As Time Goes By: Phraseological Competence and Linguistic Anticipations in the Interpreting Performance

In this article we investigate the influence of phraseological competence on linguistic anticipations during the interpreting performance. We aim to investigate whether the presence of formulaic sequences in the source language might unburden the interpreter's working memory. Relying on phraseological competence might enable the interpreter to attribute more attention to the many different cognitive processes that take place during the interpreting performance. While interpreting, these processes battle for working memory's limited processing capacity.
We will analyse interpreting performances and give special attention to linguistic anticipations. Anticipation refers to the interpreter's production of a constituent in the target language before the speaker has uttered the corresponding constituent in the source language. We argue that good phraseological competence in the L2 can lead to an accelerated recognition of phrases or multiword units in the source language and hence to more anticipations. If phraseological competence and anticipations turn out to have a significant influence on the interpreting performance, they might be considered valuable parameters in interpreting admission tests.