The Effects Of Attention Distribution

Simultaneous interpretation is a highly demanding interlinguistic cognitive activity. According to Effort Models proposed by Gile, interpreters should handle listening and analysis, memory as well as production. Cognitive psychology research also demonstrates that a series of interacted skills are called upon when interpreters deal with complex information process.To realize multi-tasking and simultaneity, interpreters’ attention has to be distributed to listening, speaking and self-monitoring. Meanwhile, interpreters should get rid of disturbances by maximizing concentration. Otherwise, interpreting quality and interpreters’ performance would be affected, such as loss of information, errors of understanding even the irregular utterance speed and tone.Therefore, attention-distribution is of vital importance for a novice interpreter to tackle the problems he or she faces in an on-the-spot simultaneous interpreting. Problems caused by attention-distribution and improvement methods will be discussed. Moreover, suggestions are also made to improve the current simultaneous interpretation training methods.