Strategies For Active Listening In Consecutive Interpreting From The Perspective Of Discourse Analysis

With globalization and the more important role China plays currently,interpreting has already become a very popular profession with more attentionattached to interpretation theory. However, no matter from theory or practice, Chinastill needs to catch up. The study on interpreting is still about empirical theory basedon practice and teaching, covering the features and principles of interpreting, as wellas qualifications for interpreter and teaching methods. Most books on interpretingfocus mainly on memory training, note-taking, reproduction and analysis, rather thanlistening skills in consecutive interpreting.However,“listening” is a very important process in interpreting, also a weak partfor interpreters. Listening in consecutive interpreting is very special, professional andcomplicated which is called “active listening” combining listening, analyzing andmemorizing. Unlike other listening methods, active listening is aiming to helpinterpreter form a good thinking pattern and to enable them to analyze information,capture the message within short period and to memorize selectively and effectively.From the perspective of “discourse analysis”, the thesis studies active listening inconsecutive interpreting to help the interpreter figure out “what to listen”,“how tolistening”, and “how to analyze”. The purpose of discourse analysis is to help theinterpreter better analyze information and logic of the source language and try tocatch the speaker’s underlying intention. By elaborating on the features of discourseanalysis, including coherence, cohesion, intentionality, acceptability, situationality,informativity and intertextuality, the author studies the inspiration for active listeningfrom the perspective of discourse analysis, covering how to better analyze discourselogic, grasp the more important message and understand the deeper meaning of thesource language. In the end, the author focuses on the general training of activelistening and specific strategies including “top-down” discourse analysis, as well asidentifying different discourse structure, typical clue and more important information.