An Experimental Approach To Student Interpreters' Consecutive Interpretation Of Flaws In The Source Language

Interpreters give interpretation to speeches, which are, in most cases, delivered once only. However, the one-time expression in the source language is often far from perfection. Flaws always exist in speeches, especially impromptu ones. Slips of the tongue, logic confusion, repetition, wordiness, obscurity and other flaws can be found in most speeches. How to deal with these flaws reflects interpreters'subjective consciousness, capabilities, knowledge base, self-positioning, and professional ethics.20 second-year graduate students majoring in interpreting participate in the consecutive interpreting experiment, where they interpret a Chinese speech about responses to the 2008 crisis.14 flaws have been designed in the Chinese speech. After the test, testees answer a questionnaire about their subjective consciousness as interpreters and talk with the testers about their interpretation of the flaws.The thesis is constructed upon the theory of translators'subjectivity, the interpretive theory of translation, the Gile Model, and translators'professional ethics. According to experimental recordings, questionnaires, and interviews, conclusions have been made as follows. The testees, as a whole, have a relatively strong subjective consciousness and good capabilities to interpret flaws in the original speech. A low but positive correlation exists between the two, which means student interpreters with a stronger subjective consciousness incline to perform better in correction of flaws in the source language speech. Factors affecting correction of flaws include interpreters'subjective consciousness, their understanding and analyses of the speech, their knowledge base, note-taking, etc. Suggestions have been made about interpreting practice, education, and learning according to the results.