Report On Whispered Interpreting For The Seminar On Mechanism Of Sino

The present effort is a report on the author’s interpreting practice, which records hisexperience of whispered interpreting in one workshop of the Forum on ManagingEmployee Relations and Resolving Workplace Conflicts in China, jointly organizedby the Sloan School of Management of MIT, Ling Nan (University) College and SunYat-sen University on May27,2013. The objective of this Forum was to share anddiscuss the best practices of resolving different types of conflicts in the workplace，which are emerging in China in recent years, owning to China’s successful efforttowards globalization and its economic attractiveness, especially its wide open marketto overseas investors and factory owners. When people from different parts of Chinaand the rest of the global village mix together, cultural and conceptual clashes areexpected to occur and even build up if they are not treated properly. This main themetopic was as fascinating to me as securing the opportunity to provide interpretingservice for its participants. Said real-life interpreting experience did benefit me a greatdeal in terms of both interpreting skills and listening to leading scholars sharing theirexpertise and presentation skills, having contributed to lifting my interpreting skillsand enriching myself as a social and professional being.To be more specific, this report discusses the author’s pre-and actual interpretingexperience in this event, both successes and failures by following the standardreporting procedures:(1) pre-task preparation,(2) interpretation, and (3)post-interpretation. Each procedure is enriched with the author’s critical comment sothat he or any novice required to carry out a similar task can accomplish it with moreawareness and confidence and bring up a more professional performance. In thepre-task preparation process, the author introduces what a fundamental and effectivepreparation process consists of (1) the preparation of glossary,(2) the analysis oflecturers’ linguistic features, and (3) a step-by-step task schedule. The effectiveness ofsaid preparation process has also been proved by a quite smooth interpreting process.In the post-interpretation reflection, the original text and the transcript of therecorded audio files are compared so as to identify the typical errors committed by theauthor during the interpreting process. Such errors as wrong choice of terms and mismatched register are further analyzed to uncover the causes therefor by associatingthem with the two sequential processes:“listening process” and “production process”.Unbalanced allocation of energy and attention was found to be the main cause forfailing to render the information completely; unfamiliarity with the terms andinsufficient knowledge of said register are believed to have led to miscarriage ofinformation to target audience in this case.Apart from that, a quantitative analysis of pauses occurring in the interpretingprocess adopted by the author reveals that four elements (target language retrieval,addition, self-correction, hesitation) are attributed to most of disfluencies in hisinterpreting. Some targeted tactics like shadowing practice, extensive listeningtraining and retelling practice are suggested for improving one’s interpreting fluency.It is hoped that this report can not only provide an unbiased and accuratedescription of the bigger picture of whispered interpreting, but prove helpful for bothinterpreting practice and for further studies on the interpreting tasks concerning labordisputes management.