Coping Tactics For Online Cognitive Pressure Of Consecutive Interpreter

Interpreting has been referred to as permanent "crisis management" by some professionals. Consecutive interpreting, as an indispensable working mode of interpreting, enjoys an enormous popularity these days. It is widely applied in conference interpreting and dialogue interpreting. Consecutive interpreting, though less stressful than simultaneous interpreting, is still an activity in which interpreters suffer huge cognitive pressure.According to the effort model for consecutive interpreting put forward by Daniel Gile, he divides the process of consecutive interpreting into the comprehension phase and the reformulation phase, each one of which comprises four efforts respectively. Interpreting can proceed smoothly only when processing capacity are properly allocated to perform these efforts. The cognitive tension between processing capacity supply and demand is usually regarded as the cause for interpreting errors or performance deterioration of their most varied kind.Guided by Daniel Gile’s effort model and the tightrope hypothesis, the author of this thesis intends to provide a theoretical explanation for interpreting’s errors and omissions through studying mainly eight video materials of online consecutive interpreting (Please refer to Appendix1 for titles of these videos and their titles for short). In addition, the thesis will also present the analysis of pressure triggers like foreign accent, number, unfamiliar information, high density and high complexity of the source speech etc. in chapter two. In chapter three, the author will make a tentative attempt to suggest some coping tactics and strategies that the interpreter can employ in each phase of the consecutive interpreting to prevent or limit the adverse impact of cognitive pressure, hence enhancing the interpreter’s performance as well as optimizing interpreting quality.