The Effect Of Topic Familiarity On Quality And Strategy Use Of Long Sentence Interpretation In E-C CI

It is the aim of the present thesis to explore the effect of topic familiarity on quality and strategy use of long sentence interpretation in English-Chinese consecutive interpretation. The author first reviewed studies on schema and schema theory, then studies on the quality of consecutive interpretation and previous related studies, on the basis of which the theoretical framework for the present study was proposed and specific research questions were raised.An experiment was carried out in order to answer the research questions. 8 subjects majoring in conference interpreting in School of Interpreting and Translation Studies of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies participated in the experiment. The subjects were required to interpret two passages (one with a familiar topic; the other with an unfamiliar topic) from English to Chinese in consecutive. Each of the two passages includes four long sentences.Through qualitative analyses of the research results, the following findings were yielded: first, topic familiarity degree greatly affects the quality of long sentence interpretation in terms of fidelity, that is, the more familiar the topic is to the interpreter, the more faithful the interpreter's rendition of the long sentences is; second, topic familiarity degree exerts no significant influence on the quality of long sentence interpretation in terms of fluency; third, topic familiarity degree has strong influence on interpreter's strategy use when dealing with long sentences. Besides, basic strategies for coping with English long sentences in consecutive interpretation are summarized. Finally, pedagogical implications of the present study and suggestions for future studies are also put forward in the thesis.