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The Role of Long-Term Memory in Interpreting

Author: WangFang
Tutor: QiWeiJun
School: Shanghai International Studies University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: long-term memory short-term memory comprehension anticipation
CLC: H059
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2009
Downloads: 252
Quote: 1
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Abstract

As the cross-cultural communication is carried out on a more regular basis, the practice of interpreting has become ever more indispensable and the research in this field has attracted more and more attention from professionals and scholars worldwide. However, from a cognitive perspective, people still focus more on the function of short-term memory, or working memory, and neglect that of long-term memory. This paper is devoted to analyzing the significant role long-term memory plays in the practice of interpreting on the basis of previous theories, proposing several strategies to improve long-term memory and hopefully shedding some light on the current training of interpreting.Short-term memory, comprehension and anticipation have long been recognized as pillars to interpreting studies. The reason why long-term memory is important is that it interacts with these three pillars and works together with them to achieve high-quality interpreting performance.First of all, memory is not simply restoration of information, but involves a very complex process that features interaction with and interdependence on conceptual processing. As a matter of fact, memory is an individual’s dealing with information, namely, processing, encoding, storing and retrieving, from the beginning to the end. Given the fact that short-term memory is severely time-limited, a vast and activated long-term memory offers abundant background knowledge to help short-term memory retrieve relevant information and quickly identify incoming messages, saving more capacity for storage and reproduction, thus improving the efficiency of short-term memory.Secondly, as a crucial role at the interface of language and cognition, language comprehension is a primary object of study in the cognitive sciences. The author systematically introduces several theories to illustrate the important role comprehension occupies in the process of interpreting. One thing these theories share is the significance of the activated background information stored in LTM of interpreters. LTM helps us make good use of the top-down information and predict what comes next, thus harvest a better understanding of the context even with less attention allocated to the bottom-up information. LTM helps us turn some of the commonly used information into the state of activation automatically, saving more attention to storage and reproduction. LTM also helps us build up schemata in our mind to facilitate the process of comprehension and bridge the linguistic or extralinguistic gap in the speech interpreted to infer the meaning of the context ourselves. Therefore, a competent interpreter must be an encyclopedia that constantly updates itself.Thirdly, anticipation is an effective strategy that interpreters consciously pick up to cope with various tasks. In cognitive studies, prediction runs through the whole process of listening comprehension. To some extent, listening comprehension is repeated process of anticipation, confirmation/falsification, re-anticipation and re-confirmation. Anticipation involves the working of long-term memory to identify lexical meanings, sentence structures, and equivalent constituents in target language. As comprehensible information can be easily memorized and thus greatly relieving memory stress, anticipation is, in turn, helpful in forming a whole picture of the context and promoting interpreting performance.The analysis shows long-term memory plays a crucial role in the practice of interpreting. The author puts forward several strategies to improve long-term memory for that matter. However, in the long run, the fundamental way is still constant accumulation and unrelenting practice. Activation will get the information into a "ready" status, which will benefit interpreters a lot in different tasks.

The Role of Long-Term Memory in Interpreting

Abstract

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