On Comprehension And Memory Of English-Chinese Consecutive Interpretation

Consecutive interpretation (CI), as a kind of interpretation, plays very important roles in interpretation teaching and on those occasions where accuracy of rendition is preferred. In consecutive interpretations, especially in English-Chinese (E-C) consecutive interpretation, comprehension and memory are two interdependent elements that determine the results and quality of interpretation as well as the performance of the interpreter. Comprehension is so vital and crucial in E-C consecutive interpretation that inadequacy, misunderstanding or absence of it would make it impossible for an interpreter to produce output. In E-C consecutive interpretation, an interpreter memorizes what s/he has understood, and retains what s/he has comprehended for the later use of interpretation.This paper utilizes the fruition of psycholinguistics, mainly discussing comprehension from the perspectives of word, sentence, and discourse levels. The following chapters elaborate on the interdependence and interaction of comprehension and memory in E-C consecutive interpretation with large quantity of illustrations and examples. The stimulus, such as a phoneme or a word can activate the related information or knowledge stored in the interpreter's memory; therefore s/he can have a better and more thorough comprehension of the speech and convey the full and accurate meaning to his/her listeners. There are some models concerning the activation of stored information in memory as well as some schemata governing the comprehension. This paper will deal with such issues and make some tentative research on the information retention and retrieval in the understanding process of E-C consecutive interpretation.