Main Research question: How can notes contribute to the process of interpreting?

Research Paper: The Importance of Notes for Interpreting

With the continuous increase in foreign exchanges and economic cooperation in the globalized world, foreign-related activities, especially foreign-related business, have grown rapidly. As an indispensable medium for foreign intercultural communication, interpretation has also received increasing attention. Interpretation, as an important part of translation in general, plays an increasingly important role as society develops.

While the demand for the number of interpreters in society has increased, the quality of interpreters has also been raised to a higher standard. During interpreting, an interpreter carries out a number of activities at the same time: memorizing, understanding, analyzing, combing, transforming, etc. When they are interpreting one language into another, they also need to spend some energy to polish the words and grammar to make sure of the accurate delivery of the messages sent.

Professional interpreters use a number of strategies to help them overcome the difficulties in interpretation, and improve the outcome. Notetaking is among the most frequent assisting practices for interpreters. Using notes can reduce the pressure on memory, enhance the cognition of interpreters, logically restructure the language, and improve the quality of interpretation.

In spontaneous interpretation, interpreters face many factors that are not conducive to memory, and the biggest difficulty facing them first is the limitation of short-term memory. In addition, the need to memorized large amounts of information during interpretation is also a major source of psychological pressure for many professional interpreters (Korpal, 2016: 297). After seven years of repeated testing and verification, American psychologist John Miller proposed that the normal average short-term memory range is around seven pieces of information (Cowan, 2015: 536).

The capability of ordinary people to memorize a series of unrelated words is only around seven. For words that are related to each other, the capability of short-time memory rises to twenty words, which in many cases still cannot meet the needs of information-intensive speeches. This creates tremendous pressure on interpreters and high requirements for their ability to memorize information, especially when the talking speed of the speaker is fast.

At the same time, interpreting practice proves that for the numbers, terms, abbreviations, proper nouns, etc. appearing in the speech, the interpreter must think of the corresponding words within a few seconds and express them quickly (Korpal, 2016: 297). Otherwise, the specific information will disappear in short-term memory. It can be seen that the limitation of short-term memory is the bottleneck that restricts the memory of interpreters in interpretation.

Using notes is proven to be effective in enhancing short-term memory, which also reduces the psychological burden of the interpreter. Psycholinguists have proposed the multiple network structure of language transmission. They believe that language information is processed through a “modality-independent semiotic system” (Xu et al., 2009: 665). In other words, memory works better with there are multiple networks functioning simultaneously.

At the same time, physiologists have found through a large number of experiments that information obtained through vision or through hearing alone has a short time of memory retention. However, parallel scanning of both visual and audio information can significantly improve the efficiency of memory retrieval (Burrows, & Solomon, 1975: 418).

Note-taking is an effective way of turning audio information into simultaneous input of visual and audio information, which will significantly enhance the interpreter’s ability to memorize the information delivered by the speaker. The positive effect would be further enhanced if visual information of the speaker’s gestures and facial expressions are included during the interpreting and note-taking process.

Another challenge for the interpreter is the need to face complicated and unideal environmental and human factors during interpreting. At the interpreting site, many external factors can affect the comprehension of the interpreter. On the one hand, the speed of the speaker’s speech, the speaker’s accent, sound volume, and external interference factors can all become distractions to the interpreter’s comprehension of the speech. Some speakers speak at a slow pace with high logical structure, others are more spontaneous speakers with faster paces.

When interpreting for a specific individual for the first time, it takes some time to adjust to the style of speech. On the other hand, there is the difficulty factor of the interpretation content. The interpreter is not necessarily always familiar with the topic of the speech since many interpreting occasions involve technically complicated subjects. Without the relevant knowledge background, it is difficult for the interpreters to capture the accurate meaning of the words. The pressure from the scene of the interpretation site includes the atmosphere of the occasion, the absence of visual support, etc., which also add to the difficulty in interpretation.

Effective strategies of note-taking can contribute to a better understanding of the content and mitigate the negative influences of environmental and human factors. In interpreting notes, with the use of intuitive symbols and illustrations with specific meanings, it is not only simple and easy to save time but also more efficient in interpreting. For example, some interpreters use the infinity symbol to express connections between two concepts. A star symbol could be used to highlight the importance of a certain concept (Chen, 2017: 6).

These symbols are concise and visual, with strong hints, which help to activate passive memory and help improve the understanding of the speech. The abstract information conveyed by the speakers is transformed into much more intuitive notes, making it much easier for the ideas to be understood. A feature of such notes in aiding comprehension is that they are highly personalized instead of standardized (Chen, 2017: 11). Each interpreter may develop his or her own optimal way of symbols in note-taking. In addition, taking notes also helps the interpreters in focusing their attention, to avoid distractions in environmental and human factors.

Logic is another main challenge for the interpreter. Language and thinking are closely connected. In the 1960s, the founder of the French interpretation school, Danica Seleskovitch, created a groundbreaking theory of interpretation: when the interpreter hears the source language, what is heard is not a single word, but the “meaning” of the source information transmitted by these words (Zidar, 2012: 117).

Interpreters perceive the direct meaning of the speech by stripping away the form of the language. In the process of escaping the constraints of language forms, interpreters perform a unique way of thinking—logical thinking. Logical thinking is reflected in the logical analysis and reasoning of the information structure of the source language, including removing the redundant information of the source language, quickly capturing the main points and structure of the speech, and adjusting the logical structure into the target language (Zidar, 2012: 119).

The above-mentioned human and environmental factors also add to the obstacles in logical analysis. The information obtained by the interpreter through logic analysis is the optimized processing of the source language, which can reduce the above obstacles to ensure the best communication effect.

Taking notes help with the organization of logic and flow of ideas, making it much easier for the interpreter to conduct logical analysis. Notes can stimulate the interpreter’s active analysis of the source language information, which is the process of the interpreter’s spontaneous logical organizing of the source language. The content of the note record is the logical clue that the interpreter captures from the source language information stripping away from its form. It is different from shorthand or ordinary recording. The notes of interpreters play the role of “road signs”, prompting the path of the source language.

From the composition of the notes, it is mainly composed of abbreviations, numbers, symbols, and conjugations of keywords from the source language. There are even cases with the application of mind maps in complicated interpreting tasks. The use of mind maps helps create a network of information (Elhoseiny, & Elgammal, 2016: 4221). This not only increases the speed of short-term memory but also enhances the depth of logical analysis. Among them, the conjugations and mind map structure are some of the means of textual cohesion. Through the means of connecting components to reflect various logical relationships in the speech, the seemingly fragmented notes connect to each other into a complete semantic text.

Culture is the final challenge that many interpreters have to go through. Language is a unique way of communication between human beings, and it contains the uniqueness of different historical cultures and thoughts. People with different cultural backgrounds will have different logical thinking differences, thus having different language habits. As far as the East and the West are concerned, Asians pay more attention to perceptual and spiral thinking.

For example, the structure of the East Asian discourse generally goes from specific to general. In contrast, the Western way of thinking pays more attention to rational thinking, focusing on rational evidence and scientific analysis. The structure of English discourse is generally from general to specific, corresponding to straight-line thinking. This logical thinking is inseparable from the development of Asian and Western history and culture. In ancient China, for example, it was a self-sufficient agricultural economy.

This closed economy occluded the Chinese people’s thinking and deified nature. Europe faces the sea, and commercial economy, nautical astronomy, and other technologies have been in competition early in history. This makes Westerners pay more attention to rational thinking. Therefore, in the process of interpreting from an Asian language to a Western language, or in reverse, there exist cultural barriers that interpreters must overcome. Otherwise, interpreting word for word without considering the cultural implications in the language would severely reduce the quality of interpretation.

Notes are used as buffering tools for intermediate processing, making it easier for interpreters to incorporate the different cultural backgrounds of the two languages. As an important part of the improvement of interpreting ability, the interpretation also includes improving the ability to interpret notes and making predictions in interpretation (Amos, and Pickering, 2019: 2). Notes are important helpers for simultaneous interpretation. The simultaneous interpretation of notes is the buffering and transmission medium of key information in interpreting activities, relying on important information such as notes and data to ensure accurate conversion. Note training improves the recording time and efficiency of the interpreter.

In the long term, good note-taking habits may also contribute to the ability to predict in interpretation. Predicting is a possible guess of the speaker’s omission of information. It is a proactive and time-saving pre-judgment that the interpreter takes in conjunction with the individual’s knowledge and experience (Amos, and Pickering, 2019: 5). With the help of moderate prediction, the interpreting process is faster and the interpretation time is saved for the more difficult content. Therefore, note-taking and prediction give the interpreter an increased degree of freedom to maintain the interpretation rhythm.

In conclusion, note-taking brings tremendous advantages for interpreters who have to memorize huge amounts of information, deal with the distractions of the human and the environmental factors, restructure the logic in the language of the speaker, and overcome the cultural barriers between the two languages. The biggest difference between interpretation and translation is that the source language information can only be heard once and in an instant process.

During interpretation, the interpreter must perform the logical analysis, storage, and writing of the information while listening to the source language information, and within a few seconds after these complicated process, the source language information must be expressed in the translated language based on the memory and understanding of the interpreter. Undoubtedly, these high-density, high-intensity workplaces high demand on the memory, comprehension, logic, and cultural competence of interpreters.

With the help of effective note-taking strategies, interpreters are able to enhance their memorizing abilities with the combination of audio and visual memory. The action of taking notes also serves as a psychological way of focusing the attention of the interpreter. In addition, the systematic use of symbols in notetaking helps interpreters to restructure logic in the speech much faster. Finally, notetaking habits in the long term also help cultivate the interpreter’s cultural competency. Due to these improvements and advantages, taking notes is a highly recommended practice for all professional interpreters.

References

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