Implications Of The Performance Difference Experiment Of Syntactic Linearity For English-Chinese Simultaneous Interpretation

Syntactic linearity is one of the most commonly used strategies in English-Chinese simultaneous interpretation,which plays an important role in helping translators memorize information and thus smoothing their processing of continuous speeches.Interpreters of different experiences vary in their performances of using this strategy.Specifically,students with insufficient ability or experience are far less capable of using syntactic linearity tactic than professional interpreters though the tactic seems to be a natural choice for interpreters.Yet little attention has been paid to such performance difference.This paper,taking Gile’s Effort Models as the theoretical framework,conducts an experimental study on the difference of performances concerning syntactic linearity strategy between interpretation learners and professional interpreters during their English to Chinese simultaneous interpretation.The study involves one professional interpreter from the Foreign Affairs Office of Shandong Provincial People’s Government and three English-Chinese postgraduate students majored in E-C interpretation who carried out the E-C simultaneous interpreting of a selected part of2020 Apple WWDC.Based on the comparison and analysis of the co-relations between the frequency of their using syntactic linearity and the coherence and accuracy of their interpretation,this paper provides some references for learning and practice of E-C SI.Through experiments and analysis,this paper draws the following conclusions.Firstly,both professional interpreters and learners of interpretation adopt the syntactic linearity strategy in English-Chinese simultaneous interpreting;Secondly,professional interpreters use the syntactic linearity strategy more frequently than learners of interpretation;Thirdly,the quantitative analysis shows that the number of sentencesplitting by interpreters in E-C SI is positively correlated with the accuracy of their interpretation.That is to say,the more frequently interpreters split sentences,the more complete and accurate the information in their interpretation is;Fourthly,the qualitative analysis shows that professional interpreters have more flexible approaches to using syntactic linearity strategy in E-C SI due to their rich experiences,and they are more familiar with the knowledge of various fields including the electronic product theme in this experiment.Based on these findings,the author of this thesis presents some suggestions to learners of interpretation for improvement in E-C SI.