A Report On Mock Interpreting Of Harvard University Open Course Backyard Meteorology: Weather Science

With the development of the Internet and the international curriculum opening movement,people can watch the open courses of foreign elite universities without leaving home.This thesis is a report on the practice of simulated consecutive interpreting.The material is excerpted from the series of open courses Backyard Meteorology:Weather Science given by Professor John Hughes of Harvard University.This report studies the obstacles in this interpreting process under the guidance of Vermeer’s Skopos Theory,including lack of professional vocabulary reserve;overloaded listening comprehension burden due to dense information;misinterpreting based on misunderstanding of the logical structure;and improper output due to the difficulties in E-C conversion.The author analyzed the cases of problems and offered appropriate solutions.Because of the dense information and fast speaking speed of the speaker,the author took her notes flexibly to catch the key information as much as possible,and omission was used in the practice with some secondary words and phrases deleted in the target text.As for the transfer of E-C logical structure,segmentation and free interpretation were applied to get rid of the original form,and re-organize the information to make the target text coherent.Through this simulation task,the author summarized her weakness in interpretation and determined the learning direction.The author hopes that the strategies and suggestions in this study can do some help to interpreting learners,especially those studying scientific interpretation.