The way this case study was conducted makes it hard for the researcher to
observe some parts of the performance such as the body language, the strategies taken,
and the interaction with the audience, etc. Furthermore, the researcher’s judgment
calls of the three dimensions, namely, fidelity, ST chunking, and delivery, though
based on some theories and principles, are not objective enough because there is not a
set of rules to distinguish all the ST phenomena and the subjects’ intentions were not
followed to help the judgments.
3.6.1 Gray Areas in Evaluation
As mentioned earlier, there are some gray areas in the evaluation done by the
researcher because of insufficient information. For example, when “nuclear
proliferation” is interpreted into 核子彈的問題 (nuclear bomb issue), should it be
considered miss- interpretation, or an omission? What about “I could not fairly
represent them if I did not emphasize America’s belief” translated into 「今天我代表 美國人民，就必須強調美國的信念」(Today I represent the American people, so I
have to emphasize America’s belief.)?
Therefore, the researcher has to make rather subjective judgments when there
are no specific rules but only principles. Consequently, the first example in the
previous paragraph is considered an omission rather than miss- interpretation, because
it dilutes the original message but still maintain the gist of the message. The second
example is considered OK because it only involves phrasing change but not meaning
change.
3.6.2 Missing Audience
ST is needed not only for SI exercises but also for conference interpreting
situations. It is an important skill when performing SI with text. Therefore, the
pressure or disturbances brought by facing the audience should also be considered in
ST performances.
Since this ST task was recorded, there would not be any audience, so this stress
factor is excluded. The subjects are supposed to perform more naturally and freely
during the case study than in the market. Therefore, the results in the case study may
be an overestimate of their ability in the real situation.
3.6.3 Limited Sample Size
The limited sample size makes it difficult to draw quantitative conclusions.
That is, the conclusions won’t be convincing and representative enough since each
group contains only 15 subjects.
However, 3 groups are used to increase the variety for comparison. Group A
contains students from first year to graduation, almost everyone available (still in
school and still in Taiwan) at that time, about 15 people. For the convenience of
observation and calculation, the numbers of subjects in the other two groups are set to
be 15 as well. Hopefully, in the future, when GITI is more established and have
more students, the choice of subjects will not be as limited and this type of
quantitative case study will then become meaningful and solid.
Nevertheless, it should also be noted that Group C is comprised of subjects with
very different college majors and ages. Thus, it is hard to prove that their abilities in
memory, rhetoric, etc. are similar since their backgrounds are so different. The only
thing that can be assumed is that their language proficiency is similar because they all
took the same English proficiency test and then were all categorized in level 5.
3.6.4 Limited Scope
After the pilot study, the researcher discovered many different dimensions to
analyze such as the types of errors made, different styles of delivery, etc. They all
deserve to be further examined. However, for the sake of efficiency and focus, the
researcher has to narrow the scope down to 3 dimensions with assumptions to make
them easier to measure. After the analysis, some phenomena, such as the intonation
and voice quality of the subjects, or their murmuring the speech text when interpreting,
are not observed because they don’t belong to any of the criterion.
According to Gile (Observational Studies 84), complex human behavior such as
interpreting is difficult to measure directly in a precise, thorough and uniform way.
This case study also faces the same difficulty. Without a set of comprehensive
measures and long-term tracking, the study can only try to quantify the assumed
criteria within the 3 categories to compare and analyze the differences generated in
the 3 groups through the ST task.
However, through the comparison of the 3 groups, the effect of ST training and
language proficiency can still be observed, which can then still serve the purpose of
the study.
3.6.5 Other Limitations
The type and length of the speech text are limited because this is a one-time
observation. The results of ST under a diplomatic context, which contains 262
words, are observed. However, more researches need to be done if we want to know
about how the subjects will perform with different types of speech or with a longer
text.
On the other hand, due to the nature and scope of the study, it is hard to make
follow-up observations to see the subjects’ progress. This along with the limitations
mentioned above reduce the possible achievements of the study and leave
considerable room for future research.