The Study Of Self-repairs In English Majors’ Chinese-to-English Consecutive Interpreting Production

Self-repair is a common phenomenon in speech production. It is the overt manifestation of monitoring. Studies on self-repairs concentrate on the self-monitoring and self-repair patterns in L1 and L2 speech production (Levelt,1983; Kormos,2000; Chen, 2007), but little attention is paid to the production in interpreting, especially in consecutive interpreting. In view of this, the thesis conducts an analysis on self-repairs in English majors’ Chinese-to-English consecutive interpreting production in an attempt to investigate the self-repair pattern in interpreting and its relationship with learners’language proficiency.The thesis adopts Levelt’s perceptual loop theory, automatization theory and attention allocation theory in second language acquisition as its theoretical framework. With the aid of Parallel Corpus of Chinese EFL Learners, a systematic study on self-repairs in Chinese-to-English consecutive interpreting has been carried out. Taking into account the characteristics specific to self-repairs in consecutive interpreting, the identification and categorization of self-repairs in the selected samples are based on Levelt and Kormos’ definitions and taxonomies. The statistical analysis in the frequency, distribution and ways of restarting of self-repairs draws the following results:1. In terms of the general features of self-repairs in consecutive interpreting, the analysis shows that the frequency of self-repairs in English majors’consecutive interpreting production is relatively low; error self-repairs (E-repairs) take dominance among the self-repairs in the production, being followed by appropriateness self-repairs (A-repairs) and different self-repairs (D-repairs); instant repair and anticipatory retracing are two ways of restarting frequently employed in constructing error self-repairs (E-repairs) and appropriateness self-repairs (A-repairs). The findings indicate that as EFL learners, the language proficiency level of English majors is not up to the automatic application. This results in the fiercer competition of the limited attentional resources in the complicated consecutive interpreting task and the lack of attention in self-monitoring and self-repairs. Students’ self-repairs in consecutive interpreting are conservative and concentrate on the linguistic level. Their attention to the appropriateness repair at the discourse level is comparatively inadequate.2. In terms of the relationship between the self-repair pattern and language proficiency, the analysis demonstrates that students with advanced language proficiency tend to produce more self-repairs. It suggests that due to a higher level of language automatization, students on the high proficiency level can allocate more attention to monitoring and self-repair in performing the complicated consecutive interpreting task; no significant difference exists in the adoption of main types of self-repairs among students on different proficiency levels, but the difference in the employment of ambiguity-reduction self-repairs (AA-repairs) and grammatical error self-repairs (EG-repairs) are significant; students on high proficiency level more frequently construct their self-repairs in fresh starts.The present study attempts to apply the monitoring theory in L1 and the relevant theories in second language acquisition to the explanation of self-repairs in interpreting. It provides a preliminary classification framework for the investigation of self-repairs in interpreting and enriches the self-repair studies in this field. In addition, the study also contributes to the exploration of Chinese-to-English interpreting process and has many implications for the teaching of interpreting.