The Effect Of Extra-linguistic Knowledge On The Interpreter’s Performance

Interpreting activities involve not only the linguistic knowledge of the speech,but also a large amount of extra-linguistic knowledge(ELK).ELK makes up an interpreter’s competence and plays an important role in determining his/her performance.A rich ELK reserve helps interpreters to fully understand the message and correctly render the information.For will-be interpreters,the lack of ELK is a major obstacle in interpreting.A weak ELK base hinders their career development.This report is based on the author’s interpreting practice for an environmental project.Without possessing full ELK related to the project,the author did not give solid interpreting performances throughout the project.By means of case analysis,he compared his interpreting performances in two different conditions,i.e.interpreting with and without a strong ELK reserve and then proves the significant role of ELK in interpreting.After the analysis of the interpreting task,he offers some suggestions for the improvement of the ELK reserve.First,interpreters should make full use of the available channels to obtain ELK on a daily basis.Second,they should make effective ELK-targeted preparation before interpreting.At the same time,MTI program should adjust its curriculum design and select teaching materials that are more closely related to the market conditions.A sound ELK training system should be developed to enhance students’ ELK learning.