Getting the message in 'Sound' across at conference interpreting: a case study on rendering prosodic emphasis

The 'sound' of language is the main spoken manifestation of meaning-making for interpreting; however, as a universal phenomenon in different kinds of interpreting practice, it is still understudied. This study investigates TT renditions for ST prosodic emphasis with the paralinguistic and verbal data taken from a conference setting. The investigation is aided by the importation of the model of Effort Code and acoustic measurements (pitch range, intensity, and duration) from phonology and phonetics. Results show that (1) the ST prosodic emphasis 'gets across' to a noticeable degree through two types of TT renditions: ST-TT 'prosodic-correspondence' (9.85%) and TT 'verbal-compensation' as verbal means to render the ST prosodic emphasis (34.09%), (2) the higher levels of source speech pitch range, intensity, and duration, the higher likelihood of interpreters' implementing 'verbal-compensation', and (3) interpreters implement 'verbal-compensation' through additional intensifying words or explicitation for the ST prosodic emphasis. The results suggest that interpreters can use verbal means to render ST prosody rather than to try to 'sound' like the speaker. Moreover, this study imports useful tools from phonology and phonetics, serving as a methodological inventory for the multimodal research avenue in translation and interpreting studies.