An Empirical Study On The Influence Of The Background Knowledge On Probability Anticipation InSimultaneous Interpreting

Comparative characteristics of simultaneous interpreting (SI) suggest that pure linguistic analysis is insufficient in SI study. As a result, this thesis takes a psycho-linguistic approach to SI.Probability anticipation suggests that past experience and the current situation supply grounds for the hypotheses about the forthcoming developments, a certain probability being ascribed to each of the latter. In accordance with such a prognosis, people take actions that would help attain a certain objective with the highest probability.Chernov's probability anticipation model explains the probability anticipation in SI. The interpreter anticipates based on background knowledge and the situation, leading to a great amount subjective redundancy and making probability anticipation in SI possible.This thesis contains quantitative and qualitative analyses on the influence of the background knowledge on the probability anticipation in SI.The research suggests that background knowledge helps improve the accuracy and completeness of the translation and therefore, the overall performance of the interpreter; that the richness of background knowledge is positively correlated to the accuracy of probability anticipation when the source text is highly technical.