ABSTRACT

Notwithstanding theoretical simulations of distinctive cognitive processes and load of consecutive (CI) and simultaneous interpreting (SI), quantitative linguistic inquiry into their outputs is needed for solid empirical evidence. As a fundamental law of quantitative linguistics, Menzerath–Altmann Law (MAL) mirrors the economic processing of linguistic information and complex dynamic language system. Given its extensive validation at various linguistic levels and predictive power of its parameters in register, language and authorship differentiation, MAL is worthy of being applied to interpreting studies. We endeavour to investigate whether interpreted languages follow the MAL and reveal varied cognitive load of CI versus SI, as manifested by different MAL fitting models. Results show that (1) both CI and SI outputs follow the MAL; (2) SI processing involves more diversified structural information and shows a greater tendency of shortening the clauses of a sentence with increased sentence length, than CI processing, expressed by significantly higher a and lower b in SI models than that in CI models. Our findings suggest the disparate language representations are shaped by cognitive capacity limitations and interpreting modalities, and reveal how language system dynamically re-regulates and reorganizes the linguistic information to accommodate environmental settings from the perspective of synergetic linguistics.

摘要

尽管对独特的认知过程和连续 (CI) 和同声传译 (SI) 的负载进行了理论模拟，但需要对其输出进行定量语言调查以获得可靠的经验证据。作为定量语言学的基本定律，门泽拉特-阿尔特曼定律（MAL）反映了语言信息的经济处理和复杂的动态语言系统。鉴于其在不同语言水平上的广泛验证以及其在语域、语言和作者区分方面的参数的预测能力，MAL 值得应用于口译研究。我们努力研究解释语言是否遵循 MAL 并揭示 CI 与 SI 的不同认知负荷，如不同的 MAL 拟合模型所示。结果表明：（1）CI和SI输出均遵循MAL；SI 模型中的 a和b低于 CI 模型中的 b。我们的研究结果表明，不同的语言表征受到认知能力限制和解释方式的影响，并从协同语言学的角度揭示了语言系统如何动态地重新调节和重组语言信息以适应环境设置。