An Empirical Study On Self-repairs In English-Chinese Sight Translation

This thesis attempts to examine self-repairs in sight translation through an empirical study.In order to achieve this objective,the following four research questions are proposed: 1.Can Level's(1983)structure of self-repairs be modified in some way to better fit ST? 2.Can Petite's(2005)taxonomy of self-repairs in interpreting be modified in some way to include the many different types of repairs that often occur in ST? 3.What is the feature of the distribution of self-repairs that occur in student interpreters' English-Chinese ST? 4.What are the factors that cause such repairs?First,a theoretical framework is established that combines the definition of self-repairs,the structure of self-repairs,the taxonomy of self-repairs and the Effort Model.This framework lays a foundation for the empirical experiment that will be carried out in the study.Then,based on the theoretical framework,an empirical study is conducted involving 15 student interpreters asked to do a ST task and finish a retrospective questionnaire under close observation.The recording is transcribed and analyzed,from which several major conclusions are drawn.1.Student interpreters do demonstrate certain propensity for different types of repairs during ST: D-repairs,especially input-generated D-repairs,dominate among all kinds of repairs,followed by R-repairs which they also frequently make;as for A-repairs,outputgenerated A-repairs prevail;finally,E-repairs are rare in their translation.2.When the interpreter has made the decision to make repairs yet has not come up how s/he is going to repair,s/he is more likely to use editing words.In comparison,when the interpreter has made simpler mistakes such as phonetic and syntactic mistakes in their mother tongue,s/he is more likely to repair such repairs more quickly and straightforwardly without the use of editing words.Finally,some pedagogical implications and limitations of this study are presented at the end of the thesis.