A Study On The Effect Of Multi-modal Input On The Quality Of Chinese-English Simultaneous Interpreting

Multimodal input is an essential topic in interpreting studies,but there are few researches on multimodal interpreting in China.In order to explore the role that multi-modal input which includes audio-visual information plays in English-to-Chinese simultaneous interpreting,The author adopts the method of empirical study,conducting simultaneous interpreting experiment and semi-structured interview with 6 students majored in interpreting.Besides,the research adopts the quantitative analysis of the experimental data and the qualitative analysis based on semi-structural interviews.Firstly,The research reveals that when the visual information and the auditory information are consistent,the simultaneous interpreting performance with multi-modal input is better than that with only audio input.Secondly,through the qualitative analysis based on semi-structural interviews,the research finds: visual information can complement the audio information,reduce the efforts required in listening and comprehension,as well as the efforts in short memory,which will help in simultaneous interpreting.In addition to the positive effect,the research finds that the visual information in simultaneous interpreting with multi-modal input will distract interpreter sometimes and had a negative impact on interpreting.