An Experiment Report On The Effect Of Note-Taking On Coherence Performance In C-E Consecutive Interpreting

In consecutive interpreting,it requires a delicate hand to handle the conflicting tasks posed by note-taking to produce a rendition of high consistency.Notes,at their very essence,are cues to retrieve concepts.Thus,rather than being the verbatim transcript of speeches,they should be kept short,neat,and compact.For MTI students,however,when facing a flurry of messages,they see notes as a straw to clutch.With less attention paid to hearing and analyzing,their interpretations are reduced to a combination of wandering sentences connected mechanically by inappropriate and redundant conjunctions.As a result,coherence is nowhere to be found.That intrigues the author to explore the influence of note-taking on coherence performance of MTI students.To that end,the author had 10 MTI students from CFAU interpret a seven-minute speech and analyzed their performance with a particular focus on their note-taking.The experiment is followed by an interview to test the appropriateness of material difficulty and ensure the proper interpretation of their notes.The experiment is designed to answer two questions: 1)how does note integrity influence coherence performance;2)how does note form affect coherence performance.The findings of this thesis include: 1)Note integrity,under most circumstances,is helpful to lexical coherence;2)Note form,when presented properly,helps boosts semantic coherence;3)Little connection is found between note form and lexical coherence,and between note integrity and semantic coherence.