The Form Of Consecutive Interpreters' Notes:Its Effect On Interpreting Quality

In consecutive interpreting,interpreters take notes while listening to the speaker.When the speaker pauses,interpreters express faithfully the meaning ofthe source text in the target language.In this process,notes are essential tools for interpreters.They enable interpreters to better understand and memorize the structure and content of the source text,so as to facilitate smooth interpreting.In this research,the form of notes is divided into six categories,namely,Chinese phrases,Chinese characters,English words,English acronyms,symbols and finishing signs.I collected data from experiments and interviews,and made qualitative and quantitative analysis based on these data,to explore the relationship between the form of notes and interpreting quality.The subjects included six students at a graduate school of translation and interpreting.They were asked to interpret a passage from Chinese to English with the help of notes,and then were interviewed briefly.In analyzing the data,I looked at each form of notes in terms of the number of appearances,and rated the subjects' interpreting performance.I painted scatter diagrams for a vivid look at the relationship between the form of notes and interpreting performance,and used SPSS to calculate the Pearson coefficient for precise correlation between each group of variables.The results showed that,the number of Chinese characters was negatively correlated with interpreting quality,but overall,there was little correlation between the form of notes and interpreting quality;the more Chinese and the less English there was on the notes,the better the interpreting was;what interpreters noted down would not necessarily translate to what they spoke about.The findings indicated that,instead of focusing too much on note-taking,interpreters should concentrate more on understanding the source text and expressing its meaning in the target language;interpreters were advised to take notes in the target language,if such effort did not impede their interpreting.