CAN THO UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE GRADUATION THESIS Field of study: English Translation and Interpreting STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES ON THE ROLE OF NOTE-TAKING IN CONSECUTIVE INTERPRETING: A CASE OF ENGLISH TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETING MAJORED SENIOR STUDENTS AT CANTHO UNIVERSITY Supervisor: Student’s name: Lưu Thanh Phụng Cơ Trương Thị Ngọc Điệp Student code: 7116843 M.Ed, senior lecturer Class: XH11Z8A1 Course: 37 Can Tho – 04/2015 STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I declare that this thesis is my original work which has not been submitted for a degree in any other university or publish in any journal Any reference that appeared in this thesis has been acknowledged in the reference list LưuThanh Phụng Cơ April 2015 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Conducting this thesis is one of the most challenging work I have done as a student Throughout this hard process, there was time when I really wanted to give everything up However, I still completed it and I would like to thank the following people for their entire support, love and care for me First of all, I would like to send my deepest appreciation to my supervisor, Mrs Truong Thi Ngoc Diep Without her instruction and support, this thesis could never be completed on time I appreciate all her constructive comments and careful feedback My thanks go to Mr Huynh Minh Hien for providing me many books of data analysis I am thankful to all the senior students majoring English Translation and Interpreting Course 37 at Can Tho University Their participation contributes an important part in this thesis If they had not attended, I could not have completed my work I would like to thank my close friends who gave me strength and positive encouragement that help me over come this hard process Last but not least, I would like to show my dearest gratitude to my family for being always beside and believing in me Their endless love and encouragement helped me over come all the difficulties that I faced during this process ii TÓM LƯỢC Ghi xem yếu tố quan trọng dịch đuổi Mục tiêu nghiên cứu nhằm tìm hiểu quan điểm sinh viên vai trị ghi dịch đuổi, ngồi nghiên cứu cịn phân tích yếu tố sinh viên cho cần thiết phải trình bày ghi bao gồm ghi gì, cách sử dụng hình tượng chữ viết tắt, cách sinh viên trình bày ghi ngơn ngữ sử dụng ghi 76 sinh viên khóa 37 chuyên ngành Biên-Phiên dịch Anh văn tham gia vào nghiên cứu Dữ liệu định lượng thu thập bảng câu hỏi gồm 30 câu phân tích phần mềm SPSS Nghiên cứu sinh viên biết vai trò quan trọng ghi dịch đuổi Ngoài kết nghiên cứu trình bày yếu tố xuất ghi sinh viên Tuy nhiên, mối liên hệ ghi chất lượng dịch chưa thực iii ABSRACT Note-taking has always been considered as one of the most important factors in consecutive interpreting The aims of this study are to investigate the students’ perspectives on the role of note-taking in consecutive interpreting Moreover, the study also analyzes what students perceived to be presented on their notes including what students take notes, how did they use abbreviations and symbols, how they arranged their notes and the language they used in notes The participants in this study were 76 students from English Translation and Interpreting Course 37 at Can Tho University Quantitative data is collected from a questionnaire consisting of 30 Likert-scale items The software used to analyze the data is Statistic Package for Social Science Software The study finds out that student aware of the importance role of note-taking in consecutive interpreting This study also presents the elements that students thought they should present in their notes However, the relation between notes and the output interpretation has not been studied iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table Demographic characteristics of participants…………………………… 23 Table The reliability of the questionnaire…………………………………… 26 Table Summary of questionnaire…………………………………………… 26 Figure Response to the role of note-taking…………………………………… 27 Figure Response to what students take notes………………………………… 28 Figure Response to when students take notes………………………………… 29 Figure Response to the language used in notes……………………………… 30 Figure Response to note arrangement………………………………………… 30 Figure Response to how students take notes…………………………………….31 v TABLE OF CONTENT STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii TÓM LƯỢC iii ABSRACT iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v TABLE OF CONTENT vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Research Objectives and Significance 1.3 Thesis organization CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Consecutive interpreting 2.2 Note-taking in Consecutive Interpreting 2.2.1 What to note 2.2.1.1 Main ideas 2.2.1.2 Links 2.2.1.3 Proper names 2.2.1.4 Verb tenses 2.2.2 When to note 2.2.3 What language to note? 2.2.4 How to note 10 2.2.4.1 Abbreviation 10 2.2.4.2 Negation and Emphasis 11 2.2.4.3 Symbols 12 vi 2.2.5 Note Arrangement 14 2.2.5.1 Verticality 14 2.2.5.1.1 Stacking 14 2.3 Recent studies related to Note taking in Consecutive Interpreting 16 2.4 Research Questions 19 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 20 3.1 Research design 20 3.2 Participants 21 3.3 Instrument 21 3.4 Data collection 22 CHAPTER 4: RESULT, DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 23 4.1 Reliability of the questionnaire 23 4.2 Students’ perspective on the role of note-taking in consecutive interpreting 24 4.3 How students describe their notes 25 4.4 Conclusion 27 CHAPTER 5: LIMITATIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTHER RESEARCH 29 5.1 Limitations 29 5.2 Direction for further research 29 REFERENCE 31 APPENDIX A 33 APPENDIX B- SPSS DATA 36 vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter includes (1) rationale of this thesis, (2) research objectives and (3) thesis organization 1.1 Rationale Interpreting is a process in which the interpreters listen to the source text then analyze and render it into another language Especially in consecutive interpreting, the interpreters are required to retain a great amount of information in their mind (Fangquin, 2004) Therefore, a good memory is an essential element for the interpreters However, the capacity of human mind is limited (Zhang, 2012) and the interpreters usually deal with short-term memory Short-term memory is able to retain the information for just a brief period of time (Kriston, 2012) According to Smith (as cited in Thai, 2006) the duration of short-term memory is limited because people can only remember six or seven items when they give all their attention to them Furthermore, in consecutive interpreting, the speech of speaker could last from 5, 10 and even more than 15 minutes Hence, it is impossible for the interpreters to remember the content of the speech without noting any information down and the action of noting down key points of information is called note-taking Note-taking has been always considered as one important element in consecutive interpreting In facts, the importance of note-taking has been presented in many researchers’ work Furthermore, note-taking is a skill that always included in the course of interpreting In particular, in the latest curriculum for English Translation and Interpreting at Can Tho University, the subjects namely Interpreting and Interpreting focus mainly on basic consecutive interpreting and Interpreting 3, focus on advanced Interpreting The important role of note-taking is examined when Pham (2006) from Ha Noi conducts the study with the participation of 120 seniors The result of his study show that nearly 50% of participants think that note-taking is the most important element in consecutive interpreting Another similar research is conducted by Zhang (2012) in China She also investigates the importance of note-taking However, her finding is different with the finding of Pham (2006) as most respondents in her study think that note-taking is just a supportive helper for the interpreters With the specific focus on the language used in notes, two research are conducted by Dam (2004) in Australia and Liu (2012) in China After analyzing the notes of participants Dam (2004) conclude that students prefer to take notes in target language while Liu (2012) state that the participants in her research take notes mainly in source language Many handbooks of note-taking provided by professional interpreters as Rozan (2002), Nolan (2005), Seleskovitch (1995) and Gillies (2005) which guide and train students to take a good note However, my experience as an English Translation and Interpreting-majored student shows that although these authors state that interpreters’ notes are personalized in character and only the interpreters can read their own notes, not all students know how to take good and appropriate notes as the fact that they rarely approach these handbooks and the limitation in interpreting courses not provide students a clearest guidance or practice Some research have been done in the field of note-taking However, few studies have been conducted in Viet Nam, especially in Can Tho city Therefore, with an understanding of the importance of note-taking as well as aiming to provide an overall looks of note-taking in consecutive interpreting, the purpose of this current paper is to investigate the students’ perspective on the role of note-taking in consecutive interpreting Furthermore, this study also analyzes how students take notes The study was particularly conducted with the participation of English Translation and Interpreting seniors at Can Tho University Hopefully, the thesis can contribute a great part for the training of note-taking in consecutive interpreting as well as become a useful material for those who interested CHAPTER 4: RESULT, DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION This chapter presents the (1) result after analyzing data and then gives (2) discussion based on the data 4.1 Reliability of the questionnaire Cronbach's Alpha N of Items 723 30 Table Table of the reliability of the questionnaire According to Zaiontz (2013) an alpha of 0.6 indicates acceptable reliability Therefore, as shown in table 2, the α = 0.723 which indicates a high reliability Clusters Items The role of note-taking in consecutive items (1,8,10,13,21) interpreting What to take notes? items (3,4,11,7,26,29) When to take notes? items (2,14) What language used in notes? items ( 6,9,12) Note arrangement items ( 16,17,28) How to take notes? 11 items (15,22,19,23,24,27,30,20,5,18,25) Table Summary of questionnaire 23 4.2 Students’ perspective on the role of note-taking in consecutive interpreting Question Q1 Q8 Q10 Q13 Q21 Mean 4.17 3.14 3.97 3.89 3.89 Figure 1.Response to the role of note-taking Responding to question number (M = 3.89), most respondents agreed that notetaking is the most important factor in consecutive interpreting This result was consistent with the result from the study by Pham (2006) as nearly 50% of participants in his study agreed with the idea that note-taking is the most essential part in consecutive interpreting However, it contrasted with the theory given in literature review As all professional interpreters stated that the most important element in consecutive interpreting is not note-taking but memory The mean of question 10 is 3.14 which showed that students did not think that notes can distract them from concentrating on the speech In an attempt to know the function of notes in consecutive interpreting, the mean of question namely 4.17 showed that nearly all respondents believed that notes can help them picturing the outline of the speech Mentioning about the supportive role of notes in memory, question 13 (M=3.97) declared that most respondents thought that notetaking can help them reproduce the better output interpretation Question 21 (M=3.89) reflected that most respondents agreed that notes can help them increase memory efficiency From the finding of group 1, it can be concluded that students think that note-taking plays a very important role in consecutive interpreting Notes have a great contribution to the interpreter production This conclusion is different from the finding of Lu 24 (2012) In her research, she concluded that note-taking has both positive and negative effect as the notes can sometimes distract the concentration of the interpreters 4.3 How students describe their notes The purpose of group is to analyze in detail the way students take notes The questions were designed to answers how students describe their notes including (1) what they note, (2) when they start to take notes, (3) the languages used in notes, (4) note arrangement and (5) how they take notes 4.3.1 What students take notes? Question Q3 Q4 Q7 Q11 Q26 Q29 Mean 2.46 2.79 3.61 3.64 3.92 4.17 Figure Response to what students take notes Regarding to the purpose of knowing what students write down when taking notes, the question 3, 4, 11, 7, 26, 29 were given In particular, question number (M= 4.17) and 29 (M= 3.92) indicated that students agreed that using links to separate the main ideas in notes are very important In addition, students usually used some key words as linking words to connect the main ideas On the contrary, question (M= 2.46) and 11 (M= 3.61) showed that students believed that noting the main ideas is more important than noting the words Question (M = 2.79) and 26 (M= 3.64) showed that most students disagreed with the ideas that noting verb tenses is not important The mean of question 26 reflected that when noting verb tenses students tended to use the suffixes “-ed” to imply the past and “-ll” to imply the future 4.3.2 When students take notes? Question Q2 Q14 mean 4.07 3.25 Figure Response to when students take notes 25 Question and 14 ( M= 4.07 and M= 3.25 respectively) showed that most students thought that they start to take notes as quickly as possible whereas students had a neutral respond that they only take notes when they understand the full meaning of a message or a speech 4.3.3 The language used in notes Question Q6 Q9 Q12 mean 3.75 2.47 2.53 Figure Response to the language used in notes Question 6, and 12 were given to know the language students use when taking notes Question (M= 2.47) and 12 (M=2.53) clarified that students did not only take notes in either source language or target language In fact, the mean of question (M=3.75) showed that when taking notes, they used both the source language and the target language This finding is different with the finding from the study of Liu (2012) In her research, she found that students take notes mainly in source language 4.3.4 Note arrangement Question Q16 Q17 Q28 mean 3.86 3.45 3.26 Figure Response to note arrangement Question 16, 17, 28 (M= 3.86, 3.45 and 3.26 respectively) were given to know how students structure their notes The mean of question 16, 17 showed that most respondents arranged their notes from left to right and from top to bottom The mean of question 28 showed that students had neutral respond to the question that they note the main ideas as the structure S+V+O 26 4.3.5 How students take notes? Question Q15 Q18 Q19 Q20 Q23 Q27 Q30 mean 3.22 3.62 4.20 4.00 4.03 3.63 3.76 Figure Response to how students take notes Question 15 (M= 3.76) showed that when students want to stress the importance of a word they usually underline a word Question 22 (M= 3.63) presented that most students put the ideas used to clarify another idea in bracket With the question about how students handle when hearing a proper name that they not know, question 25 received 3.89 in mean It showed that most students stated that they write the pronunciation of a proper name when they not know it Question 19 (M= 3.62) and 24 (M=3.16) using to identify how students negate a word The mean showed that students were likely to cross out a word rather than put a “no” in front of it Regard to abbreviation, question 23, 27, 30 (M= 4.00, 4.03, 3.63 respectively) were given to analyze how students use abbreviations in notes The result of mean showed that when taking notes, students use as many abbreviations as they can and they create an abbreviations form for themselves only With the M=3.63, question 30 showed that most students thought they create the abbreviations form of international organization by themselves With M= 4.70, question 20 showed that most students also create symbols for themselves This result was consistent with the finding of question 5(M= 4.12) and 18 (M= 3.22) which indicated that students apply the note-taking system which was created by themselves rather than using the existed system form professional interpreters 4.4 Conclusion The aim of this study is to investigate the opinion of students on the role of note-taking in consecutive interpreting and to have a detailed-analysis of how studentsdescribe their notes 27 For the first objectives, the result from group of questionnaire showed that students aware of the important role of note-taking in consecutive interpreting Thus, students know that note-taking can assist memory Furthermore, most students thought that using notes helps them produce a better interpretation For the second objective, from these above findings, it can be seen that the elements that students presents in their notes are somehow consistent with the guidance and principle from professional interpreters However, as stated clearly in chapter 2, students tend to personalize their notes rather than using the existed note-taking system 28 CHAPTER 5: LIMITATIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTHER RESEARCH This chapter presents the (1) limitations of this result and (2) directions for further research 5.1 Limitations Due to the limit of time and research skills, the study has unavoidable limitations The first drawback was sample size In facts, to have a more reliable data, a total of population should participate in this study Although the number of participants is limited, clear respond was brought out Secondly, in the scope of this study, the relation between notes and output interpretation should also be examined Thirdly, only one instrument namely questionnaire was applied in this research and these findings were just descriptive Therefore, the result may not clearly present the objectives Lastly, due to the limit of researcher’s knowledge, some principles and rules of notetaking has not been presented in this study 5.2 Direction for further research A larger sample size is recommended in the following research, the aim of it is that it can give more reliable data Further, researcher can expand the scale and level of participants, they should investigate the sophomores who just know the note-taking and consecutive in theory then make a comparison with the result from seniors who are supposed to be familiar with note-taking and have experiences in consecutive interpreting Lastly, recorded video should be applied to further works so that better insights into the issue will be achieved The researchers can group the participants then give them a 29 speech to interpret; the requirement is that students must take notes Then researchers recorded the performance of participants and collect the notes back After that, researchers can analyze the production and notes to find out the relation of notes and output interpretation 30 REFERENCE Airasian, P & Gay, L.R ( 2003) Educational Research: Competencies for Analysis and Application (7th ed.) New Jersey Merrill Prentice Hall Al-Zahran, A ( 2007) The consecutive conference interpreter as intercultural mediator: A cognitive-pragmatic approach to the interpreter’s role University of Salford, Salford, UK Bornman, E (2009) Questionnaire surveys in media research In Media studies volume (10) Retrieved from http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/5390/Media%20Studies%20Chapter10% 20Part2pdf.pdf?sequence=2 Calmorin, M.A & Calmorin, L.P (2001) Methods of research and thesis writing Manila Rex Book store Dam, H, V ( 2004) Interpreter’s notes on the choice of language Aarhus School of Business, 3-17 Fangquin, L (2004) On the strategies of memory in consecutive interpretation Retrieved from http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-KJFY200404005.htm Fleming, R (2014) Consecutive Note-taking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0yyZ72eiKc Retrieved from Kriston, A (2012) The importance of memory training in interpretation 5(1-2) 2986.Retrieved from http://www.cls.upt.ro/files/conferinte/proceedings/vol%205%20din%202012/10%20K riston%20final.pdf Listiani, M, N (2010) Note taking in consecutive interpreting (post graduated programe of linguistic) Udayana University, Denpasar Liu, M (2012) A study on student interpreter’s note-taking, interpreting process and output (9) 1532-1537 Lu, W (2012) Developing note-taking skills in consecutive interpreting 2(1) 72-81 Retrieved from http://scik.org/index.php/lce/article/download/699/343 Jones, R (2002) Conference Interpreting Explained (2nd ed.) Manchester: St.Jerome Ma, J (2013) A study of interpreting skills from the perspective of interpreting process QuingDao University of Sience and Technology 4(6) 1232-1237 Machova, L (2009) The link between the amount of known literature of note-taking and the form of one’s own notes in consecutive interpreting 147-157 Retrieve from 31 https://www.academia.edu/8422959/The_Link_Between_the_Amount_of_Known_Lit erature_on_NoteTaking_and_the_Form_of_One_s_Own_Notes_in_Consecutive_Inter preting Mc Leod, S (2008) Likert scale Retrieved from http://www.uttamonline.com/notes/psychology/Likert%20Scale%20%7C%20Simply %20Psychology.pdf Meifang, Z ( 2012) The study of note-taking and memory in consecutive interpreting 16-17 178-184 Nolan, J (2005) Interpretation: techniques and exercise Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd Orlando, M (2010) Digital pen technology and consecutive interpreting: another dimension in notetaking training and assessment Monash University, Melbourne 7186 Retrieved from https://www.openstarts.units.it/dspace/bitstream/10077/4750/1/OrlandoIN15.pdf Pham, H.H ( 2006) Note-taking in consecutive interpreting Ha Noi university of foreign studies Quantitative and Qualitative research Bristish Library Retrieved http://www.bl.uk/bipc/resmark/qualquantresearch/qualquantresearch.html from Rozan, J.F.(2002) Note-taking in consecutive interpreting (Gillies, Trans and Edited) Cracow Sakamoto, A (2011) An empirical study on the use of note-taking for Consecutive Interpreting in the teaching of written translation University of Leicester, UK Seleskovitch, D., & Lederer, M (1995) A systematic approach to teaching interpretation( J Harmer, Trans.) : Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf Short reading comprehension passages Retrieved http://www.grammarbank.com/short-reading-comprehension-passages.html from Sladovnik, R (2014) Didactics of Note-taking Retrieved http://theses.cz/id/imhgsh/Bakalarska_prace_Richard_Sladovnik.pdf from Stanley, L (2001).Notes on Likert https://www.uic.edu/classes/idsc/ids270sls/likert.htm from scale Retrieved Strani, K (2015) How you teach note-taking for consecutive interpreting Retrieved from http://lifeinlincs.org/2015/01/15/how-do-you-teach-note-taking-forconsecutive-interpreting/ 32 Thai, T.D (2006) How to improve short term memory in consecutive interpreting HaNoi University of Foreign Studies Veal, A,.J & Ticehurst, G,.W (2000) Business Research Methods: A managerial appoach Longman Vojnarová, A (2012) Remote Court Interpreting A Case Study Masaryk University Yudina, T (2009) Training consecutive: Principles and Approaches Retrieved from Zaiontz, C (2013) Cronbach’s alpha statistics.com/reliability/cronbachs-alpha/ Retrieved from http://www.real- Zhang, M (2012) The study of Note-taking and memory in consecutive interpretation 16-17 Retrieved from http://www.ier-institute.org/2070-1918/lnit16/v16/178.pdf Zhong, W (2001) Interpreting Training: Models and Contents and Methodology Journal of Translation Vol 19 Retrieved from http://wenku.baidu.com/view/7d7e230879563c1ec5da71cd 33 APPENDIX A QUESTIONNAIRE SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGGUAGE AND CULTURE Dear participants, My name is Luu Thanh Phung Co, student’s code 7116843, from English Translation and Interpreting Class XH11Z8A1, course 37, Department of English, School of Social Science and Humanities I am conducting the research of Students’ perspective on the role ò notetaking in consecutive interpreting Your information is of great value to my thesis, kept confidential and used for the purpose of research only If you have any questions about my research, please contact my supervisor: Ms Truong Thi Ngoc Diep, M.Ed at ttndiep@ctu.edu.vn Thank you very much Luu Thanh Phung Co A.PERSONAL INFORMATION Name (optional): Age: Class: Number of Interpretation courses Female/ male taken: Please put an X to the box that fits your answer best Strongly agree Note-taking is the most important factor in consecutive interpreting I start noting as quickly as possible to avoid being left behind by the speaker The links between main ideas in notes are important I note down the words not the main ideas I develop a note-taking system for myself I take notes in both target language and source language Noting verb tense is not important Notes help me visualize the outline of the speech I only take notes in source language 10 Using notes distracts me from concentrating on the speech 34 agree undecided disagree Strongly disagree 11 I only note the main ideas 12 I only take notes in target language 13 Note-taking helps me produce a better output interpretation 14 I only start to take notes when I understand the full meaning of a sentence or message 15 I underline a word to stress its importance 16 I organize the notes from top to bottom 17 I note from left to right 18 I apply the note taking system from professional interpreters to take notes 19 I use a line crossing a word to negate it Ex: Ok= agree; Ok = disagree 20 I create the symbols for myself when taking notes 21 Using notes helps me increase memory efficiency 22 When taking notes, I put the ideas used to clarify another idea in bracket 23 When taking notes, I try to use as many abbreviations as possible 24 I write “no” in front of a word to negate it 25 When I not know a proper name, I write its pronunciation 26 When noting a word, I use the suffixes “ed” to imply the past, and “ll” to imply the future 27 I create abbreviations for myself when taking notes 28 I arrange the main idea as the structure: S+V+O 29.I use some key words as linking words 30 I create the abbreviation form of common international organization by myself 35 APPENDIX B- SPSS DATA Descriptive Statistics N Minimum Maximum Statistic Statistic Statistic Mean Statistic Std Error q1 76 3.89 121 q2 76 4.07 084 q3 76 4.17 089 q4 76 2.46 143 q5 76 4.12 077 q6 76 3.75 116 q7 76 2.79 122 q8 76 4.17 076 q9 76 2.47 112 q10 76 3.14 122 q11 76 3.61 126 q12 76 2.53 113 q13 76 3.97 099 q14 76 3.25 133 q15 76 3.76 109 q16 76 3.86 102 q17 76 3.45 105 q18 76 3.22 110 q19 76 3.62 114 q20 76 4.20 084 q21 76 3.89 110 q22 76 3.63 106 q23 76 4.00 112 q24 76 3.16 120 q25 76 3.89 105 q26 76 3.64 118 q27 76 4.03 099 q28 76 3.26 116 q29 76 3.92 095 q30 76 3.63 118 Valid N (listwise) 76 36 Case Processing Summary N Cases Valid Excludeda Total % 76 100.0 0 76 100.0 a Listwise deletion based on all variables in the procedure 37