Anticipation – Gile

5.4 Anticipation

The usefulness of anticipation, often underscored by interpreters (see Chernov 1973, 2004; Moser 1978; Déjean Le Féal 1981; Cartellieri 1983), also becomes clear when analyzed through the Effort Model for simultaneous interpreting. Two types of anticipation are considered here: ‘linguistic anticipation’ and ‘extralinguistic anticipation.

5.4.1 Linguistic anticipation

The probabilistic nature of speech comprehension is widely accepted. In every language, words follow each other not at random, but with highly differentiated probabilities (‘transitional probabilities’): for instance, in English, the probability that an article will be followed by a noun or an adjective is high and the probability that it will be followed by another article or a verb is low. Beyond general grammatical rules, collocations and standard phrases offer obviously high probabilities for specific word sequences. Knowledge of such rules, albeit unconscious, helps reduce uncertainty and thus also reduces processing capacity requirements in speech comprehension. Such linguistic anticipation’ is viewed as very central in human language perception by Richaudeau (1973: 21). It appears, in particular in studies on reading, that subjects use transitional probabilities when identifying words (see Hörmann 1972: 97-101). All other things being equal, the more numerous and the higher transitional probabilities are in language as it is used and the better they are known to the interpreter, the less processing capacity is required for speech comprehension. A high level of linguistic proficiency implies not only that one knows words and structures and can recognize them, but also that one has good knowledge of transitional probabilities and can use them in comprehension. Such high profi- ciency is difficult to assess in most everyday situations in which all or nearly all available processing capacity can be allocated to the listening task. In simultaneous interpreting, two other Efforts compete with the Listening and Analysis Effort for processing capacity, and mastery of transitional probabilities can become critical.

The potential importance of anticipation in interpreting can be seen very clearly in the case of Japanese. Japanese speeches offer many predictable sentence endings: from a certain point on, the informational content of the sentence is virtually ended. A naturalistic study of Japanese conference speeches reported in Gile 1992a suggests that they are numerous and can be rather long, up to more than 6 syllables and lasting more than one second. In the same paper, a theoretical analysis of potential implications is presented. In particular, Gile believes that interpreters working from Japanese may find considerable cognitive relief in such sentence endings. So far, it has been difficult to test this assumption directly due to methodological difficulties – as explained earlier, it is difficult to detect in the interpreter’s online output the influence of any single factor – but modern brain imaging technology might open new avenues by making it possible to measure online cortex activation parameters at a high spatial and time resolution and perhaps detect changes when predictable sentence endings are identified by the interpreter.

5.4.2 Extralinguistic anticipation

Besides so-called ‘linguistic anticipation, good knowledge of the conference situation, of the subject and of the speaker and good understanding of the unfolding statements often make it possible to anticipate ideas and information expressed in speeches. Anticipation’ is defined here as some knowledge of the probability of the speaker reacting or speaking in a particular way in the context or situation at hand, not necessarily as the exact prediction of the speaker’s world.
For instance, if during a debate on a problematic issue, a speaker starts his/her statement as a reaction to the opinion uttered by the previous speaker with the words: “No, Mister Chairman, I do not think that…., interpreters may anticipate that the statement will express disagreement. If in the course of a debate at a UN agency on the election of representatives to a committee, an African speaker says “Madam Chair, Europe, Asia and the Pacific as well as the Americas are represented in the committee, but there is no…., depending on the context, interpreters may expect words to the effect that there is no member from the African continent. Sometimes, a speaker refers to a diagram projected on screen and describes it. The interpreter, who can see the diagram as well, can see what part of it the speaker is referring to and anticipate with some accuracy what s/he is going to say.

Note that the distinction between ‘linguistic’ and ‘extralinguistic’ anticipation is made for didactic purposes, because of the practical implications, just as the distinction was made between ‘linguistic’ and ‘extralinguistic’ knowledge (Chapter 4), but depending on the type of analysis performed, one could well challenge the existence of a fundamental difference between the two.

Basically, the more anticipation reduces uncertainty, the more cognitive relief can be expected from it. This is where extralinguistic knowledge and conference preparation (see Chapter 6) become important. By using documents and preparatory briefings in order to acquire knowledge about a conference, that is, about relevant facts, names, ideas, terms and expressions likely to be referred to or used respectively during the conference, interpreters increase their ability to anticipate and therefore decrease processing capacity requirements for their Listening and Analysis Effort, and sometimes for their Production Effort. More capacity is left for tasks which require it, and risks of saturation can be reduced.