3.1 Dennis Cokely's Sociolinguistic Model & Miscue Analysis

Core Principle: Interpreting is not a mechanical transmission of isolated words or signs across a linguistic conduit; it is an active, sociolinguistic, meaning-based mediation process occurring between culturally situated interlocutors. Dennis Cokely's 1992 model demonstrates that successful interpretation depends on moving through seven distinct cognitive processing stages, maintaining adequate lag time, and preventing processing miscues that distort message intent.

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Historical Context & Critique of Linear Conduit Models

During the infancy of sign language interpreter education in the 1960s and 1970s, the dominant paradigm framed the interpreter as a neutral, mechanical conduit. Influenced heavily by early telecommunication theories—such as the mathematical communication model of Shannon and Weaver (1949)—this early perspective viewed communication as a linear pipeline: a sender encodes a message into a signal, transmits it through a channel, and a receiver decodes it. Within this paradigm, the interpreter was conceptualized as a transparent linguistic pipe or telephone wire, whose sole obligation was to replace acoustic English words with manual ASL signs in a rigid, one-to-one correspondence.

This simplistic conduit conceptualization had catastrophic pedagogical and practical consequences:

• It promoted word-for-word transliteration and the proliferation of artificial, invented manual codes (such as Seeing Essential English [SEE I], Signing Exact English [SEE II], and Signed English) that attempted to mirror English syntax on the hands rather than respecting the native, visual-spatial grammar of American Sign Language.
• It completely ignored the sociolinguistic realities of human communication: communicative intent, power dynamics, cultural presuppositions, non-manual grammar, register, and discourse context.
• It assumed that errors made by interpreters were simply random "slips of the hand" or moral failures of attention, offering no scientific framework for analyzing how and why processing failures occurred.

Although Danica Seleskovitch and Marianne Lederer's Paris School developed the Théorie du Sens (Interpretive Theory of Translation) in the late 1960s—emphasizing that interpreters must deverbalize speech to extract sense rather than translating words—their focus centered almost exclusively on spoken language conference interpreting between European spoken languages.

In 1992, Dr. Dennis Cokely published his landmark doctoral dissertation, Interpretation: A Sociolinguistic Model (Linstok Press). Cokely grounded interpreting firmly in the ethnography of communication established by sociolinguist Dell Hymes. Cokely asserted that interpreting is fundamentally a sociolinguistic event: communication occurs between unique human beings with distinct communicative repertoires, social roles, ethnic backgrounds, and cultural assumptions, within specific physical and institutional contexts. The interpreter is an active sociolinguistic participant whose cognitive operations are profoundly shaped by the interactional dynamics of the speech event.

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The Seven Stages of Cognitive Processing

Cokely decomposed the complex, millisecond-by-millisecond mental operations of simultaneous interpreting into seven sequential cognitive stages. Each stage performs a vital operational transformation, and a failure or bottleneck at any stage inevitably compromises all downstream operations.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                             COKELY'S 7-STAGE COGNITIVE PIPELINE                                   |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1. Message Reception        --> Auditory acoustic reception or visual spatial perception          |
| 2. Preliminary Processing   --> Perceptual recognition, parsing phonemes/parameters & boundaries  |
| 3. Short-Term Storage       --> Working memory buffer holding chunks while incoming stream flows   |
| 4. Semantic Intent          --> Deep comprehension: speech acts, illocutionary force & meaning    |
| 5. Semantic Formulation     --> Target language restructuring: spatial grammar, syntax & register |
| 6. Message Production       --> Neuromuscular output: articulating signs/NMS or spoken prosody    |
| 7. Output Monitoring        --> Internal & external feedback loops; real-time error repair        |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

1. Message Reception (Sensory Perception)

In this initial stage, the interpreter physically receives the raw physical signal through sensory organs:

• In English-to-ASL, this involves auditory capture of spoken acoustic sound waves via the ear canal, tympanic membrane, and auditory nerve.
• In ASL-to-English, this involves visual capture of reflected photons displaying handshapes, movements, spatial loci, torso shifts, head tilts, and facial non-manual markers via the retina and optic nerve.
• Operational constraints: Message reception is vulnerable to physiological factors (interpreter hearing acuity, visual stamina, fatigue), environmental interference (ambient background noise, poor room acoustics, poor lighting, obstructed sightlines), and speaker/signer delivery (mumbling, atypical articulation, rapid pacing).

2. Preliminary Processing (Perceptual Recognition & Parsing)

Once the physical signal is received, the brain parses the continuous stream of raw sensory data into recognizable linguistic units:

• The interpreter separates meaningful linguistic signals from ambient noise or idiosyncratic mannerisms.
• In spoken English: parsing phonemes, identifying word boundaries, syllable stress, and intonation contours.
• In ASL: identifying the five phonological parameters (handshape, location, movement, palm orientation, and non-manual markers) and visual boundary markers (pauses, head tilts, eye blinks).
• If an interpreter fails to recognize an unfamiliar sign or mishears a muffled English word, processing falters immediately at Stage 2.

3. Short-Term Storage (Working Memory Buffer)

Simultaneous interpreting requires holding incoming source material in working memory while simultaneously processing earlier chunks and producing target language output. In this stage:

• Parsed linguistic material is temporarily buffered in the phonological loop (for auditory information) or the visuospatial sketchpad (for visual information).
• Working memory has severe physiological capacity limitations: cognitive decay occurs within 2 to 4 seconds unless information is actively rehearsed or semantically organized.
• Short-term storage acts as a shock absorber, enabling the interpreter to build up sufficient lag time (décalage) to comprehend whole thoughts before initiating target production.

4. Semantic Intent (Deep Comprehension & Pragmatic Meaning)

Stage 4 represents the critical cognitive threshold where linguistic form is converted into semantic meaning. The interpreter moves beyond surface words or signs to determine what the speaker or signer actually means:

• Illocutionary Force: What speech act is being performed? Is the speaker asserting, requesting, demanding, advising, joking, threatening, or apologizing?
• Contextual Presuppositions & Pragmatics: Analyzing implied information, cultural references, metaphors, idioms, ironies, and interpersonal tone.
• Discourse Goal: What is the overarching objective of this message within the broader speech event?
• An interpreter who skips or truncates Stage 4 is forced to resort to literal word-for-word transcoding, inevitably producing errors.

5. Semantic Formulation (Target Re-conceptualization & Grammar)

Once the source semantic intent is fully understood, the interpreter formulates how that meaning must be constructed within the target language's grammatical and cultural framework:

• The extracted meaning is mapped onto the target language's unique linguistic structures:
  • In ASL: selecting appropriate topic-comment structures, rhetorical question markers, classifier predicates (depicting verbs), spatial indexing on the horizontal/vertical planes, and non-manual grammatical signals.
  • In English: selecting appropriate syntactic word order, active or passive voice, register-appropriate vocabulary, transitions, and vocal intonation contours.
• The interpreter makes critical sociolinguistic decisions regarding register (formal, consultative, casual) and applies expansion or compression strategies.

6. Message Production (Neuromuscular Execution)

The formulated target message is physically produced through motor articulation:

• In ASL: neuromuscular motor control of the hands, arms, fingers, facial muscles, head position, and torso to produce fluid signs, precise spatial loci, and accurate non-manual markers.
• In English: coordinated respiration, phonation, resonance, and articulatory movements of the vocal cords, tongue, lips, and soft palate to produce intelligible speech with natural cadence, volume, and prosody.
• This stage requires immense physical coordination and can be compromised by physical fatigue, repetitive strain injury (RSI), or vocal strain.

7. Output Monitoring (Self-Evaluation & Error Repair)

The final stage involves continuous metacognitive self-monitoring through internal and external feedback loops:

• Internal loop (pre-articulatory): The interpreter monitors the planned formulation before motor production occurs, catching potential errors before they are voiced or signed.
• External loop (post-articulatory): The interpreter hears their own spoken voice or visually monitors their own signing, comparing the produced target message against the mental representation of the source intent.
• Consumer Feedback: The interpreter observes the consumer's non-verbal and communicative reactions (nodding, furrowed brows, confusion, gaze shifting) to gauge comprehension.
• When a discrepancy or miscue is detected, Stage 7 triggers immediate repair strategies, self-corrections, or feed requests to a team interpreter.

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Cokely's Taxonomy of Five Miscue Types

To analyze how interpreter errors occur, Cokely adapted the concept of miscue analysis from educational linguist Kenneth Goodman (1969). In reading research, Goodman demonstrated that oral reading errors are not random mistakes; rather, they are systematic "miscues" that provide an x-ray into the reader's underlying cognitive processing and psycholinguistic hypotheses.

Cokely applied this principle to simultaneous interpreting. An interpreting miscue is any divergence between the source message and the target interpretation. By analyzing the precise nature of the miscue, educators and practitioners can diagnose which cognitive processing stage malfunctioned.

Cokely identified five major categories of miscues:

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                 COKELY'S 5 MISCUE CATEGORIES                                      |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1. OMISSIONS       --> Morphological, Lexical, or Cohesive information dropped                     |
| 2. ADDITIONS       --> Non-Manual, Lexical, or Restructuring elements erroneously inserted         |
| 3. SUBSTITUTIONS   --> Expansive, Restrictive, or Completely Unrelated replacements               |
| 4. INTRUSIONS      --> Source language syntax, lexical items, or structure bleeding into target    |
| 5. ANOMALIES       --> Output that is ungrammatical, nonsensical, or pure gibberish               |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

1. Omissions

An omission occurs when information present in the source language is omitted from the target interpretation. Cokely divided omissions into three distinct sub-types:

• Morphological Omissions: Dropping grammatical morphemes, bound inflections, or grammatical non-manual markers. In English-to-ASL, this includes failing to produce the furrowed-brow non-manual marker for a WH-question or dropping the repetitive circular movement indicating durative aspect. In ASL-to-English, this includes dropping past tense suffixes (-ed) or plural markers (-s).
• Lexical Omissions: Dropping specific content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) that convey core propositional content. For instance, if an English speaker says "The patient exhibits severe acute abdominal pain" and the interpreter signs PATIENT STOMACH HURT, omitting "severe" and "acute," vital clinical data is lost.
• Cohesive Omissions: Dropping transitional words, discourse connectives, or spatial reference points that tie ideas together into a coherent whole. For example, dropping causal conjunctions like "therefore," "consequently," or failing to establish and maintain spatial referents in ASL, leaving the consumer unable to determine who performed which action.

2. Additions

An addition occurs when the interpreter inserts information, affective tone, or structural elements that were neither stated nor implied in the source message:

• Non-Manual Additions: Adding facial expressions, head tilts, or body postures that introduce unwarranted emotion or alter grammatical meaning. For example, an interpreter nodding their head vigorously while signing a neutral statement, implying personal agreement or factual confirmation not expressed by the speaker.
• Lexical Additions: Inserting extraneous words, concepts, or editorial opinions. For example, if a doctor neutrally states "The surgery has risks" and the interpreter signs SURGERY DANGEROUS, WORRY SHOULD, the interpreter has added editorial commentary and emotional fear.
• Restructuring Additions: Imposing an organizational structure not present in the source, such as arbitrarily turning an informal narrative into a rigid numerical list or introducing an extraneous cause-and-effect relationship.

3. Substitutions

A substitution occurs when source message content is replaced by incorrect or distorted target language content. Cokely subdivided substitutions into three categories based on the degree of semantic drift:

• Expansive Substitutions: Replacing a specific source term with an overly broad, generic category. For example, rendering the specific English medical term "pediatric oncologist" as simply CHILD DOCTOR (losing the critical cancer specialty), or translating "golden retriever" as ANIMAL.
• Restrictive Substitutions: Narrowing a general source concept into an overly specific term without contextual justification. For example, rendering the general English statement "He bought a new motor vehicle" as HE BUY NEW RED MOTORCYCLE, or translating "educational institution" as ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.
• Completely Unrelated Substitutions: Replacing a source concept with an entirely erroneous, unrelated concept due to perceptual confusion, phonological similarity, or false lexical retrieval. For example, mishearing "prescription" and signing MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION, or confusing ASL signs that share identical locations and movements but differ in handshape (such as confusing APPLE and ONION, or confusing SUMMER, DRY, and UGLY).

4. Intrusions

An intrusion occurs when the linguistic structure, syntax, or phonetic/morphological form of the source language bleeds directly into the target language output:

• Syntactic Intrusions: Following source language grammatical order in violation of target language syntax. In English-to-ASL, this manifests as adhering strictly to English Subject-Verb-Object word order without establishing topic-comment structure, signing English prepositions (OF, TO, FOR) that do not exist as independent lexical items in ASL, or signing English idioms literally (e.g., signing HE KICK BUCKET for "he died"). In ASL-to-English, syntactic intrusion manifests as voicing literal ASL glosses in English (e.g., voicing "Train gone sorry" instead of "You missed the boat").
• Lexical Intrusions: Fingerspelling an English word verbatim because the interpreter failed to retrieve the natural ASL conceptual sign, or using an English mouth morpheme that contradicts the signed concept.

5. Anomalies

An anomaly is the most severe form of miscue, representing a complete systemic breakdown in the interpreting pipeline. It manifests as target output that is:

• Ungrammatical: Violating the foundational structural rules of the target language (e.g., combining incompatible ASL phonological parameters or producing incomplete, fragmented English utterances with missing subjects and verbs).
• Nonsensical or Incoherent: Producing contradictory statements, word salad, or bizarre sign combinations that make no logical sense in the context of the interaction.
• Anomalies typically occur when an interpreter experiences severe cognitive saturation, panic, or acute working memory collapse.

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Comparison Table: Cokely's Miscue Taxonomy in Practice

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Lag Time (Décalage) & Cognitive Processing Efficiency

One of the most consequential empirical discoveries in Cokely's research was the relationship between lag time (known in conference interpreting as décalage) and error rates. Lag time is defined as the temporal distance between the receipt of the source language utterance and the production of the target language interpretation.

The Inverse Correlation Between Lag Time and Miscues

Prior to Cokely's research, many training programs erroneously taught that "faster is better"—praising interpreters who began signing within a fraction of a second of the spoken word. Cokely proved empirically that interpreters who maintain an extremely short lag time (under 1 to 2 seconds) produce significantly higher rates of miscues.

PROCESSING PATHWAY UNDER INSUFFICIENT LAG TIME (< 1.5 Seconds):
[Stage 1: Reception] --> [Stage 2: Parsing] =======(BYPASS)=======> [Stage 6: Production]
                                                 ^                     |
                                     Skips Stages 4 & 5!               v
                                     (No Semantic Intent)     [RAMPANT INTRUSIONS & MISCUES]

PROCESSING PATHWAY UNDER OPTIMAL LAG TIME (3 to 6+ Seconds):
[Stage 1] -> [Stage 2] -> [Stage 3: Buffer] -> [Stage 4: Semantic Intent] -> [Stage 5: Formulation] -> [Stage 6: Production]
                                                                                                               |
                                                                                                               v
                                                                                                    [HIGH FIDELITY OUTPUT]

Why Insufficient Lag Time Destroys Accuracy

When an interpreter operates with a lag time under two seconds, the brain has insufficient time to buffer incoming information in Stage 3 (Short-Term Storage) and cannot reach Stage 4 (Semantic Intent). The interpreter is forced into premature transcoding:

• The interpreter begins producing target output before knowing the syntactic end of the English sentence or the ultimate point of the ASL utterance.
• This short-circuits Stage 5 (Semantic Formulation), leading to pervasive syntactic intrusions (signing English word order), lexical omissions (dropping words when the speaker takes an unexpected turn), and anomalies.
• In ASL-to-English interpreting, insufficient lag time results in "glossing"—the interpreter blurts out English words corresponding to individual signs without waiting for the ASL sentence boundary, creating disjointed, non-idiomatic English.

The Sweet Spot: Optimal Lag Time

Cokely found that for general simultaneous interpretation, an optimal lag time typically ranges between 3 to 6 seconds (often spanning a complete grammatical clause or "thought chunk"):

• This window provides sufficient time for the interpreter to comprehend the full semantic proposition, identify the illocutionary force, and structure a native target language sentence.
• It allows the interpreter in ASL-to-English to identify topic markers, rhetorical questions, and classifier movements before committing to an English vocal structure.
• In English-to-ASL, it allows the interpreter to hear the main verb and object before establishing the spatial layout on the hands.

The Danger of Excessive Lag Time

Lag time cannot be extended indefinitely. If an interpreter allows lag time to stretch beyond 8 to 10 seconds (unless interpreting in specialized consecutive mode):

• Stage 3 (Short-Term Storage) suffers severe cognitive overload and working memory decay.
• As new incoming material floods the buffer, older chunks decay and are lost entirely, resulting in massive cohesive and lexical omissions.
• The interpreter experiences acute mental fatigue, leading to processing bottlenecks and eventual output breakdown.

Mastering Cokely's model empowers the professional interpreter to view errors not as personal deficiencies, but as diagnostic indicators of specific cognitive bottlenecks—most notably, an unmanaged lag time that bypassed semantic processing.