On Anticipation In Simultaneous Interpretation

This paper attempts to confirm the essential role that anticipation plays in SI. SI is always regarded as the most challenging field by interpreters for the fact that even experienced interpreters find it difficult to reach the acme during SI process.SI is a kind of interpreting process that integrates listening, memory and target language output, all of which must be effectively coordinated by interpreters in order to achieve high quality of SI fulfillment. SI boasts high delivery rate, technicality of the topic, large and intensive amount of information. All these features exert enormous stress on interpreters. Sometimes, the unconscious language barriers posed by the pressure might even give rise to the failure of SI task. Nevertheless, the application of various SI strategies is greatly conducive to the consummation of SI task. Anticipation, which this paper is designed to focus on, is just one of the crucial strategies in SI. This paper elucidates how anticipation helps to lessen the burden that the demanding SI task imposes on interpreters and how this strategy contributes to facilitating interpreters'information processing.In this paper, efforts are made to expatiate on the history of anticipation being introduced into SI as a major strategy, its functionality as well as the difficulties and barriers in the application of this strategy. This paper aims to conduct an empirical study on the basis of a solid theoretical framework in order to demonstrate the feasibility of anticipation in SI. A great many interpreting theories, such as Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory, Daniel Gile's Effort Model, Chernov's Probability-Predict Model have and Robin Setton's Mental Model have been applied so as to elaborately analyze the study. Moreover, the author is also motivated to prove the indispensable part that anticipation plays in SI from English to Chinese by way of analyzing the SI materials of State of the Union Address 2007 delivered by President Bush. The analysis seeks to affirm that anticipation can effectively function as a coping tactic in SI from English to Chinese.