An Empirical Research On Note-taking Strategies In English To Chinese Consecutive Interpreting For Student Interpreters

The role of consecutive interpreting is to help interpreters concentrate through recording and give hints when interpreting. Teaching practice has proven that for student interpreters in English to Chinese interpreting, at the initial period of note-taking training, they often put too much energy on taking notes while neglecting information analysis and integration and when delivering, they tend to be overly dependent on notes which contrarily obstruct the comprehension and delivery. The essential purpose of the study is to discover the features and problems in English to Chinese consecutive interpreting on the basis of empirical study and by analyzing the results to discuss counter solutions, find skills and principles for note-taking and thus help decrease energy consumed in note-taking and make the interpreting output correct and complete.To this end, the study motive, purposes and thesis structure are introduced in the chapter one and in chapter two the theories of information processing, effort model by Daniel Gile and relevant theories of consecutive interpreting and note-taking are introduced as the theoretical foundation of the thesis. The essence of the thesis is the empirical study. Ten postgraduate students majoring in interpretation are selected as study subjects and were given a2minutes’ English speech to perform English to Chinese interpretation and were evaluated and classified into two groups--good interpreting output group and not so good interpreting output group. From the aspects of the amount, form, language choice and layout of notes, skills and principles in note-taking are found. Finally, the author summarizes and concludes the empirical study and gives humble suggestions on teaching and self-training of note-taking. At the same time the shortages of the study and expectations on future study are illustrated.