On Additions In C-E Consecutive Interpreting

Consecutive interpreting is one of the most prevalent interpreting modes and is widelyused on various occasions and in different fields owing to its flexible, effective andprofessional characteristics. Therefore, the onsite consecutive interpreting at pressconferences after the annual NPC and CPPCC becomes the focus of English learners andlinguists.Addition strategy is a common translation strategy and its frequent employment in theprocess of consecutive interpreting contributes a lot to achieving a more accurate, completeand straightaway effect of the interpretation. Based on the onsite interpreting transcript ofPremier Wen’s press conferences, this thesis carries out a study on the addition strategyemployed in Chinese to English consecutive interpreting. This study starts with anintroduction to addition strategy and consecutive interpreting and a review of theirsignificance, characteristics and functions is given to lay foundation for later exploration.Then major reasons of addition in consecutive interpreting are analyzed with the aid ofresearch findings from contrastive studies of English and Chinese languages. Whendwelling up on addition in C-E consecutive interpreting, the author adopts an observationalstudy by picking out typical sentences from transcript of press conferences as examples inwhich addition strategy is needed and makes efforts to find out the cause of additionoccurrence and its function based on language features of press conferences. Besides, theauthor also tries to summarize the added language elements and categorize them intolinguistic additions and extra-linguistic additions. Each category is subdivided in severalclasses to make a more detailed analysis.After the observational study, the author finds that addition strategy is not addingredundant information to the original. Although the interpreted version might seem longer,the original meaning is by no means exaggerated but more native, accurate and complete.Being members of different language systems, English and Chinese have diverginggrammatical structures and thought patterns, which cause difficulty in the process ofinterpreting. Obstacles are also built in the way of reproducing source language sinceEnglish and Chinese have their unique social and cultural background information. Sensitive political standpoint and subtle language techniques at press conferences make thesignificance of addition strategy more prominent in enhancing interpreting quality in theprocess of consecutive interpreting. So judging from both linguistic and cross culturalcommunication aspects, addition strategy is of great help for the interpreter to achievemaximized faithfulness to the original meaning. It is hoped that the present study can makeup for the insufficient part of addition study in field of interpretation, intensify theunderstanding of addition strategy and at the same time foster awareness of additionemployment in interpreting. All these will greatly contribute to improving the performanceof interpreting practice in the future.