An Analysis Of Stage Fright In Consecutive Interpreting And Coping Strategies

Against the backdrop of economic globalization, countries all over the worldhave become more interdependent to each other and the economic and culturalexchanges have also been more frequent than ever. However, due to the differences inlinguistic systems and cultural backgrounds among the nations, communicationbetween peoples has also encountered all kinds of difficulties and challenges. Thus,interpreting as a communicative bridge has played a crucial role in international arena.Unfortunately, many factors in field interpreting can have negative effects oninterpreter’s performance and the interpreting quality and stage fright is one of them.In spite of the researches on stage fright by many scholars in the field of psychologyand public speech, they are not all true of stage fright in field CI because of thedisturbances from external and internal factors at interpreting site. In addition, thestudies on stage fright in CI are very limited and relatively fragmented. For thosereasons, this thesis attempts to make a systematic study on stage fright in CI.Based on the “Effort Model for CI” and the “Comprehension Equation”proposed by Gile (1995), this thesis first observes the relationship betweenunbalanced effort-splitting and incomplete comprehension and stage fright, figuringout the feasibility of applying the two theories to the analysis of stage fright. Then,according to the available limited materials, a questionnaire on stage fright in field CIis designed and41MTI students of Jilin University are asked to participate. Inaccordance with the results, all the participants had an attack of stage fright in field CIor interpreting training and more than half of them (54%) declared that stage frighthas great effects on the interpreting quality. Besides, a considerable percentage of theparticipants (95%) considered the speaker, the audiences and interpreter themselves asthe main source of stage fright. The results also revealed that interpreter’s advancepreparation is rated as the most effective measure to deal with stage fright. Othercountermeasures such as the accumulation of knowledge and experience as well as theenhancement of linguistic competence and psychological quality etc. are also important ways to prevent stage fright.According to the results of the questionnaire, the main causes of stage fright areelaborated and specific approaches for every coping strategy are also proposed so asto contribute to interpreter’s especially learner’s better understanding of stage frightand ultimately manage stage fright, which, I hope, will be also conducive toimproving their overall qualities and interpreting quality.