Coherence In Simultaneous Interpreting

Coherence has been widely studied in discourse analysis as a key concept.It is also considered as an important criterion for the quality of simultaneous interpretation. However,research into coherence in simultaneous interpreting is inadequate.This thesis attempts to fill the research gap in simultaneous interpreting by working out a model of coherence to explain what coherence is and how it contributes to the quality of simultaneous interpretation.An empirical study is conducted to apply this model to assess the performance of trainee interpreters and to find out their problems.It is hoped that the model of coherence can help simultaneous interpreters better assess their performance on coherence and make improvement.This thesis consists of seven chapters.Chapter 1 explains the purpose and organization of the thesis.This research is to contribute to the inadequate research into coherence in simultaneous interpreting by building up a model of coherence for quality assessment.It is worth noting that the analysis in this thesis only concerns linguistic aspects.Chapter 2 reviews previous studies on coherence and quality assessment of simultaneous interpreting.It is commonly acknowledged that coherence is essential in facilitating text comprehension.Coherence is also regarded as an important criterion for quality assessment of simultaneous interpreting.In Chapter 3,definition and classification of coherence are discussed,with reference to its classification in discourse analysis and to features of simultaneous interpreting.Coherence means the functional connections in simultaneous interpretation,which involves semantic,syntactic and pragmatic elements.A model of coherence is established in Chapter 4 to explain how coherence contributes to the quality of simultaneous interpretation.It is argued that a piece of simultaneous interpretation can be regarded as coherent when it is both inter-textually and intra-textually coherent,and when the criteria of semantic,syntactic and pragmatic coherence are achieved.Language competence,chunking,linearity and register awareness can help achieve coherence.Chapter 5 conducts an empirical study,using the model to examine trainees' performance on coherence.Trainees' problems are presented and analyzed.Trainees are found not satisfactorily competent in maintaining coherence of simultaneous interpreting,especially in semantic coherence.Problems mainly lie in poor analysis of logic,sentence incompleteness,lack of logical links,and low register of words.Chapter 6 proposes pedagogical suggestions to improve coherence from the semantic,syntactic and pragmatic perspective.Chapter 7 concludes that the model of coherence is applicable in the quality assessment of simultaneous interpreting.Problems can be found and solved according to the model.