Lexical knowledge and interpreter aptitude*

Abstract

This article examines the performance of six student interpreters attending a training course at the University of Oslo. The data are drawn from video‐recordings in which the students interpret dialogues in two test situations. The students use the consecutive interpreting mode with short speaker intervals, and they perform in the language pair Norwegian/Serbo‐Croat (or now Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian). The article compares the students’performance during screening for admission to the course with their performance on the final oral exam. The assessments of their performance show a high correlation between their results on a written lexical knowledge test prior to the course and their performance on the final oral exam. In terms of Gile's effort model, the results indicate that those with good lexical knowledge use less energy for lexical access, and thus are left with more resources to handle other aspects of interpreting.