Strategies For Maintaining Fluency In E-C Simultaneous Interpreting

Fluency has always been one of the key factors determining the quality of output in simultaneous interpreting.This study tries to find out what strategies professional interpreters use in simultaneous interpreting from English to Chinese so as to keep the output fluent.In this study,9 press conferences held by the European Central Bank,along with their Chinese interpretation by 3 different interpreters(3 speeches for each interpreter),are analyzed to fulfill this purpose.The original speeches and their interpretation are compared with each other to summarize what strategies interpreters have adopted in the interpreting process to maintain the fluency of the output.By analyzing the data and discussing the result,this study argues that four interpreting strategies,including simplification,omission of less important information,segmentation and chunking,and use of neutral padding expressions,are used by professional interpreters to maintain fluency.These strategies can be explained with Gile's Effort Models.Three of the four strategies,including simplification,omission of less important information,segmentation and chunking,are intended to reduce the effort spent on “memory”(M),thus more effort can be spent on “production”(P),making it easier for interpreters to keep their output fluent.On the other hand,the use of neutral padding expressions is aimed at reducing the effort on “production”(P)so that more effort can be spent on “listening and analysis”(L).