Translation/Interpreting psychological mechanism as embodied bilingual processing

Abstract

Based on the psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic research on bilingualism, this paper firstly discusses three fundamental models and relevant central issues involved in the bilingual processing of interpreting: the selective and non-selective feature of bilingual access and control, the serial and parallel view of bilingual processing, and the coordination view of serial and parallel procedure of bilingual information processing, with the dual purpose of explicating the bilingual processing and cognitive control mechanism in the interpreting process and paving the way for further explanation of the embodied nature of bilingual processing in interpreting from the embodied cognition perspective. Then with the two aspects of processing mechanism and neurolinguistic evidence, it elaborates how the interpreter’s embodied experience and skills in the profession, as a part of cognitive resources, play crucial roles in different levels of cognitive processing which coordinates the serial and parallel processing in the interpreting process. Lastly, this paper argues for viewing the translating process likewise as embodied bilingual processing using a brief comparison between translating and interpreting with a focus on the embodied nature of bilingual processing in their respective processes.