| Directionality has long been controversial among all factors impacting the quality of simultaneous interpreting.Based on Gile’s Effort Model(Gile 1995),this paper examines whether directionality impacts the quality of numbers interpreting in English-Chinese simultaneous interpreting via bi-directional tests and retrospective interviews.The findings are listed as follows:First,directionality impacts the quality of numbers interpreting in English-Chinese simultaneous interpreting by calculating accuracy rates.Second,there are mainly three error types in bi-directional simultaneous interpreting:omission occurred most often,followed by error and approximation.The error frequency sequences of seven number types differed slightly.Lastly,factors that impact the quality of numbers interpreting in both directions of SI include wrong anticipation,dense or complex information,effort shortage,poor number conversion skills,misleading notes,time pressure due to unidiomatic expressions,or long ear-voice span.The major difference in numbers interpreting in bi-directional SI is that omissions occurred more frequently in C-E interpreting while errors and approximations in E-C interpreting.The possible reason is in C-E interpreting,the Chinese interpreters tend to interpret the more important information when encountering dense information and complex numbers,so they omit more often.In E-C interpreting,the interpreters spend more effort on listening and analysis,which often leads to failures in comprehension and short-term memory,so they make errors and approximations more often. |
