Interpreting For Non-Native English Speakers With Strong Accents

Comprehension,as the first step of interpreting,directly influences the quality of language output.There are many factors that are relevant to comprehension,among which Accent holds an indisputably major position.The increasingly common appearance of Accented English may cause serious troubles to interpreters in their practice.In this case,studying the impacts of Accented English to interpreting is of special importance.On the other hand,previous studies about Accent tend to pay more attention on its phonetic unfamiliarity compared to standard tones;the compounding factors of Accent,like its grammatical,stylistic and lexical features,are somewhat understated.Therefore,in this report,the concept of “Accent” majorly refers to phonetical deviation,and its compounding factors are grammatically and lexically non-standard forms of English.They are all caused by the influences of the first languages of non-native English speakers.This thesis is a report aiming to study the Accent of non-native English speaker and its compounding factors,analyze their impacts to interpreting in a broad sense,and explore feasible coping strategies of the problem.It is based on the author's Consecutive Interpreting experience on The International Summit of City Renovation and the Opening Ceremony of the Journey of Design under the Beijing Design Week 2019 on September 4th,2019.The speakers,a German and an Italian,spoke in English but with strong Accents,which caused great troubles to my comprehension.This report uses the transcript of this practice as material and Peter Newmark's Communicative Translation Theory as guidance,to expound the concept of Accent,list the problems,and make case studies to find out strategies for coping with the compounding factors of non-native English Accents,which are always focusing on the intentions of the speakers,having more Accented speeches in everyday practices,and being concise in the output.The author hopes that this report can provide some useful suggestions,or even inspirations to other interpreting practitioners and learners in coping with different Accents.