An Empirical Study And Pedagogic Suggestions On Chinese And English Numerical Interpreting For English Majors

In interpreting field, numerals with the unique features are often treated as hard nuts to crack. Through bibliographical search, the author has found that only a small number of experts conducted interpreting empirical studies on numerical information(mainly for professional interpreters), while most of them just made research on simple skills of recording and converting and few of them mentioned reasonable and specific pedagogic suggestions for English Majors.Theoretically guided by Daniel Gile’s Effort Model, an empirical study has been first conducted on Chinese and English numerical interpreting among students at Hunan City University. Based on the combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis, this thesis has collected statistics of participants’interpreting, notes and dictations of difficulties to reveal the frequent mistakes made by students that large whole numbers are the biggest obstacle in interpreting and omissions are the most common mistakes and then deduced the reasons from several aspects, i.e. the different numerical systems, lack of training, WM shortage and lack of note-taking system.etc. Subsequently, Guided by Anderson’s theory of Adaptive Control of Thoughts, three stages of pedagogic schedule have been proposed based on the combination of ACT Model and the empirical study. In each stage, the thesis has formulated specific teaching objectives or tasks as well as training methods so as to improve students’capacity and confidence in numerical interpreting through reasonable pedagogic arrangement and realize the transition from the acquisition to application of skills.This thesis consists of three parts, except for the Introduction and Conclusion. Chapter1concerns with the introduction to numerical interpreting, namely Section1concludes concepts of interpreting, the features of numerical interpreting, the categorization of numbers and number mistakes; Section2refers to numerals and note-taking, which includes features of note-taking and the relationship between numerals and note-taking; Section3touches upon numerals and memory, which consists of features of memory and the relationship between numerals and memory.Chapter2concerns with the first theory used in the thesis, namely Effort Model by Daniel Gile, and the empirical study. It talks about the basic form and components of EM as well as the instructive significance on the empirical study. The section of empirical study consists of empirical designing, statistics collection and processing. Subsequently major mistakes and contributors influencing students’performance have been revealed under the guidance of Effort Model and the relationship between empirical study and numerical interpreting teaching have also been brought forth.Chapter3mentions the second guiding theory--Adaptive Control of Thoughts and the pedagogic suggestions. Through the combination of ACT model and empirical study and inspired by the basic component of ACT model, this chapter attempts to propose three stages of pedagogic schedule and aims to improve the present numerical interpreting teaching.