The Economy Of Note-Taking In Consecutive Interpretation

This thesis presents a research on note-taking in consecutive interpretation and proves the principle of economy in note-taking. In addition, the author also makes some suggestions on note-taking for Chinese student interpreters. Note-taking is viewed as a key part of the consecutive interpretation. However, it has hardly been the focus of the theoretical research. In this paper, the author first introduces two influential mental process models of consecutive interpretation. One is Seleskovitch's descriptive model, and the other is Gile's explanatory Effort Model. The significance of taking note economically will be proven by the in-depth analysis of both models.Deverbalization is the essence of Seleskovitch's model, which can help the interpreters better understand and memorize the ideas of the speech as well as identify the logic and links in the messages. Each time what the speaker says is like a pearl necklace with different information as pearls and the key messages and logic as a piece of thread going through the pearls. Once the logic is missing, it is just like necklace without a thread, the interpreter will end up speaking nonsense or something far different from the original meaning. Therefore, the key elements must be written down. It is because of deverbalization that there are not many things to be noted down, thus paving the way for the principle of economy in note-taking.Gile's Effort Model provides another way to prove the need to note economically. According to Gile, consecutive interpretation is performed in two phases, the listening and note-taking phase, and the speech production phase.Phase one: Interpretation = L+N+M+C (L Listening and Analysis; N Note-taking; M Short-term Memory Operations; C Coordination)Phase two: Interpretation=Rem+Read+P (Rem Remembering; Read Note-reading; P Production) (Gile 1995, 179)Gile's model is based on a key idea: interpretation requires processing energy. Due to the...