Long-term Memory And Chinese-English Simultaneous Interpretation Performance

Simultaneous interpretation (SI) is a special language processing activity. The complexity of its processing and memorizing mechanisms has made the memory mechanism in the interpretation process an abstruse subject. SI has strict requirements over interpreters in memory and whether the interpreter has a good long-term memory in a specific area has a direct link with the interpretation performance.This thesis proceeds from the Chinese-English SI and makes comparison and evaluation on the SI performance of interpreters with different level of long-term memory in a specific area. The author analyzed problem triggers and compared the respective SI performance of interpreters with different level of long-term memory in a specific area. Then quantitative and qualitative analysis were made to reach the conclusion that long-term memory has influence on SI performance.The theory part of this thesis provides an overview of a series of fruits of related theory, including memory theory, information processing model, the meaning of long-term memory, the model of memory in SI, effort model by Gile and problem triggers, among others. All the above theories serve the theoretical foundation of this thesis.Within the framework of the model of memory in SI, effort model by Gile and problem triggers, a quantitative and a qualitative analysis are made in the empirical studies. The quantitative analysis includes the accurateness of the interpretation, language quality and SI performance as a whole. The qualitative analysis includes6pieces of typical texts and comparison of the interpreting performance of the interpreters with different degree of long-term memory. The conclusion of the research is that in Chinese-English SI, the more information the interpreter stores in the long-term memory, the more complete he produces the interpretation, the higher the language quality is and the better the SI performance. By contrast, the less the interpreter stores in the long-term memory, the poorer the SI performance.