Identifying Chinese To English Interpreting Strategies

With the development of globalization, interpreting plays a more and more importantrole in international communication. The study of interpreting in western countries began in1950s which mainly includes those based on interpreters’ practical experience. Throughover sixty years’ study, western interpreting study has formed its theoretical system fromdifferent perspectives which mainly include information-processing theory, imperativetheory and cognitive theories. In China, the study of interpreting occurs in1980s whichmainly includes theoretical, pedagogical studies. But there are few studies aboutinterpreting strategies. This study aims to explore the theoretical framework of interpretingstrategies by a questionnaire survey of12interpreting teachers,32interpreting contestantsin the Cross-Strait Interpreting Contest and19student interpreters in Huazhong Universityof Science and Technology. A framework of interpreting strategies based on languagelearning strategies and communication strategies is decoded from the questionnaires inwhich interpreting strategies are categorized into metacognitive strategies, cognitivestrategies and social/affective strategies. The general situations of strategy use byinterpreting teachers, interpreting contestants and students interpreters are analyzed. Andthe differences by category and specific strategy among the subjects are discussed in termsof mean.The results show that interpreting teachers use interpreting strategies more frequentlyand expertly. Students are able to use interpreting strategies to finish their tasks, but thefrequency in strategy use is not as high as interpreting teachers. And there are somedifferences between them and interpreting teachers in both different categories ofstrategies and specific strategy use. Interpreting contestants are a little weak in usingmetacognitive strategies. Ordinary student interpreters have a significant difference frominterpreting teachers in cognitive strategy use. For the specific strategy use, studentinterpreters focus more from the angle of interpreters but sometimes neglect thecomprehensibility of the target language for listeners. On the contrary, interpretingteachers can flexibly and comprehensively use interpreting strategies. The research givesus some implications on pedagogy. In teaching of interpreting, it is important not only to improve their linguistic competence but strategic training is also essential. Students needmore practical experience in all types of interpreting. Both how to use metacognitivestrategies to control the whole process of interpreting and how to improve the efficiency ofcognitive strategy use are the key points in interpreting training. And strategy trainingrequires linguistic competence both directly and indirectly related to interpreting itself.