A Frame Semantic Model For Consecutive Interpreting

This research attempts to propose a model for consecutive interpreting based on frame semantic insights and then apply this model to account for the translation errors in student interpreters' consecutive interpreting.Although Frame semantics of cognitive linguistics has stepped into the field of Translation studies,its potential is not fully tapped to help account for translating phenomena.From a frame semantic perspective,this research aims to depict a whole picture of how consecutive interpreting is done,what makes a successful interpreting performance and what characterizes an unsuccessful one.A new model of consecutive interpreting is proposed in this research to describe and explain interpreting process and performance based on frame semantic thoughts.Furthermore,on the basis of the new model,the present research tends to find out what kind of translation errors trainee interpreters usually commit and why they do so.This research is designed to be a combination of both quantitative and qualitative study.An experiment is conducted to collect first-hand linguistic data for analysis.Twelve student interpreters are invited to do a Chinese(A-language)to English(B-language)consecutive interpreting and the researcher transcribes their oral output after the experiment.The linguistic data are put into comparative analysis with the source text and official interpreter's rendition.The entire analysis of the data is laden with retrospective as well as introspective thoughts.This study has three major findings.First of all,consecutive interpreting can be described as a process of frame construction and frame deconstruction.Secondly,the interpreting process is not always going smoothly.Any mistake the interpreter makes during frame construction and deconstruction is represented in the target text produced.Another observation of this research is that student interpreters tend to make mistakes concerning word use,sentence structure and discourse cohesion and coherence.The implications for further interpreting research are that the interpreter plays a critical role in transmitting the frame of the source text intended by the speaker to the target audience and the linguistic errors the interpreter commit in producing the target text are only linguistic on the surface,but to the core,they are representations of the interpreter's conceptualization and cognitive work.