Influence Of Language Choice Of Note Taking On Consecutive Interpreting Performance

As the birth of Consecutive Interpretation, the prominent branch of interpretation,can dates back to centuries ago, it has enjoyed a long time of evolution, during whichmagnificent theories and researches and empirical practices have all contributed to itsimprovement and prosperity from various perspectives. Nevertheless, the area oflanguage choice of note taking in Consecutive Interpretation still confrontscontroversial opinions. Though it is theoretically recommended to take notes in targetlanguage, not a few interpreting practitioners find it might more convenient and effortsaving when the notes are in source language.With the aim to get a closer look at this disparity, based on Paris School’sInterpretative Theory and Gile’s Effort Models, the thesis attempts to explore whetherthere is an overwhelming preference of the language choice in taking notes duringConsecutive Interpretation and its influence to the performance. Both qualitativefeedback and quantitative data were employed in the analysis of the results of theexperiment designed by the author.Basically, a questionnaire is sent out to10English major second yearpostgraduates, who were also the subjects of later simulated field tests both fromEnglish to Chinese and from Chinese to English. A sequent self evaluation andinterviews hoped to afford more information.The findings are as follows:The questionnaire shows that in interpreting from Chinese to English, mostinterpretation learners chose source language, and in interpreting from English toChinese, preference is half to half.The reasons for their choices focused on the consideration of convenience. Inordering the affective factors of Consecutive Interpretation, interpretation learnerspaid much attention to external factors such as length and clarity of source text, accentof speaker, etc. while non interpretation learners all point to internal factors, signalsystem in particular.The field tests relate that generally, interpretation learners take down more notes than non learners. In the case from English to Chinese, most interpretation learnerstook notes in source language and they made fewer errors and covered fuller content.When transferring from Chinese to English, all subjects turned to source language andtheir renditions were fundamentally faithful and accurate.When doing self-evaluation and informal interview, most subjects expressed thattheir prior consideration of language choice is not to consume too much time and toomany efforts. They all felt it relatively more deficient in taking notes when source textis in source language.