Simultaneous Interpretation In Focus Group Discussion

This thesis, based on the practice of the author, presents a research on a new mode of simultaneous interpretation applied in a non-conference setting, that is, Focus Group Discussion (FGD). Gile's Effort Model is applied in analyzing in detail how an interpreter allocates his efforts during interpreting and how problems and failure sequences arise due to the limitation of capacity processing, thus illustrating the difference between FGD SI and Conference SI in their working condition, effort distribution, copying tactics and quality assessment.In the year 2002, the book Interpreting in the 21st century: Challenges and Opportunities was published by John Benjamins Publishing. The book contains a selection of papers presented at the First ForlìConference on Interpreting Studies, held on 9-11 November 2000, which saw the participation of leading researchers in the field and shed light on the trend of interpretations studies in the new century. Topics addressed include not only theoretical and methodological issues, but also applications to training and quality. The intention was to focus on the future, in three main areas- the profession, research and teaching. The three tropics being so closely linked that it is difficult to focus on any of them in isolation from the other two. The book actually highlighted the growing importance of interpretation professions"outside the conference hall" and tried to arouse the awareness of interpreter trainers and practitioners to carry out research and studies in relevant fields.Focus Group Discussion is a market tool used by the Investigators to explore Participants'real responses to a certain topic according to their body language as well as verbal words in a live discussion. Simultaneous interpretation is applied in such a setting because the way it is conducted won't interrupt the coherence of the discussion as the consecutive interpretation does. The change in working condition and audience makes the mental processing of the interpreter of FGD SI different from that of Conference SI. For example, in FGD SI, the interpreter does not work in the booth and has no co-workers to work in turn as he does in Conference SI. Besides, speeches in FGD SI are much more colloquial than the conference speeches and the displacement of the speech in a focus group discussion is much faster than that of a conference. All these features actually put more pressure on the Listening Effort of the FGD interpreter. Thus copying tactics such as preparation, anticipation, shortening the ear-voice span and compensatory strategies should be accordingly applied with an aim to alleviating the interpreter's Listening Effort in particular.The paper is also written with an intention to imply how to conduct a class of interpretation for special purposes. The class is provided to interpretation course students for expanding their knowledge in interpretation for such specialized fields as business escorting and negotiation, fine art appreciation and political affairs. After attending it personally, the author finds out that more often than not, the class is simplified into a vocabulary expansion lesson. This is misleading. Interpretation class for special purposes should involve not only vocabulary and background knowledge study, but also their very core differences from conference simultaneous interpretation in working condition, effort distribution and quality assessment. The paper is thus expected to have some suggestions in the teaching method of the interpretation class and raise the awareness of interpreting trainers and practitioners of the core value of classes of this kind.