A Comparative Study On Evaluation By Interpreters And Audience In Simultaneous Interpreting

This paper explores the differences between professional interpreters and the audience in evaluating interpretation quality.7 professional interpreters and 7 audience are organized in two groups to complete the Interpretation Quality Expectation Forms, the Interpretation Quality Evaluation Forms, and the questionnaires for 5 records of English-Chinese simultaneous interpretation. The three documents are used to collect information concerning expectations and requirements of the judges for interpretation, evaluation results and the explanation. Based on statistics produced by the SPSS software and the questionnaires, this paper compares the expectations of the interpreter group and the audience group for interpretation quality, the actual evaluation results given by the interpreter group and the audience group for the recorded interpretation, and the consistency and contradictions between expectations and the actual evaluation results of both groups. It is found that:1. The audience group has higher expectations and requirements for interpretation quality. Both groups give the most considerations to accuracy and integrity of interpretation, and the least to voice.2. Formal factors (fluency level and voice) have a significant influence on the audience group.3. Inconsistency exists between the anticipatory feedback and evaluation results in both groups, but the evaluation is more consistent with expectations and requirements for interpretation quality on the part of the interpreter group.