Coherence In Consecutive Interpretation

Coherence is what gives a paragraph a meaning structure. In consecutiveinterpretation, there is time for interpreters to grasp and then reorganize the coherencewithin the text or sentence. And the handling of coherence greatly influences the quality ofinterpreters’delivery.Cohesion is the basis of coherence in a text. Therefore this paper focuses specially ontwo categories of cohesions: reference and conjunction. Based on the English to Chineseconsecutive interpretation at the mock conference on security, this paper analyses thecauses of the absence of coherence in the delivery, i.e. complicated sentence structures,inefficiency in note-taking, and the lack of background information. Three coping tacticsare suggested respectively: to practice restructuring sentences with subordinate clauses; toimprove note-taking skills; to be fully prepared before taking any interpretation task.In summary, this paper is meant to help interpreters better handle the coherence inEnglish to Chinese interpreting so as to improve the overall performances.