Branching Structure In English And Chinese And Interpretation Of English Clauses

With the accelerating pace of globalization, the exchanges between China andthe world increase with each passing day. A growing number of world leaders seek tovisit China, and thus there are more and more cases of speech interpretation. Takinginto account the differences between English and Chinese ways of thinking andspeaking, interpreters should not only have the literal meaning of the source languageconveyed, but also organize information in light of the ways of thinking and speakingin the target language, thus making interpretations more natural and better understood.In August2011, US Vice President Joe Biden paid a visit to China and delivered aspeech in Sichuan University, in which he voiced his opinion on a range of issuesincluding economy, politics and trade between China and US. Starting with theinterpretation of Joe Biden’s speech in Sichuan University, this paper focuses onclause interpretation (the interpreting of attributive clauses and adverbial clauses) inlight of branching structure in English and Chinese. It introduces the concept ofbranching, compares the expressions of complex sentences, analyzes branchingstructures of the two languages, and emphasizes the awareness of branching conceptduring the process of interpreting. All these contribute to the realization of asuccessful transition from the right-branching English structure to left-branchingChinese structure and a high-quality interpreting practice, which is of greatimportance and is where the purpose of this paper lies.