A Psycholinguistic Analysis Of Memory In Interpreting And Its Implications For MTI Programmes

Interpreting is an integrated activity that can be approached from manyperspectives, among which psycholinguistics is a perfectly legitimate one. The authorhypothesized that a psycholinguistic investigation into memory in interpreting canprovide both students and trainers with some insights into the complex works they aredoing and the ways to improve their performance.The author hopes to spell out some common myths about memory in interpretingclasses, and gives alternative explanations for these misunderstandings. The analysesof memory in interpreting provided in this paper have indicated that the improvementof the interpreting performance relies on the continuous increase of interpreters’explicit knowledge of languages and the world in general as well as the automaticityof certain interpreting procedures.The accumulation of these skills requires time and commitment, on the basis ofan accurate analysis of memory in interpreting and proper assessments of students’performance, and these two should receive more emphases in the MTI programmes.