Gender Differences In Self-repairs By English Majors In Their Chinese-to-English Consecutive Interpreting Production

Self-repair behaviors mean that when speakers detect that there is error or inappropriateness in their language production, they will correct it or edit it in a proper way. It reflects the language proficiency and ability of speakers. It is a common phenomenon not only in daily life, but also in interpreting. Based on the PACCEL-S 2.0, this study proposes three questions to identify the relationship between the English majors’gender and self-repairs in Chinese-to-English consecutive interpreting:(1) What are the characteristics of those English majors’self-repairs in interpreting?(2) Is there a significant gender difference in self-repairs by English majors in their Chinese-to-English consecutive interpreting production? Do female students exhibit more self-repairs than male ones in speech production or the other way around?(3) What is the specific relation between each sub-category of self-repair behaviors and gender differences in Chinese-to-English consecutive interpreting production by English majors?Based on the above questions, the author selects 27 out of 160 female students’ data to form a parallel sub-corpus with the sub-corpus of 27 male students’data, which altogether consist of 54 transcripts. Within China, all these male and female students are of the same major and the same grade. They have the similar cultural background and language environment, and they take the same interpreting test of TEM 8, which ensures that this research has strong internal validity. According to the taxonomy proposed by Levelt, Kormos and Petite, the author proposes a tentative taxonomy suitable for this study. Then the transcribed data are classified and analyzed.The results show that lexical error repair (ELR) (29.7%) and message replacement repair (DMR) (24.9%) occupy the top two proportions of self-repairs. These two are all about information rather than form. It may indicate that in interpreting, the students may not have enough time to plan the language production in advance, so they may care more about the information than the language expression As to the self-repairs in gender differences, female students produce more self-repairs than male students. Female students care more about the quality of interpreting than male students. Once the female students find a problem in the clearness, accuracy and validity in their interpretation, they will make a self-repair. Moreover, male students and female students have one point in common:ELR and DMR occupy the top two self-repairs in both male students and females students. After the Chi-square test, it is found that there is a significant difference between male students and female students in self-repair when performing the consecutive interpreting, but no significant gender difference is found in the sub-categories of self-repairs.The present research not only enriches the study of self-repairs in interpreting, but also offers some suggestions and implications for the interpreting teaching. Self-repair production is a necessary part of language. By self-repair, students improve themselves in their interpreting, so they should hold a positive attitude when self-repairs occur in their interpreting. Students of different genders will be aware of the distribution of self-repairs according this study. They can better themselves consciously and effectively with the aims to improve their oral output. Moreover, teachers should be aware that self-repair is very necessary for students to improve themselves in their interpreting. They can be silent and patient with encouragement when students produce self-repairs. Lastly, teachers should also be aware of the gender differences in the interpreting class. According to the characteristics of different genders in their self-repair production, teachers should modify their teaching methods accordingly.