The Effect Of Background Knowledge On English-chinese Consecutive Interpreting

Every interpreter desires to improve the quality of their interpreting. A series of researches have been done in this field, covering topics including interpreting skills,interpreting training and teaching as well as interpreting quality assessment.However, factors that influence interpreting quality are complex and varied.Basically it can be categorized into two groups: linguistic factors referring to linguistic competence and extra-linguistic factors including encyclopedic knowledge and psychological aptitude. Often Interpreters’ linguistic competence is the main focus of the interpreting studies while the importance of extra-linguistic knowledge is quite often neglected.This paper is an interpreting practice report. By taking the interpreting task that the author has done for the promotion of Floating Farm(farming built on the water)as an example, this report aims to describe the entire interpreting process in the Floating Farm Project Promotion and analyze the impact of background knowledge on interpreting from three aspects: language accuracy, language completeness and language fluency. Schema Theory and Gile’s Comprehension Equation Theory are adopted as theoretical basis. In addition to proving the conducive role that background knowledge plays in consecutive interpreting and emphasizing the importance of accumulating background knowledge for interpreters, this report is also intended to put forward some suggestions on how to improve interpreters’ background knowledge for a better performance in interpreting.