Memory Problems And Strategies Study For CI--From The Perspective Of Psychology

Consecutive interpreting can be divided into two phases. The first phase is listening phase, in which part interpreters carry out the multi-tasking of listening comprehension, memorization, and note-taking; the second phase mainly involves target language reformulation and delivery, when interpreters transmit the information stored in both notes and mind to listeners in target language. Considering the fact that human memory ability is highly limited and working memory, which is closely related to interpreting, poses an even bigger restriction from the part of capacity, the present study mainly focuses on the listening phase of consecutive interpreting. As memory study has always been an interest of psychology, this dissertation thus will analyze the memory obstacles in CI from the perspective of psychology studies and propose relative strategies and skills for interpreting training. The dissertation is composed of five chapters.Chapter one briefly introduces the concepts of interpreting and consecutive interpreting, history and developments of interpreting studies and the motivation and focus of the present study.Chapter two is literature review, which generalizes the developments of memory studies, the main perspectives of researches in this field, and two of the most important theories in interpreting field:the theory of sense and effort model of Gile.Chapter three introduces the research perspectives of memory studies and their findings---the role of attention as the prerequisites of memory, attention filtering theory and attenuator theory, etc., the three-store theory of memory system---sensory memory, short term memory, and long term memory, working memory studies, as well as factors that affect information maintenance in memory system, like working memory capacity, chunking, etc..On the foundation of Chapter three's description about psychological studies in this field, Chapter four points out the main factors that affect memorization in interpreting, including conflicts between high requirement of interpreting for memory ability and inborn limitations of human memory, and information retrieval failures caused by lack of rehearsal and interference, etc.. Based upon Chapter three and Chapter four, Chapter five proposes some strategies and suggestions for tackling memory obstacles in consecutive interpreting. Cultivation of good physical conditions, improving linguistic abilities, and forming a good habit of note-taking are recommended.In view of the influential role of the theory of sense and Gile's effort model in the studies of interpreting memory, this dissertation also quotes and applies some of these two schools' research findings.