Professional Interpreters’ Notes in Persian-English Consecutive Interpreting on the Choice of Form and Language

Note-taking plays a pivotal role in consecutive interpreting, particularly where methodical note-taking is used. In the absence of Iranian research in this respect, the present study investigated the process of note-taking in Persian-English consecutive interpreting in order to clarify how exactly the notes are taken by the professional interpreters and how much they are familiar with note-taking and the related concepts. For the purpose of this study, five professional Iranian interpreters were participated and through the observation and phone interviews, the required data were collected. Next, the notes taken by the professional interpreters were reviewed and classified based on several factors such as the use of abbreviations and symbols and the source or target language preference; also, the replies given via the phone interview were transcribed, codified and later analyzed. The research findings showed that the majority of Iranian professional interpreters had passed no course regarding to the note-taking skill in general and they rarely used symbols in their notes and wrote words in letters, mostly in full forms in target language. The findings showed that they took notes based on their experiences irregularly rather than the rules and principles. The findings of the study suggest that there is an urgent need for a note-taking guideline, especially for Persian-English consecutive interpreting venture. Considering the effect of note-taking on their performances, Iranian interpreters should be more familiar with the academic aspect of this skill which could be gained through workshops or some guidelines given to the students and practitioners of this field.