A Case Study On Pre-task Preparation And Simultaneous Interpreting Quality

Interpreting is a highly demanding cross-cultural activity which requires excellent ability of listening,thinking and re-expressing.During this process,sufficient pre-task preparation could significantly enhance the quality of simultaneous interpreting(SI).This case analysis is based on the author's simultaneous interpreting practice at The 1st Working Group Meeting of SNAP: The Economics of the Chinese Ivory Trade.This meeting aims to find out the economic incentives and impacts of the ivory trade,and to work out corresponding policy suggestions to the government and the society as a whole.The author made the SI practice as an intern interpreter of this meeting.After the meeting,through transcribing the source language and the interpretation into written texts,the author found out that besides some successful points,she had made many mistakes in her interpretation,and that the lack of pre-task preparation was a critical reason to the problems.In this report,the author evaluates her performance by studying the transcript and analyzes the importance of pre-task preparation in SI and gives suggestions to doing so.This report will also serve as an important reminder of how to improve one's interpreting performance.