Disfluencies in consecutive interpreting among undergraduates in the language lab environment

• Main Author: Yin, Kexiu
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2011
• Subjects: Consecutive interpreting; Fluency (Language learning); Language and Literacy Education
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/4236
• Institution: De La Salle University

Consecutive interpreting (CI) has gained increasing popularity and application in today's world. Fluency is a criterion for CI output assessment. Although disfluencies among CI professionals were investigated in previous studies, little research has been done on the disfluency prevalence among CI undergraduate learners. Nor is the advantage of the language lab facilities studied in terms of helping beginning learners to improve speech fluency. Based on the analysis of 28 recorded CI outputs produced by students in a Chinese university, this paper attempts to identify clearly the frequencies of difluencies. The results show that the problems of overusing fillers and repeated words may be prevalent among CI beginning learners, while notable pause seems to be better controlled in the language lab environment. Then, the causes of the difluencies are explored and pedagogical suggestions are offered.