CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background to the Thesis

Interpreting, like playing chess, is a game of problem solving, evaluation, critical thinking, intuition and forecasting. Every game is different and each game is a challenge, which requires interpreters, to unceasingly develop knowledge and experience. It is disciplined study and repeated practice of many techniques and skills that bring victory to the interpreter. Apart from basic requirements of language mastery and culture sensitivity, there are quite a few skills that need to be acquired for successful interpreting. One of them is note-taking skill.

Taking notes simply means quickly writing down information as a record or reminder. However, note-taking might be compared with a move in chess; to understand how to make the move is quite easy, but to master it in order to create a winning combination of the move and the others is a hard and demanding job.

Note-taking in consecutive interpreting is a skill to be learned. There is no abstract theory about the skill, but there are a wide range of practical principles laid down by succeeding generations of consecutive interpreters over time. These principles have been made of both empirical studies digging deep into nearly every aspect of the skill and research books elaborating main theoretical approaches to it. By no means exhaustive, the ambition of this thesis is only to actively, effectively and directly contribute to the further research, development and implementation of note-taking in consecutive interpreting. The thesis can be seen as an overall picture that helps student interpreters to have a general view of fundamental things about the skill and also to explore “the shape” of the note- taking in other novices’ points of view