Strategies For Improving Interpreter's Working Memory Guided By Baddeley's Working Memory Theory

Interpreting is a complicated cognitive process of receiving,understanding,memorizing and re-expressing the speaker's information.An interpreter's strong working memory is crucial to the smooth transmission of information.This practice report is based on the author's interpreting of business negotiations between an Italian furniture company and a Chinese furniture agent in Xi'an.Through analyzing the transcripts of the practice recording,the author concluded that an overloaded working memory is the main problem downgrading the interpreting performance in the first business negotiation.Baddeley's working memory mechanism also shed some light on the improvement of working memory.Under the guidance of Baddeley's working memory theory,the author suggested some strategies to improve her working memory:finding the pronunciation rules for accents,asking for repetition of unfamiliar sounds,leaving off interruptions,identifying primary and sub-tiered information,applying episodic buffer for making sense of information and employing visuospatial sketchpad for high-intensity information.Strategies developed in this practice report may help the author and other student interpreters abate working memory load during future interpreting tasks and may shed some light on memory training in interpreting teaching.