An Empirical Study Of The Influence Of Context Construction Barriers On C-E Consecutive Interpreting Of The Interpreting Trainees

This thesis is an interpreting process study of cognitive context construction barriersfrom the perspective of relevance theory. Based on classification of cognitive context ininterpreting (Chen&Wang,2010; Chen,2011), this thesis proposes the concept ofcognitive context construction barriers, which refers to the following process: the lack ofcontextual assumptions (including present and absent contextual assumptions) related tothe newly presented information prevents the cognitive subject finding relevance, whichnegatively impacts the inference procedure, therefore leading to difficulties in producingnew contextual assumptions. According to this concept, research hypothesis is formed: inC-E consecutive interpreting, cognitive context construction barriers are negativelycorrelated with the quality of target language output. In other words, the bigger cognitivecontext construction barriers are, the worse the quality of target language output is, viceversa.In this research, simulated on-site interpreting and questionnaires after interpreting areconducted, and this experiment involves52juniors majoring in English, who are evenlydivided into Experimental Group and Control Group, with the former one receivingcognitive context training prior to interpreting. Questionnaire of Context ConstructionBarriers are filled out by all participants after interpreting. For the benefit of quantitativeanalysis, present context construction barrier value and absent context construction barriervalue (the sum of the two represents context construction barrier value) are set asindependent variables, score as dependent variable. Present context construction barriervalue is described by marks of barriers caused by three present contextual factors (language, skills, scenarios) provided by participants in questionnaires; absent contextconstruction barrier value is described by marks of barriers caused by three absentcontextual factors (social culture, emotion, trend prediction); score is obtained fromprofessional teachers’ grading of participants’ interpreting. Correlation test andindependent-samples T test are done with the help of SPSS17.0so as to verify the researchhypothesis. Meanwhile, through a comprehensive study of translation samples,participants’ context construction barriers are observed.This thesis is committed to the following questions:(1) in the process of C-Econsecutive interpreting, are cognitive context construction barriers negatively correlatedwith the quality of target language output?(2) how are cognitive context constructionbarriers produced?(3) are there any different types of cognitive context constructionbarriers demonstrated by interpreting trainees?Through detailed analyses of experiment results, the following findings are achieved:(1) in C-E consecutive interpreting, the quality of target language output is negativelycorrelated with cognitive context construction barriers, which means that the biggercognitive context construction barriers are, the worse the quality of target language outputis, vice versa;(2) underlying causes of interpreting trainees’ cognitive context constructionbarriers are found, including imbalance of effort distribution, psychological anxiety andinsufficiency of vocabulary related to interpreting tasks;(3) three types of contextconstruction barriers are found, namely, present cognitive context construction barriers,absent cognitive context construction barriers, connection failure caused cognitive contextconstruction barriers.Findings of the thesis have both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically,this study proves the great explanatory power of relevance theory; practically, it makes acontribution to empirical studies on interpreting context, and may promote interpretingteaching practice.