Research On Sociolinguistic Competence Of Consecutive Interpretation In Light Of Communicative Language Ability

With the ever deepening globalization and further opening up of China, there have been an increasing number of international conferences and seminars in China during the past years. Many of those activities have been conducted with the assistance of consecutive interpretation. Currently, however, consecutive interpretations are intermingled with excellent and poor performances, which have imposed negative influences on this cross-cultural form of communication.Communicative Language Ability (CLA) consists of Language Competence, Strategic Competence and Psychophysiological Mechanism, while Language Competence is made up of Grammatical Competence, Textual Competence, Semantic Competence and Sociolinguistic Competence. Consecutive interpretation assumes remarkable sociolinguistic characteristics, which means that Sociolinguistic Competence imposes great influence upon the interpretation process. Communicative Language Ability has been widely applied to the researches within the linguistic field, but little work has been done to combine CLA and sociolinguistic theories to direct the researches of interpretation. The author has found in interpretation experience that elements related to sociolinguistics impose highlighted influences upon the interpretation process, which means the analysis and research on these elements can contribute tremendously to the improved performance of interpreters and finally the enhanced quality of consecutive interpretation. Therefore, based on the theoretical system of Communicative Language Ability, the author extracts, categorizes and analyzes the sociolinguistic elements in consecutive interpretation with the support of related sociolinguistic theories and illustrative examples collected from both his previous interpretation experiences and information from the internet. Through the theoretical analysis and research from three angles-Communicative Language Ability, Sociolinguistics and Consecutive Interpretation Occasion, the author proposes certain substantive suggestions for enhancing the quality of consecutive interpretation, optimizing consecutive interpretation training programs and ultimately improving the performance of interpreters.