Eye-voice span in sight interpreting: an eye-tracking investigation

Abstract

ABSTRACT The time lag between the perception of a source text or utterance and its interpretation has received considerable attention among interpreting researchers. Many studies have explored its association with interpreting output, but the results have generally been inconclusive. Furthermore, these studies have mainly focused on time lag in simultaneous interpreting, while little research has investigated the issue in the context of sight interpreting. To fill this gap, we conducted an eye-tracking study and examined the eye-voice span in sight interpreting from Chinese to English among novice and professional interpreters, as well as its relationship with the interpreting renditions. The results show that a longer eye-voice span predicts a higher rate of errors and disfluencies in the interpreting outputs, and that this is more true for novice interpreters than professional ones. These findings expand our understanding of the utility of eye-voice span as an indication of speech production in sight interpreting.