A Feasibility Study Of Applying Visualization Of Source Information Without Notes In Short Consecutive Interpreting

Short-term memory(STM)forms a critical part of interpreting training and is therefore frequently mentioned in interpreting textbooks.This research focuses on one of the STM training approaches:visualization.The study's purpose is to find an effective and efficient short-term mnemonics that can be applied to all types of interpreting materials.Visualization is often referred to in related literatures as an assistant method for note-taking or a makeshift approach in early training stage.The research,however,aims to study visualization as a sole mnemonics(without note-taking)and to discuss its application in short consecutive interpreting(maximum one minute).The research is based on an experiment involoving eight students ramdonly chosen from the two hundred students in the Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation,Beijing Foreign Studies University.Each of the examinees did two consecutive interpreting excersices,using note-taking approach and visualization respectively.The examinees were interviewed on an individual basis after the excersices.With all the data collected,I evaluated the interpreters' performance and translations according to the on-site records.It is concluded that note-taking can help avoid missing information but does not guarantee consistency or logic.Visualization,on the other hand,impels interpreters to select key information and seek the underlying logic of speeches.The translations made in the visualization experiment proved to be more succinct and idiomatic than those in the note-taking experiment.But there were also cases in which visualization without note-taking resulted in sudden losses of memory.The interpreters wholly dependent on visualization also found it hard to remember abstract information.Upon careful study of the reasons behind visualization-related problems,I reached the conclusion that most of the interpreting problems that emerged during the visualization experiment were due to a lack of visualization training and can therefore be solved with longer training period.And it is quite gratifying to find that visualization is also applicable to different styles of speeches.In short,it is technically feasible to apply visualization in short consecutive interpreting without taking notes on the basis of systematic training and practices.