Comprehension And Memory In Interpretation

Interpretation, as an important means of communication between peoples, has a long history, and its origination can trace back to the ancient times. However, the study on interpretation, compared with that on written translation that has experienced a two-thousand-year development, begins late. In western countries, it has a history of only fifty years, and in China, interpreting studies has not started to develop until the last two or three decades of the 20th century. However, despite its late start, interpreting studies advances quickly and has gained quite satisfactory achievements, especially in western countries, which accelerates, to a certain degree, the advancement of interpreting studies.More recently, among these studies, there stands out a new trend that draws broad attention from scholars engaged in this field, that is, interdisciplinary studies on interpretation. In the past, interpreting studies is relatively restrictive since it falls within the linguistic scope, and linguistics, especially contrastive linguistics, provides the basic explanatory models for interpreting studies. However, interpretation is actually a complex process of information processing as well as a dynamic operation of one's thinking mechanism. In this process, world knowledge, linguistic competence, pragmatic constraints, and social factors are all integrated to accomplish the interpretation task requiring high information processing capability. Thus, the practice in the past that confines interpreting studies to the linguistic category is far from enough.Being aware of the limitation of interpreting studies, many scholars begin to expand their studies to a broader field, and to put their hands to borrowing from other disciplines, such as psycholinguistics, psychology, cognitive psychology, neurology, neuropsychology and so on, to developtheir interpreting studies, which has already become a prominent trend in interpreting studies.In my thesis. I intend to, through the analysis of comprehension and memory in interpretation from both linguistic and information processing viewpoints, pinpoint the problems and limitations in the current interpretation teaching in the Chinese mainland and offer some tentative suggestions in this respect. And as many scholars do, I will also borrow from some findings and results of other disciplines such as linguistics, psycholinguistics, psychology and so on.In addition to Introduction and Conclusion, this thesis consists of five chapters.Introduction briefly describes the current situation of interpreting studies, the academic value of this thesis, methods adopted in this thesis and the basic structure of this thesis.Chapter one is a historical survey of interpretation as well as interpreting studies, both abroad and in China. It points out the prominent trend in interpreting studies, that is, interdisciplinary studies on interpretation as well as its importance for interpreting studies.Chapter two emphasizes, through the analysis of the Effort Models put forward by Daniel Gile. the triangle model based on the Theory of Sense and the interpretation process model by the joint efforts of the Xiamen University and the University of Westminster in the Great Britain, the importance of comprehension and memory in interpretation as well as their intimate relations in interpretation.Chapter three tries to have an analysis of the comprehension in interpretation at the four levels of acoustic elements, words, sentences and discourses by virtue of some theories and models borrowing from linguistics, psycholinguistics, psychology and so on.Chapter four intends, according to the classification of memories in; psychology, namely the sensory stores, working memory and long-term memory, to describe some aspects in the memory processes of recognition, retention and retrieval of information. Furthermore, it emphasizes the close relationship between memory and comprehension in interpretation.Chapter five indicates that, rather than a mere switching between languages, interpretation is actually a dynamic information processing process requiring great cognitive resources. Thus, in China's interpretation teaching, the practice that emphasis is put on the teaching of language is not congruent with the nature of interpretation. It also tries to offer some inspiration for the improvement of China's interpretation teaching.Conclusion summarizes the overall content of the thesis. It emphasizes that, more than a simple shifting between different languages, interpretation is rather an information processing process combining both linguistic and extralinguistic factors. Thus, interpretation teaching is far from enough if it is confined to the linguistic level, and there are still many efforts to be made to improve the overall situation of China's interpretation teaching.