Scholarlink

<p>How task features shape interpreters’ outputs remains a debated issue. The source language interference hypothesis suggests that the complexity of the target text aligns with that of the source text, whereas the cognitive load minimization hypothesis argues that target text complexity decreases as the source text complexity increases. We analyzed source text complexity, measured by lexical density (LD), percentage of numerals (Number), mean length of clause (MCL), mean dependency distance (STMDD), inequivalent dependency type (DT) and root distance (ROOT), in relation to learner interpreters’ syntactic complexity, measured by mean dependency distance (TTMDD) in both into-A and into-B consecutive interpreting. Results indicate that 1) a majority of influential predictors are consistent across both interpreting directions; 2) lexically, reduced impacts of Number in both directions and LD in into-A interpreting (i.e., English-Chinese) support the cognitive load minimization hypothesis; 3) syntactically, MCL shows increasing effects in both directions, corroborating the source language interference hypothesis. Notably, DT in into-B interpreting (i.e., Chinese-English) and ROOT in both directions align with cognitive load minimization, while the differential effects of STMDD point to divergent hypotheses. These observations provide initial evidence of a cross-linguistic cognitive processing mechanism in bi-directional learner consecutive interpreters.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Source language interference or cognitive load minimization? Evidence from a syntactic dependency-annotated corpus of bidirectional interpreting

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2026年4月29日

查看全文
  • Xinlei Jiang,
  • Yuping Lin,
  • Xiaopeng Zhang

摘要

How task features shape interpreters’ outputs remains a debated issue. The source language interference hypothesis suggests that the complexity of the target text aligns with that of the source text, whereas the cognitive load minimization hypothesis argues that target text complexity decreases as the source text complexity increases. We analyzed source text complexity, measured by lexical density (LD), percentage of numerals (Number), mean length of clause (MCL), mean dependency distance (STMDD), inequivalent dependency type (DT) and root distance (ROOT), in relation to learner interpreters’ syntactic complexity, measured by mean dependency distance (TTMDD) in both into-A and into-B consecutive interpreting. Results indicate that 1) a majority of influential predictors are consistent across both interpreting directions; 2) lexically, reduced impacts of Number in both directions and LD in into-A interpreting (i.e., English-Chinese) support the cognitive load minimization hypothesis; 3) syntactically, MCL shows increasing effects in both directions, corroborating the source language interference hypothesis. Notably, DT in into-B interpreting (i.e., Chinese-English) and ROOT in both directions align with cognitive load minimization, while the differential effects of STMDD point to divergent hypotheses. These observations provide initial evidence of a cross-linguistic cognitive processing mechanism in bi-directional learner consecutive interpreters.