An Empirical Study On The Influences Of Background Knowledge Schema On Strategic Competence Of Interpreting

Since1960s and1970s, interpreting has been regarded as informationprocessing and drawn much attention of researchers at home and abroad. Researchon interpreting by borrowing schema theory could not only open up a new researcharea for schema theory, but also enrich interdisciplinary research on interpretingfrom the perspective of interpreter’s information processing. The present studymainly investigates the interpreting information-processing model of interpreter’sbackground knowledge schema, and the influences of this model on the choice ofinterpreting strategies and on the components and the mechanism of strategiccompetence of interpreting during interpreting information processing.By choosing MTI student interpreters as the research subjects, an empiricalresearch is conducted on interpreting strategies and interpreting thinking process inbusiness consecutive interpreting by dint of stimulated recall, notes, post-testinterviews, and recording. The major conclusions are:(1) According to theinterpreting information-processing model of interpreter’s background knowledgeschema, the interpreter’s background knowledge schema is continually activated bythe outside stimuli, storing and retrieving information in the bottom-up and thetop-down information processing so as to provide the audience with stimuli forcomprehending;(2) Under the control of the schema model of interpretinginformation processing, the interpreting strategies employed by MTI studentinterpreters during interpreting information processing could be classified into fourlevels, e.g. comprehending level, expressing level, self-monitoring level, andemergency-handling level;(3) By analyzing the use of interpreting strategies,strategic competence of interpreting mainly includes comprehending strategicsub-competence, expressing strategic sub-competence, self-monitoring strategicsub-competence, and emergency-handling strategic sub-competence. In theinterpreting information processing, there are mainly two mechanisms of strategiccompetence of interpreting as a basic operating mechanism and anemergency-handling operating one.The research is exploratory and experimental, synthesizing the methods ofconceptual speculation (construction of model) and empirical research. On one hand,it reveals a relatively systematic schema-based cognitive process of interpretinginformation processing, which is helpful in probing into the operating model and regulation of the interpreting cognitive mechanism; on the other, it enriches theresearch content and method of interpreting study from interdisciplinary perspective.What’s more, this thesis has a referential value for interpreter training andinterpreting performance, contributing to the understanding of interpretingperformance and interpreting problems. Effective interpreter training should stressthe internal mechanism of strategic competence of interpreting, training interpretersto gain an entirely understanding of interpreting information processing. During theinterpreter training, background knowledge schema should be guided to activate, andconstantly practice in higher-level conceptual analysis of the source speech so thatthe interpreting information processing could be effectively controlled.