An Experimental Report Of Figure Interpreting In Chinese-English Simultaneous Interpreting

With further development of economic globalization and China’s greater involvement in the world,various international meetings are involved in figure interpreting.Most of the research on figure interpreting in Chinese-English simultaneous interpreting has been focused on theoretical issues,while this thesis will resort to the method of the experiment and concentrate on the analysis of the collected data.This thesis,by means of one experiment and several pre-test and post-test interviews,studies both professional and student interpreters’ figure interpreting in Chinese-English simultaneous interpreting(also known as SI).The aim is to investigate the relevance between the anticipated coping strategies proposed by interpreters in pre-test interviews and the error rates,errors that occur often and type of errors concluded in the experiment based on the comparison of the data within the same group and the data between the two groups.Given the difficulty of collecting data from professional interpreters,most of the experiments that have been conducted usually focus on the data of student interpreters,but this experiment arranges experienced interpreters as one of the experimental groups and explores the similarities and differences in figure interpreting between students and experienced ones.Based on the theoretical foundation of Daniel Gile’s Effort Model,this thesis specifically analyzes the reasons for figure misinterpretation both in professional group and student group.In order to avoid significant disparity in interpreting performance among interpreters,the author conducts a pre-experiment and finally selects six second-year graduates enrolled in the MTI program in Southwestern University of Finance and Economics and six professional interpreters to participate in the experiment.A series of measures have been adopted,including recordings of simultaneous interpreting and pre-test and post-test interviews,to collect and analyze the data.The major research findings are as follows:1.Of the four major figure types,large whole numbers ≥ 1,000(with 4 or more digits)are the most error-prone figure type in figure interpreting.2.The most glaring figure interpreting error is omission.3.According to the post-interpreting interviews,figure interpreting errors are caused by various factors,including psychological pressure,slow delivery and slip of the tongue,high density of information and different numerical structures between Chinese and English,but the representative reasons for figure misinterpretation are different in two groups.Based on the anticipated coping strategies put forward by both professional interpreters and student interpreters in pre-test interviews,the author concludes a set of strategies for the stages of pre-interpreting and while-interpreting.Preinterpreting strategies include background knowledge preparation and proper training,figures conversion between Chinese and English and memory.Strategies during interpreting include approximation,active anticipation and adjustments based on individual differences.In light of those findings,this thesis expects to provide suggestions to professional interpreters and student-interpreters on figure interpreting,and to inspire future research in this field.