Preparation For Consecutive Interpretation For A Tech Company

This thesis is a detailed description of the preparation work that the author had experienced herself in an interpretation task for a tech firm.The preparation is broken down into advance preparation and last minute preparation based on Gile’s analysis of how to prepare before a task.Through the review of her advance preparation,the author analyzed the problems she identified in her practice based on Zhang Wei’s quality assessment criteria for technical interpretations: term accuracy,information completeness and fluency.The analysis found that despite the disproportionate amount of time devoted to term preparation,the author still failed to come up with the correct translation of some words,resulting in the loss of information and reduced accuracy.The author also found that it is not easy to interpret when a speaker speaks in his second language,which is the language the interpreter was supposed to interpret into,in the mix while delivering the bulk of his speech in the speaker’s native tongue.By pointing out these problems,the author hopes that other interpreters can foresee the possibility of such problems in their future tasks.But the author believes it is best for the interpreter to know the speaker’s speech habit first.Finally,as a trainee interpreter,the author wasn’t flexible enough and there were many repetitions in her interpretation;had she been more flexible,she could have reduced the redundancies and delivered a more smooth interpretation.It is no doubt that preparation is indeed crucial for any task,technical meeting in particular.But the author has noticed that an equal amount of attention should also be paid to other aspects of preparation other than technical terms,like trying to understand more about the inner workings of the relevant technology and,if possible,to learn about the speech habits of speakers involved.