Researching the importance of phrasal competence in interpreting

This research project aims to investigate the influence of phraseological competence on the interpreting performance.
When language users segment language for reception or production, they typically work with meaningful groupings of items (Nation 2001). Following an influential paper in which Miller (1956) distinguished "bits" of information from "chunks" of information, applied linguists have claimed that language knowledge and use is based on long-term storing of associative connections, so-called "chunks" (Ellis 2001). These chunks (also called prefabricated phrases, multiword units, etc.) are reported to be stored holistically in the mental lexicon (Wray 2002). Knowledge of L2 chunks reduces the language user's processing time since retrieving sequences of language requires fewer cognitive resources than creatively generating language via lexical and syntactic construction (Pawley & Syder 1983; Schmitt 2004).
By its very nature, interpreting imposes considerable demands on an individual's cognitive resources. In simultaneous interpreting as well as consecutive interpreting and sight translation the interpreter needs to perform several operations at the same time, which inevitably entails attention management and significant processing capacity. According to the above-mentioned FLA research, processing chunks of language ('phrases', for short) requires fewer cognitive resources than generating language via lexical and syntactic construction.
This research project aims to investigate whether the student interpreter's working memory can be unburdened through mastery of such phrases. The study will be directed at measuring the benefits of phrasal competence for the interpreting performance and will concentrate on the relation between phrasal competence and working memory span.