Analysis of pauses and interuptions as elements of linguistic production in simultaneous interpretation

Аннотация

The heterogeneous character of studies on this subject has already been mentioned and can be noticed even on an examination of the definitions and classifications of the occurrences. Some experts divide pauses into individual and functional pauses, others describe them as silent and filled pauses. Another quite vague question concerns the relationship between pauses and hesitations. In order to cast light on these issues, studies on the subject will be presented following the different approaches. It has to be stressed that in many of them non- fluencies are not the object of the study but only a useful tool to investigate psychological and cognitive mechanisms in communication and/or SI. Key words: taxonomy, SI-specific, silent pauses, initial pause, juncture pause, clause- internal pause, interruptions, false start, vowel and consonant lengthening‗s. 533 Aim of the study This study aims at systematically analysing non-fluencies in ST and TT from the quantitative and qualitative point of view, in order to investigate possible correlations between the occurrences in the texts and to propose a SI-specific functional taxonomy of non- fluencies[1]. Pauses as functional items in a language system[2]: – Pauses in communication Pauses fulfil many roles in oral communication. The most visible is their influence on elocution speed: the higher the number of pauses, the lower the elocution speed. Pauses also contribute to the disambiguation of syntax (Mazzetti 1998) as in the case of compound words or word lists. Moreover, they contribute to discourse segmentation and help give prominence to particular text samples, drawing the listener‘s attention to certain elements and making it easier for him/her to understand the message. In the latter case pauses have a predominantly stylistic and rhetorical function. As already stated, the use and the incidence of pauses are strongly characterized by the speaker‘s individuality, both from a physiological and an emotional point of view[3-4]. NON-FLUENCIES SILENT PAUSES DISFLUENCIES – initial pause – filled pause – juncture pause – parenthetic remark – clause-internal pause – interruptions: – repetition – correction – false start All non-fluencies can be found in all spontaneous speech, varying according to the speaker, his/her cognitive activity and a series of socio-linguistic variables. It is interesting to investigate the typology of non-fluencies in a complex task like SI. – The double role of pauses in SI pauses en interprétation simultanée (1989). First of all she confirms that parallel listening and speaking by the interpreter is a given, though related to the speaker‘s elocution speed and the number and duration of pauses in his speech. She stresses the double role of pauses, namely in the ST to facilitate decoding and in the TT for segmentation by the interpreter. Her experiments confirm the importance of pauses for message segmentation but also the difficulty experienced by the interpreter in exploiting them because of their short duration. As interruptions in the flow of speech but also as significant variations in intonation and rhythm or even the juxtaposition of two semantically independent items. The pause is no longer an objectively quantifiable silence but rather an item depending on the interpreter‘s and the listener‘s perception. A) Silent pauses These are the only occurrences corresponding to an interruption in language production and can therefore be measured objectively. Each silence between two articulated sequences has been considered a silent pause. The initial pause, namely the silence before starting with the linguistic task, was left out, considering that SI requires by definition a certain time-lag which can not be considered a non-fluency. The criterion of pause omission was introduced, as it was considered that the absence of pauses necessary for correct text segmentation could hinder comprehension (see also Mazzetti 1998). Silent pauses were simply divided into grammatical and/or communicative pauses and non-grammatical pauses. In comparison with the original classification, communicative pauses were introduced by virtue of the important role they play in spontaneous speech and SI, giving prominence to discourse items. B) Filled pauses a) Vocalized hesitations This class includes all vocalized expressions of hesitation, which have been transcribed as äh, ähm, mm for German and eh, ehm, mm for Italian, regardless of their duration. As the interpreted versions contained many brief hesitations sounding like a 534 schwa, they were transcribed as ´ in order to distinguish them from eh. Glottal clicks and guttural sounds were also included in this category. b) Vowel and consonant lengthening‗s Although not included in the reference taxonomy, the category of vowel and consonant lengthenings is not new in studies on non-fluencies (see Magno Caldognetto, Vagges & Job 1983). These occurrences were included in the taxonomy because they are typical of sponta