| Note-taking plays a very important role in the consecutive interpretation. However,the studies on difficulties perceived by interpreters in note-taking are far from beingenough. The present empirical study aims to study the difficulties perceived byinterpreters during the consecutive interpretation and offer some suggestions to improvethe teaching of interpretation.The main task is to address the following questions:Q1: What is an interpreter’s biggest difficulty in the note-taking duringChinese-English consecutive interpretation?Q2: What is an interpreter’s biggest difficulty in the note-taking duringEnglish-Chinese consecutive interpretation?This study investigates the difficulties perceived by the interpreters in both E/C andC/E consecutive interpretation. Data are collected, including the audio records of theirinterpretation and their questionnaires. The data analysis is aimed at the frequency ofeach kind of difficulty in the note-taking felt by the subjects.The major findings are as follows:1. The interpreter’s biggest difficulty in note-taking during the Chinese-Englishconsecutive interpretation is the failure to comprehend the note.2. The interpreter’s biggest difficulty in note-taking during English-Chineseconsecutive interpretation is the failure to write down all key information of the sourcelanguage.The interpretation teaching could not be improved without knowing students’difficulties. Based on the present study, an effective note-taking training method and arecommended layout of note-taking are proposed to help students process and respond tothe source language more effectively. |
