Understanding Omission In Consecutive Interpreting From Both The Cognitive And Sociolinguistic Perspectives

Omission is often equated with interpreter’s weaknesses.To avoid omission,interpreters often stick to textual-linguistic fidelityor the norm of completeness.Despite the negative connotations surrounding omission due to a lack of in-depth understanding of this phenomenon,omission is unavoidable and even predetermined by human biological and cognitive constraints.And to acquire a decent understanding of the cause,mechanism and effect of omission,the thesis will focus on issues concerning interpreter’s cognitive process,communication configuration as well as the greater sociocultural context to examine how these considerations affects interpreter’s use omission.This thesis embodies efforts to merge cognitive and psycholinguistic findings with traditional linguistic studies.It is also an attempt to infuse valuable findings from related field such as information processing framework and a paradigm for decision-making under cognitive pressure to current academic interest in omission,which will further vindicate the inevitability and necessity of omission on a philosophical level.Moreover,a better understanding of different types of cognitive inducements of omission allows us better see how they work together in causing an omission,in particular,how external stimulus affect and translate into cognitive pressure.Apart from passively inducement such as cognitive pressure,interpreters can also trigger omission deliberately as an interpreting strategy to reduce their mental workload,enhance rendition coherence,economize output language and in the end offer a culturally compatible interpreting,which could serve to improve communication quality and efficacy.The thesis wishes to forward our understanding of the validity and utility of omission while offering interpreters a new perspective to better avail themselves of the potential benefits offered by it as an interpreting strategy.