A Cognitive Study Of Sight Translation

THIS dissertation attempts to explore the feasibility and mechanism of the cognitive process of sight translation, namely reading comprehension, segmenting, short term memory, anticipating, sharing attention and coordinating between reading and translation, within the theoretical framework of cognitive studies and psycholinguistics. This dissertation enriches the model of sight translation proposed by Gile (1995) by demonstrating and adding the short term memory and coordination elements, in particular, it carries out an in-depth analysis of the mechanism of reading ahead and translating at the same time. In this vein of analysis, the dissertation goes on to prove empirically the feasibility of improving undergraduate students' segmenting and coordinating skills in consecutive interpreting through adequate sight translation training.Interpreting is a cross-cultural communicative service activity focusing on meaning-transfer which builds on getting rid of the word structure interference, especially between languages with great discrepancy in syntax. Interpreters are expected to spare no efforts in delivering the deep structure meaning to the target audience even with great changes in the order of meaning units. However, in sight translation and simultaneous interpreting, translators have to process the incoming segments roughly according to the order they appear, and they are subjected to great interference of word structure when they do the segmenting and coordinating. Sight translation is mostly used in court interpreting and sometimes in the preliminary stages of simultaneous interpretation training. Successful and effective sight translation practice leads to quick response and eloquent reproduction. Some regard sight translation as the most difficult mode of translation while Lambert (2004) concludes, based on his experiment, that performance of sight interpretation is far better than that of interpreting without text. Lambert's finding echoes Shaffer that text reading and oral reproduction does not interfere with each other as much as listening and oral reproduction does.In Gile's Model of Sight Translation, only reading and reproduction are involved. He...