Basic skills in a complex task: A graphical model relating memory and lexical retrieval to simultaneous interpreting

Simultaneous interpreting (SI) is a complex skill, where language comprehension and production take place at the same time in two different languages. In this study we identified some of the basic cognitive skills involved in SI, focusing on the roles of memory and lexical retrieval. We administered...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Bilingualism (Cambridge, England) England), 2003-12, Vol.6 (3), p.201-211
Main Authors: CHRISTOFFELS, INGRID K., DE GROOT, ANNETTE M. B., WALDORP, LOURENS J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agreements
Basic Skills
Bilingualism
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive ability
Comprehension
Experimental psychology
Interpreters
Interpreting
Language Processing
Language Skills
Lexical access
Lexicon
Memory
Monolingualism
Naming
Native Language
Native languages
Resistance (Psychology)
Semantics
Short term memory
Skills
Speech
Students
Thinking Skills
Translation
Word Processing
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Summary:Simultaneous interpreting (SI) is a complex skill, where language comprehension and production take place at the same time in two different languages. In this study we identified some of the basic cognitive skills involved in SI, focusing on the roles of memory and lexical retrieval. We administered a reading span task in two languages and a verbal digit span task in the native language to assess memory capacity, and a picture naming and a word translation task to tap the retrieval time of lexical items in two languages, and we related performance on these four tasks to interpreting skill in untrained bilinguals. The results showed that word translation and picture naming latencies correlate with interpreting performance. Also digit span and reading span were associated with SI performance, only less strongly so. A graphical models analysis indicated that specifically word translation efficiency and working memory form independent subskills of SI performance in untrained bilinguals.
ISSN:1366-7289
1469-1841
DOI:10.1017/S1366728903001135