Empirical Study Of Syntactic Linearity In English-Chinese Simultaneous Interpreting

Study of simultaneous interpreting(SI) is indispensable in the whole process ofinterpreting study. One year of simultaneous interpreting learning had enabled theauthor to find that when completing this high-intensity brain work, the interpreter issupposed to pay highly-focused attention to the whole task, closely following thespeaker with a view to ensure correct and complete interpretation. However, underthe great pressure of time, in order to keep the interpretation in accordance with theoriginal sentence as well as keep coherence of the target language by following thesequence of the original words, particular strategies are necessary for th e interpreterto reduce the difficulty of simultaneous interpreting. Therefore, this thesis aims todiscuss and analyze two questions commonly seen in simultaneous interpretingwhich are difficult to solve:1) How does the interpreter strike a balance between fast interpreting speed andcomprehension?2) How does the interpreter reduce the interpreting blanks so as to keep theintegrity of sentences to the largest extent?The theory evidence comes from the most fundamental principle in SI, that is,syntactic linearity, namely, linear translation, which helps the interpreter deal withlong and complex sentences even if he has no time to hear and remember the wholesentence so as to render the most possibly complete information within the shortesttime.In order to reflect a real and credible result of this study, all the interpreterssampled here are actually students of Grade Two majoring in English-Chineseinterpreting who have received systematic interpreting training for one year andmost of whom have passed the TEM-8, having managed basic interpreting skills.Materials interpreted and analyzed come from the passages interpreted by the authorand her classmates when they were attending the simultaneous interpreting class.The experiment was carried out in a simultaneous interpreting class in thelanguage lab of Hunan University to avoid the obvious testing effects. The researchsubjects had no awareness that they were being tested so that they could give fullplay to their real capability.Therefore, this thesis intends to combine the study and practice of the authorand her classmates to discuss the questions commonly seen in SI and solutions to them, as well as focuses on the applicability of syntactic linearity and thecomplementarities between this strategy and others with the purpose of bettercompleting English-Chinese SI task. Meanwhile, some constructive proposals areput forward for the learners and researchers of SI.