Press Conference Interpreting In The Perspective Of Interpretive Theory

As the economic and cultural exchange increases between China and other countries, press conferences have become an important source of information and a channel of communication between China and the rest of the world, as well as a window of the government to the public and international community. The annual press conferences held during the session of the National People's Congress (NPC) and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) have drawn great attention for their high level of spokesmen and the significance of their subjects involved and messages conveyed. As a special aid of communication, the on-site (consecutive) interpreters have served as an interlingual bridge connecting audiences and reporters speaking different languages or from different cultures. Interpreting plays a significant role in cross-culture communication.This thesis studies strategies and methods for press conference interpreting (PCI) in the approach of the Interpretive Theory. The author employs a qualitative and explanatory research method on the basis of an adequate data collection and analysis of transcriptions available from press conference interpreting of Premier Wen Jiabao's speeches and talks during the NPC and CPPCC sessions from 2003 to 2010. The author summarizes nine strategies for coping with PCI, which she hopes to give some guidance for would-be interpreters in their interpreting practice, as well as suggestions for further study in the field.This thesis illustrates the Interpretive Theory and PCI. The author summarizes difficulties in PCI. On this basis, she puts forwards some strategies and methods for PCI from the perspective of the Interpretive Theory, with the analysis of examples from the press conference interpreting transcription of speeches by Premier Wen Jiabao during the NPC and CPPCC sessions from 2003 to 2010.Through the study, the following major findings are reached. First of all, according to the Interpretive Theory, interpreting is a communication activity rather than a pure language conversion process; Secondly, sense and sense units, which lie at the cores of communication according to the Interpretive Theory point to the principle that what the interpreter delivers is the whole sense of the source discourse, not its linguistic form. After the analysis of features of the press conference interpreting and difficulties of PCI, the author finds that the Interpretive Theory could be adopted as an ideal approach for conducting PCI; Nine strategies are extracted out of guidelines and offered for coping with specific cases in PCI. They are, in the order of discussion, literal translation, borrowing, free interpreting, information supplement, explanatory interpreting, literal interpreting combined with paraphrasing, logic-processing, sentence pattern transformation and compression.To sum up, the Interpretive Theory could provide an insightful as well as meaningful guidance to the practice of press conference interpreting. The strategies and methods derived from it have proved to be applicable. Interpreters could adopt the methods summarized in this thesis for guidance to improve their interpreting effects. At the end of the thesis, some suggestions are given for further study in this field.