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The overall aim of this doctoral research is to explore the lexical, syntactic, and cultural problems in simultaneous interpreting from English into Arabic and vice versa, and the strategies applied to solve or prevent these problems. Two groups of interpreters, experts and novices participated in two SI tasks from English into Arabic and from Arabic into English. A pilot study was previously conducted to test and validate the experiment. The experiment focuses on (1) the problem identification (process-oriented analysis); (2) the renderings of proper names, numbers, collocations, passive voice, culture-specific terms and structures and terms with religious content (product-oriented analysis); and (3) triangulation of these data with the strategies applied by the subjects.

Pre and post-task questionnaires are used to study the problems encountered during rendering the rich points of information and the strategies applied. Moreover, the subjects conducted two SI tasks from English into Arabic and from Arabic into English. I used a mixed approach in the data analysis and data collection of this study as I qualitatively investigated subjects’ interpretations of the Rich Points, their post interpreting reports and the strategies applied, and the quantitative differences between experts and novices regarding inadequate renderings, the percentage of these inadequate renderings and the strategies applied.

The results show that expert interpreters show high proficiency in identifying the problems and the cognitive processes that caused these problems during both SI tasks. On the other hand, novice interpreters showed their unawareness of most of the interpreting problems, which consequently has a negative impact on their performance. Besides, experts showed a more strategic behavior as compared with the novices during both SI tasks, since they successfully applied strategies that solved the problems and even prevented them. Novices, on the other hand, encountered problems with all the categories, as they could not apply the required strategies to solve or prevent the problems. Their performance was clearly characterized by omitting the Rich Points, This study makes a contribution to the field of interpreters’ training, emphasizing the relevance of problem recognition as the first step toward problem-solving. The study also points out the importance of successful management of cognitive processes during the SI task as an effective method to prevent problems and to keep the interpreting flow.