Linguistic Adaptation Approach To Context In Interpretation

Adaptation to context is a very important subject that attracts much attention from many branches of linguistics. There is no exception in interpretation study: The study of context adaptation has long been the focus in the eyes of many scholars and linguists. Interpretation can't go on without adaptation to context, because adapting to specific contexts is the common feature of using language in all kinds of branches of linguistics. However, because of the limitation of study in some fields, there is still much work that needs to be done in this aspect.As Malinowski suggests that utterance"becomes only intelligible when it is placed within its context of situation."(Refer to Jiang Yanmei, 1998) Interpretation, in essence, a communicative activity, also only takes place in the special context. Due to its extemporariness,interpretation is more dependent on the context. Study of the relation between context and interpretation should gain its due attention in this field.In chapter one, this paper makes an introduction of Adaptation theory.In chapter two, the current context study in interpretation is firstly reviewed, various definitions, classifications of context and different points of view about context are summarized.In chapter three and chapter four, the adaptation theory put forward by Jef. Verschueren is applied into the context adaptation in interpretation. At the very beginning, I describe the essential parts of adaptation theory and then analyze the application content in the three parts of non-linguistic context according to his classification of non-linguistic context: social, mental and physical context. Later I describe the application of adaptation theory into linguistic context at different levels: at the phrase level, at the sentence level, at the paragraph level, and at the text level. In adaptation of linguistic context, the interpreter should pay much attention on keeping cohesion and coherence in interpretation at different levels. At the end of the third chapter, the dynamic adaptation of context in interpretation is again emphasized. And at last, the author concludes that the adaptation of linguistic and non-linguistic context should be combined instead of being separated. After the analysis, a case study was presented applying the adaptation theory to analyze and evaluate one consecutive interpretation. Hopefully this paper could shed some light on the assessment, pedagogy and practice of interpreting.What the author truly did in this thesis are the reclassification of linguistic and non-linguistic context specially designed for the context adaptation in the process of interpretation; the application of adaptation theory into the adaptation of linguistic and non-linguistic contexts in details by many examples; and at last the application of dynamics into the adaptation process. And here it is specially pointed out that all the interpretation activities mentioned in this thesis could be applied into any interpretation activity except simultaneous one.