Cohesion And Coherence In Consecutive Interpretation

In May,2013, the reporter attended an interpreting project on "The Sino-Israel Conference on Agricultural Cooperation" held by Xintian Electronic Company in Changzhou. The project was mainly concerned with consecutive interpretation. The reporter interpreted speeches about the technical innovation and the promotion of Israeli high-yield lettuce hydroponic production in greenhouses. She encountered great difficulties in catching the gist of the speeches, which mainly resulted from the different thought patterns between the east and the west, as well as the strong Israeli accent. In tracing the real cause of the problem, the reporter found that the interpreters (the reporter and her classmate) failed to properly handle the logic in both the comprehension and production processes. The coherence of a discourse derives from the logical connections between the different components of a discourse, which entertains the relevance in meaning and makes information accessible to the audience. Lack of relevance and accessibility leads to the break-off of communication. The present project addresses this problem. Drawing on the findings of previous studies both at home and abroad, the reporter carried out careful analysis of the interpretation problems encountered in the interpreting project. In particular, the report examines the coherence and cohesion of the discourse of the source language from the perspective of semantic analysis and grammatical analysis-the cases where it is necessary to retain or shift the cohesive devices, so as to effectively address the issue. By applying cohesive devices, the reporter rewrote the original interpretations given in the project, and found that the improved versions, to a great extent, resolved the disturbance of comprehension and increased the quality of interpretation as well, thanks to clear logic and coherence. The analysis of the interpretation materials from this project will offer important data for the study of the theory and practice of consecutive interpretation.