Written Language
Part of the complexity of ST lies with the nature of written language. Abbott, Greenwood,
McKeating, & Wingard (1981), in their study of foreign language comprehension, point out
that written material is usually more densely packed with information than spoken language.
The two forms also differ in lexical variety; sentence construction, level of vocabulary, and
involvement or detachment (Agrifoglio, 2004). Furthermore, in written discourse there are
no pauses to ailow the listener to catch up, and no intonation or stress to provide additional
clues for comprehension. Although punctuation serves the function of intonation in most
written documents, many handwritten documents that court interpreters are called upon
to sight translate contain little or no punctuation, which further complicates the task.