An Interpreting Practice Report On Training Course For Ethiopia On Smallholders Irrigation Development And Management

This report is based on the author's interpreting experience during the Training Course for Ethiopia on Smallholders Irrigation Development and Management in August,2018.Based on schema theory,this report reviews the author's pre-task preparation from the perspectives of linguistic schema,content schema and formal schema,and tries to explore the influence of pre-task preparation on interpretation performance.Schema originally is a philosophical theory,explaining the psychological process of cognitive psychology.According to theory,the knowledge structure previously acquired is called the schema.Pre-task preparation is to obtain more new knowledge or information within a limited time,which is crucial for the following interpretation performance.Various studies have found that pre-task preparation helps to form schemata stored in the brain of interpreters,facilitate comprehending the speech and improve interpretation performance.The report analyzes some examples from the transcript and finds that adequate pre-task preparation might bring some positive effects on interpreting performance.The benefits of schema on interpretation are presented in 1)getting familiar with the accent;2)selecting proper words for terms and 3)predicting the following content and form.Generally speaking,pre-task preparation could help to ease the burden of short-term memory and improve the comprehension of the input and accuracy of the output.However,when the interpreter ignored certain aspects or did not have a thorough and detailed preparation,he or she would miss some important schemata and waste time in assimilating new schemata,thus cannot deliver an ideal performance.The negative influence of schema mainly lies in two aspects:1)aggravating the interpreter's difficulty in dealing with emergencies;2)distracting interpreter's attention when the glossary limits his or her thinking.