A Case Study On The Erroneous Use Of Prefabricated Chunks In The C-E Consecutive Interpreting Class

Prefabricated chunks refer to the prefabricated meaning units in languages that can be easily retrieved as a whole and have relatively fixed structures.Although their role in Second Language Acquisition(SLA)has been widely recognized,the application of chunk theory in interpretation training is still limited in China.This thesis aims to analyze students’ erroneous use of prefabricated chunks in the C-E CI class at GSTI,BFSU and give suggestions on teaching chunks accordingly.It is a case study based on the in-class CI recordings of Li Wuwei’s speech at BRICS Business Forum 2011.Based on the definition and classification of prefabricated chunks of Nattinger and DeCarrico,Lewis and Song Ying et al.,this thesis classifies chunks in the recordings into three categories:collocations,phrasal constraints and sentence builders and heads.Through analyzing the recordings,the author finds:major problems in using collocations include failures in decoding SL,negative mother tongue transfer,.omission or misuse of certain words in a chunk,grammatical mistakes and disfluencies;major problems in using phrasal constraints include incomplete frames and misuse of words in the frame or the slot of a chunk;major problems in using sentence builders and heads include negative mother tongue transfer and redundancies.Based on the analysis,this thesis recommends teachers attach importance to chunks in C-E CI classes.To improve students’ awareness and use of prefabricated chunks,teachers are advised to emphasize the importance of chunks in class,give assignments on learning chunks and analyzing students’ use of chunks.