The Application Of Subjectivity Consciousness In Telephone Interpreting

Liaison interpreting,one of the most widely adopted forms of interpreting,has been studied from various aspects including interpreters'subjectivity consciousness.An interpreter with subjectivity consciousness is usually able to act as an active participant in interpreting and perform subjective initiative during the process.However,telephone interpreting,a type of remote liaison interpreting,has seldom been explored from this perspective.Therefore,based on her experience of telephone interpreting,the author aims to explore how subjectivity consciousness can be applied in telephone interpreting.This report is based on the author's volunteer interpreting practice for Shanghai Cooperation Organization(SCO)Qingdao Summit in 2018.In her practice,with the application of subjectivity consciousness to telephone interpreting,some practical problems were solved and interpretation quality was improved.More specifically,the author's practice largely benefited from the adoption of the three main components of subjectivity consciousness,namely,visibility,empowerment,and non-neutrality.Visibility consciousness enabled the author to act as gatekeeper,co-interlocutor and mediator of the information,largely improving the communication efficiency.Empowerment consciousness helped the author to protect clients' rights and interests.Under the guidance of non-neutrality consciousness,the author chose to tilt to the weaker side appropriately when she found there was an unequal position among participants in the dialogue.Thus,the author confirmed that subjectivity consciousness could also exert positive influence on telephone interpreting.However,it was different from its use in on-spot interpreting in that telephone interpreters have no idea about the non-verbal information of the interlocutors.Therefore,the author adopted verbal and non-verbal means to compensate for lack of visual information,such as adding proper information and adjusting some means of expression.At the end of the report,the author proposed some suggestions in the context of telephone interpreting for enlightenment of other telephone interpreters.