Features And Difficulties Of Note-taking Of Student Interpreters In Consecutive Interpreting

Note-taking is an important technique of consecutive interpreting (below referredto as CI). Studies carried out by academic researchers and skilled interpreters haveshed light on the basic principles and tactics of note-taking in CI. However, with allthe principles and tactics put forward, note-taking still triggers many problems forstudent interpreters in their interpreting performance. And there has been barely anyempirical study addressing the difficulties for student interpreters in CI note-taking.This thesis sets out to examine the features and difficulties of note-taking forstudent interpreters. An experiment was conducted to explore the features of notestaken by student interpreters, the difficulties they perceive in note-taking, and possiblecauses for such difficulties.The subjects of the study are thirteen student interpreters from GuangdongUniversity of Foreign Studies. They are asked to perform CI tasks with theirrenditions recorded and notes collected for further analysis.Based on the experiment findings, the present thesis summarizes the features ofnotes taken by student interpreters and their difficulties in note-taking. Anderson’sACT (Acquisition of Cognitive Skill) theory and Gile’s Effort Model are adopted toanalyze the data and explore the causes for note-taking problems. The features ofnotes are concluded from three aspects: language choice, the use of symbols and thelayout of notes. Based on experiment data, student interpreters’ note-takingdifficulties include:1) paying too much attention to writing down information withoutproper analysis;2) poor coordination between note-taking and memorizing the sourceinformation;3) improper format of notes;4) omissions caused by dense information;and5) invalid notes taken. And the major cause for such problems is that: moststudent interpreters are still at the declarative stage and the knowledge compilationperiod in the development of note-taking skill, therefore, their adoption of principlesand tactics of note-taking are not autonomous, and may require a lot of effort;non-proficiency in note-taking and too much effort spent on it lead to problems in note-taking and poor coordination in interpreting tasks, which undermines interpretingperformance.