Formulaicity in simultaneous interpreting : examining lexical bundles in interpreted and non-interpreted English speeches at UN Security Council meetings

Abstract

Generating data from a comparable corpus comprising original English speeches and English simultaneous interpretations of Chinese speeches from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), this study aims to explore the use of formulaic expressions, specifically four-word lexical bundles, in both original speech and interpreted speech. By analyzing the overall frequency and typical discourse functions of these bundles in the two English varieties, the results showed that interpreters used lexical bundles more frequently than native English speakers, suggesting a higher level of formulaicity in interpreted speeches. This higher formulaicity may be explained by normalization and risk-management strategy. In addition, this study found that interpreters used a greater variety of four-word bundle types across the three broad functional categories than native speakers. This result indicates that interpreters and speakers may utilize distinct devices in producing their speech on comparable topics. That is, interpreters preferred to use lexical bundles to achieve fluency, while native speakers showed greater linguistic variability and relied less on these pre-constructed chunks of language. These findings highlight the importance of formulaicity in simultaneous interpreting and how such pre-constructed lexical bundles function to help interpreters achieve adequate rendition.