Lu Li

What is REALLY happening in interpreters’ head when they are encountering challenges during interpreting? 

My research interests are mostly developed from my freelance interpreting experiences and they have always been revolving around the cognitive process of interpreting and translation studies. My ongoing eye-tracking study focuses on the disfluent phenomena during consecutive interpreting (CI).

Being a fluent speaker is always being pursued and valued.

As an important manifestation of language proficiency assessed by some oral examinations (IELTS, 2020; TOEFL, 2019), fluency has been studied as a language phenomenon (Lennon, 1990). Meanwhile, being fluent can also be interpreted as a skill of how proficient a speaker is mastering a language (Fillmore, 1979). However, due to the demanding cognitive processing capacity requirement (Plevoets & Defrancq, 2016) that interpreters have to cope with during interpreting, disfluency, featured with unnecessary interruptions, pauses and repetitions in a smooth speech, may occur, affecting listeners’ understanding of the interpretation. Yet, can we see all the disfluent performances as the product of interpreters’ excessive cognitive load? 

My current PhD study is structured to explore the causes behind CI disfluency, aiming to analyse the reasons behind CI-related disfluent phenomena and shed some light on future interpreting training and learning, improving interpreting quality. 

My PhD research is currently under the supervision of Dr Piotr Blumczynski and Dr Chen-En Ho.

I am currently working as a teaching assistant (TA) in the following postgraduate modules:

• Simultaneous Interpreting
• Consecutive Interpreting
• Translation Workshop

I am also a PhD mentor for three first-year PhD students.