ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates so-called imported load in simultaneous interpreting, as proposed by Daniel Gile. Imported load is cognitive load related to source text features or interpreter strategies in one sentence that produces effects in the output of the next sentence. Among these effects, Gile considers errors, omissions, and infelicities. In contrast, this chapter analyzes filled pauses as indicators of cognitive load in a corpus of simultaneous interpreting carried out by the Dutch booth at the European Parliament during plenary sessions between 2006 and 2008 and in non-mediated Dutch spoken in national parliaments. A generalized additive mixed-effects model was used to study the effect of the following predictors, known to increase (or decrease in the case of formulaicity) cognitive load in interpreters: delivery rate, lexical density, percentage of numbers, formulaicity, and percentage of subordinations. Predictors were analyzed both in source and target texts, as interpreters own production also causes cognitive load. Effects were studied sequentially for the local sentence and for up to three previous sentences. The results show that there are only local effects of cognitive load in simultaneous interpreting (i.e., within the same sentence), while in non-mediated speech, predictors have an inverse relationship with load in the previous sentences.
