Note-taking in Consecutive Interpreting

1. Note-taking in Consecutive Interpreting 解析连传口译中的笔记定位及其技巧

2. Content • (1)Introduction; • (2)Practical Points for Note-taking; • (3)What to Note; • (4)How to Note; • (5)Abbreviations and Symbols; • (6)The Language in which to Note; • (7)When to Note; • (8)How to Read Back Notes;

3. (1)Introduction • (A) The Purposes of Note-taking • (a)To relieve memory; • However well the interpreter may analyze a speech and orders its ideas with a view to interpreter’s memory, there will still be too many elements in a five-minutes speech for interpreter to recall everything.This is particularly true if a speech contains numbers, names, lists and so on. • Further, if the interpreter devotes their intellectual energies to remembering (e.g. a list of chemicals), this may distract them from the key task of listening attentively to what comes next.

4. (b) To “jog” the interpreter’s memory; • The term “relieving” is used to cover noting down specific elements so the interpreter can reproduce the content of a speech. • The term “jogging” means the notes can also used to enhance the interpreter’s ability to reproduce the structure. So notes should therefore reflect the form of a speech, making it clear to the interpreter what is important and what is ancillary, how ideas are related or separated from one another.

5. (2)Practical Points for Note-taking • (a) An interpreter must be able to take their notes quickly and write upon something convenient to hold and easy to handle. So necessary tools are advised as follows: • A stenographer’s note-pad, roughly 15cm by 20cm ; (Note:write on only the recto side, not recto-verso) • A good old-fashioned lead pencil. • (b)Requirements for the style of note-taking • Should be easily legible(易读)－writing in large character; • Should be well spread out over the page so that various elements can be clearly differentiated. • Must be totally unequivocal.(Note: don’t create abbreviation word ,which will cause mistakes. For example, ind =??independence )

6. (3) What to Note • (a) The main ideas( subject-verb-object); • (b) Links and separations between ideas should appear in the notes;(which make the interpretation more logical and more easily be followed) • (c) The point of view being expressed; • (d) The audiences need to know ‘what happened and when’, and the tenses of verbs are therefore important. Similarly, modal verbs have a decisive influence on the function of other verbs and determine the meaning of a sentence;

7. To Sum Up • To sum up, the interpreter’s notes should give at least the main ideas of a speech with the links between those ideas; points of view, tenses of verbs, and modal verbs, should also be noted; • However, be aware: there are also elements that an interpreter cannot remember and where notes are used to relieve their memory. These elements include numbers, dates, proper names and lists of chemicals,fish or whatever. Once the interpreter senses there are these elements coming from the speaker,the interpreter should drop everything else and note it immediately, as otherwise the interpreters have little chance of remembering them. • The one thing to be avoided is trying note everything down as an end in itself ,to the detriment of the interpreter’s active listening to the original.

8. (4)How to Note • (A) Diagonal Layout; • (B) The Left-hand Margin; • (C) Verticality of Lists; • (D)If I’ve Missed Something Out in My Notes;

9. (A) Diagonal Layout(斜线布局法） • The Diagonal Layout, which is based around a subject-verb-object analysis, is used to reflect the structure of a speech clearly so as to help the interpreter reproduce that structure in their structure. The three components should be separated quite clearly and allocated to each of them roughly the same position in any given section of notes in the diagonal layout such as follows: subject verb object (Note: The interpreter is of course not limited to nothing just the subject, verb and object, but it is around this basic structure that the interpreter will be able to build in other details in the notes if they desire.)

10. The reasons why diagonal presentation should be preferred: • (a) To avoid all confusion. Clearly separated and distinct notes are important for ease of reading; • (b) The beginning of each new idea is clearly marked; • (c) Notes must be taken in a concise and non-literary manner • Be aware: The great temptation is to take notes horizontally and then align ideas one above another. For example:

11. Hungary has complained that its steel exports to the European union are unable to develop because of excessively restrictive tariff quotas. But the Union representative pointed out that quotas are still underused by Hungary by a large margin, so the tariffs quotas themselves didn’t appear to be creating the difficulties. • This could be horizontally noted as follows,( which causes inconveniences to the interpreter): Hu complained---steel exports to EU can’t develop Because too strict tariffs quotas But EU rep---quotas underused by HU a lot So quotas not problem

12. Drawbacks of this note-taking style : • (a) writing too much; (The interpreter should not take notes as a meeting secretary or a student at a university lecture); • (b) not stand out clearly at a glance from the page; • (c) the ideas are not analyzed through the notes:slavish reproduction of the words used by the speaker; in the order in which they were spoken, which will lead the interpreter function similarly when actually reproducing the speech orally. Note: The upshot will probably be an unanalyzed interpretation with inferior style, as the expression in the target language will be too influenced by the form of expression in the source language

13. (B) The Left-hand Margin(左边标记法） • This is used to mark the links and separations between ideas, and the separations between paragraphs. Given that the diagonal layout involves bringing your eyes back to the left-hand side of the page to start a new idea: • (a) The logic place to put the link is to the extreme left of the page, just before the beginning of the substantive idea; • (b) To make sure that links are easy to find, and avoid any confusion with the subject of the sentence a link or separation introduces, it is best to leave a left-hand margin of one to two centimeters for them; • ( c) Clear separations are normally marked by drawing a line across the entire width of the page.

14. (B)The Left-hand Margin:An Example • Hungary has complained that its steel exports to the European union are unable to develop because of excessively restrictive tariff quotas. But the Union representative pointed out that quotas are still underused by Hungary by a large margin, so the tariffs quotas themselves didn’t appear to be creating the difficulties. • This could now be noted as follows ( More convenient) HU: steel exports cannot develop to EU Because tariff quotas too restrictive But EU: HU underused a lot quotas So quotas not problem

15. (C) Verticality of Lists(同位项垂直式列举） • An exception to the general principle of diagonal layout is that lists should be noted vertically. The elements in the list have the same value and should therefore be attributed the same position in notes. • A list can of course occur anywhere in a sentence . It may equally well affect the subject or the verb.

16. (C) Verticality of Lists: An Example • Western Turkey has suffered a series of natural catastrophes, violent winter storms, flooding and earthquake. • This could be noted down as follows: W. Ty suffered catas: storms flood earthquakes

17. (D)If I Have Missed Something Out in My Notes（内容漏记时的应对策略） • (a) Don’t be panic,because it happens to any interpreters some time in their career that they fail to hear something, or hearing it fail to register it immediately , and so are unable to note it down, while knowing that there is something they have missed. • (b) Note clearly that something is missing. The simplest thing is to put a large cross in the right-hand margin of the notes at the same level as the missing item would have been in the notes. • (c )Find the missing place quickly once the speech is finished. An easy thing to find the missing place is to have a spare pencil or pen available, and to slip it in between the pages of your note-pad at the page relevant to the question. This will make it possible at the end of a speech to flip back immediately to the passage concerned and put your question quickly and directly to the speaker.

18. (5)Abbreviations and Symbols(缩写和符号)

19. (5)Abbreviations and Symbols---Some suggested symbols used in note-taking + － < > ≤ ≥ = ≠ ≈ × ∵∴

20. (5)Abbreviations and Symbols:Introduction • The obvious advantage of abbreviations and symbols: (a) To help save time in taking notes, thus adding to the efficiency of note-taking; (b) To escape the trap of word-for-word translation (by reducing an idea, which may be expressed by one word or a number of words, to a symbol); • No hard-and-fast rule to follow, it is better to find your own balance.But in trying to strike that balance, a number of basic principles should be observed: (a)It should be remembered that abbreviation and symbols are, like any other part of notes, means to an end, and not an end themselves. (b)To make sense, abbreviations and symbols must be ‘logical’ to the interpreter using them.

21. (5)Abbreviations and Symbols:-----Frequently Occurring Notions • Any notion that is likely to occur often in an interpreter’s work should have its corresponding abbreviation or symbol. (a)should have a list of abbreviation for the country names they come across most frequently; (b)should have a list of abbreviation for the major international organization; (c) should have abbreviations or symbols for the notions that come up frequently in your own particular area; (d)should create family groups of symbols and logical combinations of symbols such as economic(E), monetary(M), financial(F), budgetary(B); then words such as increase or improvement or growth ( )

22. (5)Abbreviations and Symbols:-----Links • (i) short link words in English which can be used as they stand. For example: as for ‘because’ family; but for turning point family words and phrases such as ‘on the other hand’; so for ‘therefore’ family. • (ii)can use the mathematical sign to express links. For example, ∴ to mean ‘therefore’.

23. (5)Abbreviations and Symbols:-----Tenses • The tenses in English that are most important to note are the present, the past and the future; • A simple way to note down the three types of tenses is to use willor-ll to express the future, does to express the present, and hasor- (verb)ed to express the past.

24. (5)Abbreviations and Symbols:-----Stress • (i) This can be done very simply through a system of underlining. For example, important. • (ii) Abbreviate the way they note comparatives and superlatives: (a)use suffixes such as –er and –st (b)use a symbol such as + for comparative, and with ++ for superlative; (c) or use > for comparative ‘more than’, in which case < can be used for ‘less’, and so on.

25. (5)Abbreviations and Symbols:-----Arrows(Examples) • In fact, symbols are very much a personal affair. They are created for your own purposes. They must be unequivocal, logical to their user, and form an organic system. For example: • (i) will mean increase(quantitatively) and improvement （qualitatively); will mean the opposite. • (ii) unemployment :unemployment continues to be at high level; • (iii)unemployment :unemployment continues to be at low level;

26. (5)Abbreviations and Symbols:-----Suffixes(Examples) • (i) ind≠industry; diff≠difficult or different; • But we can use suffixes to distinguish these words, especially these family group words. For example: • prodt = product; prodn =production; prody =productivity;

27. (5)Abbreviations and Symbols:-----Parentheses • Sometimes an interpreter is aware of what the speaker has said and has fully registered it intellectually but does not have the time to note it down. At that time, the parenthesis can be used as a warning sign to the interpreter, saying, ‘Be careful! There is that other point you must include here’. A key word in that parenthesis should trigger off memory of the story.

28. (5)Abbreviations and Symbols:-----Numerals 笔记方法 e.g. 5,500----5千5 或 5’5 15,300---1 万5千3 或 15’3 175,000---17万5 或 175’ — 3,000,000--- 3, , 或 3’— ’— 或 3 — — 635,500,000---6亿3千5百50万 或 635’ 5— —

29. (5)Abbreviations and Symbols:-----Numerals The reading of vulgar fractions 1/2 one half 1/4 one quarter 1/5 one-fifth 1/3 one-third 3/4 three-fourths 5/9 five-ninths 2/6 two-sixths 9/10 nine-tenths 3/1000 three-thousandths 26/95 twenty six over ninety-five 79/53 seventy-nine over fifty-three 九又四分之一 nine and a quarter 五又三分之二 five and two-thirds

30. The Language in Which to Note • The target language is given to priority to note-taking. But the interpreter should not worry too much about the question of source or target language for notes. The target language and the source language( and even the third language) can be combined to note down the speech.

31. When to Note