ISCA Archive SpeechProsody 2014
ISCA Archive SpeechProsody 2014

Prosodic correlates of perceived quality and fluency in simultaneous interpreting

George Christodoulides, Cédric Lenglet

This study explores the relationship between prosodic features specific to simultaneous interpreting and listeners’ perception of the fluency and accuracy of interpreting, as well as their comprehension of the source speech. Two groups of participants (47 subject experts and 40 non-experts) listened to a 20-minute lecture in German, along with its interpretation into French under two conditions (the actual interpretation, or a read-aloud rendition of the same text by the same interpreter) and answered comprehension and rating questions. The prosodic features of the two conditions were analysed, confirming differences regarding the temporal organisation of speech, disfluencies, pitch register and the interface between prosody and syntax. Our results suggest that interpreting-specific prosodic features affect the perception of fluency, which in turn affects the perception of accuracy; however the impact on listeners who enjoy relevant contextual knowledge is less pronounced.