The Sight Translation Presented in Cloze Form as a Pedagogical Tool for Improving the Overall Performance of Sight Translation

Xinjiang University,Xinjiang,China Email:763856309@qq.com

[Abstract]This paper proposes a novel sight translation test piloted at Shanghai International Studies University.The sight translation in cloze form test requires high expressional fluncy,that is,rapidly guessing and interpreting contextually appropriate missing information in sight translation translation text.The results of the experiment in this paper shows that the sight translation in cloze form significantly correlates with cloze test in terms of anticipating ability.Thus,the novel form of sight translation reflects the critical role of anticipating ability in sight translation.Most significantly,the novel form of sight translation in this paper also proves to be an effective pedagogical tool to improve the overall performance of sight translation.

[Keywords]sight translation;sight translation presented in cloze form;anticipation;cloze test

Introduction

In Gile’s enriched model of sight translation=Reading Effort+Memory Effort+Speech Production Effort+Coordination(Gile,2009),it is clear that in spite of the R and S efforts,the information is constantly available to the interpreter,the visual interference of the source language also poses huge stress on interpreter.Thus,lowering the stresses in sight translation is as important as that in simultaneous interpretation and consecutive interpretation.(Moser,1978;Gerver,1989;Lambert,1991).In spite of the huge risk of source-language interference in sight translation,the information retention rates were lower in sight translation than simultaneous interpretation(Viezzi,1990,p.58),which means that sight translator might have shorter time on processing.

Thus,this paper aims to prove the critical role that anticipating ability plays in lowering the stresses of sight translators by improving the anticipatory ability in sight translation.Based on the prior empirical researches on testing the correlation between cloze test and Interpretation(Grever,1989; Lambert,2004; Pöchhacker,2011),this paper proposes a novel sight translation in cloze form to prove the correlation between the anticipatory ability and overall performance of sight translation.

The On-line Prediction during Cloze and Sight Translation

In the enriched model of sight translation,reading comprehension has been proven to be essential ability to the performance of sight translation.The only indicator that can help sight translator is the text itself which consists of many linguistic clues,such as grammatical cohesive ties(conjunction,collocation,repetition...)which constitute the semantic coherence of the whole text and which is the basis for generating anticipation during reading.When deliver an oral sight translation,some basic skills are suggested,such as reading ahead so as to anticipate where the sentence is going...(Lambert,1991,p.590).So,the better command over the anticipatory skills in reading comprehension,the better anticipating ability in sight translation will be.

Cloze forces reader to construct a schema(world knowledge and linguistic knowledge)at more conscious level than normal reading and helps to create an awareness of syntax and meaning(Raymound,1988,pp.91-95).The socalled cloze technique is based on such a knowledge-based conception of comprehension:confronted with gaps in verbal structures,subjects will use their lexical and grammatical knowledge to fill in what is missing by a process of anticipatory reconstruction or pattern-based closure.The fact that prior knowledge serves to generate expectations which guide the comprehension process was demonstrated early on for simultaneous interpretation.(Pöchhacker,2002,p.119)So what facilitate readers to make prediction in cloze test should be well studied in sight translation so as to lower the memory load on sight translators.

Prior Empirical Researches on Testing the Correlation between

Cloze Test and Interpretation

The first experiment was carried out by Grever(1989)in the Polytechnic of Central London and the tests were given to all the students who had been admitted into the graduate course in conference interpretation in 1977.There were three cloze tests with the first cloze presented in aural form recorded by a native speaker with approximately 500 words.Every tenth word was deleted and signaled by a tone.When hearing the signal,the subjects were administered to write down the missing word and the test was measured by counting the total number of exact responses.The other two cloze passages were presented in written form.Table1 provided by Grever(1989)shows that Cloze 1 is significantly correlated with the simultaneous interpretation.

Table 1 Correlation coefficient between the cloze tests with the final interpretation examination

The cloze test at the University of Ottawa was also presented in auditory form and read by a native speaker to candidates with the missing words deleted and signaled by a tone or a beep to tell where the missing word occurred.Applicants were required to figure out the missing word orally.Lambert(1991,pp.587-593)pointed out that since the cloze test presented aurally involved external pacing and hence speed stress,this kind of cloze exercise can be used as pedagogical tool for training translator and interpreters.In other words,the aural cloze test bears the very characteristic of simultaneous interpreting--speed stress.

Pöchhacker at the University of Vienna in 2011 proposed a novel task piloted at the Center for Translation Studies of the University of Vienna and task was called SynCT which combined an auditory cloze exercise with a task requiring high fluency,which is,rapidly finding contextually appropriate synonymic sentence completions(Pöchhacker,2011,p.106).The cloze test,a German text consisting of approximately 660 words were recorded at a moderate speed(100 wpm),with a total of 24 sentence-final gaps of 5 to 7 seconds duration signaled by a tone(beep)(Pöchhacker,2011,p.113).The first test took place in 2005 with 35 students who were BA level and received Pöchhacker introductory course in interpreting(Group V).And the next test was administrated to a control group consisting of 11 MA students who had had been trained for one or two semesters of consecutive and simultaneous interpreting courses(Group I).Then in 2006,the last test was given to another 24 BA level students who also received Pöchhacker introductory interpreting course(Group W).There were 12 and 8 students respectively in Group V and Group W had an A language(mother tongue)other than German.But in group I there were only two non-German A students.

Table 2 Mean scores for groups V and W vs.the control group(I)

The scores(measured by the number of synonymic completions)for the two groups of BA students are very similar to each other but much lower than the score of Group I.And the standard deviation and range in Group I is lower than the other two Groups.“A t-test confirms that there is no significant difference between the mean scores of the two groups of BA students.But when comparing them(n=59)with Group I(11),a one-tailed t-test is significant at the 1%level:t(68)=-2.845,p=0.006)”(Pöchhacker,2011,p.115).

The Experiment 1

Subjects

Thirty-two subjects involved in this case study were senior English majors at Shanghai International Studies University.All of them passed the TEM8(Test for English Major)and most of them got excellence level.And they had received at least one-year sight translation training,covering public speaking,note-taking and basic interpreting theories and skills,and so on and they were trained by the same sight translation teacher.The test designed by the author for this thesis study was carried out in a multi-media classroom where their sight translation classes took place.This task was also assisted by their sight translation teacher who made it as formal interpretation task in class.Therefore,it was believed that the test conducted by the author can well reflect the fidelity of the subjects’sight translation performances.

Material selection

There were two cloze tests and one sight translation test in cloze form in this case study.The two cloze texts were all in English.The first cloze was a text of approximately 572 words with 33 missing gaps.The second cloze had 15 missing gaps and total number of the words was 92.The material for sight translation in cloze form was also in English and it was lifted from the opening written speech ofFuture of Broadcast Television Summitheld in Shanghai in Nov.11,2011.Subjects must articulate and translate missing blanks aloud.There were 623 words in this written speech with 33 missing gaps and interpretation performance was measured by the number of the acceptable words figured out by subjects.

Material design

In previous empirical researches,Grevert(1989)devised the aural cloze text with every tenth word deleted and Pöchhacker(2011)had all the gaps designed at the end of sentences since aural cloze tests were in line with real condition of simultaneous interpretation and consecutive interpretation in which the interpreter is restricted to the vocal signals available to him and his only limitation is the preceding context.But in sight translation,translator is paced by himself; he is not totally limited by the preceding phrases but relatively free in taking in the information.Thus,the gaps in sight translation in cloze form text should not be only restricted to the end of the sentences but could take place in other parts of sentences.Therefore the author made lexical cohesion(mainly repetition and collocation)and conjunction as focuses to highlight the contribution of cohesive ties to anticipating ability in sight translation.

Procedure

Step 1:Subjects were required to finish two cloze tests.

Step 2:Subjects were instructed to finish a sight translation in cloze form and subjects’output were recorded via microphone and then transcribed.

Step 3:The transcription were compared and then evaluated by the number of contextual acceptable words figured out by subjects.

analysis of the Result

according to the mean correct rate of the two cloze tests based on the scores measured by counting the number of acceptable words that had been figured out,32 subjects were divided into 4 groups :Group A(66%），Group B(52.5%),Group C(44%),Group D(34%).And The comparison of the mean correct rate between cloze tests and sight translation presented in cloze form for each group is presented in Graph 1.

ST:sight translation

Graph 1 Comparison of the mean correct rate between cloze tests and sight translation presented in cloze form

It can be seen that the two cloze tests are significantly correlated with sight translation in terms of anticipating the missing words with the higher the correct rate in cloze tests the higher the correct rate in sight translation presented in cloze form(Spearman rank coefficient r(s)=0.696;n=32,p<0.01,two-tailed).It is equally important to point out that the sight translation presented in cloze form in this case study can effectively discriminate different levels of subjects’anticipating ability in sight translation.

The Experiment 2

Subjects

The phase 2 involved 26 subjects who were the sophomore English majors at Shanghai International Studies University.These 26 subjects had received escort interpretation course under the same teacher and had been taught the basic interpreting skills,covering speaking skills,listening skills and note taking.

Materials

The first sight translation written text consisted of 480 words and the second sight translation written text consisting of approximately 475 words.And the performances of subjects'sight translation were measured by the number of sentences interpreted correctly because when assessing the quality of interpreters performances,how many meaning units have been correctly interpreted is the first standard to look into.The two sight translation texts were both divided into 64 meaning units with each unit expressing a complete message.Detailed information of the meaning units can be seen in table 3.

Table 3 Comparison of two sight translation written texts

Procedure

Step 1:Sight translation performances of 26 subjects on text one were recorded and then transcribed.

Step 2:The 26 subjects were given a brief introduction on novel form of sight translation(presented in cloze form)and on how to anticipate the missing information by using the hints of cohesive ties(especially conjunction,repetition,context-based lexical collocation).All the subjects were asked to practice one novel sight translation in class room,each lasting 6 minutes.And after class,they were told to finish 1 novel sight translation for each 3 days and send their recordings by email.Apart from the evaluation from the author,they themselves were required to send their own analysis which included the reasons why they failed the gaps and self-improvement suggestions.

Step 3:Three and half weeks later,the sight translation performances of all subjects on text two were recorded and transcribed.

Step 4:The transcriptions of the two tests were compared and then evaluated by counting the number of meaning units that were interpreted correctly.

Step 5:Descriptive and inferential analyses were made to compare the two performances of sight translation.

Results and analysis

The mean score for the 26 subjects in the first sight translation test without the exposure to the training of sight translation presented in cloze form is lower than the score of the second sight translation test,though the standard deviation in the performances of two tests are similar to each other.It confirms that there is a significant difference between the mean score of the two sight translation tests.The mean score of 26 subjects has improved remarkably from 44.76 to 50.84,which confirms the hypothesis in the second experiment that by adopting the novel sight translation as pedagogical tool,the performance of sight translation can be improved.

Table 4 The comparison of the performance of the two texts

Conclusion

This paper has reflected the critical role of anticipation in sight translation by conducting the novel test of sight translation presented in cloze form as a tool to prove how deeply the anticipatory proficiency influence the performances of sight translation.As a result,the different levels in sight translation performance were significantly discriminated by the aid of novel form of sight translation as an assessing instrument.This paper also proves the critical role that anticipatory ability plays in improving the overall performance of sight translation when sight translation in cloze form serves as a pedagogical tool.

Acknowledgments

The author is the language teacher at Foreign Language College of Xinjiang University and also the part-time researcher of the key research base of humanities&social sciences in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China(A Study of Chinese and Foreign Culture Comparison and Cross-Culture Communication).The research is sponsored by the Ministry of Education Social Science Youth Fund for Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China(project No.17XJJC740001)and the one of the staged achievements of the teaching reform project of Foreign Language College of Xinjiang University(The Application and Research of College English Teaching Model Based on the Rain Classroom and Mooc).