E-C Simultaneous Interpreting Report On President Obama’s 2015 State Of The Union Address:Interpretive Strategies For Conceptual Metaphors In Political Speeches

This project selected President Barack Obama’s 2015 State of the Union Address as materials for a mimic English-Chinese simultaneous interpretation. Focusing on specific problems and difficulties in the interpreting practice, this report analyzed some examples and concluded corresponding methods, of which the target is to improve the author’s theoretical knowledge and practical skills of interpreting.Based on the finished recordings and actual interpreting practice, the author found conceptual metaphor interpreting a great barrier in the task. The exact difficulties are as follows:1) failure of interlingua transfer of metaphorical imagery; 2) failure of intercultural transfer of metaphorical implication.With the guidance of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and the Cognitive Translation Hypothesis, the author divided the metaphors into two categories of SMC (similar mapping conditions) and DMC (different mapping conditions), and put forward three solutions with example analysis:1) metaphor retaining:maintaining the metaphorical features and imageries; 2) metaphor conversion:establishing the same metaphorical mapping; 3) metaphor deletion:transferring metaphorical implication with context. This report deepens the author’s understanding to the problems of metaphor interpreting, offering lessons and references for similar interpreting practices in the future.