Attention-Sharing Initiative of Multimodal Processing in Simultaneous Interpreting

Problem Triggers And Processing Latency

Throughout a simultaneous interpreting assignment, an interpreter will inevitably encounter several stumbling blocks, for example, weak signal, an accented speaker and poor booth conditions. These elements are referred to as “problem triggers”, which increases the interpreter’s processing capacity in language comprehension or/and rendition production (Gile, 2009). A number of studies indicated the factors hindering the interpreter from an ideal rendition (Albl-mikasa, 2010; Cheung, 2013; Han & Riazi, 2017; I. H. I. Lin et al., 2013). Based on Gile’s conceptual framework, Mankauskienė (2016, pp. 145–146) presented a structured list looking into the definition of “problem trigger” in simultaneous interpreting. According to this classified structure, problem triggers that may appear during an interpreting assignment are concluded into four general categories: 1) an increase in processing capacity requirement; 2) signal vulnerability; 3) language-specified related problems; and 4) the speaker factor (see Table 1).