The Hindrance Of Fossilization In Interlanguage To The Interpreting Quality

In recent years, the perspective of interdisciplinary study has become a trend ininterpreting research. Combining the two fields of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) withinterpreting, this thesis conducts research on interpreting from the perspective of fossilizationwhich is an important phenomenon in SLA. The aim of this thesis is to explore howfossilization hinders interpreting quality and consequently provide a new vision for thestudent interpreters to improve the output quality.In the framework of rudimental knowledge of both interpreting and fossilization in SLA,large mounts of examples are offered to reveal how fossilization hinders interpreting atvarious levels including pronunciation, vocabulary and syntax. Afterwards, the potentialcauses of the hindrance are unfolded based on the theory of Selinker, who is a renowned SLAscholar. In the end, plenty suggestions for the elimination of fossilization in interpretingpractice are proposed in terms of both student interpreters and interpreter teachers. Theconclusion of this thesis is that fossilization in SLA will hinder interpreting in terms ofpronunciation, vocabulary and syntax. The student interpreter and the teacher ofinterpretation should become aware of this fact and a great number of measures should betaken to wipe out the obstruction in order to improve interpreting quality to the utmost extent.This thesis is subdivided into five chapters.The first chapter is introduction. In this part, it mainly reveals the backgroundknowledge of interpreting, including the definition, characteristics and classification ofinterpreting. Moreover, the reason why this topic is selected to be studied, the theoretical andpractical meaning of this thesis, and the layout of the full text are distinctly explained in theend. The second chapter is an overview of fossilization in SLA. The first part clarifies thedefinition, features, classification, causes and present domestic studies of fossilization, andthen the distinctions of this phenomenon with other easily confused terms are also clearlydisplayed. The second part provides a full view of the definition and features of Interlanguagewhich is closely associated with fossilization.The third chapter is the essential part of the thesis. Through the illustration of numerousexamples, the hindrance of fossilization towards interpreting is demonstrated in three aspects.The pronunciation level includes the fossilization of vowels, consonants, stress and intonation;the lexical level contains the sensation of the word, the confusion of lexical part of speech,word collocation, and the choice of the exact word. At the syntactic level, the fossilization ofinterpreting is manifested in grammatical rules, and sentence structure. In regard of thegrammatical rules, they are mainly examined in the correspondence of verb inflection, tense,personal pronoun, voice and clause. At the end of this chapter, the author offers the causes offossilization in interpreting backing up by the theory of Selinker. It is believed that theoccurrence of this phenomenon should attribute to language transfer, overgeneralization,training transfer, learning strategies and communicative strategies.The fourth chapter enlightens student interpreters on how to improve the quality ofinterpretation. The thesis provides possible methods from the perspectives of the studentinterpreter and the interpreter teacher. As to the student interpreter, they should try everymeans such as master of bilingual linguistic skills, training of listening and speaking whichare the two crucial abilities required in interpreting, in addition, sharpening of interpretingskills including short-term memory training, note-taking, as well as the maintenance ofcomposing mental status. Meanwhile, they are also expected to adapt to the target languageculture, shift the way of thinking as well as acquire knowledge of any fields with the aim toextend vision. In the interpreter teacher’s aspect, correct input, positive feedback ininteraction and proper guidance of mother language transfer during interpreting teaching arealso required to be guaranteed.The fifth chapter is the conclusion of the whole thesis and the limitations of this researchare presented in the second section of this chapter with the inadequacy of examples; thefailure of exploration at textual level of how fossilization hinders interpreting; the constraint of the theories of SLA in this study, because English is a foreign language to Chineseinterpreter rather than a second language; the confinement to bilingual interpreting since athird or multi-languages may be involved in some occasions of the interpreting. In closing,pieces of advice targeted at solving the above limitations are provided.