Chunking in Chinese-Polish SI Training

EVALUATING CHUNKING IN CHINESE-POLISH SIMULTANEOUS INTERPRETATION TRAINING Pi-Chun Chou Jagiellonian University

Research background Syntactic asymmetry between Chinese and Polish: Chinese left branching, Polish right branching Lack of inflection in Chinese vs cases, numbers, genders, tenses etc. in Polish March 18th2025 Evaluating Chunking in Chinese-Polish SI Training 2

Left-Branching and Right-branching Example: I went out for dinner today with the daughter of my mom s friend. A natural sentence in Polish: Dzisiaj poszed em/posz am na obiad z c rk przyjaciela/przyjaci ki mojej mamy. 2024 EACS Conference 3

What is chunking? A cognitive strategy that involves organizing information into smaller chunks to enhance learning and memory performance (Miller 1956). segmentation can save short-term memory capacity requirements by unloading information from memory faster (Gile 1995:195-196) Recasting the content of the left-branching phrase as a constituent which can be produced immediately ( chunking or preserving linearity ) A useful strategy to deal with word-order asymmetry between SL and TL. (Setton 1999:131-132) March 18th2025 Evaluating Chunking in Chinese-Polish SI Training 4

An example of chunking strategy Most people have their circle of friends in the city where they have lived for a long time . [Normal people s] [are in] [themselves long stay] [city] [friend circle(s)] na przyk ad, w swoim mie cie [for example, in their own city] Wi kszo ludzi [most people] ma kr g znajomych [have their circle of friends] gdzie d ugo mieszkaj [where they have lived for a long time] tam, [in a place,] March 18th2025 Evaluating Chunking in Chinese-Polish SI Training 5

Research questions Does chunking actually help trainees to perform better in the case of Chinese-Polish SI (considering linguistic differences)? If yes, what are its limitations? If not, why not? March 18th2025 Evaluating Chunking in Chinese-Polish SI Training 6

Experiment participants Pre-experiment set-up SI training for 4 months (around 1,5 hr per week) with a focus on chunking strategy For example: drip-fed exercise, chunk-by-chunk oral input (Setton and Dawrant 2016) Participants: 7 students (MA programme, Sinology, JU) Chinese proficiency level : B2- C1 1,5 year interpreter training March 18th2025 Evaluating Chunking in Chinese-Polish SI Training 7

2 speeches in Chinese (1) About Chunjie ( , Chinese New Year), 4 min, 240 words/min Experiment and survey (2) About working abroad, 7 min, 224 words/min (general topic, medium speed) Participants instructed to use chunking as much as possible Survey: (1) Were you able to consistently apply chunking in this task? (2) What was most difficult about using this strategy? March 18th2025 Evaluating Chunking in Chinese-Polish SI Training 8

Analysis Original speech and recordings of the experiment were transcribed and divided into semantic segments Segments of the original speech were compared with the participants interpretation the most important new year s eve dinner activities one of is Chunjie during = 7 segments Najwa niejszym [Most important] elementem celebracji [element of celebration] noworocznych [of new years] jest [is] kolacja [dinner] =4 segments The participant fails to convey the meaning of the sentence = 0 segments March 18th2025 Evaluating Chunking in Chinese-Polish SI Training 9

Chunking rate: Results Total number of segments rendered using chunking total numbers of segments in the original speech 1st task 2nd task Speech about working abroad (speech about Chinese New Year) chunking rate: 11% - 26% chunking rate: 14% - 33% Average : 20% Average : 21% March 18th2025 Evaluating Chunking in Chinese-Polish SI Training 10

Survey results Were you able to consistently apply chunking in this task? Most participants answered no (both tasks) What were the difficulties? Answers Unnatural word-order in output Lack of time to decide which word to use Unable to predict subsequent content Problems with understanding the speech 1st task 2nd task 5 3 2 3 3 2 3 4 March 18th2025 Evaluating Chunking in Chinese-Polish SI Training 11

Discussion Performance rate: total segments rendered /total number of segments in the original speech Does chunking help? Task 1 Interpreter 1 Interpreter 2 Interpreter 3 Interpreter 4 Interpreter 5 Interpreter 6 Interpreter 7 Chunking rate Performance rate 12.80% 26.93% 11.20% 25.60% 22.93% 22.93% 20.00% 24.00% 52.53% 20.53% 38.93% 42.13% 35.20% 41.87% March 18th2025 Evaluating Chunking in Chinese-Polish SI Training 12

Discussion Does chunking help? Task 2 Interpreter 1 Interpreter 2 Interpreter 3 Interpreter 4 Interpreter 5 Interpreter 6 Interpreter 7 Chunking rate Performance rate 14.18% 33.09% 14.55% 17.64% 26.91% 18.00% 22.18% 19.27% 47.27% 20.36% 23.45% 38.00% 28.18% 48.55% March 18th2025 Evaluating Chunking in Chinese-Polish SI Training 13

Discussion If yes, what are the limitations? There are some unavoidable shifts in word-order, such as Podczas chi skiego nowego roku Insufficient time uncertainty regarding numbers, genders, cases, tenses chunking feels unnatural for the trainees more practice? March 18th2025 Evaluating Chunking in Chinese-Polish SI Training 14

Limitations and further questions There could be more factors that impact the participants performance and they are difficult to determine. Comprehension problems? (speech rate? tones? unknown terms?) Lack of background knowledge How to improve the experiment? Alternatives to chunking? March 18th2025 Evaluating Chunking in Chinese-Polish SI Training 15