Cover not available

Article published In: Interpreting
Vol. 25:2 (2023) ► pp.239–273

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Speaking in the first-person singular or plural

A multifactorial, speech corpus-based analysis of institutional interpreters

 | University of Hong Kong
Published online: 21 October 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/intp.00088.liu
Abstract
Conventionally, the professional interpreter speaks in the first-person singular. Research in corpus-based discourse analysis has reported shifts from this norm towards first-person plural becoming the most frequent pronoun shift in political institutional interpreting, possibly signalling interpreter ‘alignment with the institution’. Nonetheless, few studies have teased apart the simultaneous constraints of social, cognitive, and linguistic factors on institutional interpreters’ preference for the plural. The present research adopts the usage-based theory to consider the three types of explanations together. It extends recent multivariate methodologies based on this theory to analyse 2,438 first-person cases in parallel interpreting and comparable speech corpora. Following robust context analyses and cross-linguistic prosodic transcription, this study weighs the strengths of 33 associates regarding the three explanations through regression analyses. The results show that first-person shifts are better explained by chunking effects when interpreters process complex forms and referents in the source and target speeches, and when they process zero-subject source inputs. The institutional alignment explanation fails to account for the extensive grammaticalisation of plural constructions in the interpreted speech. When all the interactive and additive effects are considered together, institutional alignment or monofactorial paradigms have little explanatory power. This study concludes by highlighting the relevance of usage-based multifactorial designs to interpreting research.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Explanations of institutional interpreters’ FPP plural preference
    • 2.1Social explanations
    • 2.2Cognitive processing
    • 2.3Linguistic diversity
  • 3.A usage-based approach
  • 4.Data and methods
    • 4.1Speech corpora
    • 4.2Behavioural Profile (BP) annotation
      • 4.2.1Random-effects terms
      • 4.2.2Social explanations-related variable
      • 4.2.3Cognitive and linguistic variables
      • 4.2.4Prosodic variables
    • 4.3Statistical analyses
  • 5.Findings
    • 5.1Monofactorial models
    • 5.2Multifactorial models of source/recipient languages
      • 5.2.1Exploring FPP choices of OC speakers: ROC
      • 5.2.2Exploring FPP choices of the NE speaker: RNE
    • 5.3Comparisons between interpreting and source/recipient-language conventions
      • 5.3.1Applying ROC to predict interpreter FPP choices: ROC-IE
      • 5.3.2Applying RNE′ to predict interpreter FPP choices: RNE′-IE
    • 5.4Exploring institutional interpreters’ plural preference
      • 5.4.1Interpretational effects: Rplural
      • 5.4.2Contrastive effects: RIE
  • 6.Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (39)
References
Beaton-Thome, M. (2010). Negotiating identities in the European Parliament: The role of simultaneous interpreting. In M. Baker, M. Olohan & M. Calzada-Pérez (Eds.), Text and context: Essays on translation and interpreting in honour of Ian Mason. Manchester: St. Jerome, 117–138.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beckman, M. E. & Elam, G. A. (1997). Guidelines for ToBI labelling (version 3.0). [URL] (accessed 30 August 2022).
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G. N., Conrad, S. & Finegan, E. (2021). Grammar of spoken and written English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boersma, P. & Weenink, D. (2020). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, J. L. (2010). Language, usage and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chao, Y. R. (1968). A grammar of spoken Chinese. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cole, J. (2015). Prosody in context: A review. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 30 (1–2), 1–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, W. (2003). Typology and universals. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Sutter, G. & Lefer, M.-A. (2020). On the need for a new research agenda for corpus-based translation studies: A multi-methodological, multifactorial and interdisciplinary approach. Perspectives 28 (1), 1–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2021). (Generalized linear) mixed-effects modeling: A learner corpus example. Language Learning 71 (3), 757–798. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gries, S. Th. & Deshors, S. (2014). Using regressions to explore deviations between interlanguage and native language: Two suggestions. Corpora 9 (1), 109–136. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gu, C. & Tipton, R. (2020). (Re-)voicing Beijing’s discourse through self-referentiality: A corpus-based CDA analysis of government interpreters’ discursive mediation at China’s political press conferences (1998–2017). Perspectives 28 (3), 406–423. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hawkins, J. A. (2004). Efficiency and complexity in grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Langacker, R. W. (1988). A usage-based model. In B. Rudzka-Ostyn (Ed.), Topics in cognitive linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 127–161. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levshina, N. (2015). How to do linguistics with R. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, D. & Wang, K. (2012). Hanying tongchuan zhong cihui moshi de yuliao ku kaocha [A corpus-based study on lexical patterns in simultaneous interpreting from Chinese into English]. Xiandai Waiyu 35 (4), 409–415.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, Y. & Halverson, S. L. (2020). A corpus-based exploration into lexical bundles in interpreting. Across Languages and Cultures 21 (1), 1–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lin, P. M. S. (2018). The prosody of formulaic sequences: A corpus and discourse approach. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liu, N. (2020). The effect of political conference interpreting: Triangulating cognitive pragmatics, speech corpora, and audience perception. PhD dissertation, University of Hong Kong.
(in press). Register shifts in political conference interpreting: A multidimensional analysis. In J. Pan, S. L. Halverson & J. Munday (Eds.), Translating and interpreting political discourse: New trends and perspectives. Leiden: Brill.
Mertens, P. (2014). Polytonia: A system for the automatic transcription of tonal aspects in speech corpora. Journal of Speech Sciences 4 (2), 17–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Narrog, H. & Heine, B. (2021). Grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peng, S., Chan, M. K. M., Tseng, C., Huang, T., Lee, O. J. & Beckman, M. E. (2005). Towards a pan-Mandarin system for prosodic transcription. In S.-A. Jun (Ed.), Prosodic typology: The phonology of intonation and phrasing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 230–270. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, J. & Hirschberg, J. B. (1990). The meaning of intonational contours in the interpretation of discourse. In P. R. Cohen, J. L. Morgan & M. E. Pollack (Eds.), Intentions in communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 271–311.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pöchhacker, F. (1995). Simultaneous interpreting: A functionalist perspective. HERMES (14), 31–53.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
R Core Team. (2020). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Toury, G. (2004). Probabilistic explanations in translation studies: Welcome as they are, would they qualify as universals? In A. Mauranen & P. Kujamäki (Eds.), Translation universals: Do they exist? Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 15–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Dijk, T. A. (2004). Politics, ideology, and discourse. In R. Wodak (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Elsevier, 728–739.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yuan, J. & Liberman, M. (2008). Speaker identification on the SCOTUS corpus. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 123 (5), 3878. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Liu, Nannan & Mariachiara Russo
2025. A value-sensitive metadata schema for interpreting corpora. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 27:2 ► pp. 157 ff. DOI logo
Jiang, Lin, Xiao Lu & Yingjun Liu
2024. 2024 IEEE 16th International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Communication Networks (CICN), ► pp. 819 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 december 2025. 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.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue