1
TABLE OF CONTENT
ABSTRACT 3
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 5
INTRODUCTION 6
1. Background 6
2. Research aims 7
3. Methodology and scope 7
4. Outline 8
1 CHAPTER I 10
A REVIEW OF CONFERENCE INTERPRETING RESEARCH 10
1.1 INTERPRETING 10
1.1.1 Definition 10
1.1.2 Classification of interpreting 12
1.1.3 Interpreting Quality 20
1.2 INTERPRETING RESEARCH 24
1.2.1 Paradigms in interpreting studies 25
1.2.2 Areas of Interpreting studies 31
1.3 PRAGMATICS, COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND RESEARCH IN CONFERENCE SI 42
1.3.1 Conference (simultaneous) interpreting as the object of research 42
1.3.2 Pragmatics 48
1.3.3 Pragmatics in conference interpreting 61
1.3.4 Cognitive science and SI research 64
2 CHAPTER 2 67
THE COGNITIVE PRAGMATIC MODEL FOR SI ANALYSIS 67
2.1 THE COGNITIVE PRAGMATIC MODEL OF SI 68
2.1.1 Inputs to discourse comprehension 72
2.1.2 Assembly: syntax, lexicon and context 74
2.1.3 The Executive 76
2.1.4 Speech production in SI 77
2.2 APPLICATION OF THE MODEL 79

Summary of findings 163
Implications for training 170
Further research 171
REFERENCES 173
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ABSTRACT

The study analyzes the transcripts of recorded conference speeches and
interpreter’s versions (in both live and simulated situations) to explore the
anticipation and coordination efforts by the simultaneous interpreter in action.
This is based on the theoretical framework of the cognitive pragmatic model
developed by Setton and the pragmatic anticipation theory modeled by Chernov.
According to the model, the interpreter makes use of the pragmatic principles to
assemble meanings through anticipation and inferences and then to deliver the
interpretation with judgement, compensation and elaboration. It is found out that:
The average EVS is 3 second and if the EVS accumulates to longer than this, the
interpreter tries to compress the SL output to reduce it to normal, failure to do this
may result in failure (omissions or distortions).
The speed of the SL Speaker dictates the rate of delivery by the Interpreter. There
is no difference in the normal speed of speech between the Vietnamese and
English speakers and that of the interpreters among the subjects of the study
(calculated to be around 180 syllables per minute).
The SI interpreter continuously makes anticipation and formulates inferences on
the basis of partial meanings, either because the utterance is still incomplete or
because, not being the addressed, she receives less than the full meaning available
to the Addressees. One of the indicators for successful anticipation is the shorter
EVS (1-2 seconds, or even negative). This is possible thanks to sufficient
discourse redundancy (both objective and subjective) as well as cues from the
environment.
The interpreter consciously makes judgement of implausible inputs, compression

settings requiring the service of translators and interpreters, including but not
limited to international conferences, business meetings, cultural events, etc. The
need for quality interpreting and translation services in these contexts is therefore
immense. Studies on T/I, especially interpreting, will contribute to the
improvement of interpreting quality on the one hand, and of the training of
professional interpreters, on the other.
Conference Simultaneous interpreting (SI) provides an interesting field for
research. SI research started in the mid 70s of the last century has developed
greatly ever since and has now become a multidisciplinary subject of academia, a
convergence of cognitive psychology and linguistics, built upon the foundations of
the Paris School with a new conception of with a new conception of linguistics
informed by Relevance Theory, that is, cognitive pragmatics, as developed by
Setton. There have been different approaches to look at interpreting: as a form of
translation; a cognitive process; a dialogic interaction; or a neuro-linguistic
activity. Nevertheless, not much research on SI has been done in Vietnam, or on
the language pair English – Vietnamese. This offers a challenging but interesting
area for this research to explore.
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2. Research aims
The study aims to explore the mechanisms that allow the simultaneous interpreter
to make different efforts: inputs processing, meaning assembly, formulation and
articulation in a highly coordinated manner. In particular, based on the theoretical
framework of the cognitive pragmatic model, the study will attempt to provide
explanations for the on-going anticipation and inference process during the
comprehension stage, as well as the continuous coordination, judgment and
compensation in the delivery stage of the SI interpreter.
In order to achieve the aims, the research project seeks to answer the following
questions:
- What is the normal time lag (ear-voice-span or EVS) for interpreting English
propositions into Vietnamese and vice versa?

the cognitive pragmatic aspects of the SI process, for example the visible use of
the Speaker’s intentionality and other pragmatic indicators, such as anticipation
and inference, or the economy of SI processing through the evidences of judgment,
compensation and coordination.
4. Outline
The thesis is organized into 4 chapters, besides the introduction and conclusions.
After this chapter of introduction, Chapter 1 presents a review of the current state
of SI research by introducing different paradigms and research areas in SI study.
Chapter 2 goes on to discuss the components of the proposed theoretical
framework for this study, i.e. the cognitive pragmatic model. Chapter 3 provides a
detailed description of the data set, research methodology and procedures. Chapter
4 discusses the quantitative results on the simultaneity (ear-voice-span and
syllable counts) which provide useful information for the analysis of the SI
9
process, which focuses more on the strategies and cues employed by the
interpreter, especially anticipation and inference in the comprehension stage and
the relative autonomy in the production stage, evidenced by judgments and
compensations made in the original version. 10

1 CHAPTER I
A REVIEW OF CONFERENCE
INTERPRETING RESEARCH
1.1 INTERPRETING
1.1.1 Definition
1.1.1.1 Interpreting vs. translation
Interpreting is generally regarded as a translational activity, as a special form
of ‘Translation' (the capital initial is used to indicate that the word appears in

communicative use, could thus be formulated as follows:
Interpreting is a form of Translation in which a first and final rendition
in another language is produced on the basis of a one-time presentation
of an utterance in a source language. (Pochhacker, 2004)
1.1.1.2 The interpreter vs. the translator
The so-called “twin” professions of translators and interpreters have same goal,
act on the same principle and are - or can be - based on the same theory. Yet,
although the terms "translator" and "interpreter" are often used interchangeably,
they do represent two rather different professions.
We should probably define the difference between them: translation converts a
written text into another written text, while interpretation converts an oral
message into another oral message. This difference is crucial. In translation, the
thought that is studied, analyzed and subsequently rendered in the other language
is contained in a permanent setting: the written text. Good or bad, this text is
static, immutable in its form and fixed in time. And the translation, equally
circumscribed within a written text, is intended, as was the original, for a public
the translator does not know. Conference interpreting represents something
entirely different. The conference interpreter is there with both speaker and
listener, dealing with messages whose fleeting words are important, not because
of their form, but almost entirely because of their meaning. She participates in a 12

dialogue, her words are aimed at a listener whom she addresses directly and in
whom she seeks to elicit a reaction, and she does this at a speed that is about 30
times greater than that of the translator (Seleskovitch 1989).
1.1.2 Classification of interpreting
There are various ways to classify interpreting, by its setting, working mode
or by language direction. The traditional method of classifying interpreting

of access, first to the labor market and then to a variety of public institutions
and social welfare services, was also at the heart of new communication needs
arising in the context of (im)migration. Countries like Sweden and Australia
responded as early as the 1960s to the demand for interpreting services to help
immigrants function in the host society. It was only in the 1980s and 1990s, in
the face of mounting communication problems in public-sector institutions
(healthcare, social services), that community interpreting, also referred to as
public service interpreting (mainly in the UK) and cultural interpreting (in
Canada), emerged as a wide new field of interpreting practice, with
healthcare interpreting (sometimes referred to as medical interpreting,
hospital interpreting) and legal interpreting as the most commonly used
forms of community interpreting.
In community interpreting, factors exist which determine and affect language
and communication production, such as speech's emotional content, hostile or
polarized social surroundings, its created stress, the power relationships
among participants, and the interpreter's degree of responsibility—in many
cases more than extreme; in some cases, even the life of the other person
depends upon the interpreter's work.
1.1.2.2 Situational interaction
In addition to the categorization of interpreting types by social context and
institutional setting, further significant distinctions can be derived from the
situational constellation of interaction. Even though interpreting always
involves ‘three-party interaction’, the mediating role of the interpreter differs,
depending on the clients (s)he is working for. Gentile (1996) distinguishes
dialogue interpreting with a (bilingual) interpreter assuming the pivotal 14

mediating role between two (monolingual) clients (also referred to as bilateral


15

taped interviews with political figures, musicians, artists, sportsmen or people
from the business circle. In this type of interpreting, the interpreter has to sit
in a sound-proof booth where ideally she/she can see the speakers on a
monitor ant the set. All equipment should be checked before recording begins.
In particular, satellite connections have to be double-checked to ensure that
the interpreter's voice is not sent back and the interpreter gets to hear only one
channel at a time. In the case of interviews recorded outside the studio and
some current affairs programme, the interpreter interprets what she or she
hears on a TV monitor. Background noise can be a serious problem. The
interpreter working for the media has to sound as slick and confident as a
television presenter.
Media interpreting has gained more visibility and presence especially after
Vietnam’s recent successful hosting of several major sporting and cultural
contests and events, which is live broadcast. Television channels have begun
to hire staff simultaneous interpreters. The interpreter renders the press
conferences, telephone beepers, interviews and similar live coverage for the
viewers. It is more stressful than other types of interpreting as the interpreter
has to deal with a wide range of technical problems coupled with the control
room's hassle and wrangling during live coverage.
We can also categorize interpreting based on additional parameters as
illustrated below.
1.1.2.3 Working mode
The way in which interpreting was originally practiced did not require
terminological classification until the emergence of a new working mode. It
was only in the 1920s, when transmission equipment was developed to enable
interpreters to work simultaneously, that it became meaningful to distinguish
between consecutive interpreting (after the source-language utterance) and

interpreter relays the message in the target language into the microphone to
whosoever is listening. Simultaneous interpreting is also the most common
mode used by sign language interpreters.
Simultaneous interpreting is sometimes referred to as "simultaneous
translation" and the interpreter referred to as the "translator". These terms are 17

incorrect, as discussed in the distinction between interpreting and translation
above.
Recently, another hybrid form, which could be labeled ‘consecutive
simultaneous’, has become feasible with the use of highly portable digital
recording and playback equipment. This involves the use of a digital recorder
to replace note-taking while listening to the source language speech, then the
interpreter replays the speech into a headset, renders it in the simultaneous
mode.
Since consecutive interpreting does not presuppose a particular duration of the
original act of discourse, it can be conceived of as a continuum which ranges
from the rendition of utterances as short as one word to the handling of entire
speeches. Subject to the individual interpreter's working style - and memory
skills - and a number of situational variables (such as the presentation of
slides), the consecutive interpretation of longer speeches usually involves
note-taking as developed by the pioneers of conference interpreting in the
early twentieth century. Hence, consecutive interpreting with the use of
systematic note-taking is sometimes referred to as ‘classic’ consecutive, in
contrast to short consecutive without notes, which usually implies a
bidirectional mode in a liaison constellation.
On the other hand, the term ‘simultaneous interpreting’ (frequently
abbreviated to SI) is often used as shorthand for ‘spoken language interpreting

While the interpreting process always proceeds in one direction - from source
to target language - the issue of direction is more complex at the level of the
communicative event. In the prototype case of mediated face-to-face dialogue,
or still, three-cornered interpreting, the interpreter will work in both directions,
that is, ‘back and forth’ between the two languages involved, depending on
the turn-taking of the primary parties. Bilateral interpreting (or two-way
interpreting) is thus typically linked with the notions of ‘liaison interpreting’
and ‘dialogue interpreting’, whereas the one-directional type is common
practice in conference interpreting, except where interpreters may work in a
‘bilingual booth’, or are said to provide ‘small retour’ (i.e. interpret questions
and comments back into the language chiefly used on the floor).
An individual interpreter, especially those who work for international
conferences, may have a combination of several working languages, which are 19

classified by AIIC, the International Association of Conference Interpreters,
as A-, B- or C-languages, where A = native or best ‘active’ language; B =
‘active’ language commanded with near-native proficiency; C = ‘passive’
language allowing ‘complete understanding’). The western tradition of
conference interpreting has favored simultaneous interpreting from B- or C-
languages into an interpreter's A-language. For example a native English
interpreter who are fluent in French and Italian usually works from French and
Italian into English. A-to-B interpreting, or retour interpreting, though widely
practiced on the ‘local’, or private market, has not been equally accepted for
simultaneous interpreting in international organizations. Where the language
combination of the interpreters available does not allow for ‘direct
interpreting’, recourse is made to relay interpreting, that is, indirect
interpreting via a third language, which links up the performance of two (or

language contain categories to describe the IT as an autonomous text within
the communicative event, while the area of content considers the semantic
relations between ST and IT. The last area, interpretation, aims at highlighting
interpreting specific features such as interpreting strategies. Depending on the
objectives of the analysis, further categories may be added. A global
description or evaluation may be obtained only by taking into account these
four mail areas without analyzing single categories. The sheet may be used for
all interpreting modalities (consecutive, simultaneous, relay), from B-C
languages into A and also from A into B.
1.1.3.1 Delivery
This area encompasses categories which point to phonation, articulation and
prosodic features.
1. Pronunciation and phonation - the category also includes
mispronunciations such as phoneme exchange. Description: standard,
altered, heavily altered.
2. Output - this category points towards production speed and rhythm.
Description: standard, fast, slow.
3. Prosody - this category encompasses word, clause and sentence accent as
well as intonation. Description: standard, monotonous, erroneous. 21

4. Non-fluencies - it includes several elements distributed in two classes:
a. filled pauses (ehms, ah, etc.) coughs, glottal clicks, audible breathing;
b. false starts, repetitions.
Description: few, frequent, many.
5. Pauses - long, silent pauses that are not correlated to source-text pauses.
Description: few, frequent, many.
1.1.3.2 Language

sense.
1. Changes - substitution of elements, synthesis or paraphrase of text
segments. Quantitative description: none, few, many; qualitative
description: strategic, negligible, and disturbing.
2. Omissions - different kinds of omissions may be detected (omission of
redundant elements, reformulation with loss of information, omission of
information units). Quantitative description: none, few, many; qualitative
description: strategic, negligible, and disturbing.
3. Additions - as already stated for the preceding categories, there are several
occurrences in this category. At one end of the continuum are the
interpreter's intentional additions, useful for global text coherence; at the
other end are additions which have no connection with the text or the
communicative situation and therefore entail a breakdown in text
coherence. Quantitative description: none, few, many; qualitative
description: strategic, negligible, and disturbing.
4. Logical links - to indicate whether the logical sequence of the ST has been
reproduced. Description: same, less, more.
5. Register - this category shows whether the rhetorical and stylistic effect of
the original has been maintained, and whether the register used was
suitable to the communicative intention and event. Description: same,
modified, distorted. 23

1.1.3.4 Interpretation
Categories in this section help describe specific aspects of an interpreting
performance in which interpreting competence prevails over language and
communication competence, reflecting use of interpreting strategies. The
purpose of the last category is to give an impressionistic evaluation, not a

simultaneous interpreting; and the issues of interpreting quality. This will
provide a background for the analysis of the interpreting samples in the later
parts of this study.
It is important to note that interpreting is different from translation not just
because it deals with oral text, but in the fact that: (a) the source-language text
is presented only once and thus cannot be reviewed or replayed, and (b) the
target-language text is produced under time pressure, with little chance for
correction and revision. It is this difference that lead to the different skills
required for the interpreter, besides language and contextual knowledge.
1.2 INTERPRETING RESEARCH
Interpreting has only become a serious object of research for more than a half
century now, starting in eastern Europe with Kade and the ‘Leipzig School’
which is somewhat more linguistically oriented and Chernov and the ‘Soviet
School’ which focuses on the role of predictive understanding in simultaneous
interpreting; then Seleskovitch and the ‘Paris School’ which has provided a
fertile ground for a number of doctoral dissertations on interpreting in ESIT
interpreting school; through to the interdisciplinary approach championed by the
Trieste School; and a recent focus on community interpreting, particularly
through the Critical Link conference series in Canada.
The study of interpreting has now become a multidisciplinary subject of
academia, a convergence of cognitive psychology and linguistics, built upon the
foundations of the Paris School with a new conception of linguistics informed by
Relevance Theory, that is, cognitive pragmatics, as developed by Robin Setton.
In the next part of this chapter, we will explore the prevailing paradigms - or
schools of thought - in interpreting studies. 25

1.2.1 Paradigms in interpreting studies