Tackling Numbers In C-E And E-C Consecutive Interpreting

As the bridge between two languages,interpreters play an indispensable role in the communication between the two parties.Number interpreting is an inevitable task for interpreters on many occasions.However,as numbers contain very concentrated information that features low redundancy,low repeatability,low predictability and low correlation,as well as different orders of magnitudes,it is quite a challenge for interpreters.For the purpose of exploring the similarities and differences between C-E(Chinese to English)and E-C(English to Chinese)consecutive interpreting during number interpreting,types of errors,and reasons for errors that may occur,an experiment was designed for ten subjects from the “Advanced Interpreting Program” at Shenzhen University.Two test texts(one in Chinese and the other in English)were selected which contained eight kinds of numbers as follows: Integers> 1000,Integers< 1000,Fractions,Decimals,Multiples,Proverbs with numbers,Temporal words and Ordinal numbers.The process of the experiment was recorded and transcribed for further analysis.In light of the Effort Models by Gile and based on the subjects’ self-reflections in the questionnaire and interview,the findings of the experiment are as follows:1.In general,the error rate of E-C number interpreting was higher than that of C-E number interpreting.2.The most common error type was omissions,followed by lexical mistakes and syntactical mistakes.There were no syntactical mistakes in E-C number interpreting.3.The most error-prone type of number was large integers,and in C-E,large integers had the highest error rate,followed by temporal words;while in E-C,proverbs with numbers had the highest error rates,followed by large integers.4.The methods of note-taking were different: In C-E,student interpreters were prone to use pinyin and Chinese characters to take notes of numbers,while in E-C,they tended to use English abbreviations.5.The reasons for the errors in the number interpreting of student interpreters included both subjective and objective factors.Subjective factors included improper effort allocation,unskilled conversion of Chinese and English numbers,slip of tongue,unfamiliarity with numbers,and being inactive/distracted at the moment.And objective factors were intensive textual/number information and the large difference in order of magnitudes between Chinese and English.6.According to interviews with student interpreters in this experiment,for number interpreting,there were online-interpreting strategies,including approximation,putting numbers first,and punctuation-marking;and preinterpreting strategies,including grid-drawing,and routine training.