Conference Interpreting Quality Assessment - A Comparative Study Of Monologic Mode And Dialogic Mode

With the rapid process of economic globalization in recent decades, international conference has witnessed its unprecedented active engagement in china. Despite the great demand for conference interpreting, China’s research on conference interpreting is far from meeting demands, lagging far behind western countries both in quality and in quantity. Studying quality assessment from the perspective of communication is relatively new area, while so far, systematic empirical studies concerning the quality of conference interpreting from the perspective of communication is badly lacking.Dividing conference interpreting situations into two distinct modes: monologic mode and dialogic mode, the author employs Hymes’theory of communication and Bélanger’s“questions-programmes”communication model as theoretical guidance to study two cases: a business negotiating meeting (typically dialogic mode) and conference interpreting of a welcome speech (typically monologic mode), probing into their two modes’interpreting quality and assessment model. The results and discussion from both case study and the survey answer three research questions: What difference do monologic mode and dialogic mode interpreting possess and how do these differences influence the assessment of interpreting quality? What are the differences between the interpretation users’expectations towards monologic mode and dialogic mode respectively? Why? How should the two modes interpreting be assessed differently according to the author’s research?Analyzing the two cases from perspective of Hymes’communication theory, the author finds that the setting and scene, the participants, the purposes-outcomes and the purposes-goals, the key, the channels, the form of speech, the norms of interaction and interpretation, and the genres in the two modes are all different, these factors should be taken into consideration in quality assessment. Because of the different communication factors and communication effects involved, the two mode’s assessment standards should also be different.Applying Bélanger’s“questions-programmes”communication model to study the same two cases, the author finds that the seven communication factors listed in the“questions-programmes”are all different in the two modes, which proves the hypothesis that different communication contexts bring about different interpretation tasks. The communication purposes, objects, channels and effects involved in an interpretation changes with the interpretation tasks and have changing requirements. Interpreting quality assessment should focus on the interpreter’s professional competence of recognizing various tasks, adapting to the communication context, applying linguistic knowledge and employing necessary communication strategies to achieve the required communication effects, thus fulfill the interpretation task.The results of the questionnaire shows that users of the two modes have different expectations towards the separate 8 assessment criteria items investigated, and their ranks different too, this further proves the above two case’s research results that interpretation, with different tasks under different contexts, the user’s expectation varies and the quality assessment standard should change correspondingly.From the results of the case study and the user expectation survey, concerning the factors affecting quality assessment, the author derives two models for the two interpreting modes assessment. With the results of the empirical study serving as guidance for interpretation evaluation practice, the thesis intends to provide information for professional practitioner, as well as throw some light on both interpretation teaching and practice. And it may help to pave the way for further researches on coping strategies and assessment model in conference interpreting.