Logical Cohesion

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important to discuss why these quality criteria or features were left unnoticed by the

YouTube users. The criterion, sense consistency with original the original message, has

been often cited as one of the most important quality criteria in previous studies, yet in

this research it was not noticed by the listeners. Most likely it was because the listeners

were not able to compare the source and target texts, especially in this study where the

interpreters’ speech volume was louder than that of the source text speaker. And the

same probably applies to the criterion, completeness of interpretation, as well.

4.5.1 Logical Cohesion

For the quality criterion logical cohesion, there were three related comments, as

seen in Table 19. Comment #13 sounded neutral, although the user worried whether the

interpreter(s) would be able to handle the Q&A session and still deliver a coherent

rendition. Meanwhile, Comments #21 and #89 were criticisms about the incoherent

delivery. At least two users found it hard for the users to comprehend the interpreter’s

delivery.

Table 19: Quality criteria- logical coherence of utterance Comment# Commenter# YouTube comment (3 comments)

13 C3 翻譯口條還可以啦，只怕問答時間就囧了。

21 C17 感覺這翻譯好像 google 翻譯文章...

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89 C50 口譯很亂，勉強能聽

Unfortunately, it was unclear which segment prompted the listeners to make this

quality judgment or why. The transcription data, however, provided some possible

explanations. The following sections highlight factors that might impair the logical

cohesion of the interpretation, which included confusing conjunctions, confusing

pronouns, and meaning errors.

Conjunctions are very helpful for interpreting users to grasp the logical flow and

contour of the main messages. Yet Segment #73 in Table 20 showed how too many

conjunctions are used in a confusing way. This might have impaired the logical

cohesion of the rendition.

Another factor that might have weakened the target text logical cohesion is the

inappropriate use of pronouns. When interpreting from English to Chinese, Chinese

pronouns might be especially confusing for listeners, as they do not distinguish between

different genders or between human and things. Segment #97 (Table 20) illustrated how

too many identical pronouns might be confusing for listeners to identify the right

subject, thus undermining the logical coherence of the message.

Finally, meaning errors is one of the most direct results of illogical utterance. Of

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course, unlike translation, simultaneous interpretation is not meant to be perfect. It

serves the moment, so it is inappropriate to examine or scrutinize in length the

interpretation output repeatedly long after the conclusion of the interpreting event. Yet

with more and more interpreting events webcasted and saved on YouTube and other

internet media outlets, researchers can now revisit an interpreting event video, study the

performance of the interpreters, and analyze the interpretation corpora. The following

meanings errors were selected, not to nitpick on the interpreters, but to demonstrate

errors on the meaning level that were related to the criterion of logical cohesion. The

two examples were from the same Segment #97 (Table 20) and were related to a similar

section in Sandel’s lecture —how the public opinions about market swung along the

spectrum as Sandel posed different questions. However, the interpreter failed to seize

the main message, thus unable to convey the meaning correctly.

Table 20: Factors that impair logical cohesion

Segment# Speaker Interpreter

Source text Target text

Confusing Conjunctions

73 Sandel F In fact, you might also say there are two ways of allocating scarce goods. At least two: paying or waiting on line. Let's take a scarce good. Sometimes in great demands:

tickets to a very popular concert, rock concert. Whose tickets are extremely hard to get? Mayday? Alright, suppose there is a Mayday concert, and the tickets are priced

可能你會說有兩種，至少兩種方式，來針

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in a way that enables many people at least to afford the tickets but ends the result they sell out within a few hours. You have that experience, haven't you? Trying to get the tickets to a Mayday concert? But some people line up and wait and buy the tickets and then sell them at a higher price online to make a profit. Ticket scalping. Now is there... so someone who didn't wait in line but who really want to see the concert and is willing to pay and able to pay can do so.

很受歡迎，如果這個價錢能夠讓很多人都

97 Sandel F Many schools have a problem. Children, especially students from disadvantage backgrounds, don’t do as well as they might. They may lack of motivation. They may lack of academic skills. They may not have the habits of studying hard. And so some schools in the US have actually begun experimenting with a way of trying to motivate students to get good grades, to do well on tests, to read more books. They offer cash incentives.

97 Sandel F But as we went through the examples, the number of people who consider the market, the appropriate mechanism for distributing access to the goods changed. What does this tell us about the relation between market reasoning and moral reasoning?

97 Sandel F It seems that many people, those who change from white to orange, in the case of change do believe the appropriate way of distributing the access to the goods depends on the centrality, the moral importance, or the necessity of that good.

As for the quality criterion of correct terminology, there were three-related

comments (Table 21). Strictly speaking, none of these comments were judgments on

the interpreters’ appropriate or inappropriate use of correct terminology in delivery

quality interpretation. These three comments together presented a brief conversation

between Commenters #C14 and #C11. They seemed to have a reasonable understanding