Simultaneous Interpreting--Theory And Practice

Simultaneous interpreting (SI), a service that allows participants at international meetings to speak and follow proceedings in their own languages, is widely viewed as a particularly impressive form of rapid, instant oral translation (Setton,1999). SI has been practiced for about fifty years mostly in the modern acoustically-assisted form, and has become the standard medium of multilingual and multicultural communication in international conferences or organizations. As an instrument of human communication, SI is playing an increasingly important role in the international community with the rapid development of international exchanges nowadays.However, compared with consecutive interpreting (CI), another form of interpreting, and especially with translation, studies on SI has been ignored for so long that few people in China outside of the translation circle have any real understanding of it. Even some teachers of English cannot tell the differences between CI and SI. Along with China's accession to the WTO, international economic, political, and cultural exchanges between China and the outside world will be greatly increased. On the other hand, the implementation of West China Development Strategy will make international exchanges and communication more frequent in the western part of the country, of which Sichuan is an important part, hence, SI will be more frequently used than before.This thesis tries to give a systematic analysis on SI both theoretically and practically on the basis of the grounding theory on interpreting. There are two basic types of interpreting: consecutive interpreting (CI) and simultaneous interpreting (SI). This thesis introduces the history, definition, process, criteria, prerequisite on SI, and intends to focus on exploring the principles and skills for SI so as to enrich its theory and practice.SI is different from CI in terms of history, definition, process, principle, etc.SI has its own characteristics including the transformation principles and basic skills as well as its cardinal principles for common sentence patterns. These points will be illustrated with examples of interpreting between English and Chinese.The thesis is divided into five chapters besides introduction and conclusion.Chapter One will discuss the grounding theory on interpreting including its definition, history, process, criteria and knowledge acquisition.Chapter Two will give a brief introduction to the definition, brief history, process, criteria and prerequisites of SI and its differences from CI as well.Chapter Three will dwell on basic translation principles for SI through analyzing the differences between Chinese and English languages.Chapter Four will focus on basic skills for SI between English and Chinese.Chapter Five will be devoted to coping tactics for concrete problems in SI.The last part will draw the conclusion.SI is an integration of technique and art. The improvement of an interpreter's skills and techniques results from his/her training and working experience. It is interpreters' creativeness in practice that produces SI transformation principles and basic skills in interpreting between English and Chinese.