On The Importance Of Extra-linguistic Knowledge In Interpreting

Today, more than ever, in a highly professionalized market, users expectation oninterpreters exceed beyond a mere language master. The people for whom interpretersare serving are usually of certain prestige in their profession. As their voice,interpreters need to be able to deliver an equivalent level of authority and credibility.This requires interpreters to have an abundant reserve of extra-linguistic knowledge toavoid misunderstanding or even erroneous interpretation.Drawing on the research named Survey on Expectations of Users of ConferenceInterpretation, carried out by Peter Moser on behalf of AIIC in1995and the existingtheories and studies, this thesis examines the role of extra-linguistic knowledge ininterpreting, apart from language proficiency and interpreting skills, through a casestudy on an Austrian Tax Law Firm Private Track on China Offshore Summit2013.The thesis aims to illustrate the significant impact of extra-linguistic knowledge oninterpretation output. A good reserve of extra-linguistic knowledge can reflect theinterpter s great capability not only in language terms but also in the possession ofknowledge under a certain theme or in a certain area. This thesis digs into theprofound influence of extra-linguistic knowledge and the ways to improve if therelacks by walking through the timeline of an interpreting assignment and categorizingdifferent aspect of extra-linguistic knowledge...