Ineffective Note-taking In Chinese-English Consecutive Interpreting And Coping Strategies

Note-taking is essential in helping interpreters to recall speech content in consecutive interpretation as interpreters’ short-term memory is limited.Effective notes lead to better information storage and retrieval,better understanding of the logic of the source language speech,and smooth delivery.This thesis addresses the issue of ineffective notes in Chinese-English interpreting by studying the author’s interpretation at the mock conference of the 2019 China(Shenzhen)IT summit.Through a comparative study of the original speech,interpretation,and notes,the thesis identifies examples of ineffective notes and classifies them into three categories,namely incomplete noted-down information,improper note structure,and unrecognizable notes.The reasons for the above three types of problems include failure to simplify the notetaking system,omitting English tense markers,wrong boxing,improper note structure of comparatives,inconsistent symbols,and overly scribbled notes.Coping strategies to tackle the issue are proposed,which may provide references for interpreters hoping to improve their note-taking system and Chinese-English consecutive interpreting skills.The strategies are as follows: improving symbols,and simplifying the way of taking notes;paying more attention to listening and analyzing,and noting down tenses when necessary;optimizing the layout of notes through specific practices;designing symbols for topic-related terms during pre-interpreting preparation,and obtaining more background knowledge to reduce the cognitive load during the note-taking process.