An Analysis Of The Factors Affecting Interpreter’s Note-taking Ability In Consecutive Interpreting And Their Coping Strategies

Note-taking for purpose of oral interpretation plays a very important role inconsecutive interpreting. Whether interpreters can do their note-taking well directlyinfluences the quality of oral interpretation. With good note-taking ability,interpreters can not only note down the information of source language (SL) to thelargest degree, but also can make rearrangement of the sentence structure and orderof SL, sort out and analyze SL information so as to ensure a pinpoint accuracy of theoutput information. Note-taking, as a supplementary means of memory, is utilized toreduce an interpreter’s memory burden in the output process. It is a temporarysupplement to short-term memory and meanwhile makes possible the clearness ofexpression in the target language. Hence, note-taking is generally accepted as one ofbasic requirements for interpreters. Whether they can successfully interpret or notlargely depends on their note-taking abilities. Whether they can store up adequate SLinformation with high efficiency is directly linked with their generalaccomplishmentsTo turn MTI students into first-class professional interpreters is our ultimateteaching aim. To MTI students, the would-be professional interpreters, to teach themhow to acquire the ability to take down notes is a difficult task in oral interpretationtraining..Interpreters might encounter many problems when taking down notes, thustheir speed and quality of interpretation is adversely affected. This paper is intendedto ascertain some major hindrances to note-taking, and in the meantime, to decide oncertain factors that can affect interpreters’note-taking ability, then to analyze and putforward some possible solutions, through which interpreters can grasp some basicskills and strategies. Only by doing so can they smoothly carry out the following procedures such as storage, extraction and production of SL information. Hence theiroral interpretation is greatly improved.This study is conducted in the form of an experiment with12MTI students asstudying objects. All participants are given an on-spot E-C consecutive interpretationtest and are required to write up their after-test feedback. The author of this papergives an analysis and comes up to a conclusion based on the data collected fromthem. The result of this experiment shows that the influencing factors mainly include:listening, numbers, abbreviations, symbols, the logic, the key point, the speed andthe use of note-taking and the balance between note-taking and memory. In themeantime, all influencing factors are sorted out and analyzed. Some reasonablecoping strategies are put forward for guiding MTI oral interpretation teaching andimproving the quality of oral interpretation education.