《chapter5口译笔记.ppt

Note-taking in Interpreting 口译笔记 I. Necessity of Learning Note-taking Note-taking is a basic skill that is of utmost importance to aspirant interpreters and deserves our foremost attention. We know that it is easy for an interpreter to speak from his/her memory when the speaker pauses after every one or two sentences. But if the speaker, in his/her attempt to make his/her ideas complete and coherent, keeps speaking for 5 or even 10 minutes without any pause, which frequently happens on many occasions, the interpreter can hardly expect to remember all the things that are mentioned. This is particularly true in cases where the speaker abruptly refers to a long series of figures or a long list of names and places. It is obvious that, without the help of notes, one can hardly avoid misinterpreting or leaving out important information. To supplement short-term memory and reduce the burden of the brain, it is necessary to resort to notes. Nothing but notes can help an interpreter overcome the limitation of human memory. However, taking notes is by no means an easy job. The fact that taking notes diverts attention and interferes with listening poses the first obstacle. The second problem is that untrained interpreters are often at a loss what notes to take and how. Thus, to learn note-taking well, we must, first of all, know some special features governing the acquisition of this basic skill. II. Suggested Ways to Take Notes An interpreter should not take notes indiscriminately. He/she should, first of all, make a logical analysis of the original speech so as to follow the speaker’s flow of thoughts. Then he/she should try to catch the key words which contain the message of the speech. He/she should write words or symbols sparingly and take notes in a way that each word or symbol represents a key word or a sense group. Very often, one or two letters of a key English word or one character of a sense group in Chinese is enough to help the interpreter remember the logical s