Does Text Really Help?

Studies on interpretation theory have developed rapidly since1950s，early onesare rather simple and limited in western world, and researches in China started quitelate comparatively. Currently, many studies on Simultaneous Interpretation (SI) havegenerated in some perspectives like interpreter’s quality, memory and cognition etc.,but only a few of them have placed emphasis on different performances of SI withand without text and scholars in this respect seldom focus on the text. Therefore theauthor chooses to conduct a comparative study on performances of two types of SI--SI with text and SI without text.The French scholar Daniel Gile has proposed the famous Effort Models and alsohas done some research on SI with/without text. With features of high-eiffciency andmultitasking, SI of text-based speech presents special challenges and a real dilemmafor the inetrpreter as to whether to use the text or not while interpreting，especiallywhen text is unable to be given timely or preparation time is barely provided.This thesis attempts to explore that whether the text helps the performance of SIand what other factors are there contributing to the performance of SI if text is not theone and only factor. Through theoretical analysis and a comparative study based onexperimental tests (pre-test included), the author attempts to see if the performance ofSI with text is better than that of SI without text or not; thus reach the conclusion thatunder certain conditions such as C-E SI with no preparation time, the text does notnecessarily help in SI. Only when factors as the text, preparation time, speaker andeven interpreter’s skill are all taken into account comprehensively can the inetrpreetr With the advancement of social status, China plays a more and more prominentrole in the world. SI study in China is still in an urgent need to develop more qualiifedinetrpreters under the guidance of systematic as well as scientiifc theories. SightTranslation, during which text plays an important role in some way, has graduallybecome a training program for SI, which also attaches very important signiifcance tothe interpreter’s self-improvement.