A Study Of Strategies For Press Conferences Interpreting

Interpreting is a kind of communicative behavior that interprets the informationpeople hear from one language into another accurately and quickly for the purpose ofinformation transaction and communication as well as a basic reliant vehicle of languagecommunication during cross-cultural and interracial activities. For the recent years, as amain tool for communication among people speaking different languages, interpreting hasbeen playing a more and more significant role in cross-cultural communication.Compared with the translation research, the interpreting research started relatively latein China. Practice of half a century has proved that great achievements have been made ininterpreting research which has been an important component of translatology. Amongthese interpreting theories, functionalism, mainly represented by skopos theory, liberatesthe interpreting from the source language and illustrates the interpreting activities from theperspective of receptors with the key principles of skopos rule, coherence rule and fidelityrule. Under the guidance of functional theory, interpreters should adopt correspondinginterpreting tactics such as source language retaining and adjustment according to differentinterpreting purposes. On the basis of the breakthrough of structuralist translation study,this theory presents that interpreting is not only the transition of languages but also theexchanges of different cultures, thus broadening the horizon of interpreting theoreticalresearch. Another influential study perspective is interpretive theory, indicating that themain purpose of interpreting is interpreting the meaning of the source language rather thanlinguistic forms and that interpreting target is information rather than language itself andthat cultural conversion of different languages is highly recommended. Directly originatingfrom interpreting practice, interpreting is the dynamic process of understanding andre-expression rather than unidirectional decoding process from source language to targetlanguage.The news conferences are held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the sessionsof National People’s Congress (NPC) and Chinese People’s Political ConsultativeConference (CPPCC) on March every year. The news conferences are aimed to delivergovernment policies, and answer questions raised by the press from home and abroad. Whatare to be delivered at the two sessions conferences are usually regarded as the guidance ofpolicies of that year in terms of economy, politics, and culture and so on. Every year, new topics are mentioned during the press conferences with the characteristics of the times. Thecomments on the important domestic and international issues stand for the government’sinterest and attitude, and convey comprehensive, accurate, and authorized information. Theinterpreting at the press conferences is consecutive interpretation and the interpreters shouldfinish the interpreting in limited time, without extra time to find reference or weigh everyword. The interpreters ought to be equipped with good psychological quality, affluentexperience as well as strategies to guarantee the successful completion of the interpreting.The study of the strategies of the press conference interpreting (PCI) will improve theinterpreting quality.With the study object of the Premier Wen’s conferences from2008to2011, this thesisanalyzes the detailed materials of PCI from the perspective of functionalism approach andinterpretive theory, probes into the interpreting of the press conferences, and aims atproviding certain theoretical and practical strategies for conference interpreting. This thesisis divided into three chapters. The first chapter gives a brief introduction to functionalismapproach and interpretive theory. In the following chapter the author divides theinterpreting process into following parts-understanding, memory, note-taking andre-expression, and discusses the relevant skills and tactics. In the third chapter, thebackground and characteristics of the Premier Wen’s conferences are introduced. Thecoping strategies are proposed to address the difficulties that might occur in pressconference interpretation. And the interpreters ought to adopt the different coping strategiesto guarantee the smooth completion of the interpreting.