A Study Of Interpreter’s Mental Working Mode Under The Guidance Of Gestalt Psychology

This thesis explores the interpreter’ mental working modes under the guidance ofGestalt Psychology. Firstly, the thesis reviews the major findings in themulti-disciplinary study between interpretation and cognitive psychology, andestablishes and analyzes the major mental working modes and mental working processguided by Gestalt Psychology, as a contribution to the study in this area. Then, thethesis leverages Gestalt’s major theories to make an in-depth analysis of interpreter’smental working modes and process, and together with the classical interpretationtheories provides the theoretical basis for this thesis. The most fundamental mentalworking mode for interpreters is “dynamic sense-driven mode”, and meanwhile Gestaltpresents scientific and cognitive explanations on the process of generating sense. Thepaper then demonstrates and proves the value and advantage of Gestalt’s guidingtheories. The theoretical value lies in its detailed elaboration on the hypotheses of twoclassical interpretation theories—“the Triangle Theory” and Gile’s “Effort Model”.And through the comparison with the opposing modes of “Literal Interpretation”,“Bottom-up Model” and “Rote Training”, the practical advantages of GestaltPsychology have been highlighted. In practice, based on the mental working modesextracted from the Gestalt theories, the paper illustrates the practical applications of thetheories.Researches made on the multi-disciplinary study between interpretation andcognitive psychology have been abundant, but currently it’s seldom seen that theguidance for interpretation comes from one complete psychological theory. Besides,interpreters don’t pay much attention to the establishment and nurturing of their mentalworking modes, while in practice they are facing huge information load and extremely limited mental working forces, so a feasible and effective mental working modesshould be established, which is also a major contribution this thesis is trying to make.