A Case Study Of Interpretation Learning Strategies Employed By Successful Interpretation Learners

This study was undertaken to find out the interpretation learning strategies employed by successful interpretation learners to achieve the completeness, accuracy and fluency of interpretation. The theoretical bases in this study are Attribution Theory and Hermeneutics. The significance of this study is to enrich the existing interpretation learning strategies and provide future interpreters with some interpretation learning strategies to choose from.The subjects of this study were three MA students from College of International Studies, Yangzhou University majoring in English Language and Literature. They have successfully passed Advanced Interpretation Test. They were selected by purposive sampling. For the convenience of the research, they were labeled as S1, S2and S3. The instrument of the study was the researcher herself. Three interviews were conducted respectively, centering round learning strategies that the subjects employed to achieve the completeness, accuracy and fluency of interpretation, each of which involved one interviewee only. All the three interviews were conducted in Chinese in a conversational style. which guaranteed the whole interviews going pleasantly and harmoniously. With the interviewees’permission, the three interviews were recorded. Data analysis involved coding, categorization and translation.This study has generated the following major findings:First, to achieve the completeness of interpretation, they employed knowledge-accumulation, summarization, note-taking and logical-analysis learning strategies, among which the first three learning strategies were employed by all the three subjects. It indicates that in the process of interpretation learning, they all give priority to content or meaning over form or language, which is consistent with hermeneutical idea of interpretation.Second, to achieve the accuracy of interpretation, they put more emphasis on interpretation of figures, culturally loaded expressions and technical terms. For figures interpreting, they employed repeatedly-practicing-shorthand strategy; for culturally loaded expressions interpreting, they employed recitation strategy, literal-interpretation strategy, liberal-interpretation strategy, omission strategy and amplification strategy; and for technical terms interpreting, they employed technical-terms-accumulation strategy and substitution strategy.Third, to achieve the fluency of interpretation, they employed immediate-recall strategy, keeping-a-steady-interpreting-speed strategy and learning-formulaic-language strategy. The first two learning strategies were shared by the three subjects while the last one was employed by one interviewee individually.Fourth, all the interpretation learning strategies employed by the three successful learners to achieve the completeness, accuracy and fluency of interpretation formulate a model, which can be considered as a system, where its components are independent, interrelated and synergetic. By "independent", it means that every strategy itself in the system exists distinguished from other strategies. By "interrelated", it means that every strategy is related to other strategies. By "synergetic", it means that synergies among the learning strategies create a whole that is more than the sum of its parts.What is worth mentioning is that the three subjects all believe bilingual proficiency comes before learning strategies to achieve successful interpretation, and that they consider it as the foundation of interpretation learning. This finding shows that learning strategies are not everything, on which we should not be over-dependent.This study has two limitations.First, all the subjects are MA students majoring in English, who have taken long period of professional English education. Thus, interpretation learning strategies yielded from this study may not be generalized to all interpretation learners.Second, the categorization of interpretation learning strategies was all made by the researcher herself, so the subjectivity cannot be completely avoided. Besides, there exist some categories or learning strategies overlapping, i.e. recitation strategy is a kind of accumulation strategy.