Abstract Does the particular prosody of simultaneous interpreting have an impact on comprehensibility? This paper presents an experiment that sought to answer this question. Two groups of listeners (47 with relevant contextual knowledge about the subject-matter of the speech and 40 with less contextual knowledge) listened to the interpretation into French of a 20-minute lecture in German under two conditions (the actual interpretation and a read-aloud rendition of the transcript of the interpretation by the same interpreter) and answered comprehension questions. The prosodic features of the two conditions were analysed, and differences regarding the temporal organisation of speech, disfluencies, pitch register and the interface between prosody and syntax emerged. Simultaneous interpreting was found to be more monotonous, to contain a larger number of short and long silent pauses, more hesitations (“euh”) and more non-syntactic pauses as well as to have a more irregular speech rate. The read-aloud version was livelier, with more medium-length silent pauses and almost no hesitation. Results of the comprehension questionnaire do not demonstrate that interpreting-specific prosodic features affect comprehensibility to a significant extent. This is consistent with professional norms of interpreting in specialised conferences, where verbal aspects have priority over non-verbal ones.

中文翻译：

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同声传译韵律对理解的影响

摘要 同声传译的特定韵律对可理解性有影响吗？本文提出了一个试图回答这个问题的实验。两组听众（47 人对演讲主题具有相关背景知识，40 人对背景知识较少）在两种条件下（实际翻译和阅读-由同一口译员大声朗读口译记录）并回答理解问题。分析了这两种情况的韵律特征，并分析了言语的时间组织、不流利程度、音高音域和韵律与句法的接口出现了。同声传译被发现更加单调，包含更多的长短无声停顿，更多的犹豫（“euh”）和更多的非句法停顿以及更不规则的语速。朗读版更生动，有更多中等长度的无声停顿，几乎没有犹豫。理解问卷的结果并未表明解释特定的韵律特征在很大程度上影响可理解性。这与专业会议口译的专业规范一致，其中口头方面优先于非口头方面。同声传译被发现更加单调，包含更多的长短无声停顿，更多的犹豫（“euh”）和更多的非句法停顿以及更不规则的语速。朗读版更生动，有更多中等长度的无声停顿，几乎没有犹豫。理解问卷的结果并未表明解释特定的韵律特征在很大程度上影响可理解性。这与专业会议口译的专业规范一致，其中口头方面优先于非口头方面。同声传译被发现更加单调，包含更多的长短无声停顿，更多的犹豫（“euh”）和更多的非句法停顿以及更不规则的语速。朗读版更生动，有更多中等长度的无声停顿，几乎没有犹豫。理解问卷的结果并未表明解释特定的韵律特征在很大程度上影响可理解性。这与专业会议口译的专业规范一致，其中口头方面优先于非口头方面。更多的犹豫（“euh”）和更多的非句法停顿以及更不规则的语速。朗读版更生动，有更多中等长度的无声停顿，几乎没有犹豫。理解问卷的结果并未表明解释特定的韵律特征在很大程度上影响可理解性。这与专业会议口译的专业规范一致，其中口头方面优先于非口头方面。更多的犹豫（“euh”）和更多的非句法停顿以及更不规则的语速。朗读版更生动，有更多中等长度的无声停顿，几乎没有犹豫。理解问卷的结果并未表明解释特定的韵律特征在很大程度上影响可理解性。这与专业会议口译的专业规范一致，其中口头方面优先于非口头方面。理解问卷的结果并未表明解释特定的韵律特征在很大程度上影响可理解性。这与专业会议口译的专业规范一致，其中口头方面优先于非口头方面。理解问卷的结果并未表明解释特定的韵律特征在很大程度上影响可理解性。这与专业会议口译的专业规范一致，其中口头方面优先于非口头方面。