Chapter 8

Note-related explicitations

In recent years, an increasing number of researchers have become interested in comparing the different features of notes between professional and student interpreters (Andres 2002; Dam 2004a, 2004b, 2007; Dam et al. 2005; Dai & Xu 2007; Xu & Chai 2008; González 2012). In general, these studies mainly investigated interpreters’ choice of language and forms of their notes while they are working with different language pairs or interpreting speeches with varying difficulty. For instance, Andres (2002) found out that both student and professional interpreters tend to be SL-oriented in the language choice of their notes; and Dam (2004b) observed that with the increase of difficulty of the ST, interpreters tend to take more notes with the SL.

The present chapter explores interpreters’ note-taking from a new perspective – the relationship between explicitation and interpreters’ note-taking. Professional and student interpreters’ explicitation patterns that relate to the notes they took while interpreting are compared.

Altogether four different situations where notes may be related to interpreters’ explicitations in CI have been found. They are: (1) the explicitated information has been written down in the notes (M51); (2) the explicitated information can be inferred from the layout of the notes (M52); (3) the explicitated information is related to interpreters’ misinterpretation of the symbols in the notes (M53) and (4) the explicitated information is related to the symbols that interpreters wrote down upon misunderstanding the original information (M54).