| 英文摘要
| The unprecedented growth of non-native English speakers in international conferences has led to the increasing use of English as communication means. Past research has pointed out that non-native accents can place a heavy burden on interpreters in Simultaneous Interpreting (SI) —a complicated task and a most common form of conference interpretation. However, while some studies have investigated the impact of non-native accents and how interpreters cope with non-native accents during SI, few studies have shed light on the effect of prior exposure to foreign accents on adapting to accent in interpreting. To understand how effective incorporating accent adaptation into the preparation work of interpreters is, the present study adopts a mixed method design and conducted an experiment followed by a retrospective interview. In the experiment, a group of 8 trainee interpreters were exposed to a priming speech recorded by a Cambodian-accented English speaker (Speaker 1), while the control group of another 8 participants were exposed to a priming speech of the same content but recorded by a native American English speaker (Speaker 2). After that, both groups simultaneously interpreted for the Cambodian-accented speaker (Speaker 1). The SI and interview results of the two groups showed that prior exposure to the speaker’s accent improved the interpreting performance. In particular, the difference in terms of accuracy was significant in the beginning of the SI task. The study aims to provide a better understanding of the benefits of incorporating accent adaptation into interpreting preparation and training. |
