The Impact Of Accent On Interpreter’s Interpreting Performance And Strategies In Light Of Gile’s Models

English has become the world’s lingua franca and No.1conference language. As itis widely used in international conference settings, participants who speak accentedEnglish have made interpreters confronted with non-standard English, thus theinterpreters, who according to Gile’s Effort Models, are forced to devote muchprocessing capacity to the Listening and Analysis Effort, and therefore slows downproduction or leads to substantial loss of information. Accent plays an important role infacilitating or hindering interpreter’s listening comprehension. Accented English is notonly a burden for the process of interpretation, but also a stress for the interpreter’spsychology. To facilitate the process of interpretation and improve the quality ofproduction, the study of the impact of accent on interpreter’s interpreting performance isof great significance and the strategies to cope with accent are greatly needed amonginterpreters.This paper sets out to employ Gile’s models to analyze the process ofcomprehension and the ways how accent hinders interpreter’s listening comprehensionthus has bad impact on interpreter’s interpreting performance. Tentative strategies arealso proposed. Another empirical study is carried out to provide empirical evidence forthe hypothesis that a higher processing capacity is required for comprehension when thespeaker has a strong foreign accent thus has bad impact on interpreter’s interpretingperformance. However, when effective strategies are employed, interpretingperformance can be enhanced greatly. The impact of accent on interpreter’sinterpretation performance will be measured in the form of three questionnaires, one todemonstrate the subjects’ subjective assessment of the two speakers in terms ofterminology, speed and pronunciation, another two to show the subjects’ subjectivereaction to accent and their coping techniques. Eventually, a conclusion can be drawnthat accented English has detrimental effects on interpreter’s interpreting performance.Factors that differentiate the interpreter’s performance in dealing with accented Englishare not only limited to the interpretation techniques but encyclopedic knowledge as wellas good situational knowledge.