Student Interpreters’ Disfluency In Chinese-to-English Consecutive Interpreting

Fluency is an important criterion in speech quality assessment.Speech disfluency has become a popular topic for many scholars in the fields of linguistics and interpreting studies.A lot of interpreting research on disfluency has been conducted in terms of simultaneous interpreting,but relevant studies in consecutive interpreting mode,especially from Chinese to English,are relatively fewer.The present study attempts to examine disfluency in Chinese-to-English(C-E)consecutive interpreting among Chinese student interpreters.Through a case study of eight students majoring in English Interpreting at Beijing Foreign Studies University(BFSU),including a C-E consecutive interpretation and a retrospective interview with each participant,it detects the major types and causes of disfluency and proposes suggestions for the teaching and learning of C-E consecutive interpreting.According to the results of the interpreting,there were mainly four types of disfluency,including unfilled silent pauses lasting longer than 0.3s,filled pauses,repeats,and self-repairs.Unfilled silent pauses were produced most frequently,accounting for more than half,followed by filled pauses,self-repairs,and repeats.The retrospective interviews show that there were four main causes of disfluency in C-E consecutive interpreting.The leading cause was searching for proper expressions,followed by identifying notes and extracting memory,correcting interpreting output,and other factors(such as personal habits and psychological factors).Based on the findings and previous studies,the author puts forward four suggestions to improve student interpreters’fluency in C-E consecutive interpreting:(1)to enhance bilingual proficiency and language transformation ability;(2)to improve note-taking skills and memory ability;(3)to monitor language output consciously;(4)to strengthen training in interpreting strategies and skills.The present study seeks to shed some light upon the teaching and learning of C-E consecutive interpreting.However,it still has certain limitations that need to be improved by further studies,such as by expanding the size of participants,considering more influencing variables in on-site interpreting,using more accurate and comprehensive classification,and proposing specific suggestions via scientific research and investigation.