The importance of listening with one's eyes: A case study of multimodality in simultaneous interpreting

• Type: Chapter or Part of a Book
• Date: 2010

Authors

Galvão, Elena (Author) FLUP; Rodrigues, Isabel Galhano (Author) FLUP

Book

Title: New Insights into Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility. Media for All 2.

ISBN: 978-90-420-3180-7

Publisher: Rodopi

Scientific classification

FOS: Humanities > Languages and Literature

CORDIS: Humanities ; Humanities > language sciences

Other information

Resumo (PT): The analysis of the relations between hand gestures and speech in interpretation offers an interesting research field for the study of both cognitive and cultural aspects of language production and perception. Conference interpreters often gesticulate in the booth though they cannot usually be seen by anybody. This observation raises several interesting questions: How are the several communicative multimodalities used in the specific context of simultaneou interpretating? Are the interpreters’ body movements influenced by the speakers’ body movements? Do interpreters repeat any formal features of the movements made by the speakers? Do interpreters use their own specific ones? To try and answer some of these questions, we carried out a micro-analysis of a few seconds of a speaker’s speech and its interpretation. More specifically, we focused on the following aspects: a) description of forms, functions and meanings of speaker’s and interpreter’s nonverbal modalities; b) description of the way these nonverbal modalities are related to lexical units and prosody; and c) description of the nonverbal modalities used by the speaker to accompany speech and of the nonverbal modalities used by the interpreter to accompany the transferred speech and the transfer process.

Abstract (EN): The analysis of the relations between hand gestures and speech in interpretation offers an interesting research field for the study of both cognitive and cultural aspects of language production and perception. Conference interpreters often gesticulate in the booth though they cannot usually be seen by anybody. This observation raises several interesting questions: How are the several communicative multimodalities used in the specific context of simultaneou interpretating? Are the interpreters’ body movements influenced by the speakers’ body movements? Do interpreters repeat any formal features of the movements made by the speakers? Do interpreters use their own specific ones? To try and answer some of these questions, we carried out a micro-analysis of a few seconds of a speaker’s speech and its interpretation. More specifically, we focused on the following aspects: a) description of forms, functions and meanings of speaker’s and interpreter’s nonverbal modalities; b) description of the way these nonverbal modalities are related to lexical units and prosody; and c) description of the nonverbal modalities used by the speaker to accompany speech and of the nonverbal modalities used by the interpreter to accompany the transferred speech and the transfer process.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific