An Empirical Study On Intention Reading In Chinese-English Consecutive Interpreting

In occasions where Chinese-English consecutive interpreting is needed, besides the literal meaning, it is very common that there are some implied meanings hiding between the lines. Once an interpreter can not accurately understand the speaker’s intention, it is likely that the interpretation would be unclear or even misinterpreted, which probably brings about unnecessary troubles. It is thus clear that the ability of accurately understanding the speaker’s intention is indispensable to complete a Chinese-English consecutive interpreting task for an interpreter. Due to the lack of specific training, student interpreters do not know through what kind of methods they could accurately comprehend the intention of the speaker, which often leads to mistakes and inappropriate interpretations. It can be seen that the study on intention reading in Chinese-English consecutive interpreting is of certain theoretical significance and practical value. Yet few previous studies have paid attention to the application of intention reading in Chinese-English consecutive interpreting.This is an empirical study on intention reading in Chinese-English consecutive interpreting. The author selected MTI students majoring in English Interpreting to take part in this experiment. By means of interpreting test, questionnaire and interview, the correlation between intention reading and the quality of Chinese-English consecutive interpreting is verified by the quantitative comparison of the students’ interpreting performance in the first experiment, and the influence factors of intention reading are also discussed. Based on the findings of the first experiment, the author tries to establish a model of intention reading in Chinese-English consecutive interpreting. In the second experiment, subjects are divided into two different groups to verify the feasibility of this model, in the meaning time the author attempts to uncover the practical methods of intention reading in Chinese-English consecutive interpreting.The analysis of the findings of this empirical study show:intention reading and the performance of Chinese-English consecutive interpreting are positively correlated; linguistic competence, background knowledge and context are the major influence factors of intention reading, therefore an interpret can comprehend the speaker’s intention through inference, background knowledge and context. The model of intention reading established by the author is often certain feasibility. That is to say, on the basis of fully comprehension of the model of intention reading, an interpreter should attach great importance to the influence factors of intention reading, apply appropriate methods of intention reading and accurately comprehend the true intention of the speaker, so that could the interpreter improve his interpreting performance and successfully complete the task of Chinese-English consecutive interpreting.