The effect of fluency training on interpreter trainees’ speech fluency, comprehensibility, and accentedness: an experimental study

Yenkimaleki, M.; Heuven, V.J.J.P. van (2024)

Article / Letter to editor

Fluency, comprehensibility, and accentedness are considered important
parameters of interpreting quality but have rarely been studied
systematically in training programs of interpreting. Therefore, the present
study was set up to investigate the effect of fluency training on speech
fluency, comprehensibility, and accentedness of interpreter trainees. Two
groups of interpreter trainees at a university in Iran took part in the study,
receiving the same amount of instruction and practice (12 hours over 4
weeks). The experimental group (N=30) spent 33% of the time (i.e., 4 of the
12 hours in the training program) on dedicated fluency strategy training,
encouraging the memorization, repetition, and retelling of audio and video
materials. The remaining 67% was spent on training general speaking skills.
The control group (N=30) were only taught general speaking skills in the
training program but received no dedicated fluency training. Systematic
interviews were run to assess the interpreter trainees’ speech fluency,
comprehensibility and accentedness, which were judged independently by
three expert raters at three moments of testing, i.e., pretest, immediate
posttest, and delayed posttest (one month later). The findings revealed that
the fluency training significantly enhanced the interpreter trainees’ fluency,
and to a lesser extent the students’ comprehensibility but had only a
marginal effect on accentedness. The pedagogical implication would be that
awareness training on speech fluency

• All authors: Yenkimaleki, M.; Heuven, V.J.J.P. van
• Date: 2024-04-02
• Journal: Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics
• Advanced Publication: Yes
• DOI: doi:10.1075/resla.22044.yen