A Study Of Syntactic Linearity In English-Chinese Simultaneous Interpretation

Simultaneous interpreting is a kind of complicated human information-processingactivity. The feature of instantaneity in English-Chinese simultaneous interpreting is themajor reason to exert the principle of “Syntactic Linearity”, which interpreters usuallyresolve the differences of word order between original language and target language.Simultaneous interpreting is also an extremely complex language communication activity,which uses a language to express another language’s emotions orally keeping pace with thespeed of speakers. In simultaneous interpreting, interpreters will listen to the sourcelanguage continuously. So they must pay special attention to the speakers and interpretwith the same speed. Simultaneous interpreting owns enough time to understand theoriginal meaning from the whole section that of different from translation. Dictionaries andother tools can help to weigh every word; it can wait and then use notes to adjust theinterpreting until the speakers finish their speech which is that of different from theconsecutive interpreting as well. The feature of instantaneity and the differences of wordorder between the two languages require interpreters to make full use of the grammaticalstructure of the source language, which means that we need to exert the principle ofsyntactic linearity to reduce memory burden in a timely manner and leave the energy andability to respond to those new information and to ensure consistency and accuracy of thetarget language. Syntactic linearity is the biggest feature and the most basic principle inEnglish-Chinese simultaneous interpreting. In Barack Obama’s inaugural addressinterpreting, the interpreter conforms to the time limitation and the psychological andcognitive context of interpreters, choosing ellipsis, summary and replace, etc. to achievevarious levels of interpretation purposes, so as to maximize the effect.This paper introduces the basis and its applications of the economy principle, putforward by Chomsky in his Minimalist program in syntactic linearity. This paperinvestigates into the methods of syntactic linearity and the rules for its realization insimultaneous interpreting. Taking as its point of departure Goldman-Eisler’s finding that encoding the chunks of speech as uttered in the source accounts for11％of the totalsegmenting input, and drawing from the Theme-Rheme theory and the information theory,the paper analyses corpora in Chinese and English and concludes that given information inthe position of theme, and the new information functioning as adjunct, are most conducivefor linearity interpreting. This paper also focuses on the methods of syntactic linearity andtheir practices of interpreting. Chapter four is the key: such four categories of difficultsentences as attributives, adverbials, passive voice and “it” structure are analyzed withgiven examples and corresponding coping tactics of the interpreters.If we know these problems and their solutions with appropriate practices, we must beon top of them. In the last part, there are some opinions and advice I put forward onsyntactic linearity and its future development.