Coping Tactics For Modifiers In English-Chinese Consecutive Interpretation

Modifiers are important ways of expression in both English and Chinese,playing the role of supplementary explanation for the modified word.In English-Chinese consecutive interpreting,modifiers do not affect the conveyance of the main ideas in most cases,but they have a key impact on the precise and effective communication of the information.Therefore,how to correctly cope with modifiers is a task that cannot be ignored by the interpreter.When facing different source texts,interpreters should adopt different strategies to handle modifiers.This article first gives the definition of modifiers and the challenges they pose to interpreters,and then launches a case study based on the author’s actual interpreting experience,a mock conference themed “Refugee crisis amid covid-19”.The case analysis discusses how the author dealt with modifiers in English-Chinese consecutive interpretation,focusing on the problems of improper handling and related causes.In this case,the problems mainly include: information loss,misuse of superlatives,and semantic deviation.Through comprehensive analysis of source speech,interpreted speech and the actual interpreting environment,the author attributes the causes of the problems to four reasons: insufficient source language analysis,unsuccessful memorizing and note-taking,poor expression habits,and limited knowledge of certain words.Finally,to solve the problem of improper handling of modifiers,the author proposes countermeasures at the pre-translation stage,the listening stage,the note-taking stage and the output stage.