AbstractThe study reported on in this article pertains to rater-mediated assessment of English-to-Chinese consecutive interpreting, particularly informational correspondence between an originally intended message and an actually rendered message, also known as “fidelity” in Interpreting Studies. Previous literature has documented two main methods to assess fidelity: comparing actual renditions with the source text or with an exemplar rendition carefully prepared by experts (i.e., an ideal target text). However, little is known about the potential effects of these methods on fidelity assessment. We therefore conducted the study to explore the way in which these methods would affect rater reliability, fidelity ratings and rater perception. Our analysis of quantitative data shows that the raters tended to be less reliable, less self-consistent, less lenient and less comfortable when using the source English text (i.e., Condition A) than when using the target Chinese text (i.e., Condition B: the exemplar rendition). These findings were backed up and explained by emerging themes derived from the qualitative questionnaire data. The fidelity estimates in the two conditions were also found to be strongly correlated. We discuss these findings and entertain the possibility of recruiting untrained monolinguals or bilinguals to assess fidelity of interpreting.

中文翻译：

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评估交替传译的保真度

摘要本文所报道的研究属于评估者介导的英汉交替传译评估，特别是在原意和实际呈现的信息之间的信息对应，在口译研究中也称为“保真度”。以前的文献记录了评估保真度的两种主要方法：将实际再现与源文本或与专家精心准备的示例再现（即理想的目标文本）进行比较。然而，关于这些方法对保真度评估的潜在影响知之甚少。因此，我们进行了这项研究，以探索这些方法将如何影响评估者的可靠性、保真度评级和评估者的感知。我们对定量数据的分析表明，评分者往往不太可靠，不太自洽，使用源英文文本（即条件 A）比使用目标中文文本（即条件 B：示例译文）时不那么宽松和不舒适。这些发现得到了来自定性问卷数据的新兴主题的支持和解释。还发现在这两种情况下的保真度估计是强相关的。我们讨论了这些发现，并考虑招募未经培训的单语或双语人员来评估口译保真度的可能性。还发现在这两种情况下的保真度估计是强相关的。我们讨论了这些发现，并考虑招募未经培训的单语或双语人员来评估口译保真度的可能性。还发现在这两种情况下的保真度估计是强相关的。我们讨论了这些发现，并考虑招募未经培训的单语或双语人员来评估口译保真度的可能性。