Investigation Report On The Causes For The Difficulties In Note-taking And The Relevancy Between Note-taking And Interpreting Quality

Note-taking in interpreting is a suggestive note to help the interpreters maintainsource information. It plays a significant role in the process of interpreting, thus thestudents who major in English or MTI must grasp this kind of skill. While in fact, in theprocess of MTI studying, the author has trouble in note-taking. The same is true for otherMTI students and the college students who major in English. So the purpose of thisinvestigation report is to study the causes for the difficulties in note-taking and therelevancy between note-taking and interpreting quality.In chapter I, the author introduces the feature and principle of note-taking in theprocess of interpreting. Note-taking in interpreting is different from lecture notes,meeting notes or other kinds of notes. Used for temporary needs, it plays asupplementary and prompting role in the process of interpreting. Therefore, it’s veryimportant for an interpreter to understand what the source language mean and master themain idea of the original text, which means that the interpreter should pay attention tounderstanding instead of taking notes. Besides that, the interpreter had better think aboutthe interpretation while listening to the raw material and just record the keywords andclues on the notes. Features of note-taking in the process of interpreting includeimmediate, supplement and integrity. The principles are concise，comprehensive，refining,and integrated.In chapter II, The author introduces the process of the investigation. In the processof preparing the experiment, the author, as a researcher, designer and practicer, choosingfour audio materials which involve figures, complex structure, and Chineseculture-loaded words, tested herself and listed the major problems in her interpreting andnote-taking. Combining these problems and the difficulties of note-taking in the author’sMTI studying process, the author made a questionnaire about the main difficulties innote-taking and the underlying causes for the difficulties. Then the author invited59students to participate in the test. First, the author gave the examinees four tests, whichrequired the students to listen to the tape for one time and take notes at the same time,then finished and recorded the whole interpreting process. At last, they need do aquestionnaire survey. All the notes, records and questionnaires are collected to beanalyzed. According to the data in the questionnaire, the author lists the causes for the difficulties in note-taking, which includes1. Deficits in memorizing the sourceinformation.2. The language structure of the source information is too complex.3. Failto recall all the information.4. The format of notes is improper.5. Fail to grasp the skillof memorizing and writing simultaneously. Then, from the aspects of gender, native place,grade and the rank of high school and English level of the subjects’ parents, the authoranalyzes the relevancy between the subjects’ basic information and their interpretingperformance. At last, with the help of the academic teachers, the author picks out6students who can represent the subjects’ average level as samples (amount to24piecesof recordings and notes) to analyze the relevancy between note-taking and interpretingquality from the aspects of the word count, the form and the language choice innote-taking.In Chapter III, the author attempts to put forward some suggestions on how to teachstudents from different grades and guide them to take notes accordingly. At the end, theauthor points out the shortage of the paper, hoping to develop and improve the researchesto help the English teaching and practice in the future.