The Role of Additional Demonstratives and Interpersonal Cognition in Simultaneous Interpreting

SOAS CTS Global Seminar Series 2022-23

Speaker: Prof Hiroyuki ISHIZUKA (Hiroshima Shudo University/Visiting scholar, CTS, SOAS)

This is a free event hosted by SOAS CTS. Please register online and we will send you the link to the zoom meeting by 8 February.

Abstract

This study explores how interpreters apply interpersonal cognition to establish communication from English into Japanese during simultaneous interpreting. In 2020, Funayama proposed the Concept-Meaning Correlation Model of Verbal Communication to explain the order of linguistic communication by pointing out concepts and linguistic meaning as separate factors (船山, 2020). Drawing on this model, the study highlights interpreters’ socio-cognitive skills and traces the conceptual operations occurring on a non-linguistic level.

 Interpreting is not simply code-switching between two languages: interpreters’ utterances reflect their comprehension of the source text. Superficial linguistic shifts between source and target language reveal their grasp of information implicit in the source language speech. Based on the analysis of authentic interpreting data, this study provides evidence that implicit interpersonal cognition plays a significant role in interpreters’ performance.

 A range of linguistic shifts in said data has been examined to reveal the function of interpersonal cognition in interpreting. This study, however, focuses on demonstratives in the target text that do not have corresponding expressions in the source text and are therefore termed “additional demonstratives.” Based on these, it analyses the role of joint attention (Tomasello, 1999; O’Madagain & Tomasello, 2019) as a basic component of interpersonal cognition to support human communication and, from a socio-cognitive perspective, describes how interpreters apply extralinguistic resources in their discourse processing to communicate successfully in each given setting.

About the speaker

Hiroyuki ISHIZUKA is professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Human Sciences and its Graduate School at Hiroshima Shudo University, specialising in the theory and practice of interpreting and translation. He holds an MA in Interpreting and Translating from the University of Bath, UK and a PhD in Interpreting Studies from Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Japan. His research interests lie in modelling the cognitive process of simultaneous interpreting, drawing on cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology. His current research also includes the application of interpreting training, specifically sight translation and reproduction, to general second language education, as part of a movement called TILT (Translation in Language Teaching).