Language Fuzziness And Strategies To Deal With It In Consecutive Interpretation

Fuzziness can be found in every form of language and is considered an innate feature of language. The observation of fuzziness can be traced back to ancient times. Some philosophers and thinkers in ancient Greece noticed the phenomenon of fuzziness in different forms, and they made some preliminary description as well as study on it, though not systematic or scientific. It is not until 1965 when American scientist L.A. Zadeh published his monumental dissertation Fuzzy Set did the systematic and scientific study on fuzziness begin. Israel Scheffler stated in his famous work Beyond the Letter: A Philosophical Inquiry into Ambiguity, Vagueness and Metaphor in Language that"…vagueness is a universal feature of descriptive words."In 1980s, linguists, both Chinese and foreign ones, started to introduce language fuzziness into translation, thereby answering some questions ever baffling translators for a long time. At present, more attention on language fuzziness is paid to translation rather than interpretation.Owe to the increasing economic development, social progress, as well as international communication, the importance of interpretation has been brought into full play. While, theories used to guide interpretation does not witness an according development. This thesis tries to specify the language fuzziness found in source language spoken by the speaker in interpreting practice, speaker's motive, as well as strategies adopted to deal with the fuzzy language.Literature review of study on language fuzziness is introduced at the beginning of this thesis, which is followed by literature review of interpreting theories. The thesis then gives a brief introduction to definitions on language fuzziness by different linguists. Meanings are differentiated among"fuzzy","vague","ambiguous", and"general". It is clearly stated that the word"fuzzy"is an umbrella term in this thesis, covering senses conveyed by"vague","ambiguous", as well as"general". The core of this thesis concerns the following issues: reasons of using fuzzy language in speakers'source language; motives of speakers'use of fuzzy expression; objective of speech or talk; context of talk; and choice of strategies by interpreters to deal with language fuzziness.Abundant linguistic theories are presented to give support to arguments in this thesis. The major objective of theoretical study on interpretation is to put the practice of interpreting in a more scientific and effective manner. On the other hand, interpreting practice, with experience accumulated from it, can provide theoretical study on interpretation with first-hand and valuable data. It can be safely said that development of interpreting theories and practice promotes each other. The author hopes that strategies proposed to deal with language fuzziness in this thesis can be of some help to interpreters, and it is believed interpreters'experience will be of great value in developing interpreting theories.