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Working Memory and Individual Differences in Language Processing during Simultaneous Interpreting

Lee Migyong 1

1경희대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper lies in investigating the relations between working memory span of conference interpreters and their ability to process language on-line and express them during simultaneous interpreting. Simultaneous interpreting is a highly complex and complicated information transfer and language mediation process which requires special expertise that distinguishes the conference interpreters from other bilinguals. It is hypothesized in this study that conference interpreters have high working memory span which is described as limited-capacity mechanism involved in both the processing and storing of currently active information. Under such assumption, working memory span of sixteen conference interpreters were measured to categorize them into high span and low span working memory groups. Then, an English into Korean simultaneous interpreting experiment was carried out to investigate the implications of working memory capacity on these interpreters’ ability to transfer information from source language to target language. The interpreters’ ability to transfer information was measured in terms of the coverage in delivering meaning segments as well as their flexibility in choices of vocabulary and sentence structure. The results of the experiment showed that not only was High Span Group able to transfer higher percentage of meaning segments than Low Span Group of interpreters but also able to produce more natural and coherent target language re-expression.

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