An Empirical Study On Note-Taking In Consecutive Interpreting

Thanks to the consistent efforts of the academic pioneers and skilled interpreters, note-taking analysis has witnessed a major leap both in quantity and in quality. However, due to the limited scale of experimental subjects and the numerous uncontrollable variables which exert a negative impact on the interpreting final output, the empirical study of this field still lags much behind.With an aim to probe into the real situation behind note-taking in consecutive interpreting, the thesis devotes much of its effort to the empirical study in this aspect.The thesis starts with a theoretical review on note-taking, especially highlighting the importance and influence of"Effort Model"and the"theory of sense"on note-taking. Then, the author will touch upon the nature of note-taking in terms of its possibility, necessity, its basic principles and its difference with stenograph.The essence of the thesis lies in the empirical study which appears in the Chapter Three and Chapter Four. Five carefully selected trainers in the interpreting program at GIIT and five students from the graduate school of SISU have been asked to form two groups and do the note-taking for a 3 minute long speech. The results of the layout of their notes, the symbols and abbreviations used in the notes and their choice of language during note-taking will be analyzed.Thanks to the careful preparation beforehand, the whole experiment goes smoothly and the results and figures have finally helped the author to yield some fruitful results. First, the author finds out that the diagonal layout features the professional interpreters'notes.Second, the research discovers that professional interpreters might have a higher percentage of the usage of the symbols and abbreviations, but the higher usage does not necessarily guarantee the better performance.Third, the thesis demonstrates that the language used in the note-taking largely depends on the status of the interpreter's language combination (whether it is A or B language) rather than the task of the interpreting (whether it is source or target language). Besides, for the Chinese professional interpreters, they have a higher tendency to write in Chinese due to its high efficiency.Based on these findings, the author has also given some pedagogic suggestions in regards to the teaching principle and some teaching methods.Last, the author wants to point out that the findings of this empirical study could only serve as the preliminary steps for her note-taking analysis and its fidelity in the real interpreting condition still requires further research.