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Article published In:
Interpreting
Vol. 22:1 (2020) ► pp.117–139

The process of note-taking in consecutive interpreting

A digital pen recording approach

| Southwest University
This article reports the findings of an empirical study on the process of note-taking in consecutive interpreting (CI). The focus is on the data collected via digital pen recording and voice recording while professional interpreters performed CI between Chinese (L1) and English (L2). In both directions of interpreting, the study found that the interpreters preferred language to symbol and English to Chinese. It was also found that the physical and temporal demands of symbol and abbreviation notes were lower than those of language and full word notes, respectively, whereas the ear-pen span (EPS) of symbol notes was longer than that of language notes. As to the relationship between note-taking and interpreting performance, the data showed that a higher percentage of English notes was correlated with a worse performance in both directions of interpreting. There were also some differences between the directions: in E-C interpreting, the performance was better when the EPS was shorter, when the participants used more symbol notes, and when they used fewer language notes, but in C-E interpreting, the quality of performance was positively correlated with the quantity of notes.
Keywords: note-taking, consecutive interpreting, process research, cognitive load, digital pen recording
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Research background
    • 2.1Note-taking in CI
    • 2.2Research questions
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Apparatus
    • 3.3Stimulus texts
    • 3.4Procedures
    • 3.5Data
      • 3.5.1Categorisation of notes
      • 3.5.2Pen recording data
      • 3.5.3Rating of interpreting performance
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1What was noted down
    • 4.2When were notes taken
    • 4.3Note-taking choices
      • 4.3.1The choice of form
      • 4.3.2The choice of language
    • 4.4Varied temporal, physical demands and EPS of different note-taking choices
      • 4.4.1Language vs. symbol
      • 4.4.2Abbreviation vs. full word
      • 4.4.3Chinese vs. English
    • 4.5Note-taking and interpreting performance
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Content and timing of note-taking
    • 5.2Choice of form and choice of language
    • 5.3Temporal, physical, and cognitive demands of note-taking
    • 5.4The relationship between note-taking and interpreting performance
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/intp.00036.che
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