The Effects Of The Presence Of Audience On Trainee Interpreting Performance

During the training of simultaneous interpreters, the presence of audience is a critical indicator to be considered. On the basis of Daniel Gile's Effort Model, the author tries to answer whether the presence of audience may affect the performance of English-Chinese simultaneous interpretation (SI) trainees, how it happens and what the implications for SI training or practice are.The study used the first fifteen minutes of a speech given by David Cameron on the topic of extremism at the Ninestiles School for interpretation in a comparative experiment. Participants were divided into two groups to interpret the same part of the speech simultaneously. One group was tested with the audience's presence, and the other group was tested without. The variable introduced into the experiment was the condition of pressure, or the presence of audience versus absence of audience, referred to here as pressure. During both performances, the author observed and noted the process of interpretation and responses of the group to the audience's presence.cThe results were as follows. With certain amount of pressure, although the completeness and accuracy of the interpretation of the two groups were similar, there were differences. Without audience, interpreters tended to be constrained by the source text itself and gave more detailed translations, yet with less consistency. By contrast, the group with audience presence used strategies of adaptation more frequently, resulting in a more logical and concise performance. A questionnaire administered to the interpreters found that the presence of the audience results in a more accurate and direct interpretation in subsequent studies and the feedback provides more incentives for learning.Based on the information obtained in the study, the author concludes that the presence of audience affects the interpretation performance of trainees, and thus suggests utilizing the role of audience during interpretation training.