On The Reconstruction Of Conjunction In Chinese-English Consecutive Interpreting

In the context of globalization, interpreting research has become increasinglyimportant. As one of the major cohesive devices, conjunction is of great significancefor discourse coherence. However, the studies of cohesive devices in interpretingmainly focus on formal speeches and performances of professional interpreters suchas those from press conferences, and there has not been any systematic research onconjunction. Therefore, this research aims at exploring the reconstruction forms andpatterns of conjunction and possible affecting factors in Chinese-English consecutiveinterpreting for colloquial speeches based on the performances of different grades oftrainee interpreters.An experimental group of trainee interpreters and a reference group ofprofessional interpreters are designed in this research, whose performances areanalyzed in both quantitative and qualitative approaches. This research is conductedin the theoretical framework of cohesion theory of Halliday and Hasan and thedifferences of cohesive devices between Chinese and English. The reconstructionforms and patterns of conjunction are quantitatively summarized and analyzed,followed by qualitative discussion on representative examples and potential reasons.It is found that the reconstruction of conjunction mainly takes four forms aspreservation, substitution, addition and omission. In terms of the overall distribution,addition and omission are dominant; and in terms of the observed patterns, there existsome certain trends from the lower-grade group to the higher-grade group. Factorsthat might contribute to such patterns include differences of cohesive devices betweenChinese and English, the features of colloquial speeches and individual variationsamong interpreters.