Barriers And Strategies In Technical Interpreting:a Project Report On A Pilot Project By TPP In Nanjing

A pilot project by The Phoenix Partnership, a British healthcare software company was carried out in 2014 in the Community Health Center of Getang Street in Nanjing. The reporter worked as an interpreter in May and the interpreting content was centered on its innovative medical software—SystmOne. In the course of the technical interpreting, the reporter came across internal and external barriers. Internal barriers involved lack of technical expertise about medical and computer science, poor psychological qualities and lack of flexibility in case of emergency while external barriers included different accents and dialects of speakers and cultural differences. The reporter puts forward four feasible coping strategies. First of all, adequate preparation must be made before technical interpreting. The cognitive concept "field dependence" can be applied to describe the relationship between technical expertise and technical terminology and technical terminology should not be memorized independently. Secondly, interpreters should improve psychological qualities, especially by communications with speakers, technical experts and colleagues to reduce stress. Thirdly, interpreters should adopt necessary emergency strategies. The reporter proposes four solutions to unfamiliar terminologies—"ask", "guess", "skip" and "read". Taking advantage of tools such as technical sketches and charts is also an effective strategy in technical interpreting. Lastly, Interpreters also need to enhance cross-cultural communication competence from different channels. The report provides four effective solutions to resolve the major obstacles the reporter met as a technical interpreter and the research results will enrich relevant studies about technical interpreting.