Effects of simultaneous interpreting experience and training on anticipation, as measured by word-translation latencies

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the influence of interpreter training and conference interpreting experience on anticipation, as measured by word-translation latencies in a semantically constrained context. It involved professional conference interpreters, on the one hand, and, on the other, interpreter trainees being tested at the beginning and at the end of their two-year training programme. Both groups were asked to translate words embedded at the end of high-context constraint sentences (thus easily predictable), low-context constraint sentences or those appearing in isolation in both directions (from and to their native language). The data suggest that word-translation latency improves in the course of interpreter training but it is not enhanced further in the course of professional experience, whereas anticipation is not improved by either training or experience. All the participants, being late foreign language learners, manifested an advantage in native language comprehension by anticipating more in an A–B versus a B–A translation direction. The findings also suggest that professional interpreting experience might facilitate inhibition and lead to the selection of the appropriate translation equivalent.