Causes Of Chinglish In Chinese-to-English Consecutive Interpreting:A Qualitative Study Of Student Interpreters

Chinglish refers to English that is influenced by the Chinese language and does not conform to standard English or English cultural habits(Li 1993),whose appearance in Chinese-to-English(CE)consecutive interpreting(CI)may impair the quality.This study conducted experiments,interviews,and coding analysis to describe the Chinglish phenomenon in CE CI and investigate its causes.It is expected to enhance the interpreting teachers’ and student interpreters’ knowledge of Chinglish,guide the student interpreters to reduce Chinglish,and improve their CE CI performance.This study invited five student interpreters for a CE CI experiment,in which 7 categories of Chinglish expressions were identified based on Joan Pinkham’s(2000)categorization:unnecessary nouns,unnecessary verbs,unnecessary modifiers,redundant twins,repetition,the noun plague,and the wrong placement of phrases and clauses.Based on the experiment results,this study designed a semi-structured interview and figured out 6 causes of Chinglish in CE CI through coding analysis under the guidance of the Grounded Theory:motivation,interpreting learning process,strategic competence,knowledge,language proficiency,and psychological factors.(1)Motives to avoid mistakes,get higher scores,prepare for tests and exams,seek jobs,etc.(2)Methods to learn from teachers,classmates,materials of high register,etc.(3)Limited strategic competence including de-verbalization,note-taking,language conversion,and effort coordination.(4)Limited knowledge.(5)Limited language proficiency.(6)Psychological pressure.This study suggests that interpreting teachers and student interpreters pay more attention to Chinglish,especially the student interpreters,who should develop longterm goals to improve interpreting competence,practice different types of materials to broaden their knowledge and improve their skills,and learn authentic English expressions,to reduce Chinglish expressions in CE CI and improve their performance.