摘 要

在当今社会，无论是翻译认证考试还是公司实习，数字口译准确无误是基本要求。数字口译不仅是口译员最重要的任务之一，也是最主要的失败所在。对于大学口译初学者，由于基础相对薄弱在遇到数字时容易出错，这一特点易发展成为他们职业生涯的致命劣势。因此，在当前劳动力市场竞争激烈的情况下，关注和掌握数字口译非常重要。除了数字本身具有高信息量和低可预测性的特点之外，本文还将讨论导致这一现象的更多原因及对策。

本文参考Gile教授的口译精力模型，探讨这些失误的成因，讨论数字口译本质和行为机制，继而寻找解决方法。本文在对作者口译训练错误集锦进行理论分析的基础上，依据吉尔精力模型的阶段性解释总结了具体的纠正方法。分析结果表明，通过口译精力的合理分配和大量的数字练习，最终可以提高数字口译的准确性和效率，达到促进双边交流和社会各领域多元合作的目的。

关键词: 数字口译;吉尔精力模型;教学启示

Abstract

In today's society, whether it is the translation and interpretation certification examination or the company internship, the high accuracy of number interpretation is always required. Number interpretation has become one of the most important tasks for interpreters, which has also been their major failure, however, not to mention most college beginners. Subject to their comparatively weak foundation, beginners are prone to making mistakes when they come across numbers, which can easily become a fatal disadvantage for their career development. Part of the reasons is that the number itself has the characteristics of high information and low predictability, and other more will be discussed in this paper. Therefore, it’s important to pay attention to and master number interpretation, given the current fierce labor market competition.

This paper discusses the causes of these unexpected errors with reference to Gile's effort model, with attempts to clarify the nature and behavioral mechanism of number interpretation, so as to find solutions. Based on the theoretical analysis of number interpretation mistakes made by the author, this paper gives general explanations and summarizes specific ways to correct these mistakes according to the effort model. The conclusion is that with a reasonable allocation of the efforts during the interpretation process and abundant exercises, the accuracy and efficiency of number interpretation could be improved ultimately and the purpose of promoting bilateral exchanges and multi-cooperation in various social fields could be achieved.

Key words: Number interpretation; Gile’s model; Pedagogic implication

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Research Background 1

1.2 Research Objectives and Significance 1

2 Difficulties in Number Interpretation 3

2.1 Different Numerical Systems 3

2.2 Different Numerical Terms 3

3 Theoretical Framework 8

3.1 Introduction to Gile’s Effort Model 8

3.2 Gile’s Model of Consecutive Interpreting 8

4 Problem Analysis 11

4.1 Chinese-English Interpretation Error Analysis 11

4.2 English-Chinese Interpretation Error Analysis 12

5 Pedagogic Implication 14

5.1 The Method of Listening and Analysis 14

5.2 The Method of Taking Notes 15

5.3 The Method of Short-Term Memory 17

6 Conclusion 18

References 19

Pedagogic Implication on Number Interpretation Based on

Gile’s Model

1. Introduction
   1. Research Background

Arabic numerals are commonly seen in daily life, they are symbolic tools to express the concept of quantity and carry about dozens of times more information than the text, due to its low relevance, low predictability and large amounts of information. Most interpreters deem it as their major headache.

When dealing with numbers, the pressure on interpreters is about 20 times greater than that for a typical political speech, and the pressure of changeable information just proves how difficult it is to interpret numbers (Bao gang, 1998:187). Professor Mei Deming of Shanghai International Studies University once pointed out that, the interpretation of numbers is a major difficulty in interpretation and even the most experienced interpreters dare not slacken their efforts when they come across numbers, especially those with more than five digits (Mei, 2010:458). The meanings of numbers are simple, fixed and difficult to predict from the context, so what the interpreter can do is to memorize them (Wang, 2009:183). From these points of view, it could be said number interpretation difficulties existed in the communication process from the beginning and so far we haven’t any solution once and for all. Specifically, there are six most frequent errors, including missing numbers, approximate numbers, lexical errors, syntactic errors, phonetic errors and other errors (Mazza, 2011). These six kinds of errors run through the whole process of number interpretation, which enlightens the author to better clarify different types of failures in number interpretation.

At the end of the 20th century, French professor Daniel Gile put forward his effort model and creatively invented concepts like listening and analysis effort, short-term memory effort and note-taking effort, and divided interpreters’ working process into the standard procedure, which brought significant implications in improving number interpretation. And it’s particularly important to pass it to students and provide them with ideas and methods to alleviate the difficulties (Gile, 1995:160). The importance of effort distribution is self-evident. It’s necessary to optimize the effort distribution patterns of number interpretation before the interpreter has a good command of numbers.

1.2 Research Objective and Significance

1.2.1 Research Objective

This article embarks from Gile’s effort model, focusing on analyzing characteristics of numbers and differences of numerical expressions between Chinese and English mathematical terms, numerical units and signal words, explaining the reason for number interpretation failures during the number interpretation training process. In terms of optimizing number interpretation strategies, Gile’s effort model is introduced to answer aforementioned questions and give corresponding suggestions based on the two phases of the consecutive interpretation process, such as advice to improve listening, memory and note-taking skills, so as to convert practical experience into teaching reference opinion and provide a new perspective for the interaction between teachers and students in the class.