The Role Of Schemata In Anticipation: An Empirical Study In C-E Simultaneous Interpreting

"Human languages are by their very nature’imprecise’, fuzzy: they have to be, in order that we can talk about unlimited phenomena, in unlimited situations,(and) to unlimited numbers of addressees..."--Chesterman, Mems of TranslationIn simultaneous interpreting, interpreters often handle speeches that are technical or even interdisciplinary. The meaning of words cannot be established without background schemata, which relate new information with old ones. Therefore, background schemata play a crucial role in simultaneous interpreting.Anticipation is a tactic as well as useful tool in simultaneous interpreting. Effective use of this tactic can help interpreters better process input information and relieve the burden on their working memory.This paper first explains schemata as a theory and anticipation as a tactic, and then analyzes the relationship between schemata and anticipation through further classification. Finally, this paper examines the relationship between schemata and anticipation through experiments. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results proves that the establishment of background schemata is conducive to both linguistic and extra-linguistic anticipation. In addition, it also increases the accuracy of anticipation. This experiment also demonstrates that background schemata can improve interpreters’ performance by enhancing the integrity and accuracy of interpreters’ output. Comprehensive analysis of all data items shows a positive correlation between the amount of relevant background schemata and the rate of anticipation. Besides, interpreters’ performance is affected by overall language competence as well. It is recomended that interpreters be fully prepared before a simultaneous interpreting task and pay more attention to the accumulation of knowledge so as to improve their performance.