The Role Of Schema In Interpreting Process And Implications For Interpreting Training

Schema, an important concept derived from cognitive psychology, can be employed to account for some phenomena of human recognition. As the organizational form of the external knowledge stored in our brain, schema is the internal fundament to perceive the world, as well as recognize and understand external things. Any kind of cognitive information processing in our brain involves the activation of relevant schemata. Due to its great significance for the exploration of human cognition process, schema has been widely applied into artificial intelligence, linguistics, foreign language teaching, and so on. In recent years, Schema Theory is usually used in the field of second language acquisition and many scholars adopt it to conduct extensive and in-depth researches on the process of second language listening and reading. However, there are still not plenty of studies applying Schema Theory to interpreting. Interpreting is a complex activity involving the transferring between two languages and containing highly complicated cognition process, such as source language comprehension, message grasping and memorizing as well as target language constructing and expressing. According to Schema Theory, knowledge in the brain is organized to form relevant schemata, the formation of which comes from past experience, provides guidance to the understanding of new things, and helps predict possible development in a specific context.The present thesis attempts to explore interpreting process in the light of Schema Theory. The author adopts the methodology of qualitative analysis to discuss how schema influences interpreting performance and what implications schema provides for interpreting training. This thesis finally comes to a conclusion that schema plays an important role in the comprehension, memory, and expression stage of the interpreting process, and that the activation of relevant schemata helps the interpreter fulfill the interpreting task effectively and efficiently. Hopefully this thesis will arouse interpreters' attention to schema, and guide them to attach high importance to the formation, expansion and activation of schema so as to perfect their interpreting performance.