The Influence Of Spoken Language On Interpretation

This thesis is divided into five parts: Introduction, Review of Literature, A Brief Introduction of Interpretation, Spoken Language vs. Interpretation and Conclusion.The writer mainly reviews two books: Danica Seleskovitch's 《口译技巧》and Bao Gang's 《口译理论概述》. The authors discuss briefly the issue that is the influence spoken language has upon Interpretation in their own books. The present writer agrees with them on most of the points. She purports that spoken language exerts enormous influence over the interpreter and the process of interpreting. It is essential to explicate this issue. Unfortunately, the above two scholars do not discuss it in detail, and do not give enough examples to explicate their opinions. As a result, the writer tries to explain her understanding of and shares her study on this issue with the aid of some examples.The writer discusses briefly her classification of Interpretation in part Ⅲ. The same speech delivered by the same speaker and interpreted by the same the interpreter can result in different texts of interpretation, if the interpreter is required to conduct different types of Interpretation. The writer classifies Interpretation into Consecutive Interpretation and Simultaneous Interpretation. Consecutive Interpretation is further divided into LA→LB Interpretation and LA←→LB Interpretation. On the other hand, Simultaneous Interpretation is classified into Whispering Interpretation and Numerous-audience Interpretation. The writer also explains the reason of classification. Afterwards, the writer explicates her understanding of the process of Interpretation. Receiving the information is first step of the process of Interpretation. How does the interpreter decode the meaning of the speaker? If the speaker commits errors in his speech, how can the mistakes impede the interpreter? Without describing the process of Interpretation in her point of view, the writer finds it difficult to explicate the next issue, which is the major part of the thesis.Part Ⅳ touches upon the impact that spoken language has on Interpretation. Spoken language has its own characteristics. Some of them help the interpreter and some obstruct him from interpreting accurately. The writer divides the influence positive influence and negative influence. The writer places stress on the negative impact that spoken language exerts on Interpretation. The two authors do not elaborate on this issue. Even if they do discuss the influence the grammatical errors, omissions and other phenomena typical of spoken language have upon the interpreter, they provide few examples, which can help the readership to understand their viewpoints. In this thesis, the present writer discusses this issue by giving many examples. The writer lists three features of spoken language: form of language, the occasion of spoken language used and the defects of swift communication and explicates the influence they have upon the interpreter and his interpretation respectively.