Conference Interpreting Coping Tactics From The Cognitive Perspective: A Case Study

This thesis emerged from the author's curiosity and reflection after practicing interpreting.The conference interpreting job in this case happened accidently and the interpreter never thought she was qualified to interpret at an international conference interpreting but she did it.This surprised her a lot and caused her to rethink how she did it.Together with a literature review,the author describes the development of interpreting strategy and coping tactics research and arrives at several main interpreting strategy and coping tactics through a process of induction.Based on Daniel Gile's Efforts Model and Tightrope Hypothesis,the thesis focuses on the following questions:1.What factors influence the interpreter's performance?2.How does the interpreter allocate her attention?3.What interpreting coping tactics does the interpreter choose and how do they work?According to the author's analysis and reflection she finds that there are both internal and external factors which have great impact on the interpreter's allocation of attention and that the three interpreting standards,smoothness,fluency,and accuracy,will change during the interpreting process.The choice of coping tactics is guided by the goal of sustaining the smoothness of the conference.This goal awareness will help and support the interpreter to deal with the crisis emerging from the interpreting process.This thesis belongs to an explorative research as the thesis explores the basic skills and qualities necessary for a good interpreter.