Error type disfluencies in consecutively interpreted and spontaneous Hungarian speech

Interpreting can be considered as a form of spontaneous speech, the key differences being that language change is involved in interpreting and the fact that speech production is influenced by several constraints during interpreting. Research has shown that the interpreting task influences the disfluency patterns of target language texts. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the frequency and distribution of error type disfluencies changes in the target language output of trainee interpreters as they progress in their training. Results indicate that there is no considerable change in the frequency and proportion of error type disfluencies in the target language texts recorded at the end of the second, third and fourth semesters of interpreter training. The proportion of error type disfluencies is higher in the consecutively interpreted texts than in the spontaneous monolingual speech of the students. This suggests that the complexity of the task, rather than progress in training, determines the disfluency pattern of consecutively interpreted target language texts.