Listening Comprehension In Consecutive Interpretation:Obstacles And Coping Strategies

In consecutive interpretation, listening comprehension is the key and precondition of the whole interpreting process. Thus, it is imperative to improve the skills at listening comprehension and enrich the study on relevant fields; particularly for student interpreters, obstacles to listening comprehension can have direct impact as they can result in mistranslation and under-translation. Obama’s 2015 State of the Union Address covers a great variety of issues, and have wide variability in writing. The author makes the Address the target for case study and elaborates on obstacles that commonly occur in listening comprehension of consecutive interpretation, and then provides some tentative coping strategies. The case study aims to provide references to interpreters in tackling listening comprehension obstacles, and enrich the study on listening comprehension in consecutive interpretation.Based on Gile’s Cognitive Load Theory, the thesis adopts a qualitative approach and conducts a case study on Obama’s 2015 State of the Union Address. The author gives priority to three types of common obstacles to listening comprehension and then gives corresponding solutions from three perspectives. In face of obstacles posed by high-density information, interpreters should learn to have wise trade-offs. Coping with hurdles at linguistic level, interpreters should learn to seize the logic and make more efficient information analysis. Besides, non-linguistic difficulties cannot be overlooked, so the author lays emphasis upon preparations before interpretation.In the end, the thesis reflects on the defects and limitations of the case study, and suggests that good interpreters not only guarantee quality interpretation, but also act as cross-cultural envoys.