Information Ablation And Its Minimizing Strategies In Simultaneous Interpreting

Simultaneous interpreting(SI),a service that allows participants at international conferences or activities to speak and follow proceedings in their own languages,is widely regarded as a particularly impressive form of rapid, instant oral translation.SI has been practiced for about fifty years mostly in the modern electronic facilities acoustically-assisted translation form,and has become the standard medium of multilingual and multicultural communication in international conferences or negotiations.As an instrument of human communication,SI is playing an increasingly important role in the international community with the rapid development of international exchanges.International economic,political,and cultural exchanges between China and the outside world have been greatly increased,since China's reform and opening-up and accession to the WTO.This thesis is an attempted study on information ablation in SI both theoretically and practically.Information ablation has more than often been regarded as key elements in the assessment of quality in SI.However,in recent years it has been argued by some theoreticians that the "saying it all" strategy may not be successful or even practical in a bilingual communication bridged by an interpreter,which shows that information ablation exists in SI.Therefore,the author of this thesis sets out to look at the phenomena of information ablation in SI.To support the opinion of the objective existence of information ablation in SI, the external and internal reasons are explored on it;meanwhile,Daniel Gile's Effort Model and AIIC Workload study are introduced to explain why information ablation is unavoidable.On practical perspective,an observational study,whose materials are selected from the transcribed recordings of Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2007,is carried out to see how and under what circumstances information ablation appeared.Through such a study,the author,hopefully,manages to offer some pragmatic strategies that are actually very effective SI strategies that should be integrated in the SI training,and ultimately in the practice of SI.The thesis is divided into five chapters besides introduction and conclusion.Chapter One will discuss the grounding theories in SI,its definition,history, process,and assessment criteria.Chapter Two will give a brief introduction to information theory,SI information processing and Daniel Gile's Effort Model.Chapter Three will dwell on the analysis of AIIC Workload Study and external and internal causes of information ablation in SI.Chapter Four will focus on an observational study,to observe how and under what circumstances information ablation appeared.Chapter Five will be devoted to coping strategies for concrete problems in SI.The last part will draw the conclusion.SI is an integration of techniques and skills.The improvement of an interpreter's competence results from his/her practice and working experience.It is the interpreters' creativeness in practice that minimizes the information ablation in SI.