The Causes Of Improper Pauses In Chinese-to-french Consecutive Interpreting And The Coping Strategies

Pauses are very common in consecutive interpretation.The pauses that interrupt the flow of speech and compromise the fluency of the target language are the improper pauses.Improper pauses weaken the information integrity and the fluency of the target language,cause misunderstanding in the audience.Thus,the interpreter’s self-confidence decreases.This kind of pauses should be avoided and overcome.This paper takes the simulation conference of the 4th Annual Sino-French Artificial Intelligence Cooperation and Exchange Scholars Symposium as a case to discuss the phenomena and causes of improper pauses in Chinese-French consecutive interpretation,and tries to propose countermeasures.After analysis,the improper pauses in the case include silent pauses,filled pauses,repetitions,repairs and false starts.The reasons for these improper pauses include insufficient notetaking effectiveness,insufficient Chinese-French bilingual ability,and inappropriate use of interpretation strategies.In response to the improper pauses in the case,the author puts forward four strategies,namely,improving the note-taking system,exercising active thinking,improving the language level,and improving the professional quality of translators.This article will provide some reference for student interpreters who encounter the same problem.