An Empirical Study On Syntactic Linearity In Handling Long Sentences For Simultaneous Interpreting

Syntactic linearity constitutes one of the most effective strategies in handlinglong sentences in simultaneous interpreting. However, previous studies mainly focuson the necessity to employ this strategy from the perspective of cognition ormemory based on the analysis of the interpreting output of professional interpreters.Little importance is attached to how student interpreters perceive the importance ofthis strategy and their practical application of this strategy in handling longsentences in simultaneous interpreting. Based on questionnaires and corpus analysis,this paper demonstrates the students’ preferences of interpreting strategies inhandling long sentences and also gets a perspective of how the two most criticalfactors of syntactical linearity-chunking and EVS have a bearing on their practicalperformance. Through the study on a case by case basis, the following conclusionshave been reached:1) When student interpreters have a comparatively good performance inhandling simple sentences, the majority of them fail to deliver a good performancein handling long sentences.2) Those use syntactic linearity are inclined to have a better performance.3) In the questionnaire, the majority of student interpreters chunk the sentencesbased on syntactic markers. In practice, student interpreters tend to chunk the longsentences into smaller units of meaning.4) Student interpreters are greatly influenced by the length of EVS in followingthe original structure.Through this paper, the author hopes to enhance the teachers’ awareness that itis necessary to encourage the students to employ syntactic linearity in daily simultaneous interpreting practice. And the author also hopes that studentinterpreters could take the initiative to hone this skill in an effort to raise theirinterpreting standards.