A corpus-based multimodal analysis of consecutive interpreting for public events: the case of collaborative chunking

Anecdotal evidence of the interpreter’s performance has long been replaced by a different approach, namely the corpus-based approach. This paper contributes to expanding this corpus-based multimodal analytical approach by providing evidence of some relevant features of chunking, the practice of dividing extensive turns, in consecutive interpreting in public events (CIPEs). These emerge from a small-scale corpus featuring non-Eurocentric embodied interactional data in a ritualized setting, where two very different cultures, discursive practices and mindsets come together, namely the Chinese and Italian ones.