How student and professional interpreters in Chinese-English consecutive interpreting differ in their choice of interpreting strategies

Abstract

本文在考察9位学生译员及9位职业译员汉英交传口译实验有声思维数据的基础上,总结了两者最常用的7种口译策略,探讨双方在口译策略运用上的差异和原因。研究发现,学生译员通常是由于自身认知负荷或能力所限而不得不采取口译策略,而职业译员则是出于让译语更为地道、更灵活分配认知处理能力和让听众更好理解主要信息而采取的前摄行为。造成双方策略运用有别的原因与译前准备、笔记与记忆、语言能力、紧张焦虑和听众意识这五大因素有关。通过对学生译员及职业译员的口译决策思维过程的对比,本研究有助于学生译员了解真实口译活动过程中职业译员的决策行为,从中获得具体的口译学习改进方向,亦能为口译教学训练方向提供参考。 Conducting a think-aloud protocal-based experimental study on the choice of interpreting strategies by nine student and nine professional C-E interpreters respectively,we find that while the student interpreters,hampered by their cognitive processing constraints,tend to look to strategy as a last resort,their professional counterparts are more likely to use it proactively.By deliberately employing idiomatic expressions and flexibly allocating their processing efforts,the professional interpreters make it easier for their audience to understand the key information in the original.And as our research also reveals,what accounts for this marked difference between the two groups are factors such as pre-interpreting preparations,note-taking and memorizing skills,linguistic competence and audience awareness.By targeting and addressing these factors,the teaching of interpreting could be rendered more effective in bridging the performative gap between the student and the professional interpreters.