مشخصات پژوهش

This study investigates the effect of prosody awareness training on the performance of Farsi-English interpreter trainees. Two groups of student interpreters were formed. All were native speakers of Farsi who studied English translation and interpreting at the BA level at the State University of Arak, Iran. Participants were assigned to groups at random, but with equal division between genders (8 female and 8 male students in each group). At the beginning of the program, all the participants took a pretest of general English proficiency. No significant differences in English language skills (TOEFL scores) could be established between the groups. Three expert raters assessed quality measures of interpreting performance in both a pretest and a post-test. All rating scales that pertain to prosodic aspects in the trainees’ interpreting performance, proved susceptible to the explicit teaching of prosody. The results of the study showed that explicit teaching of prosody statistically did have a positive effect on the overall interpreting performance by Farsi-English interpreter trainees. The pedagogical implications of the present study would pertain to interpreting programs all over the world. Course developers should take these results into considerations and include contrastive prosody in the textbooks for interpreting programs.