On The Compilation Of Interpreting Course Books

This paper aims at applying the key arguments of the interpretive theory into the compilation of interpreting course books and providing suggestions on the improvements of compiling strategies of these course books from the users' point of view.By reviewing the previous researches on the interpretive theory and interpreting course books, this paper intends to clarify that the interpretive theory, which has been perfected by numerous research findings, is already utilized by many scholars to guide their interpreting studies including those related to the compilation of interpreting course books. Although these studies have touched upon the idea of an interpretive theory guided approach of compiling interpreting course books, they did not propose a systematic strategy to guide the compiling process. Hence, this paper studies what the key arguments of interpreting theory are and how these arguments can be integrated with the compilation of interpreting course books. The key arguments of the interpretive theory, namely the emphasis on sense, the interpreting procedure consists of comprehension, deverbalization and reformulation based on the Triangle Model of interpreting, as well as the importance of cognitive complements in this procedure, are originated from interpreting experience and have established a process-oriented theoretical framework to explain the essence of interpreting. This orientation requires that special attention be paid to the process of transferring sense, particularly to deverbalization, otherwise the interpretation could become the transcoding between two languages without making sense in the target language. Inspired by an example of the successful application of these key arguments in interpreting teaching, this paper tries to integrate these arguments with the compiling strategies of interpreting course books. As is generally agreed, the interpreting course books are reference books teaching their users to learn and practice interpreting skills which are used during the interpreting process. In view of their common focus on the interpreting process, this paper puts forward the hypothesis that the process-oriented interpretive theory can guide the compiling of interpreting course books in terms of the practice material selection, the settings of reference interpretations, comments and tips, the arrangements of the structure, etc. To prove this hypothesis, the author then starts to study the features of existing interpreting course books and summarize their insufficiencies through an integrated approach of qualitative and quantitative research. With the help of a questionnaire targeting people who have used at least one interpreting course book, the author lists several insufficiencies that have made these course books incapable of being in line with the key arguments of the interpretive theory. Facing these insufficiencies, this paper has proposed several suggestions from the users' point of view in the hope of improving the compiling strategy of interpreting course books under the guidance of interpretive theory.