本科毕业论文（设计）

题 目

A Study on the Importance of Interpreting Visualization in Improving Interpreting Ability

from the Perspective of Cognitive Psychology—

—An Objective Observation of a Contestant

学生姓名 何懿炜

专业名称 英语

指导教师 柯军

2020 年 5 月 9 日

教学单位 外国语学院

学生学号 016300334111 打印前，请将此类提示框删除。

此文档中已将主要的格式建立了

相应的样式（包括三线表），排版中请

勿删除或修改这些样式，直接应用这些

样式即可。只需要在正文部分、参考文

献、致谢等中添加内容，不能删除这些。

从其他来源的复制的文本不要直接粘

贴，而采用选择性粘贴之“只保留文本”，

A Study on the Importance of Interpreting Visualization in

Improving Interpreting Ability from the Perspective of

Cognitive Psychology——An Objective Observation of a

Contestant

by

He Yiwei

May 2020

Hubei Engineering University

湖北工程学院

本科毕业论文（设计）学术诚信声明

本人郑重声明：所呈交的毕业论文（设计），是本人在导师的指导下，独立

进行研究工作所取得的成果。除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何

其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的作品成果。对本文的研究做出重要贡献的个

人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。本人完全意识到本声明的法律结果由本

人承担。

作者签名：

日期： 年 月 日

湖北工程学院

本科毕业论文（设计）版权使用授权书

本毕业论文（设计）作者同意学校保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的

复印件和电子版，允许论文被查阅和借阅。本人授权湖北工程学院可以将本毕业

论文（设计）的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印

或扫描等复制手段保存和汇编本毕业论文（设计）。

本论文属于：

保 密，在 年解密后适用本授权书。

不保密。

（请在以上方框内打“√”）

作者签名： 指导教师签名：

日期： 年 月 日 日期： 年 月 日

1

Abstract

With the development of globalization and the acceleration of the process of

internationalization, the demand for translation and interpretation talents is increasing

constantly. In particular, the demand of interpreters exceeds the supply, which to a

certain extent promotes the development of the interpretation profession.

Interpretation competition is an important way to improve the ability of students

majoring in interpretation. The author has participated in the 7th and 8th National

Interpreting Contest and the 8th Cross-Strait Interpreting Contest respectively. The

Cross-Strait interpretation competition has added gist interpreting section. Missing

information is the biggest problem in these competitions. The author thinks that

visualization skills have a significant role in solving this problem. Visualization is also

an important topic in cognitive psychology. This topic intends to study the relationship

between the interpretation visualization and the improvement of interpretation skills

through the author's objective analysis of contests as a contestant from the perspective

of cognitive psychology. This thesis will systematically explain how to use

visualization to solve the problem of missing information. It is hoped that the

interpretation learners can be guided to learn more in the competition in order to

improve their interpreting ability.

Key words: interpreting；visualization; tactics；competence；competition

2

从认知心理学角度看口译视觉化对口译能力提升的重要性——

一个参赛者的客观分析

摘要

随着全球化的发展和国际化进程的加快，翻译人才的需求在不断的增加。尤

其是口译人才供不应求，这也在一定程度上推动了口译专业的发展。口译比赛是

口译专业学生提升自己能力的一个重要方式和途径。笔者分别参加过第七、八届

全国口译大赛和第八届海峡两岸口译大赛。海峡两岸口译大赛增加了主旨口译环

节。信息遗漏是这些比赛中最大的一个问题。笔者认为视觉化技巧对此问题有重

要的作用。视觉化也是认知心理学方面的一个重要话题。本课题拟通过笔者作为

一名参赛者对比赛的客观分析，旨在从认知心理学角度研究口译视觉化与口译技

能提升之间的关系。本文将系统阐述如何利用视觉化技巧解决信息遗漏这个问题。

希望以此来引导口译学习者以比促学，以学参比，从而提升口译能力。

关键词：口译；视觉化；技巧；能力；比赛

3

Contents

1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 4

2. Literature review...................................................................................................... 4

2.1 Previous research status........................................................................................ 4

2.2 Current situation of research ................................................................................ 6

3. Theoretical basic of the research ............................................................................ 7

3.1 Visualization ......................................................................................................... 7

3.2 Cognitive psychology ........................................................................................... 8

4. Procedures and major difficulties of the interpreting competitions .................. 10

4.1 Procedures of the interpreting competitions ....................................................... 10

4.2 Requirements of the interpreting competitions .................................................. 12

4.3 Major difficulties in the seventh and eighth interpreting competitions .............. 13

4.3.1 Anxiety and psychological quality ............................................................... 13

4.3.2 Listening barrier ........................................................................................... 13

4.3.3 Figure interpreting and shorthand notes ...................................................... 14

4.3.4 Lack of encyclopedic knowledge ................................................................. 14

4.4 Major difficulties in the eighth Cross-Strait interpreting competition ............... 15

4.4.1 Mental ability ............................................................................................... 15

4.4.2 Missing information ..................................................................................... 16

5. Countermeasures to the main difficulties in interpreting competitions ........... 16

5.1 Good preparation for visualization of interpreting ............................................. 16

5.2 Intensive listening practice ................................................................................. 17

5.3 Interpreting notes——A way of visualization.................................................... 17

5.4 Encyclopedia——the basis of visualization....................................................... 17

5.5 Visualization application .................................................................................... 18

5.6 Mental ability——psychological basis of visualization and interpreting .......... 19

5.7 Solutions to gist interpreting and visualization application ............................... 19

6. Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 24

Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 26

Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... 26

4

A Study on the Importance of Interpreting Visualization in

Improving Interpreting Ability from the Perspective of Cognitive

Psychology——An Objective Observation of a Contestant

1. Introduction

Interpretation plays an important role in international communication. With the

development of the times, China pays more and more attention to the training of

interpreters and improvement of interpretation ability. Interpretation competition is an

important way to improve ability of students majoring in interpretation. Various forms

of interpretation competitions have also emerged throughout China, such as the

annual National Interpretation Competition, Cross-Strait interpretation contest and so

on. These competitions have become an important platform for the selection of

interpreting talents through careful design of sections and careful consideration of

questions. The author has participated in the seventh and eighth national interpretation

contest of Hubei province and the eighth cross-strait interpretation contest. From the

perspective of students participating in the competition, this paper will discuss how to

reflect on three interpretation competitions through personal experience. Especially in

the eighth Cross-Strait interpreting contest, gist interpreting is a difficult part for

participants. This session is a test of memory of the contestants, who listen to a piece

of audio for about a minute without taking notes, and then interpret the main frame

and content in 45 seconds. After this session, top ranked players can move on to the

next section. To sum up, this topic is mainly about how to improve interpreting ability

through interpreting competitions and to achieve the purpose of promoting learning

through interpreting competitions.

2. Literature review

2.1 Previous research status

On this subject, many experts and scholars have done a lot of fruitful research on

the ability of interpretation or the competition of interpretation. For example, some

5

scholars have explained what the interpretation ability is. The ability to interpret ca n

be divided into four modules, namely bilingual ability, extra-speech knowledge,

interpretation skills and the mental quality of translators(王斌华，2007) . In addition,

scholars have also made a scientific analysis of the design of the national

interpretation contest. The national interpretation contest is divided into three sections,

namely: English-Chinese consecutive interpreting, Chinese-English consecutive

interpreting and on-site dialogue. Of course, these three links are for entering the

national finals of the interpretation contest. Senior professional judges who have

experience in interpreting practice and teaching will conduct a comprehensive

assessment of the contestants in terms of information content, target language

expression, interpreting skills and manners to determine the final ranking and

awards(高丽， 2016). Some scholars also take the 7th national interpretation

competition (English) northwest region semifinal as an example to analyze how to

prepare for the interpretation competition. Scholars believe that the common problems

in interpreting competitions are the neglect of English-Chinese training, the lack of

bilingual expression ability, the lack of background knowledge and the poor

psychological quality(刘静，2019). These questions are also in line with the

aforementioned interpretation capabilities. In order to improve these shortcomings, it

is suggested that students should enhance their interpreting ability by enhancing their

practice, bilingual skills, subject knowledge and psychological quality. Other scholars

also put forward the improvement and reflection of interpretation teaching by

analyzing the design and problem type of the cross-strait interpretation contest. The

cross-straits interpretation competition is slightly different from the national

interpretation competition in that the gist interpretation is added, which requires

contestants to listen to a one-minute audio of the speech in both Chinese and English

without taking notes and explain the core content within 45 seconds. Through analysis,

some scholars believe that in the future interpretation teaching, students should be

trained by taking gist interpretation as a separate teaching unit(操萍，2018). For the

improvement of interpreting ability, some scholars have put forward the methods of

enhancing vocabulary depth and reciting language input(宋天娇，2018). Some

6

scholars have also conducted definition research and experimental research, mainly

including information visualization, cognitive psychology of interpretation(康志峰，

2014), etc., but all focus on the teaching of interpreting. In foreign countries, Gile and

other scholars have made relevant research on the relationship between memory and

interpretation in the article "The history of research into conference interpreting"(Gile,

2000). In terms of interpretation and psychology, the "attention distribution model

theory" proposed by Professor Kahneman in "On the psychology of

prediction"( Kahneman, 1973) and the "state-trait theory" proposed by Spielberger

and other scholars in "Manual for the State-Trait"( Spielberger, 1970) have laid a solid

foundation for the research on interpretation and psychology.

2.2 Current situation of research

After consulting relevant materials and reading relevant literature, the author

found that there are not many materials about how to improve the interpretation

ability and participation performance through reflection on the experience of the

interpretation competition and how to use visualization in the gist interpretation

process. Although some related articles have talked about how to prepare for the

interpretation competition, it is more from the perspective of interpreting ability, from

a macro perspective, to explore the shortcomings in the competition and improve

methods. It is a discussion on the common problems of all contestants in the whole

competition. The author has participated in the seventh and eighth national

interpretation contest of Hubei province and the eighth cross-strait interpretation

contest. From the perspective of students participating in the competition, this paper

discusses how to reflect on the three interpretation competitions through personal

experience. And from the micro-points perspective, this paper will talk specifically

about the difficulties and shortcomings faced in these three competitions in order to

put forward some suggestions for interpretation learning, improvement of

interpretation ability and better performance in interpretation competitions. In

addition, this paper will review the gist interpreting of the first section of the eighth

cross-straits interpretation competition and explore the application of visualization in

7

the gist interpreting. Visualization refers to the use of language, sound, music and

other three elements to try to activate the audience's image thinking, so that their

minds present visual images, multi-sensory participation to receive information, so as

to achieve the purpose of improving the communication effect. To visualize the target

is to turn the text into an image or the image and the text coexist to facilitate

understanding and memory. This is from the body's ability to remember things,

images can always give the brain a more profound and specific content, than simple

abstract words can be more accepted by the brain and memory. Many shorthand

methods are based on this theory. The relationship between visualization and

interpretation has been studied to some extent, but the application of visualization in

interpretation competitions, especially in the gist interpreting of cross-straits

interpretation competition, has not been discussed. The author will explore this

explanation and the relation between visualization and cognitive psychology.

3. Theoretical basic of the research

3.1 Visualization

Visualization refers to the use of language, sound, music and other three elements

to try to activate the audience's image thinking, so that their minds present visual

images, multi-sensory participation to receive information, so as to achieve the

purpose of improving the communication effect. Visualization implies a change from

rational thinking to perceptual thinking, which promotes people's reception of

information from "reading" to "watching", changing the way people perceive

information processing. To visualize the target is to turn the text into an image or the

image and the text coexist to facilitate understanding and memory. This is from the

body's ability to remember things, images can always give the brain a more profound

and specific content, than simple abstract words can be more accepted by the brain

and memory. Many shorthand methods are based on this theory.

Among them, the scholar Liu Heping also first proposed the concept of text

visualization. He believed that text visualization was by imagination, focusing on the

meaning of speech, not on the words. The listener should imagine what the speaker

said or the situation of an event in his mind, which is equivalent to grasping the

8

speaker's meaning. Visualize what you hear while listening, follow the process of the

situation visually, and use the image to comprehensively remember what you hear.

The essence of text visualization is to get rid of the language shell of the source text.

The reason is that although meaning is conveyed through words, it is not included in

words itself. All linguistic expressions start from the non-verbal state(刘和平，2001).

From the perspective of domestic visualization studies, the research is more

common in translation studies. For example, the translation of ancient poems is based

on the grasp of images and its translation is mainly based on speculative methods.

However there are few studies on its application in interpretation. Scholar Zhang Jing

mentioned the concept of information visualization in “An Exploration into the

Visualization of Source Information in Interpreting and its Implications”. The scholar

believes that the cognitive mechanism of information visualization is based on the

individual's personal experience, including the experience and knowledge acquired by

people’s interacting with the surroundings. And the knowledge includes subject

knowledge, language knowledge, etc. When you hear source language information,

the relevant background knowledge (ie, schema knowledge) on related topics,

language, and textual rhetorical structures will be activated by the discourse,

interact with the source language information, and be presented in the form of images.

As mentioned above, the information visualization operation is based on the previous

experience and knowledge to image the information, so the source language

information in the interpretation can also be presented in the brain with a visua l

image(张静，2016).In a research study conducted by Zhan Cheng, he also pointed out

in his article “The Effect of Visualization Training on Trainees’ Interpreting

Competence Improvement” that the visualization training has a positive effect on the

information output of the target language(詹成，左静林，2014).

3.2 Cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology is a psychological trend that emerged in the West in the

mid-1950s. It is a psychological mechanism which is the basis of human behavior. Its

core is the internal psychological process that occurs between input and output. It also

has a certain connection with western traditional philosophy, and its main feature is to

9

emphasize the role of knowledge, believing that knowledge is the main factor that can

determine human behavior. It studies human psychological processes, mainly

cognitive processes, such as attention, perception, appearance, memory, thinking, and

language. It regards people as a system of information processing, and believes that

cognition is information processing, including the entire process of encoding, storing,

and extracting sensory inputs. Cognitive psychologists often decompose the

information processing process into several stages, that is, decompose the entire

process from stimulus input to response. They often use reaction time method. That is,

by measuring the time required for a process, to determine the nature of the process

and the relationship with other processes. Cognitive psychology must not only unify

the process of cognition, but also unify all fields of general psychology, which means

to use cognitive perspective to study and explain emotions, motivation, personality

and other aspects. The perspective of cognitive psychology has been further extended

to social psychology, developmental psychology, physiological psychology,

engineering psychology and other fields.

Cognitive psychology uses the perspective of information processing and other

methods to study the cognitive processes of human acceptance, storage, and the usage

of information, including the study of perception, attention, memory, mind image (ie

appearance), thinking, and language. The information processing is decomposed into

several stages, which is, the decomposition of the whole process from stimulus input

to response. By measuring the time required for a process, the nature of the process

and its relationship with other processes can be determined(郑薇巍，2013).

There is an important relationship between visualization and cognitive

psychology. Vision is the window of the human mind. 70% of human information is

dependent on vision, and human vision has dual functions of image processing and

symbol processing. Visual imagery itself plays a significant role in human

psychological activities, and, to some extent, vision and mental cognition are

interlinked, and the two interact with each other. For example, in daily life, when we

see a person, 70% is usually the visual effect first. We will make a preliminary

judgment on this person from the visual angle, which is the so-called first impression.

10

When the visual process is initially completed, we have basic judgments on this

person, such as whether he has a good impression on us, how he looks like, and so on.

These are acquired by our psychological cognition, that is, we will make a

corresponding evaluation of a person based on vision. Similarly, there is a close

connection between cognitive psychology and interpretation. Interpretation takes oral

expression as the main form and information transmission as the purpose. It provides

information communication services based on verbal communication and

supplemented by non-verbal communication for the two or more parties of

communication whose language and culture are not interlinked or basically

interlinked. Interpreting, as one of the means of human communication, will

inevitably go through the process of information processing from source language to

target language, that is, the process of inputting, retaining, short-term memory,

conversion, and output of information. And cognitive psychology is exactly the

scientific research on the acquisition, retention and application of knowledge. The

scope of research includes perception, attention, memory, language, judgment and

decision-making. So, in this way, interpretation is closely related to cognitive

psychology. Interpretation research can promote the development of cognitive

psychology, while the development of cognitive psychology can also promote the

improvement of interpreting ability.

4. Procedures and major difficulties of the interpreting competitions

4.1 Procedures of the interpreting competitions

The author has participated in the 7th and 8th National Interpreting Contest and

the 8th Cross-Strait Interpreting Contest respectively. There are some differences in

the setting of the links between the two competitions. As for the National Interpreting

Contest, the provincial level is divided into two parts. The first part is

English-Chinese interpreting. The contestants are required to come to the stage

according to the sequence, and each participant interprets a complete segment of

audio recording material. The recording covers economic, political, environmental

safety, social and cultural aspects. Judging from the practice of the interpretation

11

profession in the international arena, interpreting from foreign languages to Chinese

language is a necessary basic ability for translators and interpreters, so

English-Chinese interpreting is set as the first part. In recent years, due to the

increasing number of contestants participating in the competition and in order to save

time, the first part is mainly based on computer test. Every thirty people is a unit, they

put on their headphones and listen to the audio, then deliver their own interpretations.

This part is the knockout section, and those who rank higher are qualified into the

second part. The second part is the observing competition. The promoted players

come to the stage according to the contestant number in sequence. Each participant

interprets a complete speech recording from Chinese into English. The theme of the

recording material covers China's diplomacy and international relations, foreign trade

and business exchanges, Chinese and foreign cultural exchanges aspect.

For the Cross-Strait interpreting competition, it is also divided into two parts, but

different from the National Interpreting Competition, the first is gist interpreting,

which requires participants to listen to a piece of audio for about a minute without

taking notes, and then interpret the main frame and content in 45 seconds, first C-E

and then E-C. Gist interpreting refers to the way in which the interpreter conveys the

speaker's intentions concisely (Hewitt, 1995). The main purpose of gist interpreting is

to test the basic language skills of translators and interpreters such as information

analysis, gist extraction and bilingual expression. The understanding process of gist

interpreting includes listening to the source test, comprehending it, and the

interpreter ’s logical analysis. It is a fast and complicated process. If there is a problem

in the comprehension process and the content you listen to cannot be digested, the

output of the target language will be inaccurate or mistranslated, etc., and the

interpreter will be unable to complete the interpretation task. Therefore, when

interpreters are doing the gist interpreting, he or she is condensing the content of the

speakers’ speech. They are not affected by the words of the original speakers. In a

simple way, gist interpreting can be understood as making a summary in interpreting

instead of interpreting every detail(戴晓玲，2013). After this session, the top ranked

players can move on to the next part. The second part is consecutive interpreting, both

12

from C-E and E-C. The theme of audio material covers many aspects, like social

media, artificial intelligence, etc. The time of the recording material lasts 1minute and

45 seconds. Compared with the National Interpreting Competition, it is much longer.

4.2 Requirements of the interpreting competitions

In the National Interpreting Contest, the scoring requirements of the contest cover

three aspects, of which the content quality accounts for 50%, that is, the integrity of

the source language information, and whether the contestant's tone and style are

consistent with the source language. The second is the usage of skills, accounting for

30%. It mainly examines whether the target language expression of the participant is

fluent, whether some interpretation techniques can be used, such as amplification,

lessened interpretation, omission, etc., whether the word selection is appropriate and

the expression consistent with the target language. Finally, there is professional

quality, accounting for 20%. It mainly depends on whether the contestants are calm

and in a stable state, whether they fully demonstrate the psychological quality and

overall appearance and style of professional interpreters, and whether non-verbal

communication such as body language is decent and in the right form. Each score

standard is divided into excellent, good, intermediate, passing and failing, and finally

the final scores of the contestants are comprehensively obtained(邵春美，2013).

As for the Cross-Strait interpreting contest, In the gist interpreting session, the

contestants' ability to listen to information, remember, refine the keynote and bilingual

expressions is mainly tested. The main testing aspects are whether the main points of

the contestant's deliver are comprehensive, whether the output is correct, clear, and

the language is decent and appropriate. In the process of expression, whether it is

smooth, and whether the speech, intonation, speed, posture and eye contact are natural.

After entering the second session (conference interpreting), the competition's scoring

standards are almost the same as those of the National Interpreting Contest.

13

Comprehensive assessments were made from content quality, skill application, and

professionalism. Therefore, it can be seen that the difference in the scores of the

competition lies in the gist interpreting of the cross-strait interpretation contest.

4.3 Major difficulties in the seventh and eighth interpreting competitions

4.3.1 Anxiety and psychological quality

In the seventh and eighth national interpreting competitions, contestants mainly

face this problem. The first is that in the first part of the English-Chinese interpreting,

before the audio began to play, many of them were anxious, and were always worried

about what to do when they couldn't hear it, which brought a certain amount of stress

to their own psychology. After the audio started to play, some of them were unable to

keep up with the rhythm due to the fast speaking speed, the notes were confusing, and

there were some incomprehensible words, such as paraffin wax and other words,

leading to the omission and incompleteness of the entire segment information. At the

beginning of delivering, the level of psychological tension increased again, with a

little tremolo, and more saliva words. Only a rough content can be interpreted. Poor

psychological quality is also the problem. Psychological quality is also a significant

topic of cognitive psychology. From the perspective of it, psychological quality can be

divided into three stages. The highest level is extremely tension. Most contestants

were very nervous before the audio was played, which put much pressure on the

formal competition later. As is known to us all, a qualified interpreter should first have

good psychological quality, so that he can calmly cope with each interpretation task.

4.3.2 Listening barrier

Dai Xiaoling scholar pointed out in the article "A Study of Listening Barrier in

Gist Interpreting at the fourth Cross-Strait Interpreting Contest" that Listening barriers

refer to the environmental or mental aspects which exist in the situation and may

affect the accurate understanding of what is being presented(戴晓玲，2013). From the

perspective of interpreting, it is that the listening and distinguishing ability is poor,

and the grasp of information is inaccurate, especially in the English-Chinese

interpretation.

14

4.3.3 Figure interpreting and shorthand notes

figure interpreting is also a major problem. The sensitivity to these figures is not

enough and it cannot be interpreted smoothly. In the end, some contestants failed to

move on to the next round. During the English-Chinese part of the 7th National

Interpretation Contest, three figures needed to be interpreted. What impressed the

author most was that when interpreting, some contestants interpreted six hundred into

six. Of course, there are other figures such as millions and billions that needed to be

interpreted. Due to the insufficient training in this part, the response is slow in real

competition or practice, which is a bit stuck, leaving a bad impression on the judges

and audience. There is also a problem with the combination of listening memory and

shorthand notes. Many participants didn’t know much about interpreting. Some

contestants were newcomers in interpretation field. Note taking in interpretation is at

the initial stage, they did not have a complete set of notes, which also led to the

anxiety in the competition. Many contestants didn’t know which symbol should be

used to replace important information in the source language. Therefore, the output of

the interpreting is problematic.

4.3.4 Lack of encyclopedic knowledge

The last problem is the lack of background knowledge. Understanding of

background knowledge is also a very significant step in the interpretation competition

and practice. The lack of background knowledge will cause the poor quality of the

entire interpretation. For example, interpreters usually conduct extensive research on a

topic after receiving the interpretation task, and will collect a lot of buzzwords related

to the topic. A glossary will be built later to facilitate reference during the

interpretation process and avoid pauses. The examination of background knowledge

in the postgraduate interpreting examination is also a must. Among the subjects for

the Master of Translation and Interpretation examination, there is a subject called

Chinese Writing and Encyclopedia. This subject requires test-takers to have a certain

understanding of Chinese and foreign cultures, domestic and international political

and economic laws, as well as Chinese and foreign humanities and historical

15

geography. So background knowledge is of vital significance of interpretation. For

instance, during the afternoon’s observation contest of the seventh interpreting

competition, the contestants who were promoted in the morning went on stage for

interpretation in sequence. As an audience, the author found that this problem also

occurred to these participants. For example, in the process of interpreting Chinese into

English, some participants’ theme is beauty and the beast. This is a very hot film, but

its English expression has stumped many contestants, many of them interpreted as

“the beautiful woman and the monster”, and only a few contestants can correctly

interpret as Beauty and the Beast. In addition, during the observation process I was

also impressed with the Broadway translation. Many players transliterated directly to

“Bailaohui”, and some players used free translation, such as “a well-known street in

America”. Only a few could interpret Broadway. Through the above two, as an

example, it can be seen that the lack of encyclopedic knowledge is also an important

aspect that affects contestants and interpreters, especially such kind of common

encyclopedic vocabularies. If the interpretation is wrong, it will leave a bad

impression on the judges and listeners, leading to lower final scores.

4.4 Major difficulties in the eighth Cross-Strait interpreting competition

4.4.1 Mental ability

In the eighth Cross-Strait interpreting contest, the first part is gist interpreting.

Different from the experience of the National Interpretation Contest, this competition

requires contestants to take the stage one by one from the first part, so this is a

challenge to the contestants' mental ability and resistance to pressure. The numbers

drawn by some participants were relatively late, so some participants spent most of

their time in the waiting room and didn't know much about the performance of the

previous contestants. The first part is Chinese-English interpretation, and the topic is

about daily life. It was about a man who drove alone to a furniture store and found

that many of the local infrastructures was incomplete, and then he found the manager

for help. The whole passage is not difficult and the information points are relatively

clear. The main problem for them that the author found in this part was that the tense

is chaotic. The present and past tenses are mixed, which indicates that the previous

16

training is not sufficient and the lack of basic skills.

4.4.2 Missing information

The author found the grasp of the main frame is not complete. Some participants

remembered a lot of points at that time and wanted to interpret one by one, but the

time was only 45 seconds, so the final output frame was not clear enough. The second

part is the English-Chinese gist interpreting. The topic is social media, which mainly

describes the three advantages of social media for different people. This section

mainly examines the participant's listening ability, which contains some rare words,

but generally does not affect the understanding of the whole passage. The majority of

contestants could retell the three advantages, but due to the tension and the lack of

clarity of the information, coupled with a bit of procrastination in the previous

restatement, they forgot the final part and made the information incomplete. So in the

end, some of them missed the next round by a fraction of a point. After the author

finished the gist interpreting part, there were still a small number of contestants

waiting to go on the stage to interpret. I found that some contestants have forgotten a

lot of key information when they were interpreting. They often spend more time

recalling everything they heard before. In addition, some students spoke incoherently

when interpreting. The language and tense of the interpretation are rather chaotic, the

logic is not clear, and the core information is not captured. Therefore, it is clear that

these contestants did not adopt appropriate memory methods or principles to

memorize the key information in the process of memorizing the source language, but

just remembered the source language information in the brain in a chaotic manner,

resulting in confusion or omission of information when interpreting the source

language into the target language and ultimately resulting in a low final score.

5. Countermeasures to the main difficulties in interpreting

competitions

5.1 Good preparation for visualization of interpreting

First of all, mental quality must be improved, which is a crucial link. We must

strengthen our own psychological quality. A large part of the reason for the

17

elimination of competitions is that the psychological quality is not good enough at the

beginning. As the saying goes: “Well begun is half done”, so mental quality is of

paramount importance. Of course, psychological quality is also related to whether you

are adequately prepared. If you have a full preparation, the psychological pressure

will be much less. Therefore, we must pay attention to the cultivation of the aura and

self-confidence in peacetime. We can participate in more speech contests and

larger-scale programs, exercise our mentality and courage, and better cope with the

competitions. It will lay a solid foundation of your mental ability and is beneficial for

visualization.

5.2 Intensive listening practice

Secondly, you should strengthen the practice of listening, speaking and retelling

in interpretation. As is known to all, practice makes perfect. Finally, we must not

forget the learning and consolidation of basic knowledge, which is the supporting

point. Especially, we must strengthen the ability of interpreting English to Chinese.

English listening is the first step in interpretation. If you don't understand it, how can

you interpret it? Of course, English listening and personal vocabulary are also closely

inter-connected. Any words that you do not understand in listening must be words that

you do not know or are not familiar with, so it is very important to strengthen your

vocabulary. You can improve your vocabulary by reading.

5.3 Interpreting notes——A way of visualization

We must establish a complete set of our own shorthand notes. In interpreting,

although it is said that thirty percent are based on notes and seventy percent are based

on brain, these thirty percent cannot be overlooked. Notes play a vital role in the logic

and hierarchical structure of the interpretation. In the process of taking notes, you

must not write arbitrarily. Each symbol must have its meaning, especially the

transitional words. Of course, you can’t write down everything. The first is because

time is limited and the second is that it is not necessary to do so. After all, it is

essential for a professional interpreter to have a strong memory. Another important

part is the training of figures interpreting. Figures interpretation need to be trained

every day and during this process we need to pay special attention to the change of list

position, so as not to get stuck in real competitions. Only by acquiring the basic

method of shorthand notes can you do the visualization section.

5.4 Encyclopedia——the basis of visualization

The accumulation of encyclopedic knowledge is a long- lasting process. Therefore,

it is recommended that contestants must strengthen their encyclopedic knowledge.

18

They can learn by reading the original English books, periodicals, and magazines. In

the course of learning, we must have some knowledge of common sense of Western

countries. Otherwise it will cause an embarrassing situation in interpretation

competitions and practice, leaving a bad impression on the judges and listeners. In this

process, we also ought to pay attention to the study of Chinese and Western proverbs

and slangs, so that we can be more at ease in the process of interpreting as well as in

the process of visualization.

To sum up, none of the methods mentioned above can be completed overnight. It is

a long-term process and requires persistence. In any learning process, as long as the

direction is right, persistence will definitely help you go through all the thorns and

reach the height of success. At no time should you overlook the learning of basic

skills. Words learning and listening practice are the foundation of interpretation. It is

only through repeated training that you can gradually make progress and reap the

fruits of victory. In the beginning, you can’t choose materials that are too difficult.

First, you don’t have enough ability and your knowledge standard hasn’t reached that

level. Second, it will also undermine self-confidence, which is not conducive to future

training. Therefore, everything must start from the basic level and continue to solidify

the foundation.

5.5 Visualization application

From the perspective of cognitive psychology, the author found that if the theory of

visualization is used, it will greatly reduce the difficulty. Take the Chinese-English

translation of the 7th National Interpretation Competition as an example: "美女与野

兽是近期非常火热的一部电影。谈到这部电影不得不提到迪士尼乐园。上海迪士

尼乐园将于 xx 年 xx 月正式开园。分为 x 个展馆...许多音乐剧也将在此上演。幻

想一下走在百老汇街上，眼前到处都是迷人的风景..." There are many places,

which leads to confusion of memory and a lot of information is missing. But if we use

the theory of visualization, this piece of material will be solved. First, think of

Disneyland in your mind and think of yourself as a tourist. Which hall did you enter

first, what did you see here, then went to which hall, and introduced something.

Finally imagine what you saw when you strolled on Broadway. Finally, remember a

few keywords, so that the use of visual effects, through the entire process, the problem

of information leakage will be greatly reduced.

19

5.6 Mental ability——psychological basis of visualization and interpreting

As we all know, interpreting is instantaneous, and the topics of interpreting

materials are an important test for the background knowledge of the contestants.

Therefore, firstly, your own mental quality must be strengthened. After the

competition, the following problems mainly exist. First, it is still the lack of

psychological quality. In the English-to-Chinese interpretation of the gist interpreting,

due to the tension, some contestants forgot the last key point, which led to incomplete

information representation and lowered the overall score. Mental ability is a

significant study area of cognitive psychology. From the perspective of it,

psychological quality can be divided into three stages. The highest level is extremely

tension. Improving mental ability is beneficial for visualization and interpreting.

5.7 Solutions to gist interpreting and visualization application

We must strengthen the practice of gist interpreting. This is the part to eliminate

contestants, and the performance of this part is of vital significance of the finals.

Based on the performance of most contestants, there are some problems. The key to

gist interpreting is understanding and memory. As an English major in undergraduate,

most of the students are at the basic level for interpreting. Usually, we may all have

such kind of feeling. After listening to a paragraph, we can only remember some

intermittent words and it seems that every sentence is understood. However, actually

we have not grasped the point. The main reason may be our poor bilingual ability or

we do not have a thorough understanding of the original text and lack logical analysis,

or we may have difficulty in memory, etc. So we can infer that in the whole process of

interpretation, understanding and memory are the two main difficult aspects faced by

the learners of interpretation. Therefore, in the input stage, listening ability is still

relatively weak. The scoring standard for gist interpreting to contestants is based on

information points. As long as a few key information points can be accurately

interpreted, the general score will be not bad. But the author as well as some other

participants put more emphasis on the details and didn’t control the overall time well.

Therefore, it is indicated that in the course of daily training, we should also strengthen

20

the practice of gist interpreting. Gist exercises can be trained not only in interpreting,

but also in reading. After having a passage, first read it in general, draw a clear

framework, make clear the outline of each paragraph, and then try to write a summary

in your own words, which is also the summary of the main idea. After the basic

methods are mastered, the CATTI textbook is also a very good training material. The

last part of the comprehensive interpreting ability test for interpreters is listening and

summary-writing. You need to listen to a speech of about three minutes in length. You

can take notes and write down some key information while listening and after that you

need to write a summary of what you have heard. If we persist in this way for a long

time, there will be a great improvement in gist interpreting.

In the afternoon’s final competition, the promoted contestants drew their

numbers again and did the consecutive interpreting. As an audience, I watched the

entire competition. The topic of the Chinese-English consecutive interpreting part is

education, which mainly talks about how to develop our education in the era of

industrialized information. The topic is very close to life, and also fits the time of

mass entrepreneurship and innovation. The author recorded and trans ferred the

recording material. The materials are as follows:

“随着工业 4.0 时代的到来，人工智能、大数据、信息爆炸等构建出了新的

社会生态。新时代对人才的新需求正在影响教育体系的深度变革，那么未来的教

育该是什么样呢？我们知道，过去的社会发展是知识驱动，以制造为中心，而未

来则是社会驱动，以创造为中心。过去追求标准化、规模化，未来则讲究个性化，

特色化。未来的教育不能只教知识，教和育同样重要，教的是知识，育的是学习

知识的能力，认知世界的能力，学和习是两个概念，学的是知识，习是实践知识、

体验挫折，辩证思考与解决问题能力。要做到教与育并行、学与习同步，我认为

应该关注以下几个方面。一是学生学习的个性化。二是教师角色的多样化。三是

学习方式的信息化。四是评分体系的多元化。最后是教育实现学校、家庭、社区

一体化。”

Most of the promoted contestants have a certain foundation of interpretation, but

in this interpreting material, many participants still have the following problems. The

first is the interpretation of basic vocabulary. For example, in this recording, "工业

21

4.0" stumped some contestants, and some of them interpreted it as "the

industrialization of 4.0", which shows that the accumulation of fixed expressions for

such kind of common vocabularies is insufficient. Many contestants also don't know

how to interpret “以…为中心”because of tension and other factors. Some contestants

interpret it as "put ... as a center". The difficulty of this material is the interpretation of

the words "教", "育", "学", and "习". Only a few contestants can interpret exactly

what these words mean. Usually, the words "教育" and "学习" are very easy to

interpret, but when these words are separated with each other, it is difficult for many

contestants. The second major problem is the omission of information points. The

length of this material is at the moderate level, but if analyze carefully, there are still a

lot of information points in this recording. In particular, there are five points that

should be paid attention to in the final part of this material and the speaking speed is a

little fast, so many contestants cannot give a full delivery of these five points in the

source language. Some contestants stammered, giving the impression that they were

trying to identify their shorthand notes. The author believes that another test point in

this material is the test of sentence transformation. Because there are many

synonymous expressions in Chinese, such as "以…为中心" and "... 驱动", this

requires contestants to use different expressions to interpret. Of course, this is a higher

requirement. In general, most of the players did not perform well and there were many

omissions in the process of their interpretations.

The author also analyzed the English-Chinese part. The basic recording materials

are as follows:

Recent advancements in educational technology are nothing short of amazing.

The development said that have emerged in this field are empowering educators to

create remarkable learning experiences for today's young minds. Our recent po ll

reveals that seventy five percent of educators believed that digital content will over

place textbooks by the year 2026. And there were more remarkable technologies on

the way. Automated and virtual reality are seemed more prevalent utilization in

classrooms and educational settings. Educators are also experimenting with game

vacation in teaching resources that turning into a video game. These are challenging

22

them to complete work in order to reach the A level. In other areas, students can look

forward to working with exciting resources such as robot kids and that will make

educators to use and to teach kids. Also the use of analytical is leveraged as an

empowering resource that allows educators to try to test students’ performance and

measure learning improvement all the time. Furthermore, crowd of tutoring online is a

nothing new concept that emerging in education and technological innovations also

promises educators to enhance the academic, behavioral and social outcomes of

students with disorders. In a word, modern technology has facilitated the classrooms

and rendered the entire teaching and learning process and ensure everyone can get a

quality education. (This is not a word to word transcript.)

During this part, listening is the biggest barrier. Many contestants failed this part

due to the lack of much information. Some contestants can give a general outline of

this material. We can see from the transcript that the topic of this recording is still

about education, but there are some difficult points such as most of the participants

don’t familiar with some of the key words such as “automated and virtual reality” and

some sentences. The speaking speed is very fast and it is difficult for them to take

notes. Many of the contestants just delivered what they had in their minds. So, we can

see the biggest problem lies in listening ability, which indicates that in daily practice,

English listening and interpreting is a must.

In this part, if visualization method used, it can be much easier. The topic of this

part is about daily life. It was about a man who drove alone to a furniture store and

found that many of the local infrastructures was incomplete, and then he found the

manager for help. The following is a simple recall of the source language test，not a

word to word transcript.

“今天真是阳光明媚的一天，我早早的起床洗漱完毕就出门了。我去到了一

家家具店，到那里以后，我基本找不到停车位。好不容易进了家具店，里面真的

是人山人海。挑选完家具排队结账时，队伍非常长。逛完家具后我有点饿了，就

来到了饮食区。当我在点餐的时候，我发现菜单上面的品种少得可怜，所以我决

定给这个家具店的总经理写信。我很快就收到了经理的回信。一是承诺丰富餐厅

菜单品类，增加更多选择。二是针对停车难和购物排队问题，他们说这个短期无

23

法解决，不过他们建议我下载一个客流量实时 app，错峰购物，这样购物体验会

好很多。”

This recording was very suitable for visualization method. We can draw a picture

in mind. The picture is like this:

The following is an interpreting transcript based on this picture:

“One day I went to a furniture store but I find it is difficult for me to find the

parking lot. And then when I was buying the things, there are too many people here.

and I went to the restaurant and I find there are not so many dishes on the menu. So I

wrote a letter to the manager of the furniture store and he responded to me very

quickly. First he said he will solve the first problem and as for the parking lot, maybe

it can't be solved in a short time.” According to the interpretation, we can see the

whole framework has been output.

Based on the theoretical basis application of the above problems, the author

believes that we should improve gist interpreting ability from the following aspects,

so that we can better participate in Cross-Strait interpreting competitions. The

previous reflections have already mentioned how to improve interpreting skills, for

example, we must first strengthen listening trainings. When listening, you should be

familiar with the accents of different regions so that you can better cope with various

24

competitions and practices. Secondly, strengthen your ability to refine the gist while

reading. In addition to these, we also need to pay special attention to the training of

our short-term memory skills for gist interpreting. To improve your short-term

memory, retelling is a good way. In our daily trainings, we can practice short-term

memory by listening to a recording material for forty five seconds without taking

notes. Then, make a summary of what you have heard and do the re telling. During

this process, you should record what you are saying, for it will be very convenient to

check the mistakes and can make you do better next time. After training for a certain

period of time, your short-term memory will be improved. Lastly, we should acquire

some gist interpreting skills, such as visualization. In visualization, through a realistic

and visual method, a complex description was visualized into a familiar lens in life,

which was taken into the mind. Then, the interpreter can use the target language to

describe the picture in his mind and in his own way. In this way, not only is it

memorable and comprehensive, but the interpreter will not fall into the

misunderstanding of "mechanical interpretation ". This method has proved very

effective as I have mentioned.

6. Conclusion

This thesis, through reflections on the author ’s three interpretation competition

experience and from a micro-points perspective, the author has talked about the

difficulties and shortcomings faced in these three competitions and put forward some

suggestions for the improvement of interpretation ability, interpretation learning, and

how to perform better in interpretation competitions. Through these analyses,

listening is the biggest barrier in interpreting. English listening and personal

vocabulary are closely inter-connected. Short-term memory and shorthand notes are

also significant factors. In addition, the author explores the practical application of

visualization in interpreting competition with his own experience. Through the

method of visualization, the author can calmly deal with some problems in

interpreting, visualize the source language, stimulate the brain through vision, and

then produce the interpretation. This article also explores how to incorporate

visualization into daily training. Retelling is an effective way to improve your gist

25

interpreting ability and finally, all these are built on a strong psychological foundation.

A good psychological quality will make you get twice the result with half the effort.

All in all, it is hoped that the author's reflections will bring more reference to the

contestants participating in the interpreting competitions, so that they can better make

adequate preparations for the competitions and win better results, strength confidence,

and continuously improve their interpretation ability and skills to contribute to the

construction of interpreting talents in China.

26

Bibliography

Gile, D. The History of Research into Conference Interpreting. A Scientometric

Approach [J]. Target 12:2, 2000: 299-323.

HewWilliam E．Court Interpretation：Model Guidesfor Policy andPractice in the State

Courts[M]．National Center for State Courts，1995

Kahneman, D. ＆ A. Tversky. 1973. On the Psychology of Prediction [J].

Psychological review 80(4): 273-51.

Spielberger, C. D. ＆ R. L. Gorsuch.1970. Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety

Inventory [M]. Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press. 39-63

操萍. 海峡两岸口译大赛对口译教学的反拨效应[J].戏剧之家，2018(10)：187.

戴晓玲. A study of listening barrier in gist interpreting at the fourth Cross-Strait

Interpreting Contest [D]. 江西：南昌大学，2013.

高丽. 基于全国口译大赛的英语专业口译教学改革研究——以湖南理工学院为

例[J]. 怀化学院学报, 2106(7)：121-124.

康志峰. 口译认知心理学：范式与前瞻[J]. 当代外语研究, 2014(11)：52-56.

刘和平. 口译技巧——思维科学与口译推理教学法[M]. 北京：中国对外翻译出版

公司，2001.

刘静. 浅析如何准备口译比赛——以第七届全国口译大赛（英语）西北赛区复赛

为例[M]. 青春岁月，2019(1)：83.

李雪婷. 浅析主旨口译的困难与训练方法[M]. 翻译研究.

邵春美. 全国口译大赛对高校口译教学的启示[N]. 鸡西大学学报，2013(2)：

87-88.

宋天娇. 词汇知识深度在口译实践中的重要性探究[J]. 语言艺术与体育研究，

2018(5)：409.

王斌华. 口译能力的评估模式及测试设计再探——以全国英语口译大赛为例[J].

外语界，2011(1)：66-71.

詹成，左静林. 视觉化训练对口译能力提升的效应[N]. 广东外语外贸大学学报，

2014(6)：75-78.

张静. 口译源语信息的视觉化探索及启示[J]. 高教论坛，2016(11)：125-129.

郑薇巍. 从认知心理学角度探讨口译教学[J]. 课程教育研究，2013(6)：75-78.

Acknowledgements

27

On the completion of this thesis, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all

those professors and teachers who have helped me in the past four years of my

university period and in the process of writing this paper. Especially here I want to

owe my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor Mr. Ke for his guidance of my university

career and his constant instructions and dedication of my paper. Mr. Ke is also my

first interpreting teacher. It is he who inspired my interests in interpreting and gave me

a lot of encouragement. All these four years, he has guided me with extensive

knowledge and profound insights. Without his specific suggestions and careful

revisions, there would not have been this thesis presented.

Besides, I also want to say thank you to my parents. They always support me to

learn what I would like to, and give me selfless and endless love through my whole

life. Every time when I meet difficulties, it is them who stand beside me and give me

the best. Their love and support in the past 22 years are the best treasure I have ever

gained. Their unswerving love always spurred me to make progress.

Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to the faculty of School of

Foreign Languages, Hubei Engineering University. Every time I go to Wuhan to

participate competitions, they accompany me. For the past four years, they have

imparted me knowledge and taught me how to be myself. They are very kind and their

help and encouragement to me will always be cherished.