Implications for Working Memory and Knowledge on Information Transfer during Simultaneous Interpreting

Abstract

Simultaneous interpreting requires special expertise which distinguishes the conference interpreters from other bilinguals. It is argued in this study that working memory capacity as well as knowledge about topic being discussed are the two factors that constitute the expertise of conference interpreters. Under such assumption, working memory spans of two groups of conference interpreters - seven interpreters in the Experienced Group with more than ten years of working experience and 16 interpreters in the Novice Group with less than three years of experience - were measured. Also, a survey was conducted to assess the topic knowledge of the two groups of interpreters. Then, English into Korean simultaneous interpreting experiment was carried out to investigate the implications of working memory capacity and topic knowledge on the interpreters' ability to transfer information from source language to target language. The interpreters' ability to transfer information was measured in terms of their ability to transfer meaning segments referred to as Idea Units and Essential Idea Units in the texts. The results of the experiment showed that while Experienced Group was able to transfer higher percentage of both Idea Units and Essential Idea Units than Novice Group, Novice Group of interpreters were more influenced by working memory span than knowledge while the Experienced Group was more influenced by the Topic Knowledge in their abilities to transfer information during simultaneous interpreting.