Memory And Note-Taking In Consecutive Interpreting

Memory And Note-Taking In Consecutive Interpreting

In global society, interpretation plays an important role in communication. Interpreting is an interesting but not easy work because interpreters often encounter a lot of problems and must handle them, especially in consecutive interpreting.

“Interpreting is rendering information and idea from one language into another language by mean of speaking”. (Dang & Bui, 1999, p.36). Particularly, in the consecutive, interpreters have to give a rendering of speech’s segments after a party has finished speaking. Interpreters must receive and understand the incoming message and then express its meaning in the target language (TL). Despite understanding the process, they still get many problems in term of memory and note-taking. This essay will analyze the reasons that led to our weakness, along with identifying the solutions that will possibly help us improve the ability of memorizing and taking note.

The first problem that the interpreters often meet is memory skill which is believed to be one of the major elements affecting the process of storing and conveying information. During the process of consecutive interpreting, “the short-term memory is used for the temporary storage of segments of speech so that they can be decoded and re-encoded” (Dang & Bui, 1999, p.41).

Despite having good awareness about the significance of memory in consecutive interpreting, the forthcoming interpreters face difficulties mastering it due to the lack of technique of concentration and mnemonic abilities. The first technique that should be pointed out is the deficiency of concentrating during the procedure of listening which is thought to create difficulties in memorizing. It is comprehensible that amateur interpreters cannot memorize the main ideas mentioned in the speech unless they pay full attention to the speakers. Secondly, “lack of mnemonic capacities may prevent people from getting access to sources of information quickly and exactly” (Tran, 2006, p.01). No longer can the interpreter accurately turn the source language in to another language when they have no ability to store a certain amount of information for a short time.

However memorizing caused obstacle in interpretation, it is not something that cannot be mastered. By hard-working and regular practicing, everyone in general and interpreter in particular can improve his memorizing skill. In order to comprehend and memorize information effectively, it is also crucial to listen to a variety of recordings from various sources. We should choose the topics most interesting first and then move to other less interesting ones. Different types of exercise also greatly contribute to our improvement. For instance, you can listen to anything you like and then try to memorize as much information as you can. Obviously, these solutions above can help you enhance your memorizing skills.

The activity of taking note is also considered to be a second barrier. Pham (2006) emphasized the important roles of note-taking in enhancing concentration, relieving the memory and activating the memory of the interpreter with cues or signals that call up the information in the speech. . This is congruent with Jones’s consumption (2002) which affirmed that “the skill of note-taking is very helpful to interpreters, the content and structure of a speech are reflected in notes, and the notes in turn are used as a path to verbalize the speech”. The second skill is analyzing source language. No sooner have the interpreter not identified what are the main ideas, what are the second elements, and what are the connections between them in order to decide what should be note and what should not, they may get lost in the information overloaded.

Based on the problems above, some methods are introduced to foster the ability of note-taking. Firstly, it is good to get to know the topic or if possible the copy material prior to the work in order not to be new with the content of the utterance. In addition, practicing taking note in separated and logical form is well recommended to avoid all confusion when reading back notes.

In conclusion, there are many problems that interpreters usually encounter in each of stages in consecutive interpreting process. Therefore, each interpreter must make an effort to improve their interpreting skills and knowledge. Good memorization and note-taking techniques are the keys of a successful interpreter.