ABSTRACT

Unfilled pauses (UPs) are commonly regarded as an index of interpreting (dis)fluency. Despite their important role, it is not always straightforward in interpreting research to describe and characterize UPs. One potential controversy concerns the selection of a pause threshold to identify UP. A wide range of thresholds, ranging from 0.2–3 s, has been operationalized in interpreting literature. However, there has been little empirical evidence supporting the choice of a particular threshold or informing such selection. The present study, based on a large corpus of 320 English-Chinese consecutive interpretations, intends to generate such evidence by empirically examining the correlations between three acoustically measured, UP-related temporal variables (i.e. number of UPs per minute, mean length of UPs, and phonation time ratio) and rater-generated fluency ratings, for 16 pause thresholds that systematically increased from 0.25s to 1s. Major findings include: a) for both interpreting directions choosing a higher pause threshold generally led to lower correlation coefficients; b) for both directions phonation time ratio had the strongest correlation with subjective fluency ratings; c) stronger correlations were observed in the English-to-Chinese direction than the opposite direction. We discuss these results and provide suggestions regarding the selection of pause thresholds for future research.

摘要

未填写的停顿 (UP) 通常被视为解释（不）流畅度的指标。尽管它们发挥着重要作用，但在解释研究以描述和表征 UP 时并不总是那么简单。一个潜在的争议涉及选择暂停阈值来识别 UP。范围广泛的阈值，范围从 0.2 到 3 秒，已在解释文献中使用。然而，支持特定阈值的选择或告知此类选择的经验证据很少。本研究基于 320 个英汉交替传译的大型语料库，旨在通过实证检验三个声学测量的 UP 相关时间变量（即每分钟 UP 的数量、UP 的平均长度、和发声时间比）和评分者生成的流畅度评分，16 个暂停阈值从 0.25 秒系统地增加到 1 秒。主要发现包括： a) 对于两个口译方向，选择较高的停顿阈值通常会导致较低的相关系数；b) 双向发声时间比率与主观流畅度评分的相关性最强；c) 在英汉方向上观察到的相关性强于相反方向。我们讨论了这些结果，并就为未来研究选择暂停阈值提供了建议。b) 双向发声时间比率与主观流畅度评分的相关性最强；c) 在英汉方向上观察到的相关性强于相反方向。我们讨论了这些结果，并就为未来研究选择暂停阈值提供了建议。b) 双向发声时间比率与主观流畅度评分的相关性最强；c) 在英汉方向上观察到的相关性强于相反方向。我们讨论了这些结果，并就为未来研究选择暂停阈值提供了建议。