Conceptual Processing in Simultaneous Interpreting: A Cognitive Model of Mental Operations in the Interpretation of Three Speeches by President El-Sisi

Abstract

Interpreting is not code-switching, but an activity which conveys the source speaker’s message to the audience. Cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology have provided ground to examine the interpreter’s cognitive environment. Conceptual operations are involved in utterance comprehension in general, where semantic representations are formed in the mind of the receiver. The same applies to interpreting as mental operations take place in the mind of the interpreter. Prágerová (2012) proposes a model to explore the mental reality behind the Simultaneous Interpreting (SI) online performance by comparing the Source Text (ST) and the Target Text (TT) of actual SI performances, analyzing the mental models constructed by the interpreter and the cognitive operations that have been going on inside the interpreter's mind. This paper aims to explore the interpreters' meaning construction during SI performance from Arabic into English of three different types of President ElSisi's speeches, giving detailed description of the interpreter's conceptual operations based on linguistic evidence, problem triggers that have caused cognitive saturation as well as online processing strategies as summarized by Riccardi (2005). The study aims also to present both SI trainers and trainees with a comprehensive tool of description of simultaneous interpreting, by bringing together three main elements of analysis; namely, problem triggers, processing strategies and mental operations, in hope of helping SI trainers and trainees better explain and understand the complexity of the process at hand.