Possible Causes Of Lapsus Linuae And Countermeasures In English-Chinese Simultaneous Interpretation

Lapsus linguae occur inevitably in simultaneous interpretation. Some interpreters may notice slips of the tongue and correct the mistakes, but others may not. Not only might a slip of tongue prompt the audience and the organizer to doubt the professionalism of the interpreter, but also demonstrate potential shortcomings of the interpreter’s language proficiency and even interpretation capability. The thesis aims to study the inevitability of random lapsus lingae interpreters confront and strategies that should be employed to under the framework of the Effort Model of simultaneous interpretation proposed by Daniel Gile. The thesis consists of four chapters.Chapter1is introduction, introducing the development of simultaneous interpretation as well as the background, objective, means and significance of this research.Chapter2discusses Daniel Gile’s Effort Model of simultaneous interpretation, which is the theoretical foundation of the thesis, to study possible causes of lapsus linguae. This chapter also explains the definition of lapsus linguae.Chapter3states the process of the experiment, including the material, participants, time, location, procedure, etc. This chapter aims to study the lapsus linguae that occurred during the experiment and specify the causes and strategies to cope with lapsus linguae.Chapter4completes with the findings of the thesis. After statistically analyzing the relations between the accurateness of interpretation and the number of lapsus linguae as well as that between interpreters’speed of speaking and the number of lapsus linguae, the correlations are relatively significant. Also, possible causes of lapsus linguae turn out to be high density of source language, overload of energy, unfamiliarity with terms, narrow scope of knowledge, lack of language proficiency and so forth. Countermeasures are increasing listening trainings, improving language proficiency and anti-pressure capacity, adjusting EVS, broadening scope of knowledge, lowering speed of speaking, etc.In a nutshell, there exist regular patterns behind seemingly accidental lapsus linguae. Interpreters should enhance the awareness of reducing slips of the tongue so as to improve delivery.