Improper Redundancy In English-chinese Interpreting And Its Coping Strategies

When it comes to consecutive interpreting,an interpreter first takes notes while the speaker is speaking and only starts to interpret only after the speaker stops.This obviously would take a certain amount of time.While during a real-life consecutive event,the time is rather limited,which requires the interpreter to deliver the message to the listeners faithfully and concisely in a short period of time.If the interpreter appears to be redundant,both the efficiency of the interpreting and the entire interpreting performance would be impacted,causing the listeners and the clients to lose confidence in the interpreter.This article first gives definition on improper redundancy from the perspective of the information theory and analyzes the improper redundancy in English-Chinese consecutive interpreting based on the researches by some scholars.Then the author takes his own interpreting performance in the English-Chinese interpretation case of the full address,which is on the UNHCR against the background of the coronavirus outbreak and delivered by Ian Newton,as the example and analyzes different types of improper redundancy and their causes.The improper redundancy cases in the article can be mainly divided into two categories,and they are phonetic and linguistic redundancy.After carefully analyzing the interpreting output and the original text,the author concludes the causes of the improper redundancy as follows: lack of active listening,misuse of pronouns,unrefined Chinese,bad language habits and improper note-taking.In the end,the author gives some coping strategies accordingly,and they are: enhancing the active listening,familiarizing interpreter with the proper use of pronouns in both Chinese and English,polishing interpreter’s Chinese,listening oneself when interpreting,being fully prepared to lower anxiety and improving note-taking.