The Influence Of A Speaker's Pause Frequency On Chinese-English Consecutive Interpreting-from The Perspective Of The Interpretive Theory

Based on the interpretive theory of translation, this thesis is an empirical study focused on how a speaker's pause frequency may affect the quality and efficiency of Chinese-English consecutive interpreting. The experiment in the study shows that when the speaker pauses frequently for the translation, the interpreter may temporarily remember more information, but he/she may not remember the information correctly, nor will he/she deliver it as fluently or logically as the audience would naturally expect. In other words, frequent pauses during a speech may undermine both the quality and efficiency of an interpreting practice. The interpretive theory believes that language is only the vehicle of meaning; interpreters should not allow themselves to be confined by the form of the original language and translate word for word; instead, they should understand the speech first and then reword their understanding in the target language. In this sense, the thesis holds that frequent pauses would compromise interpreting performance, as they interrupt the conveyance of information and reduce the interpreter's time for processing. This means that the interpreter has only limited time and information to understand and deliver the message of the speech, hence less than capable for the interpreting task. To protect the translation performance from being affected by the speaker's pause manner, the thesis suggests that interpreters do adequate research on the speech topic, communicate fully with the speaker beforehand, and exercise flexibility during the translation.