Note-taking practices of interpreters with different levels of expertise and the implication for consecutive interpreting training

From the questionnaire, we found that professional interpreters and trainee interpreters share similar perceptions of CI notes in terms of purpose, layout, and language. Yet, in reality, the two groups express very different attitudes toward their own note-taking practices, as revealed in their interview responses.

All of the professionals believed that, with such easy materials in the experiment, they could have done better if they had been allowed to take notes by themselves.

They stated that the process of note-taking is extremely important as it helps them digest the incoming information, enhance their analysis of messages, and reinforce

85

memory. For them, taking notes while simultaneously listening has become automated which does not increase cognitive burdens at all. Without such process, they had to rely more on the notes than on their memory to recall the source messages. When asked about the proportion of memory and notes on which they relied for interpreting during the experiment, nine out of the 19 professional interpreters (47%) said they relied more on the notes than on memory because, in the first phase of CI, their attention was split between listening and

“note-deciphering” which eventually led to worse comprehension and memory.

When such situation occurred, they would have to interpret mostly by reading the notes. Another six (32%) said they relied more on memory than on the notes because the notes organized the messages differently from what they would have done. To overcome such interference, they had to spend extra effort on reorganizing and reformulating the note elements according to how they were comprehended in their heads in order to generate the interpreting output smoothly. The remaining four (21%) responded that the proportion was 50:50 for memory and notes.

Interestingly, when asked whether the proportion would stay the same if they could have taken notes by themselves, 14 out of the 19 professional interpreters (74%) said their reliance on memory would increase and they would depend less on notes. The reason is, without the distraction from “note-deciphering” at the comprehension stage, they could devote all their energy to selecting information and planning for what to say in the TL in their brains. As a result, their own notes would not need to contain all the messages as the designed notes. Only a few keywords would suffice to trigger memory. By comparison, the other five subjects (26%) said they would depend more on notes than their memory on actually the same ground.

Notes, for them, are the result of conceptual analysis of the input information.

Therefore, unlike reading someone else’s notes, which requires them extra effort to memorize what each note element means in the source speech, reading notes taken by themselves easily triggers memory of abundant information. That is to say, for professional interpreters who have internalized note-taking in the whole CI process, notes and memory are basically two sides of the same coin.

Oppositely, while few of the trainees also wished to take notes by themselves in the experiment, more than half of them felt that reading such complete, prepared notes is better than reading their own notes, which, according to them, will

“definitely be information-deficient”. These subjects find note-taking hindering their comprehension and memory. They (Subject No. 230001, 230002, 230003, 230005, 230006, 230008, 230009, 230012, 230013, and 230019) said: “Usually when I write down notes while listening, I easily miss information in the source speech because I

86

cannot listen and write at the same time. As a result, my notes are usually incoherent and unorganized so I have to organize them when I interpret. When I interpret, I usually get stuck because I do not know how to translate certain words. In the experiment, I did not have to be distracted by note-taking. Also the speed of the speeches was moderate, which allowed me to focus on organizing the notes and thought about what better words to use in the TL.” Obviously, compared to the professionals, the trainees feel much less comfortable and confident about taking notes by themselves. They fear that taking notes would jeopardize their comprehension of the source speech, hence would rather depend on complete and almost text-like notes instead of trusting their memory. Such drastic different attitudes of the two subject groups toward their own note-taking/reading abilities explain their difference in self-evaluation in this study.

The subjects’ reflections on their note-taking practices and their performances in the experiment are in agreement with expertise development proposed by Dreyfus (2004), Ju (2010), and Moser-Mercer et al. (2000).

The trainee interpreters, based on the years of training, range from novice to competent in Dreyfus’ and Ju’s five-level expertise model. They are at the cognitive stage where they learn specific rules, such as “verticalization” and “target language”, for solving specific problems, such as converting particular syntactic constructions in the incoming message to matching constructions in the outgoing message. However, with only limited situational experiences, their actions are guided by their understanding to the context-free rules without realizing the rationales behind. They require instructors to set priorities for them, for instance, in allocating mental resources to the real essential task. Some of the trainees may have reached the associative stage in which they start to detect their errors, consider alternatives, discuss solutions, strengthen connections of elements, and experiment with procedures, evidenced by their change of approach to rely less on reading notes in the experiment.

The professional interpreters are at the expert level in Dreyfus’ and Ju’s model.

They have arrived at the autonomous stage where they no longer rely on analytic principles (albeit still aware of them) to react to a situation. With huge knowledge base and extensive experience, they intuitively choose the approach that best suits their need to solve the current problem. When they recognize that the expected typical picture does not materialize, they rapidly modify their approach accordingly, all in a fluid, flexible, and efficient manner.

Lastly, regarding the implication of the present study for CI training, we would like

87

to propose that, based on both quantitative and qualitative data obtained in this study, “verticalization” and “target language” are legitimate note-taking principles that should be taught to students. However, instead of viewing them as the “golden standard”, interpreting instructors may want to emphasize the importance of analyzing and comprehending the incoming message during listening before taking down any notes. They should also be aware that note-taking skill develops with experience and it takes time to adjust the appropriate proportion of attention or effort devoted to memory and notes during CI. Therefore, in order to better prepare trainees for interpreting assignments in real work situations, interpreting instructors can provide them with ample opportunities at school to experiment with and practice the note-taking principles, preferably to an automated level.

88

Chapter 6 CONCLUSION