Consecutive Interpreting note-taking: students’ and interpreters’ language choice

In Consecutive Interpreting, note-taking facilitates the interpreters’ job so that their memory and processing capacity are not overloaded (Gile 1995), referring to Consecutive Interpreting as the oral translation of the source text speech at one time or in segments, thanks to the support of the prise the notes (Giambagli 1999). Consecutive interpreting is carried out without headphones, and interpreters are next to the speaker: they listen to the source text speech and take notes using a particular note-taking technique. This contribution, based on a comparison of Consecutive Interpreting notes taken by students and interpreters, investigates in particular which language is preferred by students and by interpreters in note-taking, and it aims at trying to give an answer to the students’ questions. According to a previous investigation carried out (Baselli 2012), analysis of the consecutive interpreting notes of students leads to the hypothesis that notes are taken in the A language or source language when they coincide. When they do not coincide, when interpreters translate from the B or C language into the A language, it is not possible to state that the A-language is their favourite language.