An Empirical Study On Syntactic Linearity As A Strategy In English-Chinese Simultaneous Interpretation

Syntactic Linearity strategy is a very important strategy in simultaneous interpretation (SI). In SI practice, interpreters frequently use syntactic linearity strategy. On the basis of Daniel Gile’s Effort Model Theory, the author tries to analyze the use of syntactic linearity, namely the reasons for using syntactic linearity in SI, the general ways of using syntactic linearity strategy, the relation between syntactic linearity and interpretation output quality and the alternative strategy for syntactic linearity in some specific circumstances.The conclusion of the article is:syntactic linearity strategy is extremely useful in SI, for three reasons, that is the nature of SI, limited efforts of interpreters and the difference between English and Chinese sentence structure. In SI, to cope with time shortage and the continuous flow of new information, interpreters must resort to certain strategies. Also, due to interpreters’ limited efforts, they cannot wait for a whole sentence, instead they should instantly interpret any upcoming sentence. Moreover, English and Chinese are much different in their sentence structures, which also makes segmentation possible in SI. Syntactic linearity strategy can be further boiled down to three techniques, including segmentation, addition and conversion. In practice, interpreters will segment the source sentence, then add other elements to cohere the segmented pieces, and convert certain words or terms to make the target sentence more genuine. By using these techniques in a comprehensive way, interpreters can reduce Ear-Voice Span (EVS), relieve short-term memory burden, better distribute efforts in SI and improve interpretation. However, in some special circumstances, such as when the speaker speaks very quickly, the information density is very high or there are a lot professional terms, generalization is a good alternative strategy for syntactic linearity.Hopefully, this article can offer guidance and help to interpreters in SL practice.