Abstract

In the teaching and learning of consecutive interpreting, teachers and students are often confronted with the questions related to interpreters’ performance. To better address the root causes of problems in consecutive interpreting, a series of empirical experiments are designed, organized, executed and analyzed to find the answers. Based on the Effort Model and problem triggers theory of Daniel Gile, the author tested 4 groups of student interpreters from Beijing Foreign Studies University, Shanghai International Studies University, Suzhou University and Yancheng Teachers University to generalize the deficiencies in their performance and the causes behind these problems. The experiments find that the performance of the graduates is obviously better than that of undergraduates, also all of them will make mistakes like omission, loss of information, mistranslation, retrieval, filler, loss of or wrong numbers etc. The problems can be attributed to cognitive saturation and language-specificity related problems which the former contains chronic reasons that related to the density of information and external factors and the latter is related to the language-specific differences. The paper serves as a good explanation to poor performances of interpreters. 

Key words: Consecutive interpreting; problem triggers; Effort Model 

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

1 Introduction-1

1.1 The Background of the Research-1

1.2 The Purpose of the Research-1

2 Literature Review-2

3 Theoretical Discussion and Experiment-3

3.1 The Effort Models of Daniel Gile-3

3.2 Experiment-5

3.2.1 The Purpose of Experiment-5

3.2.2 The Subject of Experiment-5

3.2.3 The Design of Experiment-6

3.2.4 The Material of Experiment-6

3.2.5 The Method for Statistics-7

4 Experimental Analysis-8

4.1 Analysis of Target Text-8

4.1.1 The Classification and Amount of Mistakes-8

4.1.2 Student Interpreters from UA-8

4.1.3 Student Interpreters from UB-11

4.1.4 Student Interpreters from UC-13

4.1.5 Student Interpreters from UD-15

4.1.6 Conclusion of Analysis-18

4.2 Questionnaire-18

4.3 Summary-20

5 Conclusion-20

References-21