A Study On Retrieval During Consecutive Interpreting

Interpreting study has undergone 50 plus years of development. However, the domain of its working process, attention distribution in particular, is still blemished by a lack of in-depth study and full-fledged theories. During study and practice, the author found that if retrieval, or the activity of thinking up translation, can happen in note-taking stage instead of production stage, then interpreting quality will noticeably improve in terms of its fluency and accuracy. However, theories both at home and abroad either have not mentioned retrieval, or contend retrieval should be in the production stage or provide no clear delineation or model for retrieval. The author has never acquired knowledge about retrieval in classes. Discussion with fellow students and interpreters indicates only some high-caliber ones have realized the advantage of retrieval during note-taking. Thus, there exists an asymmetry between certain people’s recognition and enunciation by teachers or theories.Therefore, the author probes into retrieval by questionnaires and afterward interviews and the result manifests that:(1) On retrieval activity, respondents’ background is directly linked to the capability of retrieval in note-taking stage;(2)On its teaching, there is a meager content on retrieval and language knowledge is overly underscored; C-E and E-C interpreting more often than not see uniform teaching method;(3) On its learning, reflective learning is uncommon, which explains why many people have not recognized the feasibility of retrieval during note-taking; even when there is reflection, it is from the dimension of language rather than retrieval or other elements of thinking process. Implications are presented in closing:(1) For interpreting teaching, it should be skill-oriented rather than language-centered and should adopt differentiated teaching methods for C-E and E-C interpreting;(2) For Interpreting learning, before interpreting, trainees should memorize words and expressions by encoding them in multiple ways to facilitate retrieval when needed; during interpreting, trainees should hone the skill of thinking with the target language and rendering the content rapidly; after interpreting,reflective learning is an imperative for spotting and settling of problems.