Chunking Strategy As An Approach To Evaluate Simultaneous Interpretation

With the rise of China and its rapid economic development, China is interacting morefrequently with other nations around the world. The2008Beijing Olympic Gamesand the2010Shanghai EXPO have allowed foreigners to know more about China andjoin in the internationalization of China. It is against this background thatinterpretation industry flourishes. Various forms of interpretation like escortinterpretation, community interpretation develop along the way. Simultaneousinterpretation is embraced with great popularity by large scale conference organizersbecause of its efficiency, which makes the issue of interpretation quality control moreprominent than ever, and calls for researches on interpretation evaluation.Interpretation evaluation has always been an important part of interpretation research.Normally, the evaluation of interpretation is based on the judges‘intuitive assessmenton the interpretation such as the accent or tunes. This paper is dedicated to explore therelationship between the interpreter‘s chunking strategy and its final ratings by theusers. By analyzing the interpretation output, isolating pauses as a measure ofchunking strategy, this paper intends to define a more quantifiable factor thatinfluence the results of interpretation evaluation. Questionnaires are used to collectfeedbacks from the audience; the relationship between chunking strategy and the finalaudience ratings for the interpretation is compared. The paper proves the relativitybetween chunking and audience rating, which validates chunking strategy as a validapproach to study the interpretation quality. Introducing chunking strategy of theinterpreters as a more quantifiable evaluation approach gives both the training andlearning of simultaneous interpretation a new perspective, promoting the transparencyand just of the Chinese interpretation market.