An Empirical Study On The Effects Of Linguistic Mistakes Of The Source Speech On The Quality Of Chinese-English Simultaneous Interpretation

Interpreters frequently encounter linguistic mistakes in Chinese source speeches in their field practices.Many mistakes fall into the following four categories—incomplete sentences,misused logic markers,and misused collocations.Taking Daniel Gile's Effort Models as theoretical basis,this thesis discusses the impact of aforementioned linguistic mistakes on the performance of Chinese-English simultaneous interpretation,if the impact is the same for all mistakes,how these mistakes affect the interpreting process,and coping strategies for interpreters.16 second-year interpreting students from the Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation at Beijing Foreign Studies Universities,all Chinese natives,were asked to participate in a controlled experiment consisting of three parts.They were first tested for listening comprehension,then shadowing,and lastly Chinese-English simultaneous interpreting.All of them were interviewed after the experiment.Quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed to answer the proposed questions.The study concludes that the 4 types of linguistic mistakes in Chinese source speeches negatively affect the performance of simultaneous interpreting.Misused logic markers caused the biggest deterioration of the participants'performance,followed by incomplete sentences.To minimize the negative impact,this thesis recommends adopting longer Ear-Voice Span,expanding background knowledge and repeated exercises targeted at improving the ability to process problematic speeches.