An Empirical Study Of Audience’s Expectation And Evaluation Of Sci-tech Simultaneous Interpretation Quality

In recent decades,interpreting studies have been experiencing an ever-growing interest in the issue of interpreting quality,both in academia and in professional circles.Users’ expectations and evaluations already become a significant part of quality in interpretation.More scientific researches in this field have appeared and studies on this issue have been conducted from more comprehensive and scientific perspectives.Empirical studies and research methods,especially on audience’s expectations and evaluations of interpreting quality during the past decades,have produced valuable findings both at home and abroad,shedding light upon further research and discussions on this issue.The present study is an experimental research based on a simulated conference,which is carried out with 9 experienced student interpreters and 10 general student audience.The subjects are asked to attend a simulated conference,complete a questionnaire,and answer questions in follow-up interviews about their expectation and evaluation of interpretation quality.Achievements and research findings of previous studies in this field are reviewed and discussed in advance to lay a good foundation for further research and focus on quality in sci-tech interpreting from the perspective of audience.Data and information are collected,and results are analyzed using Excel and SPSS to find out differences and similarities in expectations and feedback from the two different audience groups.Data show that student interpreters have slightly lower expectations on some content criteria and slightly higher expectations on some formal criteria.They also have both higher overall evaluation and relatively higher evaluation of most criteria than general student audience.Results indicate that there are discrepancies in expectations and evaluations toward interpreting quality,among which the expectation for completeness and evaluation of grammar and fluency are most noticeable.Some similarities in the two groups are also disclosed,among which the expectation for fluency and evaluation of formality are distinct.It is hoped that the research will prompt further studies and discussions on this issue,and the results and findings may shed light on student interpreters to improve their performance and provide more user-oriented and audience-friendly interpreting services.