatology.Semiotics of translation,which views translation as a pure semiotic act,thereby provides a valued perspective for translation and interpreting studies.