An experimental study was conducted to examine whether simultaneous interpreters
are affected by the speaker’s emotions. To this end, two measures of emotion
were used: galvanic skin response (GSR) as a marker of emotional arousal, and
SUPIN – the Polish adaptation of PANAS (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule).
A group of interpreters with Polish as their A language and English as their B
language (N = 20) took part in the experiment. They were asked
to simultaneously interpret two speeches (recordings accompanied by video) from
Polish into English: a neutral speech and an emotional speech. The results show
that the interpreters are indeed affected by the speaker’s emotions, which is
reflected in both a greater galvanic skin response and higher SUPIN scores for
the emotional speech, when compared to the neutral speech and baseline values.
The results may shed new light on the importance of emotion processing in
simultaneous interpreting.
Bradley, Margaret M., Bruce N. Cuthbert, and Peter J. Lang. 1990. “Startle
Reflex Modification: Emotion or
Attention?” Psychophysiology 27 (5): 513–522.
Braun, Sabine, and Judith L. Taylor, eds. 2012. Videoconference
and Remote Interpreting in Criminal
Proceedings. Antwerp: Intersentia.
Brisau, André, Rita Godijns, and Chris Meuleman. 1994. “Towards
a Psycholinguistic Profile of the
Interpreter.” Meta 39 (1): 87–94.
Brzozowski, Piotr. 2010. Skala Uczuć Pozytywnych i Negatywnych (SUPIN). Polska
adaptacja skali PANAS Davida Watsona i Lee Anny Clark.
Podręcznik [SUPIN – Polish
adaptation of PANAS – Positive and Negative Affect Schedule by David Watson
and Lee Anna Clark. A
manual]. Warsaw: Pracownia Testów Psychologicznych.
Christoffels, Ingrid, and Annette de Groot. 2005. “Simultaneous
Interpreting: A Cognitive
Perspective.” In Handbook
of Bilingualism: Psycholinguistic Approaches, edited
by Judith F. Kroll and Annette de Groot, 454–479. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cook, Edwin W., Larry H. Hawk, Tammy L. Davis, and Victor E. Stevenson. 1991. “Affective
Individual Differences and Startle Reflex
Modulation.” Journal of Abnormal
Psychology 1001: 5–13.
Crawford, John R., and Julie D. Henry. 2004. “The
Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS): Construct Validity,
Measurement Properties and Normative Data in a Large Non-clinical
Sample.” British Journal of Clinical
Psychology 431: 245–265.
Davis, Mark H.1983. “Measuring
Individual Differences in Empathy: Evidence for a Multidimensional
Approach.” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 44 (1): 113–126.
Davis, Mark H.1994. Empathy:
A Social Psychological
Approach. Boulder: Westview Press.
Davitti, Elena, Eloisa Monteoliva, Demi Krystallidou, and Sabine Braun. 2016. “Multimodal
Analysis of a Multimodal Activity: Methodological Explorations of
Interpreter-Mediated Interaction.” Paper
presented at the Critical Link 8
Conference, Edinburgh,
UK.
Doherty, R. William. 1998. “Emotional
Contagion and Social Judgment.” Motivation
and
Emotion 22 (3): 187–209.
Ekman, Paul, and Walter Friesen. 1978. The
Facial Action Coding System (FACS): A Technique for the Measurement of
Facial Action. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
Eysenck, Hans J., and Sybil B. G. Eysenck. 1975. Eysenck
Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R Adult). San Diego, CA: EdITS.
Gerver, David. 1969. “The
Effects of Source Language Presentation Rate on the Performance of
Simultaneous Conference
Interpreters.” In Proceedings
of the 2nd Louisville Conference on Rate and/or Frequency Controlled
Speech, edited by Emerson Foulke, 162–184. Louisville, KY: University of Louisville.
Goldstein, Arnold P., and Gérald Y. Michaels. 1985. Empathy:
Development, Training, and
Consequences. Hove: Psychology Press.
Grant, David A., and Esta A. Berg. 1948. “A
Behavioural Analysis of Degree of Reinforcement and Ease of Shifting to New
Responses in a Weigl-Type Card Sorting
Problem.” Journal of Experimental
Psychology 381: 404–411.
Gross, James J., and Lisa Feldman Barrett. 2011. “Emotion
Generation and Emotion Regulation: One or Two Depends on Your Point of
View.” Emotion
Review 3 (1): 8–16.
Gruszczyński, Włodzimierz, and Maciej Ogrodniczuk. 2016. Jasnopis czyli mierzenie zrozumiałości polskich tekstów
użytkowych [Jasnopis – measuring
comprehensibility of Polish non-literary
texts]. Warsaw: Oficyna Wydawnicza ASPRA.
Hale, Sandra B.2007. Community
Interpreting. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hatfield, Elaine, John T. Cacioppo, and Richard L. Rapson. 1994. Emotional
Contagion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hatfield, Elaine, Richard L. Rapson, and Yen-Chi L. Le. 2009. “Emotional
Contagion and
Empathy.” In The
Social Neuroscience of Empathy, edited
by Jean Decety and William Ickes, 19–30, Boston, MA: MIT Press.
Hermans, Hubert. 2004. Prestatie Motivatie Test [Achievement motivation
test]. Lisse: Harcourt Test Publishers.
Howard, Daniel J., and Charles Gengler. 2001. “Emotional
Contagion Effect on Product
Attitudes.” Journal of Consumer
Research 28 (2): 189–201.
Hsee, Christopher K., Elaine Hatfield, and Claude Chemtob. 1992. “Assessments
of Emotional States of Others: Conscious Judgments versus Emotional
Contagion.” Journal of Social and Clinical
Psychology 11 (2): 119–128.
Kade, Otto. 1967. “Zu
einigen Besonderheiten des
Simultandolmetschens.” Fremdsprachen 11 (1): 8–17.
Kade, Otto. 1968. Zufall
und Gesetzmäßigkeit in der
Übersetzung. Leipzig: Verlag Enzyklopädie.
Kappas, Arvid, Ursula Hess, and Klaus R. Scherer. 1991. “Voice
and
Emotion.” In Fundamentals
of Nonverbal Behavior: Studies in Emotion and
Interaction, edited by Robert S. Feldman and Bernard Rime, 200–238. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Klonowicz, Tatiana. 1994. “Putting
One’s Heart into Simultaneous
Interpretation.” In Bridging
the Gap: Empirical Research in Simultaneous
Interpretation, edited by Sylvie Lambert and Barbara Moser-Mercer, 213–224. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kopczyński, Andrzej. 1981. “Deviance
in Conference
Interpreting.” In The
Mission of the Translator Today, edited
by Andrzej Kopczyński, Anatol Hanftwurcel, Ewa Karska and Lew Riwin, 399–404. Warsaw: Polska Agencja Interpress.
Korpal, Paweł. 2017. Linguistic
and Psychological Indicators of Stress in Simultaneous
Interpreting. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM.
Kurz, Ingrid. 2003. “Physiological
Stress during Simultaneous Interpreting: A Comparison of Experts and
Novices.” The Interpreters’
Newsletter 121: 51–67.
Lambert, Sylvie. 2004. “Shared
Attention during Sight Translation, Sight Interpretation and Simultaneous
Interpretation.” Meta 49 (2): 294–306.
Mauss, Iris B., and Michael D. Robinson. 2009. “Measures
of Emotion: A Review.” Cognition and
Emotion 23 (2): 209–237.
Monfort, Samuel S., Łukasz D. Kaczmarek, Todd B. Kashdan, Dariusz Drążkowski, Michał Kosakowski, Przemysław Guzik, Tomasz Krauze, and Asmir Gracanin. 2014. “Capitalizing
on the Success of Romantic Partners: A Laboratory Investigation on
Subjective, Facial, and Physiological Emotional
Processing.” Personality and Individual
Differences 681: 149–153.
Moser-Mercer, Barbara. 2005. “Remote
Interpreting: The Crucial Role of
Presence.” Bulletin VALS-ASLA (Swiss
Association of Applied
Linguistics) 811: 73–97.
Myers-Briggs, Isabel. 1962. Manual:
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
Napier, Jemina, and Marcel Leneham. 2011. “‘It
Was Difficult to Manage the Communication’: Testing the Feasibility of Video
Remote Signed Language Interpreting in
Court.” Journal of
Interpretation 21 (1): 52–63.
Neumann, Roland, and Fritz Strack. 2000. “Mood
Contagion: The Automatic Transfer of Mood between
Persons.” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 79 (2): 211–223.
Northouse, Peter G.1979. “Interpersonal
Trust and Empathy in Nurse-Nurse
Relationships.” Nursing
Research 28 (6): 365–368.
Oléron, Pierre, and Hubert Nanpon. 1965. “Recherches
sur la traduction simultanée.” Journal de
psychologie normale et
pathologique 62 (2): 73–94.
Riegel, Monika, Małgorzata Wierzba, Marek Wypych, Łukasz Żurawski, Katarzyna Jednoróg, Anna Grabowska, and Artur Marchewka. 2015. “Nencki
Affective Word List (NAWL): The Cultural Adaptation of the Berlin Affective
Word List-Reloaded (BAWL-R) for
Polish.” Behavior Research
Methods 47 (4): 1222–1236.
Rojo, Ana, Marina Ramos Caro, and Javier Valenzuela. 2014. “The
Emotional Impact of Translation: A Heart Rate
Study.” Journal of
Pragmatics 711: 31–44.
Schachter, Stanley, and Jerome E. Singer. 1962. “Cognitive,
Social and Physiological Determinants of Emotional
State.” Psychological
Review 69 (5): 379–399.
Schweda Nicholson, Nancy. 2005. “Personality
Characteristics of Interpreter Trainees: The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI).” The Interpreters’
Newsletter 131: 109–142.
Seeber, Kilian. 2012. “Multimodal
Input in Simultaneous Interpreting: An Eye-Tracking
Experiment.” In Proceedings
of the 1st International Conference TRANSLATA, Translation and Interpreting
Research: Yesterday – Today – Tomorrow, edited
by Lew Zybatov, Alena Petrova and Michael Ustaszewski, 341–347. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Seeber, Kilian. 2017. “Multimodal
Processing in Simultaneous
Interpreting.” In The
Handbook of Translation and Cognition, edited
by John W. Schwieter and Aline Ferreira, 461–475. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Surakka, Veikko, and Jari K. Hietanen. 1998. “Facial
and Emotional Reactions to Duchenne and non-Duchenne
Smiles.” International Journal of
Psychophysiology 291: 23–33.
Timarová, Šarka, and Harry Ungoed-Thomas. 2008. “Admission
Testing for Interpreting Courses.” The
Interpreter and Translator
Trainer 2 (1): 29–46.
Vermunt, Jan, and Frank van Rijswijk. 1987. Inventaris Leerstijlen [Inventory of learning
styles]. Tilburg: K.U. Brabant/Open Universiteit.
Vranjes, Jelena, Hanneke Bot, Kurt Feyaerts, and Geert Brône. 2015. “Multimodal
Feedback Mechanisms in Interpreter-Mediated
Interaction.” Paper presented at
the 14th International Pragmatics Conference
(Antwerp).
Vranjes, Jelena, Annelies Jehoul, Kurt Feyaerts, and Geert Brône. 2016. “Dual
Feedback in Triadic Interactions: On the Interplay between Gesture and
Gaze.” Paper presented at
the ISGS Conference 2016:
Gesture, Creativity, Multimodality
(Paris).
Wadensjö, Cecilia. 1998. Interpreting
as
Interaction. London: Longman.
Watson, David, Lee Anna Clark, and Auke Tellegen. 1988. “Development
and Validation of Brief Measures of Positive and Negative Affect: The PANAS
Scales.” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 54 (6): 1063–1070.
Waugh, Christian E., Renee J. Thompson, and Ian H. Gotlib. 2011. “Flexible
Emotional Responsiveness in Trait
Resilience.” Emotion 11 (5): 1059–1067.
Wróbel, Monika. 2008. “O transferze emocji i nastrojów między ludźmi – mechanizm i
psychologiczne wyznaczniki zarażenia
afektywnego” [On the
transfer of emotions and moods between people – the mechanism and
psychological determinants of affective
contagion]. Psychologia
Społeczna 33 (8): 210–230.
Wróbel, Monika. 2016. Zarażenie afektywne: O procesie transferu emocji i nastroju
między ludźmi [Affective
contagion: On the transfer of emotions and moods between
people]. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Zagar Galvão, Elena. 2009. “Speech
and Gesture in the Booth – a Descriptive Approach to Multimodality in
Simultaneous
Interpreting.” In Translation
and the (Trans)formation of Identities. Selected Papers of the CETRA
Research Seminar in Translation
Studies 2008, edited
by Dries De Crom, 1–26. Leuven: CETRA.
Zhou, Qing, Carlos Valiente, and Nancy Eisenberg. 2003. “Empathy
and Its
Measurement.” In Positive
Psychological Assessment: A Handbook of Models and
Measures, edited by Shane J. Lopez and C. Richard Snyder, 269–284. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Cited by (16)
Cited by 16 other publications
Cásedas, Luis, María J. Funes, Marc Ouellet & Mercedes García de Quesada
2023. Training transversal competences in a bachelor’s degree in translation and interpreting: preliminary evidence from a clinical trial. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 17:2 ► pp. 193 ff.
Hung, Alvin Hoi-Chun
2023. The Role of Boundary-Spanners in the Control of a Chinese Garment Factory in Myanmar. Work, Employment and Society
Kanojia, Diptesh & Aditya Joshi
2023. Applications and challenges of SA in real-life scenarios. In Computational Intelligence Applications for Text and Sentiment Data Analysis, ► pp. 49 ff.
Kara, Hanna & Camilla Nordberg
2023. Configuring public service interpreting in Finland as a sentient professional practice and affirmative social service work: emotion in the work of public service interpreters. Nordic Social Work Research 13:4 ► pp. 563 ff.
KUMCU, Alper
2023. Emotional Language Processing in Bilingualism: Subjective Affect and Prosodic Markers in Simultaneous Interpreting. Cankaya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 17:2 ► pp. 194 ff.
2023. Investigating student interpreters’ emotional component of aptitude: a mixed method approach. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 17:1 ► pp. 119 ff.
Li, Saihong, Yifang Wang & Yubo Zhou Rasmussen
2022. Studying interpreters’ stress in crisis communication: evidence from multimodal technology of eye-tracking, heart rate and galvanic skin response. The Translator 28:4 ► pp. 468 ff.
Sharma, Tanya, Manoj Diwakar & Chandrakala Arya
2022. INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC AND PRACTICAL CONFERENCE “TECHNOLOGY IN AGRICULTURE, ENERGY AND ECOLOGY” (TAEE2022) [INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC AND PRACTICAL CONFERENCE “TECHNOLOGY IN AGRICULTURE, ENERGY AND ECOLOGY” (TAEE2022), 2767], ► pp. 020045 ff.
2019. “It’s not just words, it’s the feeling, the passion, the emotions”: an ethnography of affect in interpreters’ practices in contemporary Japan. Asian Anthropology 18:3 ► pp. 186 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 10 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.