Challenges And Coping Strategies In Videoconference Interpreting

The material analyzed in this report is taken from the interpreting practice of the China-Aid training program that the author participated in.The project lasted for 15 days,with a total number of 73 participants from 11 developing countries.This report describes the background,requirements and profiles of the employed interpreter.Meanwhile,the process of pre-interpreting,on-site interpreting and post-interpreting is summarized.Furthermore,the report takes videoconference interpreting(VCI)as the research object,focusing analyzing of the challenges encountered in VCI and proposing feasible coping strategies.The main challenges in VCI can be attributed to two factors:space limitation and media limitation.Affected by the remote distance,interpreters are more likely to be ignored by the speakers,then being in face of problems such as prolix source text(ST)and inability to communicate with the speaker in unfamiliar terminologies in time;affected by media signals,interpreters often encounter the problem of information damage and information interruption when receiving the ST.Verschueren’s Theory of Linguistic Adaptability emphasizes that the interpreter should fully consider all the factors that may affect the understanding of the receiver,thus effectively conveying information to the receiver in a localized way.Therefore,after finishing the interpreting task,the author,on the basis of specific examples,summarizes the following strategies from the perspective of communicative context and linguistic context:(1)in terms of communicative context,attach greater importance to the mental world of language users,such as intentions,emotions,etc.to effectively deal with the problem of prolix ST and unfamiliar terminologies by using skills like information compressing and keyword extraction;(2)in terms of linguistic context,focus more on context cohesion,and adjust the logic of co-text appropriately when interpreting,depending on the specific situation.At the same time,in order to ensure the smooth progress of the video conference,the interpreter should also give full play to its role of presence,so that the smooth progress of the videoconference can be guaranteed.This report shows that it is necessary and feasible to attach full importance to communicative context and linguistic context when dealing with challenges in VCI.The author hopes that this report can enlighten student interpreters to perform better in similar interpreting practices in the future.