Exploring the impact of intermodal transfer on simplification: Insights from signed language interpreting, subtitle translation, and native speech in TED talks

Abstract

This study explores translational simplification in interpreted English from American Sign Language (ASL) and subtitled English from spoken French, compared to native English speech, using a self-constructed TED Talks Comparable Intermodal Corpus. By analyzing both lexical and syntactic complexity, the findings indicate that interpreted English does not exhibit a significant reduction in lexical density compared to native English speech. In fact, interpreted English has a higher lexical density than subtitled English. However, while subtitles are simpler in terms of semantic content, they show a less pronounced reduction in lexical variation and sophistication than oral interpretations, when compared to native speech. These results are attributable to the distinct modality influences of ASL and French, combined with the condensation constraints of subtitling and the real-time processing demands of interpreting. At the syntactic level, interpreted outputs display greater phrasal coordination than subtitles, while both modalities feature higher sentence-level coordination than native speech, likely shaped by the specific constraints of the TED Talk setting. This study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the simplification phenomenon by highlighting the unique effects of intermodal transfer. It also adds to the knowledge of the distinct constraints of signed language interpreting and subtitle translation, as well as their divergent and shared patterns of information processing.