A Study Of Interpretation Variation And Variation Degree From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

In the traditional translation studies,"faithfulness" is always taken as the primary criterion. Oral translation, or interpretation, is also a kind of translation, so interpreters are generally required to convey the message as faithful to the original as possible. As is known, however, interpretation is often an activity of complex cross-cultural communication with the fundamental purpose to facilitate the smooth exchange among different cultures. Due to great disparities between different cultures, and plus with the characteristics of interpretation including on-siteness, timeliness and time-boundness and others, rigid observation of "faithfulness" may cause difficulty or even failure to the mutual communication, and eventually damage the final communicative effect. Thus, measures of flexibility should be adopted by interpreters to enable a smooth communication.The concept of translation variation was put forward by a Chinese scholar, Professor Huang Zhonglian in the late1990s. Huang pointed out that translation variation is a kind of activity in which translators use different translation variation methods like amplification, deletion, contraction, narration, supplementation, combination, adaptation and others to select relevant parts of the original work to translate in accordance with the specific requirements of specific readers. As the concept was drawn on the basis of written translation practices, it was rarely applied to the interpreting research at the initial stage. However,"with the deepening of the international communication and cooperation, interpreting activities have been growing increasingly frequent and inclusive. Similar to the traditional translation, interpreting also faces the challenge from the theory of translation variation".Rising in the1970s, the German School of functionalist translation theory has provided a new perspective to the translation studies. As the core of functionalist approaches, the Skopos Theory contends that translation is not only an act of transformation between linguistic forms, but a cross-cultural event and a purposeful activity, in which the highest rule deciding the whole action is the translation purpose, namely the purpose decides the strategies. In line with this theory, translators can adopt strategies that they think appropriate for a specific purpose and make proper adjustments of the translation result with the prospective purpose to be accomplished.This thesis will probe into the variation phenomena in interpretation from the perspective of the Skopos Theory. Through in-depth analysis of the feasibility and rationality of interpretation variation, and on the basis of a large number of on-site interpretation examples, this study found that:Firstly, under the guidance of the Skopos theory, the translation variation phenomena exist not only in translation practices, but are also found in interpreting cases; Secondly, due to their own characteristics and differences between translation and interpretation, not all the variation strategies can be applicable to interpretation. Variation forms in interpretation are mainly reflected as amplification, subtraction, modification and reorganization; Thirdly, interpretation variation should be operated within a certain "degree" in line with the dual-principle of "loyalty and adequacy"As the related studies on translation variation are still lacking for the present time, especially in the field of interpretation studies. Hence the present thesis can be just a trial study, simply in the hope of providing some reference for the relevant studies in interpretation and the fostering of more qualified interpreters in the future.