A Comparative Study Of Chinese-English Consecutive Interpreting From The Perspective Of Interpretive Theory

Since the 21^st century, China has successfully held the 2008 Beijing Olympic and Paralympics Games, 2010 Shanghai Exposition as well as the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games. The communication between China and the rest of the world became more and more frequent. Interpretation, as a basic medium and manner of communication, is playing a more significant role on the international stage. Meanwhile, interpreting as a discipline is drawing unprecedented attention from interpreters and scholars in the academic circle.On the basis of huge amount of research on the interpreting practice, the founder of the Interpretive Theory Danica Seleskovitch published L'interprete dans les Conferences Internationals, Problemes de Langage et de Communication, laying a solid foundation for further development of the Interpretive Theory. Scholars from the Paris School combining research findings and results in psychology, cognitive psychology and linguistics with long-term interpreting practice and teaching experience, created a theoretical system with distinctive features. The Interpretive Theory borrows terms such as langue, parole, explicit and implicit respectively from linguistics and rhetoric and gave them new connotations and denotations. The Paris School also introduces the essential concept"de-verbalization"which means the interpreter should comprehend and express the sense and content of the source language instead of the language form and structure. Consecutive interpreting as an important form is widely adopted in all sorts of conventions and public speeches. In the interpreting practice, elements such as the interpreters'de-verbalization ability and the chosen of the interpreting object exert great influence on the quality of the interpretation.The author compares two versions of Chinese-English consecutive interpretation done by interpreters whose first languages are English and Chinese respectively in the light of Interpretive Theory. Conclusions have been drawn through quantitative and descriptive analysis that in the process of Chinese-English consecutive interpreting, the native English interpreter extracts more sense units from the source language, thus enjoys stronger ability of de-verbalization. She successfully captured the intention of the speaker and focused on the parole instead of langue. The Chinese native interpreter shows excellent mastery of the cognitive knowledge and complement, which contributes to the understanding of the cultural background nurturing the target language, thus providing more accurate interpretation for the audience. In conclusion, the author suggests that the two interpreters should draw upon each other's advantages in the interpreting practice, hoping that the conclusion of the research could contribute to the promotion of the interpreting research.