A Contrastive Study On Self-repair In Two-way C-E Consecutive Interpreting

Self-repair means that speaker spontaneously corrects his/her own utterance in the same turn. Interpreting is a special and important inter-lingual exchange activity and self-repair is unavoidable during this process. According to previous relevant studies, only the distribution of self-repair types in Chinese-to-English consecutive interpreting (abbreviated as C-E CI) or English-to-Chinese consecutive interpreting (abbreviated as E-C CI) is investigated, and the contrastive study of two-way C-E CI has not been explored yet. In order to fill this research gap, this thesis conducts an exploratory study on self-repair in two-way C-E CI. In light of perceptual loop theory of self-monitoring, the author examines devices of self-repair initiators, distribution of self-repair types and pattern of self-repair operations in two-way C-E CI thoroughly by analyzing the data of 30 students’ two-way C-E CI examination performance.The following three conclusions have been made in this study. Firstly, the initiator devices employed in two-way C-E CI include non-lexical devices, lexical devices or without any separable initiators. The majority of self-repairs in two-way C-E CI are initiated by distinctive initiation markers and lexical-devices are the least frequently used in two-way C-E CI. Similar trends of initiation devices in two-way C-E CI are observed by comparison.Secondly, in terms of the distribution of self-repair types, it is found out that S-repairs occupy the largest proportion in two-way C-E CI and no significant difference is identified. However, D-repairs and A-repairs occur more frequently in E-C CI than in C-E CI. Meanwhile, there are considerably more E-repairs in C-E CI than in E-C CI. Reasons of the differences lie in the following. First, inter-lingual transfer has a negative effect on interpreting production. Second, the students are inadequate both in interpreting skills and in bilingual competencies when encountering contingencies in the process of interpreting.Finally, the study indentifies six repair operations, namely, replacing, aborting, inserting, reformatting, searching and deleting. Similar trends are also observed in the distribution of two-way C-E CI.The study also puts forward a model of self-repair mechanism in two-way C-E CI and interprets it from the perspective of language difference and interpreting process theory. As for the significance of the present research, it is a powerful supplement for self-repair studies, and at the same time it will enrich the existing studies of interpreting process in two-way C-E CI. Moreover, it may shed light on interpreting teaching and interpreting practices.