A Study On Communication Breakdowns In Sight Translation

Sight translation(ST) is the integration of translation and interpretation, which is widely used as a pedagogical exercise and tool in interpreter training. Research on sight translation chiefly supports its role as a supportive interpretation method in simultaneous and consecutive interpretation.Reflecting on my interpreting practice, sight translation plays a fundamental role and constitutes a major challenge. Generally speaking, most problems that I encountered in ST are concerned with communication breakdowns as a result of lack of communication awareness and can be divided into two categories: semantic failure and pragmatic failure. Specifically, the main reasons include the differences between English and Chinese, cultural differences between China and western countries, different social backgrounds, and characteristics of the audience etc. Moreover, the specific characteristics of sight translation make the interaction between the audience and the interpreter almost impossible, thus easily leading to the interpreter’s lack of communicative awareness.Therefore, the present study aims to investigate how to deal with the problems of communication breakdowns, mainly including semantic failure and pragmatic failure in sight translation. It is argued that the interpreter needs to utilize various strategies under the guidance of the Cooperative principle proposed by Grice(1975) to preclude communication breakdowns. The study will contribute to helping students improve their sight interpreting performance, become familiar with the problems they may encounter in the practice of sight interpreting and the strategies they may employ to deal with them.