The Impact Of Text Availability On Interpreter's Performance In E-C Consecutive Interpreting

This paper aims to find out whether text availability will impact interpreter's performance in English-Chinese consecutive interpreting, what those impacts are, if there is any, and why these impacts exist. The author finds that there are many studies related to interpretation quality assessment and factors that influence interpreters' performance, but the study of text availability is confined to simultaneous interpreting.In order to fill the void, the author invites 22 students from GSTI, Beijing Foreign Studies University, all of whom have received 1.5 years' professional training, to participate in a controlled experiment. The author scores the performance based on five criteria -- loyalty, delivery, language use, time and skills, and finds that interpreters with text score higher in information completeness, but lower in the rest of the criteria.The author then analyses the results in light of information processing model and with the help of a questionnaire in order to identify the inner causes of the difference in interpreters' performance. The author believes that differences in the three stages of information input, processing and output result in the performance disparity.