On Conference Interpreting

Interpretation has existed since time immemorial, but it had not been regarded as an official profession until the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Since conference interpretation its debut in international meetings, it has caught people's great interest and has been developed very fast. Along with the rapid process of globalization, the earth on which people using different languages are living is becoming smaller and smaller with a general trend of turning itself into the so-called "global village". Realizing the necessity of communicating with other villagers in their development and modern drive, nations apply interpretation, an effective and efficient means to bridge different cultures in their international affairs. Thus, various kinds of interpretations have been brought into being to meet corresponding needs. Among them, conference interpretation is undoubtedly one of the most outstanding members. Exhibiting its increasing popularity, conference interpretation has been playing an irreplaceable role in international meetings where the hottest issues are discussed and the most significant and influential decisions are madeAccording to CIAP (Conference Interpreters Asia Pacific), conference interpretation is "the rendering of a speech at a conference in a different language and cultural setting than the original. It can be simultaneous or consecutive. It is different from community interpreting, escort interpreting, business interpreting, etc."As a young and promising career, conference interpretation has been growing rapidly in the past decade. Many linguists and practitioners devote themselves to the in-depth research of interpretation, involving the techniques, the process of conference interpretation, the training of conference interpreters, etc. But seldom can we find a rather comprehensive one introducing an overall picture of it.Under the encouraging situation, the author of this thesis also attempts to make a relatively comprehensive description and analysis of conference interpretation, simultaneous interpretation in particular. Although the exploration of the subject poses some difficulty due to the author's lack of experience in this field, yet the process of the research has afforded greater and greater pleasure as she delves deeply into the various reference data.The thesis consists of 5 chapters. Since it is necessary for us to get an impression of interpretation as a whole before setting about studying conference interpretation, the first chapter of this thesis makes a brief introduction to interpretation, involving its history, definition, classification, features and so on. Following the brief picture, the secondchapter starts on discussing conference interpretation. This chapter brings in a detailed description and analysis of the process of conference interpretation, from the moment that the original speech has begun to be uttered to the minute that the interpretation product has been delivered. During this process, the "deverbalization" theory initiated by Seleskovitch, a French linguist and interpretation expert, is introduced to explain how information is transmitted in the interpreter's performance, and the "Three Efforts Model" advocated by Gile, another French linguist, is referred to when it comes to analyzing the result of conference interpretation. As we know that nothing can stand and go further without the support of science and theory, chapter two functions as a theoretical foundation for the whole thesis. But theories may lose their value if they are separated from practice, so the third chapter moves focus onto general principles guiding our conference interpretation all along. Three principles are presented in this part, involving the language, style and discourse features of interpretation respectively. Then comes the forth chapter which illustrates the most popular skills applied in conference interpretation, supported by abundant examples of both E-C and C-E conference interpretation. Of course, the most effective and advisable way is to make a full and flexible u...