An Empirical Study Of The Influence Of Anxiety On English-Chinese Simultaneous Interpreting Tactics

Simultaneous interpretation,a complex real-time translation activity,requires interpreters to receive the information from the speaker and transmit it to the listener at the same time.“Multi-tasking” often causes great cognitive pressure on the interpreter.Student interpreters who are beginners in simultaneous interpretation are likely to feel anxious in simultaneous interpretation.However,in the previous interpretation studies,scholars mostly focused on the anxiety of consecutive interpretation,its causes,and its influence on interpretation performance.Therefore,this study intends to study student interpreters’ anxiety degrees,their sources,and the relationship between the anxiety degree and English-Chinese simultaneous interpreting tactics with the methods of the questionnaire,experimentation,and interview.Based on the research results,this study puts forward some suggestions to alleviate the anxiety of simultaneous interpretation.This study takes 12 postgraduates majoring in English literature in Shanghai Foreign Studies University as the experimental subject.By designed English—Chinese Simultaneous Interpreting Anxiety questionnaire and Simultaneous Interpreting Tactic Cognition Scale,the data of student interpreters are collected and then statistically analyzed by SPSS 25.0software.Their anxiety degree,cognitive attributes of anxiety,their cognition and use of simultaneous interpretation tactics,and the correlation between anxiety and tactics are explored.The conclusions of this study are as follows: 1)Student interpreters have different degrees of cognitive anxiety,and the main attributes are listening and coordination.2)Student interpreters’ cognition,namely,self-judgment of their familiarity with the tactics,overall declines in the anxiety state,among which that of delaying response,reproducing,and omission tactics increases.3)Student interpreters’ anxiety degree is negatively correlated with their cognition of simultaneous interpretation tactics.4)Student interpreters’ anxiety degree is negatively correlated with their use of comprehension tactics and preventive tactics,negatively correlated with their use of generalization and explaining tactics in reformulation tactics,positively correlated with that of reproducing and transcoding tactics,and not correlated with that of omission tactic.Based on the analysis,this study puts forward suggestions for student interpreters and college interpreting teachers to alleviate cognitive anxiety,hoping to provide some insights for their learning and teaching.