Impact Of ASEAN English On Consecutive Interpreting

As more and more ASEAN countries join the “Belt and Road” Initiative,non-governmental exchanges between China and ASEAN countries are becoming increasingly close,and the two sides have reached a new momentum through negotiations in various fields.However,due to large differences in languages and the low penetration rate of ASEAN countries' languages,representatives of ASEAN countries often choose to speak in English.Chinese-English translators serve to facilitate cross-cultural communication.The accent and language variation of ASEAN English challenge interpreters in terms of listening and analysis capacity,which may hinder the interpreting performance as well as the cooperation process.The report is based on the author's interpreting for a meeting between the managerial staff of Sina Corp.and the China-ASEAN Centre media delegation.The author illustrates “very strong accent” of ASEAN English and its language variation on phonetic and grammatical level with example sentences extracted from the transcript.Accordingly,following the Effort Models of Daniel Gile,the author explores the internal reasons for the influence of ASEAN English on interpreter's performance.And it is found that ASEAN English increases energy requirements for interpreters in listening and analysis process,exceeding the translator's available mental resources and leading to defeats in accuracy,consistency and fluency.Finally,the author puts forward some strategies for dealing with ASEAN English in interpreting,including keeping an open mind towards language variation diversity,and obtaining more exposure to authentic ASEAN English in and after class.