An Analysis Of The Interpreter's While-interpreting Weighing Of "Credibility" And "Acceptability"

This practice report aims to analyze the interpreter's while-interpreting weighing of“credibility” and “acceptability”.The analysis is assisted by a self-assessment of interpreting quality using information units based on a corpus of an English-to-Chinese consecutive interpreting task during the author's internship at the Office of China Affairs,University of Maryland.“Credibility” and “acceptability” are two classic quality-related standards.“Credibility”makes interpreting meaningful.“Acceptability” makes it pleasant.In some cases,they can be achieved concurrently and promote each other.In other,they are in a trade-off relationship.When the two are in a trade-off relationship,according to the author's findings,there can be another two types of situation:(1)When “credibility” can be restored without damaging“acceptability”,the interpreter is willing to sacrifice certain level of the latter.(2)When the attempt to restore “credibility” can risk badly injuring “acceptability”,if not more,the interpreter will move on.The balancing between “credibility” and “acceptability” reveals a tendency under certain constraints.But it does not mean a complete divorce from the other.This balancing,most of the time,takes place during,but not before the interpreting.