Monday, May 20, 2013

Simmy/ Classification essay/ Tue 9am

Dressed with suit and tie, holding the starbucks coffee, you walk into your office with confidence. I'm sure most of you have pictured your future career life, so do I. Now I major in the English interpretation and translation, I have imagined my career to be an interpreter. However, being a successful interpreter requires lots of abilities.

First of all, there's no doubt that interpreters should have a thorough knowledge about the languages. It doesn't only mean that they know the languages well but also the culture. Professional interpreters should first help the listeners overcome the cultural barrier and then interpret the speaking precisely.

Secondly, interpreters are required to respond rapidly. In simultaneous interpretation, they are supposed to follow the speaker almost at the same time. On the other hand, some unexpected situations may happen. Thus, their rapid response is needed to deal with the situations. For example, let's assume that the speaker says something really rude to express his anger. The interpreter, however, in order not to destroy the cooperation, may interpret the speaker's saying in a soft or gentle way, which means that the interpreter should possess the ability of judging the situation rapidly.

The last but not least, they are required to catch the main idea of the speaking and take notes in an efficient way. The interpreters are not the machine, so it happens that they don't know some words during the speaking. But since the interpreters' work is to catch main ideas instead of every single word, they should balance the importance of the information and take notes to help them re-express.

In conclusion, thorough understanding about the languages, rapid response and the ability of seizing the main idea are the basic skills to train to be a professional interpreter. Nevertheless, as you can see, there are so many excellent students in this EIT major, the occupation is competitive and other more useful abilities should also be taken into consideration. 

2 comments:

  1. From Seonyoung Hwang to Simmy

    1. Does the introduction include background information about the topic? Yes. "Now I major in the English interpretation and translation, I have imagined my career to be an interpreter." is the background information of the main topic.

    2. Does the thesis statement have a unifying principle? Yes. "...being a successful interpreter requires lots of abilities." is a unifying principle that connects each body paragraphs.

    3. Does each body paragraph include a distinct category? Yes. She mentioned three categories: language skills, rapid reaction/response, and notetaking skills.

    4. Are the supporting details for each paragraph sufficient? Yes. Especially I enjoyed the example in the second paragraph because it makes the body paragraph more concrete.

    5. Does the conclusion restate the three categories? Yes.

    6. Is there advice, a prediction, or a general statement in the conclusion? If not, make a suggestion to the writer abut how to revise. I'm not sure if she mentioned any of above. It gives a feeling that the writing will be continued in the conclusion because she mentioned 'other more useful abilities.'
    My suggestion here would be that if she'd like to use advice in conclusion she could use it as 'since there are a number of talented future interpretors I/you should make sure to be aware of these skills.'

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  2. 1. Yes, the introduction includes background information about the topic. However, I think your hook is a little unrelated to your topic. Maybe you can change it with something related to interpretation.
    2. Yes. " being a successful interpreter requires lots of abilities" is the unifying principle.
    3. Yes.
    4. Especially your second body paragraph has good and sufficient supporting details including examples. It would be much better if you put more examples on first and third body paragraphs.
    5. Yes it restates three categories and summarizes well.
    6. As a student who is also majoring in interpretation, I agree with your point. I only suggest that your introduction paragraph need stronger hook sentences .

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