Consecutive Interpreting Strategies In Light Of Gile’s Effort Model

Since the reform and opening-up, the ever-increasing economic and cultural exchanges between China and other countries have promoted the unprecedented boom in the translation business. Simultaneous, consecutive, liaison and whispering interpreting have all been widely applied on occasions including foreign exchanges, business negotiations, daily escort, banquets, etc. Yet it is not easy to become a qualified interpreter as it requires great language skills, professionalism, the capability to combine theory with practice and flexible handling of emergencies to ensure a successful interpreting practice. Besides, it is important that the interpreter makes reflections after the task to study the problems appeared during the task so that he could make improvements profession-wise and technique-wise.Daniel Gile’s Effort Model is of guiding importance to theoretical interpreting researches in China. Yet few has been conducted with reference to interpreting practices. This paper presents a performance-based reflection in reference to a real interpreting task of the author. During the task, there were some difficulties due to the author’s inadequate professional knowledge, difficulty in listening at times, scratchy notes and so on. Therefore, the author applies Gile’s Effort Model as the underlying theory of this paper and endeavors to put forward some feasible strategies in addressing problems for each phase of interpreting regarding listening, understanding, memory and speech production. Accordingly, it is advised that the interpreter distribute more energy on understanding the source information by sorting out the logic within and making proper predictions. Aided with extra-linguistic knowledge and notes, the interpreter would be able to produce interpreting that is more smooth and less energy-consuming.This report is based on the author’s conference interpreting service for Wuhan Kline Tech Specialty Products and Manufacturing Private Limited. Through analyzing the whole process of interpreting, feedback from clients, problems encountered and reflections afterwards, the author made an attempt to put forward some coping strategies for the four phases of interpreting respectively so as to obtain a deeper understanding of interpreting and be better prepared in the future.