Strategies For Note-taking In Consecutive Interpretation Of Specialized Interviews

Specialized interview is a speech type with the features of high speed of delivery,high density of information,the complexity of grammar and expression,and the lack of topic sentences and logical links.The speaker may also talk for a very long time before s/he pauses and invites interpretation.These factors all pose challenges to the interpreters.Using Peter Thiel's ECNY interview as an example,this paper points out some commonly found note-taking problems caused by the factors listed above and proposes some strategies for the interpreters to take notes more efficiently.Commonly found note-taking problems include the loss of information,insufficient processing of information,unrecognizable notes and lack of logical signs.The loss of information may be attributed to noting down redundant signs or trivial information or processing too slowly.These commonly found problems in note-taking also suggest that something went wrong during the comprehension and analyzing phase.To make note-taking more efficient,some tactics are discussed in the paper.The interpreter should find a simpler way to take notes,for example,by using simpler symbols or using reference lines to refer to what's already mentioned instead of writing everything once again.This way,the time and energy saved can be redistributed so as to reinforce the stage of comprehension and analyzing,and the interpreter is less likely to lag behind too much.The interpreter should also rely less on notes,based on a full view of what the speaker is trying to say instead of paying too much attention to details.The Interpreter needs to determine which points are more important than other ones.If it is impossible to remember everything,the interpreter has to decide what to leave out so that information that is more important can be remembered.Noting in target language is also a way to force the interpreter to pay more attention in comprehension.Apart from these tactics,in the long term,interpreters should improve their language abilities and acquire more background knowledge,which can increase their speed of processing and reduce the amount of unknown information,making note-taking more effective and efficient.