Mária Bakti: The development of interpreting competence
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7 Methodology of the longitudinal investigation presented in this work
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7.2 Procedure and materials

7.2 Procedure and materials

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

In the longitudinal study, at the end of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th semesters, students were invited to consecutively interpret source language texts of comparable length and complexity, from English into Hungarian. The topic of the SL texts was an introduction to a British or American university or a college, with the aim of recruiting future students to these institutions.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

The decision to use three different texts for the three sessions was made to eliminate a potential practice effect, however, as a result, differences observed in interpreting performance might be the results of the differences in materials, and not the results of competence development. To overcome this problem, efforts were made to make sure that the SL texts are comparable.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

The source language texts for consecutive interpreting can be considered as comparable because they are of similar length and structure, their topic is similar, their lexical density, and the proportion of monosyllabic and polysyllabic words are comparable. In addition, the SL texts were presented in the same way, under the same conditions. One clear limitation is the uneven distribution of the rich points in the three SL texts.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Table 7.2 shows the details of the three SL texts (see Appendices 4, 5, and 6). The SL texts consisted of 10 short sections, and were presented by a non-native English speaker, the same speaker at the end of each semester. The TL renderings were recorded in a language lab. This is clearly a deviation from standard interpreting practice, however, this was the only way to guarantee that all interpreter trainees worked with an identical SL text. Laboratory conditions didn’t make it possible for interpreter trainees to ask for clarification from the SL Speaker, which is another deviation from standard consecutive interpreting practice.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

As the sections were relatively short, and in order to limit the number of variables, students were asked not to take notes, however, this was not checked, in other words, it might have happened that they actually did take notes. The aim of the investigation was to examine short-section consecutive interpreting without note-taking.
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Table 7.2 Details of the consecutively interpreted source language texts
 
2nd Semester
3rd Semester
4th Semester
Topic
Williams College (USA)
Oxford University (UK)
Swansea University (UK)
Number of words
492
477
511
Proportion of monosyllabic words
57.12%
58.9%
58.7%
Proportion of polysyllabic words (3 or more syllables)
20.73%
18.45%
18.2%
Lexical density
(the number of lexical words [or content words] divided by the total number of words)*
61.99%
54.71%
55.77%
* Lexical Density (analyzemywriting.com).
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

In addition to consecutive interpreting, recordings were made of the spontaneous and extemporaneous speech production of the students in the session after the second semester of their studies. Spontaneous speech production was recorded as part of an interview with the students about everyday topics related to their background in languages and problems encountered during interpreting. The topic of the extemporaneous speech production task was the advantages and disadvantages of being a student at an American university or college. This topic was selected so that students got better prepared for the end of the second semester CI topic, which was the introduction of an American college with the aim of recruiting students to this college.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

At the end of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th semesters of their studies, students were also invited to sight translate English texts related to higher education from English into Hungarian. These sight-translated Hungarian texts are not analysed in the present volume.

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The number of words in the consecutively interpreted target language texts, together with the spontaneous and extemporaneous speech of the four interpreter trainees is given in Table 7.3
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Table 7.3 Number of words in the recordings analysed
 
CI 2nd semester
CI 3rd semester
CI 4th semester
Spontaneous
Extemporaneous
Estrella
546
402
456
576
158
Luna
426
368
393
538
98
Matador
487
432
487
459
200
Senorita
451
366
416
491
138
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

The consecutively interpreted target language texts were analysed for fidelity, the strategies used by the interpreter trainees, the frequency of occurrence of disfluencies, the use of grammatical cohesive devices, and the use of explicitation shifts. In addition, the retrospective comments of the interpreter trainees, and the evaluations of the Hungarian target language texts by interpreter trainers and members of a target audience are also presented. The methodology of these investigations is detailed in the respective chapter.
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