Investigating explicitation patterns in Chinese to English retour interpreting: A case study of a public hearing

This study examines the characteristics of explicitation in Chinese-English retour interpreting and compares the explicitation patterns between Chinese-English retour interpreting and English-Chinese direct interpreting in the consecutive mode during a public hearing. The study examines the Chinese-English consecutive interpreting of the Chinese Olympic medalist Sun Yang's public hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, using Tang's (2018) framework for categorizing explicitation in consecutive interpreting. The findings indicate that 1) experiential explicitation accounts for nearly 76% of all explicitation cases in the Chinese-English retour interpreting, followed by interpersonal explicitation, with textual explicitation being the least common; 2) explicitation shifts occur approximately 31% more frequently in the Chinese-English retour interpreting than in the English-Chinese direct interpreting, with most of these additional shifts related to experiential explicitation; and 3) the overall distribution of explicitation types is relatively similar across the two interpreting directions. This study suggests that explicitation is commonly used in public hearings, particularly in Chinese-English retour interpreting, which challenges the traditional expectation that legal interpreters deliver verbatim interpretations. This descriptive analysis of explicitation patterns may help to improve interpreter training.