Interpreting Research and Training Practices in Europe and China

Abstract

This chapter presents a panoramic overview of major interpreting theories and pedagogical models developed in the West and in China. The emergence of theoretical research into interpreting was closely related to the development of the interpreting profession that came into existence between the two World Wars and flourished in the 1950s and ’60s in Western Europe. Along the lines of different research traditions both in the West and China, six major paradigms have emerged to date. Five of these have been developed in the West, with specific foci on making sense, cognitive information processing, neurolinguistic processing, text production and mediation, as well as discourse production and communication (Pöchhacker 2004: 67–84). Over the course of the 1990s, Chinese interpreting scholars opened up a new research tradition, deriving from their applied research on training practices. It features a component-based, skills-led approach to interpreting and interpreter training. In this chapter, five paradigms are reviewed in depth, making reference to the works of Pöchhacker and others: (1) the interpretive approach; (2) cognitive processing; (3) the neurophysiological or neurolinguistic approach; (4) dialogic-based interaction; and (5) the component-based, skills-led approach.