Avoidable Disfluencies In Chinese To English Consecutive Interpretation And Solutions

Since fluency is an important criterion for consecutive interpretation (CI), it is vital to reduce unnecessary disfluencies in one’s output. There are six kinds of disfluencies that might occur during interpretation, namely fillers, pauses, repetitions, revisions, small words and drawls. However, all disfluencies need not to or can not be eliminated. Some, being the result of thinking or pursuit of certain semantic effects, are unavoidable; others, on the contrary, are avoidable because they are caused by deficiencies in the interpreters’ CI skills. Through the analysis of the Chinese-English CI for “China’s Financial Reform”, this thesis studies the avoidable disfluencies in C-E CI. It is concluded that the three causes for such disfluencies are1) difficulties in English expression, including that for terminologies, words of Chinese characteristics and other words and sentences,2) deficiencies in CI skills, namely the skills to read the following notes while interpreting and to use short-term memory, and3) note-taking problems, like missing links, missing information and meaningless notes. To reduce unavoidable disfluencies in C-E CI, interpreters are advised to1) develop English proficiency,2) enhance the above-mentioned two CI skills through various exercises and3) improve note-taking by bettering one’s note-taking system and the ability to pay special attention to important information while listening.