EN-terpretese: a corpus-based exploratory study

Abstract

The present study is a corpus-based exploratory study aimed at comparing and contrasting three subcorpora of English interpreted vs. non-interpreted texts. Its general objective is to isolate any linguistic features of interpreted discourse – as opposed to original production – in the restricted set of texts analysed, which could be ascribed to interpretese, namely the way in which interpreters speak, irrespective of the language pair they are working in and the source text interferences they might be exposed to. The three subcorpora contain speeches delivered by native speakers in national and international settings, as well as speeches interpreted into English by professional interpreters working at the European Parliament. In the first part, the study focuses on the existing notions of simplification and explicitation as interpreting universals, to test whether interpreted speeches are actually simpler and more explicit than original ones. The second part analyses the distribution and use of different parts of speech (POS) in the three subcorpora as well as the use of figures of speech by the speakers in the three identified groups and settings. The results obtained seem to suggest that the time pressure interpreters are exposed to as well as the interpreting strategies adopted might play a decisive role in the production of the interpreted text. More specifically, interpreted texts, despite showing a lower degree of language variety, especially as concerns lexical words, appear to be more informative. Furthermore, their level of explicitness is similar to that of non-interpreted texts. Finally, the use of figures of speech appears to depend more on the speaker’s personal style or type of event rather than on the audience it is addressed to, i.e. national or international.