Abstract: Non-English majors have their own advantages and disadvantages in learning interpretation. Integrating the teaching of interpretation skills into English teaching at the basic stage can promote English teaching and reduce the pressure of interpretation teaching in the future. In the improvement stage, English teaching should be integrated into the teaching of interpretation skills, and interpreters with professional knowledge should be trained on the basis of improving students' language level to meet various needs.
Keywords: teaching objectives and methods of interpretation for non-English majors
Interpretation involves all aspects of social life, and sometimes some topics are discussed deeply and extensively, which requires the cooperation of interpreters with various professional backgrounds to complete the interpretation task. At present, interpretation training in China mainly focuses on foreign language departments. Most students come from linguistic backgrounds, and only a few come from non-linguistic backgrounds. This kind of student composition with too single professional background leads to too single professional background of Chinese interpreters, which is not conducive to the development of Chinese professional interpreters. In order to change this situation, it is necessary to train some non-English majors with high English level to engage in interpretation. This paper mainly discusses the contents, steps and methods of interpretation teaching for non-English majors.
I. Teaching Objectives of Interpretation for Non-English Majors
1. Advantages and disadvantages of non-English majors in learning interpretation
Language, as a symbol system, is an important means for human beings to transmit information and the carrier of ideas. The fundamental purpose of language learning is to use this tool to convey the idea of information exchange. The depth and breadth of ideas and information vary from person to person. Compared with English majors in the same grade, non-English majors have their own majors, such as bioengineering, medicine, automobile engineering and so on. English is just a tool for them. Theoretically speaking, non-English majors can reach a depth and breadth that English majors can't reach when they understand and express the ideological information in their major and related fields with the same language level.
On the other hand, because non-English majors have their own majors, the time spent on specialized courses greatly occupies the time of English language learning, and the number and class hours of English courses are far less than those of English majors. In the third and fourth grade improvement stage, a large number of specialized courses further occupy the class hours of English courses, making the English courses (ESP) for non-English majors in most colleges and universities only have two class hours per week, which is worse than that for English majors in the same grade. It is not difficult to understand that the English level of non-English majors is not as good as that of English majors in general, especially in listening and speaking.
The professional advantages and language disadvantages of non-English major students make it impossible for non-English major interpretation teaching to copy the teaching mode of English major interpretation. We must design different teaching objectives and contents and follow different steps and methods according to the characteristics of students.
2. Teaching objectives of interpretation for non-English majors
According to different classification standards, interpretation can be divided into many types. Pchhacker believes that from a diachronic perspective, the most obvious classification standard of interpretation is the interactive social context, that is, the setting of interpretation. According to this standard, interpretation can be divided into business interpretation, diplomatic interpretation, military interpretation and court interpretation. According to the skills and knowledge required for interpretation, it can be divided into conference interpretation and general interpretation. Conference interpretation, including consecutive interpretation and simultaneous interpretation, requires complete and comprehensive interpretation skills, multidisciplinary knowledge and extremely high level of A and B languages. General interpretation can be simply summarized as internal interpretation and accompanying interpretation. For general interpretation, consecutive interpretation skills can complete the task, and the language level is lower than that of conference interpretation, which generally only involves professional knowledge in specific fields. Different societies have different needs for different translators. If the total demand for counterpart interpreters is compared to a pyramid shape, then the demand for ordinary interpreters is the middle and bottom of this huge pyramid, accounting for 80% of the total, and the demand for conference interpreters only accounts for a very small part of the spire.
Considering the language foundation, professional advantages, less class hours and market demand of non-English majors in China, the more appropriate goals of interpretation teaching for non-English majors should be: on the basis of improving students' A and B language level, mainly imparting introductory knowledge of consecutive interpretation, training students' consecutive interpretation skills, cultivating professional general interpreters for students' professional fields and related professional fields, and finding talents to develop to a higher level.
Second, the teaching content of interpretation for non-English majors
As a kind of professional skill training, Zhong Wei and he believe that the content of interpretation teaching can be summarized into three modules, namely, language knowledge, encyclopedic knowledge and interpretation skills. For interpretation teaching for non-English majors, English courses and professional courses offered at different stages in four years should be based on language knowledge and professional knowledge respectively, and pay more attention to the improvement of language level and the teaching of interpretation skills than encyclopedia knowledge teaching, that is, the teaching content should rely on students' original professional knowledge and skills and adopt the mode of language (English) knowledge+interpretation skills.
Interpretation is an activity of listening and speaking, using spoken language. Of course, the content of interpretation language teaching should also pay attention to oral English. This oral English includes A and B. For non-English majors, the most important thing to improve is undoubtedly oral English as a foreign language (B). However, as the teaching content of interpretation, B's oral English is not completely equivalent to the teaching content of general oral English class. General oral English teaching often pays attention to the teaching of common words in daily life situations, such as shopping, picking up people at the airport, eating in restaurants and other daily expressions. , which belongs to spoken language. In interpretation activities, although interpreters also need this kind of spoken language, it is impossible to complete the interpretation task only by mastering this kind of spoken language. If you want to do a good job in interpretation, the key content you need to master is "the working language of interpretation". This is a specific spoken language used in a certain job in the social verbal communication environment. Compared with oral life, because the communication occasions used are often formal or semi-formal, its speech level is higher, and formal or solemn style can be used; Strong logic and certain structural integrity; The amount of information is large and concentrated, which is difficult to remember. Need reading skills such as notes to help memory; Words are more rigorous, even specialized in some aspects, such as the use of some uncommon technical terms, idioms used in these occasions and so on. "Interpreting working language" is seldom used in life, but it is what translators need to pay attention to and improve most in the process of language learning.
Because the teaching goal is to train professional general interpreters and need consecutive interpretation skills, the teaching contents of skills mainly include: the principles of listening and understanding; Voice type analysis; Determination of the theme idea; Short-term memory training in interpretation; Explain; Reorganization of target language information; Speech skills; Digital translation skills; Pre-translation preparation skills; Coordination ability training and so on. The training methods of various skills are different. For example, short-term memory training can be carried out through retelling exercises and shadow exercises. The training of expression ability includes speaking in public in Chinese and English, describing given topics and situations in Chinese and English, etc. The teaching of note-taking skills includes the selection of note symbols, the handling of link relations, and the arrangement principles of notes.
Thirdly, the steps and methods of interpreting teaching for non-English majors.
At present, the English learning of non-English majors in China during their four years in college can be divided into the basic stage of the first and second grades and the improvement stage of the third and fourth grades. In the basic stage, there are few specialized courses for students, and English teaching focuses on the study of basic English knowledge and the improvement of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Most colleges and universities generally have four to six classes a week. In the improvement stage, with the increase of specialized courses, English classes in most colleges and universities have been reduced to two classes, and English learning has entered the ESP stage. English teaching emphasizes the application of English in students' professional fields, which involves more professional knowledge. At the same time, many colleges and universities also encourage bilingual (English-Chinese) specialized courses. To some extent, this content-based course can also be regarded as a part of language teaching in the improvement stage.
Squeezed by specialized courses, there are fewer English classes for non-English majors in both the basic stage and the improvement stage. Interpretation teaching arrangements should be combined with English courses as far as possible. At the basic stage, students' English level is limited, so they can't conduct comprehensive interpretation training. But this does not mean that there are no interpretation skills to teach. At this stage, we can not only teach some interpretation skills, but also promote English teaching, especially listening and speaking teaching, and at the same time reduce the pressure of less interpretation hours and heavy teaching tasks in the improvement stage. However, interpretation teaching at this time can only be regarded as one of the auxiliary means to improve the level of language teaching. In the improvement stage, interpretation teaching should be combined with ESP offered at this stage, focusing on students' professional knowledge and knowledge in related fields, and strengthening the teaching of interpretation skills and B language as a working language. At this time, interpretation teaching is the main supplement to foreign language teaching. Elaborate in detail below.
1. Basic stage
Training some interpretation skills for non-English majors at the basic stage can promote English teaching. These skills involve all aspects of interpretation, including listening, taking notes, taking notes, expressing and preparing before translation.
In intensive reading class, teachers can choose some suitable texts with distinctive oral discourse characteristics to train students' interpretation skills. For example, the text of the first lesson of College Experiencing English Intensive Reading published by Higher Education Press is the speech made by the president of Stanford University in the opening ceremony of freshmen on September 5438+0, 2006. Before explaining the text, the teacher asked the students to know the identity of the author, and asked them to pay special attention to the background knowledge such as the place where the author spoke and the composition of the target audience just after 9. 1 1, so that the students could predict the content of the text before reading, and then check the accuracy of the prediction against the text to explain the interpretation knowledge prepared before translation. Enter the stage of text explanation, and guide students to analyze the characteristics and logical structure of the text. , and familiar with the structure and wording of such speeches. After the explanation, guide students to carry out visual translation training such as sentence breaking and oral translation into Chinese. In order to consolidate the learning results, we can provide more lectures of the same type for students to practice further.
The listening requirements of interpreters in the workplace are higher and more comprehensive than those of ordinary people in daily communication. Whether students will continue to study interpretation in the future or not, mastering interpreters' understanding skills will be of great benefit to improving students' English listening level, coping with various listening tests that students are most concerned about and communicating orally in English. The teaching of interpreting listening skills can be integrated into the listening class, including training students to effectively understand different styles through active listening materials, analyzing the information units contained in them and their logical relations, how to get the meaning contained in them without being bound by words, and how to deal with numbers, terms and vague points. With the advancement of listening course, the content of listening materials is deepening and the length of the materials is gradually increasing. For example, in the second grade, the length of some listening materials reached nearly 400 words. Due to the physiological limitations of human working memory capacity (7+2 units) and retention time (2 ~ 15 seconds), even if students fully understand the information contained in it, it is difficult to remember it all after listening. How to remember the understood information to cope with related exams (such as sentence dictation in the compound dictation part of CET-4) has become a problem that students must face. At this time, the interpreter's brain-taking skills can be integrated into listening teaching. For example, teachers can explain the choice of note symbols, how to take notes with the least effort, what to remember and so on. And cooperate with the training of teaching materials to cultivate students' awareness of taking notes.
The ability of clear, concise, fluent and coherent oral expression in public is not only a necessary ability for an interpreter, but also one of the talents that any high-quality talent should have. In oral English class, after teachers let students discuss a topic and ask them to express their opinions in public, they might as well introduce the teaching of public speaking skills when commenting on students' oral expressions, give guidance on the control of speech speed and intonation, and how to correct bad expressions, so as to train students to express effectively.
Of course, students at this stage mainly lay a good language foundation. The teaching of interpretation skills can only be carried out seamlessly, aiming at promoting students' language learning and preparing for their subsequent interpretation learning, so as to achieve the effect of killing two birds with one stone.
Step 2: Improve the stage.
When students enter the third and fourth grades, the conditions for interpretation training are more mature for some students with better English level, especially those with higher listening and speaking level. First of all, most of these students have passed CET-4 and CET-6, their English level has been further improved and their language foundation has become more solid. Secondly, students' English learning has entered the stage of improvement, specialized English courses have replaced basic English courses, the proportion of specialized courses has expanded, and some specialized courses have adopted bilingual teaching mode, which have prepared the professional knowledge foundation for the formal development of interpretation teaching and solved the technical terminology problem for interpretation teachers. At this time, interpretation teaching should be separated from English language teaching and set up separately. The teaching target should no longer be all students, but students who are interested in interpretation and have a high level of English, especially those who have heard and spoken. The teaching goal is to train interpreters, not just to improve English. The focus of teaching is to improve students' interpretation knowledge and skills and further improve their B language level.
At this stage, the teaching of interpretation knowledge and skills can be carried out from both micro and macro aspects. Microscopically, it includes the above skills of interpretation, such as listening analysis skills, short-term memory skills, interpretation note-taking skills, expression skills, pre-translation preparation skills and so on. Although these skills are involved in the basic stage of grade one and grade two, they are only selectively interspersed as a means to improve English teaching, which is not the focus of teaching, and it is difficult and impossible for students to master them comprehensively. The training of the above-mentioned micro-skills should be comprehensively strengthened in the third and fourth grade interpretation teaching. Training methods can refer to other types of interpretation teaching, such as retelling exercises and shadow exercises, to train students' short-term memory; In the process of understanding, separate words from exercises and train students' listening and analytical skills.
Macro-teaching mainly focuses on how to train students to apply the above micro-skills to specific interpretation tasks. Task-based teaching method can be used in teaching. Because the teaching goal of this kind of interpretation teaching is to train professional general interpreters with certain consecutive interpretation skills for students' professional fields and related professional fields. Therefore, when designing and selecting interpretation tasks, we should consider students' majors, possible fields of employment, and even the settings that often need interpretation in this field and industry, and choose some typical and frequently used interpretation scenes for design.
At this stage, although the students' language level, especially the B language level, has been greatly improved compared with the basic stage, there is still a considerable gap compared with the B language level required by a qualified interpreter. Interpretation teaching still needs to attach great importance to the improvement of students' B language level. However, English teaching at this time is different from the basic stage. First of all, English language teaching is no longer offered as a separate course, but integrated into all aspects of interpretation courses. For example, when teaching students pre-translation preparation skills, students should make and memorize vocabulary according to specific interpretation tasks. When teaching listening and analysis skills, students should analyze different spoken texts and be familiar with their logical structures. Secondly, at this time, the content of English learning has changed from ordinary language in the basic stage to "working language of interpretation", that is, the typical working language that students need in typical interpretation situations in related professional fields. For example, corporate product launches, company opening speeches and other common styles.
It should be pointed out that the above working languages contain some uncommon technical terms and other contents unknown to interpreters. Because professional English and some English-Chinese bilingual courses had been set up at that time, interpretation teaching could cooperate with the teaching of these courses and seek solutions.
Four. Concluding remarks
Based on the professional background, language proficiency and professional curriculum of non-English majors, interpretation teaching for such students should set different teaching objectives, follow different teaching steps, and have different teaching focuses and contents in the basic stage and the improvement stage. In the specific teaching process, only by clarifying the status of language teaching and interpretation skills teaching in different stages can we achieve the established teaching goals.
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