A Report On Mock C-E Simultaneous Interpreting Under Syntactic Linearity Principle

Since its debut at the Nuremberg Trials,simultaneous interpretation has been increasingly widely used in many important occasions,especially in international conferences.In simultaneous interpreting,the source language information is continuously flowing.The interpreter needs to listen to the source language and output in the target language,both of which need to be balanced.In order to save time and reduce the burden of short-term memory,interpreters generally adopt one of the golden principles in simultaneous interpretation-the principle of syntactic linearity.When using this principle,the interpreters will generally cut the long and difficult sentences into meaning groups,and then use certain skills to connect them.However,in Chinese-English simultaneous interpreting,due to the great differences between English and Chinese in terms of linguistic structure and cultural habit,even though it may not be too difficult to segment into meaning groups,it is quite difficult for some interpreters,especially entry-level interpreters,to achieve perfect cohesion and output in a form that is more in line with the norms of the target language.In this simulated practice of simultaneous interpreting,the author selects the 2021 CCTV Chinese documentary Transportation of China as the object of practice,and takes the principle of syntactic linearity as the basic guiding principle.The author focuses on analyzing the difficulties of proper cohesion after segmenting meaning groups in the process of Chinese-English simultaneous interpreting,and puts forward corresponding cohesion processing strategies.The author finds that when conducting Chinese-English simultaneous interpreting and using the principle of syntactic linearity,interpreters are prone to encounter the following problems: First,the word order of Chinese is different from that of English,especially the position of attributives and adverbials.The adjustment of word order is a significant obstacle to the use of syntactic linearity principle;Second,Chinese sentences are used to using multiple dynamic verbs to achieve hypotaxis,while English sentences prefer to use static verbs or non-predicates to achieve hypotaxis,and efforts to make the target language achieve hypotaxis will hinder the use of syntactic linearity principle;Third,active voice sentences are frequently used in Chinese,while passive voice sentences and sentences with no subject are frequently used in English.If the diversity of translated sentences cannot be achieved in Chinese-English simultaneous interpreting,the efficiency of syntactic linearity use will also be reduced.These difficulties will lead to interpreters being easily bound by the form of the source language,unable to smoothly connect and cohere after dividing the meaning groups of the source language,presenting a smooth and authentic target language.Based on the above situations,this paper puts forward corresponding countermeasures,requiring flexible use of domestication strategies in Chinese-English interpreting.To solve the problems of word order adjustment and hypotaxis,the author proposes that participle phrases,prepositional phrases,appositives and absolute structures can be flexibly used;To solve the problem of voice and sentence pattern,the author proposes to use the passive voice and formal subject sentences at the right time.The author finds that the above techniques are conducive to the use of the syntactic linearity principle in Chinese-English simultaneous interpreting,and can improve the fluency and authenticity of the translation,especially when encountering long and complex sentences.The personal experience of this interpreting practice could provide useful reference not only for the author’s future simultaneous interpreting practice,but also for other interpreters.